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Digital Ad Creative Checklist
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‘NET ENGAGEMENT Considerations for the Relationship Age
While there is no single, undisputed definition of “engagement,” today’s enterprises know they must still pursue it rigorously. So, what is it exactly, and how can brands create experiences worthy of the time, attention and investment of their audience of existing customers and future prospects? Further, how do they develop experiences that still manage to benefit the bottom line of their enterprise? Simple; focus on forging better relationships.
THIS MONTH IN WEBSITE MAGAZINE Campaign Warning Signs
SaaS for Retail Organizations
All marketers say they want to be data-driven, but the fact remains they aren’t all using metrics to boost their efforts.
There are six tips e-commerce enterprises can follow to help guide their businesses through a successful software-as-a-service strategy.
Big List of Social Media Holidays
FEBRUARY 2: Groundhog Day 7: Super Bowl 14: Valentine’s Day 15: President’s Day 29: Leap Day
Before Hitting Send With open, click-through and conversion rates at stake, email marketers should ask themselves these seven questions before hitting send.
APRIL
1: April Fool’s Day 10: National Sibling Day 18: Tax Day 22: Earth Day
MARCH 13: Daylight Savings Begins 17: St. Patrick’s Day 20: First Day of Spring 27: Easter
MAY
Every day is a holiday online – providing digital marketers opportunities to increase engagement if they know where to find them. JUNE 5: Cinco de Mayo 7: Kentucky Derby 8: Mother’s Day 30: Memorial Day
19: Father’s Day 20: First Day of Summer
AUGUST 7: Friendship Day 21: Senior Citizen’s Day
Why Mobile Site Search Matters
Managing a Virtual Workforce JULY
SEPTEMBER
Meeting the high expectations of users on the go makes building site search a challenge, but there are tactics to doing it well.
4: Independence Day 25: Christmas in July
5: Labor Day 11: Patriot’s Day / Grandparents Day 21: International Day of Peace 22: First Day of Autumn
OCTOBER 10: Columbus Day 17: Boss’s Day 31: Halloween
NOVEMBER
Working remotely is a huge perk for valued employees, but it poses challenges for management as their staff is distributed across the globe. 6: Daylight Savings Ends 8: Election Day 11: Veterans Day 24: Thanksgiving 25: Black Friday 28: Cyber Monday
DECEMBER 22: First Day of Winter 25: Christmas Day 26: Boxing Day
The Big Lie: Never Redesign
A Closer Look at Scientific Marketing
Conversion optimizers are making a case for never redesigning, but they shouldn’t kid themselves that testing alone will get them desired results.
In this era of artificial intelligence, there is tremendous opportunity for marketing to evolve, but marketers have to be up to the task.
EXPLORE WEBSITE MAGAZINE’S DEPARTMENTS Stat Watch:
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From the
EDITOR The Magazine for Website Success
Let’s Get Engaged Put 10 Web professionals in a room and ask them to define the term “digital engagement” and you will receive as many different answers. The issue is that engagement means sometimes wildly different things to different people depending on their audience, the approach they use to attract and retain that audience and the means they use to measure interaction. In today’s real-time, multi-channel, interactivity-obsessed digital world, it’s becoming increasingly complicated to develop the relationships necessary to obtain engagement, but that doesn’t mean ‘Net businesses (and the marketers, designers, optimizers and analysts they employ) are not completely focused on attaining that elusive state of being. The key to engagement initiatives is realizing that people (consumers; existing customers and future prospects) come first. In this month’s feature article at Website Magazine, readers will discover more than just a formal definition; they’ll discover the factors that determine success with engagement initiatives and gain access to the methods that today’s brands are using to make it happen. If you’re looking for ways to increase engagement with your audience base, this issue of Website Magazine is for you. In addition to the feature of this month’s issue, readers will find insights and guidance on other important trends, techniques and tactics to help accelerate ‘Net success, including content marketing, search engine optimization, analytics, and conversion rate optimization among others. There’s much more in this issue as well that Website Magazine readers shouldn’t miss, including a Web design roundtable, tips for the mobile search experience, a list of important social media holidays and tactics for managing a virtual workforce. As always, we hope you’ll join us on the ‘Net, where our editors and industry contributors provide daily, in-depth coverage of important tips, tech and trends. Best Web Wishes, Peter@WebsiteMagazine.com
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Net
BRIEFS
QUICK HITS Bing Now Powering AOL Search
$ WHO GOT PAID?
Bing kicked off 2016 in a big way, announcing it is now powering AOL’s Web, mobile and tablet search, providing paid search ads and algorithmic organic search results to the company’s properties worldwide. According to recent comScore data, the deal now gives Bing close to one-third of U.S. PC Web searches. Does this mean that it is time for Web pros to dedicate more resources to marketing, advertising and optimizing for Bing?
$49 Million Advertising soft-
Is Mobile’s Momentum Unstoppable?
15 Million Cloud applications
Mobile usage grew by 58 percent in 2015 according to data from Flurry’s annual mobile and application usage study. The data highlights the increasing popularity of phablets (mobile devices with screen sizes between smartphones and tablets), with time spent on this device type growing by 334 percent year-over-year. In fact, 27 percent of all new devices activated for Christmas were phablets. If the current trends hold, Flurry notes that the phablet will become the dominant form factor by October, with small phones on track to become extinct by the second quarter of 2016.
Facebook Messenger Reaches 800 Million Facebook achieved another significant milestone, reaching 800 million monthly users for its Messenger app. In fact, 2015 was a big year for the mobile-focused offering; Messenger gained video calling functionality, the ability for users to send and receive money, provided enterprises a way to serve their customers with the launch of Businesses on Messenger, tested a digital virtual assistant named “M” and made photo sharing easier with its Photo Magic feature.
ware company SteelHouse ended 2015 with a $49 million round of funding led by Mercato Partners and with participation from Staley Capital and Silicon Valley Bank.
and platform services provider Oracle acquired AddThis for an undisclosed amount. AddThis is a provider of publisher personalization, audience insight and activation tools that power 15 million websites.
$10 Million Real-time person-
alization platform provider Evergage secured $10 million in Series B funding in January, which brings the company’s total funding amount to more than $21 million.
?OF THE MONTH
QUESTION
What type of digital advertising campaign garners the best return for your Web-based business? To answer this question and possibly be included in an upcoming issue of Website Magazine, visit wsm.co/febqotm.
WordPress 4.4 Focuses on Embed Support WordPress version 4.4 (a.k.a. Clifford) is providing greater embed support to administrators. WordPress users will now be able to drop in a post URL into the editor and see an instant embed preview that includes title, excerpt and a featured image if one has been set. Site icons and links for comments and sharing will also be included. In addition to post embeds, version 4.4 also offers support for five new embed providers including Cloudup, Reddit Comments, ReverbNation, Speaker Deck and VideoPress.
Amazon Unveils Kindle Instant Book Previews Amazon unveiled a new feature that allows third-party publishers to embed Amazon book previews within their website or apps. When leveraged, the Kindle instant book preview feature gives consumers the ability to browse book excerpts without leaving the publisher’s website or application. The feature is essentially an extension of Kindle book samples offered at Amazon and could prove very useful for Amazon Associates – online publishers or affiliates who earn commissions for referring users who make purchases on the site.
Something to Talk About Advertisers have a new way to drive conversations on Twitter thanks to the social network’s new conversational ad format. The ad format includes call-toaction (CTA) buttons with customizable hashtags that encourage consumer engagement.
POPULAR WITH WM READERS 12 Design Elements Every Site Should Have +
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Content is important, but it’s not enough if you want your website to convert visitors to leads. With 2016 expected to be the year of more targeted lead generation for businesses of all sizes, your site might need an overhaul.
6 Easy Ways to Speed up a Website +
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Whether you are running an online e-commerce platform or small business enterprise on your website, you would not want to miss the opportunity of generating more revenue because of slower website loading speeds.
A Beginner’s Look at Designing for Corporate Identity +
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Designers’ hands are often tied by those within a corporation trying to maintain a certain image and recognition. There is, however, a list of considerations that should be kept in mind when designing for corporate identity.
Net
BRIEFS WEB TECH WATCH
APP FOCUS
See what has the ‘Net community all abuzz with Website Magazine’s #WebTechWatch series, a monthly roundup profiling both emerging and established technologies and some of the most useful solutions for today’s Web workers. Submit your own recommendations by tweeting us @WebsiteMagazine.
Quuu Promote Screencast-O-Matic
Promote content to influencers with curated content.
Attractive placeholder images for design projects.
THEME.CARDS WordPress themes at THEME.CARDS.
Designing social posts can be time consuming. Adobe’s new iOS app, however, aims to change that. The Adobe Post app allows users to turn photos and text into attractive graphics and share them on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram quickly. The app offers professionally designed templates, handpicked fonts and shapes, free high-quality photos, an auto recolor feature and more. Discover additional apps at ApplicationMagazine.com.
Create and share screen recordings.
Placemat
SOCIAL POSTS IN A SNAP
Landy.io
Backand
Show the most suitable landing page for each new visitor, segmenting based on traits and behaviors.
Backend-as-a-service for AngularJS and Ionic.
LiveStyle
SendBird
Framer
Real-time chat and messaging solution for apps.
A prototyping tool that teaches how to code.
A real-time editing tool for CSS, LESS and SCSS.
Repuso Collect social media reviews and showcase on a website.
Have tips, stories, or funding or acquisition news to share?
Tweet us @WebsiteMagazine
Stat
WATCH
The Maturing Digital Acquisition Strategy Web professionals are becoming more sophisticated in their approach to digital measurement, but there is still a lot of work to do according to the Content Marketing Institute (CMI). For starters, business-to-business marketers surveyed in the “2016 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends – North America” report from CMI indicated that while over the last six years website traffic has been the most often used metric to gauge success, they are now focusing on more sales-specific metrics, such as conversions. While this finding indicates a level of maturity in that marketers want to prove the return on investment of their content marketing initiatives, 55 percent of them do not know what successes or effectiveness looks like for this tactic or are at least unsure of it. “We can do better,” said Joe Pulizzi, founder of Content Marketing Institute. “The research shows that marketers who have clarity around success are more effective at content marketing than those who don’t—they simply get better results.” One of the ways to increase the effectiveness of a team’s content marketing efforts is to attach a call to action (CTA). E-newsletters top the list of content offers B2B marketers ask audiences to subscribe to (87 percent). This CTA is relevant to the majority of respondents’ goal for content marketing, which is lead generation (85 percent). Once a company has a person signed up to their email newsletters, they are better able to market to them and increase conversions (a focus for B2B marketers this year). To learn more about growing your business through content marketing, go to wsm.co/growcm or scan the QR code on the left.
