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APRIL 2014

Inside This Issue...

>> Quiz: TestYour Affiliate IQ

>> The Modern Product Page

>> The Omnichannel Breakthrough Plus: 50 Top Performance Marketing Platforms

Cover Story

Opportunities, Trends & Tools in

WEB DESIGN

Every day, new approaches to old problems emerge and new technologies are created that make digital experiences faster and more interactive. While it’s not prudent for Web designers to follow each digital trend, understanding the opportunities and tools that are available to them, is.

Explore theWebsite Magazine

Departments

Growing Up CRO

Omnichannel Breakthrough

Take your performance marketing to the next level by adopting a single customer view.

Programmatic’s Evolution Reach and engage target audiences on every device with automated media buying.

Enterprise Ready: Savings in the Cloud

Quiz Time: Test Your Affiliate IQ

Small Business Lab: Learn How to Go “Glocal”

50 Top: Performance Marketing Platforms

E-Commerce Express: The Modern Product Page

Mastering Search: Content Optimization Secrets

Mobile Email Data

Pinpoint your current level of maturity when it comes to conversion rate optimization.

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Dive deep into insights like this: More than half of emails are opened on mobile devices.

Join the Club

Ready or not, all brands are in the software business now. Learn to compete accordingly.

Infrastructure Decisions Use this free tool to see what infrastructure (cloud or global delivery network) works best.

& Development Digest: 20 Design 4 Must-See Navigation Styles

40 Commentary: Create an Ugly Website

Get the Digital Scoop Check out Website Magazine’s email newsletters covering e-commerce, search, SoLoMo, design and more at wsm.co/webscoop.

Website Magazine

>>>Resource Center FINELY FOCUSED INFORMATION FROM INDUSTRY SPONSORS Website Magazine’s Resource Center presents white papers from our sponsors that provide information, specifics, and metrics to help you make decisions for website success. Download free at www.WebsiteMagazine.com/resources.

The Definitive Guide to Marketing Automation

13 Mistakes that are Costing You on Comparison Shopping Engines

Marketing automation is the technology that allows companies to streamline, automate, and measure marketing tasks and workflows so they can increase operational efficiency and grow revenue faster. Sponsored by Marketo

Whether you’re a retailer just getting started or are already utilizing comparison shopping engines, it’s crucial to avoid costly mistakes. Learn the 13 blunders to avoid so you can improve your conversions. Sponsored by ChannelAdvisor

Guide for Omnichannel Ecommerce Replatforming

Redefining Mobile App Development & Optimization

Considering a new ecommerce platform provider? Learn how to move beyond comparing features with these 10 questions that will help you determine the right type of solution for your business. Sponsored by ShopVisible

Learn how the emergence of comprehensive Mobile Experience Management platforms can help you overcome the current challenges in native app management. Also learn how to improve user retention by more efficiently managing, optimizing, and analyzing mobile app conversions. Sponsored by Artisan

A Guide to Transactional Email

It’s well known that transactional email is used to send out shipping notices or password resets, but did you know that due to its high click-through rates, it can be a great way to communicate with your customers? With this guide, find out what you might be missing in your transactional emails. Sponsored by Dyn

Trends & Strategies for the Commerce Marketer

How will you maximize sales this year? What new strategies and automation tactics should you implement? With the constant evolution of commerce marketing, online retailers need to find new ways to reach customers and keep them engaged. Sponsored by Bronto

A Buyer’s Guide to Social Media Management Software

In many ways social media has made a marketer’s life better. Unfortunately, better doesn’t always mean easier. Social media management could best be described as herding cats – there are so many channels to manage, and within each of them, a wealth of comments and data to monitor and react to. Sponsored by Rignite

Publisher’s Guide to Growing Online Ad Revenue

This paper explores the changes publishers should implement to grow revenue and maximize yield. Until publishers enable all of their demand channels to compete for their inventory at the same time, in the same place, they can’t maximize the yield from each impression. Sponsored by OpenX

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F R O M T H E E D I TO R

With Peter Prestipino

Digital Design in Focus The secret to a successful Web design is, well, an absolute mystery.

Visit Website Magazine at these upcoming Internet tradeshows:

Digital Travel Summit April 1-3 Las Vegas, NV NetFinance April 28-30 Miami, FL eTail Canada May 5-7 Toronto, ON IRCE June 10-14 Chicago, IL Conversion Conference June 17-19 Chicago, IL

That’s not completely true of course — over time, Internet professionals have developed rather sophisticated approaches for designing digital user experiences. The perpetual stream of emerging trends, however, forces some Web workers to forgo the most basic (and important) opportunities in the pursuit of interaction and engagement — and it’s costing them significantly. Billions of dollars are spent each year on software to build websites, solutions to test and optimize those websites, not to mention all the bells, whistles and gadgets to make it custom to brands. Today’s most successful designers, however, aren’t those that jump on every trend, and they aren’t those that buy every new shiny virtual toy either. The most successful website designers are those that capitalize upon the opportunities afforded to each and every Web worker, and stay on top of the trends and technologies that shape the digital world, so they can use them when (or if) the time is right. This edition of Website Magazine features a broad look at the most important opportunities in digital design today, several key trends shaping the future of the ‘Net and provides some interesting tools to help make all of your virtual dreams come true. Digital design is continually evolving; but those that understand where the Web is and where it’s headed will be those best positioned for success. Website Magazine’s April 2014 issue offers readers practical advice on many of the most pressing matters in the world of ’Net business today. Readers will find articles on cloud computing, product page design, content optimization, navigation techniques, conversion rate optimization, email marketing, programmatic advertising and a whole lot more. Website Magazine’s editors have even included a few new resources to help readers accelerate their digital success. Enjoy the April 2014 issue of Website Magazine and make sure to visit us at WebsiteMagazine.com for daily coverage of all the news that matters to your Web success. We also encourage you to follow us on the popular social networks, like Twitter (@WebsiteMagazine), and share your thoughts about what you’ve read in these pages and how you are making your digital dreams a reality. Best Web Wishes,

Access the April 2014 issue at wsm.co/wmapril14 or by scanning the QR code below.

Peter Prestipino — Editor-in-Chief, Website Magazine Peter@WebsiteMagazine.com

The Magazine for Website Success Reaching the largest audience of Web professionals of any Internet industry publication 999 E. Touhy Ave., Des Plaines, IL 60018 Toll Free: 1.800.817.1518 International: 1-773-628-2779 Fax: 1-773-272-0920

PUBLISHER: Susan Whitehurst susan@websitemagazine.com EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Peter Prestipino peter@websitemagazine.com GENERAL MANAGER: David Ruiz druiz@websitemagazine.com MANAGING EDITOR: Amberly Dressler adressler@websitemagazine.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Allison Howen ahowen@websitemagazine.com *CONTRIBUTORS: David Rekuc Tim Ash Matt Swan Scott McDonald Nicholas Galante ART DIRECTOR: Janet Crouch www.grafikadesign.net GRAPHIC DESIGNERS: Jesse Erbach jesse@websitemagazine.com Shannon Rickson shannon@websitemagazine.com ADVERTISING: Kelly Springer kspringer@websitemagazine.com Brian Wallace brian@websitemagazine.com Bill Scothorn bscothorn@websitemagazine.com Barry Cohen bcohen@websitemagazine.com SUBSCRIPTIONS: Sandra Woods sandra@websitemagazine.com

ISSUE HIGHLIGHTS:

Website Magazine, Volume 9, Issue 7, April 2014, (ISSN# 1942-0633) is published 12 times a year with monthly issues from January to December by Website Services, Inc., 999 E. Touhy Ave., Des Plaines, IL 60018. Periodicals Postage Paid at Des Plaines, IL and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Website Magazine, 999 E. Touhy Ave., Des Plaines, IL 60018.

• David Rekuc shares how to run a site with a global feel. p. 12

Canada Post: Please send undeliverable items to: 2835 Kew Drive, Windsor ON, N8T 3B7

• Tim Ash defines the “conversion maturity model,” p. 30

• Matt Swan outlines an omnichannel plan for retailers, p. 34

*The opinions expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of Website Magazine.

www.WebsiteMagazine.com

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TWITTER KEEPS ADS TOP OF MIND Since its IPO, Twitter has put a bigger focus on ads, understandably. For example, the official netGetty Images is making millions of its stock images available free via a new embedding tool. Now, anyone can share Getty images for non-commercial use on websites, blogs and social media. The embedded images include photographer attribution and links back to gettyimages.com, where photos can be licensed for commercial use. Although this may seem like a huge change of heart from the stock photography juggernaut, which has been known to fight against the illegal use of its content, the new tool will actually allow Getty to track the use of its images and could ultimately lead to new monetization possibilities.

