3 Pillars of Social Login

THE MAGAZINE FOR WEBSITE SUCCESS

DECEMBER 2015

Everyday & Everywhere

Web
Analytics
INSIDE THIS ISSUE...
The SMB Content
Marketing Checklist
Solving the Webs
Cruft Problem
Build Business Models
with a CRO Focus

PLUS

0
5
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Tools

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Why Unified Commerce Platform

is a Must for Business Growth

Top 9 Tips to Consider When

Selecting an E-Commerce Platform

To be successful in omnichannel
commerce, companies can no longer rely
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applications. No matter what a systems
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Executing a multi-channel business

requires the right e-commerce platform.
Heres our take on what a small- or
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platform or re-platforming to replace
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Sponsored by GoECart

12 Campaigns to
Run this Holiday

The ROI of Responsive Design

Automated Replenishment Guide

Back in the Hopper: The

Marketplace Fairness Act

As all retailers know, the holiday season

is the most wonderful time of the year,
if youre ready for it. In this eBook we
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By now, the concept of responsive Web

design is well known, and increasingly
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your executives for why responsive
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Three versions of remote sales tax

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Download free at
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Everyday & Everywhere

Web Analytics

24

Paying regular and rigorous attention to website performance and analytics is considered fundamental to the success of each and every digital enterprise; but its only the
first step. Web workers and the enterprises that employ
them need to know where to look and how to use that information once it has
been found to cross-sell, upsell, plan and most importantly, innovate and make
measurable improvements.
Explore Website Magazines

THIS MONTH IN WEBSITE MAGAZINE

DEPARTMENTS

Call for New

30 AVisibility
Practices

09

Publishers everywhere are at the mercy of the

domain average metric used to establish viewability scores, but there are better options.

10

Wealthy Webbies

To create a distinctive advantage over competitors, it has to be done with portions of the business they cannot easily inspect or duplicate.

34 Post-Holiday Email Retention

With bargain and gift hunters galore, the winter months improve retailers email lists but the
focus should then shift to retention.

36

Using Psychology
to Improve Conversions

While there is no magic formula for content or

design, it is possible to understand a target audience and which elements prompt their action.

38 3 Pillars of Social Login

Using social login to build complete customer profiles and create seamless experiences requires that
brands understand these key elements.

Enterprise Ready:
Big Datas Impact on Revenue & Marketing

12

32 CRO-Focused Business Models

Stat Watch:

Small Business Lab:

Content Marketing Checklist

13

Quiz Time:
This Years Biggest Net Developments

14

Top 50:
SEO Software

16

Mastering Search:
SEO Roles by Department

18

E-Commerce Express:
Shopping Cart Recovery

20
40

Design & Development:

Solving the Webs Cruft Problem

Web Commentary:
The Attention Economy

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DIGITAL SCOOP
Check out Website
Magazines email newsletters covering search,
e-commerce, social,
design and more at
wsm.co/webscoop.

From the

EDITOR
Changing Perspective
on Web Analytics
Its OK to admit Web analytics can be confusing (and a bit of a bore).

Find Website
Magazine at these
Internet industry
tradeshows.
Affiliate Summit
Jan. 11-12
Las Vegas, NV
NRF Big Show
Jan. 17-19
New York, NY
eTail
Feb. 22-25
Palm Springs, CA

Except, its not; actually, its one of the single most important activities todays
enterprises and marketers can engage in as there is no better (data-based and
repeatedly proven) way to correct whats wrong and set a business on the
course to success. If your company is serious about making improvements,
analytics is where to start.
What many fail to understand about the practice of analytics is that it
requires detailed attention every day and from every corner of the enterprise.
There needs to be a culture that supports such initiatives, and personnel
committed to its success. Those that do adopt a data-driven culture (focusing
more on the successful completion of goals rather than aggregating vanity
metrics), enable access to meaningful data among key personnel and set
consistent performance benchmarks are those able to make optimal use of
their digital presence.
Its time to change the industry perspective on Web analytics. In this months
feature of Website Magazine, the focus is on helping readers engage in a useful and
productive analytics initiative, discover the right tools and tactics to use, and learn
how to overcome the implementation hurdles to capitalize on the true power of
analytics. Its time to start putting analytics to good use in every enterprise.
This issue also includes guidance on many other topics essential to Net
success. Website Magazine readers will learn how to improve their big data
performance, understand how search engine optimization roles vary by company department and discover ways to eliminate the cruft from their digital
experiences. There are also other very insightful contributions on email marketing, lead generation, viewability and more that should not be missed.
As always, we hope you enjoy this issue and invite you to join us on the
Net where our editors and industry contributors explore the topics that matter most to digital success.
Best Web Wishes,
Peter@WebsiteMagazine.com

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Net

BRIEFS

QUICK HITS
Data Scientists
Winning at Life & Work
Data from Glassdoor reveals that data scientists have the best
work-life balance with a rating of 4.2 out of 5.0, followed by SEO
managers (4.1) and talent acquisition specialists (4.0). That said,
work-life balance has actually decreased in recent years, with
data showing overall work-life satisfaction ratings falling from 3.5
in 2009 to 3.2 in 2015.

The Best Customer

Service Channel Is
Millennials favor the online world while baby boomers prefer
the offline at least when it comes to customer service. According to a recent study from Sitecore, millennials are almost
three times more likely to believe personal technology brands
are best in treating their customers, while baby boomers are
nearly 80 percent more likely to believe brick-and-mortar
retailers treat their customers best. Regardless of channel,
businesses need to make customer service a priority, as 89
percent of the studys respondents said they would switch
brands if they received poor customer service.

The Perfect
Marketing Email
The perfect marketing email includes percent-off
deals, question marks and 6-10 word subject
lines. This data comes from a Retention Science
report, which shows that 38 percent of customers are more likely to click an email with a percentoff deal, while 47 percent are more likely to convert
when compared to emails with dollar-off deals. Whats
more, punctuation marks can have an impact on open
rates, with data showing question marks increase opens
by 44 percent when compared to exclamation points.

$ WHO GOT PAID?

$33 Million

Social intelligence company Brandwatch has completed a $33 million Series C funding round led
by new investor Partech Ventures. The funding will be used to accelerate the development of the companys core technologies
and products.

$2 Billion

In an acquisition reportedly valued at $2 billion, IBM is purchasing The Weather Companys B2B, mobile and
Web-based properties including Weather.com.
The acquisition is expected to be used for
IBMs new Watson IoT (Internet of Things) Unit
and Watson IoT cloud platform.

$5.9 Billion In a blockbuster

acquisition in the mobile gaming industry, Activision Blizzard has entered into an
agreement to acquire King Digital Entertainment (the maker of Candy Crush) for
$5.9 billion. Activision Blizzard expects the
acquisition will position the company as a
global leader in interactive entertainment
across mobile, console and PC platforms.

? OF THE MONTH

QUESTION

What is your companys digital resolution for the New Year, and why?
To answer this question and possibly be
included in an upcoming issue of Website
Magazine, visit wsm.co/decqotm.

Net

BRIEFS
POPULAR WITH WM READERS
7 Plugins Every WordPress
Site Should Use
+

wsm.co/7plugins

A fast, secure and user-friendly

site is crucial for better search
positioning, user engagement
and to drive conversions. These
WordPress plugins can help Web
professionals achieve just that.

APP FOCUS
Instagram
Unveils
Boomerang
Instagram is making images even better with
its new mobile app, dubbed Boomerang. Users can leverage the app to stitch a burst of
photos together into a high-quality mini video
that plays forward and backward. Whats
more, users have the ability to share their
Boomerang videos to Instagram and Facebook directly from the app.

Communities for Care,

Content and Conversions
+

wsm.co/sapcare

Ratings and reviews are an integral part of todays shopping experience. To help retailers generate the content they need, SAP
Jam unveiled a new Communities solution in October.

Need More Customer Data?

Improve Your Design
+

wsm.co/desdata15

For most businesses, customer

data is as good as revenue. Not
every enterprise knows, however,
just how much a websites design
can impact the personal information a visitor decides to disclose.

# WEBTECHWATCH
+ LaunchKit:
The new Super User Dashboard (https://launchkit.io/users) from
LaunchKit provides mobile developers visibility into the users who are
opening/engaging with their app the most. Just install the open-source
SDK, define the Super User and LaunchKit will track their activity
including app opens, total time in app, taps on screen and screens
loaded, all without fingerprinting or advertising identifiers. Developers can also group their users by quality and target those users with
specific messaging.

Discover more apps at ApplicationMagazine.com.

Have tips, stories, or funding or acquisition news to share?

Tweet us @WebsiteMagazine

Stat

WATCH

Wealthiest
Webbies
615:1

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has the tech worlds

highest ratio of CEO pay to median worker pay
earning 615 times (or about $85 million) an average
Microsoft workers salary (or roughly $137,000) according to 2015 Glassdoor data.
While Nadella is not yet one of the richest people in tech (his initial pay package likely skewed the
ratio), Oracle Executive Chairman Larry Ellisons pay
ratio isnt far behind at 573:1.
Oracles Ellison also sits second on a list of 100
tech billionaires and millionaires with an estimated
net worth of $50 billion. Microsoft Co-Founder Bill
Gates tops the list ($80 billion).
While tech titans like Amazons Jeff Bezos ($48
billion), Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg ($41 billion)
and Googles Larry Page ($33 billion) round out the
top five wealthiest people in tech, there are some
industry disruptors on the list who werent there as
recently as a year ago.
Uber Co-Founders Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick, for example, have a reported net worth of $6
billion each, but were not on any Forbes list prior to
2015, proving the tech industry is still quite lucrative
for upstarts. This is especially true for software.
In fact, Q3 2015 data from Pricewaterhouse Coopers indicates that despite being down 17 percent in
the number of funding deals, the software industry
receives the highest level of funding for all industries,
receiving $5.8 billion going into 412 deals.

