Ecommerce Blog

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Original post by Om Malik

Before we get going with the link list, I want to announce the replay of our paid search webinar with Ryan Gibson of the Rimm-Kaufman Group is now available. You can also catch up with all of our webinars (we’ve got a full year’s worth!) in our ecommerce webinar archive.

I also want to remind you of a few upcoming webinars so pull out your calendars:

Tuesday, May 20: How to Use Blogging and Email to Create Leads and Delight Customers with Compendium Blogware, the Email Experience Council and Habeas.

Thursday, May 29: Web Personalization: Putting the “Cha-Ching” Before and After the Check-Out presented by Sitebrand and ZAAZ.

Thursday, June 19: 9 Ecommerce Innovations: What’s Now & What’s Next presented by our own VP of Innovation, Jason Billingsley who will be sharing some “ridiculously cool stuff” on the ecommerce horizon.

We’ll kick off this week’s roundup with “I’m Gonna Git You Spamma!” Via eROI Interactive.

Shut yo’ mouth!

• We touched upon keyword research and its importance in yesterday’s webinar. Christine Churchill shares Eight Keyword Research Mistakes that Are Costing You Money if you’re hungry for more keyword research wisdom>.

• Can blogs help your SEO? And how do you make sure you’re getting the most SEO value out of your blog? Rand Fishkin explains in video-form with Blogging for Higher Rankings.

  In related news, 57% of women believe blogs influence their purchase decisions. Wow, I’m such a stereotype - I read a post on Search Engine People last night and immediately bought a laptop cooling pad. PS, neither of us are affiliates. It’s just a great product idea and costs about $20.

• If I say “duplicate content!” and you say “huh?”, this is a great introduction to what duplicate content is, courtesy of Eric Enge.

• Pop quiz: What’s the difference between exit rate and bounce rate? Mae Allam from the Invesp blog gives a good explanation.

• The title says it all: 8 Best Kept Secrets to Fine Tuning Your E-mail Marketing Campaigns from Invesp conversion expert Khalid Hajsaleh.

• We love catching Google in the act of testing its visuals. Someone at iCrossing noticed Google testing green in its search results, and Search Engine Land also posted screenshots of Google’s green.

• Curious on what the payoff of “Digg-baiting” is? SocialAlerter shares the results of its own little study on how many links Digg can get you. By tracking Yahoo backlinks for over 1000 stories that “went hot” on Digg for 30 days, the average number of links was 1167! Granted, many of these links will come from low-quality scrapers and splogs but that’s still an impressive number.

• The Top 25 Facebook Pages include the usual supsects - Barack, Hillary, Justin Timberlake… but there are some brands mixed with the bands. Kudos to Victoria’s Secret Pink, Apple Students and Nutella for attracting a Facebook following.

9 Ecommerce Innovations: What’s Now &amp What’s Next
Free webinar: June 19th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Jason Billingsley, VP Innovation, Elastic Path Software
Register to Attend

Original post by Linda Bustos

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Original post by Alistair Croll

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Original post by Jason Harris

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Original post by Jason Harris

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Original post by Jason Harris

If you’re new to Get Elastic, every Friday we round up some great finds from the blogosphere to keep your eyes busy until Monday. Enjoy this week’s picks!

• Justin Palmer captures 3 innovative approaches to site navigation: solution-based, filter-based and image-based.

• James Bunzol shows an example of how Amazon’s Lightning Deals create Jellyfish-like urgency. I’m surprised we don’t see other retailers experimenting with this type of entertainment shopping.

• Aaron Wall goes into painstaking detail on SEO with What is a #1 Google Ranking Worth? This article actually has 9 sections, here’s a preview of what he covered:

* An Example of Applying This Data to a Live Business Scenario
* Google Rankings Can Make or Break a Business
* Appreciating Google’s Market Domination
* Establish a Baseline Keyword Value
* Typical Click Distribution Profiles
* Factors Modifying Click Distribution
* Tapping the Keyword Tail
* Improving Monetization via Scale
* Improve Your SEO Strategy Today

Grab a coffee and a notepad for this one.

• For you legal-eagles or controversy buffs (or PR folks, reputation managers and marketers) Jeremiah Owyang has an interesting commentary on the current brouhaha over a socially-conscious t-shirt designer and Louis Vuitton handbags.

  

  26 year old Nadia Plesner faces legal action by Louis Vuitton for using their product’s likeness in an anti-genocide awareness campaign. The image reflects Plesner’s concern that Paris Hilton’s accessories are more newsworthy than the suffering of our fellow man in Darfur. Since Louis Vuitton doesn’t really have anything to do with the situation, it feels this “brand-jacking” must be countered.

  Owyang outlines four options LV has in dealing with this problem, and has solicited his Twitter followers to weigh in with their opinions. Interesting stuff.

