'Net Features : cyber monday

Search Marketing Revenue Up & Other Holiday Insights

Amberly Dressler — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 19:35:00 GMT

As shopping continues to migrate online, U.S. retailers saw their biggest fluctuations of the season to date on what most now consider to be the biggest days for online shopping: Thanksgiving Day and Cyber Monday.

That’s according to Kenshoo CMO Aaron Goldman whose digital marketing company recently unveiled performance data for U.S. retail search engine marketing programs during the holiday season to date.

Interestingly, online sales revenue driven by search marketing for the period beginning Nov. 1 and ending Nov. 26 increased 42 percent year-over-year (YoY) while these retailers spent 28 percent more YoY. Also important to note is that Thanksgiving Day saw the highest YoY increase in average order value (AOV), up 19 percent.

Other key findings include:

• Black Friday showed lower YoY revenue growth compared to other key days but still delivered a 24 percent increase.

• Cyber Monday saw the biggest increase in YoY impressions and clicks.

• For the November holiday season period to date, conversion rates showed double-digit growth YoY.

Kenshoo retailers, according to Goldman, were able to capitalize on increased demand during these key dates by leveraging Kenshoo’s advanced automation tools and flexible bid management policies to keep promotions in sync with inventory and control cost-per-click rates.

The rest of the YOY search marketing results for key dates during the holiday period can be found here.

Last-Minute Support, Tips for Cyber Monday

Amberly Dressler — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 15:45:00 GMT

There is a limited number of actual working days until most e-retail sites will be tested to the max.

And, with Cyber Monday just days away, CorraTech, a provider of e-commerce and multi-channel commerce solutions is providing free Launch Assurance 24/7 from Black Friday to Cyber Monday to assist e-retailers who will encounter critical Web platform issues because of the increased traffic.

“When a merchant launches a major upgrade to their site, or when they are anticipating unusually high traffic from a special promotion or a holiday, they can purchase Launch Assurance just for those days that they need it,” said Michael Harvey, CorraTech COO. “Normally, we charge $6,500 for four days of SWAT-team level support,” he continued. “This Thanksgiving, we’re providing that service to everyone of our CAMS customers free of charge.”

For non-customers, CorraTech would still like to alleviate some of the stress Internet retailers face during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend by offering these last-minute tips to to prepare their businesses for high volumes of website traffic.

Gather your team for one more meeting: make sure everyone from all of the essential departments—shipping, customer service, Web operations, IT, marketing—are on the same page to prevent any wires from getting crossed, so to speak.
Run one more site test: any last-minute failure should be remedied immediately. If nothing is wrong in the final test, DO NOT change anything. It’s best to keep your hands off the system at that point.
Trust the plan you have in place: If you’ve been preparing for months like most online merchants have, you must be confident that the efforts will pay off. If you’re not, you may have a bigger problem, namely, the team you have in place.

Weekly Deals from Payvment Simplify Social Promotions

Michael Garrity — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 19:00:00 GMT

Facebook’s most popular e-commerce platform, Payvment, announced a new “Weekly Deals” feature that gives sellers the ability to offer up to three deals a week on Facebook and Lish.com, the new social shopping site from Payvment, just in time for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Payvment recently surveyed many of its sellers and found that most of them had a strong interest in deal-like promotional strategies, and 48 percent of the respondents said that they planned to run a promotion during the holidays. Some of the early testing of the Weekly Deals functionality showed that “time-bounded offers” drive more conversions; in fact, Payvment found that participating merchants using Weekly Deals last holiday season saw twice as many product views and sales than in weeks prior.

Thanks to Payvment and Weekly Deals, smaller online merchants now have more tools to help them participate and compete in the holiday promotion season, as sellers can now use Facebook to promote their products for Black Friday, Cyber Monday and beyond. Plus, shoppers will be able to use the social network or scour Lish to find deals of 20 percent or higher.