20,000

U.S.-based developers earn more annually than any other

country ($89,631.68), but do not have the most purchasing
power as they can only buy roughly 20,000 Big Macs with
that amount, while their peers in the Ukraine can purchase
about 22,000 hamburgers with their $26,190.48 salary.
(Stack Overflow, 2015)

$139,500

Average annual tech wages are the highest in California

($139,500), followed by Massachusetts ($121,000),
Washington ($119,300), New Jersey ($111,600) and the
District of Columbia ($105,600).
(CompTIA, 2015)

$2.1 Trillion

Microsoft Corp.,Apple Inc., Google Inc. and five

other tech firms now account for more than a
fifth of the $2.1 trillion in profits that U.S.
companies are parking in low-tax countries.
(Bloomberg, 2015)

1
Dells 2015 purchase ($67 billion) of data
storage company EMC is the largest
tech-specific acquisition ever, followed by
Facebooks 2014 acquisition of WhatsApp for
$19 billion.
(Dell, 2015)
D E CE M B E R 2015

.com

|9

Enterprise

READY

Big Datas Impact

on Revenue & Marketing
By Rich Wagner, President & CEO of Prevedere

Big data has been a hot topic for years,

but few companies know how to harness
the unprecedented amount of available
information for bottom-line benefits.
Consider this: According to an IBM report on big data,
nearly 15 petabytes of data are created each day thats
eight times more than all of the information in all of the
libraries in the United States. Facebook alone processes
10 terabytes of data daily. For perspective, the entire
Cornell Law Library is only one terabyte of information.
With this influx of information, its no wonder executives are overwhelmed, with publications running
headlines like BIG Data Equals BIG Headache For Executives (Forbes) and surveys showing that companies
still arent applying data adequately. A report by the
Economist Intelligence Unit, for example, cites that 35
percent of executives lack the understanding of how to
apply big data, and 62 percent of chief information officers (CIOs) report that big data buzz has resulted in
unrealistic expectations from executives.
However, harnessing big data especially the external factors that impact business performance is
critical to maintaining a competitive advantage in todays rapidly changing business landscape. The trick
is being able to take the extraordinary amounts of data
and boil it down to the information that truly affects
business performance and operating decisions. Understanding how these key micro- and macro-economic
factors can improve financial performance and decision making is critical for companies seeking to come
out on top in todays highly volatile market, and the
good news is that new technologies are making it easy
to pinpoint the factors that correlate directly to a business without the need for statistical degrees or a sophisticated understanding of economics.
Armed with critical information on how external
drivers like foreign markets, commodity prices, manufacturing activity, consumer behavior, online traffic
10

.com

DECEMB ER 2015

and weather data impact performance, businesses

are poised to improve decisions in several key areas,
including sales and demand forecasting, identifying
marketing opportunities and threats and ultimately
enhancing financial performance.

Sales and demand forecasting

Accurate sales and demand forecasts are imperative to
making smart decisions companywide, yet most quarterly forecasts miss the mark by 13 percent, according to research from KPMG International. That means
decisions on supply purchases, product offerings and
availability, pricing, promotions and more are based on
erroneous assumptions.
Typically, such forecasts have been created using
internal insights into sales and demand from previous
quarters, but correlating those internal insights with
the external factors that truly drive demand is crucial
to improving these forecast measures.
For example, Tiffany & Co., which obtains half of
its sales outside the U.S., attributes nearly seven percent of its May-July losses this year to changing currency rates. Additionally, the global demand for luxury
diamonds declined significantly during the month of
August thanks to a slowdown in China, the worlds
second largest economy. By integrating such information into sales and demand forecasts, companies are in
a better position to plan for and react to such changes
in the global economy.
RaceTrac Petroleum, for example, was able to predict its foot traffic with 99 percent accuracy by examining how external factors impacted its sales, finding
that weather was a particular determinant to traffic
patterns and sales of key items. By incorporating its
sales and vendor data with external drivers of performance, RaceTrac now stocks its shelves based on a
more complete picture of business performance and
has improved its forecast accuracy and financial performance as a result.

Marketing opportunities and threats

Incorporating big data in the form of external
insights into sales and demand forecasting also
drives smarter marketing decisions. Knowing how
demand changes in light of changing weather,
changing consumer confidence levels and changing disposable income levels allows companies to
price more competitively running promotions
when interest wanes and keeping prices steady
during strong markets.
Likewise, such analysis is vital for determining
when to introduce new products. For example, a car
manufacturer that knows it can expect declining sales
three months after housing costs start to fall may want
to hold off on introducing a new model until housing
prices start to rebound. If at the same time it knows
that used car sales surge in similar conditions, it may
want to encourage dealers to stock up on used inventory to meet increased demand.

A clearer picture of companywide performance

Internal performance data plays an important role
in helping executives better understand how their
company performed year over year (YOY). Yet with-

out incorporating external drivers into this analysis,

financial teams will only understand a portion of the
factors that impact bottom-line revenue.
Today, there are millions of data sets from organizations and governments available. Companies must
make sense of this big data and integrate it into their
internal forecasting process to create a reliable set of
economic indicators that reveal the ebb and flow of
customer demands. With this data, they can better plan
for what-if scenarios, predict performance and communicate potential changes.

A seamless forecasting process

Businesses large and small are constantly faced
with the challenge of how to better predict company performance. With the vast amount of exogenous data available, executives now have access
to the information they need to make smarter
decisions regarding sales and demand forecasts
and budgets. Making sense of that data and correlating it to business performance is the critical
challenge now faced by corporate executives, but
smart technologies are making this information
more accessible than ever before.

Small

BUSINESS LAB

The SMB Content

Marketing Checklist
By Allison Howen, Associate Editor

Brands have become very strategic with

their content marketing plans.
In fact, The Content Marketing Institute reveals there has
been a 10 percent increase in business to consumer (B2C)
marketers who document their content strategy over the
last year (37 percent versus 27 percent). Whats more, 48
percent of B2C marketers meet with their teams either
daily or weekly to discuss their content plan.
In order for small business (SMB) owners to keep
pace with the competition it is imperative that they are
equally as strategic as their big-brand counterparts. With
the New Year right around the corner, there is no better
time to start planning, and the checklist below provides a
great starting point:
Take Inventory Begin by taking a look at 2015s
content. What type of campaigns garnered positive
results and which were virtual flops? When taking
inventory of previous initiatives, look at the content
of each campaign as well as the format and channel
it was distributed in. For example, did infographics resonate better than videos? Did lists work better than informative topics in email campaigns? Did
Facebook posts get more shares at night?
Scope Out the Competition The competition
can be a big inspiration. Research, however, must
go beyond a competitors blog. Dont forget to look
at email campaigns (this is why its a good idea to
sign up for your competitors email list), social posts,
video content and more. For instance, did the competition have success with a social contest? How
often did they create videos? Did their blogging rely
on contributor posts?
What Does Your Audience Want? Audiences
leave clues everywhere about the type of content they
prefer, but its up to marketers to discover them. One
channel sure to offer useful insight is social. Simply type
12

.com

DECEMB ER 2015

in business-related keywords on networks like Twitter to find out what consumers are talking about, then
create content around those topics. Moreover, look to
frequently asked questions that could be repurposed
into an informative blog post. A pet store owner who
gets a lot of inquiries about the best way to remove pet
stains from carpets, for example, may want to consider
writing a How To article on the topic.
Brainstorm After conducting the aforementioned
research it is time to brainstorm. Think about new
content ideas, angles, formats and channels, and dont
forget that some content can be repurposed. In the
previous example of a How To article for removing pet stains, the business owner could repurpose
the topic by creating an instructional video, and/or
making an email campaign that features the products
needed for the process.
Lacking inspiration? For a variety of tools to help brainstorming sessions, visit wsm.co/stormtools.
Create a Content Calendar Its time to put ideas
on paper and create a content calendar for 2016; and
dont forget to take holidays and company celebrations
into consideration when making one. Keep in mind
that while it is important to fill out the calendar as completely as possible (especially the first quarter), it is also
necessary to leave a little room for flexibility, as campaigns may change as the year progresses.
Assign Tasks Once the content calendar is created, it is time to share it and tentatively assign tasks to
team members. This makes each colleague aware of
what is required of them so they can start brainstorming ideas for their assignments.
Track Results and Revaluate To truly succeed
in 2016 it is important to track results as the year goes
forward. By reviewing campaign results each quarter,
marketers can continuously optimize their strategies.
Dont know what to track? Check out this list of 29 essential content marketing metrics at wsm.co/basic29.
It can be easy to get inundated with tasks during the
holiday rush, but it is important for SMB owners to set
aside time to prepare for the upcoming year. Creating
a content marketing plan is a good starting point because it can help shape everything from email to social
(and even search!) campaigns.

