Thank You for Reading! Two years and more than 100 posts

Posted August 28th, 2010, by Stephen Cobb

2 Years of Monetate Marketing BlogThat’s right marketing fans, the first Monetate blog post was penned by yours truly exactly two years ago today!

I have since written a total of 100 posts for this blog. Add to that the 6 posts penned by Tom Ellis, Marketing’s Wharton MBA Summer Intern, and the total post count now stands at 106, an average of just over one per week.

In fact, I had not paid much attention to the total blog count until I started writing a post to highlight Tom’s delightful series of enthusiastic posts, which you can access with this link: Marketing Best Practices: 6 Lunches with Brett.

It was only when I noticed, on the WordPress dashboard, that we were into triple digits, that I decided to check the start date of the blog: August 28, 2008. So, to those readers who have followed along from the beginning I wanted to say a big “Thank You!” for hanging in there, and for your feedback and encouragement, delivered in comments and emails and—once in a while—in person.

Speaking of comments, I looked back to see which post got the most comments and it was the one titled: Is That a Coupon Box I See Before Me? If so, it could be hurting revenue. If you’re an online retailer and you use coupons, that post might be a good one to read, along with all the comments.

As for the best comment—perhaps I should say the one that I liked the most—it came from Kevin Ertell on the post last October which proved Windows 7 is good for something: 7 Ways Microsoft Windows 7 Can Help Online Retailers: Even if you don’t sell PCs. Kevin has since joined Monetate’s Strategic Advisory Board as described in this video-enabled blog post from July of this year.

Although we tend to think of blogs as a way to broadcast a message, this blog has also functioned very effectively as one of a number of feedback loops through which Monetate has been able to hone its message of testing, targeting, and personalization. So, thanks once again for watching this space and sharing your thoughts. We hope to bring you even more, better marketing blog posts in the months to come. Stay tuned!

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Posted in Blog, General, News

Promoting Email Consistency: A conversion boosting best practice

Posted August 23rd, 2010, by Tom Ellis

Tom EllisTo 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 »

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Posted in Blog, Personalization, Strategy, Tom

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

Don't Spook The Customers: Halloween's a good time for a user interface review

Posted October 29th, 2009, by Stephen Cobb

Halloween means different things to different people; but if you’re a retailer, why not think of this annual indulgence in masks and costumes as a reminder to review the user experience faced by shoppers at your online store? After all, nobody wants to enter the holiday shopping season with a spooky user interface that scares away potential customers.
Boo!Not that you would scare off your online shoppers on purpose, but the fact is, despite advances in Internet technology and web design, some online shopping experiences still feel more like a trick than a treat.

(BTW, Halloween night in America will be an hour longer than normal this year because Daylight Saving Time comes to an end at 2:00AM on the morning of Sunday, November 1–one hour is hardly enough time to do a full user interface review, but may be enough to ask friends and family to shop your store and give you unvarnished feedback on their experiences.)

What would be an example of a shopping treat that turned into a trick: I recently abandoned a shopping cart containing over $100 worth of purchases. Why? Because the store rejected my home address as “invalid.” After trying four different variations, I clicked out of that site feeling cheated and grumpy.

This particular interface failure is indicative of a wider phenomenon that I call “the input hack.” This is a web form that offers no help to the user yet responds to input errors with a series of unhelpful messages, leading to multiple attempts to complete the form in a tediously iterative and increasingly annoying process which, upon successful completion, feels like you’ve managed to hack your way into a classified computer system (when what you’ve actually accomplished is a much more modest goal: convincing an online store to accept your order).

So let’s be clear: Customer input should not be an exercise in trick or treat. Whenever a customer inputs data your response should be positive and helpful, whether or not the customer provided “correct” data. Do not, for example, respond with messages like this:

Email address improperly formatted or contains invalid or illegal characters.

I can almost hear Monty Python’s John Cleese delivering that error message in a voice dripping with disdain: “You bumbling idiot, what’s the matter with you? Can’t you even type an email address without screwing it up?” Furthermore, that type of error message provides no clue as to what a correct email address looks like. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted in Industry, Personalization, Strategy

4 Ways Tech-Savvy E-Retailers Maximize Screen Real Estate

Posted October 15th, 2009, by Stephen Cobb

Pixel-by-pixel they build out the screenFollowing on from last week’s “tips on improving the performance of scarce online retail real estate,” I wanted to share three ways in which tech-savvy online retailers are making the most of precious screen space.

