Come meet the Exclusive Concepts team at Booth 611. Get a free digital caricature and learn how you can take your PPC efforts to the next level with our Profit Booster technology.

If you would like to schedule a meeting ahead of time, please email info@exclusiveconcepts.com.

For more information about the conference and to register, please visit the IRCE 2013 event site directly.

McKane Davis, President of Scrapbook.com, believes the law will have a devastating impact on his small business. He stated, “We don’t have an army of tax lawyers, accountants and programmers to comply with the law like Walmart does.”

Proponents of the bill that passed the Senate, and that now resides in the House Judiciary Committee, claim it offers “free software” to help automate sales tax collection. The problem, however, is that the bill does not account for the many other very significant costs of compliance.

Amazon has invested millions to support this bill, but presumably not because they wish to support the interests of small brick and mortar retailers. Perhaps it’s because they seek to disadvantage their smaller competitors online by strapping them with a potentially overwhelming administrative burden.

Here’s the good news – you can stop this bill from becoming law

If you live in any of the following districts please contact Internet Retailers for Fairness here, or email info@exclusiveconcepts.com, and we will put you in touch with Drex Davis who is organizing responses from business owners in these districts. The following districts represent Judiciary Committee Members who are currently reviewing the bill in the House.

Alabama 6th
Arizona 8th
California 19th
California 27th
California 37th
California 49th
Florida 21st
Florida 26th
Florida 6th
Georgia 4th
Georgia 9th
Idaho 1st
Illinois 4th
Iowa 4th
Louisiana 2nd
Michigan 13th
Nevada 2nd
New York 10th
New York 8th
North Carolina 12th
North Carolina 13th
North Carolina 6th
Ohio 1st
Ohio 4th
Pennsylvania 10th
South Carolina 4th
Tennessee 9th
Texas 18th
Texas 1st
Texas 21st
Texas 27th
Texas 2nd
Texas 30th
Utah 3rd
Virginia 3rd
Virginia 4th
Virginia 6th
Washington 1st
Wisconsin 5th
Puerto Rico At-Large

This tool makes it easy to see which district you are in.

Adam ignores most of these phone calls but he wants to increase traffic and sometimes feels overwhelmed. There are an endless number of channels and strategies he could choose from.

Unfortunately Adam finds himself falling into the same trap that many online retailers do. Adam should commit his time, resources, and attention initially to mastering one or two key channels. Instead, he spreads himself too thin. He does a little of everything, but nothing extremely well.

As a result, he has trouble building marketing momentum, and growth comes at too slow of a pace.

So – what channels should Adam be prioritizing above all others?

The answer is simple – the most lucrative ones.

And the most lucrative channels for small and mid-sized online retailers are search engines.

Recently we analyzed the traffic sources of hundreds of online retailers, and the pie chart below shows where their traffic is coming from:

• SEO (non paid traffic from search engines) is responsible for more than half of traffic

• PPC (paid traffic from search engines) is responsible for 21% of traffic (though this percent is and will continue growing due to changes Google is making)

• Direct traffic, which refers to shoppers directly typing in the URL of the store was the third biggest source at 13%.

• Social sources, according to our analysis, only drove 3% of total site traffic.

According to this analysis, search engines in total drove 72% of traffic. You might, therefore, decide that search engine marketing should account for approximately 72% of your marketing attention/budget. That means not getting distracted by other seemingly more sexy channels, like social media and comparison shopping engines.

Where should your search marketing dollars ago?

We’ve seen the highest ROI come from well-optimized Google Shopping campaigns, valuescaping SEO that strategically targets rankings on high buying intent keywords, and traditional PPC advertising focussed on your most profitable products.

Making search marketing more profitable by boosting repeat sales

To maximize the benefit of your search marketing spends, of course, you’ll want to develop follow-up email marketing programs that drive repeat sales. The most profitable business comes from repeat customers, and if you’re not generating repeat business, your marketing budgets will be starved and growth will slow.

Converting more browsers to buyers

While it may fall within a different place in your budget, conversion testing, like email marketing, is also a critical activity that enables you to maximize the benefit of your search budgets. Conversion testing helps you answer questions like:

• Why do shoppers abandon their shopping carts at such a high rate?
• What can I add to my product pages to increase conversion rate?
• How important is my in-site search to conversion rates, and how can I improve it?

You can also take advantage of cart and site abandonment tools like those we make available through Conversions On Demand to increase conversions quickly. Often it makes sense to offer reluctant shoppers a special incentive to complete their purchase, especially if you focus on generating repeat sales from those customers in the years that follow.

