Category

Conversion

Fewer than 5% of visitors to an ecommerce site typically convert to customers. In this Conversion category, we offer insights to increase that percentage. Our expert contributors address ratings and reviews, social proof, site search, product page enhancements, product descriptions, checkout options, live chat, and much more — anything to help close online sales.

Analytics & Data | Checkout Tactics | Customer Retention | Customer Service | Photography & Video | Product Pages

Analytics & Data
Analyzing Mobile Traffic in Google Analytics; 5 Questions

November 16, 2012 • Tim Wilson

According to published reports, there were 20 million iPhones, 18 million Android-based Samsung Galaxy S3s, and 17 million iPads sold in the third quarter of 2012. The mobile channel, as such, can’t be ignored. But, “mobile” is complicated. It covers a wide range of devices and experien...
Conversion
Marketplace Mania, Part 1: Reviewing the Buying Experience

November 15, 2012 • Dale Traxler

Editor's Note: This is "Part 1" in a series on buying and selling products on the major marketplaces. This installment focuses on the buying experience. eBay.com launched the first online marketplace back in 1995 with its large-scale auction platform. Amazon.com has since focused on s...
Analytics & Data
How to Measure SEO Performance

November 14, 2012 • Jill Kocher Brown

Search engine optimization may be a mix of art and science, but it’s as measurable and accountable as other online marketing channels. Knowing what key performance indicators to measure for SEO is the first step. Establishing a regular routine for monitoring and measuring performance wi...
Conversion
Preparing for Television Commerce; 4 Steps

November 7, 2012 • Armando Roggio

A recent survey found that almost half of American television viewers were interested in making purchases directly from their television sets, using remote controls or companion devices. Given that consumers may spend five times as many hours a week watching television as they do browsi...
Photography & Video
17 Websites with Video Backgrounds

November 5, 2012 • Sig Ueland

Video is an excellent tool to present a product or a brand, as well as engage an audience with a rich visual experience. And when a website uses video in its background, the effect can be stunning. Here is a list of websites that utilize background videos. There are clothing sites, bev...
Conversion
8 Key Ecommerce Marketing Tactics

October 31, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Ecommerce merchants have many options for acquiring site traffic, building customer relationships, and ultimately improving sales and profitability. Enumerating all of the marketing tactics available and creating an ecommerce marketing playbook of sorts may encourage new campaigns and...
Conversion
4 Ideas for Cyber Monday Sales

October 30, 2012 • Armando Roggio

The Monday after Thanksgiving — Cyber Monday — could see more than $1.25 billion in online U.S. sales this year, as eager holiday shoppers look for special web pricing. Like it or not, since about 2005 online retailers have trained shoppers to bargain hunt the weekend after the Thanksg...
Conversion
Niche vs. Mass Market Product Strategies

October 25, 2012 • Dale Traxler

In "Multichannel Selling a Necessity," I addressed the need for ecommerce merchants to utilize multiple selling channels because that is where the customers are. In this article, I will focus on matching your product strategy to the appropriate channel. Niche vs. Mass Market In market...
Conversion
7 Steps to Better Ecommerce Marketing

October 25, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Effective marketing rarely happens accidentally. Successful campaigns are most often the result of good planning and execution. Planning a marketing campaign can provide an excellent opportunity to focus on a business's unique marketing problems or challenges and the proper actions req...
Analytics & Data
Creating Custom Segments in Google Analytics

October 24, 2012 • Tim Wilson

In "Understanding Segmentation in Google Analytics," my previous article, I explained the concept of analyzing traffic to a website in separate groups. This process is called "segmentation." Google Analytics offers several default segments, to automatically track common groups of vi...
Analytics & Data
Understanding Segmentation in Google Analytics

October 19, 2012 • Tim Wilson

Gary Angel, one of the sharpest digital analytics practitioners, regularly cites the benefits of segmenting traffic in Google Analytics. He says, “In every case, as you think about [specific metrics for your site], segmentation is an excellent first step for choosing the right explanat...
Conversion
Envisioning Your Business in 2022

October 17, 2012 • Dale Traxler

I delivered a speech last week to a group of ecommerce business owners about the process of developing business strategies. As I was preparing my presentation, I tried to envision what an online shopping experience might be in 10 years — in the year 2022. Last week, in "Descriptive Pr...
Conversion
2 Keys for Terrific Ecommerce Customer Service

October 16, 2012 • Shirley Tan

Acquiring new customers is much harder than keeping existing ones. Providing terrific customer service will encourage repeat orders, and loyalty. This article will address two key components of effective customer service for ecommerce businesses: telephone accessibility, and creating a ...
Product Pages
3 Tips for Encouraging Product Reviews

October 15, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Online product reviews can be an influential form of marketing, with the potential to help merchants make more sales. Properly encouraging reviews includes making reviews obvious on a site, giving reviewers expert status and prestige, and making it very easy to review products. There i...
Conversion
Marketing to the Online Hispanic Consumer