And if you’re in charge of an online store you don’t need me to tell you it’s tough to find enough screen space for all the information you want to share with cyber-shoppers. Indeed, those precious pixels are a prime example of scarcity, that vital element of economics classically described as “scarce means that have alternative uses.”

For example, in my last post I talked about the challenge of balancing just two alternatives:  product shots and offers (such as discounts, price cuts, shipping deals, and all the other incentives to buy that reside in the online retailer’s arsenal). I referenced an excellent post by Kevin Ertell in which he pointed out how often (hint: too often) online stores err on the side of promotional messaging versus presentation of the products, eventual purchase of which the promotions are designed to encourage.

But product shots and promotions are just a few of the space hogs you need to feed. There are product details, endorsements, testimonials, reviews, and ratings to accommodate. Then you have the nuts and bolts of the shipping and return policies, payment options, and so on. So what can you do to ease the strain of competing demands for screen space? Here are four suggestions: Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted in Industry, Personalization, Strategy, marketing

Leading Consumer Brands Segment, Target, and Personalize with Monetate

Posted September 1st, 2009, by Stephen Cobb

60th post on the Monetate blogIn case you missed it on the wire and in the social networks, below is the text of our latest news release. We wouldn’t normally post a release on the blog, but we’re particularly proud of this one because it demonstrates Monetate’s growing penetration of multichannel retail market. You can find an archive of our news releases here.

(We’re also pleased to note that this is the 60th posting on this blog since it was launched at the end of August last year. Your readership and comments have been much appreciated. Thanks!)

More Leading Consumer Brands Segment, Target, and Personalize with Monetate

To provide web site visitors with an even more personal, relevant, and compelling site experience, Casual Male Retail Group selects Monetate

Philadelphia, PA / September 1, 2009 — Online marketing tools like personalization and behavioral targeting are one way that retailers seek to meet and beat the challenge of today’s tough economy. One supplier of such tools, Philadelphia-based Monetate, today announced that five more consumer brands have joined the growing list of web sites employing its platform to segment, target, and personalize. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted in General, Housekeeping, Industry

Lift Without Loss: New e-retail white paper offers help for tough times

Posted August 20th, 2009, by Stephen Cobb

white_paperHow would you like to get more revenue from your online store traffic without making additional cuts in pricing or shelling out for bigger shipping subsidies? Well, today we published our “Lift Without Loss” white paper that explains how you can do this, using a variety of field-tested strategies that have yielded positive results. The white paper is complimentary and no registration is required. You can download it here.

As e-commerce sites seek out competitive advantages in today’s challenging economy it’s clear that the strategy of targeting web site content to specific traffic segments has a major role to play. And there is zero doubt in my mind that this strategy can, when properly executed, increase conversion rates or average order or both.

However, targeted content is often equated with discounts and other offers like free or reduced shipping. We all know that these cut into margins, and nobody wants to cut into margins unless they have to, especially in today’s tough economic climate. Fortunately, targeted content does not have to be about discounts. It can be as simple as a welcome message.

Consider “The Case of ModCloth and the Foreign Fashionistas” that we describe in the white paper and on our Case Studies page. A simple greeting, tailored to the origin of the site visitor, was able to double revenue from a significant slice of site traffic without affecting margins. This was not a fluke. We are consistently seeing improvements in conversion rates and average order value as a result of targeted messaging campaigns. And we have described how they work in this white paper. We hope you find it helpful.

  • Download the white paper.
  • Let us know if you put any of these strategies into practice.

.

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    Posted in Industry, Strategy, case study

    Only 5 Months to Cyber Monday: The time to gather data is now

    Posted June 30th, 2009, by Stephen Cobb

    cybermonThis is just a quick blog post to put an important date on the calendar: Cyber Monday 2009, which falls on November 30.

    As you doubtless know already, Cyber Monday is: “A Shop.org-coined term for the Monday after Thanksgiving, which is seen by many retailers, consumers and the media as the official kick-off to the online holiday shopping season.”

    Obviously, November 30 is the latest possible date that can be a Cyber Monday, which suggests that online retailers will need to make the most of Cyber Monday 2009 and the shopping days that follow.

    But why mention this now? Because it’s never too soon to get ready for the high traffic of the holiday season.

    I’m not just talking about making sure you have the bandwidth and server capacity to meet expected demand, I’m talking about gathering the visitor data you need to collect before November rolls around. This is the data you will use to segment your traffic in order to target it with personalized offers, messaging, and promotions. You need to be collecting that data now. You can’t wait until November .

