December 2010 issue of the Target Marketing magazine had an interesting article I’ve meant to blog about for some time.

On page 11 the magazine’s senior editor, Heather Fletcher, brings us back to Hippocrates who while being “more synonymous with medicine that marketing” had also written a lot about human psychology. Heather is referring to a recent DMA2010 conference where Bryan Eisenberg reminded everyone that we actually have much to learn from Hippocrates, and especially when it comes to online persuasion.

Explaining what motivates people online, for example, Bryan brought up 4 consumer temperaments (based on Hippocrates’ personas or “personality types”):

1. Spontaneous consumers — those who pay attention to the top sellers and new releases

2. Humanistics — consumers that care about reviews

3. Methodicals — those who are inclined to search by genre

4. Competitives — consumers who focus on the top of the page

Then using an “example of Overstock.com selling DVDs” Bryan also illustrated how by testing “a change in the top graphic from something about children’s movies to language that emphasized general DVD sales” the company was able to achieve “a $25 million sales increase for the page with the general DVD wording.”

Insights into what really works we are told that “marketers can build predictive models to target the consumers”.

Learn more from Bryan Eisenberg himself in his 41 minute 21 Tips for Top Converting Websites presentation here. Tons of great information there — information for e-tailers, affiliates, paid search folks, and everyone who is doing business online.

Remember not too long ago I blogged about affiliate marketing’s place in the overall digital marketing?

Back then I stated that affiliates participate effectively not only on the acquire stage, but “also help in the branding (let’s not forget those link impressions that aren’t being paid for), retaining and growing the current customer base, as well as converting.”

Today I was happy to find a chart which outlines the stages of online customer engagement lifecycle, listing also the marketing drivers that facilitate conversion on each stage (click the below image to enlarge):

The above chart provides an excellent visualization of the roles that various types digital marketing play in driving conversions. Of course, one may argue that some of the above-mentioned “key actors” (e.g.: AdWords, Social, SEO, etc) work well on all stages (and I would agree). Also, when I look at the above figure, I see affiliate marketers working well on all 5 stages: (i) lead generation (all possible types of affiliates), (ii) facilitated buying (topical microsites, and social media affiliates), (iii) retention (various content affiliates, and personalized shopping websites), (iv) loyalty (loyalty and rebates affiliates), and even (v) WOM agents. The reason is the same as I have mentioned elsewhere: Affiliate marketing is not a type of marketing (like social media marketing, PPC, content, display, SEO, email marketing, etc) but rather a name for the type of business relationship/partnership between a marketer and an online (or now even offline) business being marketed — one where the former is being paid by the latter based on the performance / conversions driven in.

Over the past few months my wife and myself have become huge fans of Darrell Bush’s art, and shortly after falling in love with his paintings we were happy to find out that Buffalo Games produces jigsaw puzzles based on his artwork. We bought our first one some two months ago, and when my wife finished putting it together, we were simply stunned by how vivid and realistic the minor details of the painting become when they are composed of puzzle pieces. Every log and the roof of the log house, pier boat and leaves on the trees just came to life! So we decided to frame that puzzle:

I think it turned out to into a pretty impressive item wall decor for our basement. We weren’t expecting it to turn out this way, and it was both a pleasant surprise, and a start of a hobby… Since then we bought and put together another one, and it also turned out gorgeous. We looked over the Buffalo Games selection again, and decided to purchase our last one (“Winter Bliss”), but couldn’t find it anywhere in local stores, and I turned to the Internet.

I’ve found the new puzzle at several online stores, but as I was going through the checkout process with each (ended up testing four: PuzzleWarehouse.com, PuzzlesAndBeyond.com, PuzzBuffs.com, and SeriousPuzzles.com) to find out how much shipping would cost me, I’ve bumped into something that I believe to sometimes pose a real problem that negatively affects some merchants’ conversion rates. I am referring to disclosure of full shipping and handling costs conveniently for the user. And by “conveniently” I mean by not demanding that the shopper opens an account first, entering their detailed personal information (including email, full name, full address, and making the phone number information as mandatory). This is exactly the method used by PuzzleWarehouse.com and PuzzlesAndBeyond.com.

