Archive for the ‘Marketing’ category

Use Google AdWords Offline With Google Gears & Work Faster

February 10th, 2010

I just found a new option in my Google account. The ability to activate Google Gears for AdWords. This stores all you account data on your local computer for faster load times. Look for an offline icon on the top right of your AdWords account.

When you click on it you are prompted with the option to continue and activate:

This was reported by Search Engine Land last week:

Instead of loading the data off Google’s servers each time you click on a section in the AdWords console, Google will load the data off your local computer. Google said, “each time you access AdWords, your data loads directly from your computer, making your experience much faster.”

Do you have the offline option in your account?

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Posted in Search Engine Marketing

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Flit.com Attempts New Spin On eCommerce Comparison Shopping

February 10th, 2010

Scott Riley is a member of the ZippyCart Content Team – a Daily news team that provides up-to-date news and information about the eCommerce industry. ZippyCart is an ecommerce shopping cart comparison site that reviews and ranks ecommerce solutions for online merchants.

As more and more people flock online to look for the best deals at eCommerce sites, many have used various shopping comparison sites to hunt for the lowest price. Well a new site, Flit.com, is trying to put a new twist on the comparison shopping model by letting consumers compare stores as opposed to individual products. When a user arrives at the site they are presented with a search box to enter the product they are looking for. The unique twist comes in the search results where, instead of listing out the product prices and where to buy it, Flit just lists the companies selling it, without providing prices. The site is very much geared toward the eCommerce shopper who loves certain merchants and prefers to shop based on a trusted provider over finding the lowest price. Many are comparing Flit to a faster version of the mall shopping experience, but in an online environment, because consumers can quickly be presented with all of the stores that carry the item in question. The benefit is that consumers now do not have to drive to the mall to compare at their favorite stores.

However many wonder how this comparison shopping model will survive, since consumers have to spend so much time clicking into individual stores just to compare prices. This is in stark contrast to normal comparison shopping where a user can do a product search on Google, which will then return the actual products and prices, and the option to sort by brand in the left hand navigation. Flit.com requires shoppers to go view each store one by one, where they have to click excessively to find and compare what they are looking for. On top of this, unless they are keeping a running list of their findings, truly comparing prices becomes increasingly difficult with each click.

One thing Flit.com does very well is keep track of all user shopping history including which ecommerce sites they enjoy shopping at the most. Fans of the site need not worry, as it is expected to get improved functionality next month by giving users the options to view side-by-side product comparisons combined with the store shopping experience. Overall the feedback is mixed with the first launch of the product, but Flit.com has the framework and potential to become an amazing ecommerce comparison shopping site, where consumers will love to shop.

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Posted in Comparison Shopping

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Top 5 Tips For Running A Successful eCommerce Promotion Campaign

January 27th, 2010

Kerrin Hardy writes a blog (kerrinhardy.com) for online store owners on the practicalities of ecommerce for small business. Join Kerrin for her free workshop ‘How to run a Valentine’s Day Promotion Campaign’ – a series of daily tasks to guide you through running a successful campaign this Valentine’s Day holiday.

It’s holiday season again already! Just when you thought you could put your feet up after the Christmas rush and New Year madness, you realise you should have already started your next promotion campaign. Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and according to the US Greeting Card Association, more than $16.9 billion is spent on the holiday. The average consumer spends almost $120 and as an online store owner you know you can’t afford to pass up your share of the spending this holiday.

So, you know you need a Valentine’s Day Campaign but don’t know where to start? I’d like to share my top 5 tips to running a successful ecommerce promotion campaign.

Don’t start without a campaign plan

An ecommerce promotion campaign generally has one or more of the following three objectives:

  • increase your number of customers, and/or
  • increase the number of orders placed by existing customers, and/or
  • increase the order value of orders placed by existing customers.

While many successful campaigns work on all three objectives, you may decide to focus your campaign on just one. Plan your campaign around what you want to achieve. For example, your campaign may consist of a discount for new account sign-ups or successful tell-a-friend purchases to focus on increasing your number of customers. Whereas a campaign such as buy 3 for the price of 2 or buy the matching set half price will focus on increasing the order value of orders placed by existing customers.

