website-2015-12

3 Pillars of Social Login

The SMB ContentMarketing Checklist

SEO Tools

PLUS TOP 50

INSIDE THIS ISSUE...

Solving the Web’sCruft Problem

Build Business Modelswith a CRO Focus

DECEMBER 2015DECEMBER 2015THE MAGAZINE FOR WEBSITE SUCCESS

WEBSITEMAGAZINE.COM

Everyday & Everywhere

Web Analytics

INTEGRITY.

HONESTY.

TRUST.

Establish trustworthiness and provide assurance that your online business has been authenticated by an outside verifi cation team of professionals.

10% OFF THE TOTAL COST OF THE FIRST YEAR

PROMO CODE: HONESTY

• Improve immediate and long-term image & trustworthiness

• Increase sales, sign-ups...conversions!

• Complimentary consulting (including help developing a professional privacy policy)

• Appear FREE in our directory of Trusted Sites

Toll-Free: 1.800.581.2024 International: 1.773.458.2105

That’s what displaying the ValidatedSiteTM Seal of Approval does for your website.

REVIEWED BY

• CLICK TO VERIFY

•

•

•

alidatedSitealidatedalidatedalidated

Resource CenterFINELY FOCUSED INFORMATION FROM INDUSTRY SPONSORS

Why Uni� ed Commerce Platform is a Must for Business GrowthTo be successful in omnichannel commerce, companies can no longer rely on legacy siloed or homegrown business applications. No matter what a systems integrator tells you, these siloed bits of technology will never communicate as effectively as one unifi ed platform. Sponsored by GoECart

12 Campaigns to Run this HolidayAs all retailers know, the holiday season is the most wonderful time of the year, if you’re ready for it. In this eBook we will explore key tips and tricks to keep your customers before, during and after the holidays, as well as the top 12 campaigns to run this year. Sponsored by Windsor Circle

The ROI of Responsive DesignBy now, the concept of responsive Web design is well known, and increasingly perceived as a necessity. Mobile shopping is soaring. Download our eBook discussing the ROI of responsive design and how to build the case to your executives for why responsive technology will grow your sales. Sponsored by MarketLive

Back in the Hopper: The Marketplace Fairness ActThree versions of remote sales tax legislation are in circulation and each would create different consequences for those selling online. Read this two-page overview to learn why and how passage of a federal Internet sales tax law could impact your business.Sponsored by Avalara

10YEARS

Download free at www.WebsiteMagazine.com/resources

Website Magazine’s Resource Center presents whitepapers from our sponsors that provide information, specifi cs and metrics to help you make decisions for website success. Download free at www.WebsiteMagazine.com/resources.

Scan to visit our Resource Center at www.WebsiteMagazine.com/resources

Top 9 Tips to Consider When Selecting an E-Commerce PlatformExecuting a multi-channel business requires the right e-commerce platform. Here’s our take on what a small- or medium-size business should consider when choosing their new e-commerce platform or re-platforming to replace legacy systems. Sponsored by GoECart

Automated Replenishment GuideDon’t let your customers run out of their favorite products. By leveraging predictive analytics, powered by Windsor Circle, you can ensure your customers never miss an order. Download this free guide to learn how to set up automated, data-driven replenishment emails and benefi t from recurring revenue. Sponsored by Windsor Circle

GET THEDIGITAL SCOOPCheck out Website Magazine’s email news-letters covering search, e-commerce, social, design and more at wsm.co/webscoop.

Stat Watch: Wealthy Webbies

Enterprise Ready: Big Data’s Impact on Revenue & Marketing

Small Business Lab: Content Marketing Checklist

Quiz Time: This Year’s Biggest ‘Net Developments

Top 50: SEO Software

Mastering Search: SEO Roles by Department

E-Commerce Express: Shopping Cart Recovery

Design & Development: Solving the Web’s Cruft Problem

Web Commentary: The Attention Economy

Explore Website Magazine’s

DEPARTMENTS09

10

12

13

14

16

18

20

40

Paying regular and rigorous attention to website perfor-mance and analytics is considered fundamental to the suc-cess of each and every digital enterprise; but it’s only the fi rst step. Web workers and the enterprises that employ

them need to know where to look and how to use that information once it has been found to cross-sell, upsell, plan and most importantly, innovate and make measurable improvements.

THIS MONTH IN WEBSITE MAGAZINE

A Call for New Visibility Practices

Publishers everywhere are at the mercy of the “domain average” metric used to establish view-ability scores, but there are better options.

CRO-Focused Business ModelsTo create a distinctive advantage over competi-tors, it has to be done with portions of the busi-ness they cannot easily inspect or duplicate.

Post-Holiday Email RetentionWith bargain and gift hunters galore, the win-ter months improve retailers’ email lists but the focus should then shift to retention.

3 Pillars of Social LoginUsing social login to build complete customer pro-fi les and create seamless experiences requires that brands understand these key elements.

Using Psychology to Improve Conversions

While there is no magic formula for content or design, it is possible to understand a target audi-ence and which elements prompt their action.

30

32

34

38

36

24


Web Analytics

Stat Watch: Wealthy Webbies

Enterprise Ready: Big Data’s Impact on Revenue & Marketing

Small Business Lab: Content Marketing Checklist

Quiz Time: This Year’s Biggest ‘Net Developments

Top 50: SEO Software

Mastering Search: SEO Roles by Department

E-Commerce Express: Shopping Cart Recovery

Design & Development: Solving the Web’s Cruft Problem

Web Commentary: The Attention Economy

Explore Website Magazine’s

DEPARTMENTS

GENERAL MANAGER: David Ruiz [email protected]

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Peter Prestipino [email protected]

MANAGING EDITOR: Amberly Dressler [email protected]

ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Allison Howen [email protected]

*CONTRIBUTORS:Rich Wagner

TJ VanTollEric Wheeler

Tim AshEJ McGowanLiraz MargalitStefan Koenig

GRAPHIC DESIGNER: Shannon Rickson [email protected]

ADVERTISING: Kelly Springer [email protected]

Brian Wallace [email protected]

SUBSCRIPTIONS: Sandra Woods [email protected]

The Magazine for Website SuccessReaching the largest audience of Web professionals of any Internet

industry publication

999 E. Touhy Ave. Des Plaines, IL 60018Toll Free: 1.800.817.1518

International: 1.773.628.2779Fax: 1.773.272.0920

Website Magazine, Volume 10, Issue 12, December 2015, (ISSN# 1942-0633) is published 12 times a year, January through Decem-ber by Website Services, Inc., 999 E. Touhy Ave., Des Plaines, IL 60018. Periodicals Postage Paid at Des Plaines, IL and at ad-ditional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Website Magazine, 999 E. Touhy Ave., Des Plaines, IL 60018.

Canada Post: Please send undeliverable items to: 2835 Kew Drive, Windsor ON, N8T 3B7

Copyright 2015 by Website Magazine. All rights reserved. Materi-als may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission. For reprints of any article, contact the editor.

*The opinions expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of Website Magazine.

www.WebsiteMagazine.com

From the EDITOR

Changing Perspective on Web Analytics It’s OK to admit – Web analytics can be confusing (and a bit of a bore). Except, it’s not; actually, it’s one of the single most important activities today’s enterprises and marketers can engage in as there is no better (data-based and repeatedly proven) way to correct what’s wrong and set a business on the course to success. If your company is serious about making improvements, analytics is where to start. What many fail to understand about the practice of analytics is that it requires detailed attention every day and from every corner of the enterprise. There needs to be a culture that supports such initiatives, and personnel committed to its success. Those that do adopt a data-driven culture (focusing more on the successful completion of goals rather than aggregating vanity metrics), enable access to meaningful data among key personnel and set consistent performance benchmarks are those able to make optimal use of their digital presence. It’s time to change the industry perspective on Web analytics. In this month’s feature of Website Magazine, the focus is on helping readers engage in a useful and productive analytics initiative, discover the right tools and tactics to use, and learn how to overcome the implementation hurdles to capitalize on the true power of analytics. It’s time to start putting analytics to good use in every enterprise. This issue also includes guidance on many other topics essential to ‘Net success. Website Magazine readers will learn how to improve their big data performance, understand how search engine optimization roles vary by com-pany department and discover ways to eliminate the cruft from their digital experiences. There are also other very insightful contributions on email mar-keting, lead generation, viewability and more that should not be missed. As always, we hope you enjoy this issue and invite you to join us on the ‘Net where our editors and industry contributors explore the topics that mat-ter most to digital success.

Best Web Wishes,

[email protected]

Website Magazine is Growing... Digitally!In the December 2015 digital “flipbook” edition, ‘Net professionals will have

access to more content than ever before. Expanding our coverage area sig-

nificantly to include additional contributors, special interviews, and software

product and application reviews, as well as a preview of Website Magazine’s

2016 Digital Power Players Awards. Readers can access this special edition (and

the available archive) in its entirety at wsm.co/digitalwm15.

Find Website Magazine at these

Internet industry tradeshows.

A�liate SummitJan. 11-12

Las Vegas, NV

NRF Big ShowJan. 17-19

New York, NY

eTailFeb. 22-25

Palm Springs, CA

di

gi t a l p l a y e r s c

l ub

Easy to use – ready to go. The 1&1 Cloud Server provides superior CPU, RAM, and SSD performance. Give your cloud projects the perfect combination of fl exibility and effi cient features.

BEST!TEST THE

Easy to use – ready to go. The 1&1 Cloud Server provides superior CPU, RAM, and SSD performance. Give your cloud projects the perfectcombination of fl exibility and

BEST!DOMAINS | MAIL | HOSTING | eCOMMERCE | SERVERS

1&1 CLOUD SERVER

* 1&1 Cloud Server is available free for one month, after which regular pricing starts from $4.99/month. No setup fee is required. Visit 1and1.com for full offer details, terms and conditions. Intel, the Intel Logo, Intel Inside, the Intel Inside logo, Intel Experience What‘s Inside are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. 1&1 and the 1&1 logo are trademarks of 1&1 Internet, all other trademarks are property of their respective owners. ©2015 1&1 Internet. All rights reserved.

1and1.com

TRIALTRY FOR30 DAYS1 MONTH

FLEXIBLE PAYMENT OPTIONS1 CALL

SPEAK WITH AN EXPERT 24/71

®

T O P P E R F O R M E R

Load balancing SSD storage Billing by the

minute Intel® Xeon® Processor

E5-2660 v2 and E5-2683 v3

1 month free!Then from $4.99/month.*

1 (877) 461-2631

MAPUS1511W1P_1-1_206x273_46L.indd 1 19.10.15 16:12

Net BRIEFS

QUICK HITS

The Perfect Marketing EmailThe perfect marketing email includes percent-o� deals, question marks and 6-10 word subject lines. This data comes from a Retention Science report, which shows that 38 percent of custom-ers are more likely to click an email with a percent-o� deal, while 47 percent are more likely to convert when compared to emails with dollar-o� deals. What’s more, punctuation marks can have an impact on open rates, with data showing question marks increase opens by 44 percent when compared to exclamation points.

