If you've been thinking about starting an e-commerce business, you might want to consider the subscription box market. Subscription-based mail order businesses like Ipsy, Dollar Shave Club, Blue Apron, and Birchbox have been growing by leaps and bounds

According to Forbes, the subscription services e-commerce market has grown by more than 100 percent every year for the last five years. There are countless subscriptions available, from high-end niche products to deliveries that save customers a trip to the store for food, toilet paper, and razors. The typical subscriber has higher-than-average income but little free time, so convenience is a big part of the appeal. Novelty is also a big draw with boxes that provide everything from goodies for Star Wars fans to rare teas from around the world. The costs vary widely. Some subscription boxes like Birchbox and Ipsy charge around…

Social media strategy and planning essentials -  Recommended dashboards and tools for creating social media marketing reports for different reporting periods

This is part 8 of my Smart Insights 12 part social media series. In the last part we looked at resource planning for social media; in this blog, I discuss what data you should capture and report to measure the impact of your social media marketing campaigns. To frame the conversation, I’ll cover four different type of report: Daily dashboard Weekly KPI report Monthly roll-up report Quarterly strategy review

Reporting scope and goals

It’s important to understand the context, and limitations, for reporting. The data you have access to depends upon your business resources and scale of social activity. For example, many small businesses don’t have subscriptions to social media monitoring tools like Audiense and Buzzsumo, so won’t be able to include data from these in their regular reports. Focus on what data you…

Don't fall foul of these common Google Analytics mistakes

Google Analytics is a fantastically useful tool for businesses of all sizes. Rather helpfully for all the SMEs and SMBs out there, it's also free. That means anyone can start using Google analytics to study their web traffic in an attempt to tease out insights, to use to improve their sites.

This openness and low barriers to entry mean it's easy to launch yourself into Google Analytics before you actually have a handle on exactly what you are using for and how you should use it for your business. There's nothing wrong with getting stuck in and learning on the fly, but it can leave you vulnerable to making mistakes that could affect your bottom line. This post will introduce you to some of the basic mistakes people often make when setting up and using their Google Analytics. If you want…

Is your site mobile friendly? Find out how you can prepare for Google's mobile-first indexing

It should come as no surprise Google is working toward indexing web pages primarily based on the mobile output of web pages versus desktop versions in what the search engine giant has called the ‘mobile-first’ index. This is where search engine users are predominantly headed, after all. 2017 marked the year, when, according to Google’s Consumer Barometer Study, mobile internet usage crossed 50% in all 63 countries covered by the report for the first time, albeit the range of usage country to country differed dramatically. Furthermore, from a search engine user perspective, Google have shared there are now more searches on mobile devices than desktop in several countries.

What is the mobile-first index and how is it different?

Historically, Google’s index has…

10 simple test ideas for your B2B website, to increase conversions and improve the user experience, through user testing

User testing is the process of testing elements of a website to improve conversion, sales and revenues, as well as overall improving the user experience which brings for mentioned benefits. Being familiar with user testing is only half the battle, what do you test to make changes to improve the user experience for your customers?

Introduction to user testing

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In our new Quick Win - 10 things you…

7 Fixes for Common Personalization Pitfalls

Personalizing your site is one of the most effective ways to transform your site from a flat, static platform to a live, dynamic and responsive tool for your customers to find exactly what they need. However, with so many tools and features out there it can be tricky to focus on what the best practice is. I’ll discuss seven of the most common personalization pitfalls that it’s easy to fall into nowadays. The good news is, they’re all very easy to fix!

1. Ignoring your data

Now, more than any other time in history, big data is king. There’s so much information about almost every aspect of online shopping right at your fingertips. The only issue is that it’s all variable quality. It can be easy to get overwhelmed in the sheer volume, and not know what is best to focus on. The fix: determine ahead of time what…

Selling Apparel Products? Get more from your Google or Bing Shopping campaigns

With apparel products predicted to exceed $500billion in sales this year, the online fashion industry continues to thrive, resulting in all-time high levels of competition. E-commerce fashion websites now depend on the performance of paid advertising campaigns more than ever, and ad performance has the power to make or break an entire brand. With online shopping platforms such as Google Shopping being the preferred way to shop for clothing and accessories online, it’s currently the most important platform to optimize for profitability.

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Paid advertising challenges for online fashion brands

When it comes to selling fashion online or offline, there are a few variables which can influence user behaviour and conversion rates such…

For marketers, there’s never been a more important moment to reconcile ethics and strategy

If you want a room of nerdy marketers to bicker and disagree, ask them for a definition of “strategy.” If you want to make the debate divisive and uncomfortable, pivot into the topic I’m going to address today (you’ve been warned). Strategy has become a toss-out word. Perhaps you work in a business where every plan, initiative, operation, idea, and launch is labeled “strategic.” Don’t you want to roll your eyes when you hear that?! Behind that bluster, what do we mean? A good definition of a word is one that speakers of the language intuitively understand and easily apply. Strategy defies good definitions, which is part of why we debate, discuss, and write articles about it. I’ll offer a definition that works well for me in the marketing technology world: Strategy is knowing today why and how you're…

Whether you are focused on B2B or B2C efforts, generating more traffic to your website is still one of the top challenges that marketers face on a consistent basis

In today’s fast-paced, continuously distracting digital age, it can seem nearly impossible to grab the attention of consumers and draw them to your website. Source: Hubspot - State of Inbound 2018 According to ClickZ’s study, the average company receives 30% of its online traffic from organic searches. If your team’s SEO strategy isn’t strong enough to rank high during customer queries, it significantly hurts your chances that they will ever find your link. Since customer’s have a virtually unlimited amount of options when it comes to finding the products, services, and information they are seeking online, you must be especially strategic if you are going to attract them towards your website. While there are…

Implementing the following 7 strategies for e-commerce personalization can be one of the most cost-beneficial decisions you can make towards increasing your online revenue, improving your online conversion and building a loyal and happy customer base.

Many businesses are finding it difficult to overcome certain pain points when trying to improve their online customer experience. Issues such as high bounce rate, poor search click through, low average order value, high basket abandonment rate, low repeat visitor numbers, low propensity to engage with offers and promotions, are to name but a few.

 1. Improve your website conversion and customer loyalty

If your analytics is telling you that your homepage or digital marketing campaign landing pages have a high bounce rate and very low repeat visitors, then there is evidently a gap between what the visitor was expecting to see and what they have been presented. A website that presents irrelevant products and promotions, without dynamic and…