A campaign is more than an email

From your home page to your landing pages to your offline promotion materials to your customer service staff, your campaign message should be visible, have a consistent look and feel and a consistent message. If a potential customer clicks on an email as part of your promotion campaign, will they easily find the offer promised in the email?

A campaign needs to offer value to customers

Plan your campaign carefully to ensure that it offers value to customers as well as meeting your objectives without eating away your profit margin to an unacceptable level. Look at the possibility of minimum spends, as an example, before a customer qualifies for the product or shipping discount.

But don’t think that offering value always has to mean more and more discounts. Customers are looking for solutions and your value-add services may be just what they are looking for. Think about services such as gift-wrapping, PDF guides, low-cost set-up services, access to online help guides and so on.

Test, test and then test some more

Every aspect of your promotion campaign needs to be thoroughly tested. Any time you make changes to your store’s home page (and creating new landing pages), test your store pages using all the main browsers to ensure your changes are successful for the vast majority of visitors.

Same goes for your email messages. Have a test list that consists of a number of accounts with different providers that you have set up and also include email addresses of close friends and family. Double check that the email is still legible if images are not displayed as well as the basics ensuring your communication is free from typos and the like.

Next is to test that your promotion offers are actually available. For example, if your promotion campaign consists of free shipping with every order over $100, test and retest that your ecommerce software is set up correctly to apply the discount automatically and accurately in the shopping cart.

Remember the all important follow up

Lastly, don’t leave your customers hanging! Part of the promotion campaign is to engage your customers and bring your online store to mind. Leverage this new relationship by keeping up regular contact – this will continue to remind customers that your online store is the place to browse and purchase items when they are in the buying mood.

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How To Use Day Parting To Trim Wasteful Spend In AdWords

December 30th, 2009

Simple logic would dictate that if someone searched for your keywords, show them an ad. Sometimes hard facts are completely different from what you would expect. In most AdWords accounts that I have dealt with, I have seen much lower conversion rates and revenue in between the hours of 2AM and 7AM. Here’s how to check if this is the case on your eCommerce site with Google Analytics.

How Do I Check?

In Google Analytics, go to Ecommerce –> Conversion Rate. Select a 3 month date range, last 90 days is the best. The click on the little clock icon where it says “Graph By”. This will segment your conversion rate for the last 90 days by hour of the day. You should see two charts like this sample below.

Conversion Rate By Hour, Click To Enlarge

Conversion Rate By Hour, Click To Enlarge

If your chart is anything like this one, you will see that specific hours of the day perform better than others. This means that your cost per acquisition will likely be higher during those times.

What Do I Do?

There are two possible solutions to help minimize wasteful spend during these hours.

Option A — Lower Bids

The first basic option, is to lower your bids in each campaign during these hours. You can do this by going to Campaign Settings –> Advanced Settings –>Schedule: Start date, end date, ad scheduling. It will pop up a window where you can set hours and percentages of your regular bids. (Click on Mode: Bid adjustment.)

Option B –Pause Ads

The second basic option, is to pause your campaigns automatically during these hours. You can do this by going to Campaign Settings –> Advanced Settings –>Schedule: Start date, end date, ad scheduling. It will pop up a window where you can set which hours you would like your ads to run. (Click on Mode: Basic.)

Bottom Line

Make sure that you are getting the most out of your advertising spend. Every little trick can help. Another thing you can do is to set your campaigns to use Accelerated Ad Delivery to display your ad every time someone searches for your keywords during the correct hours.

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Posted in Search Engine Marketing, Tracking & Analytics

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How To Display Google Base Products In AdWords Ads

November 30th, 2009

backcountry[1]

Google has been testing product ads for some time now. As of last week they have turned on this featured called Ad Extenstions. By turning this feature on you will attract more eyeballs to your ads and in effect raise your click-through rate. Google stated on their blog post which announced this new feature that some advertisers have seen a 10% increase in their CTR.