68%
Mobile accounted for 68 percent of paid social ad clicks in Q3 2015 and 50 percent of paid search ad clicks. (Kenshoo, Oct. 2015)
4x Facebook native videos perform up to four times better than all other video formats, such as those on YouTube or Vimeo. (quintly, Dec. 2015)
42%
On average the cost per click on Yahoo! Bing was 42 percent less expensive than on Google across all six categories in 2014. (AdGooroo,April 2015)
34%
While agencies expect no significant growth in spending on traditional media channels this year, 34 percent of marketers expect to increase traditional media spending “somewhat” or “significantly.” (RSW/US, Jan. 2016)
28% The average proportion of total marketing budget allocated to content marketing last year was 28 percent (not including staff). (Content Marketing Institute, Sept. 2015) F E B R U A R Y 2016
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Enterprise
READY Top Needs Driving the Need for
GLOBAL CONTENT
By Judd Marcello, VP of Marketing at Smartling
Any company with a website can be considered a global brand – whether that’s what they consider themselves or not. The Internet all but dissolved geographic borders for business and commerce. Further, with the rise of mobile devices, customers from all over the world can now find companies outside of the country they live in, with the click of a few buttons in the palm of their hands. Consequently, brands are increasingly doing business beyond their home market. Standard translation of a company’s website, mobile app and other digital content used to be good enough to attract global customers and increase revenues. Today, however, there are a number of evolving trends driving the demand for personalized customer experiences and the need for global content.
Translation Plugins for WordPress See your best available options for the world’s most-used content management system at wsm.co/wptalk16. 10
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FRAGMENTED CONTENT PLATFORMS As organizations grow, they become more and more siloed. To have an effective global content strategy, the walls between departments – and sometimes even within departments – need to come down. Technology complexity has also created its fair share of headaches, even as it has made the creation and dissemination of content easier. With content being developed, distributed and analyzed across a variety of platforms, it is not enough to simply translate a website for a new market. There are ample opportunities in the global content creation process where mistakes can happen. To consistently build and distribute the right content for the right audience, any stakeholder (be it from marketing, sales, product development or IT) and any system that impacts the brand must be coordinated, and translation and localization tools must integrate well with existing and future technology stacks.
RISE OF CONTENT MARKETING & SEO
Content marketing and SEO are now at the forefront of both brand-projection initiatives and brandprotection efforts. Getting it right means better SEO, which should translate to more interested prospects, and ultimately, to low-cost customer acquisition. Global brands have the added challenge of ensuring the content they are creating is also translated for each of the markets where they do business, and localized for cultural tastes, preferences and sensitivities. In the past, this has been an arduous, errorGLOBAL B2B & B2C OPPORTUNITIES prone and time-consuming process. Fortunately, The most significant population growth and increases translation management technology has eliminated in purchasing power are occurring in parts of the much of the manual processes associated with transworld where English is either not spoken, or is not lation and localization. the primary language. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 95 percent of the world’s consum- CUSTOMER OBSESSION ers and 80 percent of the world’s purchasing power Many customers now view the experience they have live outside of the U.S. If U.S. companies want to with a brand as more important than products or continue growing, they will eventually have to think prices offered. They want to be 100 percent conabout reaching global audiences with websites, mo- fident that the brand they are aligning with truly bile apps and other digital content that resonates in cares about their needs. For global companies, this any language, all cultures and every market. means creating native brand experiences that make each customer feel as if content and messages were MOBILE EXPLOSION created specifically for them. Native brand experiIn emerging markets, consumers are more likely to ences entail communicating in local languages and have a smartphone than a computer. With the global dialects, considering regional idiosyncrasies, taking explosion in mobile adoption, it’s now critical that a into account points of cultural sensitivity, using an brand’s mobile strategy aligns with its global content appropriate and respectful approach to all commustrategy. A company can create the best content in the nications, and knowing target audiences’ customs world, but if it isn’t optimized for the mobile experi- and traditions. To continue reading this article, visit us ence, it will automatically be lost on a large percentage of global consumers. online at wsm.co/worldcontent. .com
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F E B R U A R Y 2016
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Small
BUSINESS LAB
Ready, Set, Go!
1-HOUR SEO
By Travis Bliffen, Founder of Stellar SEO
While businesses always desire greater search traffic, the time allotted to reach their goals is often limited. If in-house marketing professionals acquire this essential task, but are not sure where they should begin, consider this roadmap for getting started with SEO in only 60 minutes per day over the next two weeks.
Day 1: Defining Goals The easiest way to fail at marketing is by not defining S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused and timed) goals. Keep in mind that an effective marketing strategy should include short, medium and long-term S.M.A.R.T. goals (learn more at wsm.co/smarter16).
Day 2: Verifying Achievability of Goals Setting goals is an excellent first step but not the only one. Many companies set goals to improve sales, but an in-house marketing team should also be tasked with determining what percentage of that growth can be generated exclusively via search marketing. For example, if the goal is to sell an additional 10 units per month, the formula used to calculate “achievability” would look like this: Search Traffic x CTR x Conversion Rate = Sales Generated. Repeat the process for each keyword to determine the achievability of the company’s goals.
Day 3: Identifying Additional Keywords In order to achieve the website sales goals, obviously, the selected keywords must send enough traffic to a website to meet the sales goal previously determined. When the initial keywords selected do not generate enough traffic, additional terms and phrases should be selected and targeted. Identifying variations of the primary keyword with tools like the AdWords Keyword Planner is the best starting place.
Day 4-5: On-Page Review On-page SEO is paramount; failing to build a solid foundation will result in failure or at best, reduced 12
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F EB RUARY 2016
performance from off-page SEO efforts. On-page reviews should focus on two areas: technical issues and keyword optimization. Learn how to conduct an on-page SEO review of a website at wsm.co/onaudit.
Day 6-8: Creating Content With a limited time horizon for achieving success, creating on-site content is generally the most effective means of promoting a website. To get started, use a tool like Buzzsumo to find content covering related topics that are performing well currently, and identify ways to improve upon those topics. Not sure what makes content useful and compelling? Access Website Magazine’s 2016 “Content Development Checklist” at wsm.co/cdevel.
Day 9-11: Fixing On-Page SEO Once content has been created, it is time to implement any necessary on-page SEO edits. This is the time to fix both technical and keyword issues, especially those affecting the new content. Do not move onto content promotion until all important on-page issues have been corrected.
Day 12: Content Promotion Prospecting In order to find people likely to link to newly created content, tools such as Majestic should be used to identify websites linking to similar content. Completing a search for the primary keywords/topics of the content being promoted will yield a list of pages with related content. Run those pages through Majestic to find a list of sites linking related content. Enter those sites into a spreadsheet and find a contact name and email for each site. Repeat until the lists have at least 200 contacts listed.
13-14: Promoting Content Set up a solution such as Sidekick or a similar tool that allows tracking of email opens and clicks. Create a basic email template that allows for quick customization for each request (see some examples of this in action at wsm.co/etemp11). After sending out an email to each person on the list created on day 12, visit Buzzsumo again to find out who is sharing similar content on social media. Connect with those sharing similar content, especially influencers, and use those connections to further promote the content.
Day 15: Repeating Regularly Depending upon the success of the outreach campaign, day 15 can go back to day 3 in which new keywords are identified and the process repeats, or can return to day 12 where additional promotional opportunities are discovered and the outreach promotion is repeated.
Quiz
TIME
Digital Ad
DOMINATION Digital ad spend in the U.S. is expected to surpass television ad spending in 2016 according to a recent forecast from Mana Global. This should not come as a surprise to Web pros of course, as they see firsthand how content consumption on desktop and mobile devices keeps growing. Garrett Gan, of ad network directory service Thalamus, notes that the current digital advertising landscape is very strong. “Unless there is some major crash in the market (due to rising Fed interest rates, and as a corollary, a contraction in the economy) then digital advertising will only continue to grow,” said Gan. “Even if there is a bump in the economy, this could mean more dollars flowing toward the more trackable and measurable mediums of digital and mobile advertising.” The digital advertising industry is growing, but that doesn’t mean advertisers and publishers aren’t facing significant challenges. Fragmentation, attribution and adblocking technology (learn more at wsm.co/adstate16), for example, are just a few of the virtual hurdles advertisers will be forced to address in 2016. Fortunately, Web professionals can make sure they are prepared for these challenges and other industry developments by regularly visiting Website Magazine’s Internet Advertising channel at wsm.co/netad16. In the meantime, discover just how much you know about digital advertising by taking February’s Quiz Time:
1. True or False: Native ad guidelines from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) state that labels such as “advertisement” are necessary and need to be prominent upon first contact with the consumer. Cheat sheet: wsm.co/native16
2. Which social network unveiled a “Brand Hub” in 2015 to make it easier for advertisers to understand their share of conversation across digital channels? a. Facebook b. Twitter c. Instagram d. Pinterest Cheat sheet: wsm.co/brandhub16
3. Approximately what percentage of mobile in-app inventory is fraudulent? a. 7 percent b. 38 percent c. 51 percent d. 72 percent Cheat sheet: wsm.co/inappad
4. True or False: Advertisers will pay five times as much to target someone by age/gender. Cheat sheet: wsm.co/mastarget
5. Due to ad-blocking software, how much revenue is forecasted to be blocked in the U.S. by 2016?
Get the answers to this month’s Quiz Time on the Web at wsm.co/qtfeb16 or by scanning the QR code on the left.
a. $72.5 million b. $392.1 million c. $13.6 billion d. $20.3 billion Cheat sheet: wsm.co/adblock16 F E B R U A R Y 2016
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Top
50
RANK WEBSITE
Leading Networks for
Digital Publishers & Online Advertisers For both advertisers and publishers, 2015 was the best of times and (for some) the worst of times. Interest in new technologies (e.g. programmatic) absolutely exploded, new tactics and approaches emerged quite forcefully in some instances (e.g. native), and budgets for mobile and social increased dramatically. For many online advertisers and digital publishers there has never been a better opportunity to increase awareness, deepen engagement and drive action and interaction. There are, of course, a few issues that the broader Web business community is currently dealing with that just can’t be avoided – from the FTC’s recent interest in native advertising to the staggering rise of ad blockers. The present opportunity is undoubtedly immense (as are the challenges) which, for both advertisers and publishers, makes selecting a network and partner in their digital initiatives of fundamental importance. While most will turn directly (and solely) to Google and its suite of solutions, there are hundreds of viable alternatives; solutions catering to specific industry verticals, those offering access to private audiences and proprietary technology, and those taking advantage of the latest and greatest the Web world has to offer (often before the biggest names in ad tech). In this month’s Website Magazine Top 50, readers will find 50 of the leading networks and platforms for digital publishers and online advertisers. Included are some well-known names including affiliate networks like ShareASale (#5), content marketing offerings like Taboola (#27) and pure-play pay-per-click standbys like 7Search (#31). Readers will also find a virtual handful of digital up-and-comers including Collective.com (#9), Undertone (#16), Sovrn (#37) and many others that close attention should be paid to in the coming years. The solutions listed here are just a few of those that captured the attention of those in the ‘Net economy in 2015 and early 2016 and will likely serve enterprises well as they look to attract a broader base of users and ultimately monetize their digital presence – there are many others and readers are encouraged to stay up to date with Website Magazine’s ‘Net Advertising channel at wsm.co/netad16, where they are sure to find new solutions and emerging tactics that will make a positive difference in their Web success.
