Comments on: Can You Ever Have Too Much Traffic? Yes, but you can never have too much conversion

By: Over 1,000 Blog Posts and Counting — The Stephen Cobb Blog

Over 1,000 Blog Posts and Counting — The Stephen Cobb Blog — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:39:20 +0000

[...] Can You Ever Have too Much Traffic? Yes, but you can never have too much conversion: Latest post from the Monetate marketing blog. [...]

By: Stephen Cobb

Stephen Cobb — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:56:03 +0000

Aaron — You’re quite right about the need to understand the entire digital marketing process, whether you do it in-house or through an agency. In both cases a rock solid digital marketing platform is key to delivering results without fails.

(Just to be clear, Herb’s comment was providing an example of failure to recognize the logistical implications of more traffic. He wasn’t the one who failed.)

Stephen

By: Aaron Savage

Aaron Savage — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:32:04 +0000

Its not the fact that you have more traffic than usual that is the problem here it is the fact that you have failed to recognise the logistical implications of more traffic. Very often the pipes into a site are left to IT to just sort out with no communication when peaks and troughs are planned. Burstable3 bandwidth is a great idea and should be on the lips of every marketer who is planning a campaign, not just left for the techies in IT to figure out at the last minute. This is why digital marketing is such a complex world, it requires a lot of skills that often have very little to do with each other but are essential to deliver success. In this case it is the marketers talking to the techies but there are plenty of other examples too. I would suggest enlisting the help of a digital marketing agency that has an overall understanding of the entire process not simply someone who has ideas but no knowledge of how to implement them.

By: Stephen Cobb

Stephen Cobb — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:59:24 +0000

Good point Herb, excess traffic can be a serious logistical issue. Serious online retailers spend significant amounts of time doing capacity planning and site configuration to avoid this nightmare scenario of traffic surges blowing out the purchase process.

This is one more reason that companies should be doing integrated marketing, where all the channels, like search and email, etc. are in sync with a. the site capacity, b. site messaging, c. product inventory.

In an ideal world you will have enough site capacity to cope with a. all the traffic your marketing brings you, b. the demand for whatever you are selling. But there is always a chance that one or more marketing campaigns will exceed expectations, bringing you more customers than you can handle. In bricks and mortar retailing this was typically thought of as “Not a bad problem to have.” You could hand out rain checks, substitute products, and otherwise convert the traffic.

Selling online is way different. Internet shoppers are looking for instant gratification and your nearest competitor is only a click away. Site logistics and marketing campaign logistics need to be managed with this aspect of excess traffic in mind.

Of course, my original point was that paying to get loads of traffic which then converts at a low rate is NOT the way to maximize ROI from your online business.

Stephen

By: Herb

Herb — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:11:26 +0000

I just heard a HORRIBLE story about an e-commerce company in an extremely seasonal niche that had so much organic search traffic this year that they were actually overrunning their max number of connections and therefore the new visitors were bumping people off the site before they were completing the check out process. Yikes!!