Quiz

TIME

Top Tech Developments

of 2015
Every year is a big year in the tech industry the ideas
become more innovative, the strategies get savvier and
the unthinkable becomes a reality; 2015 was no different.
From the introduction of numerous new generic top
level domains (gTLDs) like .tech and .sex to the unveiling of Buy buttons on major social networks like Facebook and Twitter, each week of 2015 had more than
one headline-making story.
Although it may be difficult for busy Web professionals to keep up with all of the latest digital developments
when occupied with their day-to-day business tasks,
Website Magazine is here to keep Net professionals in
the loop. In fact, by visiting WebsiteMagazine.com, visitors can find a daily roundup of each days top tech stories and get this news delivered to their inbox by signing
up for weekly email newsletters that cover the topics of
e-commerce, search, social, design and more.
In the meantime, find out how in the loop you
actually are by testing your knowledge of the top
tech developments in 2015 with Website Magazines
Decembers Quiz Time.

Get the answers to this months Quiz Time

by visiting wsm.co/qtdec15 or by scanning
the QR code on the left.

1. What is the name of Googles new parent company?

a. The Search Justice League
b. Zebra
c. Alphabet
d. Online Architect

Cheat sheet: wsm.co/googleparents

2. Which commerce plugin did WordPresss parent
company, Automattic, acquire in 2015?
a. OrderStorm
b. WooCommerce
c. Ecwid
d. SalesCart

Cheat sheet: wsm.co/wmbigmovers

3. Which social network gave emojis the hashtag
treatment in 2015?
a. Instagram
b. Facebook
c. Twitter
d. All of the above

Cheat sheet: wsm.co/emojipound

4. Which big-name tech company unveiled a stock
photo service?
a. Adobe
b. Microsoft
c. Twitter
d. Yahoo

Cheat sheet: wsm.co/stocknew

5. What is the name of Amazons new product discovery service that features a pinboard-style design (similar to Pinterest)?
a. Amazon Closet
b. Amazon Inspires
c. Discover by Amazon
d. Amazon Stream

Cheat sheet: wsm.co/amazonpin

D E CE M B E R 2015

.com

| 13

Top

50

RANK WEBSITE

Search Engine

OPTIMIZATION

SOLUTIONS

Despite a steady stream of changes and often volatile shifts in ranking/

position, the state of the search marketing industry remains strong.
According to the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organizations
(SEMPO) 10th State of the Industry report, which surveyed more than 500
digital marketers and agencies about their online marketing activities across
digital channels, search engine optimization (SEO) is the most prevalent marketing activity for 94 percent of individual marketers/clients and 92 percent of
agencies significantly higher than when the survey was conducted in 2013.
Search-based advertising is also top of mind with todays enterprises, with 84
percent of agencies/consultants and 83 percent of marketers/clients indicating
they run paid campaigns.
Whats interesting about the report is that it reveals marketers are gradually diversifying their digital efforts. In relation to social media, for example, 65
percent of marketers and 66 percent of agencies managed social media (with
Facebook Ads and Facebook Promoted Posts garnering the most use). Email also
remains an important channel and is used regularly by digital marketers.
What stands out in the report, however, is the intense focus the digital
business world places on all things SEO. While it remains one of the most effective channels, the practice of search engine optimization can be challenging.
Respondents to the SEMPO report revealed the most significant challenge is
managing the ROI of SEO efforts, staying abreast of search engines indexing
algorithms and technology, as well as optimizing destination pages. With so
much competition, and the degree and volume of change in the way search
engines return sites, enterprises are actively seeking solutions that can provide
a surer way to accelerate their SEO success.
In this months edition of Website Magazines Top 50, readers will find many of
the leading software solutions to support SEO initiatives on any scale. While this
is not a comprehensive list by any means, it will serve marketers and agencies
well as they pursue solutions to enhance effort and performance.

b
lu

d i
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p l a y e r
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Digital Power Players

Get a preview of Website Magazines upcoming
2016 Digital Power Player Awards at wsm.co/powerplay16.

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Moz.com
Wordstream.com
KeywordSpy.com
Majestic.com
Raventools.com
SEMrush.com
Conductor.com
Serps.com
Woorank.com
ScreamingFrog.co.uk
SpyFu.com
BrightEdge.com
UpCity.com
Ahrefs.com
Ubersuggest.org
AdvancedWebRanking.com
Searchmetrics.com
Link-Assistant.com
Webceo.com
CognitiveSEO.com
AuthorityLabs.com
Traffictravis.com
BrightLocal.com
HitTail.com
KeywordDiscovery.com
BuzzStream.com
Positionly.com
RankRanger.com
Rioseo.com
Analyticsseo.com
Rankwatch.com
seoClarity.net
Seoadministrator.com
WebPosition.com
Ontolo.com
KeywordEye.com
Axandra.com
Serpfox.com
WebMeUp.com
Linkdex.com
Ranktrackr.com
Seosuite.com
GeoRanker.com
Colibri.io
SheerSEO.com
Trendmx.com
GinzaMetrics.com
Lotusjump.com
Seoeffect.com
Linkfool.com

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Mastering

SEARCH

SEO
ROLES

by Department
By Amberly Dressler, Managing Editor

The role that search engines play in the

ability for an enterprise to be found online
is well-known.
Despite the evidence proving SEOs importance (see
sidebar), not everyone believes it is their personal responsibility to optimize for placement on the search

Organic Matters

Sites listed on the first Google search results page generate 92

percent of all traffic from an average search (Chitika).
On average, 71 percent of searches result in a page one organic
click (Moz).
Search accounts for 34 percent of website traffic, second only to
direct (Yotpo).
On average, users conduct 12 billion searches per month on the
Web in the U.S. (Comscore).

16

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DECEMB ER 2015

engine result pages (SERPs). Although there are so

many front-end and back-end factors accounted for
in Google, Yahoo and Bings algorithms as related to
search results page placement, all Web professionals
should know how their individual work may impact
their enterprises overall findability. While the following will serve as a high-level view of SEO roles
by department, it will help brands encourage (and
educate) their team members to start thinking like an
SEO professional.

Content Writers
There has never been a better time to be a writer. Companies are rapidly hiring both staff writers and guest
contributors (read, Thanks Content Marketing, Writers
Have Jobs at wsm.co/jobcm) to develop content at
a rapid clip in hopes of improving user engagement,
lead generation and, ultimately, search rankings.
The problem with asking a writer to write for
SEO, however, is that many of them have to speculate
as to what that means. This could result in an article
stuffed with keywords, for example.
Let it be known: A writer should not change for the
sake of SEO. They should develop content that solves

a problem, is easy to consume (e.g. subtitles, graphics,

etc.), is timely, links to relevant sources, offers a compelling headline and ends when the problem is solved.
It is these elements that will lend themselves to good
content that will be visited often and linked to from
other sites. Headers, keywords, metatags and other
SEO tactics are secondary to good content (addressed
further at wsm.co/seodeets).
That is not to say, however, that there arent
ways to improve contents engagement and viral
potential, like including numbers in headlines,
colorful images above the fold, etc. (read more at
wsm.co/viralboost). There are also ways to make
informed decisions as to what to write about.
Whats trending on Twitter, for example, can
spark a writers creativity, while frequently asked
questions (see sidebar) from a support ticket system can fuel problem-solving-type content. These
real-time topics should be on top of a set editorial
calendar. Creating an editorial calendar will ensure there is always fresh content for users and the
search engines to index and that an organization
covers the breadth of topics it needs to persuade
and engage users.

+ Further reading, Why Businesses Should Combine

Content Marketing with SEO at wsm.co/seowrite.

Social Media Managers

The impact social networks have on how a company
ranks in the search engines may still be up for debate, but at the end of the digital day all good content needs to be shared. When shared, the chance
of getting more clicks increases and that is always
beneficial to an enterprise. A social media manager
should use a variety of insights into what to share
and when. Buffer, for example, offers its clients
the Optimal Timing Tool to recognize when posts
should be shared depending on location, number of
posts a day and levels of engagement throughout the
day (see image).
Optimal timing can also be determined within
Facebook Insights (as it shows when a brands users
are most active on the social network), but its not the
only way to use social to improve SEO.

+ Further reading, Quick List of Social Media Best

Practices for SEO at wsm.co/qlsocial.

By using Buffers Optimal Timing Tool, social

media managers can ensure they schedule posts
for when they are most likely to be shared, clicked
and liked impacting a piece of contents traffic
numbers and possible rankings.

Designers & Developers

Website Magazine recently published, Web
Design for SEO: Building a Strong Foundation at
wsm.co/seodevs and SEO Design Lessons from the
Pros at wsm.co/prodevs, which go into greater detail
about the major impact design and development has
on SEO initiatives. Even still, it bears repeating that
the decisions these digital professionals make impact
everything from how a search engine crawls a website
and how a user is able to interact with it to its device
friendliness and page speed.

Software Buyers
Even though some executives are out of touch with
the day-to-day operations of an enterprises SEO initiatives, they are typically the ones relied on to purchase critical software for a company. Choosing the
wrong content management system, for example,
can hinder a companys SEO efforts if it has a poorly
developed code base or features archaic default naming conventions.

+ Further reading, A Software Buyers Checklist for

Customer
Service & SEO

Technical SEO is as important as the topics

mentioned above (and addressed frequently at
wsm.co/mastersearch), but different employees in a
company need to know what impact they can have and
are currently having on their employers bottom line. The
basics of search is as good as a place to start as any.