The Best Customer Service Channel Is…Millennials favor the online world while baby boomers prefer the o� ine – at least when it comes to customer service. Ac-cording to a recent study from Sitecore, millennials are almost three times more likely to believe personal technology brands are best in treating their customers, while baby boomers are nearly 80 percent more likely to believe brick-and-mortar retailers treat their customers best. Regardless of channel, businesses need to make customer service a priority, as 89 percent of the study’s respondents said they would switch brands if they received poor customer service.

QUESTIONOF THE MONTH

$33 Million Social intelli-gence company Brandwatch has complet-ed a $33 million Series C funding round led by new investor Partech Ventures. The fund-ing will be used to accelerate the develop-ment of the company’s core technologies and products.

$2 Billion In an acquisition re-portedly valued at $2 billion, IBM is purchas-ing The Weather Company’s B2B, mobile and Web-based properties including Weather.com. The acquisition is expected to be used for IBM’s new Watson IoT (Internet of Things) Unit and Watson IoT cloud platform.

$5.9 Billion In a blockbuster acquisition in the mobile gaming indus-try, Activision Blizzard has entered into an agreement to acquire King Digital Enter-tainment (the maker of Candy Crush) for $5.9 billion. Activision Blizzard expects the acquisition will position the company as a global leader in interactive entertainment across mobile, console and PC platforms.

?

$ WHO GOT PAID?

What is your company’s digital resolu-tion for the New Year, and why?

To answer this question and possibly be included in an upcoming issue of Website Magazine, visit wsm.co/decqotm.

Data Scientists Winning at Life & WorkData from Glassdoor reveals that data scientists have the best work-life balance with a rating of 4.2 out of 5.0, followed by SEO managers (4.1) and talent acquisition specialists (4.0). That said, work-life balance has actually decreased in recent years, with data showing overall work-life satisfaction ratings falling from 3.5 in 2009 to 3.2 in 2015.

QUESTIONOF THE MONTH

ᰠ䤀渀昀漀吀爀甀猀琀眀愀猀愀戀氀攀琀漀搀椀猀猀攀挀琀琀栀攀椀渀昀漀爀洀愀琀椀漀渀爀攀氀攀瘀愀渀琀昀漀爀愀挀琀椀漀渀愀戀氀攀戀甀猀椀渀攀猀猀椀洀瀀爀漀瘀攀洀攀渀琀⸀ᴠⴀ䴀漀渀愀䄀琀愀礀愀Ⰰ 䌀䔀伀 ☀ 䘀漀甀渀搀攀爀Ⰰ 䴀甀洀稀眀漀爀氀搀

ᰠ倀氀愀挀椀渀最愀搀猀椀猀渀漀眀愀猀挀椀攀渀挀攀眀椀琀栀洀攀愀猀甀爀愀戀氀攀爀攀猀甀氀琀猀⸀ 倀攀漀瀀氀攀挀氀椀挀欀Ⰰ 愀渀搀眀攀洀攀愀猀甀爀攀⸀ᴠ

䜀漀漀最氀攀䄀渀愀氀礀琀椀挀猀䔀渀栀愀渀挀攀搀䔀ⴀ䌀漀洀洀攀爀挀攀椀猀愀渀愀洀愀稀椀渀最瀀氀愀琀昀漀爀洀琀栀愀琀椀猀琀愀欀椀渀最琀栀攀眀漀爀氀搀漀昀椀渀琀攀爀渀攀琀爀攀琀愀椀氀戀礀猀琀漀爀洀⸀ 一漀眀Ⰰ 椀渀挀漀洀戀椀渀愀琀椀漀渀眀椀琀栀䤀渀昀漀吀爀甀猀琀ᤠ猀瀀愀琀攀渀琀瀀攀渀搀椀渀最搀愀琀愀椀渀琀攀最爀愀琀椀漀渀瀀氀愀琀昀漀爀洀Ⰰ 䄀渀愀氀礀稀攀⸀氀礀∡Ⰰ 椀渀琀攀爀渀攀琀爀攀琀愀椀氀攀爀猀挀愀渀氀攀瘀攀爀愀最攀琀栀攀瀀漀眀攀爀漀昀䜀漀漀最氀攀䄀渀愀氀礀琀椀挀猀琀漀挀漀洀瀀愀爀攀琀栀攀挀漀猀琀漀昀愀挀焀甀椀猀椀琀椀漀渀愀挀爀漀猀猀攀瘀攀爀礀挀栀愀渀渀攀氀Ⰰ 猀椀搀攀ⴀ戀礀ⴀ猀椀搀攀椀渀猀椀搀攀䜀漀漀最氀攀䄀渀愀氀礀琀椀挀猀Ⰰ 琀漀洀愀欀攀渀攀愀爀爀攀愀氀ⴀ琀椀洀攀搀攀挀椀猀椀漀渀猀漀渀愀搀戀甀礀椀渀最⸀

嘀椀猀椀琀椀渀昀漀琀爀甀猀琀氀氀挀⸀挀漀洀⼀眀洀琀漀氀攀愀爀渀洀漀爀攀⸀

ⴀ 刀攀椀搀匀椀欀攀猀Ⰰ 嘀倀漀昀䴀愀爀欀攀琀椀渀最Ⰰ 䌀漀眀愀渀ᤠ猀䄀甀挀琀椀漀渀䠀漀甀猀攀匀愀眀愀㐀㈀─ 椀渀挀爀攀愀猀攀椀渀漀渀氀椀渀攀戀椀搀搀椀渀最Ⰰ 㘀㌀─ 椀渀挀爀攀愀猀攀椀渀戀椀搀猀Ⰰ 愀渀搀㠀㔀─ 椀渀挀爀攀愀猀攀椀渀戀椀搀瘀愀氀甀攀椀渀琀栀攀 ǻ爀猀琀㌀　搀愀礀猀昀漀氀氀漀眀椀渀最椀洀瀀氀攀洀攀渀琀愀琀椀漀渀⸀

匀愀眀愀 ─ 攀挀漀洀洀攀爀挀攀挀漀渀瘀攀爀猀椀漀渀椀渀挀爀攀愀猀攀愀渀搀愀㌀　　─ 洀椀渀椀洀甀洀爀攀琀甀爀渀漀渀愀搀猀瀀攀渀搀⸀

Have tips, stories, or funding or acquisition news to share? Tweet us @WebsiteMagazine

7 Plugins Every WordPress Site Should Use

wsm.co/7plugins

A fast, secure and user-friendly site is crucial for better search positioning, user engagement and to drive conversions. These WordPress plugins can help Web professionals achieve just that.

Communities for Care, Content and Conversions

wsm.co/sapcare

Ratings and reviews are an inte-gral part of today’s shopping ex-perience. To help retailers gener-ate the content they need, SAP Jam unveiled a new Communi-ties solution in October.

Need More Customer Data? Improve Your Design

wsm.co/desdata15

For most businesses, customer data is as good as revenue. Not every enterprise knows, however, just how much a website’s design can impact the personal informa-tion a visitor decides to disclose.

WEBTECHWATCH#+ LaunchKit:

The new Super User Dashboard (https://launchkit.io/users) from LaunchKit provides mobile developers visibility into the users who are opening/engaging with their app the most. Just install the open-source SDK, de� ne the “Super User” and LaunchKit will track their activity including app opens, total time in app, taps on screen and screens loaded, all without � ngerprinting or advertising identi� ers. Develop-ers can also group their users by quality and target those users with speci� c messaging.

POPULAR WITH WM READERS

+

APP FOCUS

Instagram Unveils Boomerang

Instagram is making images even better with its new mobile app, dubbed Boomerang. Us-ers can leverage the app to stitch a burst of photos together into a high-quality mini video that plays forward and backward. What’s more, users have the ability to share their Boomerang videos to Instagram and Face-book directly from the app.

Discover more apps at ApplicationMagazine.com.

Net BRIEFS

+ +

DECEMBER 2015 | | 9 .com

Have tips, stories, or funding or acquisition news to share? Tweet us @WebsiteMagazine

U.S.-based developers earn more annually than any other country ($89,631.68), but do not have the most purchasing power as they can only buy roughly 20,000 Big Macs with that amount, while their peers in the Ukraine can purchase about 22,000 hamburgers with their $26,190.48 salary.

(Stack Overflow, 2015)

Microsoft Corp., Apple Inc., Google Inc. and five other tech firms now account for more than a fifth of the $2.1 trillion in profits that U.S. companies are parking in low-tax countries.

(Bloomberg, 2015)

Dell’s 2015 purchase ($67 billion) of data storage company EMC is the largest tech-specific acquisition ever, followed by Facebook’s 2014 acquisition of WhatsApp for $19 billion.

(Dell, 2015)

$139,500Average annual tech wages are the highest in California ($139,500), followed by Massachusetts ($121,000), Washington ($119,300), New Jersey ($111,600) and the District of Columbia ($105,600).

(CompTIA, 2015)

1

20,000

$2.1 Trillion

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has the tech world’s

highest ratio of CEO pay to median worker pay –

earning 615 times (or about $85 million) an average

Microsoft worker’s salary (or roughly $137,000) ac-

cording to 2015 Glassdoor data.

While Nadella is not yet one of the richest peo-

ple in tech (his initial pay package likely skewed the

ratio), Oracle Executive Chairman Larry Ellison’s pay

ratio isn’t far behind at 573:1.

Oracle’s Ellison also sits second on a list of 100

tech billionaires and millionaires – with an estimated

net worth of $50 billion. Microsoft Co-Founder Bill

Gates tops the list ($80 billion).

While tech titans like Amazon’s Je� Bezos ($48

billion), Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg ($41 billion)

and Google’s Larry Page ($33 billion) round out the

top five wealthiest people in tech, there are some

industry disruptors on the list who weren’t there as

recently as a year ago.

Uber Co-Founders Garrett Camp and Travis Ka-

lanick, for example, have a reported net worth of $6

billion each, but were not on any Forbes list prior to

2015, proving the tech industry is still quite lucrative

for upstarts. This is especially true for software.

In fact, Q3 2015 data from Pricewaterhouse Coo-

pers indicates that despite being down 17 percent in

the number of funding deals, the software industry

receives the highest level of funding for all industries,

receiving $5.8 billion going into 412 deals.

