During the last two weeks we analyzed our 2009 projects to assess the average improvements in conversion rates and increases in revenue our team helped clients achieve.  Before we get to the numbers, we wanted to reiterate that 2009 was one of the most challenging years for our clients.  Our projects for clients were focused on plugging the leaky faucet of online shoppers due to the external factors of the economic recession. Promotions, pricing structures, and free shipping became huge motivators and persuaders for the online shopper throughout the year.

And here are the results:

Continue reading 2009 – How did the recession impact your company?

Posted in Ecommerce

Social media has exploded as an industry and changed the way businesses interact with their customers. Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace are drawing millions of people into active participation—and when you find millions of engaged people, you’ll find plenty of businesses trying to convince them to part with their money. For all the altruistic talk of companies connecting with human beings (that’s the social) the endgame is always going to be revenue (that’s the marketing).

Sometimes, however, the marketing and the social aspects fail in colossal fashion. And when that happens, we can all learn from and laugh at their mistakes. Here are six of the biggest crash-and-burns in the last 10 years of social media marketing.

Continue reading 6 Household Brands That Got The Taste of Social Media Backlash

Posted in Social media

Online marketing has evolved tremendously over the last decade. Within a single decade the interest and need for understanding this space has grown to insurmountable lengths. And there are the select few carrying forward… 

In compiling our second ranking of the Invesp’s Top 100 Marketers, we struggled with determining the exact criterion because every marketer has made contributions. We determined that marketing your company, your products or yourself had to meet four requirements.

Continue reading Invesp’s Top 100 Marketers of 2009

Posted in Sales & Marketing

While speaking at SES Chicago, Dr. Ralph Wilson , from Web Marketing Today interviewed Ayat to talk about 5 ways to increase Your ecommerce conversion rate.

Posted in video

Since voting started on the 2009 top online marketers yesterday, I wanted to put a quick list of the twitter ids for the nominees. (names appear in alphabetical order)

Continue reading Twitter IDs: 2009 Top Marketers Nominees

Posted in Business

I will be speaking at the SES Chicago conference this coming week (December 7-11) on Wednesday December 9th at the Pay-Per-Click Congruency Clinic from 2:30 – 3:45 pm. What we’ll be talking about:

“Pay-Per-Click Congruency Clinic
Crucial to creating successful Pay-Per-Click campaigns is developing messaging that is personalized and persuasive, but also congruent throughout each of the campaign’s elements. This clinic will review PPC campaigns offered up by audience volunteers, from ad to landing page and beyond, suggesting improvements at each step along the way.” (SESChicago)

Let’s connect! @ayat or e-mail me ayat at invesp dot com

Posted in Meetup

Quick note: We just published the first installment of our Google website optimizer for Ecommerce. You can read our new article – 55 Google Website Optimizer Tips and Tricks.

Posted in Conversion Optimization

In our previous post, we called for nominations for the Top 100 Internet Marketers of 2009. We received a great response, and are pleased to announce the nominees for this year’s Top 100.

To help us finalize our list of the top leaders and thinkers in Internet marketing this year, cast your vote now. Voting will take place until mid night 12/13/2009.

We look forward to your votes. Stay tuned for the final results!

Posted in Business

Our experience has proven time and time again that copycats never win. Taking a design or site functionality, and slapping it on your ecommerce site; although you may share the same industry and sell the same items; is never a good idea.

A recent client of ours took the same exact PPC campaign ad of a competitor, worked for weeks on it, and was shocked with 0 conversions at launch. Worst of all is within a couple of weeks, the competitor had completely shifted to an entirely different design.

Continue reading Ecommerce Copycats

Posted in Ecommerce

The following is a guest post by Ari Ozick, a leading authority on ecommerce link building:

With the indulgence of the Invesp Team, I’m going to take Conversion Optimization and show you how it can be applied to link building. If you’re doing any kind of outreach, link bait, or targeted under the table link buying, then this post will show you how to up both your contact rate and conversion rate on link acquisition, all by making sure you’re doing some very simple things with your home pages. My focus is primarily E-Commerce Link Building, so we’re going to focus primarily on sites selling something, and not on sites profiting from advertisements.

Continue reading How To Apply Conversion Optimization to Link Building

Posted in SEO