Posted June 24th, 2010, by Tom Ellis
Welcome to the kickoff post in Monetate’s summer blog series: “Lunches with Brett.” Who’s Brett? Brett is Brett Bair, the ecommerce mastermind here at Monetate.
Brett is not the guy in the picture. That’s me, Tom Ellis, the lowly Wharton MBA summer intern, and I’m looking to glean weekly nuggets of marketing knowledge from Brett and share them with the larger web community.
Specifically, I am focusing on best practices—things that all online retailers, or indeed anyone in the ecommerce world—should be doing to optimize their websites to drive sales.
CAUTION: Information beyond this point is only for those who want to differentiate themselves and become consistently more profitable than their competition…
This week’s theme is “Beyond the Landing Page.” It’s about providing your customers with a consistent, full-site experience for a given marketing campaign… Read the rest of this entry »
Posted June 17th, 2010, by Stephen Cobb
What irony! The best-known quote about badges refers to “stinking badges” despite the fact that badges are generally not stinky. In fact, they are almost always a good thing. From merit badges to badges of honor, most real world connotations have been positive. And now digital badges are proving both positive and helpful to e-commerce.
I’m talking about the badges you see on retail websites. These online store badges say things like: New Arrival; Staff Favorite; Special Value; and Top Pick. (The example on the left is from one of our clients, Freshpair, whose site sports one of the great e-commerce taglines: “buy underwear in your underwear”.)
Placing badges on product shots can make a big difference to the way shoppers interact with your site. In fact, whenever our clients have introduced badging the effects have been positive (defined as an increase in conversion rate, an increase in average order value, or both). In my opinion the most likely reason for this is that… Read the rest of this entry »
Posted June 10th, 2010, by Stephen Cobb
In the spirit on sharing hi-tech marketing tips and tricks as fast as possible, we thought we would pass along our experience using Apple iPads to demonstrate our marketing software at this week’s Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition (IRCE).
IRCE is the largest annual event for online retailers and attendance is up this year. That means a lot of traffic in the aisles, which is good, but how do you get all of those people to take a look at your product? This might be the answer:
Here you see Marc Hatton, Monetate’s Sales Director, with one of a number of iPads which we’re using at IRCE to demonstrate our testing, targeting, and personalization services.
Before the iPad, the normal strategy for making sure everyone passing your booth could at least catch a glimpse of your demo was… Read the rest of this entry »
Posted June 9th, 2010, by Stephen Cobb
Who is Blair Lyon and why were his Monetate business cards scattered on the street around the Chicago Hilton this week? Here are the bullet points:
Blair’s Monetate business cards, from Next Day Flyers, were supposed to be delivered to the Chicago Hilton by Fedex on Monday.- Several hundred of Blair’s cards were spotted on the sidewalk in the vicinity of Wabash and 8th on Monday morning, while Blair was still in Philadelphia.
- By late Monday his cards had been spotted as far north as Jackson and Michigan.
- Nobody who works for Monetate would ever intentionally litter the streets of Chicago or any other city.
So who is Blair and what were his cards doing in the street? Inquiring minds want to know, especially marketing minds, and particularly marketing minds attending IRCE, the Internet Retailer Conference and Exposition at McCormick Place in Chicago this week… Read the rest of this entry »
Posted June 8th, 2010, by Stephen Cobb
Several members of Team Monetate will be in Chicago this week at the world’s largest event for Internet retailers: IRCE (as is “Internet Retailer Conference and Exposition” opening today at the McCormick center).
Success at trade shows often hinges on what you do before you get there. When you’re prepping for an event like this it’s important to make sure everyone is “on message.” At high traffic trade shows it’s just not possible to show off every feature of every product to everyone who stop by your booth.
So we decided to focus on 3 features at IRCE that are unique to the Monetate Real-time Marketer product, things we can do for online retailers that nobody else can. Our feature picks went out in a news release but I will be going into more detail about the dynamic trio here on the blog:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted June 2nd, 2010, by Stephen Cobb
We’re delighted to announce today that Bryan Eisenberg has joined Monetate’s Strategic Advisory Board. For many people, Bryan needs no introduction; his name is synonymous with thought leadership in the online marketing space.
However, for those not yet familiar with Bryan’s work, I thought I would supplement today’s press release with some helpful links to resources by and about Bryan, all good stuff for anyone looking to get up to speed in online marketing (and accelerate out ahead of the competition).
Sure, you could Google Bryan yourself and come up with a lot of stuff, but the following links should make it easier to zero in on the good stuff:
Webinars: You may still have time to catch Bryan at the Master Webinar Series today, June 2. The title is: “Activate the Ten Steps to a Higher Conversion Rate.” The webinar is at 2:00 pm EST, 11 am PST and you can click the link to register (each webinar attendee will receive an electronic copy of the “Persuasive Online Copywriting” ebook). Read the rest of this entry »
David Brussin
Stephen Cobb
Blair Lyon
Tom Ellis