Payvment seems so enamored with Weekly Deals that the company has actually reoriented its seller dashboard around the new functionality in order to simplify the deals management process. Merchants can use the dashboard to launch as many as three deals each week by selecting the products they want to promote, choosing the discount amount(s) and designating the quantity of products that are eligible for the deal. They can then take advantage of Payvment’s analytics tools to monitor each deal’s effectiveness.

All of the deals are automatically and seamlessly posted into the Weekly Deal feed on Lish at Lish.com/deals. The promotions also appear on the merchant’s Facebook news feed.

Sellers looking to offer Black Friday promotions (which run from November 23 – November 27) can go to my.pavyment.com to set up a store and feature their products.

Video Playing a Featured Role in Holiday Sales

Linc Wonham — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 23:00:00 GMT

Online video solutions provider Invodo has released some new data about the use of video on retail sites during the first holiday shopping spree of the season. Invodo customers such as Verizon, Office Depot, Crocs, L’Occitane and others showed a significant rise in the number of consumer views during the Thanksgiving weekend, and some of the key points of data are below:

• Overall, there was a 337-percent increase in Black Friday video views over last year

• On Cyber Monday, there was an 897-percent increase in video views over last year

• Video views on Cyber Monday in 2011 were 2.5 times the number of video views on Black Friday 2011. It is the preferred online shopping day, and video seems to be a preferred form of gathering product information for online shoppers

• On Black Friday, Facebook accounted for 50 percent of the sharing of videos among users, with email at 36 percent and Twitter at 14 percent

• On Cyber Monday, Facebook and Email were even at 43 percent each. Twitter was at 14 percent

• For both Black Friday and Cyber Monday, shoppers’ overall rating of the videos they viewed was 4.2 out of 5 stars

A common thread among consumers’ comments on the videos they viewed was that the ability to see a product demonstrated was enhanced through video, enabling comparisons to people in size, in terms of seeing how the material in apparel moves, and seeing the features demonstrated. This led to clear enthusiasm in the comments, which explains why video can be a strong driver of conversion for ecommerce retailers.

Feast on These Holiday Keyword Strategies

Allison Howen — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 21:30:00 GMT

The National Retail Federation predicts that a 10-percent increase from last year will result in 152 million people shopping this Black Friday weekend. Furthermore, 21 percent of consumers are planning on staying home to surf for deals on Cyber Monday, according to the Retail Industry Leader Association.

"The growth of online sales has made Cyber Monday and other online holiday shopping trends equally as important to retailers as Black Friday,” says Retail Industry Leaders Association president Sandy Kennedy. “Unlike a decade ago, a successful holiday season now means success in the store and online."

So, as you prepare to enjoy your Thanksgiving dinner, it is vitally important to take some time and review some of the most profitable keywords of the season. When used frequently throughout the week of Black Friday, merchants can maximize their online and in-store traffic for their busiest shopping weekend of the year.

Keeping up with Keywords

Since 2004, Black Friday and Cyber Monday searches have grown dramatically, especially in the weeks and days leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday.

Currently, some of the top searches relating to the keywords “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” unsurprisingly include Black Friday ads, Black Friday 2011, Black Friday sales, Black Friday deals, Cyber Monday deals, cyber deals, Black Monday and Cyber Monday sales.

However, it is important not to limit your keywords to variations of the terms Black Friday and Cyber Monday. For instance, many retailers draw customers in over this busy shopping weekend by promoting free gifts – so why not think outside the box and incorporate other terms into your keyword strategy, such as Freebie Friday, Holiday Sale, after-Thanksgiving deals, free gift or Christmas specials.

Additionally, merchants should also mention key terms from specific products and services that they are selling and promoting during the holiday season, such as Black Friday Electronics, Cyber Monday Appliances, Thanksgiving shoe deals, Christmas toy sale, etc.

Where to use Keywords

The most obvious use for keywords are in pay-per-click advertisements, but merchants should also be using these words in their social-media posts.

