Armando Roggio

Articles by: Armando Roggio

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.

Contact Armando via email or LinkedIn. Follow his ecommerce tweets at @ecommerceboy.

Marketing & Advertising
CommerceCo Recap: SMS Marketing Fundamentals

June 3, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Text messaging can be among the most productive retail marketing channels, provided the workflows are automated and the performance is tracked. Entrepreneur Jordan West, the owner of an ecommerce marketing agency and an apparel company, uses text-message marketing to drive sales. He believes text messages are among his best marketing channels.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for July 2021

June 1, 2021 • Armando Roggio

In July 2021, your content marketing could focus on teaching a skill, showing off products via a live stream, celebrating UFOs, enjoying grandmothers, or reviewing an upcoming summer blockbuster. Regardless, remember that the purpose of content marketing is to attract, engage, and retain customers.
Customer Retention
Text Messages Are an Ecommerce Opportunity

May 31, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Many ecommerce and omnichannel marketers treat text messaging as pared-down email campaigns. But text alone is a powerful way to drive sales. Nearly everyone, after all, grabs their mobile phone the moment a message arrives.
Business
As Cookies Crumble, Fingerprinting Could Grow

May 25, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Privacy advocates, tech companies, and government regulators are all working to bring an end to third-party cookies. But even as the cookies crumble, some ad networks could turn to browser fingerprinting to track individuals.
Analytics & Data
‘Assisted Conversions’ in Google Analytics Are Attribution Gold

May 23, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Google Analytics "Assisted Conversions" reports are hidden attribution gold deep in the platform's conversion analysis tools. While most Analytics reports show the immediate source ("last click") of traffic and conversions, Assisted Conversions identify the relationship between all channels and conversions.
Business
CommerceCo Recap: Tailor-made Shopping Experiences

May 20, 2021 • Armando Roggio

When eBay and Amazon were founded, in 1995, ecommerce pioneers worried that pictures of products would never provide the same experience as handling a product on a rack. Ecommerce has generally overcome this challenge, but there are still products that are more difficult to present online.
Content Marketing
Using an Ebook for B2B Lead Generation

May 18, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Trading an ebook for a prospect's contact information is among the purest forms of content marketing. It's an effective way for B2B sellers to find their next customer. B2B companies supply the products that ecommerce and omnichannel sellers retail to the general public.
Inventory
Save Money on Inventory with EOQ

May 17, 2021 • Armando Roggio

An American production engineer developed the economic order quantity (EOQ) model to help buyers at manufacturing companies understand how much of a given raw material or part they should buy. Many companies now use EOQ to calculate the ideal amount of inventory to minimize costs.
Amazon & Marketplaces
How to Use Terapeak for eBay 2021

May 12, 2021 • Armando Roggio

The Terapeak research tool takes some of the guessing out of whether a product will sell on eBay. eBay acquired Terapeak in 2017, rolling the analytics tool into its Seller Hub and eventually making its product research function free to use. eBay sellers can look up individual products or product categories, discover sell-through rates, average prices, shipping costs, and more.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for June 2021

May 4, 2021 • Armando Roggio

From bicycles to Omaha Beach, June 2021 is full of international celebrations and historical events to fuel your company's content marketing. What follows are five content marketing ideas you can use for your business this June.
Business
Ecommerce Insights from China’s Pinduoduo

May 3, 2021 • Armando Roggio

At the end of 2020, the five-year-old Chinese shopping app Pinduoduo had 788.4 million users and more than $9 billion in annual revenue. Pinduoduo's incredible growth may provide some insights into the future of ecommerce.
Business
The Retail Omnichannel Imperative

April 27, 2021 • Armando Roggio

In 2021 and beyond, successful retailers with physical stores will likely become powerful omnichannel sellers as shoppers choose merchants with superior end-to-end buying experiences. "The reason that omnichannel is critical for retailers in 2021 is because the customer demands it," said Jess Huang, a partner at McKinsey & Company.
Marketing & Advertising
Digital Advertisers Need to Pivot

April 26, 2021 • Armando Roggio

The end of third-party cookies and the beginning of opt-in user tracking in Apple's iOS devices have some advertisers worried, but pivoting toward first-party data and better customer experiences may lead to even more success.
Marketing & Advertising
What Google Chrome FLoC Says about Targeted Ads

April 21, 2021 • Armando Roggio

A proposed alternative to third-party cookies may provide insights into the future of targeted ads. Modern digital ad targeting relies on individual and personal information. An online retailer, for example, can use networks such as Google or Facebook to target potential customers.
Marketing & Advertising
CommerceCo Recap: 3 R’s Are Changing Targeted Advertising