Here is how to turn on AdWords Ad Extensions, it must be done for every campaign separately:

Go to Campaign –> Settings; under Networks, devices, and extensions; click on edit under Ad Extensions and check the box that says: Connect to my Google Merchant Center account. This should automatically bring up your Google Base (Product Search) account, once it finds it, just click Save.

AdWords-Ad-Extensions

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Posted in Search Engine Marketing

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How To Manage Your Price Comparison Data Feeds

November 18th, 2009

What’s The Problem?

Every eCommerce business wants to advertise on as many channels as possible. When it comes to comparison shopping, you will want to syndicate your products to the top shopping engines. The problem is that every comparison shopping engine has a different data feed format and category structure. This creates an extra headache for the business owner. You have no choice if you want your products on their site…

The Many Solutions

Depending on the size of your company and your skill set, you have many different options ranging from hacking scripts and full service management.

D.I.Y. Style

  • Download your products into Excel and copy and paste until you got it right. Any business that means business cannot do it this way. It is too time consuming and you won’t be able to update it often enough.
  • Hack together some scripts to automatically create the files for each CSE. You get bonus points for automatically uploading to each CSE via FTP.
  • Use a third party self service tool to syndicate your feeds self service style. MerchantAdvantage is a great desktop tool for this, it is priced at $695 per month with no limits on websites, products or CSEs.

Third Party Syndication

Use a third party system to automatically create and syndicate many feeds from one file that you upload. This is ideal for smaller eCommerce sites with approximately 5-10k products. Here are some companies that provide this service:

  • GoDataFeed — Plans available for $50/$75 per month, with a 5,000 SKU limit.
  • SingleFeed — Plans starting at $99 per month, with a 100,000 SKU limit.
  • VersaFeed — Plans starting at $195 per month, with a 10,000 SKU limit.

Full Service Syndication & Managment

I would suggest using a small but reputable agency to syndicate your feeds, they are generally prices better than the big guys but give you a lot of personal attention. Here are a couple of such companies:

Another option is to go with a full service management solution from one of the big guys. I’ve had pretty good success with ChannelAdvisor specifically.

Do you have any experience with any of the companies listed above? Do you know of another company that provides such a service? Please let us know in the comments.

Photo Credit: alles-schlumpf

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Posted in Comparison Shopping

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Twitter Tool: PHP Auto-Follow Script

November 14th, 2009

Twitter LogoI found this script on webupd8.org that will help you jump-start your Twitter campaigns. You can run it on any PHP server as a standalone file. What it does is search for anyone who mentions a relevant term. Just copy and paste the code below and change the following:

  • enter_your_twitter_username_here // Example: eCommerceCircle
  • enter_your_twitter_password_here // Example: imnottellingyou
  • enter_the_search_term_to_follow_here // Example: iPod Touch

You can upload to your server and just load the page from time to time or set up a cron job to do it automatically. Keep in mind that Twitter has follower/following ratios in place and that at most you cannot follow more than 1.5 times the amount of people following you as well as a 1,000 follower a day limit.

<?php
// Twitter Auto-follow Script by Dave Stevens - http://davestevens.co.uk

$user = "enter_your_twitter_username_here";
$pass = "enter_your_twitter_password_here";

$term = "enter_the_search_term_to_follow_here";

$userApiUrl = "http://twitter.com/statuses/friends.json";

$ch = curl_init($userApiUrl);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, $user.":".$pass);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);

$apiresponse = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
$followed = array();

if ($apiresponse) {
 $json = json_decode($apiresponse);
 if ($json != null) {
  foreach ($json as $u) {
   $followed[] = $u->name;
  }
 }
}

