Pick your deal, any deal, from a Scandinavian getaway to personalized princess pillowcases. Or maybe you’re more in the market for a good dentist. All that’s available plus thousands of other offerings on experience and deal sites like Groupon and Living Social. Just one catch: What happens when a platform provides “the best a city can offer,” with a less than impressive user experience? With over a billion deals sold, we decided to put these two brands to the test and see whether their marketing strategy is right on the money.
But first, a quick reminder of what Brand Prix is all about (and another reminder to check out past Prix): Adidas vs. Nike, Target vs. Walmart, Banana Republic vs. J.Crew, Gap vs. Zara
Introduction
In this series, PostFunnel will follow two competing brands to assess their customer marketing performance. For each case study, we’ll enact a customer journey with the respective brands, documenting every customer interaction that was sent to our testers and give professional inputs and insights from our experience with the brands.
The Companies
Is an impersonalized bargain still worth the savings? Let’s introduce our brands:
Groupon is a global e-commerce marketplace offering goods, travel, services, and activities in 15 countries. Currently, the company is worth a grand total of 2.84 billion dollars. Dozens of categories and hundreds of offerings satisfy the spa frequenter and his adrenaline junkie cousin.
Living Social Founded in 2007, Living Social’s site mainly focuses on local travel and events. While Groupon purchased Living Social in 2016, the brand still totals 1.72M site visits and continues to operate as a business partner to sellers by offering them the ability to analyze and control their campaigns.
Methodology
This round, we gave each tester $300. They engaged with the brand for roughly six weeks on a few different platforms. The PF editorial team and marketing experts then graded the performance based on personalization, strategy, user experience, and overall engagement on all life cycle stages.
We based our analysis on metrics that speak to the data-driven marketer, moved beyond traditional tactics, and instead, approached the shopping experience from the marketer’s POV.
Think we got it right? Or should we have picked another winner? Leave your comments below and tell us what you think, or join the discussion on Twitter and Facebook by using the #BrandPrix hashtag.
Contributors: Liz Barenholtz, Matan Block Temin