Website Magazine December 2014

3 Creative Digital Ads Sure to Impress, page 38

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THE MAGAZINE FOR WEBSITE SUCCESS DECEMBER 2014

EMAIL Systems, Tactics & Processes for

INSIDE THIS ISSUE...

SEO Predictions for 2015 Retailers’ Post-Holiday POA The Role of the Data Scientist

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EMAIL Systems, Tactics & Processes for

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The evidence is clear – email is an effective way to retain and engage users, and bring potential buyers who are hesitant to engage one step closer toward conversion. The savviest marketers are establishing the right strategies, sending to the right users, and taking advantage of systems, tactics and processes that are driving opens, brand loyalty, website traffic and revenue.

THIS MONTH IN WEBSITE MAGAZINE

30

Explore Website Magazine’s

Quick Guide to Selecting an Affiliate Network

There is no one-size-fits-all platform for digital advertisers, but there are four universal considerations that should guide your decision.

DEPARTMENTS 10

Why Going Global Means Going Local

Role of the 32 The Data Scientist

12

A sought-after position in the modern enterprise, discover four ways data scientists are taking conversion optimization to the next level.

13

34

iBeacons to Retailers’ Rescue

This small, low-cost hardware has huge untapped potential to improve consumers’ instore experiences and merchants’ bottom lines.

Superstardom 36 Achieving on LinkedIn

Web professionals and brands are wise to start leveraging some of the most valuable tools LinkedIn offers.

Enterprise Ready: Small Business Lab: 5 Web Design Feedback Mistakes

Quiz Time: What Do You Know About HTML5?

14

Top 50: The Best of the Web

16 19

Mastering Search: 2015 SEO Predictions

E-Commerce Express: Post-Holiday Plan of Action

20

Design & Development:

40

Web Commentary:

Head to Head: RWD vs. AWD Were You Naughty or Nice?

Manipulation 37 Image in WordPress

The newest WordPress version provides users more flexibility for editing images within the popular CMS.

38 An Impressive Digital Display Check out these advertisers who are creating compelling, personalized ads that drive clicks – and conversions.

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GET THE DIGITAL SCOOP Check out Website Magazine’s email newsletters covering e-commerce, search, SoLoMo, design and more at wsm.co/webscoop.

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From the

EDITOR The Magazine for Website Success Reaching the largest audience of Web professionals of any Internet industry publication

Step Outside the Inbox While many businesses are attempting to rid their enterprises of email altogether, the inbox remains a primary destination of Web users and as such, a key opportunity for digital marketers.

CONNECT ON YOUR MOBILE Access the December 2014 issue online at

wsm.co/wmdec14 or by scanning the QR code below.

WEBMAG.CO Check out Website Magazine’s new virtual pinboard highlighting infographics, videos, events and more.

Despite the rise of powerful and effective software solutions to foster collaboration within the enterprise, and endless guidance from productivity experts advising less interaction with the medium, email is here to stay – at least for the foreseeable future. Need proof? There are more than 4 billion email accounts worldwide right now (predicted to reach 5.2 billion by 2018 – source: Radicati Group) and approximately 122 trillion emails are sent every hour (source: MarketingProfs). Ignoring email as a marketing and service opportunity could be to the detriment of your enterprise.

‘Net businesses that put the right systems and processes in place and keep a keen eye on industry trends, however, can quickly develop a more robust presence on the Web and put their brand on the fast track to success. In this month’s feature article, readers will discover some of the most popular solutions and processes to help make email a central aspect of the digital experience provided to their users.

Email is the main focus of this edition of Website Magazine, but it is far from the only one. This issue also includes guidance on important topics in the world of digital business including how going global may really mean spending more time establishing a local presence, and the practical side of providing Web design feedback. Website Magazine readers will also find SEO predictions for 2015, a plan of action for retailers after the holidays, insights on conversion optimization with data science, and a head-to-head comparison of responsive and adaptive design.

As always, we hope you enjoy this issue of Website Magazine and invite you to join us on the Web, where our editors and contributors explore the topics that matter to your digital success.

GENERAL MANAGER:

David Ruiz druiz@websitemagazine.com PUBLISHER:

Susan Whitehurst EDITOR-IN-CHIEF:

Peter Prestipino peter@websitemagazine.com MANAGING EDITOR:

Amberly Dressler adressler@websitemagazine.com ASSOCIATE EDITORS:

Allison Howen ahowen@websitemagazine.com Derek Schou dschou@websitemagazine.com *CONTRIBUTORS:

Nataly Kelly Roy Chomko Noah Brimhall Amir Glatt Brian Lewis Jeff Francis Marko Heijnen

GRAPHIC DESIGNER:

Shannon Rickson shannon@websitemagazine.com ADVERTISING:

Kelly Springer kspringer@websitemagazine.com Brian Wallace brian@websitemagazine.com Barry Cohen bcohen@websitemagazine.com SUBSCRIPTIONS:

Sandra Woods sandra@websitemagazine.com

Best Web Wishes,

MARKETING:

Abdul Umer a.umer@websitemagazine.com

Peter@WebsiteMagazine.com

Find Website Magazine at these Internet industry tradeshows.

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999 E. Touhy Ave. Des Plaines, IL 60018 Toll Free: 1.800.817.1518 International: 1.773.628.2779 Fax: 1.773.272.0920

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Website Magazine, Volume 9, Issue 15, December 2014, (ISSN# 1942-0633) is published 12 times a year, January through December by Website Services, Inc., 999 E. Touhy Ave., Des Plaines, IL 60018. Periodicals Postage Paid at Des Plaines, IL and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Website Magazine, 999 E. Touhy Ave., Des Plaines, IL 60018.

Canada Post: Please send undeliverable items to: 2835 Kew Drive, Windsor ON, N8T 3B7 Copyright 2014 by Website Magazine. All rights reserved. Materials may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission. For reprints of any article, contact the editor. *The opinions expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of Website Magazine.

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Resource Center FINELY FOCUSED INFORMATION FROM INDUSTRY SPONSORS Scan to visit our Resource Center at www.WebsiteMagazine.com/resources.

Website Magazine’s Resource Center presents whitepapers from our sponsors that provide information, specifics and metrics to help you make decisions for website success. Download free at www.WebsiteMagazine.com/resources.

Let’s Get Visual Visual!

To take advantage of visual content’s appeal, marketers should learn to think visually about their social media, content marketing and demand generation mix. Discover the pillars of visually appealing content, the many forms visual content can take and get some stellar examples of visual content in action.

Sponsored by Marketo

Email Segmentation Guide

Learn how countless retailers are driving 46 percent more opens and 16 percent more clicks by using purchase data to segment weekly newsletters and marketing promotions into four variations. Download this playbook for access to step-by-step instructions, case studies of successful campaigns, as well as best practices, tips and tricks.

Sponsored by Windsor Circle

12 Holiday Preparations For E-Commerce Merchants

7 Ways The Mobile Consumer Changes Everything

Shoppers made at least 50 percent of their holiday purchases online in 2013.

Dollars are there for the taking, but with greater opportunity comes greater risk of sales tax audits - and associated fines, penalties and fees. Even if holiday shopping blitzes blow out your revenue expectations, what good is it if you find yourself on the wrong side of an expensive, time-consuming audit?

Sponsored by Avalara

Shoppers’ mobile use in research and buying is exploding. Currently, eight in ten smartphone owners are smartphone shoppers. And by 2016, 85 percent of all digital shoppers will be mobile shoppers as well. It’s no longer enough to think of consumers as online versus in-store.

The mobile shopper is neither and both of these, fast becoming the norm rather than the exception.

Sponsored by BazaarVoice

Why We Don’t Buy

4 Mistakes To Avoid In Digital Media Buying

What percentage of shoppers abandon carts on your e-commerce site? Most online retailers experience a high rate of cart abandonment and are searching for effective strategies to bring those shoppers back without annoying them.

For this paper, sponsored by Magento and Bronto Software, more than 1,000 online shoppers were surveyed about their awareness of shopping cart technology, expectations for marketing when they abandon a cart and more.

Sponsored by Bronto

American Express, one of the largest brands in the world, has recently announced that it plans to shift 100 percent of its online ad budget to buying ads automatically (AKA Programmatic Buying) hoping to use technology to buy ads from now on, as opposed to using people for sending insertion orders to publishers. Digital media buying is quite effective, but is this true for the SMBs too?

Sponsored by AdClarity

Download free at www.WebsiteMagazine.com/resources

Net

BRIEFS

Online Reviews Get a Response

Lightning Strikes

Consumer reviews hold incredible power over prospective buyers. In a study conducted by Dimensional Research only 12 percent of those polled stated that consumer reviews had “no influence” on their buying decisions. To help businesses better manage and respond to reviews, Google recently unveiled an update to its Google My Business platform, which allows businesses to receive push alerts when new reviews are published as well as respond to Google reviews from within the app.

App Building Salesforce, best known for its customer relationship management (CRM) system, released a new development platform for mobile apps dubbed Salesforce1 Lightning.

The new platform enables developers to quickly bring their visions to life with an easy drag-and-drop user interface. Apps that are created using the new platform will be automatically optimized for any device on any platform.

In China We Trust?

Makes a Move While the crown has by no means been passed, Bing has seen major growth in their online advertising programs. In fact, in a recent report by The Search Agency titled “State of Paid Search Report for Q3 2014” Bing saw a 55 percent increase in year-overyear (YoY) ad spend, a noteworthy difference from Google’s 2 percent decline. The report indicates that Bing’s big jump was spurred by an increase in Bing’s cost per click (CPC) ads jumping 40 percent YoY. 6

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Even though Alibaba is one of the most valuable Web technology companies on the planet, U.S. consumers have been slow to accept China’s e-commerce powerhouse. In fact, according to a survey of more than 3,500 online buyers by Bizrates Insights, more than 50 percent of consumers (regardless of generation) indicated that they would neither browse nor purchase products from Alibaba. The main concerns cited by those surveyed were long delivery windows, distrust, and fear over security of personal and payment information, as well as their preference to “Buy American.”