April 19, 2021 • Armando Roggio

For years, online sellers large and small have depended on targeted advertising to acquire and engage shoppers. But changes at leading tech companies, legislation, and consumer-privacy concerns are hastening the end of individual tracking and some forms of ad targeting.
Content Marketing
Using Wikipedia for Content Marketing, SEO

April 14, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Wikipedia can be helpful for content marketing, link building, and entity research, helping marketers reach an audience of potential customers. To be clear, since at least 2007, all external links from Wikipedia include the nofollow attribute, directing search engines not to count the links in page-ranking algorithms.
Local Business
What if 80,000 Brick-and-mortar Stores Closed?

April 11, 2021 • Armando Roggio

A financial services firm has predicted that 80,000 or more physical store locations in the United States are likely to close in the next five years, reducing the total number of American retail outlets by approximately 10 percent. But what does that mean?
Content Marketing
Two-thirds of the Largest U.S. Retailers Use Content Marketing

April 7, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Some 33 of the 50 largest U.S. retail companies use content marketing. And 22 of those are doing it fairly well. I reviewed the websites and social media channels of the 50 largest U.S. retailers, according to the National Retail Federation, to learn which ones used content marketing.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for May 2021

April 4, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Need content marketing topics for May 2021? How about photography, comic books, the Clubhouse app, springtime, or the very products your business sells?
SEO
CommerceCo Recap: SEO Entities vs. Keywords

March 31, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Some search engine optimizers believe “entities” have supplanted keywords as the foundation for organic rankings. But it doesn’t mean that keywords are irrelevant. Within SEO, entities are the people, places, things,
Analytics & Data
Is Marketing Just an Art?

March 30, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Modern commerce marketing can be data-driven and repeatable. At some companies, however, marketing is unplanned and unorganized. This came up during a recent job interview when a candidate said, "Marketing isn't construction work. It is not workmanlike. It is more like art." But is it really?
Customer Retention
Here’s Why Your Ecommerce Subscriptions Aren’t Selling

March 29, 2021 • Armando Roggio

A recurring subscription model is a powerful tool for growth and profit — if you can get subscribers. “A lot of brands install our subscription software and slap a ‘subscribe and ...
Marketing & Advertising
Using Clubhouse to Promote a Business

March 24, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Clubhouse, the invitation-only audio discussion app, launched in April 2020. It has since garnered about 2 million active weekly users. The app's fleeting nature and live-conference format force its content to be instructional, not promotional. Tactics such as advertising or sponsoring influencers either are not an option on Clubhouse or are not usually effective.
Local Business
Bike Retailer Solves a Pandemic-driven Problem

March 23, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Lots of consumers wanted to get outside when the pandemic hit last year. Among the beneficiaries was Erik's Bike Shop, a Minnesota-based retailer, which experienced a massive increase in web traffic and customer service requests — phone calls, emails, and chats. The staff was overwhelmed.
Conversion
Will AI for Ecommerce Go Mainstream in 2021?

March 18, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Buzzwords such as "personalization" and "artificial intelligence" have been around ecommerce for years. But could 2021 be the year these technologies go mainstream? Some industry participants believe so.
Google Ads
CommerceCo Recap: Google Ads Smart Bidding Explained

March 17, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Google Ads Smart Bidding uses machine learning to optimize performance and streamline account management. Done well, Smart Bidding should lead to improved results as your campaigns (small or large) tap into Google's insights about the folks who use its search engine and advertising network and what makes a successful ad.
Business
Retailers, Brands, Manufacturers Are Converging in 2021

March 15, 2021 • Armando Roggio

The distinction between direct-to-consumer ecommerce and traditional retailing has been vanishing for years. But in a post-pandemic 2021, the convergence could be accelerating.
Marketing & Advertising
CommerceCo Recap: Podcast Endorsements Drive Traffic, Sales

March 10, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Audio advertising can take many forms, but at least one industry leader thinks companies should aim for host endorsements for the best return on investment.
Social Media
Will Social Commerce Disrupt Retail in U.S., Europe?

March 8, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Social commerce in China combines content, chat, live streaming, and sharing with in-app retail purchases, obliterating the distinctions between social media networks and online stores. China's style of ecommerce is so successful it has the potential to disrupt retail in the U.S. and Europe.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for April 2021

March 4, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Content marketing is the act of creating content to attract and retain prospects. Opportunities abound in April 2021, with topics as diverse as the Pony Express, National Beer Day, Arbor Day, and TikTok.