EBAY TRIES ON VIRTUAL FITTING ROOM TECH eBay recently acquired PhiSix, a technology startup that creates 3-D models of clothing from photos and pattern files, which is expected to be integrated across eBay’s portfolio of services in the near future. The technology enables customers to understand the fit and movement of clothes better without having to try them on, which may increase conversions.

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work of Larry the Bird rebranded its Ads API as well as expanded its Promoted Accounts offering in February. The rebrand changes the name of Twitter’s Ads API to the Twitter Marketing Platform Program and features a new website for the program. Conversely, the expansion of Promoted Accounts brings the advertising option, which was previously only seen in Timelines, to the Twitter search result pages. According to Twitter, the social network will select relevant queries for Promoted Accounts based on an advertiser’s targeting settings.

Do you have an “Award Winning” Website? Prove it!

Best of Industry Your Name Here

18th Annual Call for Entries 5.30.14 Deadline W W W . W E B A W A R D . O R G

m o b i l e a p p wa tc h Regular access to performance metrics keeps Web professionals informed and can help them identify problems before they escalate. To keep your mobile device equipped with the latest digital data about your business, consider downloading one of these apps:

Adobe Analytics

Google is rolling out a new format for search ads that features consumer opinion data. Dubbed Consumer Ratings Annotations, the format highlights one or more “strongly rated” aspects of an advertiser’s business. An insurance company, for instance, could run an ad that features an annotation on claims handling. According to Google, tests with beta advertisers showed that the feature increased click-through rates (CTR) by 10 percent on average.

The Adobe Analytics app offers access to dashboards and reports, in which users can sift, sort and share real-time information to identify both problems and possibilities. Plus, users have the ability to create custom reports. Flutter – Dashboard for Flurry Analytics

Social Sites that Drive Sales

A recent study from Shopify shows just how

important social is to a merchant’s bottom line. Data from the report revealed that Facebook is the top source of social traffic and sales, with almost two thirds of all social media visits to Shopify stores originating from the popular social network. Moreover, Facebook has the highest conversion rate for all social media e-commerce traffic at 1.85 percent. That said, the social site that generates the highest average order value (AOV) is a bit of a surprise, with data finding that community style site Polyvore is producing an AOV of $66.75, topping Instagram at $65, Pinterest at $58.95 and Facebook at $55.

E-commerce merchants can now publish content on their WordPress sites and sell on them too, as the Web software provider has unveiled a new offering for business users that enables them to connect their sites to their online stores. The offering provides three e-commerce partners to choose from: Ecwid, Shopify and ShopLocket. To connect sites, users need to visit the ‘eCommerce Plugins’ option from their dashboard, select the desired service and enter necessary account details. It is also important to note that Business users without online stores can create one from the ‘Settings’ page.

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Once synched with a brand’s Flurry account, users can keep track of their apps' usage trends through a mobile dashboard within this app, which features graphs that detail active users, new users and sessions, as well as caches data for offline use and supports custom events. App Annie Analytics App Annie enables publishers to track their app market data across multiple stores including Google Play, iTunes and the Amazon Appstore. Furthermore, the app’s dashboard provides details into app revenues, downloads, ratings, etc.

More ’Net News Which major email provider has the most engaged user base? Find out at wsm.co/bigemail4 An app for Amazon Sellers has finally hit the App Store. Learn more at wsm.co/sellersapp Craving the recipe to subject line success? Retention Science is shedding light on how marketers can win the inbox war at wsm.co/emailrecipe

S TAT

W AT C H

Digital Salaries 19%

In 2012, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research reported a gender wage gap of 19 percent, with women earning 81 percent of men’s weekly fulltime earnings. The gender pay gap is widely cited and has been common knowledge over the years, but the difference between the value that men and women put on their roles within their own companies is surprising. Female small business owners are, on average, paying themselves 80 percent of the salary of their male counterparts, according to data from Goldman Sachs and Babson College. Although men and women value their worth differently when they get to write their own paychecks, the pay gap is slightly less in the tech industry. Dice, a website for technology professionals looking for jobs, reports that in the last two years men out-earned women overall by an average annual income of $95,929 to $87,527 (about a 9 percent wage gap). Dice believes that the wage difference is driven by the fact that the two groups tend to hold different positions in tech companies, rather than gender. “When it comes to technology employment, it’s a skills-driven marketplace,” said Tom Silver, SVP of Dice about the data. “The ability to apply that know-how to a given problem remains the core of employment — why tech professionals get hired and how they are compensated.” Find more useful data at WebsiteMagazine.com or by scanning the QR code shown here.

$52

Android and iPhone mobile developers in the U.S., who are working remotely through oDesk.com, request a far larger hourly wage of $52 compared to developers in the Philippines ($16), Pakistan ($19), India ($20), Russia ($27) and the U.K. ($38), according to a late-2013 study from Staff.com.

10%

SEMPO’s fourth annual salary survey of the search engine marketing industry found the average annual salary for search engine marketing professionals dipped nearly 10 percent from $75,543 to $68,600 due to an influx of new, entry-level workers in the industry.

$59,100

The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) reports that computer science offers the second-highest starting salary of all college majors at $59,100 in 2013 (down $100 from 2012). Engineering grads take home the highest-earning starting salary ($62,600), with business falling in third ($55,100) and communications in fourth ($44,600).

$5,000

The top five designers on 99designs have each earned more than $5,000 in contest winnings in the past 30 days, not including any additional work they’ve sourced from customers whose contests they’ve won. (Customers engage their winning designers for additional work about 40 percent of the time, according to 99designs).

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ENTERPRISE

Saving Money in the Cloud By Peter Prestipino, Editor In Chief

The benefits of cloud computing are well established — faster time-to-market, greater flexibility as it relates to IT strategies and a more efficient response to competitive conditions in general. But who are we kidding?! What has really driven adoption is the opportunity as it relates to cost savings — and for that you can thank the notion of “economies of scale” (a proportionate saving in costs gained by an increased level of production). Of the many enterprises I have had the opportunity to discuss the cloud computing trend with (large corporations and small businesses alike), the single most frequently stated benefit is reduced operating costs. Companies that use cloud computing are able to focus on more important business issues (or problems) rather than investing in hardware, additional personnel and managing the inevitable operating cost of it all. Let’s explore how economies of scale leads to enterprises saving money in the cloud.

CLOUDIFICATION Spiceworks released results of a survey in Aug. 2013 that analyzed the familiarity and use of cloud networking technologies by SMBs. The study, “Cloudification of the Network," revealed that despite security, control and uptime concerns, more than 40 percent of IT respondents were currently using, or planned to use, cloud networking services in the next 12 months.

HARDWARE: Using cloud computing results in high utilization of hardware. Enterprises share server infrastructure with others’ computing needs, allowing the cloud-computing provider to optimize their own hardware needs and pass the savings on to their users. POWER: Cloud computing also reduces the power

costs incurred by enterprises. Those running their own data center likely don’t fully utilize their servers (due to the natural peaks and valleys of computing usage) and idle servers waste energy. PEOPLE: Budgets for staffing are often the single

biggest line item within enterprises. IT people are expensive (salaries, benefits, recruiting) and those costs usually outweigh everything else. Moving to the cloud means a portion of a monthly cloud expenditure goes to the staff of the provider — and it’s likely less than if your technology presence was

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handled internally. The benefits are obvious and the cost savings significant — and the cloud is most certainly no longer a secret. Businesses are finally coming around when it comes to using public and private cloud environments for hosting their applications and there is plenty of supporting evidence. Statistics released in late 2013 from Bitnami, a service that enables users to launch applications and entire development stacks in the cloud, revealed that 41 percent of respondents indicated that their organizations deployed more apps in the cloud during the past 12 months than in the previous year. Fifty-six percent also planned to deploy more cloud apps in the next 12 months. The data is very much in line with a recent SpiceWorks study, Cloudification of the Network (see sidebar). So to which cloud-computing providers are companies turning? Amazon Web Services (AWS) remains the most popular destination for cloud deployments according to the Bitnami report, with nearly 39 percent of respondents expecting to deploy applications on AWS in the next year. After AWS, the next most common cloud deployments were private clouds (27 percent), followed by Google Compute Engine (16 percent), Microsoft Azure (11 percent), VMware Cloud (11 percent) and Rackspace (8 percent). Small businesses (less than 50 employees) have generally adopted cloud applications at a slightly higher rate than large organizations (more than 1,000 employees) during the past 12 months: 48 to 38 percent. Private cloud adoption was highest among larger organizations (greater than 1,000 employees) with 39 percent of respondents expecting to deploy applications in private clouds over the next 12 months compared with just 25 percent for small companies. Is your enterprise ready to move full force in the cloud? Join the conversation on WebsiteMagazine.com and share your insights and expertise with other Internet professionals.