Invest wisely. Don’t gamble

These are the kinds of activities that – when done right, and when properly invested in – make retailers money. These are also the activities that will prove strategic over the long-term. That’s what we’ve learned over the past 16 years.

Yes, there’s always a chance that you can beat the market and develop a creative social media strategy that will become a big source of traffic and sales. For most merchants, however, social media is a blip as a consistent traffic acquisition tool. It’s important, but for very different reasons.

Further, while third-party marketplace selling has generated a lot of hype, as explored in our article published on Practical eCommerce earlier this week, there’s major downsides to it as well.

Conclusion

Strategy is all about making choices, and all choices have tradeoffs. Rather than spreading yourself and your investments thin, master a few things rather than trying to be “OK” at a lot of things.

To beat your competitors you’ll probably need to master the most important traffic acquisition source – search engines.

If you agree that search engines are where you want to focus, at least for now, you’ll want to support those efforts by developing strengths around driving repeat business, and converting browsers into buyers at the highest rates possible.

P.S. The Exclusive Concepts team can help you evaluate your marketing strategy to identify its strengths and weaknesses. Free e-commerce opportunity audits are available to qualified merchants. Contact us here for more information.

You can also download the first chapter of our new Google Shopping eBook here, for free.

And if you will be attending the Internet Retailer (IRCE) conference in June, stop by our booth (611). We’re doing something very special this year and you won’t want to miss out!

Create an Easy To Understand Taxonomy

We’ve created upwards of 50 to 60 individual PLA campaigns for some clients, and as little as two for others. The common thread is that we create campaign and ad group naming conventions that are easy to understand. For example, if we’re creating a campaign around the top products, we may utilize the following taxonomy:

Similarly, you may decide to target your individual product types and create a campaign around this theme. We also generally like to label the ad groups the same name as the auto targets. So if our ad group is titled “Top Sellers,” then the auto target (whatever attribute we choose to use) should also be named “Top Sellers.” We want to ensure that we’re using a systematic naming convention so we can better manage and report on PLA performance.

Bid Higher On Top Products

This tip seems like a no-brainer, but often times less valuable ad groups end up getting higher bids than the more profitable ones. For example, say you have two ad groups, one targeting your top sellers and the other going after a specific product type. Your “Product Type” ad group has a higher bid than your “Top Sellers” ad group.

Many products can belong to both of these groups. For example, “Product A” might be a top seller and a coffee table. Google is going to show the PLA with the highest bid. In this case, you could end up paying $0.10 more per click when you don’t need to. Multiply by hundreds of extra clicks and your costs add up quickly. Be careful to set ascending bids depending on the products you are targeting. You should bid higher on your top products and custom auto target combinations, while bidding lower on generic categories.

Run an All Products Catch All Campaign

Every PLA account you run should include an “All Products” campaign. This campaign targets all of your products at a much lower bid. The reason for this is that the “All Products” campaign will act as a catch-all for products that don’t meet your attributes. For example, say a new product is added to the feed, but doesn’t yet have a label. Instead of the product not displaying when someone performs a search, the “All Products” campaign will show this product for relevant queries. Additionally, if your other PLA campaigns run out of budget for the day, the “All Products” campaign will still give you some exposure.

Conclusion

These are simple-yet-important tips that will help you improve PLA performance. These tips aren’t hard to implement, but will make a huge difference. What are some PLA tips you use to boost performance?

The Complete Guide to Google Shopping

Early case studies from Google and Exclusive Concepts have not only shown that Google Shopping a highly effective advertising medium, but it can lead to significant, incremental increases in sales and revenue for your business. So we’ve created an easy to understand guide to Google Shopping we’re distributing for free as an ebook.

In this e-Book, you’ll learn exactly what Google Shopping is, how you can get started, and how you can employ a multitude of techniques to significantly grow your online sales.

We’re breaking this ebook into 4 parts for easy consumption and will be publishing each over the coming weeks:
Chapter 1: Google Shopping 101
An overview of what Google Shopping is, its impacts on shopping behavior, PPC management.
Chapter 2: Getting Started with Google Shopping
How to build the foundation for your Google Shopping advertising
Chapter 3: How to Master Advanced Labeling & Feed Optimization
An overview of how to optimize your product feed to maximize your advertising results
Chapter 4: Advanced Campaign Targeting and Management
How to build highly targeted campaigns and refine them even further through optimization

• Effectively optimizing your product feed
• Proven PLA strategies to show great results
• AdWords management techniques to spark performance

Join this FREE WEBINAR Click here to register (mobile friendly) or use the form below!