7.6%

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Net

BRIEFS MOBILE APP WATCH

Facebook Ads Get Personal As consumers become increasingly blind to banners, advertisers have started focusing on personalizing their creative assets – sending the right message to the right person at the right time. And, what better place to get the data they need to customize those ads than the world’s most popular social media network? Facebook recently opened its Audience Network ad program to all advertisers and apps, allowing brands to leverage Facebook’s demographic data to send relevant ads to consumers on their mobile devices that direct them either to an app or the company’s mobile site.

MORE ‘NET NEWS Bigcommerce’s inaugural E-Commerce Report revealed interesting findings about merchants leveraging its platform, including: •

Retailers saw a 25 percent higher gross merchandise volume (GMV) in Q3 2014 than Q3 2013.

•

More specifically, merchants in the electronics and computers category saw a 25 percent increase in average order value during Q3.

•

Those in the lifestyle and home category saw the strongest performance during Q3, enjoying a 71 percent YOY increase in GMV as well as a 41 percent per-store average increase.

Don’t miss Website Magazine’s 2014 industry roundups, available online at wsm.co/NetFeatures.

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Google provides numerous apps for consumers, from Maps to Translate, but there are several that Web workers and Website Magazine readers can use in their day-to-day operations.

Hangouts Today’s professionals are a mobile group. It is important that they can be in constant contact with the rest of their team in order to make sure everyone is on the same page. With Hangouts, users can text (SMS), chat and even attend video meetings with their entire team.

Drive Seasoned business professionals know how important it is to travel as light as possible. Thanks to Google Drive, no longer must professionals carry around briefcases filled with 5-inch binders. Instead, they can upload their reports and documents to Drive and access them at will. Drive delivers 30GB of storage for free and has plans all the way up to unlimited storage.

Analytics Just like professionals, websites never rest. With business hours on the Internet being 24/7 it is important that professionals can find out how their website is performing in real-time whenever they desire.

Inbox Currently available on an invitation-only basis, Inbox reimagines the way users interact with and organize their email. Inbox gets rid of folders entirely and introduces “bundles,” which places messages of the same type together – to be managed quickly.

Other interesting features include the ability to display message highlights without needing to open the message, set reminders and even snooze items for later.

Stat

WATCH

EMAIL by the Numbers

Mobile devices, which includes tablets, accounted for 63 percent of email opens in Q2 2014, with 56 percent of those coming from Apple mobile devices and 6 percent from Android mobile devices.

63%

(Movable Ink, Aug. 2014)

When it comes to email marketing success, relationships matter.

According to Yesmail’s recent report, “Email Marketing Compass: A Year in Review,” 53 percent of recipients who opened or clicked an email message in the last three months have been subscribed to a marketer’s mailing program for more than a year, followed by 3-12 months (26 percent) and within the last 90 days (21 percent).

Active subscribers like these are also opening more emails than ever (the number of opens for each active subscriber has increased by 6 percent year-over-year), despite the fact that Yesmail data indicates that the inbox continues to fill up (the number of emails being sent to subscribers has grown by more than 9 percent year-over-year). Email open rates on the whole, however, are trending down to just 3 percent.

The decision to click is becoming an even more selective act according to Yesmail. Active subscribers are consistently (and increasingly) opening, but clicking a lot less frequently. To combat this trend, Yesmail advises marketers, especially during the holidays, to strive to increase the size of their active database by segmenting their subscribers based on activity (e.g. last opened/clicked) and tenure (e.g. how recently a subscriber has opted into a marketer’s email program). This practice can be very helpful in terms of email deliverability, which is even more of a challenge during the holiday season when frequency of mailing can increase by up to 30 percent, according to Yesmail data.

56%

The 2014 Campaigner Mobile Trends Survey found that 56 percent of participants read promotional emails while relaxing or watching TV, and 28 percent do so at work.

(Campaigner, June 2014)

Just 5 percent of business-to-business buyers are willing to provide detailed information, including an email address, in a gated content offer form.

5%

(Demand Gen Report, May 2013)

15x

Some industries have a long way to go when it comes to reducing email cyberattacks.

Agari's Email TrustIndex for Q2 2014 found that consumers are 15 times more likely to receive a malicious email pretending to be from a major bank than from an airline.

(Agari, Aug. 2014)

A Bizo survey found that only a small percentage of B2B email subscribers ultimately convert, with respondents indicating just 1-4 percent of known contacts in their databases become qualified marketing leads.

1-4%

(Bizo, June 2014)

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Enterprise

READY From Kalamazoo to Kathmandu…

Why Going Global Really Means Going Local

By Nataly Kelly

The hype around globalization is well deserved – it has never been easier for organizations of all sizes to have a worldwide presence.

In fact, the mere launching of a website effectively makes an organization global. There is a distinct difference, however, between having a global business and doing business globally.

Globalization is about removing the barriers that exist when people try to work together and when doing business in new locations. As Thomas Friedman wrote in his best-selling book “The World is Flat,” the greatest business benefit of today’s global communications and technology infrastructure “is that people can work with other people on more stuff than ever before.”

Globalization does not mean the world is homogenizing, however. The global communications infrastructure makes it much easier for people in different countries to communicate with one another, and inherent in that comes a greater understanding of cultural differences. However, this does not cause those cultural differences to wane. The earth is still populated by a wildly diverse set of people, with their own languages, traditions and societal norms.

To effectively market and sell in our globalized world, it is critical to understand that, as in the pre10

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Internet days, all business is local. People like to do business with organizations that fit comfortably within their cultural norms. Businesses that speak and write in a way that is native and familiar will always outcompete those that do not. Organizations can be global simply by launching a website, but only those that effectively localize content are actually doing business globally.

The Localization Imperative Speaking the language of your customers might seem like a fairly basic economic discipline, but many companies struggle with the notion of translating content into a language they themselves do not speak. Worse yet, many companies publish content in English figuring that it is today’s de facto “language of business,” so customers will figure it out one way or another.

Studies show that companies operating on this misconception are putting themselves at a significant disadvantage on a number of fronts. For example: In a Common Sense Advisory study of 2,430 consumers in eight countries, 72.4 percent of respondents said they would be more likely to buy a product with information in their own language.

The same study found that more than half of consumers are willing to pay more to companies that provide information in their language.

The data is clear – translation matters. Consumers want to do business with organizations that make them feel comfortable and important. It is almost impossible to do this if you are not speaking each consumer’s native tongue. The big question is, “How should I go about translating my content?” This can seem like a daunting task, as there are thousands of languages spoken in the world. Obviously it is not practical (nor is it necessary) to translate into all of these languages. However, strategically choosing a few languages for translation can increase your addressable market by 50 percent or more.

For example, approximately 30 percent of Internet users today speak English, representing approximately $16 trillion in spending power. By adding just five languages – Japanese, German, Spanish, Simplified Chinese and French – retailers and the like can increase that spending power by a whopping $17.5 trillion, according to our internal data.

Of course, there is no one-size-fits-all formula for prioritizing languages. German might be critical to one company, but relatively minor to another. Each organization needs to make sure it prioritizes translations according to the languages delivering the biggest “bang for the buck.” The following questions can be helpful: Which countries and languages already account for a significant amount of your online traffic?

What percentage of your revenue comes from international markets, and how does this compare to your competitors?

What percentage of your customer base is located in other countries? Out of these, which countries and languages account for the largest number of customers?

Does your market share in these countries map to industry market share data?

Where do you already have locations, branch offices, distributors or partners?

In which countries and languages do your competitors currently operate?

Which other languages are spoken in countries where you already have a presence – for example, Spanish in the United States or French in Canada?

Do you have any ties to another country that would give you an early competitive advantage by entering that market before your competitors do?

Understanding the answers to these questions can provide a translation roadmap that clearly defines which languages are most important to a business.

Armed with this roadmap, globalization becomes a function of finding the right technology and service partners to create high-quality translated content, and to update it on an ongoing basis. (Updates are key, otherwise translated content will quickly fall out of sync with your business.)

Doing Business Globally Before the days of the Internet, localization was almost inherent in global business. There was no way to sell into foreign markets without having local infrastructure and people – and ultimately the local people would ensure localized content.

With the Internet, however, virtually any business with a website is instantly global. Today, a digital music store in Kalamazoo, Michigan can sell to a hipster in Kathmandu, Nepal. In this type of economy, content localization needs to become a foundational discipline, right alongside elements like marketing automation, customer service and order fulfillment.

Translation does not have to be a massive undertaking. Once you’ve prioritized your languages, you can start with a single language and progress from there. Even this limited approach will have immediate bottom line benefits as customers become more amenable to your messages and your offerings.

The most important thing is to start. Once you do, you will begin the transformation from having a global business, to doing business globally.

“

Once you’ve prioritized your languages, you can start with a single language and progress from there.

“

A European Union (EU) study based on a Gallup survey from 23 countries revealed that 9 out of 10 Internet users always visit websites in their language when given a choice.

The same EU study showed that 42 percent of consumers never purchase products or services in other languages.

Nataly Kelly is the VP of marketing at Smartling, a New York-based translation software platform company.

Translate This!

Check out four top website translation solutions at

wsm.co/4translate

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Small

BUSINESS LAB 5 Mistakes to Avoid When Giving

WEB DESIGN

FEEDBACK

By Roy Chomko, President of Adage Technologies

Providing effective – and meaningful Web design feedback can sometimes be a difficult process. Critiquing a designer’s work is not always fun, but it’s necessary when collaborating on a project.

It’s important for marketers to understand what is considered constructive feedback and what is deemed useless so designers can produce the best possible results.

Completely ripping apart a designer’s work won’t create better designs. On the other hand, giving too little feedback won’t be very helpful either. Instead, website owners, project managers and the like should find a happy medium between being too critical and too passive. Leaning too much on one approach will only damage the relationship and fail to get the design where it needs to be.

Discover more insights into the world of Web design and development at

wsm.co/desdev15

Here are five mistakes to avoid when giving feedback to a designer:

1.