TEST YOUR AFFILIATE Are you a super affiliate, a performance marketing wonk or a digital dunce? Take Website Magazine’s Performance Marketing Quiz and test your knowledge of the affiliate vertical. Find answers to the five questions below (as well as an extended quiz that more fully addresses the nuances of affiliate marketing at wsm.co/affiliateIQ). 1. In the digital world of performance (affiliate) marketing, the acronym CPA stands for...

a) b) c) d)

Cross-platform action Cost-per-acquisition Consumer protection adapter Content pattern abuse

2. What is eCPM?

a) The same as CPM, but on the Internet b) The amount of bandwidth consumed per thousand impressions of an ad c) The earnings per one thousand ad impressions

3. Which of the following types of affiliate data feed is in the incorrect format?

a) b) c) d)

CSV XML JPG All of the above

4. PPC arbitrage is defined as...

a) the practice of deleting/removing all visible advertising links b) buying visitor impressions at one price, and selling them at a higher price point c) submitting long-tail keywords to bid for placement search engines d) none of the above 5. Which of the following statements about last click attribution is true:

a) a Web analytics model in which the last click is given credit b) a data point revealing the geographic location of the last website visitor c) commissions are shared with the attributed referrer of the first click d) only applies to branded keyword traffic arriving at a digital destination e) most analytics solutions don’t default to last click analytics

Presenting...

webmag.co Website Magazine’s new digital pinboard for viewing and sharing bonus material like infographics and videos.

Find the answers to Website Magazine’s Affiliate IQ Performance Marketing Quiz on the ‘Net at wsm.co/affiliateIQ

A P R I L 2014

WEBSITE MAGAZINE’S

SMALL BUSINESS LAB

GLOCALIZATION:

RUNNING A GLOBAL SITE WITH A LOCAL FEEL By David Rekuc, Marketing Director at Ripen eCommerce

When a company can reach the far corners of the globe with a single site, it’s easy to think you can do business anywhere. But reaching international markets is only half the battle — you still have to convince users that you have a product or service they need. To do that, you’ll need to run a global site and give it an authentic, local feel. The term glocalization has been sweeping the e-commerce industry lately. Glocalization refers to the application of localizations — the idea of adding elements to a global site to make it feel more native to a particular market. You could, theoretically, build a new site from the ground up every time you enter a new geographic market, but there’s a good deal of waste in doing so and won’t help you achieve success. Focusing instead on key elements that make your site feel local is more efficient and effective. Language

First and foremost, you have to perfect the language of your desired market. This doesn’t just mean translation — it means presenting your product and message in a way that’s consistent with the culture. In other words, your site needs to speak like a native.

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Even though the United States, United Kingdom and Australia all speak English, they each have regional variations in language, as well as lifestyle differences. For example, a vest in the U.S. is a sleeveless zip-up coat, while a U.K. vest is a white tank top or undershirt — not exactly cold-weather gear. Language missteps not only confuse potential customers, but can also injure a brand’s reputation. Design

Another aspect to consider is the look and feel of a site. Even though there are some universal requirements like a menu bar and locations for content, the way the site is presented can be vastly different. In the west, we respect cleaner Web 2.0 designs, larger images and effective use of white space. Western sites will also use different fonts to convey messaging about the products and services. But as you move east, these standards are much different. Nations like Japan will lean toward a more text-based design that utilizes bolder colors. Because character fonts are much more difficult to read and can’t use italics or capital letters, they rely on bright imagery for emphasis. The design may seem busy and cluttered to Western companies, but this is not only the norm in Japan, it’s also what’s expected.

Merchandising

Are all of your products and services available in these new markets? Is their function the same? The answers to these questions should change the layout and content of your glocalized site. For instance, electronic devices in Europe are expected to follow European plug standards rather than U.S. plug standards. Also, consider your positioning in the new market. After you factor in exchange rates and local competition, you may actually be offering a “high-end” product that qualified as “low end” in your home market. Is your product used in the same way in the foreign market as it is at home? Is it even used at all? With how varied foreign markets can be, sometimes it’s best to re-evaluate your products and services in a given market before you start worrying about how you’re going to get them there. Payment

Do you know how many Rubles a gallon of milk costs? Probably not, which is why it’s important to have your products and services listed in local currency. And when you convert between units, make sure you’re not charging oddball prices like 14.37 EUR. Round off to numbers that are consistent with local sales culture. Similarly, if you were asked to pay for an e-commerce transaction in the U.S. using a wire transfer,

you’d probably leave and seek a more convenient site. In Germany, though, nearly 20 percent of users prefer wire transfers as payment. Make sure you’ve taken local payment preferences into consideration or you’ll lose customers. IP Detecting and Localizing

Auto-detecting a customer’s IP and redirecting them to the appropriate site can provide a better user experience. But, we’ve all been in situations where we’ve been automatically redirected and can’t get out. Make sure your visitors have a manual override option in case the redirection is more harmful than helpful. Marketing

Did you know Google only has 3 percent of the search market share in China? Chinese Internet users primarily rely on Baidu for searching. This means if you want to reach the Chinese market with paid search marketing, you need to adjust your strategy accordingly. Glocalizing your site removes any potentially foreign or awkward characteristics in your customer’s eyes. Familiarity with lingo, payment and design all put the customer at ease, which in turn makes the experience more pleasant. So when in Rome, sell like a Roman.

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TOP

Performance Marketing Platforms & Networks The affiliate marketing landscape is in a state of near perpetual change. The methods used to attract website visitors from social media and organic search placements, track them accurately through the buying cycle on both desktop and mobile devices, and receive the appropriate compensation for doing so, is far different and much more complicated for today’s affiliate marketer than in years past (as well as the retailers that support the entire ecosystem). In addition, affiliate networks seem to enter and exit the online business vertical as quickly as in any other. As a result of the marketing practice being such an integral channel in the digital mix however, the platform selection process has become one of immense importance for merchants and affiliates. Will your brand’s network of choice ultimately be acquired by a competitor, shift its focus to another vertical or simply go out of business? Choose wrong and your brand will miss a significant opportunity to drive awareness and, ultimately, additional conversions. So what should you know? The list of features and supported functionality required to capitalize on the practice of affiliate/performance marketing successfully is long; so long in fact that marketers and advertisers looking to expand their sales through the practice often choose platforms that are the most cost efficient, rather than the most feature rich, robust and ultimately effective. There is, of course, a better way to select a network that will be used to power your enterprise’s performance marketing campaigns — experience. The performance marketing platforms readers will find in this month’s list of 50 top platforms in the space are those that have established themselves as essential solutions in the virtual world of performance marketing over the course of digital history. There are big names to know including Conversant (formerly Commission Junction) and LinkShare (part of Rakuten), as well as digital stalwarts including ClickBank and Tribal Fusion. There are also lesser-known platforms, which are quickly making a name for themselves thanks to innovative approaches, including Skimlinks and Fluent. Each of these platforms is unique, offering opportunities found nowhere else. Let this month’s list featuring 50 of the top performance marketing platforms serve as an introduction to the upcoming May 2014 feature article, when Website Magazine editors will delve into the competitive landscape of affiliate/performance marketing.

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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.

Conversant.com LinkShare.com ShareaSale.com Avantlink.com EbayPartnerNetwork.com Clickbank.com Advertising.com Chitika.com TribalFusion.com VibrantMedia.com AffiliateWindow.com AdKnowledge.com CoProsper.com Burstmedia.com 7Search.com FlexOffers.com Click2Sell.eu TradeDoubler.com Affiliatebot.com Clickbooth.com MundoMedia.com Bidvertiser.com MotiveInteractive.com Fluentco.com Skimlinks.com XRevMedia.com ClixGalore.com Kontera.com CPALead.com Adversal.com PantheraNetwork.com Zanox.com Webgains.com AdWorkMedia.com AffiliateFuture.com Neverblue.com MaxBounty.com ShareResults.com Peerfly.com PaidonResults.com MediaWhiz.com Convert2Media.com AffiliateNetwork.com AdvertGoal.com AdscendMedia.com ExoClick.com Monetise.co.uk Adsimilis.com CPATrend.com RevenueWire.com

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By Allison Howen, Associate Editor

THE MODERN PRODUCT PAGE At 5 years old, I was positive

Watching too many episodes of “The Jetsons” likely fueled my high hopes that robotic maids and flying for technology. More than 20 years later, four cars would be part of my life wheels are still a staple of the modern by the time I received my car, but technology has advanced in other areas. Shopping, for example, first driver’s license. is an entirely different experience than it was two decades ago, as today’s consumers have the choice to browse and buy from desktop and mobile devices or at traditional retail stores. Despite the convenience of online shopping, consumers still see many advantages to shopping in traditional brick-and-mortar stores. Luckily, technology is providing online retailers with ways to make the virtual shopping experience more similar to the traditional one — and it all starts with their product pages.