$userApiUrl = "http://search.twitter.com/search.json?q=" . $term . "&rpp=100";
$ch = curl_init($userApiUrl);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, $user.":".$pass);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
$apiresponse = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

if ($apiresponse) {
 $results = json_decode($apiresponse);
 $count = 20;
 if ($results != null) {
  $resultsArr = $results->results;
  if (is_array($resultsArr)) {
   foreach ($resultsArr as $result) {
    $from_user = $result->from_user;
    if (!in_array($from_user,$followed)) {
     $ch = curl_init("http://twitter.com/friendships/create/" . $from_user . ".json");
     curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERPWD, $user.":".$pass);
     curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
     curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS,"follow=true");
     curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
     $apiresponse = curl_exec($ch);

     if ($apiresponse) {
      $response = json_decode($apiresponse);
      if ($response != null) {
       if (property_exists($response,"following")) {
        if ($response->following === true) {
         echo "Now following " . $response->screen_name . "\n";
        } else {
         echo "Couldn't follow " . $response->screen_name . "\n";
        }
       } else {
        echo "Follow limit exceeded, skipped " . $from_user . "\n";
       }
      }
     }
     curl_close($ch);
    } else {
     echo "Already following " . $from_user . "\n";
    }
   }
  }
 }
}
?>

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Posted in Social Media

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Boost Your ROI & Get Your Money’s Worth From PriceGrabber

November 12th, 2009

PriceGrabber.com LogoPriceGrabber is one of the top-tier Comparison Shopping Engines, they command 5 million unique monthly visitors (it jumps up to about 8 million during the holiday season). Out of all the different shopping engines, I have seen the best ROI from PriceGrabber. Here are some ideas on how to boost your performance on PriceGrabber.

PriceGrabber Traffic Chart: Compete

Product Categorization

The hardest part about syndicating products to all the Comparison Shopping Engines (CSE), is categorizing products properly according to each individual taxonomy. When you invest the extra time and categorize everything correctly, you will definitely see a boost in your click-through rate and conversions. If you have a large data feed you should consider mapping your categories to the corresponding category on PriceGrabber.

Merchant Logos

When a customer comes to a page comparing product prices from 10 sellers, the merchant logo option will help your listing stick out. Logos are not free though, PriceGrabber charges an additional $0.10 per click logo listings. However, like everything else in life: you get what you pay for. Logo listings have historically show higher conversion rates than products listed without them.

Merchant Reviews

It is imperative to maintain a positive rating on PriceGrabber as well as all CSEs. Not all customers shop by price only, sometimes a customer will pay a few dollars more to purchase from someone with a higher rating than you. The best idea is to push your customers to review their purchase.

PriceGrabber is one of the few CSEs that offer the ability to have your products listed with a Featured Seller status. You will need to talk to your PriceGrabber account representative to get pricing information and sign up for it. In the categories that I have tried Featured Seller product listings I have seen a boost in conversions, although I’m not sure what kind of performance it would have in a heavily saturated category such as digital cameras and iPods.

PriceGrabber-Featured-Seller

Does PriceGrabber work for you? Tell us in the comments.

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Cheatsheet: How To Create AdWords Campaigns Easily

November 4th, 2009

Here’s a quick tip that comes in handy when you are marketing a brand of products that has a similar name to other products or services on the web.

If you want to advertise Apple, Inc. products but are having a hard time coming up with a comprehensive list of keywords, this may work for you. Add the keyword Apple as a Broad Match term with an exact negative of [Apple]. At the same time add negative terms for anything that comes up on a Google search for the term Apple that you are not advertising. For example you may add these as Negative Keywords:

tablet
tv
new york city
bank
trailers
rumors
ipod
store locator
  • tablet
  • tv
  • new york city
  • bank
  • trailers
  • rumors
  • store

This accomplishes the same as building out a huge list of Phrase Match terms but with much less work. Google will look at the Broad Match terms you have listed and show ad for all of them after cross checking and excluding all your Negative keywords. Keep in mind that this may cost slightly more than running a long list of Phrase Match terms. Best thing to do is run your campaign this way for 2-4 weeks and then look at the keyword list that Google actually showed your ads for — now you can just check off the good ones and add to your campaign for a lower CPC.

Image Courtesy: zenera

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Tips & Tricks On How To Use Twitter For eCommerce Marketing

October 27th, 2009

Twitter is growing by leaps and bounds every day. By the last count Twitter.com had 58 million visitors worldwide during the last month. In addition, they just signed major deals with Microsoft and Google to supply them with a firehose of all Twittering Tweets.

Twitter Tools

You are only as good as the Twitter tools you have. Here is a brief rundown of the best Twitter tools for keeping track of your brand and interacting with your customers.

