Page 259 – Practical Ecommerce

Category

Conversion
Google AdWords: More Than Text Ads

January 14, 2008 • Greg Laptevsky

Google AdWords offers a number of different ad formats and options in addition to the standard text-based ads. I’ve summarized these formats and options below. Standard Text Ads These are the regular text ads that we most commonly associate with Google's pay per click ad program....
Google Ads
Negative Keywords For Your PPC Campaign

January 9, 2008 • Greg Laptevsky

Keywords are an integral part of any online advertising campaign. However, what is sometimes overlooked is the equal importance of negative keywords, which are word filters that disqualify ads from being triggered by users’ search queries. For example, if the term “iPhone” is one of you...
Business
Ten More (Great) Ecommerce Ideas

January 9, 2008 • PEC Staff

Practical eCommerce recently asked 50 industry insiders to share a great, innovative idea that could potentially help an ecommerce firm. Here’s what ten of them had to say. Determine Valuable Variables "Doing multivariate testing used to require some in-house programming expertise o...
Customer Service
On Vacation? Pointers To Stay Connected

January 9, 2008 • Pamela Hazelton

I often find myself traveling with little notice. These trips include last minute family gatherings or clients purchasing new systems and wanting me by their side as they transfer data and confirm stability. Some months I’m gone more than I’m home. However, I’m fortunate enough to be ab...
Analytics & Data
How to Track Ad Results Using Google Analytics

January 8, 2008 • John Henson

If you're paying for any kind of advertising — for example, Google AdWords, banner ads, or e-mail marketing — it's important to know what's working and what's not. Fortunately, analytics programs have built in ad tracking capabilities. I'll describe how you can track your ads with Google Analytics.
Business
Bloglist: Roy Rubin

January 7, 2008 • PEC Staff

Name: Roy Rubin, President Company: Varien Blog: Varien.com/blog In Bloglist, we ask ecommerce professionals to identify their favorite blogs. For this installment, we asked Roy Rubin, president of Varien, the company behind the open source platform Magento. Techcrunch.com This i...
Marketing & Advertising
SEO Report Card: Juvieshop.com

January 7, 2008 • Jeff Muendel

Juvie is a kid’s clothing store in Los Angeles, and it is balancing the hipness of Flash-based features (not particularly SEO-friendly) with the common sense of good textual content (always SEO-friendly) on the home page of its ecommerce site. The site focuses on hip, modern and stylish...
Google Ads
Pay-Per-Click Account Tools

January 7, 2008 • Greg Laptevsky

A daily pay-per-click management routine can sometimes be a source of frustration. Thankfully, there are a few tools out there to streamline the process. What follows is a list of software that every pay-per-click account owner should consider. AdWords Editor AdWords Editor is Google’...
Business
Muttmart.com’s President Justin Hertz

January 4, 2008 • PEC Staff

Hertz and Pat Callahan explore the elements of a successful website, including how to distinguish yourself from the competition.
Marketing & Advertising
Google Knol Looks To Take On Wikipedia

January 2, 2008 • Jeff Muendel

Online reputation is an important part of any SEO campaign. It can drive traffic and promote links, and when a new opportunity arises for such reputation management, it should be explored sooner rather than later. A few weeks ago, Udi Manber, Google's vice president of engineering, ann...
Social Media
Social Media As A Marketing Strategy in 2008

January 2, 2008 • Paul Chaney

2007 was a good year for holiday shopping. comScore reported that online shopping totaled nearly $28 billion, up 19 percent from 2006. Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday all had record traffic compared to previous years, according to Hitwise. Hopefully, your business experi...
Business
Bloglist: Michelle Greer

January 2, 2008 • PEC Staff

Name: Michelle Greer, Marketing Specialist Company: Volusion, Inc. Blog: Onlinebusiness.volusion.com In Bloglist, we ask ecommerce professionals to identify their favorite blogs. For this installment, we asked Michelle Greer, marketing specialist at Volusion, a company that offers ...
Business
Red Door Interactive President Reid Carr

December 28, 2007 • PEC Staff

Carr and Pat Callahan discuss the intricacies of a case study Carr co-authored — Cricket Communications: Less Is Definitely More.
Business
More Great Ecommerce Ideas

December 26, 2007 • PEC Staff

Practical eCommerce recently asked 50 industry insiders to share a great, innovative idea that could potentially help an ecommerce firm. Here’s what ten more of them had to say. Hire The Right Employee Susan Denison Managing Director Cook Associates, Inc. Cookassociates.com "Clea...
Conversion
New-year Ideas For eBay Powersellers