While service reps arent

usually tied to website
content, the service that
they provide can have
a huge impact on SEO.
Read more at
wsm.co/csandseo.

SEO at wsm.co/seocheck2.

E-Commerce

EXPRESS

Getting Shoppers

to Recover their

CARTS
By Amberly Dressler, Managing Editor

There are two sides, positives and negatives, to shopping cart abandonment.
On one hand, it can signal friction in the checkout
process (e.g. lengthy forms, slow load times, high
shipping costs, login issues, etc.) but on the other,
shopping cart abandonment can merely indicate a
shopper is in the research phase of their buying experience. Retailers need to look to their analytics to
understand the differences.
This is because the majority of consumers use online shopping carts as a
place to store products and, further, 37
percent of consumers who expect a shopping cart reminder also expect to receive
a coupon to motivate them to finish their
purchase (source: Bronto, 2015).
According to Kahunas (a communication automation company) Doug
Roberge, the issue is that items sit in
shopping carts and fail to get purchased.
Roberge advises that in order to overcome this, marketers need to be aware
of whats waiting to be purchased and
leverage tools that help highlight the
best time for a conversion push (see
sidebar). For example, if the item is a
larger purchase, the brand might allow
the customer a bit more time before reminding her of the unpurchased item.
Overcoming e-commerce friction is a
delicate equation that shouldnt be rushed
or pushed tooaggressively, but marketers
cant wait on the sidelines just hoping customers will make their forgotten purchases
Oriental Trading Company keeps
on their own, said Roberge.
shopping carts for 30 days and uses
For luxury or big-ticket items brands
them to retarget instantaneously
should consider developing content that
across the Web.
18

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DECEMB ER 2015

informs the potential buyer about the product. An

email about the cost- or energy-saving benefits of a
new washing machine can keep the product top of
mind for the person who left it in their shopping cart.
If opened, this message could serve as the perfect segue
for an email containing a promotional offer (e.g. free
delivery). The re-marketing of products with longer
lifecycles should be more sensitive to the investment
the user will have to make.
When it comes to smaller, more everyday purchases, retailers can increase the frequency in which
they serve retargeted campaigns. While nobody
wants to be bombarded with ads, they are expected.
When best practices are followed (check out, 3 Retargeting Best Practices for Retail at wsm.co/3retarget),
retargeting is a highly effective way to get shoppers
to recover their shopping carts. In fact, a 2014 study
from Visual Website Optimizer (VWO) indicated
that 72 percent of millennials (age 25-34) will purchase products left in their cart if they are offered
them again at a discounted price.
The problem, however, is that the majority of that
same demographic are using ad blocking, according to
Charles Nicholls, SVP of product strategy, marketing
solutions at SAP and, when they go dark, they go dark
forever. (For further insights, read, How Marketers Can
Overcome Ad Blocking at wsm.co/adblocksos.)
When marketing messages are contextual,
consistent and relevant (the three elements of fixing a broken marketing system as discussed at
SAP hybris Summit in October), however, brands
have a fighting chance.
Relevancy goes beyond retargeting with the
products in a users cart. It also responds to user
intent and hybris Profile has a rather unique method
of addressing the natural decay in intent that arises
when someone abandons a website, shopping cart
or other brand experience. For example, if a person is looking at a camera, leaves the site and then
comes back to look at the camera again, the intent
score goes up and so too does the frequency of personalized emails, landing pages, etc. If they come
back to the website without ever viewing the camera
again, the intent score goes down. If someone buys
a different camera altogether, the Profile solution
ends the retargeting entirely.
While retailers think abandoned carts were pervasive in 2015, they will likely increase in the New
Year as sites remember carts for longer (see images)
and modern shoppers test which companies will incentivize them to complete their purchases. Retailers
not leveraging retargeting are behind the curve, but
simple strategies wont be enough to lure modern
shoppers to purchase. Creating wishlist capabilities,
intent scores and more will set the bar in 2016.

D E CE M B E R 2015

.com

| 19

Design and

DEVELOPMENT

The Webs

CRUFT PROBLEM
By TJ VanToll, Developer Advocate at Telerik

Open Web evangelist Kyle Simpson recently opined on Twitter

about whether there was a term
for hating the Web more and
more as a user but liking it more
as a developer.

A. User engagement can be

impacted negatively when cruft
distracts users from their goals.

There isnt an exact term for what Simpson

means, but the sentiment is agreed upon by
many in the Web development community.
Betweenmodals,app-install prompts,mobile Web fails, ads, mobile redirects and European Union (EU) cookie prompts, Web
developers (just like average users) increasinglyhate using the Web.
The term that this article will use to describe
the phenomena is cruft: the poorly designed,
unnecessarily complicated or unwanted code
and page elements that the average website
includes, which does not contribute to what
the user is trying to accomplish (e.g. read an
article, buy a product). To put this into context
lets look at an example.

Visitors to the CNN articlein Image A wanted to

learn about psychopaths, but before reading they were
required to view and experience social buttons, the
temperature and a terms-of-service modal. Thats cruft.
Loading the article took 200-plus HTTP requests and used approximately 2MB of data, taking about three seconds to load using Wi-Fi. A test
of this Web page actually indicated that it would
take about13 seconds to load on an average mobile
network. This example wasnt selected to single out
CNN, but because it is now representative of theaverageWeb experience.
So, what is causing the cruft in the CNN example?
A deep dive into code reveals some 200-plus HTTP
requests (ad related and serving tracking/analytics
functions); 25 of which are to different domains.
Since minimizing HTTP requests is a well-known
best practice for mobile Web performance, why do
many mobile websites violate this rule? Money.
Why does CNN show ads? To make money.
Why does CNN include tracking services? To learn
more about the reader, to show targeted ads, to make
money. Why does CNN use social media buttons? To

encourage sharing the article, to get more page views,

to get more ad views, to make money.
Again, this isnt intended to call out CNN as the
bad example, but rather to show a specific model
that has become pervasive for content on the Web.
Developer Brian Rinaldi argued that the content
model of the Web is broken because Web users thoroughly devalue content and writers. He contends
that because users refuse to pay for content, publishersmust resort to drastic tactics to make money from
their writing.
Many people are attacking the cruft problem, but
interestingly the innovation is mostly coming from
outside the browser world.
Flipboard was perhaps the first successful attempt
at fixing cruft. Flipboard takes content from around
the Web and provides excerpts and links to the full
content. This provides a pleasant browsing experience
without all the cruft.
Flipboard has gone beyond this content preview role and now partners with certain content
providers to display full articles directly within the
Flipboard app foregoing the browser entirely.
Image B shows the same CNN article in the Flipboard iOS app. The same content is visible, yet unlike the browser version, the Flipboard article is
cruft free and loads nearly instantaneously.
Flipboards success hasnt gone unnoticed. Its
business model has been more or less copied by others, including Facebooks Instant Articles and Apples
Apple News. The way Web users experience and consume content is changing, so how is the technology
and development community reacting to the cruft
problem and what is being done?
HTTP/2: The HTTP/2 specification offers to substantially decrease latency on the Web by serving
compressed HTTP headers and loading resources in
parallel over a single TCP connection. Once implemented in browsers, HTTP/2 should substantially
lower the load times of sites relying on a large number
of HTTP requests.
Mobile-friendly: Last year, Googleannounced that
it will penalize sites that arent mobile-friendly in their
search results, and display a mobile-friendly label next

B. The same article displayed in

Fliboard is now cruft free.

to search results that meet their guidelines. This is a small

tweak, but one that early research shows is having a noticeable impact on how digital experiences are built.
Proxy browsers: Opera Minihas long been acting
as a proxy browser, caching resources on its servers
to reduce the amount of data that needs to be sent
to each individual device. Chrome for Android and
iOSnow includes a similar option to help users increase speed on the Web.
Ad blockers: Ad blockers are the primary tool for
attacking the Webs cruft on desktop devices, but
they have yet to make their way into users mobile
workflow, largely because mobile operating system
vendors have actively prevented them. Google has a
fair reason for actively discouraging ad blockers, as
itderives 80-90 percent of revenue from online advertising. Apple has also prevented ad blockers, but now
allows ad-filtering extensions in iOS 9.

A Cruft-Free Future?
Despite these existing cruft-reducing features, this
is still an area ripe for innovation. Why is it that for
publishers the only real monetization option is to
inject bulky ads that produce a worse experience
for everyone? Theres no clear answer here, though
many have spent years searching. While this is by
no means the end of the open Web, its time to
clean up the mess.

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Everyday & Everywhere

Web Analytics
By Peter Prestipino, Editor-In-Chief

Collecting, understanding and acting on

business-related intelligence is critical to
digital operations today.
As a result, paying regular and rigorous attention to website performance and analytics is considered fundamental to the success
of each and every digital enterprise; but its only the first step.
While most view the default graphs, statistics and charts
available in the myriad technology solutions used by Net
professionals daily as sufficient (be they marketing automation, customer relationship management, Web experience
or e-commerce platforms), it is possible to dig far deeper
into an enterprises available data pool and gather insights
and answers into what may just be the primary issues websites are experiencing and, more importantly, what can be
done about it. Web workers and the enterprises that employ
them simply need to know where to look and how to use
that information once its been found and do so from a
mature and sound perspective.
Most of the data companies have at their disposal is simply
ignored. Regular performance reports are out of reach completely (unavailable entirely in some cases) from key personnel.
Data is discarded at crucial moments of the digital experience,
or was never collected in the first place. It is difficult to deny
that customer data is not being used to its fullest potential
within many enterprises and it is preventing companies from
cross-selling, upselling, planning, and most importantly, innovating and making measurable improvements.