Not only will the use of keywords in social-media posts reach your fans and followers, but it may also help a merchant appear higher in search results because of the influence that real time has on SEO. This week is especially critical for brands to mention Black Friday, Cyber Monday and other keywords in Twitter posts because these keywords have been and will continue to trend.

For example, Best Buy has promoted (paid for) the keywords “Black Friday” to trend. Therefore, any merchant or consumer that uses the terms Black Friday in a post will have an opportunity for more Tweeters to view that post because it is trending.

However, marketers that are focusing on using keywords for advertisements may want to consider locally targeting their ads. Therefore, it is important to know which states search the most for Black Friday and Cyber Monday-related terms. Currently, the state with the most Black Friday searches is Kentucky, followed by Ohio, Missouri, South Dakota and Minnesota. The states with the most Cyber Monday-related searches are Kentucky, South Dakota, Missouri, New Jersey and Ohio.

Staying on Trend

Being aware of how consumers are searching is a key aspect of staying on trend and keeping up with keywords. Merchants, especially this week, should be using these holiday keywords in everything from ads to social-media posts in order to maximize their exposure within search results. However, it is important to remember that everyone searches differently, so using popular keywords along with some of the less popular yet more targeted keywords should prove to be a winning combination.

Holiday Hosting Discounts From Codero

Michael Garrity — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 01:00:00 GMT

For many merchants, the influx of online shoppers that e-commerce sites see during the holiday season brings with it a need for more bandwidth. That is why hosting service Codero is offering special hosting discounts just in time for the inevitable increase in customer demands.

In an apparent effort to fall into the line of thinking that "Christmas season comes sooner every year," many retailers are expected to start their big holiday promotions as early as October (which is two weeks away, for those of you keeping track at home). This means that the time for e-tailers to increase the usability of their website is now, if they expect to compete with other online stores this holiday season.

With many predicting that a major portion of holiday retail shopping will be done online this year, ensuring that your website is functional and competitive is important. Codero seems to realize this, and has thus decided to offer its own holiday special.

"Before Cyber Monday arrives and the busy Christmas season, we've made it easier to shop Codero.com and launched valuable discounts," says Shelby Garlock, Codero's Director of Marketing. "The September specials are a way to help our customers be more visible to their won customers during the holiday season and assist those who are working on projects for the upcoming season. This is a great way to get quality servers that fit your IT needs at a discounted price that fits your budget."

Their discounts are based on some of the latest processor technology, namely the Second Generation Core i7 and Core i5, which are both bolstered with Intel Turbo Boost Technology to provide increased performance on demand.

Codero's servers also come with 12 TB of bandwidth in order to avoid having to charge overage fees to small businesses and e-tailers. Those familiar with the pitfalls of hosting a smaller e-tail site can tell you that without enough supporting bandwidth, they often face these charges when they are hit with increased traffic.

In addition to the discount, Codero has also enhanced their website to make it more e-commerce-friendly through updated navigation and purchasing designs.

A Year-by-Year Look at Holiday E-commerce

Linc Wonham — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 20:00:00 GMT

Inspired by the record online spending that occurred during the final weeks of 2010, e-commerce solutions provider Volusion has taken a closer look at each of the holiday shopping seasons of the past decade. A link to Volusion’s comprehensive infographic can be found here, but below are some of the most interesting conclusions:

Not only did the 2010 holiday season set record highs for online spending, it was also the first time that Cyber Monday earned the top spot for busiest e-commerce selling day of the year.

Because of the increasing amount of sales offered on Cyber Monday, it began to close the gap between it and the biggest-selling day of the season starting in 2008.

In 2009, there were nine days between the biggest-selling day of the holidays and Christmas Day; in 2010, there were 25 days. The average number of days between the two during the past nine years has been 10.2 days.

Since 2000, the biggest-selling day of the holidays has fallen on a Monday eight times; on a Tuesday twice, and on a Wednesday one time.

For more information, follow the link to the Volusion blog to see the holiday e-commerce infographic.