Rapidly Growing Digital Ad Market To find out where money is going (and where it’s wasted), check out this can’t-miss infographic at wsm.co/admarket16.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50.
Google.com Amazon.com ClickBank.com RocketFuel.com ShareaSale.com Amobee.com Avangate.com Criteo.com Collective.com Advertising.com AvantLink.com BuySellAds.com ImpactRadius.com Outbrain.com BlogAds.com Undertone.com Affinity.com VibrantMedia.com Chitika.com AdKnowledge.com OfferVault.com RadiumOne.com Gravity.com LinkShare.com Media.net Clickbooth.com Taboola.com Infolinks.com FlexOffers.com Exponential.com 7Search.com SiteScout.com MaxBounty.com PeerFly.com Affiliatewindow.com Nativo.net Sovrn.com Adblade.com CPAlead.com Bidvertiser.com Tradedoubler.com Clicksor.com Convert2Media.com Conversant.com AdscendMedia.com Skimlinks.com Zanox.com eZanga.com GLobalWideMedia.com Viglink.com
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E-Commerce
EXPRESS Personalization Factors
& Functions to Consider By Amberly Dressler, Managing Editor
Batch and blast, spray and pray, onesize-fits-all. These are all marketing phrases of the past and today’s digital businesses would be wise to forget these approaches ever existed. Not only are today’s consumers expecting companies to know who they are, what they’ve bought in the past and what they may like now and in the future, but the technologies used to provide such deep insight are also more accessible than many retailers realize. Further, customers are willing to provide companies personal data – in some cases sacrificing anonymity and privacy – to get a better shopping experience. What’s the brand payoff? According to Adobe, one of its partners (a popular travel site) reported seeing a 62 percent increase in bookings among existing members by simply personalizing banner content when they returned to the site. With the benefits of providing a personalized online experience so clear, it’s time to look at factors and functions that will make quick work of providing more one-on-one content to consumers.
Product Call Outs A. One functionality of Monetate for Merchandising is the personalization of product badges to call out certain products based on a user’s location or affinities. 16
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E-commerce category pages and on-site search results can be bothersome to navigate when they are slow to load, irrelevant to a person’s intent, lack rich product details or images and
the list goes on. Product badges – essentially labels on different SKUs – have long been used to call attention to a certain product on crowded pages, but many times these labels are for retailers to accomplish their goals, not for consumers to complete theirs. For instance, a retailer will “badge” a product with an “exclusive deal” or “new” label if they are trying to move inventory. With Monetate for Merchandising, e-commerce merchants can display badges according to dynamic factors related to the actual shopper like his or her location (and that location’s weather), user affinities (e.g. past purchases) and more. By badging a product with “save 25 percent” that complements a previously purchased product, retailers have the opportunity to increase conversions while a “for you” badge could increase sales as well as basket sizes. What’s even more notable about the functionality from Monetate is that merchants can test badge attributes (e.g. color, copy, placement) and the winning design will be served to increase the effectiveness even more. This is one example of sophisticated, yet accessible personalization functionality for retailers to consider, but it’s not the only one.
Targeted Content When it comes to personalizing shoppers’ experiences, often it’s not about finding the right technology to use but rather what approval needs to be gained to purchase it, how it will work with products currently in use and to whom the functionality will be assigned. The same could be said of testing website elements and Optimizely has been a leader in that field for years for its ability to reduce some of the internal barriers companies have for providing a more optimized experience.
Optimizely’s Personalization offering works similarly in that retailers don’t need a large team of analysts or developers to serve content based on what is known about the shopper. Examples of personalization offered by Optimizely are to show new shoe styles to visitors who previously browsed shoes or show jackets and sweaters to visitors in cold-weather locations. With no developers needed, Optimizely Personalization users can identify interesting behaviors (e.g. via browsing session data) and connect it to other first-party data, as well as third-party data (like demographics), to get a more complete picture of a customer, which can be used to serve personalized experiences – such as if a person is accessing the site on their mobile device and it’s raining where they are or they are on their mobile device and have items left in their shopping cart (see Image B). While both shoppers are on their mobile devices, they have different expectations and needs for their website visit and should be catered to accordingly.
last opens, recent purchases, etc.), it’s important to understand a recipient’s needs from the onset. For instance, Mood Fabrics (featured on the show “Project Runway”) asks identifying questions on its email sign-up form. While this does make for a lengthier form (some would argue it’s against best practices as subscribers may leave), Mood is able to segment its audience and deliver content that is relevant to recipients, as a “costume/theatre designer” requires different content than a “home sewer.”
C. Using Listrak, Mood Fabrics asks subscribers to self-report information, which is used for recurring, automated personalized email campaigns.
B. Optimizely Personalization gives retailers the ability to send personalized content in real-time based on what is known about the shopper.
Not all customer segments, however, are created equal. Optimizely Personalization can actually predict which visitor experiences are worth personalizing. Using predictive analytics and machine learning, Optimizely will reveal high-value audiences, under- and over-performing segments and other targeting opportunities that are worth a retailer’s resources. Without leveraging internal and external data, however, retailers will need to rely on current or prospective customers to self-report.
EMAIL SIGN-UP Email marketing remains one of the top traffic sources and retailers should not overlook the value it brings in the form of site visits, conversions and return on investment, as well as the vast segmentation possibilities. While emails can be driven by customer behaviors (e.g.
Mood then uses this information to send highly personalized, recurring, automated campaigns based on what segment the person falls in: what they have purchased recently and what are the top sellers and what is trending for that group. Using Listrak, Mood reports these three recurring automated campaigns account for 5 percent of all online sales, and experience higher average order values and higher conversion rates than their other email campaigns. With just a little bit of self-reporting, as well as the ability to leverage that data and data it’s collected on its own, Mood is able to personalize email campaigns for the benefit of its bottom line.
Fun Factors & Functions With so many personalization tools on the market – many of which come with a very affordable pricetag – few excuses remain to not start personalizing retail websites and the content delivered on a brand’s behalf. By having a little fun with who is segmented and why, retailers can begin to reap the rewards of speaking to consumers more personally as shoppers will return the favor with more purchases and greater loyalty.
Mastering
SEARCH 2016 Search Strategies for
Savvy SEOs By Amberly Dressler, Managing Editor
Two months into the New Year, resolutions may have been abandoned and the hope professionals felt just 30 days prior might be waning. As an important practice within digital enterprises, this shouldn’t be the case when it comes to a brand’s 2016 search engine optimization (SEO) initiatives. While reaping rewards from SEO requires patience and commitment (as detailed in this very column one month ago, wsm.co/seoexpect), professionals would be wise to keep their eye on the ball when it comes to maintaining or boosting their visibility in the result pages. To continue the New Year momentum, let’s turn to industry professionals for their take on what will change in 2016 and what strategies SEOs can use.
Automate Processes “A cool and interesting trend for small- and medium-sized businesses will be access to a new breed of powerful apps that allow them to optimize their SEO and digital footprint themselves with far better results and ease than before. The larger e-commerce platforms and hosting providers are now integrating such apps into their app stores. “For example, toolsets like Positionly provide a website owner with specific, actionable sugges-
tions to gain more traffic and improve their search rankings. Another impressive app is RankingCoach; it delivers on-page, off-page, social media and local SEO measures, all very much tailored to your business sector.” -Richard Stevenson, head of corporate communications for ePages.com Further reading, “Shiny New Search Tools to Try” at wsm.co/shinyseo.
Think Smaller for Bigger Wins “SEO will continue to move further and further away from algorithm chasing due to advances like Rank Brain and more fluid search engine technology. SEO strategies will become less about static one-size-fits-all content and more about micro-moment audience-oriented content. Being findable in 2016 and beyond will require more data to derive the right insights about those audiences as well as agile content capabilities to appear in the locations, devices and moments people are searching.” - Dave McAnally, director of SEO at Resolution Media Further reading, “Are You Ready for Rank Brain?” at wsm.co/rankpredict.
Concentrate on Mobile “Nowadays people prefer to use mobile devices over PCs in their daily lives. This behavior is telling us as SEO professionals to concentrate on optimization for mobile devices. Marketing strategies should be mobile-first with respect to SEO, and brands should also focus on developing mobile apps for getting greater reach. Mobile is the future of digital marketing and thinking in this manner will certainly boost your brand’s ranking.” - Yana Kotrutsa, PR manager (Spain) at SEMrush Further reading, “App Indexing and Deep Linking: What You Need to Know” at wsm.co/appindex16.
Hangout with Google Google Webmaster Trends Analyst, John Mueller, conducted a Google Hangout in Dec. 2015 (at wsm.co/google16) and shed light on search strategies for 2016, among other topics. He indicated Web professionals will hear a lot more from Google about accelerated mobile pages (AMP) as well as mobile in general because a lot of sites are still not doing that properly. While those are some of the bigger topics the search giant is expected to further address in 2016, Mueller also mentioned that Google will look at how to better 18
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handle JavaScript sites in search and likely make better recommendations for developers. Further, Mueller confirmed the importance of high-quality content and user experience, adding that Google wants to bring people to the content that is useful to them and, “if your content is really useful for users, then we want to bring that to people, so if we can recognize that your site is doing everything right then that’s something we’ll try to reflect.” For advice on creating useful content, go to wsm.co/3content.