Its tough, if not impossible, to retain customers, plan

inventories, personalize experiences and/or eliminate rogue
actors in relation to fraud and security, without a deep understanding of customers and the information that results
from their online activity. Those that do take advantage of
the available data tend to have a significant competitive edge
(and greater revenues as a result) and thats reason enough
to pursue the practice with a great deal more rigor. And it
should start now.
According to a new study by the Economist Intelligence
unit, commissioned by Wipro, there is a strong relationship
between earnings growth and the strategic use of data. Adapting to this new reality will not, however, be easy. Seventy-four
percent of executives surveyed expect the range and types of
data they collect to expand in the next two years. While it
could prove to be a breakout moment and validate the investment into analytics offerings up to this point, to maximize
data use, todays brands need to find opportunities to cope
with the overload, the worries about quality and the general
lack of skills within their enterprises now as well as in the
future. They need to prioritize analytics and business intelligence (BI) initiatives every day, and everywhere.
The goals for any enterprises analytics initiatives are
relatively straightforward assist in delivering growth and
identifying growth opportunities, control costs and manage
risk. In order to make sense of the vastness of information
available, analytics solutions and enterprise processes must
be in place so the delivery of those goals becomes a reality.

Visual Analytics

Not everyone is comfortable with diving into some of the complexities of analytics and lucky for them,
theres another way to get a decent understanding of how users are interacting with a website (and its
content) thanks to visual analytics solutions. Heatmap software solutions, like the oft-mentioned Crazy
Egg, do an excellent job of revealing action and interactions taken by users, but there are also numerous
other solutions. Discover five powerful visual analytics solutions at wsm.co/visanalytics.
D E CE M B E R 2015

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| 25

The Right Tools

(and Tactics) for the Job
What Web professionals really want to know (the reason they are even moderately interested in analytics and
intelligence tools in the first place) is if their efforts and
resources are resulting in some positive effect revenue,
awareness, engagement. To get the most useful information, however, requires using the right tools for the job
to reveal the right data (at the right time and for the right
people during their brand journey). Fortunately, there is
no shortage of solutions available.
Google Analytics, which offers a suite of powerful features and benefits, is arguably one of the most popular
(just over 69 percent of the top 10,000 sites use Google
analytics according to BuiltWith), but there are many others worthy of closer examination. Its closest and most
significant rival at the enterprise level is that of Adobe
Analytics. While the companys Marketing Cloud offering is considered pricey in relation to similar offerings,
Adobes real-time data and reporting functionality, as well
as its advanced segmentation capabilities (and integration
with other Adobe products including its development and
testing tools, and new Audience Marketplace, which will
allow advertisers and marketers to buy and sell second-or
third-party data), make it an ideal solution for those with
more sophisticated demands or those who are planning on
scaling their enterprise up and expanding the capabilities
of their analytics and data initiatives.
Adobe and Google garner a great deal of attention
among business-focused consumers of analytics solutions
(and for good reason), but there are, as most likely know,
plenty of other powerful options that do not nearly receive
the awareness they merit. Piwik comes highly recommended among Internet retailers thanks to the platforms
strong e-commerce tracking capabilities, integration plugins
for leading providers including Magento and PrestaShop,
as well as its advanced reporting mechanism. Kissmetrics

The Power of Segmentation

One of the most significant mistakes that Web professionals
make is viewing all of their analytics at once but it is more useful
to view the data in smaller batches and groups and there are numerous, incredibly useful ways to do so. For example, traffic can
be segmented by the source of traffic, by device type or browser,
by returning versus new visitors and a whole lot more. Segmenting traffic in this way offers an opportunity to understand how
well a website is satisfying users. Discover more creative ways to
segment website traffic at wsm.co/6segments.

is also a very popular business analytics tool lauded by the

digital community and known to be particularly good at
making it easy to build and interpret funnels. Its path report,
for example, identifies the most common steps between the
first visit and a conversion. With integrations available for
numerous third-party tools, it too (if not always) tops the
list of considerations of analytics tools often among Web
professionals (particularly Internet retailers).
These are just some of the most utilized website analytics solutions on the market and they serve Web professionals well in their pursuit of insights that matter when
the aim is delivering improvements and growth. No enterprise is alike, however.

INDUSTRY OPTIMIZED
There are solutions available that were designed for specific
types of companies, industries and markets. Fuels new Fuel
Gauge marketing Dashboard, for instance, provides a good
example of a solution that serves a niche industry segment
well. Hotel and resort mangers using the platform can gain
insights into their website, booking engine, email marketing, social media, online reputation, guest satisfaction, organic and paid search and more, in one system. Brittain
Resort Management & Hotels (BRM) is the first to utilize
Fuel Gauge to for its 14 properties and will track each resorts marketing efforts, as well as conversion, occupancy
and revenue tracking in real-time.

Geo-MARKET OPTIMIZED
While Fuels industry-based approach will be logical for
hoteliers, location-based marketing technology provider
SIM partners approaches the analytics opportunity from
another perspective. The company recently launched
Velocity Insights, a suite of features for its local marketing automation platform that aims to help companies
move beyond simple performance metrics to provide
actionable analysis of their local presence. The solution
provides insights into the visibility and performance of
a brands location pages, measuring listing health by
applying a proprietary scoring algorithm that assesses
factors such as location data accuracy and reach across
influential data publishers and aggregators. The system
also provides demographic, Web and ranking insights to
help companies optimize performance.

OPTIMIZED FOR SCALE

As analytics technology solutions become increasingly more
sophisticated, enterprises are focusing on the value it provides across the enterprise. Amazon Web Service (AWS), for
example, launched QuickSight in early October, a solution
to make data analytics available and understandable to any
employee making business decisions, no matter how technically advanced their skill level.

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QuickSight is an aggressive player in the cloud data

analytics software market as Amazon can likely offer
more advanced, less expensive tools that will enable its
customers take advantage of insights from data analytics at every level of the organization. QuickSight will
start at $9 per user, much lower on average than the
cost of the traditional BI services. The new tool also integrates with AWSs data services, so organizations can
scale to hundreds of thousands of employees to crunch
data, run search queries and create data visualizations
quickly. The new tool uses a new Super-fast, Parallel, In-memory Calculation Engine (SPICE) to perform
calculations and render visualizations.
The point of profiling the variety of analytics and intelligence solutions is to reveal that there are offerings available, powerful ones, which can provide an enterprise the
information it needs to make decisions that will benefit the
bottom line. Even with the best approach, however, other
challenges remain.

Hurdles & the True Power of Analytics

When Website Magazine launched 10-plus years ago, it
was not uncommon to hear the word hits used as a
means to convey website performance (as if it were an
accurate representation, which it wasnt). Today, the
industry has become far more sophisticated (moving
from elementary activity reporting in the past to advanced event-based performance tracking and predictive intelligence functionality today) and there are many
challenges to overcome in the course of a brands digital
life as a result.
The first challenge is often in understanding the industry terminology as well as the broader concepts and theories of analytics and BI. As enterprises begin their journey
toward success with these initiatives, however, the following are the basic terms and phrases that will serve as the
foundation for most analytics efforts. Yes, industry veterans should already know these, but a regular revisiting will
ensure initiatives are staying on course (and improving).
Visits, Sources, Bounce Rate, Time on Site, Pages
per Visit these are the fundamentals of website analytics.
These relatively self-explanatory metrics can provide an immense amount of insight into campaign and business performance. It is when they are used in association with each
other (and in tandem with supplementary data), however,
that their true power becomes apparent.
One of the most significant problems in the realm
of analytics today is that those responsible for these initiatives tend to group all website data together, instead
of segmenting by source, referral, demographic or device. The sheer number of variables in aggregated data
makes it incredibly difficult to see patterns, which can
reveal potential tactics, channels or processes. The aim

that should ultimately be pursued is one of action. The

whole point of gathering and examining analytics data
is to be able to act on the real information available and
that cant be done without knowing what is causing action and activity.
The reason Web professionals struggle with Web data
analysis is because they tend to act quickly, instinctively
and (as are all humans) often subject to emotions, jumping to (often incorrect) conclusions accordingly. There is,
of course, a better way. It is necessary to connect data at
a deeper level by focusing on the metrics that ultimately
matter most to an enterprises goals. As a result, its exceedingly important to communicate whats happening and
those basic metrics outlined previously do not suffice. The
solution is to build in key performance indicators from the
outset that will satisfy analytics initiatives.