Online Holiday Spending Climbs Past $28 Billion

E-Commerce Express : feature — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 09:57:00 GMT

Christmas came a little early for many online retailers this year, as the final shopping weekend of the holiday season pushed e-commerce sales past $28 billion for the first time ever. Research firm comScore reports that consumers increased their spending...(read more)

Cyber Monday Yields Highest Online Sales Ever

E-Commerce Express : feature — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 10:37:00 GMT

The 2010 holiday season continues to break records and exceed expectations. Passing the billion-dollar mark for the first time, Cyber Monday has been crowned history’s busiest online spending day by comScore. In the U.S., total online sales for...(read more)

Cyber Monday Prep: 10 Tips for Greater Sales

Mike Phillips — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 16:15:00 GMT

Put down the turkey sandwich and place the pumpkin pie back in the refrigerator. It's time to make sure your website is ready for the biggest online retail day of the year - Cyber Monday.

According to comScore, the 2010 holiday shopping season is going to be a good one. They found that for the first 21 days of the November - December 2010 shopping season, more than $9 billion has been spent online, a 13 percent increase over last year. That's great news. But it will mean nothing if you're not prepared for the windfall.

Testing will go a long way toward finding areas of your website that might need fixing, or snags in the transaction process. Below are 10 areas to test or double-check, to make sure you get your piece of the virtual holiday shopping pie.

Ad campaigns. Take a spin through all of your ad campaigns on every channel. Make sure they are all up-to-date with your latest promotions, that they reflect the latest in your holiday keyword research and that they are targeted to the right people.
Landing pages. In the frenzy of Cyber Monday, consumers will not have time to click everywhere on your site. You need to be ready to show them what they want. Make sure all landing pages are linked to the proper channel - an advertisement, search result, Facebook post, email, etc. If one of your ads promises free shipping, repeat that offer on the landing page immediately. If an email is promoting a watch, make sure the link is not pointed to a product page for a bracelet. Of course, make sure the "add to cart" and "checkout" buttons are prominent.
Shipping information. Consumers love free shipping, as well as free return shipping. However, it is not a necessity. Just make sure that your shipping information is readily available and easy to understand. Shipping charges should be included in the price before final checkout. If you do offer free or discounted shipping, make sure the offer is highly visible.
Return policies. Return policies are important, especially now while there is still time to receive an item then return it. Returns are of particular interest to a consumer when they pay for shipping - free return shipping is a major benefit so be sure to promote it. Make sure your return policy is available (linked with your shipping policies is ideal) and detailed.
Contact information. Are you available by phone? That's a big advantage for an online retailer, so let people know. Live chat has gained in popularity so if you have this feature, make sure it is promoted on every page of your site. If you can keep a consumer on-site when they have a question, you're way ahead of the game. Otherwise, offer at least an email address and be sure to inform the consumer when they can expect a response - of course, the sooner the better.
Discount codes. People shop online because they expect discounts. If you have them they must be highly visible. Also, make sure all discount codes are active and properly attributed to each product, your analytics and any affiliate promotions. Be very sure you can deliver on the promise of the discount - rates and inventory included - before releasing them to any social environment where they might go viral.
Affiliates are up-to-date. Make sure that all of your affiliates are aware of current promotions and that they have all the latest and necessary creatives, codes, links, etc. This is an excellent time to offer your best affiliates a little extra incentive in the form of temporary increased payouts.
Social media campaigns are ready. This could shape up to be the biggest social shopping season to date. Make sure social campaigns are active and that your social accounts are being monitored. Consumers will be using social channels to communicate with retailers this year, as well as with each other. Monitor your brand, industry and competitors.
Your shopping cart. What good is all this prep work if the consumer can't make a purchase? Don't make the cardinal sin of using a busted shopping cart. Make a few purchases using varied methods of payment.
Email. Make sure your email systems are running properly and that the messaging is optimized. For example, a consumer should receive an email immediately after purchase; thanking them for their business, offering contact information for any questions, presenting a cross-sell or up-sell opportunity, or the option of signing up for an email newsletter, preferred customer club, etc.