Demanding Instead of Explaining

Demanding changes is easy; the difficult part is explaining why something needs to be fixed.

It’s difficult for a designer to understand what’s wrong with a specific aspect of the design if all that is said is “remove this image” or “make that orange instead of red.” When providing feedback, make sure to evaluate the problem and clarify why it needs to be changed. This allows the designer to come up with an alternative, more suitable design. Doing so also helps designers gauge what the manager likes and what appeals to customers, which is helpful for future projects.

2.

Being Too Vague

Stakeholders shouldn’t expect designers to know exactly what they’re thinking.

If feedback is unclear, the designer is left

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trying to determine what is actually expected of them.

Everyone needs to be specific and tell the designer (or design team) what works and what doesn’t. It’s better to be straightforward with feedback rather than waste time going through multiple rounds of edits.

To avoid vague feedback, try using the phrase “it’s too…” If there’s a particular area of the design that needs some work, use those words to complement the feedback. For instance, saying something is “too distracting” is much more helpful than saying “I don’t like this.” It’s easier for a designer to rework a certain aspect than entirely redesign it. It’s crucial to be as specific as possible so designers can figure out the best approach to take going forward.

3.

Having Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen

When working with a large group of people, project managers risk running into the issue of too many conflicting opinions. Essentially, it is easy to start losing sight of the main objective when each person contributes their own individual preferences and viewpoints. It’s not the designer’s job to please everyone, so it’s essential a team focuses solely on the components with the most reasoning.

If one person says, “I don’t like the font,” that won’t help the designer decide what the entire group or even the brand’s customers want. However, if the group as a whole agrees that the font is “too simple,” or “it won’t appeal to customers” then it is an issue to bring up with the designer. Don’t let personal opinions get in the way of the overall design goal.

4.

Dwelling on the Negatives

While it’s important to determine what isn’t working, managers shouldn’t place too much emphasis on what they don’t like. Try to provide at least three positive comments so the designer knows what works and has some idea of what direction to take.

5.

Being Disrespectful

It’s easy to get consumed by a project, from the constant communication to the countless edits to the time dedicated to making the finished product, but that’s no excuse to throw manners out the window. Everyone involved in the project should feel comfortable enough to voice their thoughts and opinions. There may be a certain part of a design one person doesn’t like, but that doesn’t mean he or she has to tear the whole thing apart. Instead, approach the situation in a more constructive manner. It’s important to be honest with a designer, but also be respectful.

Quiz

TIME

THE HTML5 STANDARD IS COMPLETE How much do you really know?

Several years into Flash all but disappearing from the Web (and nearly 18 years since standards for its predecessor, HTML4, were formalized), the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) has finally published its Recommendation of HTML5 – the final version of the standard after numerous years being discussed by developers, browser vendors and the technology press. Better late than never.

Users, of course, won’t notice any immediate changes as most modern browsers already support the most common HTML5 features. As designers familiarize themselves with (and integrate) new HTML5 features such as the <video> element and vector graphics, they are discovering a whole new world of digital possibilities introduced by this new standard – from the <canvas> element for rendering 2-D shapes and bitmap images to application programming interfaces (APIs) for offline caching and drag-and-drop support.

So, what do you currently know about HTML5? Take Website Magazine’s True or False quiz and find out how much you really know about HTML5 elements and the future of ‘Net design.

FALSE TRUE The <time> element represents a data and time value; the machine-readable equivalent can be represented in the datetime attribute.

FALSE TRUE The <details> element represents a widget from which the user can obtain additional information or controls.

FALSE TRUE The <progress> element represents the completion progress of a task.

FALSE TRUE The <source> element allows authors to specify alternative media resources for media elements like <video> or <audio>.

FALSE TRUE The <object> element represents an external resource, which is treated as an image, an HTML sub-document or an external resource to be processed by a plugin.

See how well you did on this month’s quiz by visiting wsm.co/qtdec14 or by scanning the QR code.

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Top

50

2014’s

Domains/Hosting

Best of the Web What a year ‘Net professionals had in 2014. There were major successes and epic failures, but the resulting Web experience has, undoubtedly, made a positive influence on the world.

Even the biggest skeptics have to admit, it’s never, ever boring in the world of Web business. From major search engine algorithm updates to subtle shifts in social media usage and participation, today’s Internet professionals are finding ways to make the most of an alwayson industry that is moving ever-forward.

Armed (virtually, of course) with the most powerful software tools available, as well as a deep knowledge of the techniques and tactics necessary to make website success a possibility (much of it discovered through resources like Website Magazine), those involved in digital media today are working more efficiently and effectively than ever before. And it’s time to showcase the solutions that are helping make that happen.

In advance of Website Magazine’s upcoming January feature, “’Net Digital Power Players,” this month’s Top 50 showcases five perennial leaders in 10 categories of interest for those in digital media.

Readers will find some of the most popular solutions in categories including domain names and hosting, e-commerce solutions, email marketing, digital advertising, search, social and more. Ten categories only scratch the surface, of course, so Website Magazine editors have added 10 more categories (and 50 more services) that, along with those mentioned in this issue, further established their mark in the digital world, providing solutions to get Internet professionals one step closer to Web success. For our entire list, visit wsm.co/bestweb50.

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GoDaddy.com 1and1.com Namecheap.com NetworkSolutions.com HostGator.com

E-Commerce Magento.com Shopify.com Bigcommerce.com 3DCart.com Mozu.com

Email ConstantContact.com MailChimp.com AWeber.com Campaigner.com Listrak.com

Advertising AdRoll.com OutMarket.com Chitika.com Criteo.com BrightRoll.com

CRM Salesforce.com Nimble.com Workbooks.com Maximizer.com Contactually.com

Search WordStream.com seoClarity.com WebCEO.com Moz.com RavenTools.com

Social Hootsuite.com SproutSocial.com AgoraPulse.com GroSocial.com Bufferapp.com

Marketing HubSpot.com Act-On.com Pardot.com Eloqua.com Marketo.com

Mobile MixPanel.com AppAnnie.com DudaMobile.com Flurry.com Appcelerator.com

Affiliate Conversant.com RakutenMarketing.com ShareaSale.com AvantLink.com ClickBank.com

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2015 SEO PREDICTIONS

That Aren’t “Create More Content”

By Noah Brimhall

For the last few years, every list of SEO predictions has included at least one item that focused on content marketing. While this trend remains important, there are at least nine others that go beyond this well-trod subject and are safe to predict will shape search marketing efforts in 2015.

Video Rich Snippets will disappear, except for YouTube results The gradual decrease in prominence and eventual disappearance of Authorship Rich Snippets spells doom for Video Rich Snippets. It is already pretty difficult to get these to show up for a site, but next year Google will eventually only show Video Rich Snippets for videos hosted on YouTube. Google has shown it understands the impact rich snippets have on the entire search results page, and they’ll choose to reserve this high impact feature for YouTube.

Businesses, with video content that they want to appear prominently in search results, better make them available on YouTube. What’s more, their presence on YouTube had better be engaging and comprehensive to have any chance of capturing potential customers.

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More “answers” on the search results page Continuing a trend seen in 2014, Google will provide even more content on the search results page (SERP) than ever before. Whether this takes the form of one of the many Knowledge Graph features (Answer Box, List Carousels, etc.), structured snippets or some yetunseen content feature, Google will provide plenty of options so searchers won’t need to click on a search result to get the answers they need.

Having structured data on a site, an up-to-date Google+ account and correct information in thirdparty data sources such as Freebase and Wikipedia will be more important than ever.

Greater equity and diversity of search results For ambiguous queries, Google will try to show a set of results that meets a broader range of potential user intents and will show relevant content from smaller and less established sites that have traditionally had trouble competing with big, reputable companies.

Google will begin to recognize that just because a company has a large amount of links, it doesn’t mean the content is necessarily more relevant (more about this on the next page).

Structured data will be more important than ever As mentioned above, search result pages will begin incorporating even more structured data next year, but structured data will also come in to play in how Google evaluates sites for relevancy and will even have an effect on the way pages are ranked. This might come in the form of AuthorRank (a way to tie rank to individual authors). Structured data from trusted sites provides Google with information it can’t

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Mastering

SEARCH get anywhere else, and this will be rewarded.

SEO professionals shouldn’t limit themselves to providing structured data that corresponds to rich snippets or other currently existing features of search results. Rather, they should look for opportunities to structure content, such as products, locations and other entities, even if they aren’t sure how it will be used.

efforts. New goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) will be necessary to understand the return on investment (ROI) of mobile.

SEO growth will come from China and other emerging markets

Runaway SEO growth is not going to come from traditional markets in the future; the best un-tapped source of customers is going to come from China and other Non-link signals emerging markets. The cost of translation will be paid will increase in importance off in beating competitors to these key markets (for Although links and their anchor text are going to con- more information on localizing content, go to page 10 of tinue to be the primary rank signals for the foreseeable this issue). future, the importance of social signals, non-link brand Finding an expert with experience and knowlmentions and page speed in rankedge of search engines like Baidu ings will only increase in the next will be increasingly important, esyear. Google knows that links are pecially given the specific technical/ Google will one of the most manipulated sigSEO and legal requirements be more reluc- content of working in the Chinese market. nals and will look to other signals to balance out black-hat and nega- tant to announce tive SEO. Algorithm updates big-name will be more subtle and This means that brands have difficult to predict their work cut out for them. If changes, bethey haven’t already embraced Tools that report on Google algocause it won’t social, they should start now. It’s rithm changes will have more troualso time for all companies to acble accurately noticing these changes want to make tively try to speed up their Web as they become more frequent, but pages. Finally, digital enterprises headlines with ultimately only affect a smaller percan’t stop worrying about links, centage of sites. Google will be more algorithm upbut it’s increasingly important to reluctant to announce big-name focus on brand mentions and not changes (e.g. Panda, Penguin, etc.), dates. just branded links. because it won’t want to make headlines with algorithm updates.