Start & End with Goals & Events

Todays businesses work in a performance-driven world;
a world no longer content to measure unique visitors and
page views, but rather with the satisfaction of goals and the
occurrence of events. As acquisition costs continue to rise,
this shift was inevitable.
Goals can be pretty much anything that indicates a conversion such as making a payment or donation. Not all
goals defined by an enterprise, of course, must be so closely
tied to revenue; goals can also be set up for indirect revenue
actions including creating an account or making a formbased inquiry. Say for example that a website offers an email
newsletter; with a confirmation/thank you page in place,
tracking the success of marketing and promoting that asset
and channel is possible.
Goals are essentially specific actions that when tracked
can provide an opportunity to produce improvement
more revenue, more registrations, etc. Whether for direct
or indirect revenue, tracking activity through the goal funnel provides an opportunity to analyze the entrance and exit
points that impact a goal.
Analytics systems can often do much more than this
though; its actually possible to measure any and every action
that takes place on a website through the use of event tracking.
Web pages, just like the companies that create them, are
made of many parts. There are links within content, callsto-action (CTAs), sidebar navigation, the list is long. While
clicks on these links may not always tie to some measurable
goal, they do and can provide an opportunity to understand
performance on a more granular level.
Say for example that a marketer wants to track the performance of on-site content marketing efforts in relation to the
number of people that express interest in a newsletter. A form
may be set up on the companys own page, but it is important
to track how strong CTAs are in generating a response. Event
tracking those CTAs can be done quite easily by appending

some unique event tracking code to each, which will provide

data on the effectiveness of every click. If a form is getting
plenty of visits, but not conversions the CTAs in the content
are working, but its the form that may need work.
Event tracking can be used to track a variety of activity, from file download and video plays, to link clicks
on interactions on embedded AJAX page elements. Since
there can be so many different events that can be tracked,
Web professionals should consider grouping events by
category or type (e.g. link or file), defining the action
(e.g. click or download), labeling it appropriately (to
know which event it is specifically) and adding a value
depending on its worth.
Events are really meant for tracking activity on any
page element that does not have a destination URL (such
as a thank you page). That being said, some incredibly
useful insights can be gathered from using events (that just
are not possible with goals). Say for example that there are
videos on a website and a marketer is interested in measuring if users are skipping through them (because they are
insufferably boring). By appending event tracking code on
forward and rewind buttons, this insight can become very
clear, indicating whether videos are engaging or not.
Hopefully enterprises have moved beyond basic activity
reporting and are investing their time and resources into
capitalizing on the true power of analytics understanding
on a finite level whats making a difference. With a clearer
picture of how well an enterprise is performing, its time to
put that analytics data to use.

Developing an Analytics Initiative

The real problem with Web analytics is that it is a real challenge to make good use of the data collected.
Calculating return on investment (ROI), for example, is no
easy task as most fail to include the costs associated with the
entire production and deployment of a project. It can prove
useful however when there is a plan in place. If enterprises
want to convert as many visitors to customers as possible, and
are tracking goals in addition to key metrics like sessions and
pageviews, follow this three-step plan to ensure analytics efforts
mean something to the success of an enterprise.
Define the Audience Need
Consumers want a specific product or service because
it satisfies a need. When brands know what need that
is, they are able to craft experiences that address their
wants and desires. Analytics systems are useful in that
they provide cues and clues about the audience including their interests, the manner in which they access a
site, not to mention how well an enterprise is at capturing their attention. Do users consume more long-form
or short-form content? Do videos produce greater time
on site than other assets?

Establish Baseline Conversion Rates

Conversion rates will be different for every enterprise,
but when you know what it is (and for every referring
source and channel) it is possible to emphasize the efforts and processes that yield the greatest result. Websites dont often have one conversion rate, but rather
many. Group similar offerings on a site to determine
what, if any, discrepancies exist. Employ testing (A/B,
multivariate) to identify what works.
Assign & Calculate Revenue
Each action and interaction can be given a value. While
an actual sale should be given a greater value than a
click-through, as one requires further nurturing, analytics can be used to help assign and calculate or determine
real-world value. From there, its just a matter of assigning dollars to action. When you know what is working
and what is not, it is possible to prioritize decisions for
the benefit of the bottom line.
Managing improvements spurred on by a rigorous analytics initiative is made much simpler thanks to the influx
of business intelligence tools, solutions that aggregate essential data, analyze information from disparate sources,
and help executives make sense of the data and more
importantly, to drive change more quickly.

Analytics Everywhere Every Day

Analytics can be a full-time job and it can often take a dedicated professional to wade through the volumes of data
available. If you know where to look and what to look for,
only then can your brand be on the fast track to Net success. Enterprises must adopt a data-driven culture, enable
data access to all business users, and create a consistent understanding and interpretation of data.

Business Intelligence:

Generating Dollars
from Analytics Change
To help guide Web professionals through the business
intelligence landscape, Website Magazine has developed
a whitepaper exclusively for our readers, which can be
downloaded at wsm.co/bidollars.

Net

ADVERTISING
Average is Never Good:

A Call to Embrace
New Viewability
Best Practices
By Eric Wheeler, CEO of 33Across

Billions of dollars are at stake for publishers advertising revenue. The reason? They
are at the mercy of the domain average
used to establish viewability scores.
Media buyers typically measure ad views based on the
average viewability of a website domain. That means
they monitor a website but dont account for how key
issues such as load times, ad placement, website layout and historical averages can distort the metrics,
leaving the publisher with a watered down score and the
advertiser with a less than optimal experience.
Using a domain average is not an effective way to
measure viewability.
The good news is that advancements in viewability
are being made. For example, several vendors such as
OnScroll have emerged that wont even load an ad unit
unless they know it will appear in view, while others
differentiate through demonstrated higher viewability
metrics. Still, the antiquated domain average metric remains the norm. The truth is that in-view ads are worth
a lot more than the out-of-view ads.
As an industry, online ad buys should use the viewability of individual units, not the historical average of all
ads on websites.

A Closer Look at the Problem

Today, viewability rates are calculated by the average

load percentage of all ad slot positions (top, side and
bottom) over a period of time.
For most viewability measurement companies, the
evaluation process looks something like this: ad slot
number one loaded 90 percent, while ad slot number
three only loaded 20 percent of the time. When these
two numbers are averaged, this website receives a 55
percent average viewability rate. However, slot one is
way more valuable than slot three. Publishers that are
30

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engineering high viewability into their sites may not be

getting enough credit for this effort and other publishers may be propping up slot threes with higher than
actual average scores.
Why are we evaluating the entire domain versus the
individual ad? It may be easier, but the easiest path isnt
always the best path. What does this average score mean
to publishers and advertisers? Not much.

Solutions: A Lens into the Future of Viewability

As the industry demands higher viewability standards, publishers will need to ensure they can deliver.
Here are three ideas for improving on the viewability
benchmark today:
Make the shift from buying via domain average measurement to buying via ad unit measurement. It delivers a much truer ad view metric
that benefits the industry as a whole. It benefits
advertisers with more specificity for better targeting
and measurement. For publishers, it boosts credibility through viewability. By supporting a pricing
model that drills down into the ad unit level as opposed to the domain average, publishers will attract
more and higher level advertisers.
Find good viewability partners. Publishers
should work with viewability vendors like Integral
Ad Science that make publishers more attractive by
scoring the overall and specific ad unit viewability
score for their site.
Redesign for Web and mobile. Publishers need
to redesign their sites to fully monetize them. The
good news is that this is already starting to happen.
AdAge recently reported that facing pressure from
advertisers, dozens of media companies, such as
Conde Nast, are re-evaluating where display ads appear to ensure viewability.
Publishers should think about new placements, not
just the standard placements in the same content
blocks. They should be creative with how ads are
inserted into the natural flow of content as viewed
on various devices.
Lets clear up a popular myth: People often perceive their ads will perform better if they are above
the fold. This is not necessarily true; it depends on
what the site visitors are doing. Scrolling down is
actually a sign of an engaged audience, so test basic
assumptions during this redesign phase. Above-thefold metrics will quickly cede to currently in view
and well all be better for it. An ad thats never seen
is not worth much.

THE WAIT

IS OVER

Order your copy of Domains 360

Website Magazines latest book by Editor-In-Chief Peter Prestipino is
available for purchase at www.domains360book.com.

Whats Inside
Domains 360?
Readers will discover...

+ A Brief History of Domains

+ Details on the Technical Landscape
+ Guidance on Mastering
Domain Management

+ Tips for Establishing Domain Portfolios

+ Insights on Buying & Selling Direct
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10

CELEBRATING

YEARS

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Conversion

CORNER

UNLEASHING
CONVERSION OPTIMIZATION
THROUGH YOUR BUSINESS MODEL
By Tim Ash, CEO of SiteTuners

Test, test, test! This common refrain has

come to dominate the perceptions and
activities of the conversion rate optimization (CRO) community.

comfortable in the repeatable nature of the testing activity itself, and familiar with the process. This is a false
sense of security, and will often result in a myopic outlook that leads to stagnation.

Sure, testing is important as a way to validate changes

to a Web experience, and make sure that changes are
not actually making things worse. On the other hand,
one of the problems with testing is that it operates on
the Web experience. This creates inherent limitations.
Testing is just like the drunk person looking for
their lost keys under the streetlamp at night because
the light is better there. Similarly, many CRO practitioners never wander far from the cozy and comforting routine of repeatedly running tests, which at least
on the surface produce some kind of clear measurable
results (whether good, bad or inconclusive). They get

Your own narrow view of CRO will severely limit

the amount of benefit you will derive from it.
So how does a CRO professional break out of this rut?
The key is to look beyond the website or landing page for
additional leverage by thinking of a website as the part of
the iceberg visible above the waterline. Most of the power
will come from the vast portion that lies below. This is an
important point in the context of competitors. If an enterprise wants to create a durable and defensible advantage
against them, it is much easier to do it with the portions of
the business that they cannot easily inspect or duplicate.