Put inventory on display. The biggest advantage of shopping in a brick-andmortar store is the ability for consumers to pick up, feel and examine their potential purchases. To bridge

the gap between store shelves and e-commerce product pages, Internet retailers must display their inventory with high-resolution and interactive product photography. According to David-Dror Davidoff, chief revenue officer at ClickTale, product imagery that allows consumers to zoom in, as well as view items from every angle, provides online retailers with a better chance at conversion. “The product’s photo must enable shoppers to enlarge it,” said Davidoff. “The enlarged photo should be viewable from different angles, enabling shoppers to visually ‘stroll around’ the product. They will always prefer to see the enlarged photo bigger, more in detail and free of visual distraction.” To make the virtual shopping experience even more realistic, retailers should add videos to their product pages. Videos are not only more informative than images, but they also provide consumers with a better idea of how a product works and how it looks when it’s in-use. Fitbit, for example, offers short videos on its product pages that demonstrate everyday use and highlight key features (image A). To incorporate video into an online storefront, retailers can leverage service providers like Fluid Retail or Liveclicker or can take the do-it-yourself approach by creating and hosting videos on YouTube.

Answer questions. Even with the highest-quality product images and videos, consumers may still be hesitant to buy. According to Davidoff, shoppers need and want information but don’t want to work hard to get it, so the more information provided on a product, the more a visitor will engage and proceed to checkout. Although including descriptions, availability, sizing and color options on product pages is vital, those details are just the tip of the virtual iceberg. Apparel retailer Elie Tahari, for instance, also

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Fitbit features a ‘Day in a Life of a Flex User’ video.

provides specifics like fabric content, care instructions and the company’s return policy. Plus, the company further eases consumer uncertainty by offering a “Fit Guide” to help customers find the right size based on their individual measurements. Sizing guides like this, along with technology like virtual fitting rooms (for a list of virtual fitting room technology, visit wsm.co/tryon2014), are instrumental in making consumers more confident in their purchasing decisions, which, in return, can increase conversions and decrease the number of returns for retailers.

Urban Decay features an aggregated ‘Ratings Summary.’

Customers can ask their Facebook friends for advice through UrbanDecay.com before making purchases.

Encourage the purchase. Traditional retailers depend on their employees to provide helpful tips and encouragement, which is a luxury e-commerce retailers don’t have. Online, user reviews can help fill that void, as they influence 90 percent of consumers’ buying decisions according to a 2013 Dimensional Research study. Online retailers should note, however, that the most influential review sections are interactive, informative and social. Beauty retailer Urban Decay, for example, provides site visitors with an aggregated summary of its consumer ratings at the top of its review section (image B). The summary highlights consumers’ opinions on products’ most important features, such as pigment, color selection, quality and ease of use. Moreover, the individual reviews offer information such as a reviewer’s skin tone and eye color, which can help other customers better relate to the reviewer and trust the advice. It is also important to note that Urban Decay’s product page showcases social profiles of consumers who have purchased the item, as well as enables shoppers to use social networks to ask friends for advice (image C).

Close the sale. Answering all of a consumer’s questions doesn’t guarantee conversion, which is why it is up to online retailers to create product pages that move shoppers toward purchase. For starters, product pages should include any relevant promotional information. A field for a coupon code on the checkout page can lead customers to go offsite to search for a discount code, and once a customer leaves the checkout page, it is not guaranteed that they will return.

In addition to promotional information, online retailers should always feature security policies and symbols on their product pages. Even the biggest brands are not immune to security breaches, and shoppers know that.

The Future of E-Commerce is Bright The good news for Internet retailers is that the e-commerce industry is growing, and the gap between the traditional store shelf and the digital product page is diminishing. Even if flying cars eventually become the “norm,” consumers will still enjoy the convenience and comfort of online shopping — especially when product pages outdo salespersons.

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mastering

By Peter Prestipino, Editor-In-Chief

STATS & SECRETS FOR

CONTENT OPTIMIZATION “Content” has quickly become

Ninety-three percent of B2B organizations, in fact, now rely on content marketing for brand building and demand generation according to findings recently revealed in Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProf’s fourth annual “B2B Content Marketing: 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends — North America” report. Even though marketers are more than willing to use content marketing for the purpose of driving demand and awareness, there’s a whole lot more to the practice than writing out a few blog posts or articles and distributing them on social media networks or through email. Content marketing has quickly become a valid initiative, a practical discipline, a useful tactic — but there needs to be far more investment in the process (monetarily and otherwise) and Internet professionals are quickly making this realization. As many savvy digital marketers have already discovered, the secret of successful content is directly addressing the needs, wants, and desires of both a prospective and/or existing audience, and then putting those meaningful (educational, entertaining or informative) content assets in front of users when they’re most likely to be willing and able to become a “convert.” What is really missing from the content marketing craze sweeping the digital world, however, is awareness that the secret of effective optimization of content comes down to three essential components — optimizing for discovery, optimizing for consumption and optimizing for engagement. Let’s take a closer look:

the currency in which marketers operate with on today’s Web.

A screen grab of the new AddThis Pro dashboard.

3 SURPRISING STATS on

CONTENT MARKETING 42% of B2B marketers consider themselves effective at content marketing — up from 36% in 2014. (Content Marketing Institute) 78% of CMOs think custom content (blogs, articles, etc.) is the future of marketing. (Webdamsolutions.com) 87% of buyers say online content has a major or moderate impact on vendor preference and selection; but 43% are turned off by self-promotional content. (B2B Marketing Insider)

DISCOVERY OPTIMIZATION: Today’s marketers must understand why users are looking for them in

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the first place, creating valuable digital experiences for users that are available across multiple channels — from search to social. Market research tools and social listening offerings prove useful in this phase. CONSUMPTION OPTIMIZATION: It’s not enough to simply know what users are looking for; Internet professionals must also understand those users’ preferences when it comes to media types and content formats (e.g. PDF whitepapers or interactive HTML presentations). Web design and mobile application development are often top of mind in this content optimization phase. ENGAGEMENT OPTIMIZATION: Once the appropriate content is in place and visitors have arrived, the real work begins. Optimizing engagement requires segmenting audiences based on their preferences and personalizing their experiences as needed to influence their ultimate conversion. Fortunately for information publishers, solutions are emerging to assist. One to watch is AdThis (pictured) whose new Pro offering aims to fill the void. The company is leveraging behavioral data from 14 million websites globally, reaching 97 percent of the Internet population in the U.S., to enable information publishers (e.g. individual bloggers, small Web publishers) to provide on-site content recommendations for each visitor (based on the behavioral data, its behavioral algorithms and, of course, the visitor’s browser history). The new AddThis solution, like others, provides a way to keep visitors engaged — the whole reason of content optimization in the first place. The AddThis Pro solution is far from the only one worth the attention of content marketers and Internet professionals in general. There are more, many more, and Website Magazine has assembled another “Master List of Essential Content Optimization Tools,” available at wsm.co/opt2014, to help you along the way.

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d es i g n & d ev e l o pment

digest

By Amberly Dressler, Managing Editor

4 WELCOMING NAVIGATION MENUS Website visitors — especially first

Web designers and developers need to understand what visitors need and then supply information to their virtual houseguests based on those specific interests. Good navigation menus work in the same way. And, although there have been a variety of unusual and interesting approaches to navigation in the past (which may be appealing to only the most daring designers, developers and digital businesses), the best navigation on the Web welcomes users with the idea, “my house is your house.” Let’s knock on a few virtual doors of websites doing navigation right.

time ones — are like houseguests.

Dove Non-traditional navigation (essentially anything other than a top-level horizontal bar with dropdown menus and text) has a purpose. Will Devlin, senior marketing manager at ShopVisible, suggests part of a brand’s personality can be reflected with

different navigation styles. Dove, for instance, uses traditional navigation with a twist, as users can expand the top categories and sub-categories to find imagery that will guide them deeper into the site (see image A). Image-driven navigation creates a visual, laid-back experience, according to Devlin.

