Online marketplace analysis:

micro-environment & macro-

environment
Questions for marketers

• What are our capabilities for understanding our online

marketplace?
• How relevant is the behaviour of the actors in the micro-
environment to the future of our business?
• How do I complete a marketplace analysis and how does this
inform our digital marketing planning?
• How are customers’ needs changing as digital platforms
develop and what are the implications of such changes?
• How do I compare our online marketing with that of our
competitors?
• How do we find suitable intermediaries at the planning stage
of a digital marketing strategy?
Scenario for marketplace analysis

• You have been appointed by Amazon.com.tr as digital marketing

manager.
• Your task is to create a digital marketing plan for the next year and
beyond.
• What would you need to review about the online marketplace to help
create your plan?
Figure 2.2 The digital marketing environment
Figure 2.5 An online marketplace map
 Correlation between search volume in Google Trends and retail
Figure 2.6
sales volume
Source: Chamberlin (2010)
Consumers’ path to purchase

https://www.hitwise.com/en/consumer-insights/
Tools for marketplace analysis

• Google Trends: trends in search volume by country

• Alexa: www.alexa.com or www.compete.com

• Nielsen: www.nielsen-netratings.com

• Comscore: www.comscore.com Press releases

• IMRG: www.imrg.org.
Issues in analysing the online marketplace

Table 2.3 The micro-environment: issues for digital marketers

Figure 2.7A model of the Internet marketing conversion process. It shows key
traffic or audience measures (Q0 to Q4), first-time visitors (Q2) and repeat
visitors (Q2R) and key conversion efficiency ratios
Figure 2.8 An example of a conversion model
 Model showing conversion between the digital channel and traditional
Figure 2.9
channels during the buying process
Figure 2.10 Research Online Purchase Online example
Source: Google (2010)
Evaluating demand levels

• Level of Internet access

• type of access – broadband and mobile

• Consumers influenced by using online channel

• understanding type of sites which have influence

• Transact online
• different types of transactions, not just sales, e.g.
support, forum comments, etc.
 Consumer characteristics

• Demographics:
• Age, gender, social group
• Webographics
• Access methods and times
• Personas*
• are semi-fictional characters designed to mimic behavior patterns shared by
your customers

*https://www.inalign.com/blog/developing-buyer-personas-successful-marketing-starts-here
How to create personas

• Collect the curent data in your company (e.g. customer

databases)
• Collect data from your website and social media platforms (use
of Google Analytics, analyse the pathways to your website and
where they leave your website)
• Talk to the interacted employees
• One on one interviews
• To create questionnaires (open and close end questions)
Customer persona generators

• Xtensio

• Make My Persona by Hubspot

• Up Close and Persona (also B2B personas)

• User Forge

• Smaply
Information/experience seeking behaviour models

• Directed information-seekers: These users will be looking for product, market or

leisure information such as details of their football club’s fixtures. They are not
typically planning to buy online.
• Undirected information-seekers: These are the users, usually referred to as ‘surfers’,
who like to browse and change sites by following hyperlinks. Members of this group
tend to be novice users (but not exclusively so) and they may be more likely to click
on banner advertisements.
• Directed buyers: These buyers are online to purchase specific products online. For
such users, brokers or cybermediaries that compare product features and prices will
be important locations to visit.
• Bargain hunters: These users (sometimes known as ‘compers’) want to find the
offers available from sales promotions such as free samples or competitions. For
example, the MyOffers site (www.myoffers.co.uk) is used by many brands to
generate awareness and interest from consumers.
• Entertainment seekers: These are users looking to interact with the Web for
enjoyment through entering contests such as quizzes, puzzles or interactive multi-
player games.
Digital media and the buying process

A summary of how digital media can impact on the buying process

Figure 2.14
for a new purchaser
Figure 2.15 Initial product search showing e-retailers available
Source: Google (2015)
Figure 2.16 Currys’ product category page (www.currys.co.uk)
Competitor benchmarking

• Activity – which aspects of a competitors online marketing activity

should be reviewed?
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•
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 Disintermediation of a consumer distribution channel showing:
Figure 2.21
(a) the original situation, (b) disintermediation omitting the wholesaler,
and (c) disintermediation omitting both wholesaler and retailer
 From (a) original situation to (b) disintermediation or
Figure 2.22
(c) reintermediation or countermediation
Porter’s five forces
Impact of the Internet on the five competitive
forces

Table 2.6 Impact of the Internet on the five competitive forces