As a CRO, the job seems pretty clear squeeze

more value out of existing traffic arriving on a website
or landing page. So thats what they spend their time
doing looking for increased efficiencies. This may involve digging into analytics, optimizing traffic sources
hitting the site, segmenting an audience to achieve a
better fit or testing alternative content.
Some things, however, are either implicitly or
explicitly out of bounds. One of the most common
sacred cows is the actual business model. In other
words, CROs are not allowed to change the calls-toaction (CTAs), or the format and sequence in which
they are collected.
An online educational business, for example, has
the goal of generating leads for their sales force. Typically the CTA on the site will be some sort of long and
involved form (for a free information kit or something
similar). Once the form is completed, the sales person
will relentlessly try to close that prospect. Whats
wrong with that? Although it seems like a perfectly legitimate strategy, it is not.
The company is requiring someone to give up a
lot of information early in the process (severely restricting the number of people willing to invest the
effort to fill out the form). Then it is trying to hardsell them on the phone (even though in all likelihood
they are not ready to act). In other words, the business
model requires a standing broad-jump on the part of
a website visitor, and herculean effort on the part of
the phone sales force.
Imagine the following instead. A website visitor
arrives on a site, self-selects (via properly constructed
user-centered site navigation) into a specific role,
downloads a relevant e-book (without any information required in exchange except for an email address),
receives a targeted email follow-up sequence that establishes thought leadership and provides helpful information over time, eventually follows an email link back
to a targeted landing page on the site where they get
an opportunity to chat live with a knowledgeable rep
(while still remaining anonymous), the chat rep then
schedules (in real-time) an appointment to talk to a career counselor (the sales rep) on the phone (collecting
the information needed during the chat), the sales rep
reviews the info collected and calls at the agreed-upon
time to try to close the sale.
Now at first glance, this may seem like a conceptually more-complicated business model, but looked
at from the standpoint of both the prospective student
and the business it has many advantages. From the perspective of the prospect, the relationship unfolds slowly
and naturally. The value received along the way is more

than what is being asked for in return. The steps are

incremental and non-threatening. There are no big
hurdles to surmount. The person feels like they are in
control of the process, and are more likely to extend
incremental trust and expend additional effort as the
relationship deepens.
From the standpoint of the business there are benefits too. It is much easier to create content that speaks
to a targeted audience and is seen as more personal and
valuable. Much of the early stage follow-up can be done
with automated email sequences not requiring any
incremental effort or human involvement. Early stage
qualification can be done much more cost-effectively
via chat than on the phone. The best-trained phone
sales people are getting to talk to receptive prospects.
The phone sales people will have higher utilization rates (connecting with prospects a higher
percentage of the time due to appointment prescheduling instead of outbound cold-calling followup). Its a classic case of win-win.
Efficiency is doing things right effectiveness is
doing the right things.
Of course it takes some work to set all of this up. Email
sequences will need to be developed, online chat will
need to be staffed, all of the information collected
about the prospect will need to be passed to the phone
sales reps ahead of their appointments, the phone reps
will need to be retrained to take advantage of the new
workflow and available information (and to adjust their
technique to a more gentle close).
Beyond the specific example of educational leadgeneration above, business model innovation can
be done in a number of settings. In the e-commerce
sphere it can take the form of frequent-buyer loyalty
clubs, referral programs and incentives, and changing
a one-time purchase into some kind of ongoing subscription-based payment model. In lead generation it
can involve cross-referrals to other businesses that want
to reach the same audience. The possibilities are limited
only by a persons own imagination.
Now is the time to start thinking more broadly
about a companys business model and not simply
about its online marketing campaigns. How can
marketers help engineer a better business model?
If it benefits the business and aligns more naturally
with the needs of the audience, then they know they
are on the right track.
Tim Ash is the CEO of SiteTuners, Chair of Conversion Conference and bestselling author of Landing Page Optimization.

10 B2B
Lead-Generation
Opportunities for
Your Blog
These are the elements
that shouldnt be missed wsm.co/blogb2b.

Email

EXPERIENCE

Post-Christmas
Email Retention
By EJ McGowan,
General Manager, Campaigner at J2 Global

With so many festive promotions to offer

during the holiday season, attracting new
customers from Black Friday through the
New Year isnt a problem for most email
marketers. The true challenge is getting
new subscribers to stick around after the
holiday hype dies down.
After putting effort into pulling in new customers for the
holidays, the key to long-term success is retaining those
new subscribers and fostering strong customer relationships. However, the biggest mistake many marketers
make in retention is treating new subscribers like the
rest of their contact lists.
Below are a few tips and best practices to most effectively retain this seasons new subscribers and turn
them into loyal brand advocates:

Hone Your Holiday Tactics

The holiday season is a great time to prepare new subscribers for a lifetime of happiness with a brand. Marketers should use these first few months to grab their
attention and leave a lasting impression.
This can be done by revamping the standard welcome
message with a personalized seasonal greeting. Holiday
subscribers arent a brands average contacts and shouldnt
be treated as such. Adding a personalized touch will make
a strong first impression and give them an idea of what a
long-term relationship with the brand might look like. Additionally, marketers should make sure transactional emails
are well branded. Holiday subscribers will likely receive a
flood of transactional emails during the season, so a company will need to ensure it stands out above the rest.

Slow and Steady, Santa

Once brands have these new contacts, they have to treat
them uniquely and avoid approaching them too aggressively. There should be a slow and steady period
in the initial engagement, focused on building rapport
rather than overwhelming new contacts with a blizzard
of emails. To build trust and introduce a brand to new
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subscribers, companies should send informational content over promotional deals theyll probably be cutting down on the shopping after the holidays anyway.
Futher, if marketers purvey information, send surveys
and request feedback about the customer experience, it
proves that they appreciate the business. This will ensure
a brand is still top-of-mind without being overbearing.

Re-Gifting Isnt Always Tacky

A retailers contact list will likely double, or even triple,
in size between Halloween and the New Year. Retailers
should use this as an opportunity to recycle old content.
All of the content will be brand new to holiday subscribers, so they could be a more receptive audience for campaigns that have some more life left in them. This will
allow marketers to not only predict which campaigns
will garner success (since theyve executed on them before), but to also maintain efficiency despite a flourishing contact list.

Be the Gift that Keeps on Giving

The secret to retention after the holidays is continuing
holiday engagement even after the holiday season ends.
By studying contacts engagement with a brand throughout the holiday season this information can be leveraged
in upcoming holidays in the New Year. By using reporting and analysis tools, companies can identify what type
of product or deal attracted holiday subscribers to their
brand initially and use that information to tailor and personalize deals moving forward. For example, if a man
bought a womans necklace around New Years, send
him jewelry promotions around Valentines Day. Or if a
woman purchased childrens toys for Christmas, deliver
toy promotions around Easter.

Dont Be a Greedy Grinch

Subscribers earned over the holidays arent always longterm wins. Email marketers should work to build a relationship with new contacts for the first few months of
the New Year, but may want to taper off if they dont
receive engagement. Further, they will want to use engagement scoring to determine who is open to communication. If recipients are not interacting with the
content, they should temporarily be suspended from
the mailing lists and re-engaged after Christmas.
Holiday subscribers can be valuable contacts long
after December but only if approached correctly. Still,
even failure in a retention effort can be a lesson that pays
off. Use new subscribers as a testing group if you lose
more than half after the holidays end, and re-evaluate
your overall email marketing strategy to optimize for
retention. In short, dont waste the opportunity holiday
contacts offer. Whether theyre naughty or nice, theres
insight to be gained.

WEBSITE MAGAZINE

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INBOX

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D E CE M B E R 2015

.com

| 35

Analytics

INSIDER

Using Psychology to Improve

Website Conversions
By Dr. Liraz Margalit, Web Psychologist atClickTale

If there is one important lesson learned

from the many studies conducted in the
Web usage, analytics and optimization
fields, it is that to see results, online businesses need to feel their clients.
Understanding their behavior, their needs and the impetus for their actions requires a basic comprehension
of psychology (and some greatdigital customer experiencetools to gather the required data).
While there is no magic formula for button colors
that convert, killer copywriting or winning layouts, it is
possible to get inside the mind of a target audience and
understand which elements prompt action.

Introspection and Web Behavior

The process of understanding behavior could be best
described by the psychological termIntrospection,
which essentially means to examine ones own conscious thoughts and feelings, to obtain privileged access
to ones mental states. Thats not easy to do, however,
when it comes to Web behavior.
Introspection (and self-observation) is a method in
which people are asked to verbally report their mental
processes. For example, to say why they made a particular choice or how they arrived at a particular judgment.
The main criticism to this method is that there is always
a gap between what people report about themselves
and their actualbehavior. Therefore, when trying to
optimize a website, relying solely on visitors feedback
regarding their experience is not the ideal approach.
Instead, brands are using solutions to visualize visitors
online behavior to bridge the data gap in understanding
action and inaction.