Brizzly

Brizzly allows you to control multiple Twitter accounts from the same interface without having to constantly log in and out. Some of the great features it offers that are helpful with managing an eCommerce site’s Twitter account are Groups and Saved Searches. Although Twitter.com offers the ability to save searches, it is much easier to skim through the results and answer them inline on Brizzly. The Groups feature can help you segment your follow list by category so that you can more clearly see what’s happening in your Twitter world.

Brizzly is in private beta, and can be accessed by invitation only. I have a few invites to give away, please leave your email in the comments for a free invite.

Brizzly Twitter Client Screenshot

Screenshot: @Remiel

CoTweet

CoTweet is the Twitter tool of choice for many large corporations such as Pepsi, Starbucks, Microsoft and many more. CoTweet has some unique features that cater to companies with multiple people posting from a single Twitter account. Their core features are multiple Twitter accounts, multiple users managing a Twitter account, CoTags, saved searches, and scheduled Tweets.

From within CoTweet you can give access to multiple users to manage your Twitter account, the best part is that you can set up CoTags which CoTweet will append the initials of the person Tweeting to the Tweet. They generally add CoTags in this format “^MK”. This helps avoid confusion and helps your followers identify who said what.

CoTweet also allows you to schedule Tweets for a specific time, this is ideal for when you are unable to post manually but would like to keep your followers updated.

CoTweet Twitter Client Screenshot

Screenshot: vincentgallegos

HootSuite

HootSuite has pretty much the same major features as the others, however it sports a more desktop like client interface with multiple tabs and columns for follower updates, saved searches etc…

A unique feature that HootSuite offers is the ability to auto post Tweets from an RSS feed. This is great if you have a company blog that you would like to automatically post the updates to Twitter.

HootSuite Twitter Client Screenshot

Screenshot: cambodia4kidsorg

TweetDeck

All the above Twitter tools are web-based, TweetDeck is a desktop application that works on the Adobe AIR platform. Like HootSuite, it has a multiple column interface for easy following. The good thing about TweetDeck being a desktop application is that it has notifications built into it. It can pop up a message when your company is mentioned on Twitter.

TweetDeck Twitter Client Screenshot

Screenshot: merilyn_j

What To Post

Having a great tool is only half the battle. How you use it, can impact your results in a major way. The best use of Twitter is to update with a mix of Marketing/Promotional tips, helpful tips, and interact with other Twitterers.

Marketing

Post Tweets with special coupons, promotional content and deals exclusively for your Twitter followers. Give people a reason to follow you. Try not to post only promotional content and links to your site, make sure to include a healthy mix of other content as well.

Transparency

Let your customer base see the human side of your company. Post small updates that may make someone smile. Talk about your brand and what it stands for. Post helpful tips relevant to your industry.

Customer Service

Interact with your followers and potential customers. Say good morning and help fellow Tweeple with their problems. Providing help to someone who is not a customer, may turn them into one. Become an authority in your industry.

Usage Examples

Here are examples of companies using Twitter. Learn what you can should and shouldn’t do from them.

Woot

Woot posts links to their ‘daily sale’ every and blog posts on their company blog. They currently have over 1.4 million followers and they use this channel as a natural extension to reach their already loyal following.

Comcast

Comcast says they care, and it seems that they really do try to help anyone who voices their frustrations with the cable provider on Twitter. They scan Twitter for anyone who mentions ‘Comcast’ and will reply and help you out pretty much instantaneously. There are the naysayers (that may be correct) who say that you shouldn’t have to go to Twitter to get customer service.

Zappos

No post about Twitter and eCommerce would be complete without Zappos. When Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh breathes on Twitter 1.45 million people hear him. Aside from that, it is ingrained in the Zappos corporate culture to Twitter, they even host a mashup site where you can see all Tweets from Zappos employees.

Bottom Line

A dollar spent keeping an existing customer happy is the best dollar spent on marketing your brand. Use Twitter to interact with customers to provide a satisfying shopping experience as well as to promote your latest deals.

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Posted in Social Media

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