Armando Roggio
Armando Roggio is the longtime senior contributor to Practical Ecommerce. He's a global ecommerce authority and a practicing merchant, developer, and journalist.
Since 2008 he's written over 1,300 articles for Practical Ecommerce addressing all matters of ecommerce and presented dozens of webinars.
His previous positions include director of ecommerce for a regional retail chain and marketing publications manager at Micron Technology, a publicly-traded computer-chip manufacturer. He holds a B.A. in English Writing and Journalism from The University of Pittsburgh.
Email Armando. Follow his ecommerce tweets at @ecommerceboy.
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Marketing & Advertising
How to Set Up a Paid Newsletter
January 16, 2022 • Armando Roggio
The creator economy refers to podcasters, writers, musicians, and similar who are compensated directly for their work. Paid newsletters are one of those methods. We explain the concept and how to get started in this piece.
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Marketing & Advertising
5 Content Marketing Ideas for February 2022
January 11, 2022 • Armando Roggio
Content marketing drives search engine rankings and inbound traffic. Every month since 2014 we've published a list of content ideas for ecommerce merchants. This February 2022 installment includes topics such as National Freedom Day, Bob Marle's birthday, and more.
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Marketing & Advertising
The Risk of Social Media Marketing
January 4, 2022 • Armando Roggio
Ecommerce marketing decisions are difficult. Advertising, search engine optimization, social media, content marketing — all involve communicating a message to an audience. But depending on the channel, the marketer may not control the message, its distribution, or even the audience.
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Marketing & Advertising
Google Ads: How to Set Up Account-level UTM Parameters
January 3, 2022 • Armando Roggio
UTM parameters can help marketers track the performance of Google Ads to individual campaigns, ad groups, and keywords. Unfortunately, manually creating tracking parameter strings takes time and is error-prone. Instead, automate the process. Turn on the account-level Google Click Identifier, set up account-level UTM parameters, and use a script to create ad-group-level custom parameters.
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Management & Finance
5 New Year’s Resolutions for SaaS Companies
December 27, 2021 • Armando Roggio
Losing fewer customers and depending on advertising less should be the top New Year's resolutions for SaaS companies in 2022. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies are a segment of the ecommerce industry. Their subscription-based digital offerings can be profitable. But the SaaS model also has challenges.
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Management & Finance
Will Web3 Change Ecommerce?
December 24, 2021 • Armando Roggio
The concept of a decentralized web could lead to new forms of ecommerce. Web3 — sometimes called web 3.0 — is a popular buzzword. Queries on Google for the phrase peaked in early December with search volume about 20 times that of just a year before.
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Shipping & Fulfillment
Take a Side in the Future of the USPS
December 20, 2021 • Armando Roggio
In the last 15 years, the United States Postal Service has lost around $90 billion. It has often failed to meet delivery expectations. And yet, the USPS is vital for many ecommerce companies. By law, the USPS must deliver to every address in the United States six days per week. This makes the USPS a common and often good choice for last-mile delivery specifically and ecommerce generally.
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Management & Finance
7 New Year’s Resolutions for Ecommerce Companies
December 15, 2021 • Armando Roggio
Clearly defined goals can help ecommerce companies make 2022 the best year yet. The goals or resolutions should be aspiring and engaging enough to encourage action. What follows are seven resolution ideas for 2022. Adapt these to your company and implement them throughout the year.
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Marketing & Advertising
Setting Up a Google Ads Dynamic Search Campaign
December 13, 2021 • Armando Roggio
Setting up a Google dynamic search ad is straightforward. Even a novice can have a campaign up and running in a few minutes. This article is a step-by-step guide.
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Conversion
Why Mobile SaaS Conversions Are Lower Than Desktop
December 7, 2021 • Armando Roggio
Some software-as-a-service companies experience much lower paid conversions from consumers on mobile devices versus desktop and laptop computers. The gap can be troubling, and there are four regular suspects.
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Management & Finance
5 Good Ways to Measure Brand Awareness
December 6, 2021 • Armando Roggio
Business leaders intuitively understand that brand recognition is important for sales and growth. But it's often difficult for those leaders to know how to expand or improve that recognition. What's needed are reliable ways to measure brand awareness.
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Marketing & Advertising
5 Content Marketing Ideas for January 2022
December 5, 2021 • Armando Roggio
Content marketing is the act of creating, publishing, and promoting articles, podcasts, and similar that attract, engage, and retain an audience of customers. What follows are five content marketing ideas almost any business can use in January 2022.
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Management & Finance
Lessons from Hiring on Freelance Marketplaces
November 23, 2021 • Armando Roggio
How does a company find good freelancers? For many businesses, hiring a freelancer starts on a labor marketplace such as Upwork, Guru, Toptal, and similar. I have done this myself.
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Management & Finance
Defining Influencers and Creators Requires a Venn Diagram
November 16, 2021 • Armando Roggio
The difference between a "social media influencer" and an online "creator" may be no difference at all. Defining these terms has more to do with opinion or perspective than it does actual divergence.