Introspections Substitute: Behaviorism

Introspection is about human self-reflection rather
than external observation. It reflects the inner process of the human mind.In contrast, Behaviorism is
more quantitative and looks at the external, observable
causes of human behavior.
To be practical in the realm of Web analytics, the
context of actions is of the utmost importance in under36

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DECEMB ER 2015

standing browsing usage. While traditional analytics can

analyze conversion rates and detect whether a website
has succeeded or failed in reaching its goals, they are
ineffective at providing a broader view.
When engaging in more refined exploration of
human interaction on the Web, analysis based on server
access logs alone (as is the case with traditional analytics) is anything but sufficient. To see the entire picture,
it is necessary to examine and understand the visitors
behavior, motivation and resulting actions.
A key element in the Behaviorist approach to understanding online behavior is gathering mouse-movement
data, which can pinpoint user intent and interests.
Mouse-movement recording technology provides
a series of interesting advantages when compared to
classical usability tools. For example, it can be mass
deployed, allowing for large datasets; it can reach typical and first-time visitors in their natural environment;
and, most importantly, it is transparent to visitors, so
no experimenter bias or novelty effects are introduced,
allowing them to browse websites in their natural environment as opposed to lab conditions.
Session recording technology enables businesses to
easily examine what is going on behind the screens, in
the minds of the users. For example, it can reveal how
many usersconsideredclicking the buy button versus
how many of them actually clicked it. Or, it can provide insight into the order in which they complete the
fields of a form. Marketers can use this technology to get
quantifiable answers to the questions that plague them,
including whether people actually scroll down the Web
page (and how far), where they hesitate on the page
(and for how long), as well as what elements they are
interacting (engaging with or concentrating on).
Session recordings provide answers to these questions and many more. Videos can be generated for individual or for segments/groups or users (for example,
based on engagement time, location or first-time versus
returning visitors). Likewise, recordings detect page elements that visitors interact with the most, the rate of
scrolls (to infer interest), or whether the pages viewed
have a minimum scroll reach (which may indicate that
some visitors are searching for specific content but are
not being successful), to name just a few.

No Room for Guesswork

While it is possible to guess what changes to a Web page
or website will achieve the highest conversion rates and
then hope for the best, this is clearly not the best practice
for online marketers as it wastes time and money, both
valuable resources. Using Introspection and Behaviorism principles to develop valid hypotheses, understand
behavior, run controlled tests and evaluate the results is
the only path to improvement.

Do You See Me?

I see you! and so do
your customers!
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WebsiteMagazine.com!
If you want to reach a tech-savvy audience, advertise
in the industrys top publication. Over 50% of our
subscribers are C-List executives, and overall, 84% of our
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Go beyond! Website Magazine offers

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Newsletters and eBlasts
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D E CE M B E R 2015

.com

| 37

Social Media

MAVENS

Enhancing Customer
Identity Management:

3 Pillars of
Social Login
By Stefan Koenig, CEO and Co-Founder of Hull

In the quest for simple and intuitive digital

experiences, website visitors are growing
increasingly frustrated with having to create multiple usernames and passwords
for each site they visit.
With email passwords, social media passwords,
banking passwords, etc., the last thing most want
is to have to remember another login to make a
simple purchase. In fact, in a recent Web Hosting
Buzz report, 86 percent of retail customers say that
they are bothered when they have to create a new
login and username.
For this very reason, social login has become increasingly popular among retailers looking to turn
website visitors into returning customers. Retailers
know that improving conversion rates (e.g. purchases)
begins with improving the customer experience. Allowing visitors to register with a simple click to log in
with their existing social media profile from Facebook,
Twitter or LinkedIn eliminates the need for long registration forms, verifications and password recovery. In
fact, 77 percent of consumers reported a preference for
social logins in the Web Hosting Buzz report.
38

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DECEMB ER 2015

Despite its benefits, many businesses fail to take full

advantage of the potential of social logins using them
ineffectively or not at all. In order to use social logins
to build more complete profiles of customers and create seamless experiences, retailers must understand the
three pillars of social media login.

I. Go beyond gamification
Interactive elements including quizzes have proven successful in reaching todays consumer, creating fun and
entertaining ways for visitors to interact with a brand and
share content. Many enterprises use social login to access
these games, but limiting social login to brand engagement
campaigns means companies are losing out on important
insights. Using social logins merely for short-term marketing efforts limits the ability to enhance customer experiences and create comprehensive customer identities.
When social login is used only for one-off campaigns, all the information about user behavior is limited
only to the game. Instead, implementing a social login
for all digital marketing efforts from shopping carts to
commenting tools to customer service inquiries will
help digital marketers connect the dots between all of
the ways a customer interacts with their brand.

II. Make it simple and intuitive

Retailers know they have only seconds to intrigue site
visitors. What they struggle to understand is how to get
visitors to provide their information within those same
seconds. Many use pop ups and embedded forms, but if
they are not compelling, are too long or too complicated
(squinting to read CAPTCHAs sound familiar?), brands
waste valuable opportunities to convert.
Users are doing multiple things simultaneously,
likely talking on the phone, texting or watching TV at
the same time they are logging into a site, so the process
needs to be simple limit the social login choices to the
top three used by customers (currently thats Facebook,
Google and Twitter), and offer a very short form for
those that dont want to use this method.
Creating an intuitive social login also means eliminating requests for new passwords and email verifications. To have users create a password for a site that
they logged into via a social profile defeats the purpose of moving to one login. Plus, sending a verification email creates an unnecessary additional step that
is cumbersome for users.
Finally, ensuring that a website remembers returning
users is foundational for creating an intuitive, simple social login process. As the digital worlds become increasingly mobile, consumers expect to browse products on
smartphones and make purchases from laptops. Knowing this, its critical that brands remember consumer
preferences and shopping carts from device to device,
whether its a mobile site, laptop or app.

III. Connect the data behind user behavior

A common issue among retailers today is understanding and defining customers in a digital world, where
one user may have multiple identities by a brand, with
email, customer service and e-commerce all having different data on the same user.
Deploying a social login that effectively captures the
products users are viewing and purchasing, the reviews
theyve given, the comments theyve made or a customer
service submission they have created can give IT teams,
customer service reps and marketing executives the kind
of information they need to be most effective. Ultimately,
this insight allows brands to send the right message at the
right time to the right user increasing conversion rates.

The key to seamless user experiences

Social logins are necessary to connect with and reach
todays consumer, but they must be implemented the
right way in order to be effective. By creating a simple
social login that not only remembers returning users, but

Eighty-six percent of retail customers say that they are bothered

when they have to create a new login and username, proving the
benefits of social login.

also connects the dots between a site visitor and a social

media profile can create meaningful information that
helps retailers better understand their customers. This
better understanding translates to better communication,
ultimately increasing sales and loyalty.

Did You Know?

When Janrain recently polled consumers (mostly under 45
years old with annual incomes less than $100,000), it found:
92% have encountered social login before.
3 out of 4 use social login.
70% leverage social login because its faster than registering the
traditional way.
68% have left incorrect or incomplete information when site registration becomes tedious.
64% are more likely to return to a website that remembers them
without a username and password.
53% are more likely to spend more time on a site that personalizes
their Web experience based on profile and interests.

Web

COMMENTARY
Competing in the

Attention
Economy
By Amberly Dressler, Managing Editor

Did you knowDisney doesnt sell amusement park tickets or products? Rather, they
sell an experience, and they are competing
for your free time to do so.

Keynote Cliff
Notes: What
You Missed
Get a roundup of best
practices, software
updates and emerging
trends discussed at this
years tradeshows at
wsm.co/keycliff.

This is one of the messages Constellation Research

Founder R Ray Wang delivered at Episerver Ascend
2015 in Las Vegas when he spoke to a crowd of marketers, developers and other professionals interested in
learning more about improving their digital experiences.
For those who have missed some of this Falls biggest customer-day type technology shows, know this:
There is an attention economy where advocacy, engagement and time is as good as currency. Capitalizing
on the attention economy can only happen, however,
when content is delivered in relevant ways across channels before, during and after the sale.
While many savvy marketers have known this for
quite some time and may be using solutions from the
likes of Episerver, SAP, Sitecore, DNN, Monetate (and
the list goes on) to do so, creating the amount of content
needed to speak to customers/readers/users 1:1 presents
a resource burden that most brands have failed to minimize as copy, graphics, photos, suggestions and other
creative content needs to be changed to address users
wants and needs. The demand, however, is there and
the available data is a big part of that.
At Ascend 2015, Episerver gave attendees an exclusive preview of Profile Store and its ability to aggregate user data from channels like Instagram, searches
and website behavior. To put this type of information
to good and immediate use, brands can prioritize user
personas and, in turn, reduce the amount of content
needed to be created.
Episerver customer Mud Pie, for example, has three
distinct filters on its site: baby items, fashion and living. A first-time visitor receives a generic Welcome

R Ray Wang discussing the Attention Economy at Episerver Ascend 2015.

message and a promotional offer to incentivize the initial purchase. Once Mud Pie is able to identify which
products the user is interested in, Episerver will serve
the correct content based on that persona. Even with
its agency of record, Whereorware, and marketing
automation company Silverpop, it would be too time
consuming to update all channels (with images, copy,
promotions) to more than a few segments, so Mud Pie
has wisely selected to personalize high-trafficked pages
based on past purchases, product type intent and more.
For example, someone looking at a baby item, will now
see emails and landing pages based on that product and
category (rather than Mud Pies living or fashion lines).
Not every company retailer, service provider or
information publisher will be able to invest in a new
Web content management system or a marketing automation platform in the New Year, but those who want
to compete in the attention economy will have to make
strides to deliver personalized content soon. When
ready, their software and technology-related decisions
should be fueled by how the product will help them
personalize experiences at scale and what profile data
those experiences will be based on.
If buyers spend their limited free time investing
in a brand (e.g. viewing content, completing forms),
enterprises will have to invest in them too. This starts
with leveraging technology that allows enterprises to
speak to users personally and, thus, get and maintain
their attention in this changing economy.

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D E CE M B E R 2015

.com

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