Posted August 23rd, 2010, by Tom Ellis
To My Kind Followers: Alas, it’s the final week of my internship here at Monetate for soon I must return to Wharton to complete the last year of my MBA. So please, sit back, relax and enjoy the final installment of “Lunches with Brett.”
As I was chowing down on my chicken salad sandwich, Brett and I were discussing how promotional email campaigns have the potential to be one of the most effective marketing tools. After all, some people on your email list are probably customers already and others have shown enough interest in you to hand over their email address. It reminds me of that line from Alec Baldwin’s character Blake, the real estate sales shark in the film version of Glengarry Glen Ross: “a guy don’t walk on the lot lest he wants to buy.”
According to Brett, a person on your email list could be considered a warm lead, the hard part is done. But I’d done some research in preparation for our lunch… Read the rest of this entry »
Posted August 17th, 2010, by Tom Ellis
Hi everyone, thanks for tuning in to the fifth and penultimate installment of “Lunches with Brett.” This lunch includes a special guest appearance by marketing guru Bryan Eisenberg (a member of Monetate’s Strategic Advisory board).
I have to say it’s amazing what you can learn over half a sandwich and a bowl of soup when two marketing mega-brains like Brett and Bryan get together. As I see it, the best practices that are now emerging in the e-commerce space are being driven by insights from user experience and site optimization gurus like Bryan Eisenberg, then enabled by the amazing technological advances in website marketing tools.
When Bryan joined us during a recent mid-day break he shared with us the importance of “maintaining the scent” (hint: he was not referring to the lingering aroma of grilled Reuben sandwiches). Read the rest of this entry »
Posted August 6th, 2010, by Tom Ellis
Hi everyone, Tom here, back from my fourth lunch with Brett, who blew my mind when he put down his turkey wrap and said: “Let’s talk about leveraging geo-centric buy-in to target and optimize under-performing segments—I think it’s an emerging e-commerce best practice.”
“Why is that?” I asked, before Brett could take another bite. His reply: “It’s usually good for a 5 percent increase in conversion rate or average order value; maybe both, maybe more.”
Now here’s the thing about Brett and numbers: He’s very conservative. And here’s the thing about best practices that add 5 percent to your key metrics: Even if you implement just a handful of them in your online store, they can quickly add up… Read the rest of this entry »
Posted August 3rd, 2010, by Stephen Cobb
Even as online retailers are being pelted with back-to-school marketing tips—like these helpful “8 Trends to Tap” from NextDayFlyers.com—the early warnings are going up for the 2010 holiday season.
My reaction? Well, as the saying goes: “It’s about time.”
Two weeks ago, Lisa Morgan over at Practical eCommerce cautioned, and I would concur:
“The economy is still shaky, customers remain fickle, and if you’re not prepared you could miss out on the most important shopping season of the year.” (Gearing Up for the 2010 Holiday Season)
Then today I get an email from Internet Retailer headlined “Only 115 Days ’til Black Friday.” The message is actually a teaser for the Online Retailer Survival Guide put together by website performance specialist Keynote, but it’s worth registering and checking out the content. Keynote’s point, and it’s a good one, is that…
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted July 22nd, 2010, by Tom Ellis
Hey everyone—Tom here again. I know it might not look like I’m here, but I am. (There is nothing wrong with your computer, do not adjust your set.) That faceless ”picture” of me is there to underline a point I am about to make, or rather, a point that Brett was making during one of our recent lunches.
If you caught the first two installments of my summer blog series, Lunches with Brett, you will know that Brett covered several important landing page tips. This week he was keen to talk about something different, something you might call “the lost art of online customer service.”
Brett also wanted to debunk some myths about website personalization, including the perception some companies have that the technical challenge is too big, and the return on investment is too unpredictable, to make it worth doing. So let’s looks at the facts, as Brett sees them from his position, that is, totally immersed in website optimization.
Fact #1: People love personalized attention. Whether we are physically in a store or shopping online it makes no difference, we humans love personal attention. And yet many e-commerce sites seem content to treat each online customer like just another blank face (see image above).
Do you know of any customers who appreciate this sort of generic, unfeeling treatment? I didn’t think so. At best, this type of impersonal service will do nothing; at worst it will spurn resentment, disloyalty and possibly even permanent defection. Here are some interesting recent statistics on this very topic. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted July 12th, 2010, by Tom Ellis
Welcome back to Monetate’s summer blog series: “Lunches with Brett.” If you missed the first installment, allow me to introduce myself, I’m the guy in the picture, Tom Ellis, a Wharton MBA summer intern here at Monetate, and I’m busy gathering nuggets of marketing knowledge from Brett Bair, the ecommerce mastermind here at Monetate.