The rise of mobile Following best practices for SEO compliance and will mean a decrease in organic traffic carefully tracking a site’s SEO-related KPIs and metGoogle, Microsoft and Apple will add features to rics will become very important. Companies won’t be their mobile search experience that are intended able to depend on others to warn them of changes, so to bypass the search experience (Siri, Google they need to be able to identify them on their own.

Now and Cortana) or provide content on the search results page. One of the most surprising SEOs will create better content features of iOS 8 from an SEO perspective is the One of the things that gets missed all too often in “Suggested Website,” which allows users to skip the hype of content marketing is that creating consearch results and go directly to websites. More and tent is necessary, but not sufficient. It is important to more consumers are using smartphones and tablets create content that is truly unique and provides as their primary way of accessing the Internet, which actual value to potential customers and searchers. means brands can expect to see less traffic directed Spend more time (and money) developing content to their sites. that targets your specific SEO goals, and the payoff of A mobile strategy means more than just having in-depth, quality content will be manifold. a mobile optimized website, it means making sure new mobile search features prominently showcase a company’s site and site content. Marketers will also Noah Brimhall is the senior SEO manager at Obility, a leading need to understand that a decrease in mobile organic B2B demand generation company specializing in Internet martraffic won’t tell the whole story of their mobile SEO keting for businesses with long sales cycles.

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E-Commerce

EXPRESS 3. Be Social

Retailers’ Post-Holiday

PLAN OF

ACTION

By Allison Howen, Associate Editor

Most merchants spend the better half of a year planning for the holidays – preparing their inventory and putting together marketing campaigns that will help them maximize profits during the busy months of November and December.

Once the holiday rush dies down, however, it is not uncommon for merchants to struggle to meet online sales goals. Fortunately, this can be prevented with the right post-holiday plan of action (POA). Discover five approaches that can help e-commerce merchants stabilize sales into the New Year.

1. Offer Bounce-Back Coupons

To turn holiday shoppers into repeat customers, merchants should email bounce-back coupons (such as 20 percent off) to consumers that made purchases in November and December. The goal of these coupons is to turn holiday shoppers into repeat customers. It’s a good idea to send these coupons twice during Christmas week, such as on Dec. 20 and 26, as a way to entice customers to shop for the “gifts that Santa didn’t bring” – while emphasizing that the coupons are valid for a limited time, such as Dec. 26-30. By doing so, consumers will feel a sense of urgency and be more likely to convert.

2. Switch Up Ad Campaigns

Not only is it important for merchants to remember to turn off (or turn down) their holiday advertising campaigns, but it’s also important to replace these campaigns with new promotions. Retargeting, for example, enables merchants to serve relevant offers to customers who have already shown interest in a product but didn’t buy.

E-commerce merchants may be putting in more hours during the holiday season, but that is not the case for all professionals. Many people take off work during the holidays to spend time with their families. While these people are away from the office it is likely that they will be checking in with their favorite social networks throughout the day – making social one of the best marketing channels for reaching consumers post holidays.

One way to cut through the social noise and entice social consumers to convert is by posting videos on the different networks, such as showing actual customers using products.

Discover three additional ways brands can make their promotional posts stand out in the social newsfeeds at wsm.co/smpromos.

4. Consider Daily Deals

Although daily deal sites like Groupon and LivingSocial have faded somewhat in popularity over the last five years, they are still a good option for merchants who are trying to drive website traffic, obtain new customers and push stagnant inventory. Recently, Groupon made it easier for merchants to promote daily deals on its platform with the launch of its self-service Deal Builder tool. In fact, Deal Builder has enabled Groupon to significantly expand the number of merchants with whom the company works with.

Learn more about the DIY tool at wsm.co/diydeals.

5. Accept Gift Cards

Gift cards are among the top gifts given during the holidays, which means that merchants should equip their websites with the ability to both sell and redeem this currency in order to amplify their holiday and post-holiday sales. Fortunately, some of the Web’s most popular ecommerce platforms, such as Shopify, already offer giftcard functionality or extensions to merchants. When available, retailers should leverage this option and promote the sale of gift cards on their websites, especially because e-gift cards are a good last-minute gifting option as they are immediately sent to the recipient’s inbox. After the holidays, merchants can create an email campaign with the subject line, “Avoid long lines & spend your gift cards online” to drive gift card spending on their sites.

Prepare for 2015

Perhaps the most important thing merchants can do once the holiday rush dies down is dive into their analytics. In doing so, merchants can identify 2014’s most successful and unsuccessful merchandise and marketing campaigns, which gives them a head start on preparations for the 2015 holiday season.

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Fast, Visual, Mobile Check out this infographic on a recent survey about the future of e-commerce at

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Design and

DEVELOPMENT

Head-to-Head Web Design

RESPONSIVE VS. ADAPTIVE

By Amir Glatt, Co-Founder and CTO of Duda

When designing and building a website today, it’s essential for enterprises to think about how users will access their website - will it be from desktops, smartphones, tablets (or all three)?

What’s not as clear to many, however, is the best way to achieve this state of cross-device compatibility. Two of the hottest approaches to implementing multi-screen websites are responsive Web design (RWD) and adaptive Web design (AWD), but there is a lot of confusion about the two. While some consider RWD and AWD to be competing, they are, in fact, complementary.

Adaptive site in a mobile browser. Note that the URL of the site doesn’t change in the browser address bar.

What is Responsive Web Design (RWD)?

RWD is a design technique that results in websites being displayed properly on any screen size.

The main idea behind RWD is that the HTML markup sent from the server is the same no matter which device or screen is requesting the Web page.

The only thing that changes is the CSS and Javascript code that formats the content differently according to the screen size using CSS media queries. RWD uses a fluid grid concept where content is split into rows and columns with clear “breakpoints” that determines when columns are “breaking” and are displayed in a new row.

The easiest way to determine if a website was built using RWD is to use a desktop browser and resize the browser window to the size of a smartphone screen. If the site reformats on the spot then you know this is a “responsive site.”

What is Adaptive Web Design (AWD)?

AWD is a technique to design websites that are optimized for the device, screen and the user by leveraging server side technology, CSS and Javascript.

In AWD, the server sends a completely different version of HTML/CSS/JavaScript to the browser by detecting the User Agent to determine if the request is coming from a smartphone or a desktop.

The best way to determine if a site is using AWD is by first checking that it is not responsive using the method outlined above, then accessing it from a smartphone browser (or using a user agent switcher) and checking to see if the site adapts to the smartphone without changing

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Amazon.com on desktop - 214 request, 2.5MB downloaded

the URL in the mobile browser address bar (e.g. not redirecting to an m.domain URL).

Which Approach is More Popular?

RWD is by far the most popular approach today for building multi-screen sites and is much more known than AWD. There are some good reasons why RWD became so popular: Designers only need to change the HTML/CSS of the site in order to implement RWD. Any front-end developer can do that regardless of which backend the site was built on.

As a result of being so accessible, there were many ready-made responsive themes and frameworks developed. That spans from WordPress themes to CSS frameworks like Foundation and Bootstrap.

Designers don’t need to update their code when new devices are rolled out since responsive design only “cares” about the screen size and the “responsiveness” is achieved using CSS media queries.

From a pure design perspective, designers typically don’t need to think too much as the RWD concept is based on rows and columns in a grid with clear “break points.”

The Advantages of AWD While RWD is very popular, it has some drawbacks that AWD resolves. The biggest advantage of RWD is also its main drawback, however - the exact same HTML, JavaScript and CSS files are being sent to the browser in every use case. The more complicated a desktop site is, the more difficult it is to use RWD while still providing a good customer experience to mobile users. This includes both the performance and the design aspects.

Performance of the site deteriorates over mobile because every heavy JavaScript file a designer didn’t notice when browsing from a desktop site becomes another 2 seconds of load time over 3G. Design of the site also becomes problematic because it’s often very difficult to take a complex layout designed for 1200 pixels width and adapt it using the same HTML to a 320 pixel smartphone screen.

With AWD, on the other hand, designers can send only what’s needed to the browser in order to provide the best user experience. It can get rid of resources that are not needed and can make sure the HTML is optimized to the screen.

Another advantage of AWD is that designers and developers can think beyond screen size and add in

other factors that the server can use when outputting the site markup, such as location, device capabilities and more.

It is interesting to note that most relatively simple websites like blogs, even popular ones are using RWD, while more complex sites like big news publications, and big e-commerce sites like Amazon and eBay are using AWD or a combination of RWD and AWD.

Amazon.com on mobile using AWD - 151 requests, 1.7MB downloaded

Combining RWD & AWD Do these two approaches contradict each other?

Absolutely not. Websites can use RWD techniques and combine it with AWD whenever it makes sense.

This approach can help designers and developers enjoy the best from both worlds - the simplicity of RWD when writing new content and knowing it will always be “responsive,” while still optimizing the overall site layout and structure using AWD server-side scripting.

AWD and RWD in Action See five examples of websites that marry responsive and adaptive Web design at

wsm.co/5awdrwd

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EMAIL Systems, Tactics & Processes for

By Peter Prestipino, Editor-In-Chief

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Love it or loathe it, email is a central part of consumers’ virtual lives - despite other channels competing for their attention (e.g. search and social). Enterprises that don’t recognize email’s enduring importance to business and marketing operations are simply, inevitably, doomed to digital failure.

With the right systems, tactics and processes in place, and by keeping a keen eye on industry trends, email can be used to develop a more robust presence on the Web and put any brand on the fast track to ‘Net success. The practice of email is changing, evolving and maturing in a way that now presents brands an incredibly powerful (yet increasingly challenging) communication opportunity.

THE STATE OF EMAIL TODAY A new report from Yesmail reveals that the volume of email sent and received is growing but open rates are declining.

Don’t worry, there’s a good reason.

The number of emails arriving in subscribers’ inboxes, according to Yesmail’s study, increased by 9 percent between Q2 2013 and Q2 2014, yet the overall email open rate declined 3 percent during the same period, most likely because of the added volume of messages. The good news, however, is that the number of opens for each active subscriber increased 6 percent year-over-year (YOY). Essentially, even though recipients are getting more email, the more engaged members of an audience are opening more emails than ever before and making a positive impact on the bottom line of today’s businesses (see the “Mobile Email Stats to Know” sidebar).