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F E B R U A R Y 2016
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Insights on
ANALYTICS
WARNING SIGNS
Your Marketing Isn’t Data Driven By Heather Burton, Senior Manager of Marketing for Webtrends
All marketers say they are – or want to be – data driven in their decision making. They want to base strategy and spend on solid facts about which campaigns work and which don’t. They want to make changes to their websites and other digital properties based on a crystal clear understanding of how customers behave and interact while on those sites. They want a rock solid connection between key performance indicators (KPIs) and the data that confirms the success or failure of their goals. Unfortunately, most marketers are not making data-driven decisions on a regular basis. To be a truly data-driven marketing department, a team will likely need to leverage data from a number of systems (customer relationship management, e-commerce, marketing automation, etc.), but it’s essential to have a strong foundation using digital analytics. Digital analytics – ideally tracking a comprehensive mix of Web, social, app and other digital properties – provide accountability for meeting goals and give visibility into the all-important customer interactions with a company. Today, however, it’s not just about having analytics. In 2016, it’s about collecting the right data for a business, having the right processes in place to analyze and share that data and being able to quickly turn insights into action to reach goals. That’s easier said than done. Below are four warning signs that a marketer is not using analytics to boost data-driven marketing, as well as ideas for how to avoid or overcome them.
WARNING SIGN #1: MARKETING PLANNING PROCESS Teams spend countless hours developing new content, planning innovative product launches, setting up new advertising campaigns and the like. If the initial planning sessions for those efforts don’t include a discussion on how to measure success with data, there’s trouble on the horizon.
The downfalls of not planning for measurement until a new campaign is launched are steep. Let’s say a B2B company is deploying a new landing page with a whitepaper (goal: lead generation). The team is planning to spend a good chunk of budget on promoting that piece of content through channels such as PPC, paid social and banner ads on key publication sites. If the team didn’t determine a measurement strategy up front, how will it know which channel drove the most (quality) traffic and the most leads? How will it measure success and make more informed plans next time? Solution: Data-driven marketing requires a culture of measurement – it must always be part of the conversation at an organization. Sure, it’ll take time, but it is the foundation for building future success. Get started by: Identifying the areas to measure that will help a team get the most value and insight. Start by asking what is most important to the business? Focusing on campaign measurement as most marketing teams usually spend a good deal of money in this area. Tracking codes on URLs, for example, can let them see exactly what’s happening with their spend. Identifying benchmarks from past performance and setting goals based on those numbers.
WARNING SIGN #2: PEOPLE DON’T TRUST THE NUMBERS This one is a doozy, and unfortunately, very common. Eighty-one percent of companies believe data is essential to their marketing success, but a whopping 84 percent of organizations are experiencing data quality challenges, according to a recent Experian Data Quality study. If people don’t trust the accuracy of a team’s analytics, the most powerful outcome from the data goes out the window: action.
Solution: Boost trust in data by taking these steps: Have a validation process to ensure a team is collecting the right data to answer important business questions. Is a site tagged properly to measure what marketers need to measure? For those who don’t know, they can audit their tags using a technology like ObservePoint. Educate the team. Data and analytics literacy is important. For example, if someone on a team pulls a report using the wrong metrics or date range, they may think the data isn’t accurate but it’s actually the setup of the report that is incorrect. Brands will never have 100 percent perfect data (because of click fraud, browser crashes, bots, etc.), but they should have a standard for data accuracy that everyone agrees to. For example, the acceptance of 98 percent accuracy, which will allow marketers to move on to taking action on the data they have rather than being mired down trying to chase the two percent that doesn’t really matter. Identify and agree on critical metrics. Then, compare apples to apples. Teams must pick the right tool and metrics for the job and stick with them.
WARNING SIGN #3: TRAFFIC AND PAGEVIEWS Imagine this: A company’s latest campaign just kicked off and the pageviews start to increase. Suddenly, there’s a rush of excitement. The marketing team is glued to the dashboard watching for more views, but then they realize…does this really matter? Who cares if the campaign drove a 25 percent increase in traffic, if their conversions are down by 3 percent? There are vanity metrics and there are actionable metrics. When marketers start tracking a campaign or scenario, they need to think about whether it will help them take action, make decisions and meet their business goals. If not, don’t focus on it. In general, actionable metrics will help you measure business performance around revenue, customers or specific functions and user behavior relative to the experience on digital properties. Solution: Data-driven marketers pay attention to the metrics that really matter. To know what those are, don’t look at the list of dashboards and reports – instead, start by asking questions about a specific business. What are the key indicators for the health of your business? These likely include financial metrics (e.g. margin, profit, ROI), marketing leads, trials and customer lifetime value. Marketers should pick the
top few that matter. Then, they need to look at their analytics to figure out how to get at those metrics, which may fall into these categories: Campaign performance – measure the success of inbound marketing investments. Conversion rates – understand who is converting and where. A/B/n test results – know which experiences are delivering for users. Paths and funnels – look at the flow of visitors into different scenarios and the results to identify issues or untapped opportunities.
WARNING SIGN #4: EVERYONE SEES THE SAME DATA Marketers are collecting data that may mean nothing to someone and everything to another. If all stakeholders in an organization have access to the same dashboard or set of reports, then marketers are certainly missing the mark with some of their audience. When people are overwhelmed by a sea of data, they will tune out. Solution: Provide value to stakeholders by customizing their experiences and delivering the right data, at the right level and in the right way. Keep in mind: With dashboards, reports and data visualization tools, it has never been easier to present appropriate analytics data to key stakeholders. Data needs to be relevant to the role of the person. Marketing managers should get one view to help them measure and understand day-to-day results for their programs and campaigns. The social media manager should have a customized dashboard of KPIs relevant to social channels. Executives should have a view relevant to their needs— likely a roll-up, high-level dashboard that shares business results. There are many easy-to-use options to present data in a way that helps tell a story. Tools like Power BI, Tableau and Klipfolio are democratizing data analysis and storytelling. These visualization tools can help marketers combine all data sources to the right views to the right pairs of eyes. Keep reading this article on the Web for three additional warning signs that your marketing is not data driven at wsm.co/3morewarnings.
Web Analytics: Understanding the Misunderstanding Get tips to use website analytics properly at wsm.co/understandga.
Design and
DEVELOPMENT
7 UX Design Trends to Watch for in 2016 By Talin Wadsworth, Lead Designer at Project Comet, Adobe
User experience (UX) design took center stage in 2015. The technology industry began paying attention to design in a way it never has before. In addition to a greater desire, if not a necessity, for responsive design, innovations like wearable technology and virtual reality drove designers into new realms, opening up doors that were previously not possible and, in many cases, not even imaginable. The narrative on the human experience and how we interact with technology, interfaces and brands evolved in 2015 as technology and screens continued to play a bigger role in our everyday lives. People began to expect experiences that felt more personal and authentic, and they wanted designs to be so good that no matter the intended objective, the transaction was seamless. We also found a renewed conversation in UX design around functionality and simplicity. In fact, in 2015, “flat,” “clean” and “minimal” were three of the most common tags UX and Web designers used on portfolio site Behance. Not only do consumers desire these types of interactions, but designers also want the ability to create these simple designs quickly. So where does it go from here? Let’s turn to several UX experts for their predictions on where user experience design is heading. 22
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TREND # 1: UX Design Moves Off the Screen “Digital is moving from something we use inside of screens and devices to something that lives in the everyday objects around us, and the places we move through. User experiences will play out across a bigger, messier ecosystem. Designing for this new reality will require thinking more broadly, considering how people touch a service across many points. We saw the rise of mobile shatter desktop conventions — this will be an even bigger transformation. In 2016, UX designers will have the chance to establish the interactions that make up this new world of digital products and connected places.” Larry Johnson Executive Strategy Director at Odopod TREND # 2: Anticipatory Design to Become More Common “Anticipatory design is the ability to predictively design and serve up the best experience possible. We’re at a point now where we as designers can create and give users what they want before they even know they want it. This plays a huge role when users are having experiences that span context and medium. I believe we’ll see more of these anticipatory and ambient experiences in the coming future.” Joe Johnston VP, Experience Innovation at Universal Mind
TREND # 3: Responsive Design Expands to Included Reactions to User Behavior “In the coming year and beyond, I’m anticipating a shift in what we think of when we say responsive design. That paradigm still largely refers to a site adapting to width and size with media queries, but I hope to see (and attempt) some leaps in how user behavior will literally trigger or inform responsiveness. The Grid boasts the ability to adapt presentation to content with artificial intelligence (AI), and that sounds intriguing and awesome, but I’m thinking of intuition technology that ‘learns’ a user based on their behavior on the site, the same way some apps do, and then immediately customizes itself using that information. Think A/B testing on speed. How a user is interacting with the content thus far, what they’ve clicked on and how quickly, where they’re hesitating, their scroll speed and even what they hover over but choose ‘not’ to click on will modify the site itself. It will constantly be responding to what it’s learned, essentially, and present different content or even change the structure altogether in an effort to engage that user longer.” Sarah Huny Young Creative Director at SCDA TREND # 4: The Development of Niche Specialties and Formal UX Design Education Programs “UX is a vastly growing field, both in research and application. In 2016, we will start to see that growth fragment into subspecialties including but not limited to Web, mobile, product development, virtual and physical environments. As the traditional ‘Web’ fades away, UX professionals will find themselves in niche situations and will gravitate toward unique and divergent design practices that are laser focused on a specific user context. User experience design will continue to take its place as the heart of modern business and commerce, and because of this, we will see a shift in the academic community from HCI and Interaction Design to more focused UX curriculums. As of now, most UX professionals did not go to school for their trade; I believe this year we’ll start to see an emergence of PhD programs in user experience design.” Ron Edelen Partner & Chief Creative Director, Myjive
TREND # 5: Increase in Voice Recognition & Gesture-Based Design “2016 is going to be another exciting year for the progression of user experience. UX will progress not only visually but voice recognition technology will also start to emerge as a more accessible input. Visually with minimal design staying put, designers will continue to explore depth and layer for differentiation. As touch becomes more standard, we will continue to see not only a rise in the use of gestures, but also consistency in gestures across apps, devices and platforms.” Dave Benton Founder/Creative Director at Metajive
TREND # 6: UX Designers and Entire Organizations Align “In some ways, I hope that we don’t see too many dramatic changes to the user experience field in the next year. New design trends, new tools and new processes can only go so far in making us more effective designers. I think the majority of organizations still have a long ways to go to master the basics of understanding customer needs and effectively translating those into useful and delightful products. Even design-oriented companies can struggle with identifying core user problems and prioritizing work that helps focus on these issues instead of building features for the sake of building features.” Catriona Cornett Director of Product Design at SalesforceIQ
Trend # 7: Designing with Context will be Crucial “As customers interact with applications at a time, location and device of their choosing, it will become increasingly important to incorporate real-world context. Designing in the abstract will only result in the learning happening later, when the application is available to customers, at which point it can be costly and disruptive to make adjustments. Design tools can play an important role here in a few ways: helping bring in real-world data into the visual and interaction design phases; providing device-specific designtime previews; or enabling simulation of on-device inputs such as user location, so that the designer can get ever-closer to reality without ever leaving their design tool of choice.” Andrew Shorten Director of Product Management at Adobe F E B R U A R Y 2016
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‘NET Engagement Considerations for the Relationship Age By Peter Prestipino, Editor-In-Chief
In the Web world, the term “engagement” is one of those loosely defined buzzwords that can elicit a collective scratch of the head from digital newbies and seasoned ’Net professionals alike. While there is no single, undisputed definition, today’s enterprises know they must still pursue engagement rigorously. So, what is it exactly, and how can brands create experiences worthy of the time, attention and investment of their audience of existing customers and future prospects? Further, how do they develop experiences that still manage to benefit the bottom line of their enterprise? Simple; focus on forging better relationships. The issue for most companies is that engagement is a moving target and it means something different for each individual and within each individual moment. What’s more, consumers’ expectations and habits change rapidly and it can seem impossible for brands to keep up. Undertaking an engagement initiative should not be overwhelming, however, because in the end, it is all about finding ways to build a better relationship with an audience. That is something that can and should be enjoyed 24
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because it will inspire professionals, provide valuable insights and make a positive difference to Web success.
