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-
Social Media
How to Create a Google+ Business Page
November 16, 2011 • Paul Chaney
Google announced last week that it has launched Pages for business in its Google+ social network. I addressed this topic in my "Social Retailer" blog last week and listed what I suggested are three possible benefits. Direct connection to search. Through the use of the "+1" button, ...
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Email & Text Marketing
Email Case Study: Toys“R”Us Gears Up for Cyber Monday
November 15, 2011 • Carolyn Nye
For online retailers, the days before and after Thanksgiving can determine a successful holiday season. Toys“R”Us, the large U.S.-based toy retailer, uses email marketing extensively during the holidays. I'll analyze Toys“R”Us's email strategies in this article — to help other merchants...
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Social Media
8 Businesses on Tumblr
November 9, 2011 • Sig Ueland
Of a Kind, the first store built on blogging platform Tumblr, is one year old. The site, which sells fashion items commissioned from emerging designers, is a mash-up of blog and ecommerce, providing personal content on its designers and their goods. While Of a Kind is still unique as ...
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Social Media
Using the New Delicious.com; 5 Advantages for Businesses
November 7, 2011 • Paul Chaney
Delicious is a longtime social bookmarking service for storing, discovering and sharing links to online resources. The site was founded in 2003, sold to Yahoo! in 2008, and sold again in 2011 to AVOS Systems, a company owned by Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, the founders of YouTube. Soci...
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Social Media
13 Crowdfunding Sites for Social-Cause Entrepreneurs
November 2, 2011 • Sig Ueland
Crowdfunding websites help entrepreneurs fund small businesses with financing from the community. For social-cause entrepreneurs, who venture to create a positive change in the world, crowdfunding sites can also provide financing and resources. Here is a list of crowdfunding sites that...
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Marketing & Advertising
8 Steps to Developing Ad Revenue from Your Website
November 1, 2011 • Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
There are three primary ways to monetize (that is, generate revenue from) a website. Ecommerce . Receive profits from direct sales of products or services.Affiliate marketing. Receive referral fees from merchants when a product or service you linked to results in a sale as a result of your link.
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Social Media
StumbleUpon: Social Bookmarking Traffic Generator
November 1, 2011 • Paul Chaney
StumbleUpon is a social bookmarking tool that allows users to share a website with others in their network. People use the tool to "stumble upon" web pages recommended by others that are matched to their personal preferences. How Does it Work? StumbleUpon uses a "thumbs up, thumbs do...
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Marketing & Advertising
5 Pointers for Using Facebook for Your Ecommerce Business
October 31, 2011 • Gagan Mehra
Many small retailers struggle with using Facebook to grow their business. Some have created Facebook pages, but are not seeing results. However, Facebook can work effectively for your business if it's used properly. Here are five pointers. 1. Make Sure Your Customers Use Facebook If...
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Google Ads
Pay-Per-Click Ads: 5 Tips for Higher Clicks this Holiday Season
October 28, 2011 • Scott Smigler
Google’s paid-click revenue grew by an astounding 28 percent last quarter, thanks in part to a 5 percent rise in click prices. It’s likely that Google will set ad revenue records this fourth quarter also, due to the increase in holiday ad spending. To online retailers, Google’s surge i...
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Influencers & Affiliates
Understanding Affiliate Marketing
October 27, 2011 • Carolyn Kmet
Editor's Note: We welcome as our newest contributor. She is director of affiliate marketing for Groupon, the deal-of-the day site, and the recent recipient of Affiliate Summit's "Affiliate Manager of the Year" award. Kmet's first piece — an overview of affiliate marketing — is below. ...
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Social Media
9 Tools for Mobile Blogging
October 24, 2011 • Paul Chaney
The world is moving toward an increasingly mobile lifestyle, and blogging is no different. No longer do you have to be constrained to a desktop or laptop to create posts.
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Email & Text Marketing
Writing Excellent Email Subject Lines
October 20, 2011 • Armando Roggio
A well written email subject line can increase open rates and, potentially, increase conversions. An email with a poorly written subject will probably get deleted. Subject line composition is as important to an email-marketing program as earning subscribers and providing great content ...
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Social Media
Understanding Facebook’s New ‘Insights’ Analytics
October 18, 2011 • Paul Chaney
Facebook recently launched a new, enhanced version of Insights, its analytics package for Fan pages. The old version contained lots of information — demographics, the total number of Likes/Unlikes, number of average daily users, and total page and post impressions — but nothing that hel...
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Email & Text Marketing
Email Case Study: Allrecipes.com Makes Daily Frequency Work
October 17, 2011 • Carolyn Nye
For many ecommerce sites, sending marketing emails every day may be scary, fearing that recipients will unsubscribe based on the number of emails they are receiving. However, sending daily emails ...
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Influencers & Affiliates
SEO: Using Affiliates for Search Marketing
October 13, 2011 • Jill Kocher Brown
Working in the organic search industry, I’ve often had large search marketing clients who envied the success of their affiliates, which sometimes outperformed their own in-house search marketing efforts. But Carolyn Tang Kmet opened my eyes to the ways that search affiliates can actuall...