December 26, 2007 • PEC Staff

I hope you had a great holiday selling season online, and with the new year right around the corner, what follows are some tips for increasing your eBay presence even more in 2008. Use research tools like Terapeak.com, Hammertap.com and EverySeller Research (Everyseller.com) to fine t...
Business
ChoiceStream’s Toffer Winslow, executive vice president of sales and marketing

December 20, 2007 • PEC Staff

Winslow and Pat Callahan delve into ChoiceStream’s 2007 Personalization Survey, including the potential of personalized recommendations — good and bad.
Conversion
Five Tips For Improved Sales, In Good Times or Bad

December 19, 2007 • PEC Staff

Increase Focus On Existing Customers For many companies, the primary focus is on selling to new customers, and little attention is given to the tremendous potential in the existing customer list. But when consumers become more skittish and conservative in their purchase behavior, they ...
Conversion
Usability Report Card: Accepted.com

December 19, 2007 • Richard Kerr

Accepted.com is an admissions consulting and application editing service website. It has requested this usability site grade. Home Page Clarity To ensure credibility and trust, sites that gather customer information should include a “Privacy Policy.” Accepted.com has a link to its a...
Design & Development
Programming Notes: Importance of Hand Coding

December 19, 2007 • Brian Getting

Let's be honest. Most people do not go into website design because they enjoy writing code, or because they want to root through hundreds of lines of seemingly nonsensical expressions. That comes later. Most people start with a visual idea and work from there, usually taking advantage o...
Customer Service
Numbers Should Not Dictate

December 17, 2007 • Pamela Hazelton

They say the true measure of success for an online store is based on visitor and shopping statistics and analysis of investments for driving traffic to the site. The most common reporting method is Google Analytics, and with its recent integration with LivePerson (a live chat tool), sto...
Conversion
Websites For The Visually Impaired

December 17, 2007 • Joseph Monks

You put a lot of effort into making your website successful. You implement a strong design, you add features such as wish lists, coupon modules, gift certificates and perhaps even Flash and JavaScript functionality to attract customers and provide them an enjoyable shopping experience. ...
Business
Sitebrand’s Carolyn Gardner, director of e-marketing services

December 14, 2007 • PEC Staff

Gardner and Pat Callahan discuss methods of proactively managing the customer experience via “web personalization.”
Conversion
Pay-Per-Click Advertising: Alternative PPC Venues

December 12, 2007 • Greg Laptevsky

In the world of pay-per-click advertising, there are three well-known players: Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter. However, there are several other interesting pay-per-click sites you may not be familiar with, which you might find useful. Clickriver Clickri...
Design & Development
What Is PCI Compliance And Should Merchants Be Concerned About It?

December 12, 2007 • PEC Staff

The major credit card issuers created PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliance standards to protect personal information and ensure security when transactions are processed using a payment card. All members of the payment card industry (financial institutions, credit card companies and me...
Conversion
Interview: Facebook Application Developer

December 12, 2007 • PEC Staff

Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace generate huge numbers of visitors. Because of that, marketers increasingly are looking to those sites, and other social networking sites, as channels to promote ecommerce products. In May 2007, Facebook “opened up” its platform to ...
Business
Managing Risk When Enforcing Online Rights

December 10, 2007 • John W. Dozier, Jr.

It never ceases to amaze me how much theft is going on right under the eyes of major companies and they don't appear to understand how to spot and deal with it. Of course it takes many forms, often very well disguised, but every business should do its best to keep the thieves away. Web ...
Email & Text Marketing
Email Marketing Report Card: Accepted.com

December 10, 2007 • Ben Chestnut

Accepted.com provides admissions consulting and application-essay-editing services that help people get into top business schools, medical schools and graduate schools. It produces a free monthly email newsletter called “Odds ‘N Ends” and the staff of Accepted.com has requested that Pra...
Business
Fabric.com’s Director of Marketing Laurie Eady

December 7, 2007 • PEC Staff

Pat Callahan and Eady discuss the attributes that led to Fabric.com becoming the largest online retailer of fabric.
Business
Quick Query: Online Educator Raquel Collins

December 5, 2007 • PEC Staff

The University of British Columbia is a pioneer in online education for working professionals. Many of its courses apply to ecommerce merchants and we’ve asked Raquel Collins, senior program leader for UBC Continuing Studies, to explain these courses to us. PeC: Thank you, Raquel, fo...
Business
Killersocks.com: Socks Go Mainstream

December 5, 2007 • Pat Callahan

“True love is like a pair if socks: You gotta have two and they’ve gotta match.” -Unknown Brendan Gallagher and Kerren Lynch-Gallagher aren’t your typical website owners, if there is such a thing. Brendan directs animation at Out To Play Entertainment. And Kerren, who goes by Kerry, is...