Establish a Formal Definition Engagement is traditionally defined as an agreement, a promise if you will, to be present at a particular place and time. It’s no different really in the digital realm where engagement requires just as much emotional investment and a commitment from both brands and consumers. That’s not always easy to draw out or manage, of course, but it’s most certainly possible (access a list of today’s most engaging digital brands and discovers their secrets to success at wsm.co/engageshh) and as might be imagined, dollars are flowing rapidly toward these initiatives. While the benefits of improving consumer engagement are quite obvious – upticks in customer retention and conversion, increases in the quantity and quality of data capture, additional website traffic and general digital participation – it’s definitely not a new notion. Way back in March 2006, for example, the Advertising Research Foundation defined engagement as “turning on a prospect to a brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context.” Today’s brands, digital brands in particular, are still focused on achieving that elusive state of being.
Enterprises – and the marketers, analysts and designers they employ – are responsible for developing experiences that spark a near-obsessive level of engagement from consumers, rather than an ambiguous detachment (arguably the fate of most brands today particularly with low interactions on social pages, unopened email messages and dismal levels of website traffic). What change will ultimately make the biggest difference? How can today’s digital brands make a genuine connection, and further, elicit a formal commitment from their digital counterpart – the consumer – to forge a meaningful relationship? It starts by shifting mindset from conversion to the instances leading up to, during and after that conversion happens (read “Stop Being a Greedy Marketer” at wsm.co/greedy16 ).
’Net Engagement Success Factors As any successful enterprise can attest, there is a long list of opportunities to engage end-users, including personalized email communications, entertaining social media participation, compelling design features, in-depth content, as well as interactive on-site experiences and branded communities and forums (more on those later). Yet, there’s so much more to the practice of digital engagement than just fulfilling that list and it starts by delving in the mind of the consumer and understanding their needs, wants and motivations. In fact, we find ourselves in the optimal time to reach out to those human elements because, as Keith Ferrazzi wrote in 2009, “Emotion, empathy and cooperation are critical to success at a time when technology and human interaction are intersecting in new ways. Trust and conversation are crucial in this new economy;” all of which he termed the “Relationship Age.” Blending this, however, with the “Digital Age” means brands can truly understand who their users are, which gives them a head start on the road to better engagement.
User Insights Pursuing engagement from an audience (or individual) can be a very nuanced undertaking; there is no single, specific approach to achieving success with an initiative of this nature. Understanding a little about human psychology, however, can provide the edge most enterprises are looking for if greater engagement is the aim. There are numerous tactics the Web’s most successful brands employ to improve engagement – including their choice of color in design elements, taking a more scientific approach to copywriting and many others (learn more about the psychology of copywriting, and discover several practical yet simple tactics at wsm.co/psychengage). Once enterprises recognize that every decision made by a consumer is an emotional one (rather than rational) and based on numerous cognitive functions, they are better
positioned to drive a greater quantity and quality of interaction. Thanks to significant advances in technology, it might soon be possible to use physical cues about users’ psychological state in order to drive the necessary levels of commitment required for genuine engagement. Apple, for example, recently purchased Emotient Inc., a startup that uses artificial-intelligence (AI) technology to read a person’s emotions by analyzing facial expressions (see a list of KPIs Emotiont uses at wsm.co/facekpi ). While Apple hasn’t actually revealed its plans for Emotient’s technology, which was primarily sold to advertisers to help assess viewer reactions to advertising, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that AI and related technologies will make their way to the Web and help enterprises design experiences for users that help forge stronger and more meaningful relationships. Once brands understand what motivates current and prospective customers, and pick up all the available cues to influence their design and marketing approach, they’ll need to make quite a few other important considerations in order to develop their relationship with users. In much the same way as real-word relationships work, in order to build trust, and have two-way conversations with a digital audience, an enterprise’s success with engagement campaigns depends on numerous factors and a variety of initial considerations – none more important than the methods used to understand the level of user engagement and the means that are used to acquire it. So what factors and considerations will most influence engagement initiatives? It depends on how brands answer the following questions: Analytics: In what way do enterprises measure engagement and customer activity, satisfaction and loyalty specifically? What are the KPIs (key performance indicators) that will be used to control the engagement program? The mistake most make when it comes to beginning an engagement initiative is that they believe engagement is synonymous with conversion – when nothing could be further from the truth. Conversions, of course, are immensely important and enterprise would not exist without them, but there is more going on – much more in fact – in the experience of consumers. What engagement initiatives provide is an opportunity to put conversions into a broader and more strategic context. Where conversion is about one interaction, engagement is about repeated interaction, which improve and strengthen the emotional, psychological and near physical investment a customer has with an enterprise and its products and services. Focusing exclusively on conversions in some instances could actually decrease the likelihood of generating repeat F E B R U A R Y 2016
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conversions. Imagine an overly pushy sales person – you might buy from them once, but would you repeat that purchase if the experience didn’t meet your expectations? And further, would you recommend that product or solution to a friend or colleague? Unlikely. Engagement emphasizes the creation of genuine relationships that are mutually beneficial. Consumption patterns by Web users have shifted, of course (it’s a moving target), and so it requires a near perfect blend of channel penetration, media type (as well as quality and quantity of media) and timing. Channels: Which outlets (weblogs, email, social, apps) should be considered; which have the highest rate of return on your engagement dollar as evident in analytics solutions? Content/Blogs: For engagement marketing purposes, companies can share content on their own digital properties and participate actively in the surrounding discussions that emerge. Fortunately, there are plenty of powerful software systems to support this, and myriad offerings that enable brands to optimize their content development and participation. Discover some of the most popular tools for content development and fostering participation at wsm.co/developc. Social networking: Social sites (such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Quora and Twitter) are ideal for engagement marketing because they provide a way for users to interact with brands, presenting an opportunity to create a two-way dialogue between customers and companies. Most already maintain a presence on several of these sites so concentrating on developing creative ways to interact is of immense importance – and sometimes, it’s just about when the brand participates (find out what the best time to post really is at wsm.co/hoursocial ). Email campaigns: One of the earliest online engagement marketing tools, email marketing requires target audiences to opt-in to directly receive a marketer’s emails. Companies can also encourage individuals to share their messages virally, via the forwarding of emails to colleagues, friends and family. Referrals: B2B companies are more likely to achieve revenue goals when they have a marketing-led referral program according to new research from Influitive. The company found that B2B companies are three times more likely to reach revenue targets when the marketing department has primary responsibility for a formalized referral program
(or when referral tools or software are used). The research also revealed that formal referral programs help B2B companies generate two times more high-quality referrals, yet only one in three enterprises have a formalized referral program and less than one quarter have programs managed by marketing or supported by technology.
Personalization: The Secret to Engagement There’s simply no faster way to improve engagement and achieve ‘Net success than ensuring that the experience developed is personalized. According to a recent Aberdeen Group study, 75 percent of consumers say they prefer personalized offers and 61 percent say they are even willing to give up some level of privacy to enable personalization on a continuous basis. Consumers have a growing preference of personalization and marketers that don’t take advantage are limiting their potential. How can today’s digital enterprises deliver personalized communication to an audience of thousands or millions of customers or prospects with some degree of accuracy? The very first step should be to combine offline and online channels (social, email, etc.) with customer relationship management (CRM) data. Match a current CRM system or email data with data collected from all social media channels. Several tools on the market, and even some within platforms, allow plug-and-play options to sync such data, and any of those options are well worth the investment. By combining traditional datasets with more authentic pieces of data, such as data discovered from social media profiles, email addresses can be transformed into records of real people with lives and jobs, families and friends, interests and passions. Harnessing that magnitude of customer insight allows marketers to trigger communications when customers’ interests most intersect with specific marketing campaigns. The next step is to aggregate customers’ personal preferences – and that goes beyond surveys, feedback forms and focus groups. What’s so powerful about big data is that it presents the ability to analyze (often in real-time) what customers are thinking, feeling and are interested in. By listening to the conversations and reacting with predetermined triggers, marketers are putting their brands on the fast track to a more successful engagement initiative. It’s not enough just to know what an audience’s (or an individual’s) preferences are, brands also need to deliver. While creating audience segments and affinity groups is important, it matters little if Web professionals are not sharing the insights they’ve gained and the strategy in place across their enterprise in order to deepen and improve the relationship they have with users. No marketer, analyst or the like will argue that personalization doesn’t work, but companies aren’t as advanced in this regard as their customers think or expect.