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Marketing & Advertising
Facebook Lead Ads Lowered CPA, Boosted Results
November 14, 2021 • Armando Roggio
When your marketing plan requires newsletter signups, event registrations, and resource downloads, Facebook lead ads may be a powerful tool at an attractive cost-per-acquisition. I have been a fan of this ad form for some time, but recently I tested it for a software-as-a-service company.
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Marketing & Advertising
5 Content Marketing Ideas for December 2021
November 10, 2021 • Armando Roggio
Content marketing is a constant flow of planning and producing. And topics, even for search engine optimization, may be hard to find. So for December 2021 content, consider industry forecasts, helpful holiday how-to articles, New Year's resolutions, and a couple of uncommon holidays.
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Marketing & Advertising
How Content Drives Low-cost Ad Conversions
November 5, 2021 • Armando Roggio
Content marketing is often associated with search engine optimization since the two disciplines can work hand in glove. But there can be a strong affinity between content marketing and advertising, too.
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Marketing & Advertising
Is Affiliate Marketing the Next Big Thing?
November 1, 2021 • Armando Roggio
Ecommerce trends, the burgeoning creator economy, and marketing tech are invigorating affiliate promotion, boosting the effectiveness of an already powerful digital marketing channel. Affiliate marketing is not new. It has been around since the earliest days of the commercial internet.
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Marketing & Advertising
4 Reasons to Use Dynamic Search Ads
October 27, 2021 • Armando Roggio
Dynamic search ads access your website content and deploy artificial intelligence to generate headlines, bids, and targeted search terms automatically. These easy-to-employ text ads are the Swiss Army knife of digital promotion: They work well in many situations.
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Management & Finance
Here’s Why PayPal Should Acquire Pinterest
October 25, 2021 • Armando Roggio
PayPal has denied published reports that it is interested in acquiring Pinterest. Nonetheless, if consummated, the transaction might be the first of many similar acquisitions as platforms seek vertical integration. In this post, I'll address why it makes sense for PayPal to buy Pinterest.
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Marketing & Advertising
Digital Creators Need Email Marketing
October 20, 2021 • Armando Roggio
A list of engaged email subscribers is among the best promotional tools for creators who sell digital products. For many of those creators, it could also be a path toward earning a living. The creator economy has a problem.
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Management & Finance
Stablecoin, CBDCs Could Improve Ecommerce
October 18, 2021 • Armando Roggio
Digital currencies have the potential to expand ecommerce, lower transaction fees, eliminate chargebacks, and prevent fraud. So far, however, volatility and its fear have stopped most merchants and brands from accepting cryptocurrencies. But this could be changing.
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Management & Finance
Are Stablecoin and CBDCs the Future of Digital Currency?
October 14, 2021 • Armando Roggio
Stablecoin and central bank digital currences may offer the benefits of buying and selling with cryptocurrencies without the worrisome price swings. Blockchain-driven transactions could benefit the ecommerce industry.
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Marketing & Advertising
Google Ads Promotion Extensions Can Boost Holiday Sales
October 12, 2021 • Armando Roggio
The Google Ads promotion extension attaches a clickable discount offer to search ads and could boost sales for some merchants this Christmas season. Click-through rates and conversion rates vary greatly from one business or one ad to the next. Thus one cannot say definitively that using a promotion extension would drive more traffic or sales.
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Shipping & Fulfillment
Is Last-mile Delivery Ripe for Disruption?
October 11, 2021 • Armando Roggio
Competition, profit-taking, and emerging technologies may contribute to rapid and disruptive changes in last-mile package delivery worldwide. For online sellers, the "last mile" describes the final leg of a product's journey to a customer.
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Management & Finance
5 Content Marketing Ideas for November 2021
October 5, 2021 • Armando Roggio
Comparisons, top 10 lists, customer stories, an old mystery, and Thanksgiving leftovers are all topics that could influence your company's content marketing in November 2021. Content marketing is the act of creating, publishing, and promoting content with the express purpose of attracting, engaging, and retaining customers.
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Management & Finance
Facebook Could Dominate Ecommerce
October 4, 2021 • Armando Roggio
Facebook is among the top social media networks in the world. It is also a leading advertising and communication platform. And it could soon dominate ecommerce.
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Amazon & Marketplaces
Should Merchants Launch Their Own Marketplaces?
September 30, 2021 • Armando Roggio
For manufacturers, distributors, and enterprise retailers, owning a marketplace could be a competitive advantage and a key to business growth.
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B2B
The Emergence of B2B Raw Material Marketplaces
September 26, 2021 • Armando Roggio
Business-to-business marketplaces are among ecommerce's leading growth trends, yet many industries remain under-served, especially for raw materials.
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Management & Finance
DTC Brands, Amid Disruptions, Should Seek New Sales Channels
September 23, 2021 • Armando Roggio
Starting a digital direct-to-consumer brand has never been easier. But growing that brand into a successful business may have become more difficult.
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