Image courtesy RoyPrasad

Client: The Online Drug Store
Service: Google Shopping
Annual Revenue: $2 million
Platform: Volusion

Snapshot

The Online Drug Store decided to make an innovative change in their PPC management by adding Google Shopping.

Challenge

Restrict costs-per-conversion and optimize product feed.

Solution

Establish strict CPC ceiling and revise campaign targets.

Results

Overall site transaction increase of 282.67%, and an overall ROI of 702.46%.

• Is my conversion rate “good”?
• What’s a good conversion rate for an online retailer?
• What should my conversion rate be?

Now, thanks to the analytics we’ve baked into our Conversions On Demand software suite, we can actually start answering those questions. We’ve calculated weighted averages after aggregating data from 400+ small to mid-sized online retailers.

The average conversion rate is: 1.72%.

If your conversion rate differs from our network average of 1.72% it could be for many reasons. Certain product categories, for example, naturally lend themselves to higher/lower conversion rates. Take the following examples into account:

Merchant 1: Selling mostly low-priced themed gifts and apparel catering to a niche market.

The graph below shows their March conversion rate compared to our network average.

Their conversion rate of 1.87% comes in right around our network average, as does their average order size. And their conversion rates are generally the same as other similar merchants we see.

Merchant 2: Selling high-priced luxury items

Their conversion rate of .50% comes in dramatically below our network average, but again their conversion rate is around the same as other similar merchants we see. The average order size of their product category is larger by 10 to 20 times most other retailers, which is a big reason for their low conversion rate.

These examples show why it’s difficult to answer the question, “is my conversion rate good” in a meaningful way, because it really depends. Merchant 1 beats the network average, but they of course could be doing much better. Merchant 2, whose conversion rate is respectable given their product category, could also be doing much better.

It’s all relative…

In the end – I find it most useful to compare your conversion rate to your own historical averages or to other merchants in a similar product category as you. But – at least we can now answer the most basic question – how does your conversion rate compare?

Formula: Site-wide Conversion Rate = (Number of Total Orders from Store / Total Number of Unique Visitors) * 100 %

Entering the Mobile Space

One of the most important questions you’ll have to ask yourself is whether or not you want to participate in the mobile space. If the answer is “yes,” you’ll need to set an appropriate mobile bid modifier. With Enhanced Campaigns, you are no longer able to set individual mobile-specific, keyword-level bids. Rather, your mobile bid is a percentage of your desktop-level bid at the campaign level. For example, let’s say you are bidding on two keywords. The bid for Keyword A is $1, while the bid for Keyword B is $2. You must set a campaign-level mobile modifier. If this modifier is -20 percent, then the bid for Keyword A on mobile devices becomes $0.8, while the bid for Keyword B becomes $1.6. It’s imperative to understand that you don’t have the same control of your mobile keyword bids as you did before.

As always, the best way to ensure that you are setting the right mobile bid modifier is to review your data. If you currently have mobile specific campaigns, review the metrics and see what makes sense in Enhanced Campaigns. For example, in your new Enhanced Campaign, your average bid will need to be $2.5 in order to be within the top three positions. You can see from your legacy mobile campaign that the average cost per click was $0.5, and the average position was 1.2. If you would like to keep this position, your mobile bid modifier should be set at -80 percent. In other words, your mobile bids are one-fifth of your desktop bids.

If you don’t have the data, it’s best to use the AdWords Keyword Tool to see what the average cost per clicks are on mobile devices. With this data, set a mobile bid modifier that you are comfortable with.

Writing Mobile Specific Ads

If you decide to target mobile devices in your Enhanced Campaigns, you’ll need to write mobile-specific ads. If you already have mobile-specific campaigns, then you can most likely utilize the same ads. When writing mobile-specific ads, it’s important to understand these two factors:

• Keyword bids should be high enough for your ad to show in one of the top two positions
• Mobile ads should be written with less characters than standard desktop ads

Here’s an example of paid ads, as seen on a mobile device:

As you can see, both ads show above the fold and text is not truncated. A normal text ad can contain up to seventy characters between description lines one and two. When writing mobile text ads, we recommend no more than sixty characters between the two lines.

When you do write your mobile text ads, make sure you are checking the “Mobile” radio box.

By checking this box, you are telling Google that you would prefer this ad to show only on mobile devices. Just like regular ads, we recommend A/B testing two mobile ads in every ad group.