    And the more of that data you can gather, the more effective your behavioral targeting will be, and the more accurately–and profitably– you will be able to target personalized messaging and promotions during the holiday season.

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    Posted in Industry, Strategy

    Trade Show Challenge: What do you guys do? In 20 words or less

    Posted June 23rd, 2009, by Stephen Cobb

    You know you’ve had a busy trade show when you don’t have time to blog about it while it’s still going on. Last week’s Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition in Boston (IRCE 2009) was a case in point.

    Monetate booth at IRCE 2009

    I had a great time manning the Monetate booth and meeting all kinds of online retailers, from established giants like Overstock.com and Staples.com, to startups who don’t yet have a web site.

    With all the travel and follow-up activity that working a show entails, this is the first chance I’ve had to write up what I learned from the show.

    Introducing Monetate to such a diverse audience was a stimulating challenge and a great way to hone my answer to that critical question: What do you guys do? That process taught me some valuable lessons about marketing in general as well as marketing online.

    Online marketing guru Bryan Eisenberg says I should be able to explain the value of doing business with Monetate in 140 characters or less (you can read Bryan’s TweetVP exercise here). Obviously that particular constraint is the one imposed by text messaging and Twitter, but I found that it also mirrors the attention span of the typical trade show attendee. This is the person strolling down an aisle of booths, all of which are competing for his or her attention. Your pitch to them has to be catchy but honest, brief but informative. You only have about 20 words or 140 characters to engage them in conversation.

    Of course, there are some trade show attendees who make your day by coming right out and asking:

    Read the rest of this entry »

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    Posted in General, Industry

    13 Ways Amazon.com is Out to Eat Your Lunch

    Posted June 16th, 2009, by Stephen Cobb

    amazon-lunchsHave you studied the Amazon.com home page lately? If you’re an e-retailer you should. By my count it now contains 13 pieces of personalization, 13 ways in which Amazon is addressing me personally, and I don’t just mean “Hello, Stephen Cobb.”

    The fact that Amazon.com happens to know my name is not nearly as important as the other things that Amazon.com knows about me, like what products I’ve looked at lately and what things I purchased in the past. But why is this important to other e-retailers? Because if you’re not controlling and customizing the experience that visitors get when they visit your web site–personalizing that experience based on what you know about them–then there’s a good chance Amazon.com will eventually get those visitors. And Amazon.com is very good at turning visitors into loyal Amazon customers.

    In this blog post I will examine the implications of Amazon’s growth for other e-retailers and what they teach us about the best ways to protect and grow e-commerce operations today. Read the rest of this entry »

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    Posted in Industry, Personalization, Strategy

    Buy the Numbers? Making sense of head-spinning retail data

    Posted April 29th, 2009, by Stephen Cobb

    Some days I think I’ll explode if one more person asks me “How’s it going?” Because I just don’t know. The nightly news is full of recession stories but in the morning I go to work in a business that shows no sign of slowing down. It’s enough to make your head spin.

    On April 15, the Wall Street Journal grimly reported that “retail sales tumbled in March as job losses and tight credit left consumers cautious and constrained, damping hopes for a rapid economic turnaround.”

    Now I wouldn’t say that the Wall Street Journal is wrong. Indeed, I would say it’s more objective than NBC Nightly News (where NBC apparently stands for Nothing But Crisis). And I certainly don’t think anyone is expecting a rapid economic turnaround. But I work in online marketing and the impression I get at work each day is that the ecommerce department in most companies just didn’t get that memo about the economic slow down. And there are some numbers to back that up. Read the rest of this entry »

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    Posted in Industry, Personalization, Strategy

    60 Second Post-click Marketing Integration Guide Published

    Posted April 20th, 2009, by Stephen Cobb

    Do you ever ask yourself “Exactly what does it take to get started with post-click marketing?” If so, you’re in luck! We have answered that question in a new publication.

    Our 60 Second Post-click Marketing Integration Guide is now available for downloading (in .pdf format, no registration required, just right-click the image on the left to save the file).

    I should warn you that that the file downloads very quickly (go ahead and try it). That is not an error. There is a reason for that speed: the file size is just 25 kilobytes.

    In fact, the whole integration guide is only one page in length and you can probably read it in 60 seconds, hence the title. So what have we ommited from this slender integration guide? Read the rest of this entry »

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    Posted in General, Industry, Personalization
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