October 11, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

Can you afford to ignore 33.5 million U.S. Internet users? Probably not. It might be a bit more difficult to market to the Hispanic population but it's certainly worthwhile. Hispanics have substantial purchasing power and they shop online. Over 50 million people in the U.S. are of Hispa...
Customer Retention
5 Ways to Attract New Customers

October 10, 2012 • Armando Roggio

For ecommerce merchants, new customers mean new business. There are many customer-acquisition tools available to online retail marketers. Five of the best can be pay-per-click advertising, email marketing, social media marketing, marketplaces, and contest marketing. 1. Buy Pay-Per-Cli...
Business
Descriptive Product Content Produces Sales

October 9, 2012 • Dale Traxler

My wife and I are opening a new business. We are buying a lot of equipment, and I’ve spent more time shopping on ecommerce sites than I have in several years. As a former merchant, I judged those sites themselves almost as much as I did the products I was researching. And I was amazed a...
Conversion
6 Essential Google Analytics Features for Every Retailer

October 4, 2012 • Jaime Brugueras

Google Analytics can help focus your business on its most profitable areas, and can also help attract more customers while spending less money in the process. Here are six valuable features that Google Analytics can provide your online retail operations. With these tools, you can make ...
Conversion
Multichannel Selling a Necessity

October 3, 2012 • Dale Traxler

Selling products across multiple channels is a growing trend for ecommerce merchants. If you rely on a single online store, you will likely to be left behind, because consumer-shopping behaviors are changing rapidly. This article examines sales and marketing channels that are now ava...
Conversion
Managing Your Ecommerce Sales Funnel, Part 2

September 27, 2012 • Dale Traxler

Editor's Note: This is part two of a two-part series on improving the conversion rate of an ecommerce site by managing its sales funnel. Part one, "Managing Your Ecommerce Sales Funnel," we published previously. An ecommerce sales funnel refers to the steps involved in converting a tar...
Conversion
Managing Your Ecommerce Sales Funnel

September 19, 2012 • Dale Traxler

Editor's Note: This is part one of a two-part series on improving the conversion rate of an ecommerce site by managing its "sales funnel." An ecommerce business has a sales funnel. Business-to-business sales funnels are generally more complex than business-to-consumer ones. But the bas...
Conversion
Using Lookbooks to Inspire Shoppers

September 18, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Lookbooks are collections of photographs complied to promote a particular clothing or product line. In the past, fashion designers, photographers, and other artisans have used lookbooks to promote their work, get jobs, or just plain sell. But more recently lookbooks have evolved a bit t...
Customer Retention
Supercharge Your Search Results Page

September 17, 2012 • Armando Roggio

An effective on-site search experience will likely help Internet merchants sell more products. About 43 percent of online shoppers will use a site's own search to find products and make buying decisions, according to a study from Marketing Sherpa. Separately, a Jupiter Research study s...
Conversion
Understanding Affluent Male Online Shopping Behavior

September 13, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan

When ecommerce was in its infancy, consumers used the Internet to purchase basic items such as books and CDs that usually didn't involve size, quality, color, or style issues. Shoppers knew what they were getting and choices were based almost solely on price. Slowly, the array of goods ...
Conversion
Using Real-Time Data in Google Analytics

September 10, 2012 • Jaime Brugueras

One of the downsides to Google Analytics was that, until last year, it provided historic, day-old data. Google corrected that when it released "Real-Time" as part of its broader analytics package. Here’s how you can use Real-Time to improve your retail performance. Using Real-Time A...
Customer Service
Live Chat Can Improve Service, Sales

September 10, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Live chat can be an effective ecommerce conversion tool, providing customers with answers and help just when they’re making a buying decision, and for support questions. For example, "Laura" wanted to buy a shirt for her husband, but did not understand how the color and size options wo...
Conversion
8 Free Lead Generation Services

September 7, 2012 • Kevin Webster

Quality leads are the lifeblood of any sales organization. But identifying the names and contact information of those prospects is time consuming. There are companies that supply targeted lists — for a fee. However, here are eight web based lead services that offer — as of this writing — free trials, affording you the opportunity to fill your pipeline with new prospects.
Conversion
3 Ideas for Halloween Marketing 2012

September 4, 2012 • Armando Roggio

Halloween is typically the second most important holiday for retailers. It is expected to drive more than $7 billion in U.S. retail sales beginning in September, if 2011 was an indicator. The ghoulish holiday is not limited to costumes, candy, and the odd decoration; rather America's o...
Analytics & Data
How to Measure Website Load Times

August 28, 2012 • Tim Wilson

Consumers are increasingly impatient when it comes to waiting for their web browsers to load content. Measuring and monitoring how long it takes pages on your site to load — from desktop computers, laptops, tablets, or smartphones — enable you to take corrective action when any one of d...
Conversion
Is Marketing Killing Your Ecommerce Business?

August 22, 2012 • Shirley Tan

Editor's Note: We welcome Shirley Tan as our newest contributor. She is a seasoned ecommerce owner, having founded, built, and then sold AmericanBridal.com, a leading wedding-goods supplier. She now consults with ecommerce merchants on improving the operational aspects of their busines...

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