PuzzBuffs.com (I’m giving them and the next merchant backlinks here, as they have really deserved it), on the other hand, has a convenient “Estimate Shipping” option, while SeriousPuzzles.com allow you to calculate your shipping options right within your shopping cart. Interestingly enough, in my particular situation, the merchants that did require me to open an account with them first, ended up displaying shipping costs 50% or even 100%+ higher than those that didn’t have the compulsory registration in place. Guess which two merchants I ended up choosing from…

Whatever you sell, do some competitive intelligence, and make sure you do not end up being less attractive to your customers: neither in the usability of your website, nor in the competitiveness of your offer (the first two merchants in my above example failed on both fronts). And if you are selling something that requires shipping, do not decrease your own conversion rates by demanding compulsory registration before the customer sees and agrees to the shipping cost. That contact information you will receive from them won’t be worth anything unless it is contact info of a satisfied customer.

I couldn’t find any statistics on the exact impact of non-disclosed shipping cost on the conversion rate (even though I’m positive it does affect it negatively). So if you know of any, I would certainly appreciate you sharing it in the comments area below.

Over the past few months my wife and myself have become huge fans of Darrell Bush’s art, and shortly after falling in love with his paintings we were happy to find out that Buffalo Games produces jigsaw puzzles based on his artwork. We bought our first one some two months ago, and when my wife finished putting it together, we were simply stunned by how vivid and realistic the minor details of the painting become when they are composed of puzzle pieces. Every log and the roof of the log house, pier boat and leaves on the trees just came to life! So we decided to frame that puzzle:

I think it turned out to into a pretty impressive item wall decor for our basement. We weren’t expecting it to turn out this way, and it was both a pleasant surprise, and a start of a hobby… Since then we bought and put together another one, and it also turned out gorgeous. We looked over the Buffalo Games selection again, and decided to purchase our last one (“Winter Bliss”), but couldn’t find it anywhere in local stores, and I turned to the Internet.

I’ve found the new puzzle at several online stores, but as I was going through the checkout process with each (ended up testing four: PuzzleWarehouse.com, PuzzlesAndBeyond.com, PuzzBuffs.com, and SeriousPuzzles.com) to find out how much shipping would cost me, I’ve bumped into something that I believe to sometimes pose a real problem that negatively affects some merchants’ conversion rates. I am referring to disclosure of full shipping and handling costs conveniently for the user. And by “conveniently” I mean by not demanding that the shopper opens an account first, entering their detailed personal information (including email, full name, full address, and making the phone number information as mandatory). This is exactly the method used by PuzzleWarehouse.com and PuzzlesAndBeyond.com.

PuzzBuffs.com (I’m giving them and the next merchant backlinks here, as they have really deserved it), on the other hand, has a convenient “Estimate Shipping” option, while SeriousPuzzles.com allow you to calculate your shipping options right within your shopping cart. Interestingly enough, in my particular situation, the merchants that did require me to open an account with them first, ended up displaying shipping costs 50% or even 100%+ higher than those that didn’t have the compulsory registration in place. Guess which two merchants I ended up choosing from…

Whatever you sell, do some competitive intelligence, and make sure you do not end up being less attractive to your customers: neither in the usability of your website, nor in the competitiveness of your offer (the first two merchants in my above example failed on both fronts). And if you are selling something that requires shipping, do not decrease your own conversion rates by demanding compulsory registration before the customer sees and agrees to the shipping cost. That contact information you will receive from them won’t be worth anything unless it is contact info of a satisfied customer.

I couldn’t find any statistics on the exact impact of non-disclosed shipping cost on the conversion rate (even though I’m positive it does affect it negatively). So if you know of any, I would certainly appreciate you sharing it in the comments area below.