Wealthiest Webbies615:1

Stat WATCH

| DECEMBER 2015 10 | .com

Consider this: According to an IBM report on big data, nearly 15 petabytes of data are created each day – that’s eight times more than all of the information in all of the libraries in the United States. Facebook alone processes 10 terabytes of data daily. For perspective, the entire Cornell Law Library is only one terabyte of information. With this influx of information, it’s no wonder ex-ecutives are overwhelmed, with publications running headlines like “BIG Data Equals BIG Headache For Ex-ecutives” (Forbes) and surveys showing that companies still aren’t applying data adequately. A report by the Economist Intelligence Unit, for example, cites that 35 percent of executives lack the understanding of how to apply big data, and 62 percent of chief information of-ficers (CIOs) report that big data buzz has resulted in unrealistic expectations from executives. However, harnessing big data – especially the ex-ternal factors that impact business performance – is critical to maintaining a competitive advantage in to-day’s rapidly changing business landscape. The trick is being able to take the extraordinary amounts of data and boil it down to the information that truly affects business performance and operating decisions. Under-standing how these key micro- and macro-economic factors can improve financial performance and deci-sion making is critical for companies seeking to come out on top in today’s highly volatile market, and the good news is that new technologies are making it easy to pinpoint the factors that correlate directly to a busi-ness – without the need for statistical degrees or a so-phisticated understanding of economics. Armed with critical information on how external drivers like foreign markets, commodity prices, manu-facturing activity, consumer behavior, online traffic

and weather data impact performance, businesses are poised to improve decisions in several key areas, including sales and demand forecasting, identifying marketing opportunities and threats and ultimately enhancing financial performance.

Sales and demand forecastingAccurate sales and demand forecasts are imperative to making smart decisions companywide, yet most quar-terly forecasts miss the mark by 13 percent, accord-ing to research from KPMG International. That means decisions on supply purchases, product offerings and availability, pricing, promotions and more are based on erroneous assumptions. Typically, such forecasts have been created using internal insights into sales and demand from previous quarters, but correlating those internal insights with the external factors that truly drive demand is crucial to improving these forecast measures. For example, Tiffany & Co., which obtains half of its sales outside the U.S., attributes nearly seven per-cent of its May-July losses this year to changing cur-rency rates. Additionally, the global demand for luxury diamonds declined significantly during the month of August thanks to a slowdown in China, the world’s second largest economy. By integrating such informa-tion into sales and demand forecasts, companies are in a better position to plan for and react to such changes in the global economy. RaceTrac Petroleum, for example, was able to pre-dict its foot traffic with 99 percent accuracy by exam-ining how external factors impacted its sales, finding that weather was a particular determinant to traffic patterns and sales of key items. By incorporating its sales and vendor data with external drivers of perfor-mance, RaceTrac now stocks its shelves based on a more complete picture of business performance and has improved its forecast accuracy and financial per-formance as a result.

Big Data’s Impact on Revenue & MarketingBy Rich Wagner, President & CEO of Prevedere

Big data has been a hot topic for years, but few companies know how to harness the unprecedented amount of available information for bottom-line benefits.

Enterprise READY

Big Data’s Impact on Revenue & Marketing

Marketing opportunities and threatsIncorporating big data in the form of external insights into sales and demand forecasting also drives smarter marketing decisions. Knowing how demand changes in light of changing weather, changing consumer confidence levels and chang-ing disposable income levels allows companies to price more competitively – running promotions when interest wanes and keeping prices steady during strong markets. Likewise, such analysis is vital for determining when to introduce new products. For example, a car manufacturer that knows it can expect declining sales three months after housing costs start to fall may want to hold off on introducing a new model until housing prices start to rebound. If at the same time it knows that used car sales surge in similar conditions, it may want to encourage dealers to stock up on used inven-tory to meet increased demand.

A clearer picture of companywide performance Internal performance data plays an important role in helping executives better understand how their company performed year over year (YOY). Yet with-

out incorporating external drivers into this analysis, financial teams will only understand a portion of the factors that impact bottom-line revenue. Today, there are millions of data sets from orga-nizations and governments available. Companies must make sense of this big data and integrate it into their internal forecasting process to create a reliable set of economic indicators that reveal the ebb and flow of customer demands. With this data, they can better plan for “what-if” scenarios, predict performance and com-municate potential changes.

A seamless forecasting processBusinesses large and small are constantly faced with the challenge of how to better predict com-pany performance. With the vast amount of exog-enous data available, executives now have access to the information they need to make smarter decisions regarding sales and demand forecasts and budgets. Making sense of that data and cor-relating it to business performance is the critical challenge now faced by corporate executives, but smart technologies are making this information more accessible than ever before.


In fact, The Content Marketing Institute reveals there has been a 10 percent increase in business to consumer (B2C) marketers who document their content strategy over the last year (37 percent versus 27 percent). What’s more, 48 percent of B2C marketers meet with their teams either daily or weekly to discuss their content plan. In order for small business (SMB) owners to keep pace with the competition it is imperative that they are equally as strategic as their big-brand counterparts. With the New Year right around the corner, there is no better time to start planning, and the checklist below provides a great starting point:

Take Inventory – Begin by taking a look at 2015’s content. What type of campaigns garnered positive results and which were virtual fl ops? When taking inventory of previous initiatives, look at the content of each campaign as well as the format and channel it was distributed in. For example, did infograph-ics resonate better than videos? Did lists work bet-ter than informative topics in email campaigns? Did Facebook posts get more shares at night?

Scope Out the Competition – The competition can be a big inspiration. Research, however, must go beyond a competitor’s blog. Don’t forget to look at email campaigns (this is why it’s a good idea to sign up for your competitor’s email list), social posts, video content and more. For instance, did the com-petition have success with a social contest? How often did they create videos? Did their blogging rely on contributor posts?

What Does Your Audience Want? – Audiences leave clues everywhere about the type of content they prefer, but it’s up to marketers to discover them. One channel sure to offer useful insight is social. Simply type

in business-related keywords on networks like Twit-ter to fi nd out what consumers are talking about, then create content around those topics. Moreover, look to frequently asked questions that could be repurposed into an informative blog post. A pet store owner who gets a lot of inquiries about the best way to remove pet stains from carpets, for example, may want to consider writing a “How To” article on the topic.

Brainstorm – After conducting the aforementioned research it is time to brainstorm. Think about new content ideas, angles, formats and channels, and don’t forget that some content can be repurposed. In the previous example of a “How To” article for remov-ing pet stains, the business owner could repurpose the topic by creating an instructional video, and/or making an email campaign that features the products needed for the process.

Lacking inspiration? For a variety of tools to help brain-storming sessions, visit wsm.co/stormtools.

Create a Content Calendar – It’s time to put ideas on paper and create a content calendar for 2016; and don’t forget to take holidays and company celebrations into consideration when making one. Keep in mind that while it is important to fi ll out the calendar as com-pletely as possible (especially the fi rst quarter), it is also necessary to leave a little room for fl exibility, as cam-paigns may change as the year progresses.

Assign Tasks – Once the content calendar is cre-ated, it is time to share it and tentatively assign tasks to team members. This makes each colleague aware of what is required of them so they can start brainstorm-ing ideas for their assignments.

Track Results and Revaluate – To truly succeed in 2016 it is important to track results as the year goes forward. By reviewing campaign results each quarter, marketers can continuously optimize their strategies.

Don’t know what to track? Check out this list of 29 es-sential content marketing metrics at wsm.co/basic29.

It can be easy to get inundated with tasks during the holiday rush, but it is important for SMB owners to set aside time to prepare for the upcoming year. Creating a content marketing plan is a good starting point be-cause it can help shape everything from email to social (and even search!) campaigns.

The SMB Content Marketing ChecklistBy Allison Howen, Associate Editor

Brands have become very strategic with their content marketing plans.

Small BUSINESS LAB


Every year is a big year in the tech industry – the ideas become more innovative, the strategies get savvier and the unthinkable becomes a reality; 2015 was no di£ erent. From the introduction of numerous new generic top

level domains (gTLDs) like .tech and .sex to the unveil-

ing of “Buy” buttons on major social networks like Face-

book and Twitter, each week of 2015 had more than

one headline-making story.

Although it may be di� cult for busy Web profession-

als to keep up with all of the latest digital developments

when occupied with their day-to-day business tasks,

Website Magazine is here to keep ‘Net professionals in

the loop. In fact, by visiting WebsiteMagazine.com, visi-

tors can fi nd a daily roundup of each day’s top tech sto-

ries and get this news delivered to their inbox by signing

up for weekly email newsletters that cover the topics of

e-commerce, search, social, design and more.

In the meantime, fi nd out how in the loop you

actually are by testing your knowledge of the top

tech developments in 2015 with Website Magazine’s

December’s Quiz Time.

Get the answers to this month’s Quiz Time by visiting wsm.co/qtdec15 or by scanning the QR code on the left.

1. What is the name of Google’s new parent company?

a. The Search Justice League

b. Zebra

c. Alphabet

d. Online Architect

Cheat sheet: wsm.co/googleparents

2. Which commerce plugin did WordPress’s parent company, Automattic, acquire in 2015?

a. OrderStorm

b. WooCommerce

c. Ecwid

d. SalesCart

Cheat sheet: wsm.co/wmbigmovers

3. Which social network gave emojis the hashtag treatment in 2015?

a. Instagram

b. Facebook

c. Twitter

d. All of the above

Cheat sheet: wsm.co/emojipound

4. Which big-name tech company unveiled a stock photo service?

a. Adobe

b. Microsoft

c. Twitter

d. Yahoo

Cheat sheet: wsm.co/stocknew

5. What is the name of Amazon’s new product discovery ser-vice that features a pinboard-style design (similar to Pinterest)?

a. Amazon Closet

b. Amazon Inspires

c. Discover by Amazon

d. Amazon Stream

Cheat sheet: wsm.co/amazonpin

Quiz TIME

Top Tech Developments

of 2015

Despite a steady stream of changes and often volatile shifts in ranking/position, the state of the search marketing industry remains strong. According to the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization’s (SEMPO) 10th State of the Industry report, which surveyed more than 500 digital marketers and agencies about their online marketing activities across digital channels, search engine optimization (SEO) is the most prevalent mar-keting activity for 94 percent of individual marketers/clients and 92 percent of agencies – signifi cantly higher than when the survey was conducted in 2013. Search-based advertising is also top of mind with today’s enterprises, with 84 percent of agencies/consultants and 83 percent of marketers/clients indicating they run paid campaigns. What’s interesting about the report is that it reveals marketers are gradu-ally diversifying their digital efforts. In relation to social media, for example, 65 percent of marketers and 66 percent of agencies managed social media (with Facebook Ads and Facebook Promoted Posts garnering the most use). Email also remains an important channel and is used regularly by digital marketers. What stands out in the report, however, is the intense focus the digital business world places on all things SEO. While it remains one of the most ef-fective channels, the practice of search engine optimization can be challenging. Respondents to the SEMPO report revealed the most signifi cant challenge is managing the ROI of SEO efforts, staying abreast of search engines’ indexing algorithms and technology, as well as optimizing destination pages. With so much competition, and the degree and volume of change in the way search engines return sites, enterprises are actively seeking solutions that can provide a surer way to accelerate their SEO success. In this month’s edition of Website Magazine’s Top 50, readers will fi nd many of the leading software solutions to support SEO initiatives on any scale. While this is not a comprehensive list by any means, it will serve marketers and agencies well as they pursue solutions to enhance effort and performance.

Search Engine

OPTIMIZATION

SOLUTIONS

Top 50

Get a preview of Website Magazine’s upcoming2016 Digital Power Player Awards at wsm.co/powerplay16.

