Page 55 – Practical Ecommerce

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Analytics & Data
Combining Google Analytics Data with Other Sources

July 20, 2021 • Morgan Jones

Google Analytics provides data from a website or app on engagement, conversions, and transactions. However, many online merchants need data from other sources, such as search engines, social media, affiliates, and more. Some of these sources can be connected or imported into Google Analytics. Others cannot.
SEO Tools
16 Tools to Manage Your Reputation

July 20, 2021 • Sig Ueland

Reputation management is essential for any brand. Your company's future may depend on what’s been said about it in posts, comments, reviews, and rankings. Fortunately, there are affordable tools to help. Here is a list of tools to manage your brand’s reputation.
Social Media
What’s the Future of Social Media Advertising?

July 19, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Many businesses recognize the need for social media advertising. But describing social media ads is a bit like counting raindrops in a thunderstorm. The trends are many, fast-moving, and often gone in a flash. At least one industry practitioner believes social advertising is growing in acceptance despite tracking concerns.
Email & Text Marketing
6 Steps to Prepare Email Marketing for iOS 15

July 19, 2021 • Carolyn Nye

Apple's iOS 15 release this fall will likely change email marketing. Among the updates is the ability for Apple Mail users to load external images privately, thereby blocking email marketing platforms from tracking opens. I addressed the release last month.
Shipping & Fulfillment
Sustainable Packaging Is a Competitive Advantage

July 18, 2021 • Elaine Porteous

Consumers concerned about waste in landfills and oceans are demanding sustainable product packaging. Environmentally responsible packaging can be just as cost-effective as conventional methods but may require a change in thinking.
Business
Hustle Exec: Ecommerce Firms Should Acquire Content Providers

July 16, 2021 • Eric Bandholz

Adam Ryan joined The Hustle in August 2016, four months after its launch, as a part-time advertising salesman. By February 2021, when HubSpot acquired it, he was president. Ryan is now an investor and consultant, advising companies on content strategies that engage prospects.
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Product Releases: July 15, 2021

July 15, 2021 • Sig Ueland

Here is a list of product releases and updates for mid-July from companies that offer services to online merchants. There are updates on live-streaming marketplaces, payment services, social commerce, headless commerce, customer experience, multichannel fulfillment, and holiday marketing.
Google Ads
Need More from Pay-per-click Ads? Try Planning

July 15, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Pay-per-click advertising is essential for many ecommerce and omnichannel retailers. Google, Facebook, and other ad platforms have made it easy to set up a campaign. PPC success, however, often depends on careful planning and preparation, not rushing out to place ads.
Customer Retention
Online Shopping, Post Covid, Retains Consumers

July 14, 2021 • Marcia Kaplan

Covid-19 brought a huge increase in online shopping. Many consumers became online shoppers for the first time. It appears that they will continue to rely on ecommerce for a myriad of items. Second-quarter 2021 results demonstrate that online shopping is holding on to much of its gains.
Google Ads
Understanding Dynamic Search Ads in 2021

July 13, 2021 • Matthew Umbro

Ecommerce sites often have hundreds or thousands of product pages. Creating keyword-based ads in Google for each page is laborious and sometimes impractical. That's the purpose of dynamic search ads. Advertisers can tell Google which pages and themes to target on their sites, and Google will dynamically show ads for those targets from relevant search queries.
Business
How to Track Profit from Products, Customers

July 12, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Unit economics provides ecommerce and omnichannel retailers with foundational intelligence that can identify break-even points and long-term sustainability. As the name implies, unit economics focuses on the value a single "unit" represents for the business. This unit can either be a product or a customer. Each of these reveals different, actionable information.
Email & Text Marketing
275 Free, Responsive Email Templates

July 12, 2021 • Sig Ueland

Whether you’re sending a newsletter, welcome message, product announcement, or holiday greetings, there are plenty of customizable email templates to match your brand and design on any device. Here is a list of responsive email templates.
Payments
The State of Cannabis Payments in U.S.

July 11, 2021 • Mike Eckler

How does the cannabis industry flourish when it is banned by federal law, shunned by the credit card networks, and rejected by most banks? How do cannabis retailers accept payments when credit cards and merchant accounts are unavailable? I'll examine those questions and more in this post.
Business
Happiness, not Profit, Drives Grasshopper Founder

July 9, 2021 • Eric Bandholz

Having sold Grasshopper, the virtual phone service, for $175 million in 2015, David Hauser assessed his priorities. Grasshopper was his third launch and exit, following ReturnPath (email services) and Chargify (subscription management).
Shipping & Fulfillment
How AI Powers Distribution, Logistics

July 8, 2021 • Elaine Porteous

Artificial intelligence is a list of instructions and rules that a computer needs to complete a task. Ecommerce examples include site search, product recommendations, and chatbots — all increasingly rely on AI. But the distribution and logistics industries use AI, too.
Link Building
CommerceCo Recap: A Process for SEO Link-building