• Are you puzzled on how to convince upper level management to pay attention to social media marketing? Not sure how to approach it? Jeremiah Owyang has a nice roundup of his own tips in How Do I Talk To My Executives About Social Media?

• Forgive my Jeremiah Owyang fangirl-ness this week, but this is also interesting: A roundup of brands that got “punked” by social media.

• All you design-types will appreciate this gallery of Mother’s Day home pages courtesy of Ed Henrich. Oh, and if you haven’t gotten a gift for Mom yet, you might check out these sites for some ideas.

The Key to PPC for Online Retailers
Free webinar: May 15th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Ryan Gibson, Director of Marketing, The Rimm-Kaufman Group
Register to Attend

Original post by Linda Bustos

As most of you are probably aware today marks the day that Google implements it’s new trademark policy on AdWords. Read all about it here. Having a quick browse around the web today I haven’t really seen any affiliates bidding on previously trademarked terms - the recent glut of emails with revised ppc terms from merchants has seen to that.

There is one exception however and that is every affiliate’s favourite merchant, Next Retail.

Here are the first 3 results that I saw when I searched Google for the term “Next” today May 5th 2008.

As you can see there are now 3 affiliates appearing for the term, all with thin landing pages that have no other purpose than to drop an affiliate cookie and push the visitor to the official Next website.

Now I could be wrong - but I don’t think I am - but before today Next had a pretty tight control of affiliate ads on Google. In other words they didn’t allow anyone to bid on Next trademark terms. Here’s the relevant bit from the affiliate terms and conditions:

Brand and brand generic bidding is not permitted on any search engine. This includes, but not limited to, next, next directory and any related misspellings. To avoid accidental broad matching we recommend you set next brand terms as a negative match in your search campaigns.

Affiliates are not permitted to use next.co.uk or any of its extensions as a display URL in PPC ads. The terms Next and Next Directory may be incorporated within your url, for example, next.sitename.com or sitename.com/next.

Affiliates must also not bid on competitor terms or misspellings.

Affiliates found to be breaking terms and conditions may have all commissions generated from the activity reversed.

This was backed up when iLevel held a teleconference in early April to respond to the heavy criticism the affiliate programme has received. The following is an extract from the minutes that were circulated to the teleconference attendees in late April.

Affiliate brand bidding

• Next do not currently allow affiliate as it is currently not perceived as adding incremental value.

• Next’s affiliate brand bidding strategy is being reviewed given Google’s recent trademark policy changes.

• If, after 5th May it is determined that affiliate brand bidding is necessary a full RFP will be implemented.

The important thing to take from these minutes is the last bullet point where it states that if, after the 5th May, (i.e. today) it is determined that affiliate brand bidding is necessary a full RFP will be implemented.

So it would seem there are 2 scenarios that could be possible here.

1. The 3 affiliates that have put up landing pages and are bidding on the Next terms are all breaking the terms and conditions and will have their commissions reversed. Naughty.

2. iLevel have changed their mind and already determined before 5th May that brand name bidding from affiliates is necessary. However if this is the case then where is the RFP that was promised from the meeting minutes? I haven’t seen one and there wasn’t one published on any of the affiliate forums.

What do people think?

What I’m listening to right now: Novel – “Solo”

Post from: Affiliate Marketing Blog Here.org.uk

Next - do you allow affiliates to brand name bid or not?

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Original post by Kieron

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Original post by Om Malik

It’s the end of the week, but the beginning of another month. And you know what that means - another free ecommerce webinar is coming up. This month we’re honored to have search marketing expert and Director of Marketing for the Rimm-Kaufman Group, Ryan Gibson sharing his wisdom with us. Save the date - May 15th, 9am PST, 12pm EST. Discover the Key to PPC for Online Retailers.

Email marketers will also want to join Chad White from the Email Experience Council, Compendium Blogware and Habeas for a free webinar on blogging and email. Learn to take advantage of the “cost-effective combination of blogging, email and search to help marketing, operations and sales teams to acquire, engage, transact with and retain customers.”

Alright, link time!

• Jim Bunzol shares an example of a cart recovery email (or remarketing, as he calls it) from Circuit City. Nice find. What I like about CC’s approach is it’s very customer service oriented. These are not the exact words, but the angle is: “We noticed you were interested in some things (added to cart) and then you took off. No problem, we’re saving them in your cart for you if you’d like to come back and buy them later. If you need to consult the experts, here’s a link to our discussion forums where you can get help.” Rather than, “Hey you, get back here and buy now! We’ve been watching you and know where you’re inbox is!”