Utilizing Extensions

With the advent of Enhanced Campaigns, call and sitelinks extensions have been improved. The call extension has allowed advertisers to add a Google-generated phone number within the vicinity of an ad. When dialed, this number will redirect to the advertiser’s main line and could be tracked within AdWords. In essence, a phone call could unofficially count as a conversion. With Enhanced Campaigns, you can now track phone calls as conversions when they last for a certain amount of time.

You can also use your own phone number(s) next to ads. If you use call-tracking software, you can add your number(s) to the call extension and track performance. Finally, call extensions can now be scheduled. If your business is only open 9 to 5, you only need to display the number during this time period.

Advanced sitelinks are a major plus with Enhanced Campaigns. Historically only available at the campaign level, sitelinks can now be created for individual ad groups. For example, let’s say you have a campaign around coffee tables and your ad groups consist of “modern coffee tables,” “round coffee tables” and “oval coffee tables.” Previously, you would have had to create generic sitelinks that would be applicable no matter the search. Now, your sitelinks can be unique to each ad group. Within your “round coffee tables” ad group, you may decide to use specific round tables as sitelinks. Ad group-level sitelinks allow for much more relevant links, while continuing to take up additional real estate.

Another great feature of sitelinks in Enhanced Campaigns is the ability to target mobile devices. You can create sitelinks that will just show on mobile devices. In this case, it’s necessary to classify whether or not the sitelink is meant for mobile. Just like with mobile text ads, there is a radio box that you can check off to designate just for mobile.

Conclusion

Enhanced Campaigns are here and will soon be mandatory. There are many items to analyze when making the transition so it’s essential to spend the necessary time in your account. At Exclusive Concepts, we’re making sure that our clients’ performance will continue to thrive after the transition.

The Complete Guide to Google Shopping

Early case studies from Google and Exclusive Concepts have not only shown that Google Shopping a highly effective advertising medium, but it can lead to significant, incremental increases in sales and revenue for your business. So we’ve created an easy to understand guide to Google Shopping we’re distributing for free as an ebook.

In this e-Book, you’ll learn exactly what Google Shopping is, how you can get started, and how you can employ a multitude of techniques to significantly grow your online sales.

We’re breaking this ebook into 4 parts for easy consumption and will be publishing each over the coming weeks:
Chapter 1: Google Shopping 101
An overview of what Google Shopping is, its impacts on shopping behavior, PPC management.
Chapter 2: Getting Started with Google Shopping
How to build the foundation for your Google Shopping advertising
Chapter 3: How to Master Advanced Labeling & Feed Optimization
An overview of how to optimize your product feed to maximize your advertising results
Chapter 4: Advanced Campaign Targeting and Management
How to build highly targeted campaigns and refine them even further through optimization

Early case studies from Google and Exclusive Concepts have not only shown that Google Shopping a highly effective advertising medium, but it can lead to significant, incremental increases in sales and revenue for your business. So we’ve created an easy to understand guide to Google Shopping we’re distributing for free as an ebook.

In this e-Book, you’ll learn exactly what Google Shopping is, how you can get started, and how you can employ a multitude of techniques to significantly grow your online sales.

We’re breaking this ebook into 4 parts for easy consumption and will be publishing each over the coming weeks:
Chapter 1: Google Shopping 101
An overview of what Google Shopping is, its impacts on shopping behavior, PPC management.
Chapter 2: Getting Started with Google Shopping
How to build the foundation for your Google Shopping advertising
Chapter 3: How to Master Advanced Labeling & Feed Optimization
An overview of how to optimize your product feed to maximize your advertising results
Chapter 4: Advanced Campaign Targeting and Management
How to build highly targeted campaigns and refine them even further through optimization

Online shoppers today are more likely than ever to abandon their shopping carts, even after taking the time and effort to browse and fill them.

Though abandonment rate numbers vary throughout the year, roughly 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned before checkout. This number has risen every year since 2006.

Why do shoppers abandon their carts?

There are a few reasons for shopping cart abandonment:

• Saving items to buy later
• Finding a better price elsewhere
• Realizing that items or amount didn’t qualify for free shipping
• Discovering that shipping costs were too high
• Slow checkout pages

18% of shoppers will abandon their cart if pages are too slow, which correlates to more than $3 billion in lost sales (across US e-commerce sites) due to poor performance.

Shopping cart speed doesn’t just affect the current transaction, but potential future transactions as well: 46% of online shoppers cite checkout speed as the number one factor that determines whether or not they’ll visit a site again.

How much does 18% of lost business from slow checkout pages mean to your company?

To start recovering that lost revenue contact sales@exclusiveconcepts.com today.