BONUS: This is an excellent time to make sure your host is ready for any spikes in traffic. Reach out and get a little peace of mind with assurances that load testing has been completed recently.

Once you have made a few sweeps of your website ask friends, family, employees and coworkers to search for your products or website and go through the steps to make a purchase. Send a promotional email to a few of these people and watch as they act on your call-to-action. If you can find people who are not familiar with your website, that's ideal. The closer you can get to a new customer, the better.

Beating Big Retailers at their Own Game

Mike Phillips — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:30:00 GMT

Beginning Black Friday, November 27, brick-and-mortar retailers will see a deluge of consumers, ready and willing to buy merchandise. Beginning Cyber Monday, November 30, online retailers will enjoy a similar spike in visits and purchases. Most of those consumers will make purchases through large online retailers, like Amazon.com, Overstock.com or BestBuy.com. But, smaller online retailers and affiliates don't need to get left behind. Let's look at a page optimization tip to help turn browsers into buyers this year.

Large retailers (like the three mentioned above) have thousands of products to sell and countless pages that a user can browse to find what they want. Your site (and products) might be slightly more limited in scope. But the big retailers also share a common strategy that any Web property can employ - product and user recommendations.

Take advantage of the fact that, at this time, users are shopping. They are likely not quite sure what they want to buy yet. Help them get there. Overstock.com's home page prominently features navigation and browsing based on "Buyers' Picks," "5 Star Reviews," "Top Sellers" and "Clearance Items." BestBuy.com's page is featuring "Door Busters," "Featured Offers" and "Outlet Center," where users can find new arrivals, reduced cost items and deals of the week. Amazon.com's page (while dedicated to the Kindle) also features personalized recommendations, "Most Wished For" items, and "Bestselling" items.

It's your job to steer consumers in the right direction - and you can do it on one page. Look into your data and optimize your landing page based on your products. Instead of a giant "featured item," consider breaking your page into easy-to-view sections like "best sellers," "highest rated," "clearance," or "online bargains." Find out what your consumers are recommending to each other - both on your site and industry-wide - and get those items front and center. You might be featuring fewer items per category, and some consumers might see fewer items overall. But, you are also increasing the chance that particular items are purchased - and that's the bottom line. By giving browsers a look into immediate benefits (popular and highly-rated items, best bargains, etc.) and providing a way to shop with minimal effort you can accomplish the most important task to online retail success - shortening the distance to a sale. A strategy like this reduces clicks - therefore reducing the chance the consumer gets lost on your site or becomes distracted. This becomes particularly important when designing your PPC creative for searching shoppers. Give the shopper a reason to click, then an immediate reason to purchase without any further searching or dawdling.

For example, let's say the following is a PPC ad (click the link):
"Give the best keyboard for your busy Web professional this holiday!"

What do you notice after clicking? Limited but good choices, with clear explanations and benefits - making a quick decision easy. The consumer is immediately presented with clear choices, and not too many of them that could potentially become distracting or overwhelming. What that means to you is a better chance at an immediate sale.

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Cyber Monday Killed Black Friday

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:44:00 GMT

Comscore is reporting that while e-commerce spending for the first 30 days of November saw a 2 percent decline versus the corresponding days last year, CyberMonday saw $846 million in online spending, up a whopping 15 percent. The mcomScore holiday retail survey, conducted from November 28 - December 1, revealed several interesting insights into consumers' views of the 2008 holiday shopping season, including:

-- More than half (51 percent) of consumers indicated that the level of promotions and discounts is higher this year than last year, while only 12 percent said that there appeared to be fewer, suggesting that retailers are having to be more aggressive in discounting to spur consumer spending.

