Publications

August 2004 (Revised August 2005)
Background Note

Online Auction Markets

eBay, Yahoo!, and Amazon.com entered the online auction market within four years of one another, along with a host of smaller Web sites. Five years later, eBay clearly outstripped its competitors, despite the fact that Yahoo! and Amazon both had a huge installed base... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Auctions; Network Effects

July 2014 (Revised August 2014)
Case

AmazonFresh: Rekindling the Online Grocery Market

By: Rory McDonald, Clayton Christensen, Robin Yang and Ty Hollingsworth

More than a decade after the high-profile failures of several early online grocers, grocery remains the largest single U.S. retail category and one of the few that has not yet migrated online. Amazon began testing its grocery-delivery service, AmazonFresh, in Seattle,... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; New Markets; Grocery; Operations Strategy; Innovation and Invention; Strategy; Emerging Markets; Learning; Service Operations; Internet and the Web; Business Model; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

February 2015
Article

Risk, Information, and Incentives in Online Affiliate Marketing

By: Benjamin Edelman and Wesley Brandi

We examine online affiliate marketing programs in which merchants oversee thousands of affiliates they have never met. Some merchants hire outside specialists to set and enforce policies for affiliates, while other merchants ask their ordinary marketing staff to... View Details

Keywords: Affiliate Marketing; Incentives; Fraud; Advertising; Internet and the Web; Marketing Communications; Ethics; Digital Marketing

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February 2011 (Revised February 2012)
Case

Online Marketing at Big Skinny

By: Benjamin Edelman and Scott Duke Kominers

Describes a wallet maker's application of seven Internet marketing technologies: display ads, algorithmic search, sponsored search, social media, interactive content, online distributors, and A/B testing. Provides concise introductions to the key features of each... View Details

Keywords: Advertising Campaigns; Digital Marketing; Resource Allocation; Marketing Strategy; Performance Evaluation; Internet and the Web; Retail Industry

09 Feb 2012
Sharpening Your Skills

Sharpening Your Skills: Online Marketing

Questions To Be Answered: What's the strategy for managing consumer reviews on my site? Do people watch online video ads?. How can I get more out of my customer loyalty campaign? Are online coupon programs... View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty; Technology

August 2020 (Revised October 2024)
Case

Digital Marketing at HBS Online

By: Sunil Gupta and Rajiv Lal

In July 2020, the management team of Harvard Business School Online (HBS Online) had to decide how to allocate its marketing budget for fiscal year 2021 between various digital channels and its portfolio of courses. Since its launch in 2014, HBS Online had grown to... View Details

Keywords: Marketing Strategy; Advertising; Digital Marketing; Marketing Channels; Brands and Branding; Business Education; Education Industry; United States; Boston

December 2013 (Revised March 2016)
Case

Managing Online Reviews on TripAdvisor

By: Thales Teixeira and Leora Kornfeld

In 2013, TripAdvisor was the most visited online travel site in the world. It hosted a massive repository of information on hotels and travel services, and provided millions of reviews written by consumers. Consumers were becoming increasingly motivated to read and... View Details

Keywords: Online Word-of-mouth; Online Reviews; Hotels; Internet and the Web; Marketing Communications; Marketing Reference Programs; Digital Marketing; Customer Satisfaction; Accommodations Industry; Travel Industry

March 2017
Teaching Note

AmazonFresh: Rekindling the Online Grocery Market

By: Rory McDonald

Teaching Note for HBS No. 615-013. View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Strategy; New Markets; Grocery; Operations Strategy; Innovation and Invention; Competition; Emerging Markets; Learning; Service Operations; Online Technology; United States

2015
Working Paper

Online Word of Mouth and Product Review Disagreement

By: Frank Nagle and Christoph Riedl

Studies of online word of mouth have frequently posited―but never systematically conceptualized and explored―that the level of disagreement between existing product reviews can impact the volume and the valence of future reviews. In this study we develop a theoretical... View Details

Keywords: Online Word Of Mouth; Online Communities; Viral Marketing; Online Product Reviews; Quality; Internet and the Web; Consumer Behavior; Marketing Reference Programs; Social and Collaborative Networks; Digital Marketing; Analytics and Data Science

SSRN

2013
Chapter

The Design of Online Advertising Markets

By: Benjamin Edelman

Because the market for online advertising is both new and fast-changing, participants experiment with all manner of variations. Should an advertiser's payment reflect the number of times an ad was shown, the number of times it was clicked, the number of sales that... View Details

Keywords: Misleading and Fraudulent Advertising; Online Advertising; Price; Market Design; Measurement and Metrics; Sales; Motivation and Incentives; Internet and the Web

November–December 2018
Article

Online Network Revenue Management Using Thompson Sampling

By: Kris J. Ferreira, David Simchi-Levi and He Wang

We consider a network revenue management problem where an online retailer aims to maximize revenue from multiple products with limited inventory constraints. As common in practice, the retailer does not know the consumer's purchase probability at each price and must... View Details

Keywords: Online Marketing; Revenue Management; Revenue; Management; Marketing; Internet and the Web; Price; Mathematical Methods

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19 Dec 2018
News

Online Retailers Aim to Shake Up the Wedding Market

Keywords: online retail; weddings; fashion; e-commerce; Retail Trade

Web

Marketing - HBS Online

Certificate Courses (3) Digital Marketing Strategy Professor Sunil Gupta Craft data-driven digital marketing strategies that effectively reach, convert, and retain customers in a dynamic View Details

Web

Online Entrepreneurial Marketing Course | HBS Online

Business Administration, Memorial University of Newfoundland What You Earn Certificate of Completion Boost your resume with a Certificate of Completion from HBS Online Earn by: completing this course Certificate of Specialization Prove... View Details

10 Dec 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Information and Incentives in Online Affiliate Marketing

Keywords: by Benjamin G. Edelman & Wesley Brandi; Publishing; Technology

Web

Online Digital Marketing Strategy Course | HBS Online

Inclusion Marketing Kate Laliberte, OOFOS Head of Ecommerce Complexities of the Funnel and Paid Media Show Hide Details Concepts The Challenges of Reaching and Acquiring Customers Online Search Advertising... View Details

Article

Priced and Unpriced Online Markets

By: Benjamin Edelman

With forces both supporting and opposing zero prices, typical Internet-related activities—like surfing the web, web searches, and e-mail, along with behind-the-scenes practices like domain names and the allocation of IP (Internet Protocol) addresses—present a natural... View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Price; Market Transactions; Service Operations; Internet

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