February 23rd, 2012
Google search results are now personalized with any content you store online in Google services, but only when you are signed into Google and do a search. Public content will show to anyone, and private content is only shown to the user and their friends. Read more here.
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February 23rd, 2012
The Direct Marketing Association’s Email Experience Council and Epsilon have released the Q3 2011 North America Email Trends and Benchmarks Results, which show a 7.1 percent increase in open rates from Q2 2011, and a 7.8 percent increase since Q3 2010. Click rates remained stable at 5.5 percent, and the average volume per client increased from the previous year by 14.9 percent. The quarterly analysis is compiled from 5.7 billion emails sent by Epsilon in July, August and September, across multiple industries and approximately 140 participating clients. (Source DMA.)
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December 22nd, 2011
According to The Milwaukee Business Journal, Cyber Week (the Sunday before Cyber Monday, Nov-28 through Dec-2, 2011), generated nearly $6 billion in sales in last year according to comScore Inc.
Expanded free shipping offers by merchants last year seemed to help drive the increase. Approximately 36 percent of online shoppers last year said that free shipping offers are very important to their online shopping decisions. Read more here.
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December 22nd, 2011
Pay-per-click advertising doesn’t just generate conversions to online sales, it also will help increase your in-store sales as well. RevTrax, a retail marketing firm, did a study that showed “for every $1 of e-commerce revenue generated from paid search, marketers can expect to see approximately another $6 of in-store revenue.” That’s a 6:1 ratio of e-commerce vs. in-store sales! Read more here.
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November 17th, 2011
When it comes to getting customers to your website, marketers say SEO is the number one source of leads, beating PPC and Social Media in 2011. While it is important to have a strong social media presence, it may be the wrong strategy to continue increasing your budget in this area until you can measure the results effectively. Your website should see at least 60-75 percent of traffic coming from search engines, whether organic or from PPC. If you are below that level, you need to look at optimizing your site. Another good benchmark to look at is the percentage of new visitors coming to your site. You want this number to also be in the 75-80 percent range, which means a healthy number of new visitors are finding your site from keyword searches. And lastly, look at the length of time visitors spend on your site. If it is low, then your site isn’t engaging your target audience and you need to find new ways to do that.
When it comes to getting customers to your website, marketers say SEO is the number one source of leads, beating PPC and Social Media in 2011. While it is important to have a strong social media presence, it may be the wrong strategy to continue increasing your budget in this area until you can measure the results effectively.
- Your website should see at least 60-75 percent of traffic coming from search engines, whether organic or from PPC. If you are below that level, you need to look at optimizing your site.
- Another good benchmark to look at is the percentage of new visitors coming to your site. You want this number to also be in the 75-80 percent range, which means a healthy number of new visitors are finding your site from keyword searches.
- And lastly, look at the length of time visitors spend on your site. If it is low, then your site isn’t engaging your target audience and you need to find new ways to do that.
Read more here.
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November 17th, 2011
Both Google and Yahoo are showing local business listings prominently in their search results now, so if you aren’t listed, chances are you are missing out on a lot of traffic to your site. Eye tracking studies on Google show that users focus heavily on local results. If you haven’t claimed your free business listing on Google or Yahoo, make sure you do and optimize the listing with your targeted keywords. Also, make sure to see how your results are coming up on mobile devices and consider adding your business to the popular Foursquare.com GPS location site for customers to check in when they arrive. Read more here.
Both Google and Yahoo are showing local business listings prominently in their search results now, so if you aren’t listed, chances are you are missing out on a lot of traffic to your site. Eye tracking studies on Google show that users focus heavily on local results content. If you haven’t claimed your free business listing on Google or Yahoo, make sure you do and optimize the listing with your targeted keywords. Also, make sure to see how your results are coming up on mobile devices and consider adding your business to the popular Foursquare.com GPS location site for customers to check in when they arrive
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November 3rd, 2011
Google Analytics is making it harder to tell which keywords are leading to your site because they are no longer tracking keywords for users who are signed into their Google accounts while searching. This is a big change in the way Google reports keyword information. Adwords customers, however, will continue to receive all keyword data. Read more here.
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November 3rd, 2011
We think this is a cool way for a business to use an iPad. Customers at this Atlanta restaurant use an iPad to order their drinks and food, which eliminates the need for a server. Click here to read more.
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July 26th, 2011
Google+ launched at the end of June this year. Since then:
- Over 10 million people have joined Google+ (as predicted)
- Over 1 billion items have been shared and received in a single day
- The +1 button is used on average 2.3 billion times a day
Facebook should be concerned with numbers like these.
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July 26th, 2011
Ever wonder what is an average amount of time people spend on a website, or the number of people who leave a site or “bounce off” after landing there, or even the number of page visits? Well wonder no longer because Google Analytics has released a new Benchmarking newsletter and the results are in.
The benchmarking results for the United States are as follows:
11/1/10 – 2/1/11
Pages/Visit 4.5
Bounce Rate 47.0%
Avg Time on Site 5:23
This should help anyone out there who is wondering how their website’s statistics compare with the rest of the U.S.
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