From December 2007

By D. Gail Fleenor

A full parking lot is generally a sign of a good restaurant. A long line can indicate a new movie is worth the price of a ticket. This unspoken “wisdom of crowds” has been unavailable to Internet shoppers until recently. Since customers generally don’t shop the same way online as they do in bricks-and-mortar stores, long-standing sales techniques don’t easily translate to the Internet.

This realization prompted Aggregate Knowledge to create what it deems the industry’s first “discovery network” – an online system that emulates the way people discover and shop for products and information offline. The network uses the collective behavior of Internet users to deliver relevant content and product placement on customer websites.

Aggregate Knowledge CEO Paul Martino and products vice president Chris Law previously developed social network Tribe.net. “They found that the real indicator of customer interest on the web could be better seen through aggregate behavior observation rather than what customers say they do,” says Dave Peterson, chief marketing officer of the San Mateo, Calif.-based company.

Aggregate Knowledge’s Pique Onsite Discovery “is a breakthrough way for retailers to have their customers lead each other to the most-relevant and high-value products across their site.”

AlwaysOn Media recently ranked Aggregate Knowledge among the top 100 private companies for “innovation, market potential, customer adoption, media buzz and investor value creation.” The company was also named a Connected Innovator by Supernova.

In addition to Pique Onsite Discovery, network offerings include e-mail marketing personalized with product suggestions based on aggregate purchase history (but without personal data), product discovery across multiple sites and affiliate advertising promotions. Banners on affiliate websites include personalized product suggestions based on behavior and preferences rather than the usual “one product attracts all” approach.

When a company joins the network, a system called Discovery Igniter is installed to observe the anonymous actions of the website’s visitors. The aggregate buying and browsing behavior of customers is recorded over a short time to build behavior connections among products on the site. This allows generation of suggestions such as: “Customers who looked at this item also looked at this” and “Customers looked at this item but bought this.”

There is no software involved. “We are a web service,” Peterson says. “Very little customer effort is required. We handle maintenance in the background.” All of Aggregate Knowledge’s discovery offerings are on a pay-per-performance basis.

Using Onsite Discovery
Online wine store Vinfolio features more than 2,500 bottles of unique and rare wines, including hard-to-find new releases and vintages held in private cellars for as long as 40 years.

“We target high-end wine collectors,” says Rachel Blatt, marketing vice president for the San Francisco-based company. “Wine collectors can access auction-grade wine on our site, and we have a host of collector services to help with their buying and storage needs.”

Approximately half of Vinfolio’s stock comes from private collections. “Wine is a finite resource,” Blatt says. “Most of the really good bottles are sold upon release and held in cellars. Demand for fine wines has soared while available product supply has decreased. We tap into the supply by buying from these private collections.”

Founded in 2003, the site now has more than 20,000 registered wine lovers. Vinfolio uses Onsite Discovery to provide wine recommendations based on the aggregated choices of all customers who visit the site. If a customer looks at the description for a bottle of Stag’s Leap, for example, a list titled “People who looked at this, also looked at this” pops up to encourage additional purchases.

“The Onsite Discovery window is completely based on our design,” Blatt says. “Aggregate Knowledge offered their input but let us determine what would work best on our site.”

The Discovery window is shown only on the wine detail page. but that will soon change, Blatt says. “Soon, customers will see recommendations on every page.” Vinfolio does not have to maintain the recommendations or provide ongoing data to Aggregate Knowledge, she says. “There was some engineering time in the beginning to make sure the Discovery window was pulling the correct information from our site. Now, we just need to make sure that our site stays up and running to ensure Onsite Discovery works.”

Next up for Vinfolio will be a new tool from Aggregate Knowledge that will provide recommendations on the home page based on customer purchase and browsing history. “Vinfolio’s motto is ‘Fine wine, finer service,’” Blatt says. Through the use of Onsite Discovery, “we feel we can truly support that by helping our customers discover wines most relevant to them.”

Pique Onsite Discovery can prevent costly “click-backs” to search engines, automatically keeps pace with breaking news and trends and personalizes results on home and category pages to help users find what they want. Since relevant content suggestions are posted automatically with every click, Onsite Discovery also allows companies to stop manually linking online content together.

Aggregate Knowledge’s product also works across multiple sites. “We combine things we’re doing with over 30 customers across the network and help customers by getting their products placed on media company sites such as washingtonpost.com,” he says.

The unique approach to e-mail marketing “can drive direct product placement,” Peterson says. “The second the e-mail is opened, we place specific product suggestions in front of the reader. These are what’s happening on the site at the moment the customer reads the e-mail, no matter when they read it.”