An honest and frank look at the often flawed digital procurement process from the [supplier] dark side

The software procurement process is fundamentally flawed. It's a waste of time and I'd go as far to say that neither the buyer nor the supplier ever really get the result they are looking for. I hold this view as a digital director who has dealt with a fair number of tender processes over the years and, while I appreciate where this process comes from and why it is used, I just feel it's time to urge businesses to start shaking off this hugely out of date way of buying when it comes to digital. After all, it's a legacy of the advertising industry that operates in a totally different way than it does now.

So what's the problem?

Overall I think it's that…

Recommended best practices for Product Listing Pages

This is the third in my series of posts to share best practices on design and user experience for retail sites. My post aims to give you some tips to consider for testing improvements and designing your Product Listing Page (PLP).  For each site page template type I have created a wireframe summary of a typical responsive site layout for desktop or tablet rendering showing key design elements, to give you a toolkit to review and optimize your pages. If you work in design or merchandising for a retailer, or are involved in design at an agency for retail client’s accounts, then I hope these templates and tips will help you along the design/re-evaluation process to maximise results from your pages. For retail sites, PLP pages sit within the category hierarchy and provide a list of all products available within a chosen category. For large catalogue retailers, these are usually…

eCommerce organisations prioritise reliability above all else when it comes to delivery

Research by retail week and Metapack has revealed what eCommerce organisations value most in a delivery provider. The answer is clear: reliability. A whopping three-quarters of the businesses asked in the research agreed this - meeting customers' delivery expectations - was the most important thing when it came to delivery. This is hardly surprising. Customers are not forgiving when it comes to late deliveries, or worse still, when they never arrive at all. As an eCommerce site, you'll know it's far easy to get a previous customer to come back for repeat business than it is to get a brand new customer. So when if you annoy a customer by missing a delivery thanks to an unreliable provider, you've probably lost that customer for good, and with them all that valuable repeat business. So if you're an eCommerce site, make sure your delivery provider…

Recommended design patterns and best practices for retail Home Pages

This is the first in a series of posts from me in which I hope to give you ideas to consider for testing improvements to page elements on Ecommerce sites following emerging best practices. In each post I will provide a wireframe summary of a typical layout showing key design elements, to give you a toolkit to review and optimize your pages. In this first guide, we have focused on Desktop and tablet design and merchandising elements since in today's era of mobile responsive and adaptive web designs, the smartphone experience is usually simplified in style and content - so it needs separate treatment which we cover in our mobile marketing guide. If you work in an ecommerce team at a retailer, or are involved in design for your client's accounts, then I hope these templates and tips will guide you along the design/re-evaluation process to…

As we head towards some of the busiest months of the year, Google has decided to roll out some new Adwords features.

Value: [rating=3] Recommended  links: Paid Search Strategy On Tuesday 12th July 2016, Google posted about a whole host of updates for their shopping ads and their Travel search ads.

Shopping ads

These new additions to Google are across three sectors Product Listing Ads (PLA's), YouTube and International Shopping

Product Listing Ads

In previous instances with broad terms queries such as "women's athletic clothing", Google has shown less defined and sometimes irrelevant items in the PLA's. An example used in the post was a broad term search for "living room furniture", which may show a teal sofa, and this may not be the most useful experience for the person who isn't sure what they want to buy. The new feature introduced with the aim to provide more relevant and engaging options is "Showcase Shopping Ads". The…

A review of page load times and mobile effectiveness for different Ecommerce platforms

More than $12 trillion in B2B transactions are expected for the year 2020. That's up from $5.5 trillion in 2012, according to projections from Frost & Sullivan. B2B online sales are nearly double those of B2C sales. No matter what sphere of digital marketing you work in, it's time to hone in on e-commerce. Clients are hungry for a piece of the ecommerce pie. By staying informed on the existing software solutions, you will have the information you need to lead them towards smart platform choices.

61% of consumers report improved sentiments toward a brand as a result of a positive mobile experience and by 2017, m-commerce is expected to account for 25% of US sales. Mobile shoppers also spend more than users on other devices.Features like…

The connected customer

On average, the British household owns over 7 internet devices and unsurprisingly, smartphones are the most common followed by laptops and tablets. More than 60% of all email opens are with a smartphone (Communicator Benchmarking Report 2016), with 50% of all mobile searches conducted in the hope of finding local results and 61% of those searches result in a purchase being made according to Search Engine Watch. The customer is more connected than ever and this is changing buyer behaviour.

A change in behaviour means a change in strategy

A change in behaviour means an impact on the customer journey. Journeys are no longer linear –now we must focus on the multiple touch points to create the ultimate customer experience. The change in customer journey has developed a change in consumer behaviour and expectations, meaning brands need to evolve their products to be one step ahead to stay competitive;…

Gnip's API let you see the demographic breakdown and interests of your Twitter community

Importance: [rating=4] (For Any brand using Twitter) Yesterday Twitter opened up the API of Gnip, a data platform which it owns. Why should you care? Because Gnip handles all of Twitter's audience data, and given that Twitter knows it's users gender, language, city, and favourite shows, products and music, this data is marketing gold dust. Twitter opened up the API to let brands see demographic information about people that see their Tweets, and then also from people viewing their site when you have Twitter's tailored audience tag set up. Before you start thinking that this is a horrific breach of privacy, don't worry, brands won't be able see demographic details or interests for individual users. Marketers won't be able to see that Jo Bloggs, 22 from Peterborough likes swimming and patterned drapes. What they will get is anonymised demographic data for…

The rise and rise of co-marketing partnerships as the new form of sponsorship 

Last year Nike spent $6.2 billion on sponsorships. That's certainly one way to keep your brand awareness high. But for those of us who don't have a few billion burning a hole in our pockets, co-marketing partnerships can be a great way to open new markets, attract new customers or simply boost sales. For example, the music streaming service Pandora partnered with Honda, Ford and Subaru to offer free music streaming to drivers. They gained 14 million new listeners and generated over 900 million in advertising revenue. Take a look at the infographic below to learn more about digital partnerships. Thanks to CIM for publishing this infographic…

Which marketing skills are most sought after by CMOs?

This week, we're launching a survey on Digital Marketing Skills - we'd appreciate it if you could take a couple of minutes to give your personal views on digital skills development and you'll receive a free copy of the report. We've designed the research to be quick to complete, but useful and the survey should take less than 3 minutes. If you complete the survey you will get a copy of the report recommendations with advice to develop your career in marketing. Take our skills survey. Since we're covering demand for skills for digital media and technology, I thought it would be interesting to look at the demand for the broader marketing skills-set. Recruitment specialists Spencer-Stuart have recently published their 2016 CMO Summit Survey Marketing Skills…