Digital Power Players

Moz.com

Wordstream.com

KeywordSpy.com

Majestic.com

Raventools.com

SEMrush.com

Conductor.com

Serps.com

Woorank.com

ScreamingFrog.co.uk

SpyFu.com

BrightEdge.com

UpCity.com

Ahrefs.com

Ubersuggest.org

AdvancedWebRanking.com

Searchmetrics.com

Link-Assistant.com

Webceo.com

CognitiveSEO.com

AuthorityLabs.com

Tra� ctravis.com

BrightLocal.com

HitTail.com

KeywordDiscovery.com

BuzzStream.com

Positionly.com

RankRanger.com

Rioseo.com

Analyticsseo.com

Rankwatch.com

seoClarity.net

Seoadministrator.com

WebPosition.com

Ontolo.com

KeywordEye.com

Axandra.com

Serpfox.com

WebMeUp.com

Linkdex.com

Ranktrackr.com

Seosuite.com

GeoRanker.com

Colibri.io

SheerSEO.com

Trendmx.com

GinzaMetrics.com

Lotusjump.com

Seoe¤ ect.com

Linkfool.com

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

RANK WEBSITE

di

gi t a l p l a y e r s c

l ub

Making Your Website a Lead Generation Machine for 2016 Wednesday, December 9, 2 p.m. EST/11 a.m. PT/1 p.m. CT

FREE WEBINARREGISTER NOW: http://wsm.co/wmwebinars

Would you buy a shiny new convertible if it had no engine? It might look pretty, but it would never take you anywhere. If your website is not attracting the right kind of visitors and turning them into leads, then it’s not taking you anywhere either. A company’s website is its most powerful marketing asset. Join Rachel Rosin, Marketing Programs Manager for Demand Gen of Act-On Software, to explore principles and tactics that will get your motor running at full power going into 2016.

Rachel Rosin is responsible for the development and execution of webinars

and email campaigns designed to attract, capture and nurture prospects

and leads. She is also a key player in content development for lead and

pipeline cultivation, with a focus on increasing conversion rates.

Register Now for this On-Demand Webinar:

http://wsm.co/wmwebinars

SPEAKER

BIO

REGISTER NOW

Rachel Rosin

Marketing Programs Manager

Demand Generation,

Act-On Software

Sponsored by

Resource CenterFINELY FOCUSED INFORMATION FROM INDUSTRY SPONSORS

Website Magazine’s Resource Center presents white papers and webinars from our sponsors that provide information, specifi cs and metrics to help you make decisions for website success. www.WebsiteMagazine.com/resources.

Scan to visit our Resource Center at www.WebsiteMagazine.com/resources.

WEBINARSERIES

SERIES


Despite the evidence proving SEO’s importance (see sidebar), not everyone believes it is their personal re-sponsibility to optimize for placement on the search

engine result pages (SERPs). Although there are so many front-end and back-end factors accounted for in Google, Yahoo and Bing’s algorithms as related to search results page placement, all Web professionals should know how their individual work may impact their enterprise’s overall “fi ndability.” While the fol-lowing will serve as a high-level view of SEO roles by department, it will help brands encourage (and educate) their team members to start thinking like an SEO professional.

Content WritersThere has never been a better time to be a writer. Com-panies are rapidly hiring both staff writers and guest contributors (read, “Thanks Content Marketing, Writers Have Jobs” at wsm.co/jobcm) to develop content at a rapid clip in hopes of improving user engagement, lead generation and, ultimately, search rankings. The problem with asking a writer to write for SEO, however, is that many of them have to speculate as to what that means. This could result in an article stuffed with keywords, for example. Let it be known: A writer should not change for the sake of SEO. They should develop content that solves

By Amberly Dressler, Managing Editor

SEO ROLESby Department

The role that search engines play in the ability for an enterprise to be found online is well-known.

Mastering SEARCH

Sites listed on the � rst Google search results page generate 92 percent of all traf� c from an average search (Chitika).

On average, 71 percent of searches result in a page one organic click (Moz).

Search accounts for 34 percent of website traf� c, second only to direct (Yotpo).

On average, users conduct 12 billion searches per month on the Web in the U.S. (Comscore).

Organic Matters

a problem, is easy to consume (e.g. subtitles, graphics, etc.), is timely, links to relevant sources, offers a com-pelling headline and ends when the problem is solved. It is these elements that will lend themselves to good content that will be visited often and linked to from other sites. Headers, keywords, metatags and other SEO tactics are secondary to good content (addressed further at wsm.co/seodeets). That is not to say, however, that there aren’t ways to improve content’s engagement and viral potential, like including numbers in headlines, colorful images above the fold, etc. (read more at wsm.co/viralboost). There are also ways to make informed decisions as to what to write about. What’s trending on Twitter, for example, can spark a writer’s creativity, while frequently asked questions (see sidebar) from a support ticket sys-tem can fuel problem-solving-type content. These real-time topics should be on top of a set editorial calendar. Creating an editorial calendar will en-sure there is always fresh content for users and the search engines to index and that an organization covers the breadth of topics it needs to persuade and engage users.

Further reading, “Why Businesses Should Combine Content Marketing with SEO” at wsm.co/seowrite.

Social Media Managers The impact social networks have on how a company ranks in the search engines may still be up for de-bate, but at the end of the digital day all good con-tent needs to be shared. When shared, the chance of getting more clicks increases – and that is always benefi cial to an enterprise. A social media manager should use a variety of insights into what to share and when. Buffer, for example, offers its clients the Optimal Timing Tool to recognize when posts should be shared depending on location, number of posts a day and levels of engagement throughout the day (see image). Optimal timing can also be determined within Facebook Insights (as it shows when a brand’s users are most active on the social network), but it’s not the only way to use social to improve SEO.

Further reading, “Quick List of Social Media Best Practices for SEO” at wsm.co/qlsocial.

Designers & DevelopersWebsite Magazine recently published, “Web Design for SEO: Building a Strong Foundation” at wsm.co/seodevs and “SEO Design Lessons from the Pros” at wsm.co/prodevs, which go into greater detail about the major impact design and development has on SEO initiatives. Even still, it bears repeating that the decisions these digital professionals make impact everything from how a search engine crawls a website and how a user is able to interact with it to its device friendliness and page speed.

Software BuyersEven though some executives are out of touch with the day-to-day operations of an enterprise’s SEO ini-tiatives, they are typically the ones relied on to pur-chase critical software for a company. Choosing the wrong content management system, for example, can hinder a company’s SEO efforts if it has a poorly developed code base or features archaic default nam-ing conventions.

Further reading, “A Software Buyer’s Checklist for SEO” at wsm.co/seocheck2.

Technical SEO is as important as the topics mentioned above (and addressed frequently at wsm.co/mastersearch), but different employees in a company need to know what impact they can have and are currently having on their employer’s bottom line. The basics of search is as good as a place to start as any.

Customer Service & SEOWhile service reps aren’t usually tied to website content, the service that they provide can have a huge impact on SEO. Read more atwsm.co/csandseo.

By using Bu� er’s Optimal Timing Tool, social media managers can ensure they schedule posts for when they are most likely to be shared, clicked and liked – impacting a piece of content’s tra� c numbers and possible rankings.

+

+

+


On one hand, it can signal friction in the checkout process (e.g. lengthy forms, slow load times, high shipping costs, login issues, etc.) but on the other, shopping cart abandonment can merely indicate a shopper is in the research phase of their buying ex-perience. Retailers need to look to their analytics to

understand the differences. This is because the majority of con-sumers use online shopping carts as a place to store products and, further, 37 percent of consumers who expect a shop-ping cart reminder also expect to receive a coupon to motivate them to fi nish their purchase (source: Bronto, 2015). According to Kahuna’s (a commu-nication automation company) Doug Roberge, the issue is that items sit in shopping carts and fail to get purchased. Roberge advises that in order to over-come this, marketers need to be aware of what’s waiting to be purchased and leverage tools that help highlight the best time for a conversion push (see sidebar). For example, if the item is a larger purchase, the brand might allow the customer a bit more time before re-minding her of the unpurchased item. “Overcoming e-commerce friction is a delicate equation that shouldn’t be rushed or pushed too aggressively, but marketers can’t wait on the sidelines just hoping cus-tomers will make their forgotten purchases on their own,” said Roberge. For luxury or big-ticket items brands should consider developing content that

informs the potential buyer about the product. An email about the cost- or energy-saving benefi ts of a new washing machine can keep the product top of mind for the person who left it in their shopping cart. If opened, this message could serve as the perfect segue for an email containing a promotional offer (e.g. free delivery). The re-marketing of products with longer lifecycles should be more sensitive to the investment the user will have to make. When it comes to smaller, more everyday pur-chases, retailers can increase the frequency in which they serve retargeted campaigns. While nobody wants to be bombarded with ads, they are expected. When best practices are followed (check out, “3 Retar-geting Best Practices for Retail” at wsm.co/3retarget), retargeting is a highly effective way to get shoppers to recover their shopping carts. In fact, a 2014 study from Visual Website Optimizer (VWO) indicated that 72 percent of millennials (age 25-34) will pur-chase products left in their cart if they are offered them again at a discounted price. The problem, however, is that the majority of that same demographic are using ad blocking, according to Charles Nicholls, SVP of product strategy, marketing solutions at SAP and, “when they go dark, they go dark forever.” (For further insights, read, “How Marketers Can Overcome Ad Blocking” at wsm.co/adblocksos.) When marketing messages are contextual, consistent and relevant (the three elements of fi x-ing a broken marketing system as discussed at SAP hybris Summit in October), however, brands have a fi ghting chance. Relevancy goes beyond retargeting with the products in a user’s cart. It also responds to user intent and hybris Profi le has a rather unique method of addressing the natural decay in intent that arises when someone abandons a website, shopping cart or other brand experience. For example, if a per-son is looking at a camera, leaves the site and then comes back to look at the camera again, the “intent score” goes up and so too does the frequency of per-sonalized emails, landing pages, etc. If they come back to the website without ever viewing the camera again, the intent score goes down. If someone buys a different camera altogether, the Profi le solution ends the retargeting entirely. While retailers think abandoned carts were per-vasive in 2015, they will likely increase in the New Year as sites remember carts for longer (see images) and modern shoppers test which companies will in-centivize them to complete their purchases. Retailers not leveraging retargeting are behind the curve, but simple strategies won’t be enough to lure modern shoppers to purchase. Creating wishlist capabilities, intent scores and more will set the bar in 2016.

E-Commerce EXPRESS

There are two sides, positives and nega-tives, to shopping cart abandonment.


Getting Shoppers to Recover their

CARTS

Oriental Trading Company keeps shopping carts for 30 days and uses them to retarget instantaneously across the Web.

There isn’t an exact term for what Simpson means, but the sentiment is agreed upon by many in the Web development community. Between modals, app-install prompts, mo-bile Web fails, ads, mobile redirects and Eu-ropean Union (EU) cookie prompts, Web developers (just like average users) increas-ingly hate using the Web. The term that this article will use to describe the phenomena is “cruft”: the poorly designed, unnecessarily complicated or unwanted code and page elements that the average website includes, which does not contribute to what the user is trying to accomplish (e.g. read an article, buy a product). To put this into context let’s look at an example.