In the first installment Brett revealed some great ideas about landing pages (if you haven’t read, it, you should, now, then come back and read on). Fortunately, when you’ve got someone like Brett on your team, there’s more where that came from, which brings me to this week’s theme: The Landing Page Anchor.
What is a “landing page anchor?” I asked Brett over a particularly tasty turkey club sandwich over here at our headquarters on the north side of Philadelphia.
Brett began his answer by explaining that the landing pages which a site visitor sees upon clicking the best search results tend to contain the most relevant information, by design. Typically, these are pages that… Read the rest of this entry »
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 May 27th, 2010, by Stephen Cobb
Just as many schools are letting out for the summer, a lot of folks in the field of e-commerce are heading into a season of learning. In the next few months the latest developments in online retailing will be studied closely by people with titles like CMO, CIO, CTO, and COO, plus SVPs, VPs, Directors, and Managers of things like Marketing, Online Merchandising, eCommerce, Analytics, Usability, Testing, and Website Operations.
All these folks will be researching the latest e-commerce strategies, techniques, and technologies, all with a keen eye for improving the return on their organization’s e-commerce spend. In my opinion, one of the best ways to do that research is to… Read the rest of this entry »
Posted April 22nd, 2010, by Stephen Cobb
The GPS capabilities of smartphones can be dazzling but I think they could be leading some retailers to overlook a different and potentially more profitable type of location-based marketing. I’m talking about geo-targeted marketing opportunities that have nothing to do with mobile devices, opportunities with more revenue potential than anything currently triggered by GPS.
I wrote about this recently in an article that appeared in All About Retail Online Integration. I pointed out that an overwhelming majority of online purchases are still made from notebooks and desktops. What follows is an updated and extended version of that article:
The fact that smartphones can display information which reflects their physical location is generating a lot of buzz. Marketers are getting positive results when using this capability—made possible by GPS technology—for adverts, offers, and coupons. However, marketers should not overlook the fact that any web site, any online store, can market and merchandise relative to location, without GPS. That’s because, whenever you visit a web site from your desktop or notebook or netbook, the site can determine the general location of your device based on its IP address.
This simple fact of Internet technology creates the potential to market and merchandise relative to location, but… Read the rest of this entry »
Posted April 7th, 2010, by Stephen Cobb
Weather-related targeting of web site traffic was the subject of my last post and now it’s the subject of a short demonstration video we just recorded (there’s a link below).
In the video we used a scenario very much like the one I discussed in the previous blog post: automatically pitching snow boots to folks who visit your online store from places where it’s snowing. (It’s not that I’m obsessed with snow boots, but they are a handy example to use when explaining this type of marketing strategy.)
Of course, the bigger picture here is the idea that online stores can, when properly configured, react to local conditions in real time, in the great tradition of real-world retailing. I’m sure we’ve all seen a storekeeper move a stack of umbrellas to the front of the store during a sudden rain shower, and for good reason: it’s a great opportunity to sell more umbrellas.
You can watch the video without leaving the blog by clicking here. If you would like to see more videos about testing web content and targeting specific traffic segments, check out this page on the main web site. And please, feel free to let us know what you think. We would like to document those aspects of testing and targeting that you find most interesting.
Posted March 25th, 2010, by Stephen Cobb
Wild weather struck many parts of the world this Winter but some savvy retailers were employing weather-based geo-targeting of web site traffic to use that weather to their advantage. Now that Spring is here and the last of the snow has come and gone—hopefully—the time is ripe to look at how retailers can benefit from weather-based merchandising online, even if that weather is unseasonable.
Consider a simple example, an offer of free shipping on snow boots that will be displayed as a banner on the site’s home page; but this offer will only be shown to people who visit the site from locations where it’s snowing.
This is accomplished by checking the weather at the physical location associated with the IP address of the computer from which the site visitor is doing their browsing (there are several ways you can do this, for example this feature is built into Monetate Real-time Marketer) .
Online campaigns of this type can win you extra sales in several ways. First of all, suppose someone lands on your home page and it’s snowing where they are; they see the offer even if they didn’t come to your site looking for snow boots. The offer could trigger an impulse purchase. In fact, you might be able to snag impulse purchases without giving up margin, for example, by displaying a message like “Check out our great selection of snow boots” instead of an offer. Read the rest of this entry »
David Brussin
Stephen Cobb
Blair Lyon
Tom Ellis