E-dreamz Company Blog

From my last post we know that eCommerce is growing at a fairly rapid pace. The industry is expanding and branching out across the internet. The newest buzz in the industry is social shopping. A company called Curebit is even developing a social ecommerce platform.  I wanted to create a post explaining social shopping is not that new. There are so many other opportunities besides Facebook and Twitter that are often forgotten every day.

In my opinion social commerce has been around since before I hit the internet (sometime in ’97). You might say – “No Way!! Social networks didn’t even exist then!” Then I would say you are 100% wrong – Social networks started their life as Bulletin Boards and Newgroups. Did we post pictures of our kids or what we ate for lunch? No, but we talked and in that talking there was advertising. At that time there were no real affordable platforms or hosting to have eCommerce so transactions were typically handled directly thru Checks or COD. PayPal came out in late 1998 and really revolutionized the ability to pay online – paving the way for future eCommerce, but that is another blog post.

Now Newsgroups are dead for most of us as it’s just the pirates and the old school guys left. So what took its place and still reigns as champion? Forums. A forum exists for every subject and typically contains the most diehard dedicated user base. Not only do these people participate in whatever the forums niche is.. they also spend their time online talking about it. You can go directly to the user base that can have serious influence on your company.

Successfully sponsoring a forum and becoming an authority can be challenging. Forum users have cliques and groups just like any social group of people.  Here are a few ways to help win these users over:

Sponsorship – Contact the forum owner and see what they offer. I always ask for a ‘Sponsored Account’ that gets branded under the company’s name. This allows me to show my support and directly interact with the user base. Getting the forum owner’s permission can be a blessing in helping achieve this goal. 

·Participate – Help our users, provide DIY’s, comment in their threads. Basically be a contributing member of the forum.

·Discounts – Provide a special forum only promo code. Example: 10% off anything they buy just because they are a member of the forum.

·Give Aways – Create contests; hook up members with free swag or products, etc. Give an influencer something inexpensive, but in an unexpected manner and you’ll have a promoter on your side forever.

·Don’t overly self-promote – A given in marketing, but make sure you don’t drop a link to your site in every post and have it in Font size 999 in your signature

What can you expect if you win over a forum? Here are just a few examples of what I have helped companies achieve in the past:

·True Brand Evangelists – After a few months of sponsoring our forum we noticed links and traffic coming from all different forums on the web. Users had taken our message and discounts and continued passing it along to their other circles. We could follow this because of the usernames often being the same across the forums. We would then sponsor or join in on that forum – continuing the expansion.

·ROI – If you select the correct forum then you will get orders. Forum users spend money especially when someone who supports them or the forum they post on. Often times companies I helped out were not the cheapest out there and the users knew this. Even with that fact the companies I assisted still received the order. If anyone mentioned our competitors they were rapidly shunned and told to support the company which often times they did. Reading a thread where a user cancels their order with the competition and then places an order on your site is quite amazing.  Just these direct orders often paid for the campaigns 10x over.

·Links – The mystical unicorn that everyone hates to do. The forum you sponsor should provide you and link and the users will often post links to your site. Sometimes they even posted links to their own personal blogs or website.  In one instance I happened to help a forum member who turned out to be a writer on Gizmodo. You can guess that we got some hefty coverage and links from there on out from Gizmodo.

Overall forums are one unique place on the internet where you can find your consumer and peers. Support, expand, and grow your niche using and supporting forums!

Have you targeted any other communities or groups online with success? Drop me a comment below.

SEO tools are starting to pop up everywhere! Our industry is really starting to get the tools we have needed for some time. I'm always on the lookout for something to make my day a little easier or to show me something new. Here are two I discovered this week:

1. Majestic Site Explorer - Majestic has always been my go to place when looking at how websites acquire backlinks over a specific time. Now it is going to replace my old rusty Yahoo Site Explorer. Their backlink counts are

staggering vs. open site explorer and YSE - literally displaying 4x as much on majority of sites I check. The reports are simple to read, categorize the links, and even throw in when they were discovered! The reports even fit on an A4 piece of paper which makes adding it into a client’s report that much simpler. Little details like that in tools make me want to use them even more. Currently the tool says it’s in beta, but seems pretty flawless to me.

2. Paditrack - I literally stumbled on this tool when I was logging into Analytics. I noticed Google now has an Application Gallery which showcases free and paid add on’s for Analytics. Paidtrack sounded too good to be true - historic, clean, and easy to use funnels?! Funnels are one of the biggest assets I have used in Analytics, but they take too much time to setup, wait for data, etc. Also they do not display very well so clients have a hard time understanding them. Paidtrack changes this! You easily sign up, connect your

analytics, throw a few URL's in and WAMMO. You have a beautiful easy to read funnel that nearly anyone could comprehend. It bases it on your previous data so no more waiting for data! Impressive stuff.

Have any tips for me on software? Drop me a comment below - I'm always up for something new.

