Google Shopping US shows new strategic plays from Google
You may have read my post introducing Google Shopping last week on the changes coming to what is currently called Google Product. It has been interesting to watch the noise unfold on the subject.
Google is already rolling out their user experience updates in the US on http://google.com/shopping, no doubt ahead of the coming Google Shopping UK updates on http://www.google.co.uk/shopping. See the screenshots below to see the differences to the UK platform and what this suggests about Google's strategy.
Google Shopping UK - August 2012
[caption id="attachment_16246" align="aligncenter" width="550" caption="Google Shopping in the UK. Currently just flat products displayed on a page..."][/caption]
Google Shopping US - August 2012
[caption id="attachment_16247" align="aligncenter" width="550" caption="Google Shopping integrated with the 3 services it is now bringing together... See below for…
Demystifying the affiliate marketing jungle
It can be hard to understand affiliate marketing if you're new to it. When I mention I work in affiliate marketing people often looked scared and confused! Quite often you might be unaware of the amount of times you come into contact with an affiliate site in your day-to-day life. This is why they are such a great opportunity to expand the reach of a retail or ecommerce site - you can reach audiences that you wouldn't otherwise and only pay when sales are delivered.
Like walking through the jungle it’s a lot less scary if you know what to look out for. Understanding the different types of affiliates and some of their characteristics can help to improve your chances of surviving and prospering. With that in mind I have looked at some of the animals that make up the affiliate marketing kingdom.
Content sites for SEO
…
E-retail own goals that gift victory to your rivals
There are lots of common mistakes that I still often see made on a frequent basis when I review e-commerce sites. Sure, you're unlikely to see these on John Lewis and M&S, but some are made irrespective of the size of the project.
Having seen many of these mistakes being made so often and particularly when so little work is required to rectify or prevent them, I have created this list of some of the common e-commerce mistakes to avoid:
Getting the basics of product marketing wrong
Surprisingly, one of the most common mistakes that companies of all sizes have made and will continue to make comes down to viewing the build of a website as a technical exercise only. In fact nothing could be farther from the truth. An e-commerce website has to position your…
"Need-to-know" changes in July 2012
In this “fat-free” round-up we update you to what we see as the biggest changes from the last month in the world of digital marketing. You’ll certainly know some, if not most already, but we hope it will be worth scanning to see whether you missed anything which could affect the way you approach marketing in future.
These alerts are mainly changes on the platforms like Facebook and Google which are so important to digital marketing, but we also include a selection of our most popular briefings on best practice in managing and planning marketing.
I thought the biggest news this month was the announcement of availability of Google Glass and the new gestural interfaces we cover in the UX section below. Is this what we'll be seeing out of our window this time next year?
…
A summary of recent changes relevant to marketers
Value/Importance: [rating=4]
Google often announce developments in Google Analytics in bursts. In July we've seen several changes notified via the Google Analytics blog that it’s worth being aware of if your company uses Google Analytics. Some are just name changes, others are more significant. Here’s our summary:
1. New Google Analytics version now standard. From 18th July the original version of Google Analytics was retired. Most businesses will now be using the new version, but this is a prompt that users may need training to be aware of the new features such as multichannel funnels and social analytics.
It is also a prompt to check that Google Analytics is set up to tailor reports to improve marketing for their business (see our Google Analytics setup checklist for details of 15 setup options).
2. Google Website Optimizer now integrated as Content Experiments. GWO was originally…
Using AlternativeTo to find better ways of working
If you are anything like me, you like to find new tools and ways to improve what you are doing. Software, apps and online services are often ways to aid in process changes, but searching the web, looking for reviews etc can make this task very boring and costly (from a time perspective).
In this post, I'm recommending AlternativeTo (www.alternativeto.net), a site recently introduced to me. For any service you're already using, it will give you a user rated list of alternative apps, software and services to trial and use instead.
Another example of where this tool is relevant is if you are making the switch from PC to Mac (one I would recommend) you might want to find a similar tool you use on the PC for a Mac. Using the search, filters, categories & tags it is easy to what you are looking…
Recommendations on managing today's media in a new report from the Altimeter Group
Altimeter's new report, "The Converged Media Imperative: How Brands Must Combine Paid, Owned and Earned Media" by Rebecca Lieb and Jeremiah Owyang is very good read. I'll summarise it with this quote highlighting three obvious and simple words that will not do the report justice:
"Ensure that you break down silos between traditional (paid), digital and earned media."
Don't let that summary put you off, since being comfortable with it doesn't mean you're doing it or even motivated to do it, nor that your marketing partners or agencies are ready to help you do it either...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/altimetergroup/7585322178/
Organise around the customer experience
The report speaks to marketers and their agency partners - urging that they must converge their media efforts by combining social, corporate content, and advertising reach – or risk a lack of connection with the fleeting customer. It's true since whilst consumers don't distinguish…
How alternative models of the customer journey can help us build more realistic media plans and experiences
A couple of weeks ago I rolled out one of my favourite slides, the Forrester ‘spaghetti’ view of the online customer journey. I’m fond of Forrester’s reworking of the traditional sales funnel for the digital age. On the one hand, the reworked sales funnel probably is a more accurate picture of the way that people make purchase decisions online. But it isn’t easy to see how it would drive sensible digital strategies back in the real world:
To help gain better insight, we need to add the time dimension. Research can can show that decision times vary a lot by category and they're not short. This research…
Giving social business a human dimension
Over the past 15 years at IBM, Luis Suarez has carved out a reputation as a thought leader in knowledge management and more recently, in social business. He is currently the company’s knowledge manager, community builder and social software evangelist. IBM were one of the first companies to coign the term social business and it’s a core part of their Smarter Planet campaign.
What is social business?
Suarez is the first to admit that ‘social business’ isn’t really anything new.
“To me, social business is a philosophical movement where you redefine the way you do business with your customers following a people-centric approach next to a customer-centred approach - where it’s not you telling the customer’s what they need or what they should have, it’s the customers telling you what they need that you need to…
10 tests for social media usage which show social business maturity
We have spent the last five years trying to convince companies to engage with social media. From initial scepticism (‘this is all very interesting but it’s really not for us’), interest and enthusiasm for social media in the UK and other countries has grown rapidly over the last 18 months. The CIM social media benchmark research shows that the majority of companies now have some type of social media presence.
However, most remain at an experimental/testing the water stage of social media maturity. Many view social media as another broadcasting channel for talking AT rather than WITH customers. Very few organisations have developed an integrated and coordinated Social Media Strategy fully aligned with and supportive of core business goals and objectives.
Social media pitfalls remain common and suggest a company limited in…