What this means is that the savviest marketers are establishing the right strategies, sending to the right users, and taking advantage of techniques and tactics (many of which readers will discover through Website Magazine’s feature article) that are driving opens, brand loyalty, website traffic and conversion.

The evidence is clear – email is an effective way to retain and engage users, and bring potential buyers (and even existing clients) who are hesitant to engage one step closer toward conversion. That’s good news for today’s digital enterprises.

MarketingSherpa recently found that companies sending more than 100,000 emails per month see a 94 percent return on investment. What more proof does any enterprise need that email is far and away the best performer in terms of revenue generation (not to mention deepening engagement and loyalty)? MarketingSherpa also found that companies sending less than 100,000 emails per month see a 139 percent return, so don’t think for a digital moment that the size of an existing audience has anything to do with the ability to leverage the channel for the good of an enterprise.

What’s important about email marketing is that it becomes part of business and marketing operations. Establishing goals (e.g. increase sales from email, reduce cart abandonment) is important as it provides a general direction, but marketers may be surprised at how well-designed and thoughtful systems and processes related to email can take it a step further and are what will separate a digital business from its competition. Before hitting send however, it is essential a brand has the right strategy and software in place for its audience’s needs.

STRATEGY & SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS There are three types of enterprises on the Internet today; information publishers, service providers and e-commerce merchants (sometimes there’s some overlap, e.g. an online merchant that regularly produces content-driven marketing materials).

The type of business engaged in (e.g. hospitality, auto sales) will, of course, greatly determine an email strategy. In turn, a business’s strategy influences the software solution selected to power email initiatives – as each niche has different email demands.

An online merchant, for example, selling thousands of products each week may discover that metrics for shopping cart abandonment are on the rise, but with a limited content

Mobile Email Stats to Know - Email opens on mobile devices accounted for 64.5 percent of opens in Q2 2014, compared with just 35.5 percent on desktops.

- Mobile devices accounted for just 35 percent of all email clicks—a 9 percent increase YOY but much less than the overall share of opens.

- The average mobile click-to-open (CTO) rate increased YOY (reaching 9.3 percent in 2Q14) but lags the desktop average CTO rate of 22.6 percent.

- Mobile transactions accounted for 22 percent of all purchases driven by email in Q2 2014, a 40 percent YOY increase.

- Although the number of mobile orders jumped YOY, the revenue associated with these purchases only increased by 10 percent.

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marketing budget, he or she may decide that a strategy focusing on transactional emails and prompting return visits may be the best course of action. The merchant, however, will need the “right” email solution to support these efforts.

Learn how to align your go-to-market strategy with an email solution that supports it at wsm.co/emailsupport3.

OBJECTIVES & MESSAGING SEQUENCE Those willing to increase their use of email would, of course, be remiss not to have an initial strategy in place, a plan of action designed to achieve a very specific aim.

Information publishers, for example, may want to consider developing longer form content for private distribution; while online merchants may want a way to add “cart abandoners” to a special list to incentivize conversion. The problem becomes, what’s really going to motivate a user and what is the best sequence of messages to make it work?

Triggered messages—such as abandoned shopping cart and welcome emails—had a 2.5x higher average open rate in Q2 2014 compared with general campaigns (38.9 percent versus 15.1 percent) according to the previously mentioned YesMail report. Triggered messages also had a 2x higher average unique click rate compared with general campaigns (3.4 percent versus 1.7 percent). Fortunately, solutions abound to support brands use of this messaging strategy.

Enterprise-level marketing automation platform Iterable, for example, recently launched Workflows, a new feature that enables users to create and “A/B” test “multipronged” email campaigns to determine which message series works best for generating and maximizing conversions (and revenue, of course).

“Iterable already has a built-in tool for A/B testing any part of an email,” said Justin Zhu, CEO of Iterable. “Naturally, the next step was to create the ability to A/B test different series of emails. Traditional drip campaign builders can only create linear workflows with no ability to skip certain steps or to test different flows to see which is the most effective. We decided to fill that gap to help make email simpler and more effective for marketers.”

Workflows provides a drag-and-drop editor for designing drip campaigns, which are initiated by a trigger such as a newsletter sign-up, shopping cart update, purchase or other custom event. Users can even add in-time delays and filters, ensuring that only those subscribers who fulfill

5 Tools, Tactics to Get More Email Sign-Ups Discover time-tested strategies to grow your email list (and close more digital deals) at wsm.co/signups5 26

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certain criteria will move on to the next step. In addition, Workflows even includes a few built-in safeguards such as automatically preventing subscribers from entering a drip campaign more than once or being sent too many emails within a two-hour period.

With a clear objective and the right systems in place, brand marketers may still need some inspiration for their message sequences. Check out a few samples at wsm.co/3drip.

Deliverability & the Modern Inbox Those working on the Web one decade ago, probably remember how “different” email marketing was. There was much more “batch and blast” and far less regard for the user experience (particularly when it comes to managing unsubscribes/opt-outs).

In the past few years, however, the Web community has embraced personalization and segmentation, as well as prioritized the quality of their list over the quantity of recipients. It has made companies smarter, more efficient, more productive and in general, more successful, but there’s still room for improvement in enterprises’ email initiatives.

The Online Trust Alliance (OTA) recently released results of an audit of which e-commerce sites were enabling consumers to opt out of email lists. Upward of 70 percent of the top 200 online retailers have moved beyond compliance (just following the rules) and are demonstrating a commitment to users’ control of their inbox according to the OTA. That’s great news and a big increase from many years ago, but there is still a long way to go. The OTA found that 10 percent of the retailers were currently in direct violation of the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 and Canada’s new AntiSpam Legislation.

“Despite CAN-SPAM taking effect 10 years ago, it is disappointing that a number of the world’s biggest online retailers have yet to get things right,” said Craig Spiezle, executive director and president of OTA. “On the positive side, the vast majority of email marketers are doing their part to distance themselves from spammers and thus fortify their customer relationships. Now is the time for others to follow their leadership.”

Discover four reasons your email just isn’t getting through to its target at wsm.co/emailprobs.

LIST BUILDING CHALLENGES To grow a digital audience it’s necessary to be somewhat aggressive in acquisition efforts. Not all enterprises, however, are doing all they can when it comes to getting users in the virtual door. Luckily, there’s myriad tools, techniques and tactics to aggressively grow a marketing database.

One of the more accessible solutions is SumoMe, a collection of free apps designed specifically to help businesses

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increase website traffic - in both the short and long term. The apps can be integrated through HTML or with SumoMe’s WordPress plugins. Apps for content sharing, list building, lead generation, image sharing, scroll boxes and a smart bar (a sticky/static email subscription form) are currently available.

Those apps focused on email collection, however, are those that will catch the attention of digital marketers as they offer an effective way to acquire subscribers and build a list.

SumoMe’s Scroll Box displays (slides in) an email sign-up form at a pre-defined point on a Web page, and the Smart Bar provides a static, “sticky” email subscription form that stays at the top of the page until closed by the user. SumoMe’s List Builder offers up a more aggressive approach to acquisition.

The lightbox popover (see image) that can be customized to show after a certain amount of time, works with MailChimp, AWeber, Constant Contact and Campaign Monitor.

Quickly integrated with any WordPress theme, SumoMe’s List Builder gives brands total control over the design and timing of their newsletter popover, which is proven to increase email subscriptions.

Where SumoMe really shines is its ability to show just how well this more aggressive approach to traffic acquisition is working. The service not only helps websites collect user information and encourage greater social participation, but it also tracks performance. In the case of the Smart Bar for example, SumoMe shows the number of subscribers acquired, the number of times it was shown and even provides the conversion rate.

CONTENT & ENGAGEMENT For anyone sending email, content is ultimately going to take center stage - but it needs to be the “right” content to make a difference to a brand’s bottom line.

Marketing and sales automation platform Autopilot and cloud analytics provider GoodData recently aligned forces to help enterprises improve their sales teams’ prospecting efforts with the launch of CoPilot. The partnership helps sales teams understand performance of drip email campaigns, so they camake informed decisions and ultimately drive better results from what traditionally have been much larger data sets.

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GoodData, embedded in CoPilot’s user interface, will provide customers the ability to receive an on-demand view into how prospects interact with outbound email campaigns, gain insight into what makes an effective and engaging email campaign, understand which messages resonate most with each persona, view email campaign performance (including click rates, open rates and clicks per unique open), and track high-value metrics like most-engaged prospects or best-performing campaigns.

THE DESIGN ISSUE Email continues to be a dominant force for marketers as trillions of emails are sent and received every day. However, in order for marketers to set themselves apart from the competition they need to design a visually appealing and timely message, something that can be difficult to accomplish. Luckily, there are products out there to help marketers solve this problem.

MailUp, an email service provider, recently announced the launch of a new product called BeeFree, a free online version of MailUp’s drag-and-drop editor. Through the BeeFree email editor, users will be able to create fully responsive emails without having to actually code any HTML or CSS themselves, which will enable email marketers to quickly, and visually, create attractively designed and, more importantly, functional emails. Furthermore when creating a message in BeeFree email marketers have the option of using a template or starting from scratch and creating a completely original design.

“We decided that taking the email editor out of MailUp and making it a stand-alone product that anyone can use was the right strategy,” said Massimo Arrigoni, chief product officer at MailUp. “It will allow us to collect feedback and push development forward, while also giving the email community a cool tool that will help marketers design nice email messages with little effort.”

MailUp’s BeeFree is far from the only solution to which marketers can turn if their design isn’t meeting users’ expectations. Email marketing platform Campaign Monitor released Canvas mid-summer 2014, a new email builder tool that rethinks the approach to layout and styling of branded content delivered to the inbox.

Canvas offers designers/email senders an opportunity to choose the style of email that matches their brand, and then provides the ability to customize how content is laid out as it is added by the designer. Canvas also features automatic image resizing and features a tool to quickly and easily create additional vertical space.