Our favorite SEO Software company SEOMoz just recently published my infographic and short blog on named "Conversion Rates Broken Down by Browser."  I created the infographic to help people in the industry think outside of the box and to remember those poor IE7 users. Internet Explorer is a powerhouse in conversion and overall usage still to this day.

Here is a sneak peak at the infographic:

Click to Enlarge

Head on over to the SEOmoz post to get the full scoop and leave a comment - Conversion Rates Broken Down by Browser

Last year on March 25^th Google released a marketing ability called Retargeting to all Adwords accounts. I had read thru the grape vine of blogs that the beta was really successful for many advertisers who had early access. I remember seeing my retargeted ad from Zappos – it was terrible, but I saw the potential. This was a tool I’d really like to offer and push out to my clients.

At first clients and even consumers were very reluctant about how the technology worked. Google would be tracking them around the web??? Of course they’ve been tracking us since the start, but this gave some ‘physical’ presence that you were being tracked. After explaining it in more detail to the clients majority jumped on board. Nearly a year later the results have been phenomenal in multiple ways.

The first and most mentioned to me is smaller brands customers start thinking they are bigger then what they really are.  When those customers browsed to sites like Huffington Post, Wall Street Journal, and many other highly reputable websites they saw advertisements for a brand that typically couldn’t afford or even think of a Media Buy. This created instant trust and branding directly into the customer. If ‘Joe’s Apple Shears’ can advertise on they must be doing something big, right? This could potentially squash any second guesses in the customers head and get them directly to convert.

Secondly internal employees themselves start get retargeted due to the fact they visit their brand’s website and get stuck on that list. When your CEO is sipping his or her daily cup of coffee and reading the NYtimes.com and he spots his own brand glowing in the advertisement section – that’s big. Someone in marketing almost gets a raise until we explain it’s personalized to him or her. Even after the excitement of thinking everyone sees it on the site dies down there is still a lasting impression knowing that potential customers are seeing the same thing they just saw.

Another benefit is the cost. Since everything runs on the content network and typically has a lower CTR and super high impressions you don’t spend a ton. I have multiple clients with 500,000+ banner impressions via retargeting at a fraction of what a media buy would cost. Plus you know the potential consumer viewing the ad has to be somewhat targeted due to the fact they visited the clients site.

Here are some simple tips I have acquired since launch:               

1.       Place a negative on adsenseformobileapps.com(for now) – Very few people click mobile ads on purpose currently. As technology and usability grows this will change. Lifehacker had a recent public poll supporting this – Do You Ever Click On Mobile Ads On Purpose?

2.       Make multiple lists. Customer visits the Ceramic Yahtzu 1000 Apple Shear product page? Make a banner/ad specific to that product. Use your sales data/analytics to start a priority list of products or pages to make unique ads for. With this unique ad the potential customer is more likely to click and convert. Higher CTR=more impressions and conversion=money in the clients pocket.

3.       Place converting customers on a negative list – Obvious here, but often forgotten. If you sell to a customer every 5^th year then there’s no reason to keep showing them your ad. There are exceptions to this – if you’re doing it for branding or have a consumable product you might potentially keep rolling.

4.       Target specific sites – Google’s Managed placements is pretty detailed now. It shows you a rounded amount of impressions, what ads the site accepts etc, the category of the site, etc.

5.       Watch out for sites with super high CTR – typically these have ads placed too close to navigation controls or are just cheating the system. No need to give them $$ and ruin the customers experience by having them accidently click an ad.

6.       Be creative! – Remarketing itself is a very unique way for us to market. Make it fun, snazzy, and unique!  No one likes boring ads.

Google Adwords has many ways to match keywords to search phrases which work really well. These basic methods include exact match, to phrase, and broad match. Each has its place and can be selected by the user in charge of the account. You can also negative (or not display) keywords in this same fashion.

Now there’s a new kid on the block called “Session-Match” which falls under the broad match category. This is quite the annoying feature which you cannot control or opt out of. Session-Match doesn’t care about the negative you have in place nor if it’s a relevant search phrase. I have a client that has a very broad with randomly searched phrase so I am forced into using Broad match with some heavy negative (5,000+.)

The client now continuously gets hits with clicks from phrases I have exact and phrase negative out.

Example of how this might work*:

User searches “Safari Tours” which is an exact match I might target.

User then searches “Safari Tour Jobs” which is an phrase negative I have in place with “jobs” because this person is not a potential client, but someone either doing research or looking for a job.

Since I have a negative in place it should not display, but good ole Session-Match matches the user based on his or her previous search. This redisplayed the ad and gives them a chance to click. Money down the drain for the advertiser!

A simple Google search shows many people with complaints on this dating back to last year. Very surprised they have not implemented some kind of opt out or removal list. All of my clients would be first in line.

Note: I don’t have a client who does Safari tours as that is just a made up example, but it would be cool if I did have one. Any safari tour companies need some PPC help!?