Today I am starting a series of posts (I am not planning to publish them in a consecutive manner, but new ones will be added as I come across the issues to address), and a whole new category – Affiliate Marketing Fallacies. In this rubric I will be covering the popular fallacies and misconceptions about affiliate marketing. About a year ago I recorded this video (my most popular YouTube video to date) where I addressed the misrepresentation of affiliate marketing as “possibly the absolute laziest way to make money.” I will certainly include it in the corresponding post in this new category as well.

Today we are going to look into yet another misconception about affiliate marketing.

A book by Patrick Tan entitled Success with Online Retailing: For Small Businesses, and published in 2003, has a chapter devoted to affiliate marketing (pp. 160-184). Among other things in this chapter, the author gives a definition to a super affiliate [see mine here], and speaks to the question of attracting such affiliates. Tan writes:

A super-affiliate is an Internet marketer who has made a successful living online. He is busy making money online and would not be interested in a program that pays mediocre commissions. You must offer exceptionally high commissions to attract the super-affiliates. (p. 166)

I have actually seen merchants who — being driven by (or talked into) the same thinking — were creating separate storefronts, with higher prices, to be able to afford higher than the vertical’s average commission rates. By so doing they’ve been making their offer uncompetitive, which reflected negatively both on the conversion their overall website, and on their affiliate traffic conversions in particular.

Recalling the topic I’ve discussed yesterday (but in no way supporting Amazon, as I believe they have a lot to improve in their affiliate program), the affiliate has partnered with a merchant that converted at 22%. While 20% is about an average conversion ratio (CR) for the top online retailers (see these charts), most e-tailers out there enjoy a considerably more modest CR. My personal experience with affiliate programs shows that while much depends on the vertical, solid CR generally ranges from 2% to 5%. So, speaking simplistically, if to raise your commission to the “exceptionally high” level you must raise your prices, making your conversion rate drop to 0.5% or less, you’d have to be paying your affiliates 44x times more to compete with them in the eyes of the affiliate.

It is never just about the “commissions”, but always about the payout; and payout is always contingent on the (i) commission rate, (ii) conversion ratio, and (iii) reversal rate — the three variables that should always be looked at in a bouquet, and never separately. Often, higher conversion ratio coupled with a low reversal rate make moderate commission rates more attractive than “exceptionally high” rates.

Reference: Tan, P. 2003. Success with Online Retailing: For Small Businesses. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse.

Remember the “Gone in 60 Seconds” movie? Well, an average website visitor gives our websites and landing pages considerably less time that that.  Some believe that “up to 50 percent of visitors to landing pages will bail in the first eight seconds” [source]. My friend, Avinash Kaushik, believes they’re giving us even less time. In a recent article in The Vancouver Sun he was quoted to state that the average visitor “will give your website two-and-a-half seconds before they leave.” 2.5 seconds, ladies and gentlemen! What are you doing not only to retain that visitor, but also to facilitate conversion? No, not every visitor is destined to convert, regardless of what your boss may think [more in The Myth of Perfect Conversion article by Tim Ash], but some of them will never convert unless you have paid a close attention to each of the following 6 factors:

1) Value Proposition or “what are you offering in exchange for what you are asking?”

2) Relevance of your offer to the visitor’s context (their personal needs and wants)

3) Clarity of offer and call to action

4) Anxiety “or anything on the page that causes uncertainty” vs. Guarantee

5) Distraction of the visitor by too many choices/offers on the landing page

6) Urgency or is your proposition giving them a compelling enough of a reason to act, and do so now

[adopted from Chris Goward as quoted here]

The above 6 factors will have immediate impact on your website’s/webpage’s conversion (or lack thereof); but even if you have entertained all of the above, never stop testing and improving (replicating and polishing what works) your landing pages. As I was growing up, and we were improving our home, my father taught me that home improvement/remodeling can never be limited to any one task, but is rather an ongoing process. “You can pause it, but you can never fully complete it” – he’d say. The same is true about website improvement/remodeling. While we will never attain perfection, we can get closer to it every day.