July 8, 2021 • Armando Roggio

Link building could be the most daunting search engine optimization task. It requires near equal portions of research, creativity, and outreach resembling cold calls. It's also critical for prominent organic search rankings.
Conversion
Online Grocery Lessons from Covid-19

July 7, 2021 • Charles Nicholls

Covid-19 greatly changed the grocery industry, perhaps more than any retail sector. Years of projected evolution occurred in three months as the pandemic altered consumers' lives. eMarketer now estimates that 12.4% of total U.S. grocery sales in 2021 will be online.
Platforms & Apps
11 Platforms for Headless Commerce

July 6, 2021 • Sig Ueland

Headless commerce separates the frontend from the backend of a brand's web presence, in an API-first architecture. Headless technology can provide significant advantages in design and performance. Here is a list of platforms that facilitate a headless approach for ecommerce merchants.
Customer Service
Policy Pages, Done Well, Enhance a Brand

July 6, 2021 • Pamela Hazelton

Shoppers search an online store's policy pages for details on shipping, returns, and more. Rarely are these vital pages engaging. But they should be.
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for August 2021

July 5, 2021 • Armando Roggio

In August 2021, ecommerce and omnichannel retailers have many topics to choose from for content marketing, including back-to-school shopping guides, informative ebooks, MTV's 40th birthday, presidential jokes, and items with an international flavor.
Platforms & Apps
Ecommerce Product Releases: July 4, 2021

July 4, 2021 • Sig Ueland

Here is a list of product releases and updates for late June from companies that offer services to online merchants. There are updates on social commerce, subscription newsletters, payment solutions, email marketing, live-video shopping, last-mile deliveries, and drop shipping.
Business
Entrepreneur’s Eczema Inspires New Skincare Company

July 2, 2021 • Eric Bandholz

Felipe Correa is a pro at product development, custom manufacturing, and logistics. He also knows much about skin lotions, as he had eczema when young. And it's his frustrations with eczema that inspired Goodspread, a direct-to-consumer seller of skincare products that launched on June 7.
Platforms & Apps
Shopify Announces Online Store 2.0, More

July 1, 2021 • Armando Roggio

During its "Unite" event on June 29, Shopify announced significant changes to its ecommerce platform aimed at performance, ease of use, and empowering developers. The company also announced a new revenue-sharing model, giving app and theme creators 100% of revenue up to $1 million each year.
Business
June 2021 Top 10: Our Most Popular Posts

June 30, 2021 • PEC Staff

Our mission since 2005 is to publish independent content to help ecommerce merchants. What follows are the 10 most popular articles that we published in June 2021. Articles from early ...
Business
Book Excerpt: ‘The Digital Seeker’

June 29, 2021 • Armando Roggio

We go to the internet because we seek something: love . . .adventure . . . education . . . opportunity . . . the hot new gadget . . . the must-have holiday toy . . . an escape from our daily life. But when we get there, we find the internet is a frustrating place — because when it comes to choices, the internet has outdone itself.
Product Pages
Need Better Product Descriptions? Address Emotion, Logic

June 29, 2021 • Kaleena Stroud

Product descriptions drive conversions. Neuroscience confirms that people buy with emotion and justify the purchase with logic. So shoppers need to know the benefits to make an emotional decision and the features for a logical one. Let's look at examples.
Shipping & Fulfillment
10 Autonomous Robots for Last-mile Deliveries

June 28, 2021 • Sig Ueland

The future is here, sort of. Companies have staked out urban landscapes to test autonomous last-mile delivery systems on the streets and mobile food delivery robots on campus sidewalks. Here is a list of companies developing autonomous delivery robots and systems. Nearly all of these companies currently have live beta programs.
Amazon & Marketplaces
A Subdued Prime Day 2021 Despite Competitors

June 28, 2021 • Marcia Kaplan

Every year since 2017 I've written an analysis of Amazon's Prime Day. This year's review includes the online sales of certain competitors rather than Amazon alone. Amazon itself does not share complete Prime Day revenue figures.
Business
Vitaman.com Seeks Real Men for Hair, Skin Care

June 25, 2021 • Eric Bandholz

On his website, Antonio Centeno lists the businesses he owns. They include Real Men Real Style, a blog and YouTube channel with millions of readers and subscribers. Menfluential Media is an influencer ad network. And there's Vitaman, a direct-to-consumer online seller of organic skin and hair products for men.
Email & Text Marketing
Apple’s iOS 15 Could Improve Email Marketing

June 24, 2021 • Armando Roggio

When it's released this fall, Apple's iOS 15 could make capturing some email marketing metrics more difficult, which might improve performance. On June 7, 2021, Apple described some of the new privacy features it would offer in its forthcoming operating systems for the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac computers.