So far we’ve avoided writing a post on that seemingly ubiquitous blog topic: Pinterest. Until today.

In case you’ve landed here looking for Pinterest basics, here they are: Pinterest is a photo and video sharing social network. The site began 2011 with 10,000 users and finished the year with almost 10,000,000; good enough to make the Hitwise list of top ten social media sites, beating out LinkedIn and Google+.

The Value of Pinterest for Ecommerce Businesses

Pinterest users, or pinners, “pin” images of things they find interesting into their Pinterest account. If LinkedIn is the social site for business, and Facebook is for friends, Pinterest is viewed by many as a site for sharing your lifestyle and values, or those to which you aspire.

So what is the value for ecommerce sites of a social network where people post pictures of the things they like? Aside from the obvious, there’s a number of practical advantages to Pinterest:

• Traffic – A number of sites, including Time Inc.’s Real Simple and Hubspot, have noted a higher number of referrals from Pinterest than from other sources, including Facebook and Google+.
• Links – Every pin includes a link back to the source of the image. While the links are ‘no-follow”, they’re still valuable as users need only click on the image to get to your site.
• Social Sharing – Pinterest lets pinners login with their Twitter and Facebook accounts and all users can share posts through Facebook, Twitter or email.

What About Sales?

Traffic, links and social sharing are all wonderful and useful, but you can’t take them to the bank.

Sales, that’s what you want, and they’ve been sorely missing from most social media marketing for ecommerce sites, including storefronts on Facebook.

But some early research shows Pinterest outperforming Facebook for sales and new customers. According to a study of social media traffic by jewelry and accessory retailer Bottica.com, whose founders include former eBay execs, Pinners outspend Facebook users by a whopping $180 to $85 and Pinterest was Boticca’s biggest sales channel, driving 10% of sales versus only 7% from Facebook.

This is just a single study, not definitive, but significant.

It shows Pinterest to be a place for browsing, comparing one’s likes to others’ and tapping into the buzz, all of which are part of the ritual most shoppers go through immediately before buying something.

Posted in Business, Ecommerce, Sales & Marketing, Social media

Nielsen recently released the results of their latest Global Trust in Advertising Survey (see below). They did their first global survey in 2005 and the findings have since been used by marketers to underscore the high level of trust consumers have in earned advertising, otherwise known as word-of-mouth.

Consumers are almost twice as likely to trust word-of-mouth – recommendations from family and friends – than advertising messages.

Too often, with the release of new data that echoes past findings, we tend to glance over it with an “I knew that” attitude. But, while this survey reinforces what all online marketers and advertisers should already know, a closer look at the numbers shows why they deserve your attention:

• 97% of consumers trust word-of-mouth recommendations from people they know. Only 47% trust TV, magazine and billboard advertising, which is the highest level of trust for traditional advertising media.
• At 70%, the form of advertising with the second highest level of trust is consumer opinions posted online – another type of word-of-mouth.
• 48% – the increase in the level of trust from the most trusted form of traditional advertising to the least trusted word-of-mouth advertising.
• 18% – the increase since 2007 in the percentage of consumers who trust recommendations from family and friends.
• 15% – the increase since 2007 in the percentage of those who trust consumer opinions posted online.
• 24%, 20%, 25% – the decrease since 2009 in the levels of trust for TV ads, magazine ads and newspaper ads respectively.
• 23% – the increase in the level of trust for websites over TV, newspaper and radio ads.

You can draw your own conclusions, but there are certain undeniable facts illustrated by this survey:

1. Word-of-mouth is the most powerful way to spread your message and develop consumers’ trust in your business – and it is getting more powerful.
2. Less than half of all consumers trust traditional advertising messages – and the number is dropping at a remarkable rate.

Trust is a major factor in improving your ecommerce conversion rates and it is increasingly clear which is the best form of advertising to develop it.

Nielsen-Consumer-Trust

Posted in Business, Conversion Optimization

Way back in March, 2000, Business Week ran a cover story about internet privacy that included a survey of users, the vast majority of which were either “somewhat” or “very” concerned about the privacy of their personal information online.

It’s an excellent article, with suggestions for developing a universal icon to indicate privacy protection, advice on reassuring users and, in a nod to just how long ago this was, there’s a quote from “New York District Attorney Spitzer”.

Fast forward 12 years and online privacy in now entrenched in laws like the federal Child Online Protection Act (COPA) and the California Online Privacy Protection Act, which generally requires that, if you collect personal information online from residents of California, you must have a clearly visible link to a privacy policy that outlines the information you are collecting, how the information may be shared with others and how users can edit the information.

When you add to this the evolution of cloud computing, the digitizing and networking of employee information and the various efforts to integrate electronic health records online, it becomes quite clear that privacy of online information goes far beyond names, addresses and credit card numbers.

If most internet users were concerned about the privacy of their online data 12 years ago, imagine their level of concern today. Those users are your potential customers.

So where is your privacy policy listed on your web site?

While users’ concerns and the laws of the land are very compelling reasons to create and/or raise the profile of your privacy policy, they are not the only ones.

