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.

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Almost 44% of people in the United States are reporting that they’ll spend less during the holidays this year. Duh. What’s funny about this article is that it was written prior to all this bailout’s passing. I would venture to guess consumer confidence is on its way down.  Either way, it is tough to get an accurate read of how much less people will be spending.  If you’re like me, you may set a goal of spending less, but in the end you’re going to get what you think you need.  Who doesn’t like giving good presents?

For those who work in ecommerce or interactive marketing, there’s no surprise this is going to be a very challenging holiday shopping season.  Many retailers are reforecasting & adjusting their Q4 plans & goals in response to a down economy.

So what are your online marketing plans for the holidays?  Where is your primary area of focus as it relates to driving incremental ecommerce sales?  More people will be shopping online this year than last; the opportunity is there.  I would love to know who is increasing budget or at least remaining on par with what they forecasted for the fiscal year.

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