Affiliates raise bar as channel delivers £2bn plus in UK sales
One of the key trends identified in our just-published 2006 Affiliate Marketing Buyer's Guide is the way that affiliates have raised their game to match increasingly sophisticated approaches by both merchants and affiliate networks.
Yahoo! online ad warning sees shares tumble
Yahoo!'s CFO warned of a weakening in online advertising demand yesterday, causing jitters among investors in major US internet stocks.
Michael Grade becomes Ocado chairman
BBC chairman Michael Grade has been recruited to Ocado’s board but the online grocery firm has denied it is gearing up for a stock market flotation, reports The Independent.
Starting next month, Grade will become non-executive chairman of the loss-making group, which was founded by three former Goldman Sachs bankers four years ago.
Why do banks suck so badly at online customer service?
A couple of weeks ago I finally decided to ask Barclays why I was paying a monthly fee on an overdraft that I haven’t used for a long, long time.
I knew that finding an answer to this simple question could be a painful process, but I braced myself and set about to find out what was happening...
Daily Mail buys SimplySwitch.com
The owners of the Daily Mail have expanded their web presence with the £22m purchase of Simply Energy Limited.
Image spam continues to evade filters
More warnings have been issued over the spread of image-based spam, through which pictures are used to lure victims into downloading spyware or falling for scams.
While it seems surprising, to say the least, that supposedly best-in-breed filtering software is still being bypassed by image-based emails, Computer Weekly reports that attackers are increasingly using them to beat existing controls.
A 10-point checklist for landing page design
The fallout from Google's new 'Quality Score' is growing, with talk of "mass defections" to MSN and Yahoo, but if you want to stick with Google Adwords then you need to know how to create some quality landing pages.
A quality landing page is one that reinforces ‘conversion intent’. To do this, you need to consider the mindset of your visitor and provide just enough information to persuade them to convert. And no unnecessary distractions… ok?
So what are the 10 things you need to know about designing landing pages? Read on to find out...
The business case for site search
In 2004 we discovered that half of all onsite searches returned no results, despite the fact that products were actually available and could be found by clicking navigation links.
What did this tell us? Well firstly, it made us shudder. Half of all onsite queries returned NO results! Why was this happening? The main problem seemed to be related to poor quality metadata, but we also realised that some of the big retailers had site search tools that were perhaps not up to scratch.
Roll forward to 2006 and we figured that it was about time to investigate the site search market. What tools are available? What are the trends and issues in the marketplace? Why should site search be a priority if you’re selling online?
Social media: the best and worst of 2009
Email marketing: six steps to improving customer engagement in 2010
Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
