Online success with Save.com

How Kognitio helped maximise detailed information to build a targeted marketing success

Save.com is an innovator in target marketing on the Internet. The company offers secure, universally accepted coupons online. Save.com allows users to conveniently collect coupons while visiting their favourite Save.com-affiliated web sites. Save.com delivers personalised offers that encourage consumers to review, print and redeem coupons from leading consumer packaged goods companies.

The ability to obtain and maximise customer information is a key to Save.com’s marketing strategy. Save.com needs to manage and maintain detailed data about its customers, so that offers can be targeted to those consumers.

Consumers who participate in the Save.com Promotions Network actively generate large amounts of data through downloading, viewing, selecting, and printing offers. Information also includes data on consumer preferences, demographics and the market usage.

The relationship between Kognitio and Save.com developed early in the company’s growth. While Save.com was in its preliminary stages, Martin M. Fogel, Jr. was interviewing for the position of Managing Director, Technology with Bill Volk, the Chief Technology Officer. Fogel recognised the need for detailed data. He also understood that the level of analysis needed to maintain customer satisfaction and growth would require a system that would be cost prohibitive for any fledgling organisation. Many companies simply do not have the personnel or the training to handle the necessary complex applications in-house.

Kognitio had the solution.

Fogel had then recently seen a demonstration by Kognitio. Kognitio specialised, and still does, in large-scale data analysis and consulting for e-commerce and telecommunications companies. Fogel suggested that Kognitio might have the solution to Save.com’s short and longer-term information needs.

"As it grows, Save.com will be collecting tremendous amounts of data. That is why we needed a high-powered solution like Kognitio" commented Fogel.

Kognitio recognised Save.com’s need for detailed customer data analysis. At the time, Kognitio was in a strong position to enter the burgeoning Application Service Provider (ASP) marketplace with its reporting and analytical services. The company understood the value of outsourcing the complex tasks that lay ahead for Save.com. The two companies agreed that Kognitio would host these reporting and analytical applications for Save.com. This arrangement freed Save.com from any maintenance, implementation and application management concerns.

Kognitio’s CEO Roger Llewellyn explains. "We had been preparing to provide analytical applications support to existing clients in an ASP mode, but when Save.com asked that we provide complete support for their analytical needs, we moved quickly to formalise our status in the rapidly growing ASP market."

The perfect combination.

The Kognitio ASP solution (WX/ASP) combined a high-speed, complex data analysis system with expert consultants to create reports and analytical applications. Save.com easily obtained information about consumers’ interaction with their system through Kognitio’s routine reports and ad hoc analysis. Those reports were based on parameters set by Save.com and Kognitio consultants. The consultants proactively present solutions for meaningful reporting and analysis of the vast amount of data collected from the Save.com Promotions Network. Save.com then uses the data for their own reporting to their various constituencies and to tailor offers to consumers.

The reports that Kognitio prepare for Save.com detail overall user interaction with the system, offers presented, and profiles of the users, which are built the information the users supply themselves. Save.com also receives regular reports of new user registration.

Delivering value.

"We chose to partner with Kognitio because we knew its service could accommodate the detailed analysis of our vast data repository now and as it continues to grow," said Fogel. "Save.com is building the infrastructure and processes to become the premier provider of targeted savings opportunities to consumers. We anticipate that our investment in implementing Kognitio will further enhance our ability to rapidly deliver value to our sponsors and to every participant in the Save.com Promotions Network."

Fogel also recognises the importance of "the skill and expertise of the Kognitio consultants in satisfying our business requirements as well our technical needs." Fogel sees this level of expertise as "a key factor in our decision to work with Kognitio."

Competitive Advantage.

Llewellyn concludes that "Companies benefit from the application outsourcing we offer because it saves them time, money and frustration, decreasing their time to market and giving them a competitive advantage. Customers subscribe to our ASP Services for data analysis and reporting in order to obtain the essential analysis and feedback that aids in personalisation and success."

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