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Marketing & Advertising

The marketing of an ecommerce business is paramount to its success. Our coverage includes insights on email marketing, content marketing, pay-per-click advertising, social media marketing — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest — affiliate marketing, video advertising, and much more.

Content Marketing | Email & Text Marketing | Google Ads | Influencers & Affiliates | Social Media
  • Marketing & Advertising

    Twitter for Ecommerce Merchants

    February 21, 2013 •

    Many retailers have discovered that Twitter is an effective way to communicate with their customers and prospects. A recent study for Twitter by Compete reported that Twitter users are more likely to buy online, versus the general public. They are also 1.4 times more likely to make an ...

  • Social Media

    Facebook Power Editor: Time-saving Ad Management Tool

    February 19, 2013 •

    Facebook’s Power Editor can help administrators manage multiple ad campaigns and Pages with greater efficiency. Facebook created it primarily for agencies with multiple client accounts. But Power Editor offers benefits ...

  • Social Media

    Search Result Domination with Social Media

    February 15, 2013 •

    Social media and organic search work hand in hand, but not in the way most people think. Building up a grand social media presence will not drive link authority back to your ecommerce site. The major social networks have long since stripped the link authority from their outbound links...

  • Marketing & Advertising

    6 Ways to Measure Social Media

    February 15, 2013 •

    Measuring social media effectiveness can seem daunting. It is less clear-cut and more complex than other, more traditional marketing channels. But measuring your social media efforts is possible, and it's crucial to your overall marketing strategy.

  • Social Media

    10 Google Chrome Social Media Apps

    February 14, 2013 •

    Google's Chrome Web Store offers many applications for that browser. These include apps for businesses — to help with accounting, invoicing, creating documents, setting appointments, logging phone calls, and performing other critical business functions. They also include sales and marke...

  • Email & Text Marketing

    Email Marketing: 5 Ways to Generate Immediate Sales

    February 14, 2013 •

    Email serves many functions for ecommerce businesses. It's a method of sending order confirmations and shipping notifications. It also delivers valuable content via newsletters. The goal of each function differs widely, depending on your site and the average sales cycle and order value....

  • Social Media

    Facebook ‘Nearby’ Increases Mobile Search Capability

    February 12, 2013 •

    Facebook knows a lot about what its users like. Thanks to a recent upgrade of its mobile app, a feature called Nearby turns that information into meaningful search data that local businesses with a Facebook Page and physical location can turn to their advantage. Considering that more th...

  • Social Media

    Selling on Facebook Easier for Smaller Merchants

    February 8, 2013 •

    The merits of selling goods on Facebook are a topic of much debate. Several large retailers, including GameStop, Gap, jcpenney, and Nordstrom, experienced disappointing results and shut down their Facebook stores within months. But according to Sucharita Mulpuru, retail analyst at For...

  • Email & Text Marketing

    Making Emails Responsive to Tablets, Smartphones

    February 7, 2013 •

    In "Optimizing Ecommerce for Tablets and Smartphones," my article last month, I addressed responsive design, the practice of coding a website to automatically adjust to the size of a user's Internet device. This month, I extend that discussion to include outbound emails, so that the ...

  • Social Media

    6 Twitter Marketing Lessons from the Super Bowl Blackout

    February 7, 2013 •

    Several large brands — including Oreo and Tide — took advantage of Super Bowl 47's blackout to quickly create Twitter ads. Oreo's ad reminded followers that "You can still dunk in the dark," while Tide declared "We can't get your blackout. But we can get your stains out." Other brands...

  • Marketing & Advertising

    The 5 C’s of Integrated Marketing

    February 6, 2013 •

    The idea of integrated marketing is to make sure that the internal and external messaging of a company is consistent across all communication and sales channels. A big part of this is to make sure that ecommerce is not merely a platform for sales, but an opportunity to reach existing ...

  • Email & Text Marketing

    Using Sales Data to Automate Email Marketing

    February 6, 2013 •

    Customers are the bloodline of any business. For ecommerce businesses, it’s particularly important to focus on creating recurring, loyal customers. This centers on understanding customer sales and shopping data, and using that information to develop profitable, automated email campaigns...

  • Marketing & Advertising

    Influencing How Google Displays Your Page Description

    February 5, 2013 •

    The brief preview text that appears below the links to your pages in Google's search results can be influenced by savvy marketers to improve site traffic through engineered meta descriptions. Read on for details.

  • Social Media

    2 Ways to Create Facebook Ads

    February 5, 2013 •

    A number of changes have taken place at Facebook with regard to how businesses use the platform. I will be reporting on these over the next few weeks. In this article, I discuss changes made to Facebook Ads. Recently, Facebook revised its advertising platform to make it easier for bu...

  • Social Media

    Can New Myspace Help Ecommerce Businesses?

    February 2, 2013 •

    Myspace is one social network I thought I would never address again, especially in a business context. The site became the most popular social network in 2005 and surpassed Google as the most visited website in 2006. In later years, use of the site quickly declined due to the growing ...