Campaign Monitor is making it possible for content to “inform the design” of email - not the other way around. As the number of emails opened on mobile devices continues to increase, Internet professionals would be wise to explore automated, customizable solutions like that of Canvas.

REVENUE GENERATION

With Canvas from Campaign Monitor, users can choose from a range of designs with flexible layouts to create emails that will work everywhere.

“Quickly creating an email that looks fantastic everywhere has always been a huge challenge, and traditionally template builders have really limited what you can do with your design,” said Campaign Monitor Co-Founder David Greiner.

“With Canvas, we focused on developing a whole new way of creating emails. We wanted the content to come first, not the limitations of a template.”

Review Website Magazine’s “BIG LIST of Email Design Tools” at wsm.co/emaildes.

TARGETING/PERSONALIZATION A survey conducted by Harris Interactive found that people actually like emails based on their previous shopping behaviors and preferences. In fact, 81 percent of U.S. digital shoppers surveyed said they were at least somewhat likely to make additional purchases, either online or in a store, as a result of targeted emails - and solutions providers are getting in on the action.

Email marketing automation provider dotmailer, for example, has released a series of updates to its Magento extension designed to help retailers drive engagement and loyalty.

The updated plugin most notably offers retailers the ability to integrate e-commerce customer data with email marketing data (dotmailer functionality is essentially made available directly within the Magento console), enabling retailers to create email marketing campaigns, administer contacts and design automation programs within the same environment as they manage their merchant functions.

Magento and dotmailer users that deploy the module/ plugin also gain access to a full suite of transactional emails, as well as the ability to build loyalty programs thanks to an integration with rewards platform SweetTooth.

“These latest developments will transform the way some of the world’s top retailers do business,” said Ben Staveley, head of e-commerce at dotmailer. “The seamless transfer of data between the Magento and dotmailer platforms will bring users increased average order values, increased frequency of purchase and ultimately enhanced revenue.”

E-commerce merchants and service providers have a direct path to generating revenue – get consumers to buy products (that’s not easy, of course, but is made much more so by the sophistication of technology today). It’s much different for information publishers, who are looking for ad serving solutions that will provide them a better opportunity than ever before, to make email the revenue workhorse of their enterprise.

ReachDynamics, for example, recently released a new ad serving technology, which allows publishers to dynamically place contextually targeted ads in transactional and marketing emails such as weekly newsletters, confirmation emails, receipts and autoresponders, by leveraging multiple demand side platforms on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis.

The solution works by scanning the content of email in real-time and serving contextually relevant ads to recipients. Publishers can customize the color, dimensions and placement of the ads, as well as specify advertising categories that can appear. ReachDynamics indicated that it has already completed several integrations with email service providers.

Those questioning whether a solution like this would impact deliverability, can join the digital club.

Typically, email clients don’t like too much in the way of dynamic scripting but only time will tell, as the potential in a solution like this is almost too good to pass up for publishers.

“We recognized a huge opportunity to help publishers uncover the hidden revenue potential of their email programs,” said Eric Castelli, CEO and co-founder of ReachDynamics. “Because the email subscriber relationship has so much long-term value, it’s important for us to serve complement and relevant ads that don’t detract from the user experience. For example, a newsletter reviewing the top 10 chef knives might provide an ad for cooking classes.

The best part about our technology is that it is not static; it continually optimizes to improve ECPM, engagement levels and the customer experience.”

ONLY AS GOOD AS THE MARKETER Having the right email systems and processes in place can certainly propel a digital enterprise forward. After all, email is responsible for generating revenue, deep customer loyalty and personalizing the brand experience. All of email’s digital promises, however, will not be delivered if those responsible for email marketing within their company are not open to emerging software solutions and strategies, more compelling creative and cutting-edge monetization opportunities. Staying abreast of all the challenges and changes in email marketing is what will truly deliver email marketing success.

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Affiliate

INSIDER

Quick Guide to Selecting an

AFFILIATE NETWORK

By Derek Schou, Associate Editor

Selecting the “right” performance marketing network for a digital enterprise is an arduous process.

Another important consideration for advertisers to ask about are the details found within their reports.

Not only will advertisers want to know how many of their ads consumers interacted with, but they will also want to know the total amount of ads that were displayed, how consumers interacted with them, what websites the ads saw the most engagement on and so on. As an advertiser, anything less is unacceptable.

Quality of Advertisers

Support Provided

Perhaps one of the quickest ways for advertisers to get a sense of the quality of a performance marketing network is by looking at its list of existing clients.

A network’s brag sheet will not provide key information like ad cost, reporting, support, etc. (more on all three later), but it will give a company an overall sense of the quality of its service. For example, an apparel retailer checking out a performance marketing network may determine it’s of high quality if top retailers like Macy’s and Target are utilizing it.

“Advertisers are more likely to congregate around an affiliate network when their direct competitors are with them so that they can easily pull in those publishers and lure them away from their competition,” said Jesse Lakes, CEO and cofounder of GeoRiot, a link management platform.

When taking the first step into a new partnership, companies must understand what that other company brings to the table and how they are willing to assist them when they have questions or run into problems.

For example, do they have a 24-hour help desk that advertisers can call if they have any questions or do they just offer support via email or instant chat?

“Phone support is nice to have but if an advertiser really cares about it they’ll have a ‘tier 2’ support system for their affiliates as well,” said Lakes of GeoRiot. “This way the questions that can’t easily be tackled by the affiliate network can be sent to a knowledgeable expert inside the advertiser’s team.”

Companies employ performance marketing networks to promote their products and services and expect a return on investment.

Many smaller advertisers will be limited by the initial setup, management costs and terms of payment. Unlike the major retailers (e.g. Nordstrom or Walmart),

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There is no one-size-fits-all solution, so it is important that Internet professionals do their due diligence by researching each possible partner (Get started at Website Magazine’s “BIG List of Performance Networks for 2015” at wsm.co/networks15 ). To help in the process, Website Magazine has outlined four of the top considerations for selecting a performance marketing network.

Cost and Terms of Payment

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many businesses have small advertising budgets so it is vital to know the upfront and recurring cost and payment schedule. For companies, especially smalland medium-sized businesses, knowing the pay structure is crucial because it can quickly price them out of certain networks.

“All affiliate networks have varying cost models; if you are a very large advertiser driving millions of dollars in sales a month you should either negotiate for scalable pricing or choose a network that offers it,” said Brian Nickerson, CEO and cofounder of Chippmunk, a coupon and deal search engine. “If you are a smaller advertiser, it makes sense to choose a network that will not charge you a fixed fee.”

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Have Patience While the process may take longer than you would like, it is important not to rush and enter into an agreement with the wrong performance marketing network. It is also important to remember that if your initial choice does not work out there are numerous other networks available that are eager to work with you. In the meantime, make sure to explore Website Magazine’s “BIG LIST of Performance Networks for 2015” at wsm.co/networks15.

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Conversion

CORNER

A Whole New World

CRO & THE ROLE OF THE

DATA SCIENTIST

By Brian Lewis

Just a decade ago, conversion rate optimization (CRO) was the playground for early adopters who demonstrated that website traffic means nothing if visitors do not convert into customers.

Today, CRO has become an important staple for all digital marketers, whose success often hinges on the quality and quantity of data they have to drive their decisions. To satisfy this need, many companies have found that adding a data scientist to their conversion team is the next frontier.

What is a data scientist?

A data scientist is a hybrid between a data analyst, a statistician and a business manager. They harness big data from a variety of different sources, bring it together to produce a clear summary of what is going on in a given business and make predictions about what will happen next. They help to guide businesses by finding trends and insights that might have otherwise been overlooked, making the necessary distinctions between causation and correlation.

A data scientist is curious – questioning previous conclusions and looking at information in new ways in order to get the most accurate picture possible for the company. Above all, a data scientist is action-oriented – not looking to create reports but to help direct more intelligent business decisions.

Using it to improve conversion optimization Although many marketing organizations talk about the importance of mining big data for driving both tactical and strategic decisions, most have not been able to integrate the technique into their daily operations. This 32

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is where the data scientist comes into play.

Unshackled from the constraints of pre-packaged analytics reports, data scientists can take raw data about website traffic, combine it with customer purchase data, geographic and demographic information, and even PPC and email tracking/click data, to create a profile of customers most likely to respond to certain marketing messages and promotions, at what time of day, in which season, and for what products or services. These insights can literally open up a new world of optimization opportunities for a robust conversion optimization team.

Here are some of the ways data scientists are taking conversion optimization to the next level:

User Behavior Modeling Using a variety of information sources, a data scientist can identify the characteristics and behavior of a company’s best customers, and create a model that allows the optimization team to streamline the path to purchase for future customers. Companies like Groupon have entire teams dedicated to mining data to create customer models for the targeting and personalization of offers. A data scientist can build a profile that includes information about what time of day the customer arrives, where they are geographically located, which device(s) they use, whether they have visited the site before, what pages they visited and other touch points they might have had with the company (for example, if they received a direct mail piece or called customer service).

Predictive Analytics A data scientist knows that a considerable amount of human behavior follows a pattern. Netflix famously used predictive analytics when it examined the view-

ing patterns of millions of subscribers and used the information to plan and execute its hit series “House of Cards.” Predictive analytics essentially gives companies a crystal ball that reveals what types of promotions will work best on which people, which products a specific visitor is most likely to be interested in and when to send targeted emails to certain customers based on the past click and purchase behavior of similar customers. All of this, of course, needs to be tested and refined by the conversion optimization team, but the opportunities are endless with a good data scientist constantly uncovering new trends and forming new hypotheses.

Ready for a data scientist on your CRO team?

There’s no question that a data scientist can expand the capabilities of a conversion optimization team.