Naked Juice The goal of navigation is to make it easy for users to move or “navigate” a site. The mistake that brands often make, according to Devlin, is showing users every category and brand available in a top-level menu. Naked Juice shows restraint with its twocategory menu, which expands (playing homage to traditional drop-downs) into images (similar to Dove’s). Naked Juice refrains from overcomplicating its navigation by eliminating additional dropdown selections, instead opting for a “see all” if users want to, well, see all of their products in one of those three product lines (see image B).

Lou Malnati’s The best hosts are able to accommodate the needs of their houseguests by, for example, age, interests or length of stay, but Web designers and developers must welcome Web visitors based on assumptions made from previous behaviors and interactions. ShopVisible Front-End Developer Alex Pineda recommends surveying how users are navigating the site: what works and what’s confusing to them. “Understanding users’ habits and needs and how those align with business goals, will help direct a

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Dove doesn’t stray too far from traditional navigation design with its drop-down menu, but elevates the scheme with image-based options.

Naked Juice keeps its navigation menu simple and clean with its use of purposeful imagery.

retailer to the appropriate navigation style,” said Pineda. Lou Malnati’s — a Chicago staple for deep dish pizza — was clearly given this advice when it enlisted the help of Orbit Media Studios for its website redesign that now addresses users’ common goals. Orbit Media gave them a brand new responsive site, which includes a full menu and photo galleries, as well as an easy-to-use store locator, integrated WordPress blog, filterable careers listing, social media and FAQs. These items were showcased by importance, as Orbit Media created a streamlined experience based on what tasks users typically need to accomplish, like accessing location information, seeing the menu, viewing catering options and shipping Lou’s pizza (a popular feature that lets “Lou lovers” ship Lou Malnati’s products cross country). What’s impressive about the location element of its sub-navigation menu is the ability to filter by city, zip or geotargeting (“use my location”) — all from within the navigation (see image C). This easily accommodates its guests with local intent (“how do I find you?”) rather than pushing content they might not need or want in that moment.

DIESEL Part of understanding an audience is knowing how comfortable they are with technology and how far a designer or developer can push the digital envelope. For instance, DIESEL caters to a younger (mostly Millennial) audience and can afford to use less traditional navigation approaches without alienating its visitors. Its website presents three menu choices — bags, shoes and accessories — and then once a shopper clicks on a menu choice, there is an option to select male or female (see image D). Once selected, the consumer is directed to an even more uniquely designed product page.

Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria puts its users' goals first with sophisticated location-based tools within its navigation.

DIESEL keeps its younger audience in mind with its unconventional column navigation menu and subsequent filters.

Planning the Visit Lack of data about how users navigate a site makes it challenging for users to find what they’re looking for, because designers and developers are unable to create navigation menus based on those observations. “By knowing what types of users come to the site, what they’re typically looking for and how they shop, the navigation can be better tailored for easier use,” said Pineda. By leveraging these insights to provide Web visitors with a more welcoming experience, brands can provide their guests with everything they’ll need for their stay via a very methodical approach to navigation menus. After all, in life and on the Web, the best hosts don’t just say, “mi casa es su casa,” they show their guests the way.

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OPPORTUNITIES, TRENDS & TOOLS IN By Peter Prestipino, Editor-In-Chief

What makes for an exceptional website design? Can its success be measured (and in both the short and long term)? Is good design ultimately just subjective or can Internet professionals strategize, analyze, test and execute their way to something thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more than just aesthetically pleasing, but functional too?

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20 Design TOOLS & Resources To Improve Usabilitiy & Increase Interaction

Even as consumers bring any number and manner of biases toward the digital renderings of website designers — cultural, personal or otherwise — there are many immediate opportunities that Web businesses (and those that perform work for them) must address, leverage and capitalize upon each and every moment they exist in the virtual world. Design is more than just an everyday affair however. This issue of Website Magazine also looks forward — delving into the current trends and highlighting the most intriguing design tactics, approaches and philosophies shaping the digital experience — not just today, but also those which will shape all online interactions in the future. While you may already be familiar with many of the opportunities, trends and tools you’ll discover below, digital design is continually evolving; those that understand where the Web is headed will be those best positioned for future success.

The Experience OPPORTUNITY It’s simply not prudent to chase every design trend that crosses your path — regardless of how appealing it seems in the moment. The time of Internet professionals like you is actually best spent optimizing the design opportunities existing in the here and now, those which are afforded to each and every competitor on the commercial Web. The chance that each one of us has to improve the virtual experience presented to users often comes down to one major element however — usability. Visitors interact with websites as they have learned to do over time. They don’t usually take the action set before them despite a brand’s best efforts. They tune out the noise and tune in to the things they need to accomplish. Good designers (defined as effective in creating an engaging, meaningful experience) are those that put usability first and everything else second. Let’s explore some of those opportunities and how your company can make the most of every visitor interaction.

There are opportunities designers must capitalize on and trends that must be considered, tested and deployed. Design is fluid in that it’s constantly changing — both the expectations of users and the technologies available. Here are 20 tools (not ranked in any way) that caught Website Magazine editors’ attention in the last few months and are sure to interest you too. To access these resources, visit the new “Big List of Design Tools for 2014” at wsm.co/destools14.

7 Type Scale is a visual calculator for creating typographical scales for Web designs. Enter in the base size and what scale is needed, and it will provide optimal sizes for headers, body and other text. 2 Animatron is a straightforward and powerful tool for building HTML5 animations and interactive content that works within a browser and provides the ability to save projects in the cloud (pictured below). 3 The Ginger Project is a tool ‘Net professionals can use to create an “explainer video” for anything that, well, needs more explanation. Users can include voice overs and it includes tools for creating a beautiful look for digital projects. 4 Duo is a Web browser that lets users view both desktop and mobile versions of responsive websites. It’s available as a bookmarklet or as a standalone Mac program.

5 Adaptive Backgrounds is a jQuery plugin for extracting colors from an image and applying those colors to parent elements, providing an easy way to make backgrounds match website images.

Developing a Visual Hierarchy: There are few things more im-

portant to website design than the role of visual hierarchy — the order in which users perceive what they see. Essentially, what makes users determine the relationship of elements on a page when the most basic design principles can be leveraged? Take a typical content page (a blog post or an article describing a company service or feature) as an example. What would the effect be of using the same font size and weight for page elements with a different business priority? That’s right… confusion. Users won’t have the visual cues they need to understand what it is exactly that is being communicated. Through a clear, visual hierarchy, however,

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continued from page 25

6 Layrs Control is a free Photoshop extension to improve workflow. Users can edit layer names, remove unused effects, delete empty layers and more. 7

Adhering to Web Conventions: Surprises are good… until they

Origami is a Quartz Composer toolkit for interac-

tive design prototyping that doesn’t require any advanced programming knowledge.

8 Social Kit is a Photoshop plugin for creating cover images, profile pictures, ad banners and more for various social platforms, including Facebook, Google, Twitter and YouTube (pictured below). 9 Readymag is a simple Web publishing tool for any kind of digital storytelling, from presentations to rich media magazines and microsites. It’s cross-browser compatible and doesn’t require any coding skills. 10 Magnifier.js is a JavaScript library for creating a magnifying glass effect on your images, offering zoom functionality using the mouse wheel, as well as the ability to display the magnified image within the lens or externally in a wrapper. 11 Pinegrow is an app for Windows and Mac that makes it fast and easy to mock up Web pages with (or without) Bootstrap, multi-page editing and Less. 12 The Titon Toolkit is a collection of UI components for creating responsive, mobile and modern websites. It includes tools for HTML5, CSS3, Sass, JavaScript, jQuery and more.

designers can provide the information website visitors need to complete the actions they want.

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aren’t. Over time, website visitors have come to understand there are certain ways of doing things on the Web. For example, a logo should always link back to a homepage. Users come to expect these conventions and can quickly become frustrated when the website they are visiting simply doesn’t adhere to these common design principles. There are numerous unspoken rules of Web design and Website Magazine’s editors have assembled an “Ultimate List of Web Design Best Practices” available at wsm.co/deslist. Ensuring the website experience designers put forth is functionally sound is an important part of digital success today. But more often than not, users are quickly coming to the realization that brands can do more, and are beginning to expect more engaging experiences.

Current TRENDS in Digital Design Even with your company’s website firing on all its usability cylinders, users’ expectations can leave them wanting something more engaging, interesting and out of the ordinary. Fortunately, for today’s designers, there’s no shortage of trends that can inspire and drive action among users. The three trends addressed below are far from the only ones that demand attention, but are those likely being considered by a majority of digital enterprises in 2014.