Visitors to the CNN article in Image A wanted to learn about psychopaths, but before reading they were required to view and experience social buttons, the temperature and a terms-of-service modal. That’s cruft. Loading the article took 200-plus HTTP re-quests and used approximately 2MB of data, tak-ing about three seconds to load using Wi-Fi. A test of this Web page actually indicated that it would take about 13 seconds to load on an average mobile network. This example wasn’t selected to single out CNN, but because it is now representative of the av-erage Web experience. So, what is causing the cruft in the CNN example? A deep dive into code reveals some 200-plus HTTP requests (ad related and serving tracking/analytics functions); 25 of which are to different domains. Since minimizing HTTP requests is a well-known best practice for mobile Web performance, why do many mobile websites violate this rule? Money. Why does CNN show ads? To make money. Why does CNN include tracking services? To learn more about the reader, to show targeted ads, to make money. Why does CNN use social media buttons? To

By TJ VanToll, Developer Advocate at Telerik

Open Web evangelist Kyle Simp-son recently opined on Twitter about whether there was a term for hating the Web more and more as a user but liking it more as a developer.

The Web’s CRUFT PROBLEM

Design and DEVELOPMENT

A. User engagement can be impacted negatively when cruft distracts users from their goals.

encourage sharing the article, to get more page views, to get more ad views, to make money. Again, this isn’t intended to call out CNN as the “bad example,” but rather to show a specifi c model that has become pervasive for content on the Web. Developer Brian Rinaldi argued that the content model of the Web is broken because Web users thor-oughly devalue content and writers. He contends that because users refuse to pay for content, publish-ers must resort to drastic tactics to make money from their writing. Many people are attacking the cruft problem, but interestingly the innovation is mostly coming from outside the browser world. Flipboard was perhaps the fi rst successful attempt at fi xing cruft. Flipboard takes content from around the Web and provides excerpts and links to the full content. This provides a pleasant browsing experience without all the cruft. Flipboard has gone beyond this content pre-view role and now partners with certain content providers to display full articles directly within the Flipboard app — foregoing the browser entirely. Image B shows the same CNN article in the Flip-board iOS app. The same content is visible, yet un-like the browser version, the Flipboard article is cruft free and loads nearly instantaneously. Flipboard’s success hasn’t gone unnoticed. Its business model has been more or less copied by oth-ers, including Facebook’s Instant Articles and Apple’s Apple News. The way Web users experience and con-sume content is changing, so how is the technology and development community reacting to the cruft problem and what is being done? HTTP/2: The HTTP/2 specifi cation offers to sub-stantially decrease latency on the Web by serving compressed HTTP headers and loading resources in parallel over a single TCP connection. Once imple-mented in browsers, HTTP/2 should substantially lower the load times of sites relying on a large number of HTTP requests.

Mobile-friendly: Last year, Google announced that it will penalize sites that aren’t mobile-friendly in their search results, and display a “mobile-friendly” label next

to search results that meet their guidelines. This is a small tweak, but one that early research shows is having a no-ticeable impact on how digital experiences are built.

Proxy browsers: Opera Mini has long been acting as a proxy browser, caching resources on its servers to reduce the amount of data that needs to be sent to each individual device. Chrome for Android and iOS now includes a similar option to help users in-crease speed on the Web.

Ad blockers: Ad blockers are the primary tool for attacking the Web’s cruft on desktop devices, but they have yet to make their way into users’ mobile workfl ow, largely because mobile operating system vendors have actively prevented them. Google has a fair reason for actively discouraging ad blockers, as it derives 80-90 percent of revenue from online adver-tising. Apple has also prevented ad blockers, but now allows ad-fi ltering extensions in iOS 9.

A Cruft-Free Future?Despite these existing cruft-reducing features, this is still an area ripe for innovation. Why is it that for publishers the only real monetization option is to inject bulky ads that produce a worse experience for everyone? There’s no clear answer here, though many have spent years searching. While this is by no means the end of the open Web, it’s time to clean up the mess.

B. The same article displayed in Fliboard is now “cruft free.”

InternetSupervisionTM is as serious about your business as you are

The virtual assistant is essential for today’s web-centric business. They monitor your website and online ad campaigns giving security that everything is working the way it should be.

Toll Free: 866-558-5780international: [email protected]

Let InternetSupervision’s Virtual Assistant look after your website.

Plans start at no cost and can be fully customized for up to $15.00 per month.

*Visit InternetSupervision.com to see all available plans.

Get yours today!


• Monitor unlimited services

• Customize how frequently you want your website checked

• Receive voice or text notifications

• Access AdSupervision PPC Campaign pausing

• Receive unlimited email notifications







Get yours today!













Get yours today!







As a result, paying regular and rigorous attention to website per-formance and analytics is considered fundamental to the success of each and every digital enterprise; but it’s only the fi rst step. While most view the default graphs, statistics and charts available in the myriad technology solutions used by ‘Net professionals daily as suffi cient (be they marketing automa-tion, customer relationship management, Web experience or e-commerce platforms), it is possible to dig far deeper into an enterprise’s available data pool and gather insights and answers into what may just be the primary issues web-sites are experiencing and, more importantly, what can be done about it. Web workers and the enterprises that employ them simply need to know where to look and how to use that information once it’s been found – and do so from a mature and sound perspective. Most of the data companies have at their disposal is simply ignored. Regular performance reports are out of reach com-pletely (unavailable entirely in some cases) from key personnel. Data is discarded at crucial moments of the digital experience, or was never collected in the fi rst place. It is diffi cult to deny that customer data is not being used to its fullest potential within many enterprises and it is preventing companies from cross-selling, upselling, planning, and most importantly, inno-vating and making measurable improvements.

It’s tough, if not impossible, to retain customers, plan inventories, personalize experiences and/or eliminate rogue actors in relation to fraud and security, without a deep un-derstanding of customers and the information that results from their online activity. Those that do take advantage of the available data tend to have a signifi cant competitive edge (and greater revenues as a result) and that’s reason enough to pursue the practice with a great deal more rigor. And it should start now. According to a new study by the Economist Intelligence unit, commissioned by Wipro, there is a strong relationship between earnings growth and the strategic use of data. Adapt-ing to this new reality will not, however, be easy. Seventy-four percent of executives surveyed expect the range and types of data they collect to expand in the next two years. While it could prove to be a breakout moment and validate the invest-ment into analytics offerings up to this point, to maximize data use, today’s brands need to fi nd opportunities to cope with the overload, the worries about quality and the general lack of skills within their enterprises now as well as in the future. They need to prioritize analytics and business intel-ligence (BI) initiatives every day, and everywhere. The goals for any enterprise’s analytics initiatives are relatively straightforward – assist in delivering growth and identifying growth opportunities, control costs and manage risk. In order to make sense of the vastness of information available, analytics solutions and enterprise processes must be in place so the delivery of those goals becomes a reality.

Collecting, understanding and acting on business-related “intelligence” is critical to digital operations today.

By Peter Prestipino, Editor-In-Chief


Web Analytics


Not everyone is comfortable with diving into some of the complexities of analytics and lucky for them, there’s another way to get a decent understanding of how users are interacting with a website (and its content) thanks to visual analytics solutions. Heatmap software solutions, like the oft-mentioned Crazy Egg, do an excellent job of revealing action and interactions taken by users, but there are also numerous other solutions. Discover fi ve powerful visual analytics solutions at wsm.co/visanalytics.

Visual Analytics

The Right Tools (and Tactics) for the JobWhat Web professionals really want to know (the rea-son they are even moderately interested in analytics and intelligence tools in the first place) is if their efforts and resources are resulting in some positive effect – revenue, awareness, engagement. To get the most useful informa-tion, however, requires using the right tools for the job to reveal the right data (at the right time and for the right people during their brand journey). Fortunately, there is no shortage of solutions available. Google Analytics, which offers a suite of powerful fea-tures and benefits, is arguably one of the most popular (just over 69 percent of the top 10,000 sites use Google analytics according to BuiltWith), but there are many oth-ers worthy of closer examination. Its closest and most significant rival at the enterprise level is that of Adobe Analytics. While the company’s Marketing Cloud offer-ing is considered pricey in relation to similar offerings, Adobe’s real-time data and reporting functionality, as well as its advanced segmentation capabilities (and integration with other Adobe products including its development and testing tools, and new Audience Marketplace, which will allow advertisers and marketers to buy and sell second-or third-party data), make it an ideal solution for those with more sophisticated demands or those who are planning on scaling their enterprise up and expanding the capabilities of their analytics and data initiatives. Adobe and Google garner a great deal of attention among business-focused consumers of analytics solutions (and for good reason), but there are, as most likely know, plenty of other powerful options that do not nearly receive the awareness they merit. Piwik comes highly recom-mended among Internet retailers thanks to the platform’s strong e-commerce tracking capabilities, integration plugins for leading providers including Magento and PrestaShop, as well as its advanced reporting mechanism. Kissmetrics

is also a very popular business analytics tool lauded by the digital community and known to be particularly good at making it easy to build and interpret funnels. Its path report, for example, identifies the most common steps between the first visit and a conversion. With integrations available for numerous third-party tools, it too (if not always) tops the list of considerations of analytics tools often among Web professionals (particularly Internet retailers). These are just some of the most utilized website ana-lytics solutions on the market and they serve Web profes-sionals well in their pursuit of insights that matter when the aim is delivering improvements and growth. No enter-prise is alike, however.

INDUSTRY OPTIMIZEDThere are solutions available that were designed for specific types of companies, industries and markets. Fuel’s new Fuel Gauge marketing Dashboard, for instance, provides a good example of a solution that serves a niche industry segment well. Hotel and resort mangers using the platform can gain insights into their website, booking engine, email market-ing, social media, online reputation, guest satisfaction, or-ganic and paid search and more, in one system. Brittain Resort Management & Hotels (BRM) is the first to utilize Fuel Gauge to for its 14 properties and will track each re-sort’s marketing efforts, as well as conversion, occupancy and revenue tracking in real-time.

Geo-MARKET OPTIMIZEDWhile Fuel’s industry-based approach will be logical for hoteliers, location-based marketing technology provider SIM partners approaches the analytics opportunity from another perspective. The company recently launched Velocity Insights, a suite of features for its local market-ing automation platform that aims to help companies move beyond simple performance metrics to provide actionable analysis of their local presence. The solution provides insights into the visibility and performance of a brand’s location pages, measuring “listing health” by applying a proprietary scoring algorithm that assesses factors such as location data accuracy and reach across influential data publishers and aggregators. The system also provides demographic, Web and ranking insights to help companies optimize performance.

OPTIMIZED FOR SCALEAs analytics technology solutions become increasingly more sophisticated, enterprises are focusing on the value it pro-vides across the enterprise. Amazon Web Service (AWS), for example, launched QuickSight in early October, a solution to make data analytics available and understandable to any employee making business decisions, no matter how tech-nically advanced their skill level.

