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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

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...
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...
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...
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. ...
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.
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 ...
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...
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 ...
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...
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 ...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 ...
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...
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 ...
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 ...
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...
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...
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...
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 ...
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...
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 ...
Google Ads
10 Pay-Per-Click Details You Cannot Delegate

August 29, 2011 • Scott Smigler

Many ecommerce merchants manage their own pay-per-click advertising campaigns. Others use in-house PPC managers, or outsource to PPC consulting firms. Regardless of how pay-per-click advertising is managed, there are some aspects of it that need direct involvement from merchants — or t...
Social Media
6 Tools to Manage Your Social Media Marketing

August 29, 2011 • Armando Roggio

Social media marketing is one of the most-discussed marketing tactics in the ecommerce industry. Many companies are devoting a greater percentage of resources and effort into engaging customers and prospects ...
Social Media
10 Tips for Integrating Email and Social Media

August 25, 2011 • Paul Chaney

Is social media diluting email marketing? For many ecommerce merchants, email marketing remains a staple. In a recent interview with Practical eCommerce, Listrak CEO Ross Kramer said, "We just came back from Etail [trade show] this week, and from the retailers that I was talking to up...
Email & Text Marketing
3 Tips to Boost Email Conversion Rates

August 24, 2011 • Armando Roggio

According to published reports, some 92 percent of American adults use email. Many of them are subscribers to one or more email newsletters or product alerts. So it is little ...
Email & Text Marketing
Create RSS-to-Email Campaigns with MailChimp

August 22, 2011 • Armando Roggio

Email is one of the most potent tactics in the ecommerce marketer's toolbox. Recent studies — which I addressed last week — indicate that email is a favorite activity for adult American Internet users. MailChimp, a leading email-marketing service provider, has a terrific feature that a...
Social Media
Facebook’s Business Playbook: 4 Educational Portals

August 22, 2011 • Paul Chaney

Facebook has assembled four educational portals to help businesses manage their use of the platform. The portals cover topics such as creating Facebook pages, advertising on Facebook, selling products on Facebook, and using Facebook for marketing. I'll review each of the portals in t...

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