It’s not like you’ve got anything else better to do…
Which URL Shortening Service Should You Use? -- Search Engine Land -- I thought everyone just picked what they thought looked/sounded the coolest.
URL Shorteners Are Bad for Most of Us -- Joshua Schachter’s Blog -- Are they? What do you think? The only thing that bothers me is when they don’t work.
DIY Social Media Monitoring Dashboards -- Michael Leis -- Why just plugin when you can plugin & monitor? It’s the logical next step…
The Top 5 Video Game Ninjas -- Unreality -- Ninja-related material is always must-read.
Twitter Traffic Explodes…And Not Being Driven By the Usual Suspects -- comScore Voices -- Even though the 18 -- 24 year old demographic has a low adoption rate compared to the rest of the olders demos, I see lots of growth coming in the next year. I base this solely on the fact that my cousin, who’s a senior in college, is now tweeting.
Quarterly Online Sales Flash Survey, Q1 2009 Results -- Shop.org -- More than half of the retailers surveyed reported an increase in sales during Q1.
Pre-roll Ad Viewing Up, Interaction Down -- ReelSEO -- Not surprising that people looking for content they’d normally have to pay for are more willing to tolerate watch pre-roll.
Amazon Cuts Paid Search Affiliates -- Amazon Affiliate Blog -- I wonder if this has anything to do with the pending tax nexus changes. Search Engine Marketing firms who dislike affiliates will tell you that other merchants should do the same. What’s your opinion?
And when in doubt, think with your dipstick…or don’t. I think I’ve found my Halloween costume. I’m Scottish, I could pull it off. Check out this behind the scenes video; it might be funnier than the commercial.
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While my main focus here is online retailers, I would venture to guess there are similarities for all online advertisers. As always, there are exceptions to the rule, but these are not the only hot topics. Please feel free to add your own (whether completely serious, in jest, or somewhere in between).
Shifting marketing dollars to performance-based channels – email, paid search, affiliates, & search engine optimization (SEO). The latter wouldn’t require much of an incremental investment if people simply adhered to the principles of good copywriting & building structurally sound web sites. SEO is not that simple, but those 2 sure cover a lot.
Realizing the rise in average cost-per-click on search engines was up higher than it should have been.
Considering investing in things that will improve conversion, user experience, & customer service.
Determining how to best reach customers on a more micro level (customized & more personal interactions)
Asking you to do more with less.
If none of this is going on, I would say you are either extremely lucky or in big trouble. The former because you (& your client) are then, somehow, isolated from the current economic factors. The latter because your client is considering bringing things in-house or are talking to other, cheaper, agencies. Or it could be because you simply suck…I know a few agencies that fit that bill.
As a Friday bonus, I’ve included a translation of the above for the cynics…
The byproduct of performing your necessary due diligence.
Digging a bit deeper to understand the cause of rising costs.
What you should’ve been doing all along…how dare you treat your existing customers like commodities.
Building & maintaining loyalty in an increasingly competitive space.
I, like most of you, did my fair share of online shopping this holiday season. For me, professionally, these experiences are gold. I get to see a wide variety of online retail marketing plans in action. It also allows me to experience things from the customer’s perspective & see how my clients measure up. This season was pretty easy. I have one gripe though &, in my opinion, it could have been avoided if basic marketing tactics were utilized.
I have been buying my mom these hand-carved wooden Santas over the years (the past couple I actually haven’t because I forgot their name & couldn’t find them…more on that later) from Great American Collectibles. This is the kind of kitschy stuff you see at the mall in places like Things Remembered. Only Great American pays fine attention to detail & their variety of Santas is the best I’ve found. It’s the one gift I know I will nail each time. Buying is simple (as all online shopping should be) – browse through the collections by year, pick what you want, add it to your cart, & check out. I received my confirmation email & then nothing else for a couple weeks. After I contacted them via email, I received the following…
You most certainly cannot control spam filters. However, you can ask recipients (in the order confirmation email) to add your email address to their trusted sender list or Address Book. It’s also possible to monitor email blacklists & your email server &/or web site domain are not on them. Perhaps you should contact someone (like me) to help you with growing your business on the intertubes. You’re impossible to find in search (unless you search exactly for Great American Collectibles) & don’t seem to get the basics of online customer service.
There is nothing more frustrating than a failure to execute the fundamentals. This becomes even more important in the face of difficult financial times (R.I.P. Circuit City). You have to go out of your way to acquire new customers & retain existing. Now is not the time to blame things you think are out of your control.
Given the increasingly competitive cost-per-click environment in paid search, it’s becoming imperative that online retailers seek new ways to improve their return on investment. Compared to this time last year, average CPCs are up 30%; I have some clients who are seeing 40% & up. Using a combination of automated bid management with qualitative data analysis is industry standard. If you’re not already using proprietary tools & some analysis done by an actual person, you’re behind the game. Get on that…stat.
Your next steps are to…
Use your online analytics to identify which states (or larger geographical area) generate the most sales.
Combine sales & costs data. Search engines can give you impression, cost, & click data by state. Mesh these results & voila, you have yourself some nice, segmented data with which you can make educated business decisions.
Make difficult decisions. If you are a nationwide &/or an international retailer, you may need to cease advertising in retail trade areas. This might not be wise since just about everyone uses search to find out, among other things, where your offline stores are. Not everyone clicks on the natural search engine results.
Now that holiday shopping is in full swing, those year-over-year CPC increases are going to rise even more. With the current state of the economy & many etailers cutting budgets in the face of decreased sales, your job as an online marketer is to help mitigate risk & add to the bottom line. Many retailers are going all out with aggressive promotional strategies; this cuts into margins. Smaller margins & increased customer acquisition costs do not go over well with senior management & investors.
I should preface this by saying that unless you are productive & take initiative, no one is going to listen to anything you have to say. You may be right or have a great idea, but it will fall on deaf ears if people think you don’t know what you’re talking about.
This starts with your boss & possibly his/her boss. When you don’t have direct channels to the top-level decision makers, it’s important to have your voice represented by someone who does. If you’re afraid your boss is going to take credit for your work, it would be smart to talk to the person to whom your boss reports. This is also good if your boss is an idiot or inept.
Numbers make decisions very easy. The more data you have to support your thinking, the better your odds at convincing your company to approve it become. If you’re looking to increase site traffic, are your campaigns consistently driving more people to your site? Do these visitors spend more time on the site than the average visitor? Are they converting at a higher rate? Have they signed up to receive emails from you or are they looking at things like the store locator?
Building on that, you are going to want to show your campaign’s visitors are converting on the site. You will want to see if they are spending more per order than your site’s current average. The more people you bring in to your customer retention pool, the better your chances for driving sustained, incremental revenue. More sales proves that you have the ability to make more money for the company, making stockholders very happy. See what you just did…the man appreciates that.
As long as you are making the decision for you company very easy, you stand a great chance of being heard. Try to anticipate the questions they will ask after reviewing your analysis. Whenever possible, you want to provide information directly to the source. The side benefit of this is that you have gained great experience in presenting to the powers that be & establishing new connections. Most successful people will tell you this is your foundation for success.
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