Get Back-to-School Quick, the Holidays Are Coming (just 115 days to Black Friday)

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…

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Posted in Blog, Strategy, testing

Bryan Eisenberg on how Monetate takes marketing to the next level

Posted July 19th, 2010, by Stephen Cobb

Chances are, you already know that Bryan Eisenberg is a recognized authority and pioneer in online marketing. What you may not know is that he recently joined Monetate’s Strategic Advisory Board. In this short video, Bryan talks about testing, online retailing, and how Monetate is “taking this to the next level.” Here’s what he has to say.

Obviously, we are very excited about Bryan’s enthusiasm for Monetate. When you spend years developing a radical new approach to a seemingly intractable problem it is very rewarding when an established expert in the field validates your approach. And with Bryan’s insight and input we will be able to make Monetate even better.

BTW, if you don’t know who Bryan is, a good place to find out is the news release about his decision to join the Monetate Strategic Advisory Board.

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Posted in Blog, Industry, News, Opinion, marketing, testing

Which 3 Product Features to Highlight? We picked a dynamic trio of marketing marvels

Posted June 8th, 2010, by Stephen Cobb

Sales Director Marc Hatton demos Monetate booth 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:

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Posted in Blog, Personalization, marketing, testing

How Was Your President’s Day? Marketing real events in real-time

Posted February 16th, 2010, by Stephen Cobb

Abraham_LincolnI can’t remember who was president the last time I took a day off work for President’s Day. It’s not that I’m lacking respect for our past presidents but—like a lot of other people who work in I.T, retail, marketing, and a range of other industries—I usually find that the work has to go on despite this particular holiday.

However, I did do some Presidents’ Day shopping, starting with special offers that arrived via email first thing in the morning. Here’s one of those emails, sent to me under the very simple subject line of  ”Presidents’ Day Event — Save up to 70%” from OfficeMax:

Obviously, OfficeMax was following the time-honored Presidents’ Day marketing tradition of promotions that discount a select group of products.

One product promotion that caught my eye was the Brother Labeler (putting labels on things is something I’m always planning to do, but somehow I never get round to it, often because I can’t find the last labeler I bought). From a marketing perspective, OfficeMax was already making considerable progress with this particular consumer. I had not only opened the email but paid attention to the contents. Then they scored a “click-thru” as I clicked on the labeler offer and arrived at the product page on the OfficeMax web site.

presidents-day-marketingYou can see the product page here. What you can’t see, because it wasn’t there, was any reference to Presidents’ Day. The price of $9.99 matched that quoted in the email offer, but this was referred to as INSTANT SAVINGS and not a Presidents’ Day promotion.

And that raises an interesting marketing question: To what extent is conversion affected by discontinuity of messaging?

Note that I am not criticizing OfficeMax here, for all I know I was in a control group or A/B test of visitors who were shown the product page without a Presidents’ Day sticker on it. Furthermore, I’m not saying that adding a Presidents’ Day sticker would have clinched the deal for me or any other shopper. What I’m saying is that it might make a difference, might trigger a conversion, but you don’t know unless you test.

There is plenty of evidence that marketing around real-time events is effective (heck, in the world of brick-and-mortar retailing it’s a tradition far older than Presidents’ Day). Where online retailing can really shine is in testing the extent to which degrees of real-time connection prove effective for virtual shoppers, then capitalizing on those test results. Of course, doing that requires a very nimble real-time marketing platform. Fortunately, such things do exist and can be put in place very quickly, hopefully in time for the next big real-time marketing event.

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Posted in Blog, Strategy, real-time marketing, testing

Test Landings and Reduced Bounce Rates

Posted September 27th, 2008, by Stephen Cobb

No, we’re not talking about missions to Mars, but we are talking about bounces and landings. Specifically, we are pondering some more solid advice from Jason Burby, writing on ClickZ about the importance of e-commerce site testing, specifically the testing of landing pages:

“Testing of landing pages from campaigns, partners, and paid search can be a great place to start testing and can return a high ROI (define). Often this traffic is just dumped on a generic landing page, product page, or–worst of all–the home page. Take a look at that traffic’s bounce rate. You spend all sorts of money on that traffic, then watch it land, turn around, and immediately leave. Test different versions of landing pages that tie specifically to what they clicked on to get them to the site.”

This advice is right on the money (and following it will save/make you money). From what we have seen, there’s little doubt that something as simple as carrying a logo or phrase through from a paid search link to the point of site entry–the landing page–will increase conversions by double digits. The same goes for email campaigns. Even the best email campaigns will return better numbers if they are backed by a “post-click” strategy.

Of course, Monetate can do a whole lot more for you than simplify the testing of landing pages, but if you are looking for a quick and easy way to evaluate how your landing pages could work harder, and convert landers from bouncers into buyers, then you really should check out Monetate’s targeting capabilities. To whet your appetite, here’s a high-level look at the targeting choices offered by Monetate within the Landing category:

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Posted in Personalization, Strategy, testing