INTERACTIVE CONTENT This isn’t your older cousin’s Internet — today’s Web is more dynamic and interactive and, as a result, presents more opportunities to engage an audience. As the drive toward greater interactivity accelerates, designers are discovering methods to make it happen. Data-Driven Documents (or D3) are getting some buzz in this regard. The framework enables designers and developers to build interactive visualizations and animations in the actual browser by using Web standards like HTML, CSS and SVG, as well as modifying an HTML document live in the browser using data, while offloading all the mathematical heavy lifting to a single JavaScript file. The use of D3 is increasingly common and Internet users may have already encountered it on such popular digital destinations as Quartz, the New York Times and the Washington Post. It’s easy to get on board the virtual D3 bandwagon, but it’s not always easy to get started. There are, however, some new charting libraries that make quick work of the opportunity — particularly for brands that have data-driven content to spare. Ember Charts, for example, which is built with Ember.js and D3.js frameworks, includes time series, as well as bar, pie and scatter

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13 Min is a tiny CSS framework, weighing in at less than a single kilobyte. It includes all the basics designers need for things like buttons and typography, and has support all the way back to IE5.5.

14 The Pattern Library is a set of free patterns offered by leading designers. Other designers can use them at will or even submit patterns to share.

15 ScrollMagic is a jQuery plugin for creating scroll interactions, including starting animations at a specific scroll position, synchronizing an animation to scrollbar movement and more.

16 Flaticon is a huge repository of downloadable free vector icons. Also offers a free plugin for using icons directly within Photoshop.

17 Mozilla's Appmaker is a drag-and-drop mobile app creator that works in a designer's browser. It's in pre-alpha release, so expect some bugs, but it looks promising.

18 DiagnostiCSS makes it simple to detect (visually) inaccessible or invalid HTML markup, highlighting inline styles and event attributes, invalid links, empty and deprecated elements and more (pictured below).

19 Raw is an open source Web app that lets users create vector-based visualizations in vector and raster formats to embed on their websites. It’s built on D3.js, and has a simple user interface.

20 UsabilityHub is a suite of usability tools that make it easier to test the effectiveness of website designs.

charts, which are almost impossibly easy to extend, modify and make one’s own (via tooltips, labels, mouse-over effects, etc.). D3 isn’t the perfect fit for those ’Net professionals whose audiences demand greater visual detail though. Photography is of paramount importance to retailers in particular, and the e-commerce industry as a whole is seeking out creative executions to do just that. eBay, for example, just acquired visual fitting room PhiSix, which creates 3-D models of clothing from photos and pattern files. These are now common technologies and play a central role in the completed design of retail websites.

GRID-STYLE LAYOUTS Popularized by Pinterest, there has always been a great deal of structure to social news feeds. Today, Pinterest is far from the only digital destination taking advantage of the grid-style layout, which condenses content into a format that is far easier to scan for end-users. Fortunately, for those willing to give it a try, open source JS libraries exist (e.g. Masonry) that do a lot of the heavy lifting. Despite the increased use of grid-style layouts, there is risk associated with chasing the trend. A recent study from the University of Miami School of Business Administration found that when large assortments of products (many options) are displayed with images rather than text, shoppers are less likely to purchase. When a smaller selection of products is displayed however (e.g. four types of crackers or eight different nail polishes), it makes no difference in the likelihood of purchase — whether or not the visuals or text are used to share the information. Essentially, even though consumers prefer to see products visually, when the choice set is large and presented visually, shoppers will spend less time examining individual options as well as the entire choice set, becoming “more haphazard and less systematic” in the examination (compared to when words are used to describe the choices). “There is a tendency for mobile app designers to use graphics almost exclusively,” said Claudia Townsend, an assistant marketing professor, who conducted the research with Barbara Kahn, of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “This study shows that although images are attractive and fun, when a large product set is shown with images only, there is a tendency among consumers to gloss over them rather than make a purchase.”

MOBILE FIRST & RESPONSIVE Bring up the topic of using frameworks, and you’ll receive a variety of responses from designers. While they allow for rapid prototyping and tend to speed up development overall, the complaint is that the result is similar-looking sites, regardless of how much customization is made.

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Responsive design, of course, is definitely one of the most important industry trends, but the influx of interest has driven many enterprises to rely on frameworks such as Bootstrap. It’s adored by many and loathed by many too, but one thing is for certain — it’s here to stay; particularly as larger brands start adopting the approach. E-commerce solution Miva Merchant, for example, recently released a new bootstrap framework for its Miva Store owners. The framework leverages many of Bootstrap’s best features including homepage sliders, drop-down navigation, modal windows and, what’s more, supports all of Miva’s built-in features — from its “Imagine Machine” to its breadcrumb navigation. “The goal in creating the framework was to provide our development community a foundational framework to build

responsive websites for their clients,” said Brennan Heyde, VP of developer relations at Miva Merchant. “This framework will help our developer community build better websites, faster than ever before.”

EVERYTHING ELSE Web design trends are continually emerging; complete with new approaches to old problems and new technologies to make digital experiences faster, more interactive and engaging. To stay ahead of the competition, explore these trends, discover new tools and learn how to leverage tactics to improve usability and make a meaningful impression on users, by visiting Website Magazine’s Design & Development Digest channel (wsm.co/desdevdigest).

Put Your Design Experience to Use! Website Magazine’s new Internet Rating service has just launched and experienced ‘Net professionals like you are encouraged to participate. InternetRating.com (beta) is a free service for digital media professionals seeking “first-impression” level intelligence about their website page design from other digital users — designers, marketers and the like. Visitors rate the websites of information publishers, service providers and e-commerce merchants, sharing their opinion on the “aesthetic” quality of website submissions. While the impression-level data that is provided to websites being evaluated is somewhat limited in scope, Website Magazine is confident it will be useful nonetheless for those looking to gain a true understanding of how consumers perceive their digital properties.

What are you waiting for? Get started rating websites now at InternetRating.net!

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CONVERSION CORNER

By Tim Ash

Growing Up CRO:

The Conversion Maturity Model We know that infants flop before they crawl, crawl before they walk and walk before they can run. So I find it surprising that so many companies try to start their conversion rate optimization (CRO) process at a sprinter’s pace. Just as you wouldn’t expect an infant to get up on two feet and run a 100-yard dash, organizations must also pass certain developmental milestones on the way to operating an effective and impactful optimization program. The Conversion Maturity Model is a roadmap for achieving this type of organizational growth. It helps companies evaluate how their conversion optimization efforts stack up in terms of knowledge and capabilities, technology and tools, organizational structure, processes and culture. While the Conversion Maturity Model isn’t intended to describe all companies, most will be able to find themselves in one of these four stages, and get clear direction on how to further grow their efforts. So... how mature are you?

Level I — The Flopping Stage At Level I, a company is completely unoptimized. It has only the briefest inkling that CRO exists — flopping around without direction like a newborn baby. Employees of a Level I company will likely have no training at all in conversion rate optimization, and there won’t be any full-time employees assigned to the task. Company executives may be entirely unaware of the existence of CRO, which is reflected in the lack of strategy and budget dedicated to optimization. Level I companies focus most of their marketing efforts on acquiring traffic, building their brand and

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running creative campaigns — traditional techniques that look good on paper, but may not produce measurable results. The website is often cumbersome to update, with static pages or an inflexible content management system, and website analytics are looked at more for rearview reporting than actionable insights. Granular return on investment (ROI) is rarely tracked, marketing budgets are firm and online marketing decisions are often made with no real basis. A Level I company is like an infant — flailing around but uncertain of its results.

Level II — The Crawling Stage A Level II company will have more of an understanding of essential CRO strategies, and will have begun to slowly crawl its way toward maturity. There might be some full-time staff members dedicated to CRO, but they are not likely to be part of an organized CRO team. The executives of a Level II company usually have a basic understanding of the optimization process, and might have tied the compensation of some staff members to online efficiency improvement. In short, a Level II company does know where it needs to get to — walking — but may not be entirely certain how it’s going to get to that point. A Level II company’s marketing focus is generally still on profitable traffic acquisition, but may also include some CRO activities. Online marketing teams have some control of the website, but development or programming requests still get backlogged in the IT department. Like a toddler, the drive and intention is there, but the coordination isn’t. Companies in the crawling stage are usually inconsistent in their use of diagnostic tools, although split-testing may be used sporadically. Yet even with an awareness of CRO, creative and/or

branding changes are commonly made to the website without measuring their impact. There is a culture of measurement throughout the Web analytics and traffic generation teams of the company, but the branding and creative teams haven't embraced it.