But for all the added value that they bring, data scientists still cannot replace a strong visual/UX designer, a conversion-focused copywriter or even a conversion analyst. The “science” of conversion rate optimization crosses over many disciplines - including psychology and neuroscience - and many of the most successful optimization professionals understand there is also an art to applying all these scientific insights to a specific website. The data scientist can look in the rearview mirror to report what has happened in the past, can look in the crystal ball to make predictions for the future and can develop hypotheses about potential areas Improved A/B Testing of optimization. The data is almost With all the testing tools available today (explore Website Magazine’s meaningless, however, without the A data scirest of the CRO team to turn that “Master List of A/B Testing Solutions” hypothesis into a meaningful test (or at wsm.co/abtools15 ), one might entist can sequence of tests). wonder what added value a data Before expanding an in-house scientist could bring to the disciuncover adconversion team to include a data pline of A/B testing. After all, the ditional areas scientist, a business should do a heavy statistical lifting is all done thorough self-evaluation of their by the testing tool, right? Well for testing, becurrent CRO efforts. If the converyes, and no. A testing tool can run a test, but it can’t determine what cause he or she sion team is still working on the basics like form and content optimito test. There are plenty of “obvihas access to a zation, removing visual distractions ous” test opportunities that can be and improving the user experience, determined by Web analytics data broader array it’s probably premature to take on and/or usability tests, but a data scia data scientist. The team probably entist can help uncover additional of data. areas for testing, because he or she won’t have the bandwidth to test has access to a broader array of data and implement all the new opporand can make correlations - and hypotheses - that may tunities that the data scientist uncovers. be outside the normal line of vision for the rest of the There’s no shame in not being ready or able to CRO team. This might include optimizing for custom- take the plunge into big data. Conversion optimizers ers with higher lifetime values or other business success were making significant improvemetrics that simply aren’t evident when looking at Web ments in website efficiency long analytics alone. before the advent of big data, and those techniques are still efRecommendations and Personalization fective. What’s important is that Armed with the right collection of information, a data a company embraces conversion scientist can develop algorithms for personalized rec- optimization as a critical business ommendations that will lead to higher conversions. function, and be willing to evaluThis is particularly powerful for companies like eHar- ate the opportunity that data scimony. Its very business model relies on its ability to ence offers down the road. deliver the best possible “match” for each user. Even websites that are not in the matchmaking business understand that serving the right content to the right user Check out six mustLewis is the director of optimizaat the right time is central to streamlining the path to Brian take steps toward a cation at SiteTuners, where he works purchase. Data scientists can offer advice about which with clients to diagnose conversion reer in data science at types of content and offers are most likely to have a barriers, streamline conversion paths wsm.co/datasci6 and support test-planning efforts. favorable impact with specific customer segments.

“

“

How to Become a Data Scientist

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Mobile

MATTERS

Beacons

Broadening Retailers’ Horizons with

By Jeff Francis

At Apple’s WWDC earlier this year, one seemingly minor announcement had many retailers and developers abuzz with anticipation — iBeacons.

While Apple did not highlight this new technology as prominently as others, many immediately saw huge potential in this nascent technology. And with the recent announcement of Apple Pay, there is even more untapped potential for brick-and-mortar retailers to improve consumers’ experiences in-store while adding to their bottom lines.

Before getting into what can be done with iBeacons, though, it’s useful to discuss how iBeacons actually work. A Beacon is a low-cost, small piece of hardware that utilizes battery-friendly, low-energy Bluetooth connections to monitor users’ activities and transmit messages or prompts to those users’ smartphones or tablets. iBeacons is the software component on those personal devices.

This is a huge step up over the current alternatives, which are GPS, near field communications (NFC) and cell-tower based. Often, users lose cell reception indoors or the tracking services become far less accurate.

Furthermore, GPS and NFC tracking on iPhones and Android phones drain their respective batteries significantly. By using the newest iteration of the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) connection protocol, Apple has figured out how to enable this breakthrough concept without killing a user’s battery in the process.

A Seamless Shopping Experience

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The industries championing this technology initially are retail locations and offline payment providers. Retail companies want to be able to interact with shoppers while they’re inside their stores. Research shows that at least 50 percent of shoppers use their phones to help them shop already — why not make that experience seamless? .com

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Here is how it works. Say that you are in a clothing store and based on your buying history, your phone knows your size and what styles you prefer. Thanks to iBeacons, your device can send you a prompt telling you where to go in the store to look for those types of items.

There are countless ways this technology could be huge in many aspects of consumers’ lives. Retailers like Macy’s, Lord & Taylor and American Eagle have already moved forward with prototypes and are currently beta testing in their stores. Major grocery store chains have done the same with tests since the beginning of the year. iBeacons are also useful for consumers. They could automate their entire home to turn off lights and appliances once they leave and turn everything on once they get home. Transit systems could use them to alert travelers to delays or forecast surges in traffic based on the number of phones their Beacons detect. Sports and concert venues could use them to take a ticket and direct the ticketholder to his or her seat. The list of uses truly goes on and on.

Technology companies beyond Apple are taking notice as well. PayPal and Qualcomm are building hardware of their own while smaller vendors like Estimote, Swirl and GPShopper are entering the mix as well.

Success Relies on the Opt-In There are, of course, still a few barriers to adoption.

Namely, users have a lot of “opting-in” to do. They have to turn on location services, turn on BLE, accept location services on every relevant app and opt-in to receive notifications from those apps. This could hamper adoption by non-tech-savvy consumers.

Additionally, with a stream of privacy invasion articles about the NSA and private companies like Facebook, Google and Apple, it’s tough to say whether consumers will tolerate this level of intrusive knowledge from companies. Do consumers really want Apple knowing everything about their every buying habit?

How much information will Apple share with retailers so they can ping shoppers incessantly? Will the prompts actually prove useful, directing consumers to products or services they’re likely to want? Or will they simply be blanket advertisements that users will tune out?

It’s tough to say exactly how this technology will manifest itself over the coming months and years. There’s little doubt, however, that it could be a real game-changer for many industries if consumers respond positively.

Jeff Francis is the co-founder and COO of Dallas-based Copper Mobile, a leading enterprise-centric mobile development firm that helps companies solve their business challenges with cutting-edge mobile solutions.

12 Months of Web SucceSS

Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t wait, subscribe FREE at wsm.co/subscribe14 Join the largest audience of Internet professionals of any industry publication by claiming your FREE subscription to Website Magazine today.

Social Media

MAVENS Achieving Superstardom on

LinkedIn

By Allison Howen, Associate Editor

While individuals can participate in groups relevant to their interests and professional experience, businesses should create their own groups for audiences within their specific niche. Doing so can help create a sense of community on LinkedIn and build relationships with prospective clients. Take a look at three brands nailing it with LinkedIn Groups at wsm.co/3ligroups.

Showcase Pages In pop culture, there are some stars that have staying power and some that clearly do not. The same can be said of social networks.

Although we will not know how the Web’s most popular social networks will ultimately fare for another decade or so, there is one network in particular that is better positioned for long-term success – and we are not talking about Facebook.

For many Internet professionals, LinkedIn is the social network with the most potential. Not only does the social network already have a large user base of more than 313 million members, but it also doesn’t have much direct competition. This is because LinkedIn specifically targets business professionals rather than the general public. Perhaps the biggest challenge the social network faces, however, is that many professionals are not leveraging some of the most valuable tools LinkedIn offers to both individual and enterprise users. That changes today.

Publishing Platform LinkedIn began rolling out its own publishing platform in 2014, enabling members to publish content directly on the social network. This feature can help professionals build their authority on the social network, because any content a member posts on the publishing platform is searchable on LinkedIn, showcased on the writer’s profile and shared with their network.

To create a post on the publishing platform that generates buzz, it is important to leverage some general best writing practices during composition, such as implementing keywords and using compelling titles. Discover five elements of a buzz-worthy blog post at wsm.co/5bworthy.

Groups The Groups feature on LinkedIn is another valuable tool for both individuals and businesses. Groups enables professionals with similar interests to share content, post and view job opportunities, make professional connections and increase their authority within an industry.

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LinkedIn takes the traditional social business page a step further with its Showcase Page feature, which was launched in Nov. 2013. This feature is an extension of the traditional business page, and enables brands to spotlight a specific business unit or campaign and share updates regarding that initiative with a more targeted community.

Before creating a Showcase Page, brand managers should identify an area of their company that would benefit from this feature. For example, Microsoft offers showcase Pages for Outlook.com, Bing Ads, Office 365 and more.

Content Marketing Score and Trending Content Launched in April of this year, the Content Marketing Score and Trending Content features can be effective when leveraged together and independently. The Content Marketing Score is an analytics package that gives businesses insight into the impact of their paid advertising and content marketing distributed on the social network. The score is calculated by measuring the amount of engagement (likes, comments, shares) a company receives on content like Sponsored Updates, company and employee updates, LinkedIn Groups, etc., and then dividing that number by the company’s total audience.

Conversely, the Trending Content feature provides brands with a ranking of topics that resonate most with their target audience.

Used together, brands can leverage the Trending Content feature to discover the interests of their target audience and create content accordingly, which will likely increase their Content Marketing Score.

Connecting In the Future LinkedIn has definitely carved out a place for itself on the social Web (as well as within the business world), but its future success will depend greatly on its ability to offer an approachable and user-friendly platform. In the meantime, Web professionals and brands are wise to stay connected by establishing and maintaining a presence on the social network with the many features already available.

Software

EVERYWHERE

How to Simplify

IMAGE MANIPULATION in WordPress

By Marko Heijnen

Image manipulation, often a challenge for Web designers and developers, went through a significant revamp in the WordPress 3.5 launch.

This brought developers more flexibility within the platform and a more effective approach for generating image sizes within the popular content management system (CMS).

Previously, WordPress versions possessed much of the same code spread within their code base. This was resolved by abstracting the GD code (a graphics drawing library) from the core. For WordPress version 3.5 or newer, the images have transitioned to using new classes. The main class for shared methods became WP_Image_Editor, while the previous code is located in WP_Image_Editor_GD. By separating GD, it is possible to integrate Imagick, a software suite to create, edit, compose or convert bitmap images. This is especially beneficial when working with images that possess extended color profiles. Due to its improved image quality, support for Imagick is included for all users whose Web host makes it available.

If functions are used that are not Imagick supported, WordPress will automatically revert to GD. Now, developers can extend existing image manipulation engines or integrate their own.

