Angie McKaig - E-Business Consultant and Entrepreneur

Deconstructing a Threadless twitter contest to learn from it. Great ideas for Twitter contests.

Why is it when you compile a list of such seemingly obvious and innocuous methods to increase conversions, you suddenly realize just how many retailers don't follow these practices? The statistic: "23% of shoppers will abandon when asked to register before checking out." I've heard that a million times before, yet how many sites allow guest checkout, or even better - allows the user to register MUCH LATER in the checkout process? And persistent shopping carts are, IMO, a must-have; it's horrifying how many retailers fail to implement them. I've personally changed my mind on dozens of products because two days later when I went back to finish the sale, my cart was empty.

Fabulous results from this study - really worth your time visiting. Unsurprisingly, the most effective ads were ones related to the content on the publisher's web site. Really? Is this still news? WHY is it so difficult for the industry/publishers to figure this out? If ads are relevant to the content on the web site, the ads can be seen as a value-add. If not, they're at best irrelevant (would you ever put any OTHER kind of irrelevant content on your web site? No? Then why devote so much ad space to it?) and at worst detracting from the content you've spent so much time creating. Hello? Common sense.

Rather than talking about it from a "finding a balance" perspective, this post talks about it in terms of real ownership: building trust with both readers and sponsors in an ethical way is the best way to make things work. Some great comments to the post as well, worth reading.

Absolutely fantastic audio/slide presentation with some very surprising but well tested results. Testing rocks. Companies willing to share their test results? Rocks even more.

Social media expert Rob takes Facebook to task for asking users for feedback then putting that feedback in a black box. I just want to know why they would EVER show you an ad again that you've actually taken the time to dislike. Do their advertisers know this? Because that's, er, rather relevant... wouldn't you think?

Excellent points, particularly about segmenting your customers and the danger of having "trained" them. I'd go one step further and say that the danger of permanently devaluing your product is huge. I keep getting emails from a magazine offering me "free - over $1000 worth of advertising" on their web site, if I'll just buy a print ad from them. And they've offered it several times, to boot. Sorry, folks, but all that teaches your customers is that your web ads probably aren't worth anything in the first place, so why would they ever buy them?

So conflicted about this. The UX side of me knows it's hard to get people's true responses no matter how well designed your survey. The marketer in me believes that this kind of in-depth study may indeed result in better targeted ads and packaging for consumers. But the rest of me is squicked by the idea that the only way we can really engage our customers is to hook them up like the borg. Is this progress? Or a slightly more underground/convoluted way to sell "food product" to an unsuspecting public? I'm honestly torn.

Great overview of what's needed to help break down the "us vs them" mentality between marketing and IT. They both fulfill massively important roles in the organization, and their goal is the same - be successful and do smart things. To balance everything, you need to work together.

The venerable Bryan Eisenberg's having a free webinar tomorrow at noon - free always works for me - where he'll discuss the 21 Secrets of Top Converting Websites. Bryan's a tremendous source of information on conversions, so if you're smart, and you have time... sign up. I believe you'll see me there (virtually, natch).

Sometimes the simplest ideas are the most brilliant. (Of course, it doesn't hurt that 5 minutes of web traffic gives you enough stats to be able to tell... jealous!) Thanks, Bryan.

I think, hands down, creepiest one has to be the one that recommends Lysol as a douche. Yeah, you read that right. [shudder]

Just-a-guy does a cool thing with a corporate product, takes a photo of it, and the thing goes viral - Digg home page, the works. Then, corporation decides they want to use the image in a viral campaign of their own. Refuses to pay a $2k licensing fee to the original photographer, instead "recreates" their own for less, and then forgets about those darned Intertubes... they're so connected! Who knew they'd be found out? Classic corporate idiocy.

Somebody at DQ is thinking - with a sense of humour to boot. Excellent idea.

Great interview with Debbie on brands and brand design. I think I'm definitely going to be picking up her book.

Nice hard dose of reality for email marketers. Unfortunately. (God I hate how ostensibly "user-friendly" email programs handle HTML.)

Nice hard dose of reality for email marketers. Unfortunately. (God I hate how ostensibly "user-friendly" email programs handle HTML.)

Sure, this guy's a newb. But his upset about this marketing experience is important to point out for one reason: he represents the masses. I think most folks don't realize the level of information collected from email marketing. I think the real risk here is in B2B communications, like the one in the post - it's very easy to follow up once you know someone's been interested. The real trick is how to follow up without "creeping them out". Sigh.

For your Friday chuckle. Very clever illustration of the difference between the four.

Good email marketing tip. I love the endlessly clever folks at GetElastic blog (I swear I'd link to every single one of their articles if it wasn't, like, totally fangirl of me to do so).

Not that this is entirely a surprise, but it is a little frightening all the same. Hopefully this report will put pressure on the biggest offenders of "Report Spam" buttons - Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail and their ilk - to make the buttons more clear. Clarity is important. Didn't you pay attention to those commercials?

A fabulous sound introduction to the steps you need to take other than designing the email. Truly, there's a lot more to it than people think. I love Digital Web Magazine. Brilliant and useful stuff for web workers.

"Previous recessions have provided big opportunities -- spawning the brand-management system, soap operas, modern cable networks, airline loyalty programs, the IBM personal computer, the iPod, Crest Whitestrips, Axe body spray..." I love marketing.

Some good tips here, some common stuff like headline crafting (without the exact tips to make a good headline, but I digress) but also some good suggestions for the pre-header that are worth considering.

Brilliant marketing/new media/new way of thinking about the music industry: musicmaker/songwriter Jill Sobule runs a pledge drive - with different goodies for each level of donation - to raise money for her next CD. Brilliant both as a way to raise funds but also from a marketing perspective: gets her press now, and gets her very motivated groupies when the album comes out. Really, really, smart.

"For anyone else, if your pricing requires a call from a sales rep, it's too expensive for me right now. And I don't mean whatever your monthly/yearly subscription fees are, or the licensing cost. What I mean is that I don't run my business using the telephone. For now, it we need to talk on the phone, I'm not the right customer for you." And how. I wish more businesses understood this. Via Signals vs. Noise.

Good overview of what to look for, and lots of great screenshots. Squirrel Mail is horrifying, isn't it? Perfect example of what happens when you let a programmer design an interface. (No offense to programmers, but honestly...)

"Track your rivals. Then eat their lunch." Cool concept. I always wonder who supplies all this "traffic data" these sites use?