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A new study by Forrester, commissioned by SAP Hybris, compared the perspective of 200 marketers with those of 1,200 consumers, finding that while two-thirds of marketers rate their personalization efforts as “very good” or “excellent,” just 31 percent of consumers reported companies delivered on their expectation of a personalized experience. So, what’s the reason for the gap? The report revealed that most companies still don’t have the unified view of their customer that is required for personalization, but that’s starting to change. Omnichannel demand management solutions provider JustEnough Software, for example, recently unveiled a new Customer Insights module that aims to help retailers analyze customer data and turn it into actionable insights for optimizing assortments, promotions and pricing.” With JustEnough’s Customer Insights solution, retailers can switch from traditional product-centric planning to customer-centric planning. The solution helps users analyze customer behavior to understand which customers are the most important to their business, as well as segment and cluster customers to localize and personalize assortments. What’s more, Customer Insights can be leveraged to identify which promotions are the most successful, and to personalize and target promotions. Personalization is where digital relationship marketing gets really interesting. Adobe’s “State of Content: Rules of Engagement for 2016” report indicates that 75 percent of consumers are willing to share at least one piece of personal information to improve content recommendations from brands. Forty percent of those not comfortable sharing believe companies could do something to ease concerns, and 25 percent said simply asking permission to access data would be sufficient.
Essential Considerations for Engagement Initiatives Achieving engagement is really about how tactics are leveraged, tactics that foster conversations, loyalty, sales and learning (for both brand and customer/prospect). Those serious about improving engagement should ask the following: What do we know about existing customers? Harness the insights an audience has about an enterprise and its products and services, and marketers will be able to craft messaging, content and offers that compels similar prospects to engage. What is most engaging to different audience types? Identify the optimal triggers for each user group and discover data to solve pretty much any problem. Let’s say that an online retailer has previously published hundreds of product videos but is not getting any measurable return from the effort (such as a low click-toconversion ratio). A solution like SundaySky’s SmartVideo
platform, for example, could enable the brand to deliver personalized videos to consumers in real-time that are custom to a consumer’s profile, leveraging both historical and situational data attributes specific to that user. Which tools can be used to help enterprises prioritize engagement? From social media solutions to content management and e-commerce systems, there is, in every offering, an opportunity to optimize consumer engagement. Customer experience management (CEM) provider Vital Insights, for example, recently unveiled three new voice-of-customer (VOC) modules for its Foresight product – a CEM platform for the automotive industry that helps dealers gather valuable customer insights and take action on customer feedback. Foresight’s new Compass module provides automated goal setting and goal-achieving monitoring, enabling dealers to initiate their own self-improvement action plans. Another of the company’s new modules, Foresight BI, offers integrated business intelligence that enables enterprise users to develop customized multi-level reports and interactive analytics. The module provides useful insights for managing, analyzing and visualizing data, consolidating insights from multiple sources in one centralized (and customizable) dashboard. How will engagement initiatives be measured? From increases to time on site to improvements in customer lifetime value, there is always a metric or key performance indicator that can be associated with engagement. Remember; if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it – or monetize it. Marketers, for example, are increasing their investment in video, but many still lack the tools to understand who is watching what and how assets are engaging users or contributing to the bottom line. Fortunately, that’s beginning to change. Video and marketing analytics platform Vidyard recently announced that hundreds of its customers are using its integration with the Marketo engagement and marketing platform, providing an opportunity to identify viewers across their digital properties and use “secondby-second” video engagement data to generate new leads, quality prospects and provide sales team with context to close more deals.
Let’s Get Engaged The key to engagement initiatives is that people (consumers; customers and prospects) come first. When enterprises can deliver experiences that consumers find engaging, they’ll find the secret to mastering engagement. Understand that an enterprise’s digital troubles can’t be resolved without getting into the often messy side of human relationships, and then you’ll be on the fast track to success.
EXPERIENCE 7 Questions to Ask Before
HITTING SEND By Eric Krattenstein, CMO of Mailify
Year after year, email marketing continues to be one of the most cost-effective marketing channels for small and medium businesses. As marketers start to embrace the full potential of the medium, each email campaign becomes an opportunity to drive sales, establish brand loyalty and boost website traffic. However, each email campaign also generates about 30 seconds of paralysis-inducing fear: Did you make a mistake somewhere that will cause your email campaign to fail? To curb those fears, ask yourself these questions before hitting send:
1. WHO PROOFREAD THE EMAIL, AND HOW MANY TIMES?
While seemingly obvious, it’s important to check this one off the list first. Nothing says unprofessional like typos, egregious grammatical mistakes, broken personalization (think: “Hello, First_Name”) and otherwise avoidable proofreading errors. Professionalism goes a long way toward establishing credibility with subscribers, and without credibility, an email is just another ad in the junk folder. Make sure your email is checked and rechecked by multiple people in order to prevent these easily avoidable “oh-no” moments.
2. HOW WILL READERS VIEW THIS EMAIL & DID WE TEST IT? The tools and services readers use to open emails are constantly shifting, and marketers must be informed as to the services their specific demographic is likely to use. Unfortunately, not all email clients are created equal and that means testing your email on multiple email clients is essential to providing a consistent email across multiple platforms. Potentially more important, marketers must test their emails on mobile devices. It’s well reported that more than half of emails are opened on mobile, so a responsive email is critical to ensuring readability.
3. DOES THE EMAIL BEG TO BE OPENED?
Countless studies have been conducted on the best way to write a subject line. Overwhelmingly, the data says to be short and sweet, tell the readers what to expect inside the email and provide a hook that makes them want to read it. Unfortunately, so much attention is paid to the subject line that other first impres-
sion opportunities get overlooked. For example, use a real person in the name that appears as the sender in order to humanize marketing. Additionally, take full advantage of the “pre-header,” or the part of the email that shows up in the preview notifications readers get before deciding to open the full message. By default, many senders wind up with a pre-header made up of the first line of text (often the “click here to view the Web copy” line). Be conscious of this and use the preheader as an email’s elevator pitch.
4. DOES THE CALL-TO-ACTION (CTA) INCITE CONVERSION?
Whether the goal is to get readers to read more on a blog, buy from an e-commerce site or contact a company for more information, the CTA is what drives this engagement. As long as the desired next step is clear, creativity is key. “Buy Now” is standard, but “I Want One” draws attention and plays on the emotions of the reader. Test different phrasing, colors and positioning of CTAs to optimize email for conversions.
5. WHAT IS THE GOAL OF THIS EMAIL, AND DOES THE CONTENT SUPPORT IT? A common mistake among email marketers that results in ineffective email campaigns is the tendency to lose focus. Emails that are too long, with too many key topics are a “jack of all trades, master of none” and wind up accomplishing little. Keep the email focused around one central objective, and use the entirety of the message to further that goal.
6. WHAT LANGUAGE DOES THE EMAIL SPEAK?
The key here is to know an audience and be able to connect. If a local bar is promoting happy hour to trendy 20-something professionals, an overly formal tone of voice will instantly signal a disconnect between a business and its target demographic.
7. IS THE EMAIL DATA-DRIVEN?
The beauty of email marketing is that everything is inherently trackable. Every click, every open, every spike in conversion percentages gives the marketer critical information about how to improve the campaign for next time. Using historical data to know what works and what doesn’t ensures each email campaign learns from the past, and more efficiently accomplishes your objective in the future. To see additional questions to ask, go to wsm.co/8send. F E B R U A R Y 2016
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Ready for Email Success? Take our 30-day course at wsm.co/30course. .com
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Mobile
MATTERS
Why Mobile Site Search Matters and How to Do It Well By Matt Riley, Founder & CEO of Swiftype
Mobile browsing is a game of speed and convenience, and building site search for the high expectations of users on the go can be an exceedingly difficult challenge. Already tough to master on desktop, building search for mobile presents a whole new set of challenges: severely restricted screen sizes, low user patience to wade through result sets and major demands on speed. In light of these challenges, how can we design a mobile search experience that feels natural and rewards (rather than punishes) users?
The varying prominence of search across these three layouts demonstrates the relative importance of search for each website.
To approach this problem, it helps to break mobile search interfaces into a series of phases, then treat each as its own design challenge. These phases are: Discoverability Active searching Result viewing and refinement
DISCOVERABILITY: HOW VISIBLE IS SEARCH? The first challenge for mobile search is creating a visual framework that suggests search is a viable avenue for content discovery. Depending on the purpose and function of a website, this can be done in a range of ways, with some websites choosing to centrally feature a search bar on the homepage, and others keeping search ever present in the navigation. These differences in layout reflect the relative importance of search on each website. For example, Amazon is widely renowned for its search, and search forms a central pillar of its user experience. Accordingly, search is always accessible in Amazon’s mobile app, suggesting to users that if they ever decide on a specific item, they are one tap away from a central portal for discovery. By the same
token, if search is not easily visible within an app or on the mobile Web, users will infer that click-navigation is a better option for moving around a site.
ACTIVE SEARCHING: HOW DOES SEARCHING WORK? While discoverability will affect the amount of mobile traffic that flows through search, the next critical step is deciding how the experience of searching will feel and function for users. Two key considerations come into play at this stage. For one, typing on mobile remains cumbersome and annoying for many users, so developers should take steps to minimize how much typing is required. Secondly, with the keyboard occupying the bottom half of the screen, this stage is where screen space is the most limited. Accordingly, the search experience should take advantage of all available space. The current mobile search landscape can be roughly divided into two schools of thought: suggesting queries and suggesting results. In the first and most widespread camp, which includes giants such as Google/YouTube and Amazon, users see suggested queries as they type, often with an arrow icon on the right side to “push” a suggested query into the search bar. While this option is gaining widespread adoption (in part because of its use by these giants) this experience creates an extra step between searching and viewing a specific result by forcing users to first browse a result set before selecting what they want.
The second camp attempts to resolve this shortcoming by presenting results directly as users type. In this model, users see results immediately as they type, and can click directly on these results to jump to a specific page or submit a full text query to view a complete result set. This approach provides the flexibility to jump directly from search to a result, while also giving users the option to complete their query and browse a full result set. Additionally, as users see this result set they can adjust their query on the fly if they don’t like what they see.
VIEWING AND REFINING RESULTS After completing a search, many users will want to refine the result set to hone in on what they’re looking for. This challenge, generally referred to as faceted or filtered search, is one of the trickiest aspects of mobile search design, primarily because of the space constraints that mobile screens force on user experience (UX).
Result refinement options occupy the entire screen in the YouTube app while only occupying portion of Amazon’s interface.
Amazon suggests queries as users type, while Red Bull Music Academy’s mobile site suggests a full result set.