  • Social Media

    10 Ways Merchants Can Use Google+

    January 30, 2013 •

    The continued growth of Google+, along with an increased understanding of the nature of the platform, has caused many companies to establish a presence there. Google has also positioned Google+ as a channel businesses can use. With that in mind, here are 10 ways you can take advantage...

  • Influencers & Affiliates

    Affiliate Marketing: Beyond Banner Ads to Drive Traffic

    January 29, 2013 •

    Affiliate marketing extends beyond a standard banner ad. While you should offer your affiliates a solid creative inventory — featuring a wide variety of campaigns and sizes — you should also ensure that you are providing tools for affiliates who use other forms of advertising to drive ...

  • Google Ads

    6 Rules for Pay-per-click Ad Profits

    January 28, 2013 •

    I often hear from merchants that have tried pay-per-click advertising, but it wasn’t profitable for them. So they abandoned it. In my experience, however, many merchants could turn unprofitable campaigns into profitable ones by adopting the six rules that follow. Rule 1: Commit to PPC...

  • Marketing & Advertising

    7 Keys to Ecommerce Blogging Success

    January 22, 2013 •

    Business blogs serve many functions. They can inform consumers of news about your company, highlight upcoming events, promote products and services, or demonstrate expertise and thought-leadership. However, a successful blog requires careful planning. These seven keys will help you be...

  • Social Media

    Facebook Takes on Local Search

    January 17, 2013 •

    Consumers use the Internet to search for local businesses, events, and topics. Google is a major player in local search, but so is Bing, Yahoo!, Yelp, YellowPages.com, Foursquare, and other sites. Local search now has a new competitor: Facebook Graph Search. Launched this week, Facebo...

  • Email & Text Marketing

    Email Marketing: 4 Tips for Sending to Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo!

    January 17, 2013 •

    An email is effective only if it is successfully delivered to the recipient. Moreover, getting the email to the inbox, versus the spam or junk folder, increases the chances of the message being read. Deliverability is a crucial element in the overall success of an email program. It ca...

  • Social Media

    10 Tips for Syndicating Blog Content

    January 16, 2013 •

    Blogging is hard work. It takes much time to research a topic, write copy, and find useful images, videos, and infographics. But writing a post is only the first step. For ...

  • Email & Text Marketing

    Don’t Forget Email Marketing; 13 Reasons

    January 11, 2013 •

    With all the focus on social media, it seems that email marketing is almost an afterthought for many companies. Email may not be trendy, but it’s cheap, easy to measure, and easy to target. It's a good place to do testing, it keeps your brand visible, and at the end of the day it delive...

  • Social Media

    8 Instagram Photo-Sharing Alternatives

    January 8, 2013 •

    Photo-sharing site Instagram created a controversy recently when it proposed a change in its terms of service that would have allowed the company to incorporate user generated images in ads without users' permission. The company has since reconsidered its decision. Having written "10 W...

  • Google Ads

    Pay-per-click Advertising: 7 Predictions for 2013

    January 3, 2013 •

    2012 was a big year for pay-per-click advertising. Many online retailers saw their PPC budgets, conversion rates, and return-on-ad-spend grow nicely. At the same time, cost-per-click rates dropped precipitously for Product Listing Ads and mobile ads. Looking forward, here are my top sev...

  • Social Media

    Using Instagram for your Ecommerce Business

    January 2, 2013 •

    Popular photo-sharing app Instagram — which Facebook acquired earlier this year — is now used by businesses. Of 100 leading brands, 54 have incorporated Instagram, according to Simply Measured, an analytics firm. Here is how you can start using Instagram to market your products and ser...

  • Social Media

    10 Ways to Encourage Customer Ratings and Reviews

    December 26, 2012 •

    According to Nielsen’s "Global Trust in Advertising and Brand Messages" report, which surveyed more than 28,000 Internet respondents in 56 countries, 92 percent of consumers said they trust recommendations from friends and family above all other forms of advertising. From an ecommerce ...

  • Email & Text Marketing

    Remember a Holiday ‘Thank You’ Email

    December 19, 2012 •

    As the 2012 Christmas shopping season comes to a close, online retailers should take the time to sincerely thank customers and offer appropriate holiday greetings. Email marketing often reaches its peak during the weeks leading up to December 25. Many, if not most, Internet retailers a...

  • Social Media

    5 Sites for Consumer Product Discovery

    December 18, 2012 •

    Social media has inspired a new kind of shopping that is based on peer-to-peer sharing of content on sites like Pinterest, Etsy, or Shopcade, and less known sites such as LoveIt or Wanelo. This consumer-driven trend is referred to as "discovery." For many consumers, shopping is as muc...

  • Email & Text Marketing

    3 Common Email Marketing Mistakes

    December 18, 2012 •

    There were some fantastic email campaigns in 2012. And there were some ineffective ones, too. In this article, I'll address three of the top email marketing mistakes from 2012. Sending Emails Too Frequently As an email marketing professional, I subscribe to hundreds of ecommerce em...

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