TurnTo On Trusted References For SNC 012309

1. Ecommerce Meets Social Networks:
Trusted References
A Different Approach to Driving
On-line Referrals
George Eberstadt
CEO & Founder
TurnTo Networks

2. In the “Social” Category, Ecommerce Has Been
Very Focused on Ratings and Reviews
•63% of consumers indicate they are more likely to purchase from a site
if it has product ratings and reviews. (CompUSA & iPerceptions study)
•Reviews drive 21% higher purchase satisfaction and 18% higher loyalty
(Foresee Results Study, January 2007)
•At NetShops, reviewed products experienced a 26% lift in sales. (Internet
Retailer, 2/08)
•76% believe content is insufficient to complete research or purchase
online “always,” “most often” or “some of the time”. When faced with
incomplete information, 72% of shoppers go to a competitor or
research further. (2007 Survey of Online Shoppers by the E-Tailing Group)
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4. Who is really most trusted?
Friends
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6. People like you
vs.
People you like
Advice from friends is better than
advice from strangers

7. It’s all about “the friend name.”
Which emails do you read?
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8. How do you get “the friend name” into the
buying process?
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9. “I spent $100m a year on television advertising. If
I could have found a way to spend money on
word-of-mouth that worked, I’d have moved
every penny over.”
Austin Ligon
Founding CEO, CarMax
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10. Every word-of-mouth interaction has two
players: a broadcaster and a receiver.
Most approaches to driving word-of-
mouth focus on activating the
broadcaster.
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11. Hey everyone, I just
got a vertalizer, and
it’s the best thing
ever!
How do I get my
happy customers
to tell their
friends?
?
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12. Hey everyone, I just
got a vertalizer, and
it’s the best thing
ever!
Why are you
bothering me
with that?
Not
interested.
Not
again!?!?
Oh, thanks. I
was looking
for something
like that.
?
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Shill.

13. Hey everyone, I just
got a vertalizer, and
it’s the best thing
ever!
Why are you
bothering me
with that?
Not
interested.
Not
again!?!?
Oh, thanks. I
was looking
for something
like that.
?
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Shill.

14. Please. No one would be that heavy-handed about it.
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17. Hey everyone, Joe just
got a vertalizer, and
it’s the best thing
ever!
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18. Hey everyone, Joe just
got a vertalizer, and
it’s the best thing
ever!
Did you just use my name to
advertise your product? WTF!
I didn’t say you could do that!
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19. Please. No one would be that heavy-handed about it.
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20. Facebook Beacon
Earlier this week, I bought a coffee table on Overstock.com. When I next
logged into Facebook and saw this at the top of my newsfeed:
I was pretty surprised to see this, because I received no notification while I
was on Overstock.com that they had the Facebook Beacon installed on the
site. If they had, I would have turned it off.
So I'm joining a growing chorus of Facebook critics that Beacon has some
serious problems… The biggest problem is the lack of transparency… I need
to be in control and not get blindsided as I did in the example above.
Charlene Li, blog, 11/21/07
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21. Beacon was a Beacon… to the Rest of Us
•Users must be in control
–Sharing must be permission-based
–Users must have the information to make their choice
But if Beacon had made it over that hurdle, they would have hit
others:
•Spam: how much info do your friends really want?
•Workload: OK, I have control. But I don’t have time.
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22. “Activating the Broadcaster” is Not Bad,
It’s Just Hard
•Too gentle, and you don’t move the needle
•Too strong and you violate privacy, spam, undermine trust
But it can be done
•Best strategy: have epically great, “cool” product
•Alt: create an avatar for your product. e.g. cool viral videos
(Blendtec “Will it Blend”, JC Penny “Beware of the
Doghouse”)
•Very careful social engineering: e.g. BzzAgent ($$$!)
Businesses spent $1.3 billion on word-of-mouth marketing in
2007, and this will grow to $3.7 billion by 2011. (PQ Media)
Very hard to automate!
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23. A Different Approach
Instead of activating the broadcaster…
…activate the receiver.
ie get the shopper to reach out and request a
recommendation from a friend.
Recommendations that were requested are:
•Trusted
•Welcome
•And build a genuine social bond
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24. Why “Reach Out”?
•The beauty of UGC: there are a lot of people in the world.
Some of them have already written down an opinion on
everything
•The problem with UGC: On any particular topic, very few
(none?) of the people who have written down their opinions
are your friends
Shopper’s choice:
•Existing content from strangers, or
•Reach out to friends
Even if the buyer doesn’t reach out, the presence of “the friend
name” transforms the interaction
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25. It’s Easy…
Just connect the shopper to someone…
1.They are willing to reach out to (they know or
have a connection to)
2.Who has relevant experience
3.At just the moment the information is needed
Ok, maybe not so easy.
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26. How Do We Do This?
1.Contextual delivery
2.Portable social graphs
3.Transaction data
4.Permission management
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27. Context is King!
It’s about “trusted references”, not “social advertising”
Deliver friends in response to purchaser intent (not interrupt-
based)…
…at the point where the intent is signaled
•Content consumption
•Search
•Shopping itself
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28. Search Advertising Dominates Because It
Enables Response to Purchaser Intent
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29. Portable Social Graphs
Bring the social network into the commerce path instead of the
other way around
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30. Permission Management
Automation with control
•Can not rely on users to manually post each activity
•Must be rule-based with exception handling
•And keep it VERY simple
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31. A Model for “Trusted Reference” Delivery
Social
permissions
filter
(i.e. who
agrees
to share
what with
whom)
Raw
customer
data from
merchant
Data
Authorized
for
With
Sharing
Friends
Merchant Site
Search
Comparison
Sites
[Feed
Readers]
•Shows friend experience to
shopper
•Drives conversion, cross-sell
•Enhances visitor experience
•Finds friend transactions across
all merchants
•Drives traffic to merchant
•Pushes friend activity to news
feeds
•Drives traffic to merchant
•Shows friend experience
alongside product offers
•Drives traffic to merchant
Content sites
•Shows friend experience
alongside product mentions
•Drives traffic to merchant
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36. “Illuminate the Black Hole of Consideration”
Friends become attributes of products just like other
characteristics. (What’s more relevant to a purchase decision,
the technical characteristics of an object or who else buys/uses
it?)
Applies to low-differentiation products as well as high-
consideration ones
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37. Although customer reviews are nothing new on popular
eCommerce sites like eBay and Amazon, in most cases,
consumers use the critiques from people they don’t know. Now
with connective technologies like Facebook Connect, Google
FriendConnect, and OpenID, consumers will now be able to see
reviews, experiences, and critiques from people they actually
know and trust… As an example, next time I’m shopping for a
laptop, not only will I see reviews from editors and consumers, I
will now know which one of my friends uses an Apple computer,
and what they think of it.
Jeremiah Owyang, Forrester Research
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38. After a devastating holiday season, retailers will eagerly seek a
way to improve results other than driving demand with deeper
discounts. One option they will investigate will be how to insert
people and social connections into the buying process,
illuminating and influencing for the first time the Black Hole Of
Consideration. .. As the holiday season launches early after
Labor Day, shoppers will find options to see what friends are
recommending, buying and rating integrated into the shopping
experience.
Charlene Li, Altimeter Group
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39. Thank you!
George Eberstadt
[email protected]
917-250-4545
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