A creative approach to this challenge is presenting refinement options as a slide-up checklist like YouTube, which combats space constraints by using the whole screen for the refinement process. Another option is to have filters drop down over half the screen, as Amazon has adopted. Whichever option is chosen, search should be an integral component of a mobile site design process. As a free text input field, search provides users the opportunity to directly communicate to a brand what they’re looking for — an opportunity that should not be overlooked.
16 Site Search Tips Learn how to give users better results at wsm.co/16sitesearch.
Conversion
CORNER
The Big Lie:
Split Test Only, and Never Redesign Your Website By Tim Ash, CEO of SiteTuners
I have been around conversion rate optimization (CRO) for a long time; and many years of that were spent crying in the wilderness.
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It seemed so obvious that making landing pages and websites more efficient was the most direct route to getting more value from online marketing, but most companies just focused on getting more traffic to their site. Instead of plugging the holes in their leaky bucket, they chose to pour more water into the top of it. Recently there has been a huge change in the popularity of CRO, and it is finally getting the recognition that it deserves. There are many books on the subject, a vast array of powerful tools, conferences devoted exclusively to the subject, as well as people whose job title includes optimization as their sole occupation – all of this is, of course, very gratifying to me.
As more companies get the “testing religion,” they focus on generating ideas for new test, testing technology and the speed with which tests can be reliably cranked out. In fact, testing velocity, becomes a goal of its own. Testing is important, but it has been taken to extremes, as well as considered by some testing-only agencies and practitioners as the only way to make changes to online experiences. Some have even stated that enterprises should never redesign their site, and should only advance its performance by continual testing. This is where I must draw the line. Testing will lead to some improvements on poorly performing pages on a website, but what is often broken are not the individual elements, but rather the whole Web experience. Tinkering with individual elements of it will not get the results a company wants. It is like hoping to turn an oldfashioned bi-plane into a high-performance jet-fighter while flying it; it simply can’t be done.
The Pendulum Swings Too Far
The Real Truth from Hard-Won Experience
One of the key activities of CRO is landing page testing (also known as split testing or A/B testing). By testing different versions of content on a website, professionals can see which ones an audience prefers. This allows marketers, analysts or the like to validate whether a particular change has a positive effect on their business, and that is important. It replaces subjective opinions with hard data.
Anyone who will say that a brand should never redesign a site is either very confused or is fighting with one hand tied behind their back. That idea only occurs when one equates CRO with testing, and is not a fully empowered optimizer (small-scale tinkering via testing is the only activity he or she is allowed to do within the company). It is absolute poison and a very
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limiting view, and anyone who propagates it is doing an enterprise a big disservice. Site redesigns should be done when appropriate for a number of reasons, and tactical improvements should be done via testing to high-value/high-traffic parts of the site via split testing in-between. It is true that the stakes are much higher with a site redesign, and that poor redesign processes often result in lower conversion (since their motivation is not to better align with visitor intent – in fact, not focused on the needs of the visitors at all). Those who are advocates of CRO should be the ones leading the site redesign effort to get the best possible outcomes.
Reasons to Redesign Your Site Fully So what significant reasons could a company have for making the leap? The top reasons include: Moving to a new and more flexible content management system (CMS) Adding new capabilities to a company’s marketing technology stack (such as personalization, third-party data append, lead-scoring or marketing automation) Creating a new mobile version that is not merely a stretchable “responsive lite” version of the desktop one Major changes to information architecture or user experience Changing a client-facing business model to have a completely new set of micro-conversion points and actions over the full customer journey A visual refresh should not be the main motivation for an expensive full redesign unless the look and feel is dated and is impacting a visitor’s perception of trust and site quality. Stakeholders should take a hard look at the other important motivations above in order to accomplish as much as they can when they do redesign, but the look and feel should be the icing on the cake and not the main course.
How to Tell if You Succeeded Judging the success of a redesign is tricky unless all a company has done is a visual facelift only (and not touched any of the conversion points or how they are tracked). Even then, changing colors, the amount of visual clutter or relative emphasis of page elements can really make direct comparisons difficult. In any case, CROs should only be looking at new visitors (never return ones
who are polluted by a mix of the two site versions). Even that, however, is not possible with complete accuracy since many people wipe their cookies. The return visitors will always be effected by the fact that something changed between visits; they are not necessarily reacting to whether that change was actually for the better. In other words, they have to expend expensive conscious thought to get their minds around the new site experience, and doing that mental work is tough for them – often leading to lower conversions compared to what they were so fluently able to accomplish before. There are a number of things a CRO should do to measure the effectiveness of a redesign: Track the effect over new visitors only (since they are unpolluted by prior interaction with the old site) Measure end-to-end conversions and work back to intermediate micro-conversion changes (since the user experience may have changed substantially and marketers will be measuring different things) Allow significant time (weeks or even months depending on the business model and percentage of returning visitors) to get people use to the new site experience Make sure all other surrounding touchpoints (upstream traffic acquisition, and downstream email follow-up communications) are visually and conceptually consistent with the new experience Ensure analytics and tracking is unchanged and is still measuring the same things across both sites (so there are some historical measures that can be compared) If an enterprise does all of these things right, it may still have a negligible improvement on conversion, or it may fundamentally reset its baseline performance to a much higher level. Therein lies the real reason that website redesigns are disparaged by testing-only advocates. The stakes are higher, and so are the potential rewards if a company takes on a full redesign; it’s now a question of a company’s risk tolerance, and how ambitious its goals are. Testing is good, and important, but Web professionals shouldn’t kid themselves that they can achieve an excellent user experience by evolutionary testing alone. Sometimes they still have to redesign their site. Tim Ash is the CEO of SiteTuners, Chair of Conversion Conference and bestselling author of “Landing Page Optimization.”
The Digital Redesign Process Make smarter, faster, stronger design decisions at
wsm.co/smartdes.
Software
EVERYWHERE
Empower Retail Organizations with SaaS By Ed Stevens, CEO of Shopatron
In 2015, software as a service (SaaS) disrupted organizations across the board by pushing traditional software solutions out of the way. In Forrester Research’s report “US Commerce Platform Technology and Services Forecast, 2014 to 2019,” survey data reveals that 43 percent of U.S. retail, wholesale and manufacturing firms have already transitioned from on-premise to SaaS commerce technology with a further 13 percent planning to complete this transition by the end of 2016. One key reason SaaS continued to triumph is because it provides users with the benefit of frequent upgrades. Retailers that are used to the slower pace of traditional software that is difficult to upgrade will need to adjust their planning to get the most out of SaaS. However, there are six tips retail organizations can follow to help guide their businesses through a successful SaaS strategy.
1. START SAAS ADOPTION WITH THE AREAS THAT WILL HAVE THE LARGEST IMPACT ON THE BUSINESS
When adopting SaaS, it is important for retailers to analyze their business needs to understand their top profit areas. Of all the features being released over the course of a year from your SaaS vendor, retailers should choose the two that will make the biggest impact on their top or bottom lines. As soon as key areas have been identified, align your teams on those priorities and get the features launched as close to the release date as possible to maximize their impact.
How to Market Your SaaS Get a blueprint at
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company. For example, a new feature could be a button in the store interface that makes it faster for store employees to ship orders. By implementing the new button, a retailer could save five seconds on a task and free up resources over time.
3. COMMUNICATION IS KEY
Innovation can help retailers achieve unimaginable results, however, it is important to communicate to the organization and key stakeholders that an upgrade has been made in order for everyone to work on the same page. Not only does this keep them abreast of what a specific department is up to, but it also lets them know if a change may impact them directly. Further, it demonstrates the benefits that pursuing continuous improvement through upgrades can bring to a retail business, which is a trait that is necessary to stay competitive with the breakneck speed of today’s marketplace and customer demands.
4. PAY ATTENTION TO VENDOR RELEASE NOTES Remember back in grade school when the teacher made students complete a review sheet just before the big exam? Completing this review sheet made all the difference between a passing and failing grade. With SaaS, the same concept applies. The upgrade release notes tell retailers exactly what is coming down the line and what to expect. This step is crucial in planning. As soon as those release notes become available, take the time to grab a coffee, review them in detail and get to know what is coming up next. Not only will it help retailers think about ways to improve the company, but also how to implement the processes that are right for the business and expand on the areas of the upgrade that will take a strategy to the next level. 5. MAKE SPEED A TEAM MOTTO
One of the benefits of SaaS is the speed at which upgrades are released and implemented. Legacy and clunky software that is difficult to upgrade is now a thing of the past. If a retailer has chosen SaaS, they most likely have already chosen speed over sluggishness. Extend that to company culture: it is important to make speed a valued characteristic within the organization’s employees.
2. DO NOT REST ON LAURELS; 6. OUT WITH THE OLD, CONTINUE TO MAKE IMPROVEMENTS WITH EACH UPDATE IN WITH THE NEW CLOUD-BASED SOFTWARE Frequent software upgrades give organizations the power to constantly improve and meet the demands of clients that now expect instant results due to the continuous influence of digital technology in our everyday lives. Retailers must not let a bi-monthly upgrade go by without finding at least one minor feature that they like and can utilize to further benefit the .com
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In this age of technology, there is always something new and something better, something that will do the job and do it with faster results. An upstart technology with the right multi-tenant architecture and RESTful APIs can replace software that costs 10 times as much. And don’t worry about scale; SaaS can be load-tested to see if it can handle a load.
