• by Paul Gough , September 11, 2002

Abacus is touting its ChannelView product as helping multi-channel marketers figure out how well their direct marketing campaigns are doing.

In the case of two retailers, J. Crew and Restoration Hardware, the analysis provided by ChannelView is helping them decide daily where to emphasize their marketing campaigns.

Many retailers use catalogs, distributed a dozen or more times a year, to reach millions of potential customers. In the past, the catalogs would drive customers to a toll-free number to order. Although a mailing list would be culled from many sources, the catalog retailer would be able to determine where that customer came from by the use of a key code on the back of the catalog. Marketers would then be able to determine which channels were effective.

But that’s all changed since the Web, said ChannelView general manager Paul Imbierowicz, a former direct marketer himself. With multiple channels – catalogs, retail stores, direct mail, email marketing and Web sites – it’s getting harder for retailers to keep track of their sales’ origins.

“Because of the Web, the key code is going away. The whole linchpin to catalog reporting is going away,” he said. That’s bad news for retailers, who might inadvertently move marketing funds away from channels that are driving sales because of a lack of information. That has happened in the case of several Abacus clients, who cut back on catalog distribution only to find their sales falling.

“That’s why we developed ChannelView. It’s a tool to help catalog marketers determine how their outlays are doing,” Imbierowicz said.

ChannelView provides daily access to marketing channel results via the Web, check the performance of campaigns and compare them by season. It’s also able to track promotions’ return on investment. J. Crew used the program to find out which list segments are performing the best and found 21 segments that should be cut and nine new segments. Restoration Hardware was able to track sales back to a Web campaign.