Looking to run a RFP for UGC?
We're often approached by large multi-nationals that have assembed an Innovation Team to find a tech partner to launch a UGC aggregation services that allow business users to use earned content for publication purposes. In this post, we're going to share some of these common questions and answers in an effort to bring more transparency to this process.
Company
Founded in 2012, Candid™ is a world renowned social discovery platform that delivers cutting edge user-generated media experiences toimprove engagement for brands. We are a pioneer of Visual Commerce techniques and one of the original Instagram Partners (the first outside the USA). Candid provides marketers the tools they need to easily weave on-brand user-generated content into their own marketing experiences. Our intuitive content management system allows brands and publishers to inject social content into branded websites, ads, mobile appsand physical displays, enabling a richer exploration of products and services that ultimately improves conversions and revenue. We are intimately familiar with the full UGC solutions landscape and other vendors’ capabilities and are confident we deliver abest-of-breed solution without the traditional overhead of larger sales/marketing organizations. We pride ourselves on transparency, speed and rapid evolution based on customer feedback to enable our retail partners to thrive in a fluid social media landscape. Our Health, Beauty, Cosmetics portfolio includes some of the most recognized brands in the world.
Typical Process, Deliverables & Timeline
Activities & project plan for pilot implementation:
- Training: Introduction to data modelling, terminology, rights management on Candid (Moderators)
- Training: UI/API Customizations Walkthrough (Engineering Managers, IT)
- Customization: Implementation of any custom UI Wireframes
- Customization: Implement publishing workflows to streamline publishing process or media groupings
- Deployment: Staging deployment
- Deployment: Production deployment
Expected timelines for pilot & final delivery:
- Sept 1, 2017: Finalize contract, schedule kick-off & training
- Sept 14, 2017: Finalize look and feel in staging environment, obtain UI/UX sign-off
- Oct 1, 2017: Staging Deployment Complete
- Oct 14, 2017: Production Deployment Complete
- Nov 1, 2017: Review #1/2 of KPIs & Refinement Strategies
- Nov 14, 2017: Review #2/2 of KPIs & Refinement Strategies (Code Freeze)
Dependencies on client activities:
- Moderation (Approving & organizing media collections along themes, categories, etc)
- Rights Management (Ensuring explicit or implicit rights are in place for all published assets)
- Merchandising (Ensuring one or more CTAs are assigned to each asset)
- Web install (homepage/gallery/PDP -> copy/paste installation pattern)
- Implementation of conversion tracking pixel in production (order-confirmation, checkout pages)
Tool support at least the following publication methods:
- to website via Javascript Widget and/or API -> Yes
- to mobile APP via SDK (iOS & Android) and/or API > Yes
- to social media via back-end of tool > Yes (via built-in partnerships with schedulers)
- to internal DAM (OpenText) -> Yes, via API
Measurement & Reporting on UGC KPIs
Yes. We measure every metric from the first appearance of an asset on social all the way through the buyer journey and the checkout process, revealing insights such as CTR, View Through Conversions, Click Through Conversions, performance of individual assets and key influencers. These metrics are reported on in our internal reporting suite and can also be sent out to existing analytics suites like Google Analytics or Omniture to provide consolidated reporting.
Can we use the tool to make our Instagram feed shoppable? Is this included or an add on option?
We refer to this product as the Instagram Storefront and it is indeed included under all Premium and higher tiers. Moreover, we believe our storefronts are truely unique in terms of the level of automation and customization they support. These differentiators are outlined here and here.
What happens if customer says no to using their content because they want to be paid? Is this a common problem?
Not a common problem. We generally don't see negative responses to rights requests, at worst, the user may ignore the request and not respond. Acceptance rates from well-recognized brands (those with more than 100K followers) should be above 80%, especially if you're reaching out content producers that are already invoking branded hashtags to provide "implicit" consent.
Can we use the content for paid social posts included in basic package?
The quote provided is for full features, including Dynamic Product Ads for social. However, you are responsible for the budget of any paid promotions.
How much content in terms of images and videos is currently available in your network from brands that we're selling?
While there may be a good overlap here, our agreements do not allow content sharing across organizations at the moment in the way Bazaarvoice syndication might.
Can integration be done via GTM?
Absolutely, this is outlined via our support articles for the Widget & Wall plugins. Can the collection of UGC be exported at the end of the contract? Absolutely, I think we had an entire slide dedicated to this during the presentation, there is no additional fee for this.
Where are the images stored?
On social or separately? Both configuration options are available, it's just a setting at the collection level. We have clients that prefer both options.
How are images updated when product packaging changes? How do you/can you keep track of this?
This will happen automatically as we connect to a live product feed and refresh product images every 2 hours. Technical docs are here.
What happens when a product is “out of stock”? If products associated to the UGC are out of stock will the content show it as such? Bearing in mind we only send one product feed per day with a stock balance?
Inventory levels provided in the feed can be used to remove the image from circulation (unless it's referencing another product which has active inventory, in which case only a call-to-action to that product will render). You can also configure fall-back URLs in this scenario or have the user land on the sold out PDP (which is requested by some merchants who have different "reminder/alert" integrations already in place there).
How easy is to remove product images in bulk? i.e if the packaging for a whole range changed and we didn’t want to show customers products with old packaging.
As long as the product feed references the new images, this should happen automatically. If the request requires custom intervention of some sort, it should be accompanied by a support request to support.getcandid.com with a typical turnaround time of 2-24 hours.
Can you provide list of social media you curate content from?
Outlined on our pricing page, these are Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Vimeo, YouTube, Pinterest, Tumblr & Snapchat.
What happens on the front end if the service is down? And are there any performance implications on page load/speed in case of service outage? Do you have any figures on this?
We have maintained an SLA of 99.99% availability since the inception of the platform in 2012. The only notable unplanned outage we've ever experienced was the widespread 2016 Dyn DNS cyberattack which impacted many North American service providers. In the event of such an outage, there should be no impact to load times or the end-to-end customer journey on your properties but any Instagram storefronts you have would be unavailable (the Instagram bio link would have to be updated).
How many hours of moderation are included in the pricing?
Our moderation scheduling is based on assets, not hours. The quote provided covers up to 100 qualifying posts/mo. So long as this level has not been hit, our team will continue to issue rights requests until there are enough affirmative responses to satisfy this threshold.
You mentioned daily requests for rights, think had pricing for up to 100. Are we likely to need more? if so how much would this cost?
This is put in place as a safety measure only to monitor usage and ensure that the community is responding positively, it can be ramped up to any level so long as the underlying constraint of 60 requests/hour (imposed by Instagram) is adhered to. There is no additional cost for increasing this level.
What is the SLAs for tickets? Is there support out of UK office hours? Ie what would be our office hour?
Standard support hours are 9-5 M-F EST Standard Time. During these windows, ticket response times will be 12 hours at most but are often in the 1-2 hour range based on volume. Outside of standard support hours, response times are typically 24-48 hours. We do implement custom support schedules during Christmas & New Years that are published in advance.
Is there templates for rights messages that we can edit & manage? If so is there a limit?
Yes, we provide a template and you can alter it at any time or on a per request basis at no additional fee. The only thing to keep in mind is that if you change the approval hashtag you're asking users to respond with (to indicate acceptance) earlier requests sent under a different hashtag will not be processed. In short, there can only be 1 active approval hashtag at any given time.