Level III — The Walking Stage Level III, the walking stage, represents an intermediate level of conversion maturity, marked by a dedicated CRO team with formal training and expertise in website optimization, measurement, data analysis and conversion-centric design. Company executives are extremely knowledgeable about CRO, and the marketing focus at this level is on both traffic acquisition and conversion. In Level III companies, the website strategy and maintenance is under the control of marketing (not IT), aided by a flexible content management system, which allows for rapid deployment of tests, accurate and efficient data collection and continuous improvement. At this walking stage, diagnostic tools are embraced company-wide and testing tools will be used consistently by some teams. Key metrics are reported with near-real-time dashboards, the ROI of marketing efforts is measured, and marketing budgets are flexible and agile. At the walking stage of the Conversion Maturity Model, the Web analytics and traffic acquisition teams have a strong culture of measurement; and creative teams will have some understanding of conversion-centric design that can be measured for effectiveness. Overall, a Level III company has a strong and steady CRO practice — but there’s still room for improvement.

Like a marathon runner, a Level IV company knows how to efficiently utilize all of its resources to create and sustain momentum over the long haul. The marketing focus is not on traffic generation but instead on increasing profits throughout the lifetime of the consumer. Marketing is based on high-impact CRO activities, with consistent testing, data collection and analysis being handled through automated processes. Companies operating at Level IV have integrated their Web analytic data with their customer relationship management solutions (CRMs) and marketing automation systems. Robust technology platforms link all of the company’s data, and every marketing decision is driven by a clear understanding of that data. These are the companies performing predictive analysis, real-time content delivery, behavioral targeting and automatic deployment of winning tests in a continuous cycle of conversion optimization.

Identify where your company is in the Conversion Maturity Model and start making a plan to get to the next stage.

Where are you on the growth chart? Just as a baby has an innate urge to get up and move around, the most successful companies are those that have the desire, drive and dedication to grow into a mature organization focused on maximizing profits with streamlined efficiency. Identify where your company is in the Conversion Maturity Model and start making a plan to get to the next stage. You can’t flop or crawl your way to future success, but by pinpointing your current level of conversion maturity, you can more thoughtfully approach your next level of growth.

Level IV — The Running Stage Walking is fine, and certainly gets you where you’re going — eventually. But why walk when you can run? Level IV companies have learned throughout every growth stage of their optimization program and have become truly mature and wise. They have a dedicated CRO team that consists of full-time CRO employees that support company-wide strategies. CRO team members are constantly trained in new technologies and methods, and the entire company is aligned on conversion strategies. In Level IV companies, conversion rate optimization has become a part of the company culture.

Tim Ash is the CEO of SiteTuners, Chair of Conversion Conference and bestselling author of Landing Page Optimization.

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EMAIL EXPERIENCE

By Allison Howen, Associate Editor

DIVING DEEP INTO

MOBILE EMAIL MARKETING DATA

By the end of 2014, the number of mobile-connected devices is expected to exceed the number of people on earth, which means that this emerging channel is bursting with opportunities for marketers. Since email still reigns king of digital marketing, the first priority on every marketer’s mobile checklist should be responsive email design. In fact, more than half of email messages are now opened on mobile devices and studies show subscribers are quick to delete messages that aren’t optimized for the small screen. Discover exactly how mobile is impacting email campaigns and learn how quickly marketers are adapting to the demand, by diving deep into key mobile email data. Slow to Adopt Marketers have been hesitant to embrace mobile, but the adoption of responsive design for email campaigns more than doubled in 2013 when compared to 2012, according to data from a 2013 email market study by Experian Marketing Services. This

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stat, however, is equally encouraging as it is discouraging, as only 33 percent of the study’s respondents admitted to using responsive design in 2013. Mobile Open Rates Movable Ink’s “U.S. Consumers Device Preference Report” reveals that 65 percent of emails were opened on either a smartphone or tablet device in Q4 2013, which is a slight increase from 61 percent in the previous quarter. Click-Through Rates Experian’s “Q2 2013 Email Benchmark Study” found subscribers who only open email messages on mobile devices made up 40 percent of unique clicks. Comparatively, subscribers who only open messages on desktops made up just 19 percent of unique clicks. Tablet Takeover Smartphones aren’t the only mobile device subscribers are leveraging to check their inboxes, as Movable Ink reports that more than 16 percent of opens actually happened on a tablet in Q4 2013, which is a minor increase from 15 percent in Q3.

Apple Dominates Movable Ink also found that iPhones and iPads accounted for half of total email opens in both the third and fourth quarter of 2013. Moreover, the data shows that 38 percent of iPhone users spent 15 seconds or more viewing each message they opened. Similarly, Android devices represented 14 percent of email opens in Q4, while 35 percent of Android smartphone users spent 15 seconds or more viewing email messages. Quick to Delete Consumers aren’t amused by email messages that aren’t formatted for their smartphones and tablets, with a 2013 study from Constant Contact and Chadwick Martin Bailey revealing that 80 percent of smartphone owners say it is “extremely important” to be able to read emails on their mobile devices. More importantly, 75 percent claim that they are “highly likely” to delete an email if they can’t read it on their smartphone.

5 QUICK TIPS: The journey to success within the mobile inbox doesn’t come without challenges. Check out a few tips that can help you win with subscribers from the beginning: 1. CTAs — Mobile calls-to-action (CTAs) should be approximately 44x44 pixels for easy navigation, according to GetResponse. Keep in mind that including extra space around CTAs can make clicking easier for the subscriber. 2. Copy — Text shouldn’t only be shorter and more concise for mobile subscribers, but it should also be large enough to read. GetResponse suggests using 14 px for non-headline copy and 22 px for headlines. 3. Landing Pages — Don’t forget to link to mobilefriendly landing pages so subscribers can continue their journey to conversion without interruptions. 4. Subject Lines — Keep subject lines short, as most mobile devices only display the first 5-6 words. Plus, recent Retention Science data found that subject lines that contain less than 10 words tend to perform better. 5. Test — Just like any other digital initiative, it is important to test responsive campaigns to make sure the message displays correctly before hitting send to your subscriber list. Once you hit send, don’t forget to track the results, so you can compare how your responsive emails stack up against previous campaigns.

A P R I L 2014

A F F I L I AT E

INSIDER

By Matt Swan, Client Strategist at Affiliate Window

ing with retailers on a number of channels (e.g. social and search), sellers must adopt a single customer view, as it allows them to understand how a consumer’s online behavior translates to how he or she interacts with a brand offline. A price-conscious online consumer, for example, is likely to be tempted in-store when offered a discount through another marketing channel. Case in point, mobile commerce and performance marketing are key drivers in enhancing the concept of omnichannel retailing, as they prove to be effective in breaking down the barriers by allowing consumers to purchase in their preferred way.

The Omnichannel Breakthrough As consumer behavior evolves and new technologies emerge, the term “omnichannel” will be used increasingly within the retail environment. While a number of advertisers have already successfully rolled out multichannel strategies, the need to place customers at the heart of a digital initiative has gained even greater importance. Regardless of how customers interact with retailers in the future, shoppers need to be provided what they want and when they want it now — whether online, via mobile or in-store. Retailers that take a more integrated approach will work in harmony to generate the sale and provide a more engaging overall experience for their customers.

How to Break Through Take your performance marketing initiatives to the next level by supplementing your affiliate network with one of the top five management solutions at

wsm.co/5affiliatemgt.

A Single Customer View There has long been interest among retailers in adopting a unified and customer-centric approach to their marketing and sales. “Click and collect,” “buy online and return in store” and even offering complimentary in-store Wi-Fi are examples of digital sellers attempting to create a positive brand experience by providing potential customers with more convenient purchasing options. With today’s consumers having access to multiple devices (e.g. desktop and mobile) and engag-

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Omnichannel in Action Retailers, for example, could create a discount code and make it available across multiple channels — print, online and via mobile coupons. The results in one of our own internal test cases were extremely impressive, with the performance channel generating 43 percent of the total sales. What’s more, the majority of coupons were redeemed in-store and 70 percent of the transactions were made by new customers. Would similar performance be achieved if only the social channel was leveraged? An increasing number of retailers are offering free in-store Wi-Fi, which is adding to the shopping experience. Advertisers should embrace the benefits of consumers being connected while at brick-and-mortar locations rather than fearing the impact of showrooming. While online and in-store, a potential customer would be able to read product reviews, check prices and, if the product is not instock, order it immediately through his or her smartphone to either have it delivered or scheduled for in-store pickup, whichever is more convenient for the individual. Retailers can also make use of demonstration videos by leveraging QR codes to provide more product information. By asking for email addresses in order to access in-store Wi-Fi, retailers are able to create an extensive list of prospects. Additionally, they will be able to analyze the products the user is viewing and personalize marketing messages to the individual shopper. Omnichannel Evolution Retailers have been relatively quick to launch multichannel strategies, but adopting a single customer view and embracing an omnichannel approach is key to future success. Future technological developments will only enhance this further.

