Curious to learn what other marketers are doing after reading my blog post earlier today, Chris Goward posted a LinkedIn poll asking “Where do you drive your search engine traffic to?”

If also you are curious to learn what your peers are actually doing, go, vote and see the results.

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We all know that the economic downturn is shrinking the growth of all ad spending, including Search. But Search remains the “shining media” it has always been - it is simply not growing as quickly as it has in previous years.

eMarketer estimates that while the rate of search ad spending growth was down in 2008, search still grew 21% over 2007. “In fact, the rate of growth will fall over the next three years—but search ad spending growth will continue to be positive, in double digits every year—until 2012 when it will rise to nearly 14%.”

Search, it seems, is “recession-resistant.”

Smart Marketers will continue to spend increasing budgets on Search – and rightfully so, if they want to continue to make their ROAS (Return on Advertising Spend) accountable.

But are marketers managing and measuring ROAS properly?

Maybe not. Read the rest of this entry »

News of a drop in holiday sales comes as no surprise this year. Overall holiday retail sales were down 5.5% in the month of November, and 8% in December up to the day before Christmas, compared to the same periods in 2007, according to MasterCard Advisors, a subsidiary of MasterCard Worldwide.

But wait! eCommerce sales were not down by as much as overall retail sales.

ComScore’s end-of-season online sales figures put the tally at $25.5 billion, down “only” 3% from a year ago. And MasterCard Advisors’ report says overall ecommerce sales ended the season with a decline of “only” 2.3% (the emphasis is mine).

But wait! Unique visitors to eCommerce sites were actually up.
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Go ahead: Google <“marketing predictions” 2008> and you will get 17,200 results. Then go back and Google <“marketing predictions” 2009> and you will get only 10,200 results.

In other words, just 5 days before the start of 2009, marketers are becoming significantly more cautious about guessing.

Personally, I think this is good news. Us marketers tend to be very opinionated (who? me?) and historically have relied on gut feel and aesthetic preferences to make decisions. But no longer.

In these uncertain economic times, marketers can no longer afford the luxury of guessing. We need to become more data-driven and hard-nosed about the work we do and the marketing plans we propose. How else can we gain the respect of the C-suite? And, most importantly, how else can we make decisions that measurably improve our employers’ and our clients’ Financials?

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Bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell, in his latest book ‘Outliers: The Story Of Success’, writes that there is no such thing as “instant,” “overnight” success or a “lucky” break. (Read an extract of Gladwell’s book here)

Truly successful people, Gladwell says, are not necessarily so because they are the smartest, strongest, or wealthiest, although these things can enter the picture somewhere along the way. Read the rest of this entry »

LinkedIn is proving to be a hotbed of discussion. We’ve found a very responsive community ready to answer questions and the Conversion Rate Optimization groups are no exception.

If you haven’t checked them out yet, you can join the discussions here:
B2B Conversion Optimization Network
B2C Conversion Optimization Network

Of course, you’re always welcome to ask questions and contribute your thoughts on this blog too!

Everyone, most of all you, benefits when you add your perspective and experiences.

OK, so this isn’t exactly news for most retailers – but maybe for some pure-play eCommerce retailers it is.

This morning, ClickZ reports that on Cyber Monday eCommerce order volumes rose by 14.5 percent but average order sales were significantly down, falling 12 percent.

The result: Overall sales volume on Cyber Monday was essentially flat, growing less than a half-percent compared with the same day in 2007. This trend is consistent with payment activity during much of November.

But the Cyber Monday snapshot isn’t telling the complete story. Consider this: Read the rest of this entry »

It’s no longer “been there, done that”, according to an article published today in The McKinsey Quarterly, the business journal of McKinsey & Company.

“The old recession playbook won’t work this time around” writes the author, David Court. And “those who follow the survival techniques of past slowdowns risk betting on the wrong Read the rest of this entry »

There are brave eCommerce retailers, truly working both hard and smart at making sure the avalanche of bad economic news does not sweep them over.

This morning, AdAge reports a ComScore finding that consumer web spending dropped 4% so far in November versus the same period last year — the first time e-commerce figures have shown a year-to-year drop. “Despite the recent reprieve that plummeting gas prices have given American consumers, the depressed and volatile stock market, declining housing prices, inflation and the weak job market all represent dark clouds hanging over their heads this holiday shopping season,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni.

But there are positive forecasts too: Read the rest of this entry »

Seth Godin wrote this morning about a terrible user experience calling the KitchenAid IVR service line.

The automated phone system is an easy target and one that many (arguably most) companies do a poor job of. It may be the most blatant customer experiences flaw your company is inflicting, but probably not the only one.
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