Google,Yahoo and Bing produce web results in ever-increasing competition with each other, which makes them very sensitive to the quality of their product.  If any of the results they produce are tarnished by issues of privacy, or lack thereof, it could have a devastating effect on their market share. In an effort to ensure some quality control, search engines have enacted protocols and guidelines for privacy policies on web sites.

And we all know what’s at risk when we don’t follow a search engine’s “guidelines”.

There is the potential for your site to be suspended or lose its search engine rank if it collects personal information, but does not have an adequate privacy policy.

Your Privacy Policy & Your Conversion Rate

With the heightened concern your customers have about the privacy of their information, increasing demand for privacy policies through law and search engine guidelines, you may want to consider the following:

1. Even if you’re not an ecommerce site, you should have a privacy policy. If all you want to ask for  is an email address, make sure you have a visible privacy policy.

2. The link to your privacy policy should be more than a grey item in your footer menu.

3. Don’t just cover your ass. Make sure the wording of your privacy policy focuses on your customers’ deep, well-founded concern about their privacy in clear, comprehensive language.

4. Highlight the link to your privacy policy by placing it near “checkout”, “add to cart”, “buy” and other points of purchase.

5. Use more engaging wording than “Privacy Policy” for the link, maybe even design an icon or button.

What happens if you do these five things? You will have created a competitive advantage by making your customers’ privacy a high priority. How? Look around – do you see a lot of other sites with prominent privacy policies?  The trust and credibility you create can only boost your conversion rate.

Posted in Business, Conversion Optimization, Ecommerce

The Blogosphere is growing at rapid pace. Blogging these days is not just about sharing content. Its much more than that. Its about Analytics, trends, social networking traffic, revenues and lot more. Our infographic “How Big is Blogosphere” will be covering some interesting facts about Blogging World.

Infographic by- Conversion Rate Optimization Company Invesp

To Publish this Image on your Blog or Website . Copy this code

<a href="http://www.invesp.com/blogosphere.jpg"><img src="http://www.invesp.com/blogosphere.jpg" alt="How Big is Blogosphere" width="580" /></a>Infographic by – <a href="http://www.invesp.com/">Conversion Rate Optimization</a> Company Invesp

Did You Know That

According to BlogPulse, there were more than 164 Million Blogs in July 2011.

49% of Bloggers are from USA, followed by 29% from Europe and then 12% from Asia Pacific

64% of Bloggers are Hobbyists.Only 21% of bloggers are Full time bloggers.

30% of bloggers are of age group 25-34 years followed by 27% from age group 35-44 years.

15% of US bloggers are from California.

28% of bloggers are blogging from 4-6 years, followed by 21% bloggers blogging from more than 6 years.

Only 11% of bloggers are earning their primary income from blogging.

32% of bloggers spend less than 1 hour/week in blogging followed by 28% who spend 1-3 hours/week in blogging.

55% of bloggers update their blogs for 4-12 times/month

40% of bloggers are using WordPress blogging platform.

35% of bloggers write about areas of Interest.

66% of bloggers use personal satisfaction to measure their success

25% of bloggers are using mobile devices for blogging.

40% of blogs are using Display ads as the main source for generating revenues.

Around half, 48% of blogs receive less than 1,000 unique visitors per month.

Posted in Business

I will be speaking at the following conferences over the next couple of months.

SMX West – 3/10/2011. I am speaking on the conversion optimization science panel.

Conversion conference west – 3/15/2011: I am speaking with the awesome Rob Snell on ecommerce best practices

SES NY: 3/22/2011: I will be conducting conversion optimization express site reviews.

Emetrics – Toronto 4/29/2011. I am speaking on a panel with the legendary Jim Novo on the art and science of interpreting data and making a case for change.

If you are attending any of these conferences and would like to talk conversion optimization or ecommerce, do not hesitate in dropping me an email: khalid at invesp dot com.

Posted in Business

If you have been planning to order our book on conversion optimization, then we have a special deal for you. I just got an email from our publisher, O’Reilly, letting me know that they are offering a one day discount of 50% on in O’Reilly’s Theory in Practice  series which includes our title. Order your copy by navigating to this special offer. This offer is only valid for Wednesday 2/16/2010.

Use discount code DDTP5 in the shopping cart. Ebooks from oreilly.com are DRM-free. You get free lifetime access, and free updates.

Posted in Business

We are in the process of planning a monthly webinar on a variety of topics. The plan is to have industry experts present these webinars. These webinars are designed for you, so please let us know what topics are interesting to you.

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Posted in Business

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

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

After the successful launch of last year’s list of top marketers, we are launching our second annual list of the world’s most influential Internet marketers, and we need your help!

If you or someone you know demonstrated outstanding leadership and achievements in the Internet marketing industry this year, please feel free to complete the 2009 top marketers nomination form. Last year list generated close to 750,000 views and over 12,000 nominations and votes.

With your recommendations, our selection committee will create a list of nominees for our readers to vote on from November 23rd to December 4th. Based on your votes and our criteria, we will reveal the final top 100. Please note that nominations will be accepted through November 15, 2009.

We look forward to your submissions!

Posted in Business