The A-Z of conversion rate optimisation
E-commerce professionals tend to obsess about conversion rates and how to optimise them. Why? Because a tiny increase in conversion rates can generate millions in additional sales for large retailers, so it’s obviously worth throwing resources at ongoing optimisation strategies.
A lot of the basics are obvious. Selling online is about being relevant, removing distractions, and having a clear proposition. It’s about having a competitive price and a trustworthy brand. By testing and experimenting these things you can boost conversion rates.
What else is there? Well, I’ve compiled an A-to-Z of conversion rate optimisation for your viewing pleasure, along with a bunch of links to further reading. Hopefully this will help you to boost sales at your firm.
30+ Twitter Lists and 5000+ Twitter accounts worth following
Twitter Lists are now officially available to all of Twitter's users. And there are plenty of them. While it remains to be seen whether Twitter Lists will help Twitter boost user engagement, Lists offer a no-hassle means to discovering and following people who you might find interesting.
Here are 30+ Twitter Lists that collectively follow more than 5,000 interesting Twitter accounts.
35 social media KPIs to help measure engagement
Social media measurement is something that I think should be undertaken with a sense of perspective, by standing back and looking at the big picture.
A widescreen approach to social media measurement ultimately looks at the things that really matter: sales, profits, customer satisfaction and loyalty. Besides, honing in on the detail might not be the best use of your time, given the obvious difficulties that arise, particularly with attribution.
But standing back and looking at the bigger picture is not going to be enough for your data-mad boss, is it? It’s a bit too soft focus, right? He or she is going to want to see proof that all this social optimisation is actually working.
If that’s the case, then don’t worry: there are lots of things you can measure...
Marketing attribution in practice: how it works and how to do it
After much discussion about ‘marketing attribution’, the process of awarding different marketing events different levels of commission depending on their role in the conversion, it seemed appropriate to explain how exactly this works in practice and to demonstrate that the technology is available to make it happen.
TV Everywhere has a lot to learn from Hulu. Not that it will listen.
Network television is moving forward with TV Everywhere, its plan to move television content online, but it looks like there are more than a few aspects of television broadcasting that executives are not willing to forgo — namely the ad load.
At the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing Summit in Denver this week, cable executives made it clear that TV Everywhere will not be a "Hulu for cable."
And why would it be? Hulu works.
Charles Nicholls of SeeWhy on driving your web conversion with retargeting
Reach for your ecommerce buzzword bingo card and you'll see 'website optimisation' and 'conversion analysis' bang in the middle. Behind the industry buzz there is a genuine commercial challenge:how do you turn your visitors into customers and increase the profitability of your web channel? Retargeting is one technique to help deliver results.
Retargeting is the process by which a website owner contacts a customer who has abandoned their conversion (whatever that conversion might be) in order to continue the communication and encourage that customer to take further action. Retargeting is more popular in the US than the UK. However, UK companies are starting to wake up to the commercial value that retargeting via email can play in their website optimisation.
Having had the opportunity to work with and learn from the brains behind SeeWhy, I asked founder and conversion optimisation blogger Charles Nicholls to share his expertise on the value of retargeting for UK web owners.
iPhone moms are waiting for the right marketers
Mothers of young children are a rapidly growing segment of the smartphone population, and considering how important the demographic is in household purchasing decisions, marketers should take note of how they're using their phones and the mobile space generally.
According to mobile ad network Greystripe, “iPhone moms” (female iPhone owners with young children) use mobile media more than other iPhone users. But from previous studies, we know that moms also don't take to iPhone ads. What's a marketer to do?
The new CNN.com: the good, the bad, the ugly
CNN is one of the world's leading news organizations and it's website is arguably one of its most valuable assets today. In an effort to make it even more valuable, CNN has launched a new design for CNN.com over the weekend for both its U.S. and International versions.
According to Nick Wrenn, Vice President of Digital Services for CNN International, "We had a look on how our users use the site, and put a lot of thought and research behind it". The finding: "Breaking news is our core brand and will continue to have a prominent spot. But we wanted to showcase a lot more of the deep, rich content we have. It was falling off the main page too quickly and people couldn't find it".
Five easy freemium tricks Hulu can use to make more money
Hulu made its name by turning a seemingly bad business idea into a widely popular website. Before the site launched, techies dubbed the television network focused web venture "Clown Co." And for the past two years, Hulu has impressed many with the quality of its content and viewing experience.
But as advertising revenues have dropped and his other properties flounder, Rupert Murdoch has been dropping hints that the company will soon charge for access.
News Corp. Deputy Chairman Chase Carey laid it on the line this week, saying that Hulu will begin charging for content in 2010. Putting Hulu's video collection behind a paywall has the potential to choke off its viewership and tank a thriving business. That said, the potential to charge a subscription fee is clearer getting News Corp. hot and bothered. So here are a few ideas that Hulu could use when it starts charging for content next year.
Five killer new features in the Google Analytics update
Google announced a significant update to the capabilities of Google Analytics this week. If it were software rather than service, I would call it a dot release, maybe 3.2?
In an earlier Econsultancy post the emphasis about the release was on the enhanced mobile tracking. But for me, and I guess most marketers where mobile isn't significant, these are the features which will be most important...
Holiday shopping forecast 2009: a lot like 2008, with more coupons
The NLA explains why it is going after the news aggregators
Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