One of the most signi�cant mistakes that Web professionals make is viewing all of their analytics at once but it is more useful to view the data in smaller batches and groups and there are nu-merous, incredibly useful ways to do so. For example, traf�c can be segmented by the source of traf�c, by device type or browser, by returning versus new visitors and a whole lot more. Segment-ing traf�c in this way offers an opportunity to understand how well a website is satisfying users. Discover more creative ways to segment website traffic at wsm.co/6segments.

The Power of Segmentation

The Authenticated Testimonials seal lets people

know we can be trusted. And trust has its advantages

such as increased website conversions & sales.

-Alan J. www.SupplyHero.com’’’’

Phone: 1.866.904.5414 InternAtIonAl: 1.773.272.0998AuthentIcAtedtestImonIAls.com

How AutHenticAted testimoniAls work:We contact your customers to verify each statement.

Authenticated testimonials provides a verification seal to display on your website.

Prospects are more inclined to trust and purchase your products or services!

QuickSight is an aggressive player in the cloud data analytics software market as Amazon can likely offer more advanced, less expensive tools that will enable its customers take advantage of insights from data analyt-ics at every level of the organization. QuickSight will start at $9 per user, much lower on average than the cost of the traditional BI services. The new tool also in-tegrates with AWS’s data services, so organizations can scale to hundreds of thousands of employees to crunch data, run search queries and create data visualizations quickly. The new tool uses a new “Super-fast, Paral-lel, In-memory Calculation Engine” (SPICE) to perform calculations and render visualizations. The point of profiling the variety of analytics and intel-ligence solutions is to reveal that there are offerings avail-able, powerful ones, which can provide an enterprise the information it needs to make decisions that will benefit the bottom line. Even with the best approach, however, other challenges remain.

Hurdles & the True Power of AnalyticsWhen Website Magazine launched 10-plus years ago, it was not uncommon to hear the word “hits” used as a means to convey website performance (as if it were an accurate representation, which it wasn’t). Today, the industry has become far more sophisticated (moving from elementary activity reporting in the past to ad-vanced event-based performance tracking and predic-tive intelligence functionality today) and there are many challenges to overcome in the course of a brand’s digital life as a result. The first challenge is often in understanding the indus-try terminology as well as the broader concepts and theo-ries of analytics and BI. As enterprises begin their journey toward success with these initiatives, however, the follow-ing are the basic terms and phrases that will serve as the foundation for most analytics efforts. Yes, industry veter-ans should already know these, but a regular revisiting will ensure initiatives are staying on course (and improving). Visits, Sources, Bounce Rate, Time on Site, Pages per Visit – these are the fundamentals of website analytics. These relatively self-explanatory metrics can provide an im-mense amount of insight into campaign and business per-formance. It is when they are used in association with each other (and in tandem with supplementary data), however, that their true power becomes apparent. One of the most significant problems in the realm of analytics today is that those responsible for these ini-tiatives tend to group all website data together, instead of segmenting by source, referral, demographic or de-vice. The sheer number of variables in aggregated data makes it incredibly difficult to see patterns, which can reveal potential tactics, channels or processes. The aim

that should ultimately be pursued is one of action. The whole point of gathering and examining analytics data is to be able to act on the real information available and that can’t be done without knowing what is causing ac-tion and activity. The reason Web professionals struggle with Web data analysis is because they tend to act quickly, instinctively and (as are all humans) often subject to emotions, jump-ing to (often incorrect) conclusions accordingly. There is, of course, a better way. It is necessary to connect data at a deeper level by focusing on the metrics that ultimately matter most to an enterprise’s goals. As a result, it’s exceed-ingly important to communicate what’s happening – and those basic metrics outlined previously do not suffice. The solution is to build in key performance indicators from the outset that will satisfy analytics initiatives.

Start & End with Goals & EventsToday’s businesses work in a performance-driven world; a world no longer content to measure unique visitors and page views, but rather with the satisfaction of goals and the occurrence of events. As acquisition costs continue to rise, this shift was inevitable. Goals can be pretty much anything that indicates a con-version – such as making a payment or donation. Not all goals defined by an enterprise, of course, must be so closely tied to revenue; goals can also be set up for indirect revenue actions including creating an account or making a form-based inquiry. Say for example that a website offers an email newsletter; with a confirmation/thank you page in place, tracking the success of marketing and promoting that asset and channel is possible. Goals are essentially specific actions that when tracked can provide an opportunity to produce improvement – more revenue, more registrations, etc. Whether for direct or indirect revenue, tracking activity through the goal fun-nel provides an opportunity to analyze the entrance and exit points that impact a goal. Analytics systems can often do much more than this though; it’s actually possible to measure any and every action that takes place on a website through the use of event tracking. Web pages, just like the companies that create them, are made of many parts. There are links within content, calls-to-action (CTAs), sidebar navigation, the list is long. While clicks on these links may not always tie to some measurable goal, they do and can provide an opportunity to understand performance on a more granular level. Say for example that a marketer wants to track the perfor-mance of on-site content marketing efforts in relation to the number of people that express interest in a newsletter. A form may be set up on the company’s own page, but it is important to track how strong CTAs are in generating a response. Event tracking those CTAs can be done quite easily by appending

some unique event tracking code to each, which will provide data on the effectiveness of every click. If a form is getting plenty of visits, but not conversions – the CTAs in the content are working, but it’s the form that may need work. Event tracking can be used to track a variety of activ-ity, from file download and video plays, to link clicks on interactions on embedded AJAX page elements. Since there can be so many different events that can be tracked, Web professionals should consider grouping events by category or type (e.g. link or file), defining the action (e.g. click or download), labeling it appropriately (to know which event it is specifically) and adding a value depending on its worth. Events are really meant for tracking activity on any page element that does not have a destination URL (such as a thank you page). That being said, some incredibly useful insights can be gathered from using events (that just are not possible with goals). Say for example that there are videos on a website and a marketer is interested in measur-ing if users are skipping through them (because they are insufferably boring). By appending event tracking code on forward and rewind buttons, this insight can become very clear, indicating whether videos are engaging or not. Hopefully enterprises have moved beyond basic activity reporting and are investing their time and resources into capitalizing on the true power of analytics – understanding on a finite level what’s making a difference. With a clearer picture of how well an enterprise is performing, it’s time to put that analytics data to use.

Developing an Analytics InitiativeThe real problem with Web analytics is that it is a real chal-lenge to make good use of the data collected. Calculating return on investment (ROI), for example, is no easy task as most fail to include the costs associated with the entire production and deployment of a project. It can prove useful however when there is a plan in place. If enterprises want to convert as many visitors to customers as possible, and are tracking goals in addition to key metrics like sessions and pageviews, follow this three-step plan to ensure analytics efforts mean something to the success of an enterprise.

Define the Audience NeedConsumers want a specific product or service because it satisfies a need. When brands know what need that is, they are able to craft experiences that address their wants and desires. Analytics systems are useful in that they provide cues and clues about the audience includ-ing their interests, the manner in which they access a site, not to mention how well an enterprise is at captur-ing their attention. Do users consume more long-form or short-form content? Do videos produce greater time on site than other assets?

Establish Baseline Conversion RatesConversion rates will be different for every enterprise, but when you know what it is (and for every referring source and channel) it is possible to emphasize the ef-forts and processes that yield the greatest result. Web-sites don’t often have one conversion rate, but rather many. Group similar offerings on a site to determine what, if any, discrepancies exist. Employ testing (A/B, multivariate) to identify what works.

Assign & Calculate RevenueEach action and interaction can be given a value. While an actual sale should be given a greater value than a click-through, as one requires further nurturing, analyt-ics can be used to help assign and calculate or determine real-world value. From there, it’s just a matter of assign-ing dollars to action. When you know what is working and what is not, it is possible to prioritize decisions for the benefit of the bottom line.

Managing improvements spurred on by a rigorous ana-lytics initiative is made much simpler thanks to the influx of business intelligence tools, solutions that aggregate es-sential data, analyze information from disparate sources, and help executives make sense of the data and more importantly, to drive change more quickly.

Analytics Everywhere… Every DayAnalytics can be a full-time job and it can often take a dedi-cated professional to wade through the volumes of data available. If you know where to look and what to look for, only then can your brand be on the fast track to ‘Net suc-cess. Enterprises must adopt a data-driven culture, enable data access to all business users, and create a consistent un-derstanding and interpretation of data.

To help guide Web professionals through the business intelligence landscape, Website Magazine has developed a whitepaper exclusively for our readers, which can be downloaded at wsm.co/bidollars.

Business Intelligence: Generating Dollars from Analytics Change


Media buyers typically measure ad views based on the average viewability of a website domain. That means they monitor a website but don’t account for how key issues — such as load times, ad placement, website lay-out and historical averages — can distort the metrics, leaving the publisher with a watered down score and the advertiser with a less than optimal experience. Using a domain average is not an effective way to measure viewability. The good news is that advancements in viewability are being made. For example, several vendors such as OnScroll have emerged that won’t even load an ad unit unless they know it will appear in view, while others differentiate through demonstrated higher viewability metrics. Still, the antiquated domain average metric re-mains the norm. The truth is that in-view ads are worth a lot more than the out-of-view ads. As an industry, online ad buys should use the view-ability of individual units, not the historical average of all ads on websites.

A Closer Look at the ProblemToday, viewability rates are calculated by the average load percentage of all ad slot positions (top, side and bottom) over a period of time. For most viewability measurement companies, the evaluation process looks something like this: ad slot number one loaded 90 percent, while ad slot number three only loaded 20 percent of the time. When these two numbers are averaged, this website receives a 55 percent average viewability rate. However, slot one is way more valuable than slot three. Publishers that are

engineering high viewability into their sites may not be getting enough credit for this effort and other publish-ers may be propping up slot threes with higher than actual average scores. Why are we evaluating the entire domain versus the individual ad? It may be easier, but the easiest path isn’t always the best path. What does this average score mean to publishers and advertisers? Not much.

Solutions: A Lens into the Future of Viewability As the industry demands higher viewability stan-dards, publishers will need to ensure they can deliver. Here are three ideas for improving on the viewability benchmark today:

Make the shift from buying via domain aver-age measurement to buying via ad unit mea-surement. It delivers a much truer ad view metric that benefi ts the industry as a whole. It benefi ts advertisers with more specifi city for better targeting and measurement. For publishers, it boosts cred-ibility through viewability. By supporting a pricing model that drills down into the ad unit level as op-posed to the domain average, publishers will attract more and higher level advertisers.

Find good viewability partners. Publishers should work with viewability vendors like Integral Ad Science that make publishers more attractive by scoring the overall and specifi c ad unit viewability score for their site.

Redesign for Web and mobile. Publishers need to redesign their sites to fully monetize them. The good news is that this is already starting to happen. AdAge recently reported that facing pressure from advertisers, dozens of media companies, such as Conde Nast, are re-evaluating where display ads ap-pear to ensure viewability.