In order for Web developers to take advantage of the increased power for image manipulation, they will need to review the function add_image_size(). This allows for the ability to establish the image’s name, width, height and areas to be cropped. However, users will notice some limitations once they attempt to accomplish more advanced manipulation.

Consider combining all code within one WordPress plugin. For example, Improved Image Editor currently focuses on the application programming interface (API), which is specifically beneficial for developers to

add additional image-editing functionality. Such capabilities include image quality, zoom and filter.

The Improved Image Editor plugin currently offers a great set of features, and new elements are continuously being added. Coming soon, a new range of filters will be made available for developers to leverage for even more advanced image manipulation within WordPress.

Even though this plugin is still evolving, it is easy to see its incredible benefits for image manipulation and ease of installation...and it keeps getting better. Coming soon, WP_Image will be added to its functionality to streamline image editing within WordPress. Once completed, this will make it easier for users as it only requires a few lines of code to complete the process, as well as gives the ability to view and manage the image directly within the administration page.

Another plugin option to consider for image manipulation is WP Thumb. Users can integrate the plugin with WordPress image functions to specify height, width and crop values. Once completed, the image will then be created and cached for later use. This is particularly beneficial for those that wish to conduct ondemand photo resizing directly within the platform.

Many Web professionals rely on WP Thumb when working with clients that already have an extensive amount of images on their website. It eliminates the need to remove images from the backend just to re-upload them in a new form. Not only does it save significant disk space on large projects, but also time when accomplishing what can potentially be a tedious task.

By taking the time to understand the true value of image manipulation within WordPress, as well as the tools available to achieve it, Web professionals will be able to customize much more effectively.

Marko Heijnen is a WordPress Specialist at 1&1 and a contributor to the WordPress community. He has had a hand in developing seven releases since 3.0. Follow him on Twitter @markoheijnen.

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5 Photo-Editing Plugins for WordPress Discover more ways to create compelling, custom images at

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Net

ADVERTISING

3 Creative Digital Ads SURE TO IMPRESS

“shareable” ads for its show “The A. NBC’s Blacklist” were featured in a homepage takeover on NYTimes.com.

By Amberly Dressler, Managing Editor

Digital marketers have their work cut out for them when it comes to creating compelling, personalized ads that drive clicks – and conversions – on the various channels consumers frequent.

Marketers are, however, up for the challenge. According to IAB’s Internet Advertising Revenue Report released in Oct. 2014, Internet ad spending climbed to a historic high of $23 billion for the first half of this year, marking an impressive 15 percent rise over 2013’s first-half ad revenues.

To ensure a return on their investment, brands must know which ads are currently catching the attention of today’s modern – and often distracted – online consumer. Here are three such ads.

SOCIAL SHARING & The Blacklist People’s attention spans are rapidly decreasing. In 2000, a brand could likely get 12 interrupted seconds of a user’s time, now they are lucky to get 8 (source: wsm.co/esnacks). To put that in perspective, the average attention span of a goldfish is 9 seconds. This is one of the many reasons TV and social media work so well together – particularly for online advertisers. TV watchers are not giving their undivided attention to what is on the “first screen” and instead are following their favorite shows on the various social networks - sharing content and connecting with fellow fans before, during and after a program. This, according to Nielsen, is presenting a valuable opportunity for advertisers interested in tapping into and leveraging the momentum of social conversations.

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a social sharing call-to-action B. With included in the advertisement, users can initiate social conversations about their favorite shows from publisher sites to their social newsfeeds.

Understanding the impact of social sharing, NBC turned to Sizmek, an ad serving platform for agencies, advertisers and publishers, to promote its second season of the television series “The Blacklist” with an ad unit that was not only featured in a “homepage takeover” on nytimes.com (see Image A), but also advertised in Facebook’s newsfeed and shared by social users (see Image B).

By including a social sharing call-to-action in the banner ad, Sizmek’s SocialFire technology aggregates a post for social media once clicked, which helps users initiate conversations about their favorite shows from publisher sites to their social newsfeeds – increasing the ad’s reach and overall brand awareness.

C. Most importantly, the social media posts that are automatically being created for users essentially shift the original ad from paid media to earned media (in this case, organic social posts), which resonates better with digital consumers, as it is seen as more authentic.

From an in-app banner ad to an interactive quiz, the Sauza Party Planner took users on a content journey.

The CONTENT JOURNEY & Sauza Tequila NBC is not alone when it comes to looking for innovative ways to drive brand engagement and loyalty.

Targeting a female audience over the age of 21, Sauza Tequila enlisted the help of mobile media company Zumobi, Starcom MediaVest Group, Microsoft and Beam, Inc., to provide a fun new way for women with a proclivity for popular culture and social media to plan their next social gathering.

The result was the Sauza Party Planner, which takes tech-savvy party enthusiasts on a Sauza Tequila content journey. An in-app auto-expanding banner ad, which saw a 5 percent click-through rate, sets up the experience (see Image C). Once clicked, users are required to enter a birthdate (to pass the “age gate”) and are then taken to a branded, visually appealing quiz (or they can tab straight through to branded drink recipes) that gives them a tailored result set within a group of four categories (décor, food, drinks, music), plus one custom category. The types of questions users are asked in order to personalize their results range from, “What kind of cocktail or drink would you like to serve?” to “If I could describe my group of girlfriends in one word it would be:”.

Marla Schimke, VP of marketing at Zumobi, believes this type of experience – where people engage with a branded module on a content page that sets up the experience (e.g. “Plan Your Girls Night”) - serves as a best practices guide for brands wanting to utilize mobile to increase brand affinity and user engagement. What’s more, the content marketing experience’s 74 percent return rate serves as proof that consumers enjoyed the ad experience enough to re-engage with it. Zumobi’s “Content Hub” feature helped encourage users to return to the content, as it could be saved on their mobile home screen for continued use and social sharing.

RETARGETING & The Home Depot If there’s one common denominator in effective, engaging advertising today, it’s social – whether it’s the ability to share an experience on social media or delivering ads within users’ newsfeeds. In fact, Facebook’s newsfeed supplies some of the most valuable ad real estate online, according to retargeting platform AdRoll, which reports that newsfeed campaigns become even more effective – driving key metrics like conversions, app downloads and lead generation – when layered on top of Web retargeting (5.7 percent more impressions and 53 percent more clicks). For the unfamiliar, retargeting essentially “brings back” website visitors who went to a site, looked around and left without buying anything.

Take The Home Depot as an example. It retargets on Facebook (see Image D) by not only including the image of what the shopper was looking at (but didn’t buy) on its website, but also a product description.

Its calls-to-action “Like Page” and “Shop Now” give the buyer multiple opportunities to engage with The Home Depot, further increasing brand engagement and the likeliness of conversion.

D. The Home Depot retargets site abandoners on Facebook, encouraging them to either Like their page or to Shop Now.

Impressive, Yet Doable As Internet ad revenues soar, competitors’ ads will only get more engaging, more personalized and more intouch with what consumers will spend their valuable time on. The time is now when it comes to looking into what platforms, agencies, practices and the like can propel a digital enterprise’s acquisition and retention efforts forward.

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Web

COMMENTARY

Were You Naughty or Nice in 2014?

By Amberly Dressler, Managing Editor

Anyone who has spent any amount of time on social media during the holidays is at least somewhat familiar with the holiday tradition, “The Elf on the Shelf.”

Company and Culture Find out the impact employee happiness has on profits at

wsm.co/cultureco

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In a quick summary, parents place the elf in surprising locations (like in a silverware drawer) or in clever predicaments (like being trapped by Barbie dolls), while the “scout elf” serves as Santa’s eyes and ears at children’s homes around the world. And, if the number of Pinterest boards dedicated to “Elf on the Shelf ideas” is any indication, the ritual might be most fun for parents. Regardless, Santa Claus’s little spy is meant to keep kids on track to make his “nice” list.

Aside from some clever social media campaigns or e-commerce upsell opportunities (of course the elf has accessories, such as reindeers, game day jerseys, ice skates, etc.), there is more that Internet professionals can take from Elf on the Shelf than meets the eye.

Enter: accountability. Managers on the ground floor of a business, per say, generally know which employees are working and which are not (being nice or naughty). They also have plenty of resources at their disposal to measure productivity, track hours and even gauge employee sentiment. Enterprises that are actively analyzing and optimizing their products, services and operations want individuals, however, who internalize the brand’s successes and failures, and look to improve on a personal level and for the company on the whole, not those only meeting minimal quotas, short-term goals or are watching the clock. In other words, the most successful team members – whether assistants or presidents – are those who are holding themselves accountable. They are their own Elf on the Shelf, watch.com

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ing and analyzing their own moves. They are looking for productivity hacks – only checking email twice a day, using productivity apps like Evernote or IFTTT, or tracking their own time and output with tools like DeskTime.

Being self-motivated and personally accountable isn’t a line item on a balance sheet, but team members actively demonstrating these qualities are not only good for their enterprises, but are also likely influencing their peers to be too.

All Internet professionals can hold themselves more accountable and, in turn, kick themselves into high gear this New Year. Under their own watchful eye, they can start spending more time analyzing the numbers they report in robotic fashion each month; they can set and follow up with personal goals; they can avoid negativity and be a more motivating colleague; they can generate new ideas and not hold on to the status quo; they can be more in-tune with what is happening in their respective industry; they can mentor a younger team member; they can take breaks to refresh. The list of improvements each of us can make is long and unique to each individual, but what is important is to keep at it – whatever “it” may be.

At the end of the day, there are those whose jobs it is to make sure each team member is accountable for the time they put in and the work they give out. Just like Santa has his ways, today’s managers have the tools – many of which have existed for quite some time – to monitor emails, website visits, attendance and more, but there is nobody more powerful and more motivating than each of us as individuals. Children may be “good” for the Elf on the Shelf until the holidays are past or the novelty wears off, but a strong foundation of self-motivation and personal accountability lasts all year long – for both children and adults.

“I see you!”

“You see me and so do your customers!”

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