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S O F T WA R E E V E RY W H E R E

By Scott McDonald

JOIN THE DIGITAL CLUB:

We’re All in the Software Business Now By 2020, customers will manage 85 percent of their relationship with a company without actually talking to a human (Gartner). Whether you embrace Gartner’s forecast or not, the trend is undeniable. Enterprises are increasingly asking their customers, employees and partners to go online to do just about everything: request services, submit and pay invoices, manage projects, collaborate, schedule, monitor, update and administer. This has propelled the formerly “back-office” world of corporate applications, tools and utilities into an increasingly front-line role, requiring organizations to change the way they think about the design of (and interaction with) Web experiences.

The Business Necessity of Great Experiences

Project Management Solutions for Every Digital Enterprise Discover what Webbased tool is right for your business at wsm.co/pmgmt2014. In the meantime, check out Wrike (see image), which offers intuitive interface workload management features, real-time activity streams, time tracking and more.

According to a growing body of data, firms that invest in their customer experiences not only grow faster than their competitors, but also maintain premium pricing, navigate business downturns better and produce greater value for shareholders. While this customer experience awakening is rapidly transforming the consumer-facing Web, the worlds of business to business and enterprise software remain stubbornly resistant to its benefits. The business cost of bad software experiences can be substantial, however, and include lower productivity, more calls to technical support, and mounting frustration for clients and partners. It will only get more costly over time, as an ever-growing share of the workday involves logging in to these applications in order to get things done. The expectations of today’s users are being set on the Web by customer-obsessed firms like Amazon, Google, Netflix, Facebook and Apple. Like it or not, these experiences are the new benchmarks for your enterprise software. Here is what your enterprise can do about it right now:

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• Adjust your priorities. Your enterprise applications are probably in the state they’re in because they fall down the priority list every year in favor of sales and marketing projects, or because you’ve held them to a lower standard. There is only one standard now. • Audit your current applications to find areas for improvement. Catalog changes and prioritize them based on customer exposure and business impact. • Put users first. This means getting to know your audience through a combination of interviews, surveys, user testing, etc. • Understand your place in people’s lives. Be realistic. Once you understand the discrete and limited role many of your applications play in a customer’s workday, you can design the “just-right” experience. • Take your design cues from leading consumer experiences rather than software vendors. How will you know when you are getting it right? When your experiences are so good that people prefer using them to what they are doing now. In a world where business is increasingly conducted online, firms that invest in superior, consistent and thoughtfully designed customer experiences, across every touchpoint and interaction, will progressively be the winners. You may not have planned to be in the Web software business, but we are all in it now. Compete accordingly.

Scott McDonald is co-founder and managing director of Modus Associates, a digital strategy and design consultancy based in New York City.

INTERNET

A DV E RT I S I N G

The Digital Evolution of

Programmatic Media Buying By Nicholas Galante

Buying “media” has grown tremendously in the past few years. As the ecosystem continues to expand, systems are becoming even more complex and difficult to understand for both advertisers and agencies. In the not-so-distant past, media purchasing would take place between buyer and publisher until ad networks came on scene, opening the virtual floodgates to mass inventory buying. Once marketers learned they could purchase bulk inventory through aggregators — real-time ad exchanges entered the arena, acting much like the financial markets, trading remnant impressions that publishers couldn’t sell directly through inhouse sales teams. This has ultimately led to automated or programmatic media buying — the large-scale automation of inventory purchasing using real-time systems, machine-based transactions and algorithmic intelligence.

So why exactly, is programmatic so effective? Context: On any device or any channel, programmatic buying connects advertisers to the right audiences in real-time. Targeting capabilities have seen sizable improvements in the digital realm and with the introduction of the pixel — agencies and advertisers are now able to gather concrete data points about the consumer viewing a Web page. From geographic location to browser and device information, we can now set targeting criteria at the microscopic level. With programmatic, marketers now have the ability to deliver campaigns to hyper-targeted audience segments with greater efficiency and ease, at scale. Technology: The fundamental currently driving this growth is technology. By leveraging data, analytics and engagement, we can now paint a clearer consumer picture than ever before. With the quantum leaps gained in optimization, targeting and user modeling, programmatic enables

brands to manage their paid media investments more optimally. Transparency: We are given true visibility into selected inventory: exchange, site and placement data sets for any given campaign. Top brands can dive head first into any programmatic initiative with the confidence of knowing brand safety remains intact. Quality: Premium versus remnant? Above versus below the fold? Viewed versus served? Publishers that initially balked at the prospect of offering their inventory through real-time bidding (RTB), with the often-misguided belief that their margins would be cut in half, are now setting up private exchanges to sell their unsold inventory directly. As publishers increase their amount of qualitative ad space through programmatic means, the line between remnant and premium inventory is fading. And with recent initiatives, we now have the ability to bid only on inventory viewable to the consumer, layering on the value add. With programmatic, advertisers have granular access to every conceivable metric needed to generate the highest value. Advantage Programmatic: The technologi-

cal advancements, control and cost efficiency gained through programmatic buying will play a key role in shaping digital advertising’s future. Whether for branding or direct response, leveraging the power of data to inform buying decisions will increase exponentially. Advertisers now have the ability to reach and engage target audiences at every point in the funnel, on every device, with online and offline media purchased through this new ecosystem. Nicholas Galante is senior yield analyst at Direct Agents, a full-service digital marketing agency specializing in customer acquisition. A P R I L 2014

Don’t Be Left Behind! Discover the companies that will get your brand programmatic now at wsm.co/programmaticasap.

W E B H O S T I N G PA N E L

By Amberly Dressler, Managing Editor (A screenshot of the Cedexis Radar performance product.)

WEB PERFORMANCE PROFILE:

CEDEXIS The cloud. Private data centers. Global delivery networks.

Brands have many choices when it comes to where they should put their infrastructure. The considerations that need to be made can be both timeconsuming and overwhelming. In this month’s Hosting Panel article, Website Magazine profiles Cedexis, more specifically, its Radar community. For the unfamiliar, Cedexis provides independent performance benchmarking and optimization across clouds, data centers and content delivery networks (CDNs). A key component of Cedexis is its Radar community, which is a crowd-source collaboration that helps participating businesses pick the best infrastructure for their companies based on actual data. In other words, it’s a way to evaluate different services without actually deploying them, according to Cedexis Chief Marketing Officer Rob Malnati. Cedexis Radar can be leveraged in a variety of ways, but one way to do so (without actually signing up for a free account) is to view its demonstrate, which runs two tests — one in the cloud (with services like Rackspace, Windows Azure and more) and one with global delivery networks (like Akamai, Highwinds and more). With these tests, the user’s browser measures the performance of several platforms as seen from their current networks. Brands looking to go a step further in their performance evaluation, can sign up for the Radar community and get a tag to place the HTML in the pages they wish to measure. This allows users to compare their private data centers, for example, with how their Web pages would perform using another source for hosting that same content. To explain this idea further, let’s say a Web user visits Nissan.com (a Cedexis client). They automatically, without knowing it, download JavaScript as part of the Web page. If Nissan has the Radar tag embedded in their site, they would be able to collect data on the enduser experience, or what the experience could look like, with other services besides the one they currently use (in this case, Rackspace). This answers the question, “Where should I put my infrastructure.” Cedexis, of course, has paid services, such as its OpenMix product, which leverages Radar data, and other information like costs and datacenter metrics, to load balance end-users across locations, according to Malnati. Services like Cedexis enable businesses to focus on the end-user experience, rather than infrastructure, which can increase key performance indicators.

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Hosting in the News The Leading Malware Hosting Nation Might Actually Surprise You It’s not China or Russia; managed security service provider (MSSP) Solutionary is reporting that the United States is actually the leading malware hosting nation with 44 percent of all malware hosted domestically. Read more at wsm.co/malwarenation Executing Multi-CDN Strategies Content delivery network MaxCDN has announced an integration with Cedexis Fusion, which should make it easier for companies implementing multi-CDN strategies. Read more at wsm.co/multicdn Rackspace Cozies Up to Digital Marketers Rackspace may have heard e-commerce platforms, content management systems and mobile platforms are among the top technology investment priorities for e-business professionals in the coming year, because it’s launching a new practice focusing on digital marketing infrastructure and app hosting needs. Read more at wsm.co/apphosting

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