Publishers should think about new placements, not just the standard placements in the same content blocks. They should be creative with how ads are inserted into the natural fl ow of content as viewed on various devices. Let’s clear up a popular myth: People often per-ceive their ads will perform better if they are above the fold. This is not necessarily true; it depends on what the site visitors are doing. Scrolling down is actually a sign of an engaged audience, so test basic assumptions during this redesign phase. Above-the-fold metrics will quickly cede to currently “in view” and we’ll all be better for it. An ad that’s never seen is not worth much.

Billions of dollars are at stake for publish-ers’ advertising revenue. The reason? They are at the mercy of the “domain average” used to establish viewability scores.

By Eric Wheeler, CEO of 33Across

Net ADVERTISING

Average is Never Good:

A Call to Embrace New Viewability

Best Practices

To order your copy, go to: www.domains360book.com

THE WAIT IS OVER

What’s Inside Domains 360?Readers will discover...

+ A Brief History of Domains

+ Details on the Technical Landscape

+ Guidance on Mastering Domain Management

+ Tips for Establishing Domain Portfolios

+ Insights on Buying & Selling Direct

+ And Much More!

Order your copy of Domains 360

Website Magazine’s latest book by Editor-In-Chief Peter Prestipino is available for purchase at www.domains360book.com.

10YEARS

CELEBRATING

By Tim Ash, CEO of SiteTuners

UNLEASHING CONVERSION OPTIMIZATION THROUGH YOUR BUSINESS MODEL

Sure, testing is important as a way to validate changes to a Web experience, and make sure that changes are not actually making things worse. On the other hand, one of the problems with testing is that it operates on the Web experience. This creates inherent limitations. Testing is just like the drunk person looking for their lost keys under the streetlamp at night because the light is better there. Similarly, many CRO practi-tioners never wander far from the cozy and comfort-ing routine of repeatedly running tests, which at least on the surface produce some kind of clear measurable results (whether good, bad or inconclusive). They get

comfortable in the repeatable nature of the testing ac-tivity itself, and familiar with the process. This is a false sense of security, and will often result in a myopic out-look that leads to stagnation.

Your own narrow view of CRO will severely limit the amount of benefi t you will derive from it.

So how does a CRO professional break out of this rut? The key is to look beyond the website or landing page for additional leverage by thinking of a website as the part of the iceberg visible above the waterline. Most of the power will come from the vast portion that lies below. This is an important point in the context of competitors. If an enter-prise wants to create a durable and defensible advantage against them, it is much easier to do it with the portions of the business that they cannot easily inspect or duplicate.

Test, test, test! This common refrain has come to dominate the perceptions and activities of the conversion rate optimiza-tion (CRO) community.

Conversion CORNER

As a CRO, the job seems pretty clear – squeeze more value out of existing traffi c arriving on a website or landing page. So that’s what they spend their time doing – looking for increased effi ciencies. This may in-volve digging into analytics, optimizing traffi c sources hitting the site, segmenting an audience to achieve a better fi t or testing alternative content. Some things, however, are either implicitly or explicitly out of bounds. One of the most common sacred cows is the actual business model. In other words, CROs are not allowed to change the calls-to-action (CTAs), or the format and sequence in which they are collected. An online educational business, for example, has the goal of generating leads for their sales force. Typi-cally the CTA on the site will be some sort of long and involved form (for a free information kit or something similar). Once the form is completed, the sales person will relentlessly try to “close” that prospect. What’s wrong with that? Although it seems like a perfectly le-gitimate strategy, it is not. The company is requiring someone to give up a lot of information early in the process (severely re-stricting the number of people willing to invest the effort to fi ll out the form). Then it is trying to hard-sell them on the phone (even though in all likelihood they are not ready to act). In other words, the business model requires a standing broad-jump on the part of a website visitor, and herculean effort on the part of the phone sales force. Imagine the following instead. A website visitor arrives on a site, self-selects (via properly constructed user-centered site navigation) into a specifi c role, downloads a relevant e-book (without any informa-tion required in exchange except for an email address), receives a targeted email follow-up sequence that es-tablishes thought leadership and provides helpful infor-mation over time, eventually follows an email link back to a targeted landing page on the site where they get an opportunity to chat live with a knowledgeable rep (while still remaining anonymous), the chat rep then schedules (in real-time) an appointment to talk to a ca-reer counselor (the sales rep) on the phone (collecting the information needed during the chat), the sales rep reviews the info collected and calls at the agreed-upon time to try to close the sale. Now at fi rst glance, this may seem like a concep-tually more-complicated business model, but looked at from the standpoint of both the prospective student and the business it has many advantages. From the per-spective of the prospect, the relationship unfolds slowly and naturally. The value received along the way is more

than what is being asked for in return. The steps are incremental and non-threatening. There are no big hurdles to surmount. The person feels like they are in control of the process, and are more likely to extend incremental trust and expend additional effort as the relationship deepens. From the standpoint of the business there are ben-efi ts too. It is much easier to create content that speaks to a targeted audience and is seen as more personal and valuable. Much of the early stage follow-up can be done with automated email sequences – not requiring any incremental effort or human involvement. Early stage qualifi cation can be done much more cost-effectively via chat than on the phone. The best-trained phone sales people are getting to talk to receptive prospects. The phone sales people will have higher utili-zation rates (connecting with prospects a higher percentage of the time due to appointment pre-scheduling instead of outbound cold-calling follow-up). It’s a classic case of win-win.

E� ciency is doing things right – e� ectiveness is doing the right things.

Of course it takes some work to set all of this up. Email sequences will need to be developed, online chat will need to be staffed, all of the information collected about the prospect will need to be passed to the phone sales reps ahead of their appointments, the phone reps will need to be retrained to take advantage of the new workfl ow and available information (and to adjust their technique to a more gentle “close”). Beyond the specifi c example of educational lead-generation above, business model innovation can be done in a number of settings. In the e-commerce sphere it can take the form of frequent-buyer loyalty clubs, referral programs and incentives, and changing a one-time purchase into some kind of ongoing sub-scription-based payment model. In lead generation it can involve cross-referrals to other businesses that want to reach the same audience. The possibilities are limited only by a person’s own imagination. Now is the time to start thinking more broadly about a company’s business model and not simply about its online marketing campaigns. How can marketers help engineer a better business model? If it benefi ts the business and aligns more naturally with the needs of the audience, then they know they are on the right track.

Tim Ash is the CEO of SiteTuners, Chair of Conversion Confer-ence and bestselling author of “Landing Page Optimization.”

10 B2B Lead-Generation Opportunities for Your BlogThese are the elements that shouldn’t be missed -wsm.co/blogb2b.


Email EXPERIENCE

After putting effort into pulling in new customers for the holidays, the key to long-term success is retaining those new subscribers and fostering strong customer relation-ships. However, the biggest mistake many marketers make in retention is treating new subscribers like the rest of their contact lists. Below are a few tips and best practices to most ef-fectively retain this season’s new subscribers and turn them into loyal brand advocates:

Hone Your Holiday TacticsThe holiday season is a great time to prepare new sub-scribers for a lifetime of happiness with a brand. Mar-keters should use these first few months to grab their attention and leave a lasting impression. This can be done by revamping the standard welcome message with a personalized seasonal greeting. Holiday subscribers aren’t a brand’s average contacts and shouldn’t be treated as such. Adding a personalized touch will make a strong first impression and give them an idea of what a long-term relationship with the brand might look like. Ad-ditionally, marketers should make sure transactional emails are well branded. Holiday subscribers will likely receive a flood of transactional emails during the season, so a com-pany will need to ensure it stands out above the rest.

Slow and Steady, SantaOnce brands have these new contacts, they have to treat them uniquely and avoid approaching them too ag-gressively. There should be a “slow and steady” period in the initial engagement, focused on building rapport rather than overwhelming new contacts with a blizzard of emails. To build trust and “introduce” a brand to new

subscribers, companies should send informational con-tent over promotional deals – they’ll probably be cut-ting down on the shopping after the holidays anyway. Futher, if marketers purvey information, send surveys and request feedback about the customer experience, it proves that they appreciate the business. This will ensure a brand is still top-of-mind without being overbearing.

Re-Gifting Isn’t Always TackyA retailer’s contact list will likely double, or even triple, in size between Halloween and the New Year. Retailers should use this as an opportunity to recycle old content. All of the content will be brand new to holiday subscrib-ers, so they could be a more receptive audience for cam-paigns that have some more life left in them. This will allow marketers to not only predict which campaigns will garner success (since they’ve executed on them be-fore), but to also maintain efficiency despite a flourish-ing contact list.

Be the Gift that Keeps on GivingThe secret to retention after the holidays is continuing holiday engagement even after the holiday season ends. By studying contacts’ engagement with a brand through-out the holiday season this information can be leveraged in upcoming holidays in the New Year. By using report-ing and analysis tools, companies can identify what type of product or deal attracted holiday subscribers to their brand initially and use that information to tailor and per-sonalize deals moving forward. For example, if a man bought a woman’s necklace around New Years, send him jewelry promotions around Valentine’s Day. Or if a woman purchased children’s toys for Christmas, deliver toy promotions around Easter.

Don’t Be a Greedy GrinchSubscribers earned over the holidays aren’t always long-term wins. Email marketers should work to build a re-lationship with new contacts for the first few months of the New Year, but may want to taper off if they don’t receive engagement. Further, they will want to use en-gagement scoring to determine who is open to com-munication. If recipients are not interacting with the content, they should temporarily be suspended from the mailing lists and re-engaged after Christmas. Holiday subscribers can be valuable contacts long after December but only if approached correctly. Still, even failure in a retention effort can be a lesson that pays off. Use new subscribers as a testing group if you lose more than half after the holidays end, and re-evaluate your overall email marketing strategy to optimize for retention. In short, don’t waste the opportunity holiday contacts offer. Whether they’re naughty or nice, there’s insight to be gained.

With so many festive promotions to o�er during the holiday season, attracting new customers from Black Friday through the New Year isn’t a problem for most email marketers. The true challenge is getting new subscribers to stick around after the holiday hype dies down.

By EJ McGowan, General Manager, Campaigner at J2 Global

Post-Christmas Email Retention


WEBSITE MAGAZINE

IN YOURINBOXWEBSITE MAGAZINE

IN YOURINBOX

for our channel-focused weekly newsletters at wsm.co/email15

Sign up for one (or all) of our weekly newsletters, choose from e-commerce, search, social, design and dev, and our industry trends news. It’s as easy as entering your email address!

Subscribe

Sign Up


Analytics INSIDER

Understanding their behavior, their needs and the im-petus for their actions requires a basic comprehension of psychology (and some great digital customer experi-ence tools to gather the required data). While there is no magic formula for button colors that convert, killer copywriting or winning layouts, it is possible to get inside the mind of a target audience and understand which elements prompt action.

