Archive for the ‘best practices’ Category
-
What is the Marketing C-Suite Measuring These Days? Conversions!
Forbes Magazine just released its 2009 Advertising Effectiveness Survey and some of the findings are of interest to marketers concerned with improving web conversions — some of the rest continue to disappoint us. Continue Reading
-
Consumer Sat in E-Commerce Slips – and What a Great Opportunity this Represents for Conversion-oriented Marketers!
ClickZ reports a study by ForeSee Results and FGI Research that consumer satisfaction with e-commerce sites has dropped in 2009 compared to a year ago.
• Out of a possible 100 points — with 100 representing the highest possible score — the top 100 e-commerce sites recorded an aggregation score of 73, down 3 percent from 2008
• Of the top 100 sites, scores for 55 sites dropped year-over-year, while only 16 increased.
Things seem to be seriously wrong for some eCommerce retailers: Continue Reading
-
What “Decline in Ads Sales”? Watch All the Super Bowl Spots Here
There was a lot of hoopla leading up to the Super Bowl, with speculation around whether or not the ads would sell out in these economic times.
Well, NBC reported on the eve of Sunday’s Super Bowl that it has sold the last two of the 69 advertising spots for the game, pushing total ad revenue for the event to a record $206 million. (Yes, a “record”) Continue Reading
-
Where Do You Drive Your Search Engine Traffic To?
-
Search Ad Spending: Maximizing ROAS Through Analytics and Conversion Optimization
We all know that the economic downturn is shrinking the growth of all ad spending, including Search. But Search remains the “shining media” it has always been – it is simply not growing as quickly as it has in previous years.
eMarketer estimates that while the rate of search ad spending growth was down in 2008, search still grew 21% over 2007. “In fact, the rate of growth will fall over the next three years—but search ad spending growth will continue to be positive, in double digits every year—until 2012 when it will rise to nearly 14%.”
Search, it seems, is “recession-resistant.”
Smart Marketers will continue to spend increasing budgets on Search – and rightfully so, if they want to continue to make their ROAS (Return on Advertising Spend) accountable.
But are marketers managing and measuring ROAS properly?
Maybe not. Continue Reading
-
That Time of Year: Making Marketing Predictions
Go ahead: Google < “marketing predictions” 2008> and you will get 17,200 results. Then go back and Google < “marketing predictions” 2009> and you will get only 10,200 results.
In other words, just 5 days before the start of 2009, marketers are becoming significantly more cautious about guessing.
Personally, I think this is good news. Us marketers tend to be very opinionated (who? me?) and historically have relied on gut feel and aesthetic preferences to make decisions. But no longer. Continue Reading
-
A Salute to Brave eCommerce Retailers
There are brave eCommerce retailers, truly working both hard and smart at making sure the avalanche of bad economic news does not sweep them over.
This morning, AdAge reports a ComScore finding that consumer web spending dropped 4% so far in November versus the same period last year — the first time e-commerce figures have shown a year-to-year drop. “Despite the recent reprieve that plummeting gas prices have given American consumers, the depressed and volatile stock market, declining housing prices, inflation and the weak job market all represent dark clouds hanging over their heads this holiday shopping season,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni.
But there are positive forecasts too: Continue Reading
-
Does Video Work on Landing Pages?
Online video watching trends have been getting a lot of attention in recent months, and we’re eagerly testing landing page variations to find out the best way to use it for improving landing page conversion rates.
Online video viewership is increasing
Most recently, the New York Times reported on the increasing online video attention span, which a separate Cisco-funded survey supports.
How can marketers use video?
-
Conversion Rate Optimization for Microconversions
There’s a lot of talk about ‘Microconversions’ lately and also a lot of confusion among testing technology vendors. Before adding Microconversions to your testing strategy, you need to know when they’re useful and how to plan them. In this article we’ll talk about what Microconversions are (and aren’t) and how to use them.
What are Microconversions?
As Avinash Kaushik said, “micro conversions are accomplishments of other goals for which people are on the site (other than what you think the site’s primary purpose is).” They are complete conversions of secondary (or tertiary) actions that are important to your visitors and are indicators of intent or potential intent to purchase. Continue Reading
-
How to Hire a Conversion Optimization Services Provider… Part 4
This is the fourth posting in a series aimed at helping you as a Marketer evaluate conversion optimization services providers so you make the best possible decision of who to hire. You can read Part 1 here, Part 2 here and Part 3 here.
Q4: “Do you follow a specific methodology to optimization?”There are lots of people “out there” who know how to use tools like Google Website Optimizer, Omniture’s Test & target, Optimost and such. (And this is especially true of Google Website Optimizer because it’s an easy to learn, free tool). However, very few of those people know how to increase revenues consistently by using the tool.
To know how to increase revenues by using a testing tool Continue Reading
