Data shows uplift retailers in the UK and worldwide can expect from the key e-commerce dates this month
For retailers, the festive season effectively starts with Black Friday on 27th November 2015 and Cyber Monday three days later. This year some experts are predicting that UK sales could top the one billion pound mark. To understand what we should expect this year let’s take a look at how things panned out in 2014.
The data in the charts below is compiled by Fresh Relevance and the predicted uplift is based on billions of page views across retail websites in previous years (approx. 50% in the UK and 50% worldwide).
The impact of the two day shopping bonanza starts one week ahead of Black Friday as traffic falls back slightly, suggesting that consumers are delaying purchases in the anticipation of lower prices. Then the day before a 25% increase in traffic as shoppers’ scope…
Having started my career as a web analyst and working with data on a day-to-day basis, I see massive opportunity in what we can learn and how we can improve online performance by using data effectively. However, “how” we use data to make decisions is a wide-ranging scale and it can be all too easy to go from traffic, to visitors, to clicks and transactions in your analytics platform and not pay the appropriate attention to what is actually happening in between. Not micro-conversions in this instance, but the psychological filters consumers employ as they interact with and process your website. Both consciously and (more interestingly perhaps) sub-consciously. Perception, emotion, anxiety and more.
The common saying goes that analytics can tell you ‘what’ is happening, but cannot tell you ‘why’. User Research can give you fantastic insights into what motivates or influences decision-making,…
Avoid a Black Fridays Sales #Fail by optimising your Black Friday Marketing
Over the years, we Brits have been given much by our transatlantic cousins: the telephone, the lightbulb, David Hasselhoff… In more recent times, we have been ‘gifted’ the concept of Black Friday.
Once nothing more than jaw-dropping news reports of deal-hungry shoppers fighting over reduced flat-screen TVs, it’s now recognised as the biggest retail opportunity of the year. Though still a relatively new phenomenon, the UK’s ecommerce industry has started to act accordingly, taking steps to ensure that it gets the most out of this strange, yet lucrative, US import.
To help you do the same, we appealed for some advice. We know you will have your core plans for Marketing Black Friday in place, but you will still be making last-minute adjustments. Here are some Black Friday ecommerce marketing tips…
Why you should pay attention to microcopy on your website and how to make it work
The great majority of advice for digital marketers and content writers is about how to write incredible landing pages, engaging content and killer headlines. And those things are incredibly important - don't get me wrong. But, the good web marketers know that there's a third category of text that's so tiny (literally) that most writers ignore it, yet so significant that it can help boost conversion rates and customer loyalty.
It's microcopy. Those tiny snippets of words that ask people to fill out a form or tell them that there was an error. For those out there that think that microcopy doesn't matter consider this: microcopy is sometimes the only actual interaction between you and your readers/customers.
It's where you ask your customers to fill something out, explain to them what went wrong and guide them on…
10 practical recommendations for choosing the right retail personalisation service for your online store
Although ecommerce is now a relatively mature industry, the software solutions that underpin the industry are still very much evolving. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the personalisation field. Recommendation engines were perhaps the first tools to promote personalisation, but it is now a common feature espoused by many ecommerce tools, in systems designed for both marketers and online merchandisers, with each often having a very different take on what it means and the benefits it brings. If you’re in the process of selecting personalisation software where should you begin, what questions should you ask?
#1 KNOW YOUR GOALS
It may seem obvious, but knowing what you hope to achieve by selecting a personalisation solution is critical to selecting the right product. Although a ‘no brainer’, don’t fall into the trap…
What a difference a CMS makes
Wex have been a leader online camera retailer for over a decade, benefiting handsomely from the rise of eCommerce since their founding in 1997. But with over 17,000 products, a clunky interface built on brittle code and a lack of mobile responsiveness, the current site had seen better days. Starting to look outdated, and losing traffic due to Googles 'Mobbilegeddon' algorithm update, the site was in desperate need of a significant update. By working with CMS provider Episerver they were able to greatly improve the design and aesthetic whilst maintaining elements of the interface popular with customers.
The Problem
Wex's previous site was very busy, with competing calls to action and offers. The code it is built on is poorly designed and hard to maintain. This was standing in the way of the businesses goals and leads to frustrated users. Worse still, the site is not mobile responsive and there…
When used effectively, Personalisation based on Geo-targeting can be a powerful way to increase your conversion rate
People arrive at your website from a variety of different locations. This means they will have different nationalities, languages, currencies, climates and even cultural expectations. Geographic targeting allows a website to render content that is personalized to the location of the visitor. In other words, it determines the exact locality of your visitor, and then dynamically tailors the content on your website to be more meaningful to that shopper. The benefits of this are immense.
Below are just a few examples of how geo-targeting can improve the visitor experience for your Ecommerce site.
1. Display Products Relevant to the Local Climate and Culture
Altering the type of products displayed depending on where the customer is from is a technique widely used by many online retailers.
For example, take a clothing store that delivers to customers in the USA. Because…
How to compare Marketing Automation vendors
Marketing Automation is now one of the most commercially important techniques for digital marketers, so you have to look to select the most cost-effective platforms. But how do you tell one supplier from the other, and how do you know which will best help you meet your objectives in the most cost-effective way?
If you are currently making the case for marketing automation, here are 10 questions you should ask any vendor before making your choice.
1. How will it help me to drive leads to my business?
We know today’s consumers look for relevant products and services as and when they need them. Frequent, fresh, high quality content on your website, blog or social media will attract visitors when the time is right for them to buy. Marketing automation software helps you to turn those visitors into leads by asking visitors to leave their contact details in…
5 all-too-common reasons that stop companies investing in Marketing Automation?
Marketing Automation is becoming a more widespread purchase, indeed it's one of the top-rated trends in the Smart Insights poll of 2016 digital marketing trends. However, our research suggests that many businesses still aren't using functionality like lead scoring, lead nurture and web personalisation - download it for further details and recommendations.
[si_guide_block id="58833" title="Download free Member resource – State of B2B Marketing Automation 2015" description="Research summarising the current adoption of Marketing Automation in the B2B sector."/]
So this poses the question: what is preventing companies from adopting Marketing Automation? Well, as with the adoption of any technology, there are always obstacles and believe me, I have come up against these obstacles on numerous occasions! The good news is that I have also been able to overcome them through working through the arguments. In this post I'll take a look at the most common…
A checklist for digital marketers, bloggers and writers to create content that brings traffic and turns visitors into subscribers or customers
80% of B2B marketers and 70% of B2C marketers used content marketing for their businesses last year. The number of digital marketers who use content creation and distribution in 2015 is close to 90% from total.
Being a very significant part of successful marketing strategy, online content is developing and improving constantly; it's not enough for content writers to take a laptop, create a 500-word article on a particular topic, add a bright or funny image, and post it to their business blogs in hopes for great traffic and conversion rates. This tactics doesn't work anymore: top-notch content calls the shots, and online writers should abide by the rule of the game if they want to make their business more visible and recognizable online, as well as monetize their traffic.
According to…