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Google Ads
Paid Search: Can Anyone Challenge Google?
October 12, 2011 • Marcia Kaplan
We can end the suspense right now. It's not likely that any other company is going to be a real contender in paid search anytime soon. The Search Alliance formed by Microsoft's adCenter and Yahoo! makes Bing the default search engine on Yahoo! pages. Although Microsoft has spent a good ...
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Social Media
Social Media: Become a ‘One Percenter’
October 10, 2011 • Paul Chaney
Years ago, usability expert Jakob Nielsen developed the "Community Participation Pyramid," which some observers now call the "90-9-1 Principle." It states: 90 percent of web users are lurkers — read or observe, but don't contribute; 9 percent of users contribute from time to time, bu...
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Social Media
Facebook Platform Changes, Part 2: Pages
October 4, 2011 • Paul Chaney
At its recent f8 developers' conference, Facebook announced extensive changes to its platform, including changes to personal "Profiles" and business-oriented "Pages." I described the changes to Profiles in last week's article. This article, below, addresses changes to Pages. 1. Intera...
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Google Ads
Ramping Up Holiday Pay-per-click Advertising
September 29, 2011 • Scott Smigler
The holidays are coming. For many online merchants, this means dramatically increased revenue and conversion rates. Start ramping up for holiday pay-per-click advertising now to ensure that you maximize your profits — and build momentum for 2012. Below I’ve provided six tips that shou...
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Social Media
Facebook Platform Changes, Part 1: Profiles
September 26, 2011 • Paul Chaney
At f8 2011, Facebook's annual conference held last week for developers and entrepreneurs, founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a series of changes to the social network's platform. Most of the changes affect personal profiles, but some have to do with how Fan pages work. I will o...
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Social Media
5 New Facebook Shopping Carts
September 19, 2011 • Paul Chaney
It has been more than a year since I wrote about Facebook shopping carts. That article was titled “Six Facebook Applications to Sell Your Products.” In this article, I’ll review five ...
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Content Marketing
15 ‘Light-Blogging’ Sites
September 16, 2011 • Sig Ueland
More people are light blogging. According to Quantcast, in the last year Tumblr tripled its visits per month to over 300 million, 8.5 times more page views per month than full-blogging counterpart Wordpress.com. Here is a list of light-blogging platforms. There are micro-blogging platf...
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Marketing & Advertising
Nearly 1-in-3 Adults Use Location-Based Services
September 15, 2011 • Armando Roggio
According to a report released last week, 28 percent of American adults use some form of location-based service, either on a mobile device or via a social network. The report from ...
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Email & Text Marketing
Email Case Study: Travelzoo’s Value and Simplicity
September 14, 2011 • Carolyn Nye
Email campaigns can be extraordinarily complex. There are dozens of elements within any campaign that may affect overall results. These elements include subject lines, creative text, calls to action, product offers, timing, frequency, and audience considerations. Email marketers try to ...
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Marketing & Advertising
7 Keys to Managing Online Communities
September 12, 2011 • Paul Chaney
In last week’s article, "3 Inexpensive Tools to Build Your Own Social Network," I reviewed three platforms to build niche online communities. However, making a community a vital part of your marketing efforts takes more effort than selecting the platform. It needs active management. Thi...
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Social Media
3 Inexpensive Tools to Build Your Own Social Network
September 6, 2011 • Paul Chaney
When we think of social networks, large communities like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn typically come to mind. There is, however, another type of social network that often goes overlooked: niche communities. Ecommerce merchants should consider creating their own niche online communit...
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Marketing & Advertising
Adult Internet Users Are Socialites, Study Finds
September 6, 2011 • Armando Roggio
According to a new study, 65 percent of American adult Internet users have interacted on a social media site like Facebook, Google+, or LinkedIn, supporting the often cited importance of social media marketing. The social networking report from the Pew Internet & American Life Proj...
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Marketing & Advertising
Podcasting Engages Shoppers; Steps for Getting Started
September 1, 2011 • Armando Roggio
Podcasting can be an effective way to engage shoppers and encourage brand or site loyalty, resulting in more sales. What's more, podcasting is relatively easy and inexpensive for businesses small and large. Nearly any marketer can start podcasting almost immediately. If one needs more ...
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Social Media
Google’s +1 Expansion Boosts Search and Social
August 31, 2011 • Jill Kocher Brown
The Google +1 button now plays a much more visible role in promoting content in search and social marketing. Much like Facebook's Like button, Google's +1 button allows — as of last week — Google+ users to share a comment, an image, a headline and a snippet of text when +1'ing a page. C...
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Social Media
Understanding EdgeRank, Facebook’s ‘Quality Score’ for Wall Posts
August 30, 2011 • Paul Chaney
Just because you post a status update to your Facebook Wall doesn't mean it gets syndicated to each of your Fans. Last year, Facebook created an algorithm called EdgeRank that determines which posts get shown to whom in the Newsfeed. Thanks to EdgeRank, every post that gets published ...
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