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Social Media
MAVENS
Big List of Social Media Holidays By Allison Howen, Associate Editor
Every day is a holiday – just check Twitter for proof. head dolls or happen to have a few around the office that can For example, at the time of this writing one “holiday,” #NationalBobbleheadDay has been trending for several hours. Although this one in particular may not be useful for the majority of Internet marketers (unless they actually sell bobble-
be used creatively in a social post), there are many other holidays (outside of those in November and December) that can be leveraged in social media campaigns. For some inspiration, check out Website Magazine’s calendar of social holidays (starting with February) below:
FEBRUARY 2: Groundhog Day 7: Super Bowl 14: Valentine’s Day 15: President’s Day 29: Leap Day
APRIL 1: April Fool’s Day 10: National Sibling Day 18: Tax Day 22: Earth Day
MAY 5: Cinco de Mayo 7: Kentucky Derby 8: Mother’s Day 30: Memorial Day
MARCH 13: Daylight Savings Begins 17: St. Patrick’s Day 20: First Day of Spring 27: Easter
JUNE 19: Father’s Day 20: First Day of Summer
AUGUST 7: Friendship Day 21: Senior Citizen’s Day
JULY 4: Independence Day 25: Christmas in July
SEPTEMBER 5: Labor Day 11: Patriot’s Day / Grandparents Day 21: International Day of Peace 22: First Day of Autumn
NOVEMBER 6: Daylight Savings Ends 8: Election Day 11: Veterans Day 24: Thanksgiving 25: Black Friday 28: Cyber Monday
OCTOBER 10: Columbus Day 17: Boss’s Day 31: Halloween
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DECEMBER 22: First Day of Winter 25: Christmas Day 26: Boxing Day
Affiliate
INSIDER
Tactics for Managing a Virtual Workforce By Greg Hoffman
A big, comfy blue chair in a living room is sometimes more effective than a cubicle in an office 10 miles from the house. It’s a great perk for employees tired of corporate America in the traditional sense, but it certainly poses challenges for management as a company’s virtual workforce expands. Whether the company has two employees or two hundred spread across the world, communication and accountability are key. The goal of any manager in a company is to make sure the work is completed correctly. It’s difficult to delegate projects because one cannot simply look over the shoulder of an employee to make sure they are working on the assigned task rather than watching funny videos. Finding employees and contractors to trust is a huge concern, though it is becoming easier as more people build careers from home offices and show that they can be productive. This is a huge advantage for industry insiders looking for jobs, as they have instant credibility and don’t need lots of training. The most basic approach is “get stuff done.” In other words, it doesn’t matter how the task is completed, just finish it right and meet deadlines. The personnel with the work-at-home mindset needs flexibility for various reasons. If they are good at what they do, finish projects adequately and add to the success of the business overall, then it’s OK if they do it at two in the morning while wearing Captain America pajama pants, burning incense and listening to Dire Straits on vinyl. Try being that creative and free in a cubicle. Whatever works for them is their own business. They need to establish their own rules for being a good virtual worker. Companies in the Internet marketing industry are lucky enough to have conferences to attend several times a year. This gives remote employees a chance to meet
each other and build relationships year-round. The water cooler atmosphere at shows helps break down the walls of impersonal conference calls, closed Facebook groups and private messages. For the rest of the year, processes and procedures need to be in place and new tools need to be tested for efficiency (see sidebar). The get-stuff-done-whenever policy notwithstanding, employees still need to be aware of time zones and have patience and understanding with one another. Policies need to be in place to accommodate everyone. East Coast, West Coast or international, with great flexibility comes late nights and early mornings for some. When adding a new virtual employee, be clear about how they should represent the brand on social media. Everyone pays attention to everything and opinions are everywhere. Policies need to be in place to handle situations that can reflect poorly on the company. Sometimes it’s easier to create work profiles for each person. Finally, human resource departments usually don’t exist in small companies with remote staff. It falls upon the CEO to set the tone for the company. In a virtual setup, it’s more difficult to understand personalities as not everyone has the same sense of humor or judgment and text is easily misunderstood. All levels of management need to listen to feedback and be prepared to evolve for the sake of the company. Greg Hoffman is an award-winning outsourced program manager in the affiliate marketing industry. He’s an advocate for good affiliates, merchants and managers.
Top Tools to Get Stuff Done FMTC, an affiliate content aggregating company, has streamlined the virtual process by choosing specific tools that keep everyone on the same page, including the following: Slack: A private and secure communication platform that replaces messaging on social media, email and popular apps. Hubstaff: A desktop application used to track time for remote teams. Reports can show clients and bosses screenshots of activity for proof of work and progress. Asana: Project management platform to keep track of everything your team is doing. Keeping deadlines is a priority and clicking the check box on an assignment is very fulfilling. UberConference: The next evolution of the conference call with no pins needed and screen sharing available.
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Net
ADVERTISING
A Closer Look at Scientific Marketing
Q&A with Amplero’s Glenn Pingul By Peter Prestipino, Editor-In-Chief
In this era of artificial intelligence, there is tremendous opportunity for marketing to evolve and even transform. It’s time for that change. Marketers know that the traditional, and highly manual, rules-based approach to running campaigns doesn’t scale to achieve true personalization across millions of customers. The question is: How can technologies like machine learning help? To ask an expert in the field, Website Magazine recently sat down with Glenn Pingul, vice president of scientific marketing strategies at Amplero, a company squarely in the center of the machine learning marketing space. Pingul shared his thoughts on the future of marketing enabled by science, why marketers should care about machine learning and key challenges companies face when deploying a machine learning marketing capability.
WHAT IS “MACHINE LEARNING”?
Machine learning is a type of artificial intelligence that allows systems to make decisions by identifying patterns that humans can’t otherwise see. For marketing, machine learning is a technology enabler that allows for true 1:1 personalization at scale. Essentially, with machine learning marketers can automatically decide the optimal experience for each customer in any given context across a customer base in the millions. The difference between machine and human learning is that the machine can scale and measure thousands of permutations of the customer context to decide what is optimal, given a long-term business objective such as boosting revenues or increasing retention. In essence, marketers determine what key performance indicator (KPI) to drive and based on that objective, the system directly measures all elements of the customer context, 38
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executing the “right” personalized offer at the right time for each customer. Importantly, machine learning “informs” the marketer how customers truly act including how they respond to current marketing efforts. This illumination into customer behavior enables marketers to be more creative and more targeted in their marketing efforts.
WHY SHOULD MARKETERS CARE ABOUT MACHINE LEARNING IN 2016?
There are many marketers focused on how to optimize the lifetime value of their customers. At the same time, most of them are limited when it comes to being able to determine the optimal offer for each customer and context, in order to increase revenues, for example. Without machine learning, it’s virtually impossible for marketers to do much more than perform A/B testing of campaigns. Marketers don’t have the resources to manually configure thousands of permutations (or mini campaigns) that machine learning capabilities can, let alone adjust those mini campaigns as results change. Machine learning is a game changer for marketers because it helps them experiment, learn and make decisions at a pace and scale that’s not humanly possible. As a result, marketers get better results, sustain results and most importantly, know the “why” behind those results.
WHEN COMPANIES TALK ABOUT HAVING A “SCIENTIFIC MARKETING” CAPABILITY WHAT DO THEY REALLY MEAN? WHY DOES THIS MATTER?
Most companies refer to scientific marketing as behavioral monitoring or trigger-based predictive analytics. Collaborative filtering is the polar opposite of scientific marketing. It’s saying if a customer did “A,” they will do “B” based on the behavioral insights gleaned from other similar customers, as opposed to making a recommendation based on the specific behavior of that customer. This is key because marketers are still guessing when it comes to which targeting rules drive high performance, and they don’t test efficiency at layers below broad segment application. What marketers need to remember is that understanding customer behavior is only half the equation. You have to have a way to decide what experience to deliver to an individual customer based on insights into their unique customer behavior, not that of a broad segment. For further explanation of these expectations as well as advice for marketers about prepping for the science-enabled future of marketing and the reason more marketers aren’t engaging this practice, read the full transcript from this interview at wsm.co/fullscript.
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Web
COMMENTARY
5 THINGS ENTREPRENEURS CAN LEARN FROM SHARK TANK By Hobbs Karg, Content Writer at Fueled
Shark Tank, for those not already aware, is the hit television reality show (now available on the WATCH ABC app for iOS and Apple TV) where entrepreneurs bring their business ideas to the table where multi-millionaire and billionaire investors sit and are able to choose to invest “X” amount into the company as a loan while receiving “X” percentage of equity.
Auctions, Cybersquatters & Carving out Your Internet Domain While the Internet likely won’t ever run out of names, you’ll need to do your due diligence to nab a good one. Read more at wsm.co/onlinename. 40
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Companies not only get the funding and gain exposure from the show, but they can also boast how they have “so-and-so” from Shark Tank as an investor. There are a few things to remember, however, for those thinking of following the Shark Tank way.
SHARK TANK IS FOR ENTERTAINMENT Shark Tank is purely for entertainment purposes and should not be taken too literally. The majority of deals don’t actually get funded, and the process expressed in the show is much more watered down than in reality. Raising capital for many months on end doesn’t make for optimal television.
PERFECT THE PITCH If there’s one lesson to take away from the show, it’s to master the art of the pitch. For television purposes about 50 percent of the pitches seen on the show are engaging and effective, while the other 50 percent are mediocre or terrible in order to build comedic aspects of the show. Entrepreneurs have to learn how to effectively communicate their vision to possible investors. A great pitch can .com
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be the difference between whether or not a company gets the investment amount they seek.
HARD WORK PAYS OFF Though it’s a phrase too often used in the entrepreneur industry, it’s one that shouldn’t be taken lightly. In business, one has to work hard to become successful, but hard work still won’t guarantee succeed. If a business is flawed and a product is useless it won’t matter how hard one works. Aspiring entrepreneurs should work hard, but make sure they’re working toward efficiency and practicality.
KNOW THE BUSINESS Entrepreneurs have to know their business and the industry they’re in as much or better than anyone they’re presenting to. They need to have your numbers down: sales, cash flow, debt and so on. The Sharks (as the investors are called) hesitate making a deal with entrepreneurs who don’t know critical data points. Knowing a number will only take them so far though; they have to have a concrete understanding of the industry they’re in. There are many cases where entrepreneurs on Shark Tank pitch what they think is truly unique only to be informed that a similar product already exists. Before a person starts their business, they need to conduct thorough research about the industry they’ll be competing in.
DON’T BE BLINDED BY PASSION Another recurring theme in the show is the overly passionate entrepreneur who’s poured everything they have into their product and is convinced their product is “the next big thing” that will change the world. It’s tough to bring these type of people back to earth, especially when their idea is actually a dud. Just like hard work can’t guarantee success, if nobody buys a product it won’t matter how much passion the owner has. As a matter of fact, too much passion can blind them to warning signs they may otherwise see. Entrepreneurs don’t want to get to a point where they have invested years of their life and tens of thousands of dollars into an emotionally and costly failure. There’s nothing sadder than seeing an entrepreneur on the show admitting to have taken out a second mortgage to fund his or her dreams. By being aware of the industry and the product, entrepreneurs can better see an enterprise’s capabilities. If you are an up-and-coming entrepreneur this isn’t meant to discourage you into steering away from the industry. This should be used as helpful advice to follow in order to help you succeed in one of the most competitive industries. Shark Tank is a fun and intriguing reality television show to watch, but that’s about it. Make sure you remember that it is for entertainment purposes only and you’ll do just fine in your quest for funding.
THE WAIT
IS OVER
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To order your copy, go to: www.domains360book.com F E B R U A R Y 2016
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