Introspection and Web BehaviorThe process of understanding behavior could be best described by the psychological term “Introspection,” which essentially means to examine one’s own con-scious thoughts and feelings, to obtain privileged access to one’s mental states. That’s not easy to do, however, when it comes to Web behavior. Introspection (and self-observation) is a method in which people are asked to verbally report their mental processes. For example, to say why they made a particu-lar choice or how they arrived at a particular judgment. The main criticism to this method is that there is always a gap between what people report about themselves and their actual behavior. Therefore, when trying to optimize a website, relying solely on visitors’ feedback regarding their experience is not the ideal approach. Instead, brands are using solutions to visualize visitors’ online behavior to bridge the data gap in understanding action and inaction.

Introspection’s Substitute: BehaviorismIntrospection is about human self-refl ection rather than external observation. It refl ects the inner pro-cess of the human mind. In contrast, Behaviorism is more quantitative and looks at the external, observable causes of human behavior. To be practical in the realm of Web analytics, the context of actions is of the utmost importance in under-

standing browsing usage. While traditional analytics can analyze conversion rates and detect whether a website has succeeded or failed in reaching its goals, they are ineffective at providing a broader view. When engaging in more refi ned exploration of human interaction on the Web, analysis based on server access logs alone (as is the case with traditional analyt-ics) is anything but suffi cient. To see the entire picture, it is necessary to examine and understand the visitor’s behavior, motivation and resulting actions. A key element in the Behaviorist approach to under-standing online behavior is gathering mouse-movement data, which can pinpoint user intent and interests. Mouse-movement recording technology provides a series of interesting advantages when compared to classical usability tools. For example, it can be mass deployed, allowing for large datasets; it can reach typi-cal and fi rst-time visitors in their natural environment; and, most importantly, it is transparent to visitors, so no experimenter bias or novelty effects are introduced, allowing them to browse websites in their natural envi-ronment as opposed to lab conditions. Session recording technology enables businesses to easily examine what is going on behind the screens, in the minds of the users. For example, it can reveal how many users considered clicking the buy button versus how many of them actually clicked it. Or, it can pro-vide insight into the order in which they complete the fi elds of a form. Marketers can use this technology to get quantifi able answers to the questions that plague them, including whether people actually scroll down the Web page (and how far), where they hesitate on the page (and for how long), as well as what elements they are interacting (engaging with or concentrating on). Session recordings provide answers to these ques-tions and many more. Videos can be generated for in-dividual or for segments/groups or users (for example, based on engagement time, location or fi rst-time versus returning visitors). Likewise, recordings detect page el-ements that visitors interact with the most, the rate of scrolls (to infer interest), or whether the pages viewed have a minimum scroll reach (which may indicate that some visitors are searching for specifi c content but are not being successful), to name just a few.

No Room for GuessworkWhile it is possible to guess what changes to a Web page or website will achieve the highest conversion rates and then hope for the best, this is clearly not the best practice for online marketers as it wastes time and money, both valuable resources. Using Introspection and Behavior-ism principles to develop valid hypotheses, understand behavior, run controlled tests and evaluate the results is the only path to improvement.

If there is one important lesson learned from the many studies conducted in the Web usage, analytics and optimization fi elds, it is that to see results, online busi-nesses need to “feel” their clients.

By Dr. Liraz Margalit, Web Psychologist at ClickTale

Using Psychology to Improve Website Conversions


Take out an ad on WebsiteMagazine.com! If you want to reach a tech-savvy audience, advertise in the industry’s top publication. Over 50% of our subscribers are C-List executives, and overall, 84% of our subscribers influence purchases at their organizations.

“Do You See Me?”“I see you! and so do your customers!”

Go beyond! Website Magazine o�ers the following advertising opportunities:

• White paper hosting • Job board advertising• Newsletters and eBlasts • Website advertising• Webinars • Video hosting• Listing on website


With email passwords, social media passwords, banking passwords, etc., the last thing most want is to have to remember another login to make a simple purchase. In fact, in a recent Web Hosting Buzz report, 86 percent of retail customers say that they are bothered when they have to create a new login and username. For this very reason, social login has become in-creasingly popular among retailers looking to turn website visitors into returning customers. Retailers know that improving conversion rates (e.g. purchases) begins with improving the customer experience. Al-lowing visitors to register with a simple click to log in with their existing social media profile from Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn eliminates the need for long regis-tration forms, verifications and password recovery. In fact, 77 percent of consumers reported a preference for social logins in the Web Hosting Buzz report.

Despite its benefits, many businesses fail to take full advantage of the potential of social logins – using them ineffectively or not at all. In order to use social logins to build more complete profiles of customers and cre-ate seamless experiences, retailers must understand the three pillars of social media login.

I. Go beyond gamificationInteractive elements including quizzes have proven suc-cessful in reaching today’s consumer, creating fun and entertaining ways for visitors to interact with a brand and share content. Many enterprises use social login to access these games, but limiting social login to brand engagement campaigns means companies are losing out on important insights. Using social logins merely for short-term market-ing efforts limits the ability to enhance customer experi-ences and create comprehensive customer identities. When social login is used only for one-off cam-paigns, all the information about user behavior is limited only to the game. Instead, implementing a social login for all digital marketing efforts – from shopping carts to commenting tools to customer service inquiries – will help digital marketers connect the dots between all of the ways a customer interacts with their brand.

In the quest for simple and intuitive digital experiences, website visitors are growing increasingly frustrated with having to cre-ate multiple usernames and passwords for each site they visit.

By Stefan Koenig, CEO and Co-Founder of Hull

Social Media MAVENS

Enhancing Customer Identity Management:

3 Pillars of Social Login

II. Make it simple and intuitiveRetailers know they have only seconds to intrigue site visitors. What they struggle to understand is how to get visitors to provide their information within those same seconds. Many use pop ups and embedded forms, but if they are not compelling, are too long or too complicated (squinting to read CAPTCHAs sound familiar?), brands waste valuable opportunities to convert. Users are doing multiple things simultaneously, likely talking on the phone, texting or watching TV at the same time they are logging into a site, so the process needs to be simple – limit the social login choices to the top three used by customers (currently that’s Facebook, Google and Twitter), and offer a very short form for those that don’t want to use this method. Creating an intuitive social login also means elimi-nating requests for new passwords and email verifi ca-tions. To have users create a password for a site that they logged into via a social profi le defeats the pur-pose of moving to one login. Plus, sending a verifi ca-tion email creates an unnecessary additional step that is cumbersome for users. Finally, ensuring that a website remembers returning users is foundational for creating an intuitive, simple so-cial login process. As the digital worlds become increas-ingly mobile, consumers expect to browse products on smartphones and make purchases from laptops. Know-ing this, it’s critical that brands remember consumer preferences and shopping carts from device to device, whether it’s a mobile site, laptop or app.

III. Connect the data behind user behaviorA common issue among retailers today is understand-ing and defi ning customers in a digital world, where one user may have multiple “identities” by a brand, with email, customer service and e-commerce all having dif-ferent data on the same user. Deploying a social login that effectively captures the products users are viewing and purchasing, the reviews they’ve given, the comments they’ve made or a customer service submission they have created can give IT teams, customer service reps and marketing executives the kind of information they need to be most effective. Ultimately, this insight allows brands to send the right message at the right time to the right user – increasing conversion rates.

The key to seamless user experiencesSocial logins are necessary to connect with and reach today’s consumer, but they must be implemented the right way in order to be effective. By creating a simple social login that not only remembers returning users, but

also connects the dots between a site visitor and a social media profi le can create meaningful information that helps retailers better understand their customers. This better understanding translates to better communication, ultimately increasing sales and loyalty.

Eighty-six percent of retail customers say that they are bothered when they have to create a new login and username, proving the benefi ts of social login.

Did You Know?When Janrain recently polled consumers (mostly under 45 years old with annual incomes less than $100,000), it found:

92% have encountered social login before.

3 out of 4 use social login.

70% leverage social login because it’s faster than registering the “traditional way.”

68% have left incorrect or incomplete information when site regis-tration becomes tedious.

64% are more likely to return to a website that remembers them without a username and password.

53% are more likely to spend more time on a site that personalizes their Web experience based on profi le and interests.

This is one of the messages Constellation Research Founder R “Ray” Wang delivered at Episerver Ascend 2015 in Las Vegas when he spoke to a crowd of mar-keters, developers and other professionals interested in learning more about improving their digital experiences. For those who have missed some of this Fall’s big-gest “customer-day” type technology shows, know this: There is an attention economy where advocacy, en-gagement and time is as good as currency. Capitalizing on the attention economy can only happen, however, when content is delivered in relevant ways across chan-nels before, during and after the sale. While many savvy marketers have known this for quite some time and may be using solutions from the likes of Episerver, SAP, Sitecore, DNN, Monetate (and the list goes on) to do so, creating the amount of content needed to speak to customers/readers/users 1:1 presents a resource burden that most brands have failed to mini-mize – as copy, graphics, photos, suggestions and other creative content needs to be changed to address users’ wants and needs. The demand, however, is there and the available data is a big part of that. At Ascend 2015, Episerver gave attendees an exclu-sive preview of “Profile Store” and its ability to aggre-gate user data from channels like Instagram, searches and website behavior. To put this type of information to good and immediate use, brands can prioritize user personas – and, in turn, reduce the amount of content needed to be created. Episerver customer Mud Pie, for example, has three distinct filters on its site: baby items, fashion and liv-ing. A first-time visitor receives a generic “Welcome”

message and a promotional offer to incentivize the ini-tial purchase. Once Mud Pie is able to identify which products the user is interested in, Episerver will serve the correct content based on that persona. Even with its agency of record, Whereorware, and marketing automation company Silverpop, it would be too time consuming to update all channels (with images, copy, promotions) to more than a few segments, so Mud Pie has wisely selected to personalize high-trafficked pages based on past purchases, product type intent and more. For example, someone looking at a baby item, will now see emails and landing pages based on that product and category (rather than Mud Pie’s living or fashion lines). Not every company – retailer, service provider or information publisher – will be able to invest in a new Web content management system or a marketing auto-mation platform in the New Year, but those who want to compete in the attention economy will have to make strides to deliver personalized content soon. When ready, their software and technology-related decisions should be fueled by how the product will help them personalize experiences at scale and what profile data those experiences will be based on. If buyers spend their limited free time investing in a brand (e.g. viewing content, completing forms), enterprises will have to invest in them too. This starts with leveraging technology that allows enterprises to speak to users personally and, thus, get and maintain their attention in this changing economy.

Did you know…Disney doesn’t sell amuse-ment park tickets or products? Rather, they sell an experience, and they are competing for your free time to do so.


Web COMMENTARY

Get a roundup of best practices, software

updates and emerging trends discussed at this

year’s tradeshows atwsm.co/keycliff.

Keynote Cliff Notes: What You Missed

Competing in the

Attention Economy

R “Ray” Wang discussing the Attention Econo-my at Episerver Ascend 2015.


CHOOSE YOUR STARTERSPlace your job openings on Website Magazine’s job board to reach a pool of quality candidates who trust us for all their digital tips and tools.

Start Winning atwsm.co/jobswm

website-2015-12

Documents