(more…)

The Key to PPC for Online Retailers
Free webinar: May 15th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Ryan Gibson, Director of Marketing, The Rimm-Kaufman Group
Register to Attend

Original post by Linda Bustos

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Original post by Stacey Higginbotham

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Original post by Stacey Higginbotham

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Original post by Stacey Higginbotham

Well here we are with another link roundup to keep you glued to your monitors all weekend. You know, I hardly feel like I should ever be linking to these blogs at all from Blogger’s Digest. Because you should be subscribed to it and getting the goods the day they’re published, not waiting for Friday! Nevertheless, I will continue to include them for the benefit of our new subscribers and because I want Google to know how great this content is.

• The toughest part is choosing one or two articles from GrokDotCom to link to. But this week I’ve chosen “How to Increase Your Cart Abandonment Rate.” I’ll spoil the ending for you - tease your customer with low or reasonable prices and save the “sticker shock” for checkout.

• How can personalization improve your ROI on PPC? Get the 411 from Sitebrand with Smart, Not More Keyword Spend Boosts Conversion and the companion case study (warning: link is PDF file).

• Ayat Shukairy caught a whiff of a bad search scent when searching for Dora the Explorer merchandise. Follow your nose to some definite search marketing and landing page don’ts with My Search Smells Fishy. PS, subscribe to the Invesp blog’s feed, you’ll get great content on a regular basis and a freebie you’ll really Digg.

• Attention Wordpressers! Many of us have been hacked recently (Get Elastic has suffered twice) - here are two great articles on how to avoid being hacked and how to recover, from Search Engine People and Daily Blog Tips.

• Justing Palmer interviews Aaron Wall, who literally wrote the book on SEO about what else? Ecommerce SEO.

• The SEOmozzers struck it Digg with Google Search Results Missing from One Box - a hilarious what-if of search results Google should really consider.

The Key to PPC for Online Retailers
Free webinar: May 15th, 2008, 9am PT/12pm ET
Guest Panelist: Ryan Gibson, Director of Marketing, The Rimm-Kaufman Group
Register to Attend

Original post by Linda Bustos

Want to stay informed on the latest trends in ecommerce marketing? Subscribe to our feed! We post daily on topics of interest to you and hold monthly interactive Webinars with experts in email marketing, web analytics, SEO, landing page optimization and more.

Sign up by email (box at the top right of the page) or RSS.(What is RSS?)

What is Get Elastic?

You may be wondering why we call our blog Get Elastic. Well, the fingers behind this blog represent Elastic Path Software - an ecommerce software vendor. “Elastic” refers to the platform’s flexibility - as your sales grow and ecommerce trends emerge, you won’t outstretch what the EP platform can help your site achieve. Find out more about how Elastic Path Ecommerce Software can help you “Sell More, Work Less.”

We eat, breathe and sleep ecommerce and we’re passionate about innovation. Get Elastic is a way to blend the two and start a conversation with all online retailers and Internet marketing buffs, whether you’re using our platform or not. We want to stretch your ideas on how to sell on the Internet by covering emerging media and technology. We hope you get a bit more elastic every time you visit.

Get Elastic is also recognized by TopRank as a top search marketing blog, and is also an AdAge Power 150 blog.

About the Get Elastic Authors

Jason Billingsley

I am a Co-founder and VP of Innovation at Elastic Path Software. I’m responsible for exploring new ecommerce technologies and methods for online retail. As principal ecommerce analyst, I consult with some of the largest and most successful online retailers in the world – most recently managing online strategy for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games online store.

I have authored industry research such as “The Ecommerce Checkout Report”, host our monthly ecommerce webinar series, and speak regularly at retail industry events such as Shop.org, Online Market World, and eTail. An online marketer for well over a decade, I have been quoted in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, The National Post, Internet Retailer, BtoB Magazine, Apparel magazine, and Multi-Channel Merchant. In 2005, I was a co-recipient of the Canadian Youth Business Foundation’s National Best Business award, and helped land Elastic Path Software on Profit Magazine’s Hot 50. I am also a recipient of the Terry Fox Humanitarian Award and hold a BBA in Entrepreneurial Leadership. I live in Vancouver with my wife Amy.

jason.billingsley@elasticpath.com

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Linda Bustos

As the Emerging Media Analyst at Elastic Path, I keep my eye on what’s happening in the Internet marketing sphere as it relates to ecommerce. I share my discoveries with you here on Get Elastic Monday thru Friday. You’ll also find me speaking on these same subjects at conferences like Shop.org, the Massive Technology Show and Northern Voice. I’ve been quoted in E-Commerce Guide and have contributed to ProBlogger, Search Engine Guide, Site Pro News and Duct Tape Marketing. This year, I was named as one of Vancouver’s Tech Women to Watch in 2008.

Prior to joining the Elastic Path squad I was the Marketing Director for Image X Media, a Drupal web design and development firm where I was involved in usability and SEO planning for business clients and social network startups.

linda.bustos@elasticpath.com

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Original post by Jason Billingsley