"Mark Twain might have said: 'Rumors of the death of online holiday shopping have been greatly exaggerated,'" said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. "Consumers are clearly responding positively to retailers' aggressive online discounts. With Cyber Monday promotions beginning in earnest over the Thanksgiving weekend, consumers have finally begun to open their wallets, setting off a streak of four consecutive days of extremely strong growth, and culminating in a Cyber Monday that racked up an impressive $846 million in online spending, up 15 percent over last year and ranking it as the second heaviest online spending day on record. This is an extremely encouraging development for retailers and we can but hope that their aggressive discounting has still left room for profits."

Cyber Monday Consumer Intention Stats

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:39:00 GMT

The ceremonial kickoff to the online holiday shopping season for 2008 has begun.

According to a Shop.org survey, 84.6 million consumers plan to shop online from home or at work today (up from 72 million in '07 and 60.7 million in '06. The survey found that 37.2 percent of adults will shop online today, up over 16 percent over last year.

"Online retailers have been planning their Cyber Monday promotions for months and are eagerly waiting to debut these deals to shoppers,” said Scott Silverman, Executive Director of Shop.org. “Many people who didn’t want to fight the crowds or get up early to stand in line over the weekend have been waiting until Cyber Monday to start their holiday shopping.”

Shoppers who are looking for a bargain will be able to find thousands of deals online tomorrow. According to the Shop.org eHoliday Survey, conducted by Shopzilla, 83.7 percent of retailers will have a special promotion for Cyber Monday, up from 72.2 percent last year. The most popular promotions are expected to be specific deals (38.8%), email campaigns (32.7%), and one-day sales (24.5%). Additionally, nearly one-fourth of retailers (22.5%) will offer free shipping on all purchases.

Cyber Monday? Think "Cyber December"

Mike Phillips — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 16:59:00 GMT

Cyber Monday brings Web surfers out in droves. They are looking for good deals on items on their lists, and products they don't even know they want yet. As such, it's important to be prepared, to strategize and make sure you get the biggest bang out of your marketing budget - not just for Monday, but also the coming weeks.

The National Retail Federation expects nearly 60% of workers to shop over their lunch hour on Monday. As a retailer, that means you should set your PPC bids at the highest your budget allows during these hours, then scale them back in the afternoon. Of course, if you're a local retailer, take time zones into consideration.

Naturally, traffic spikes for most online retailers on Cyber Monday. Look at the chart below from Compete.com and you'll see this holds true for some of the Web's most heavily trafficked retailers. That means you need to make sure your site is ready for the influx.

However, Cyber Monday is not the biggest online purchasing day of the year. That day occurs somewhere in the middle of December. Data from comScore illustrates this point, as does a study from the International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs. Their annual study shows that only 11% of consumers say they have 50% or more of their gift buying done already. That is down from 15% last year, and 25% from 2004. In essence, consumers are procrastinating and that means they will be shopping feverishly as December draws to an end.

For retailers, this means that your budget should follow these trends - you want to garner the initial traffic surge, but also make sure you have enough left in your budget for when it really counts. Increase bids on Cyber Monday, scale back that week and start increasing them again towards mid-December. And get creative. Consider promotions or email blasts touting "last-minute" gift ideas, savings and shipping options and discounts.

Rise of the Web Savvy Shopper

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 13:53:00 GMT

Gloom and doom? The holidays are fast approaching and more consumers will shop online than ever before - you can count on it. According to a recent online survey of 200 consumers commissioned by eCommerce optimization software provider Avail Intelligence, nearly 80 percent of the respondents confirmed they plan to shop online the same amount or more than they did during last year’s holiday season.

In order to make the most of this shopping season, Avail recommends eCommerce professionals consider enlisting the power of recommendation engines and peer-driven reviews, as the survey found that 42 percent of the respondents seek a high volume of positive reviews when making their purchasing decisions.

“Cyber Monday is the best time for sites to be prepared for the demands of today’s savvy shopper,” said Dr. Rolf Elmér, CEO, Avail Intelligence. “Deploying a social behavioral merchandizing technology platform that integrates collaborative search, landing page optimization and intelligent predictive recommendation engines offers the support necessary to gain the trust of consumers. This will convert browsers into buyers and lead to an uplift in sales.”