At first blush, the idea seems counter-intuitive (isn’t online killing enough brick and mortar shops?) But many online pure plays are infiltrating the offline world, and not just through “showrooming” off the backs of established physical stores. How — and more importantly why — are they doing it?

Pop-up Shops

Etsy

The simplest way for an online business to get physical with customers is to pop-up temporary shops. Handmade marketplace Etsy crafted its first in-person showroom in New York’s SoHo district over the holiday season.

Like a modern-day craft fair, sellers were equipped with laptops to show their entire shop catalogs, with mobile devices serving as POS terminals via Square and PayPal.

Ebay

The other four-letter marketplace that starts with E and ends in Y popped its holiday shop in London’s SoHo. But instead of stocking real products, it featured images with QR codes and recommendations driven by social networks. Its exterior proudly displayed the hashtag #ebaysocialshopping, while some shoppers proudly publicized their finds.

Shopping Walls

Net-a-porter

The high fashion online pure play created its Window Shopping app for use with it’s virtual pop-up “shopping walls,” supporting augmented information and mobile transactions.

In celebration of the launch of its exclusive partnership with Karl Lagerfeld windows appeared in London, Paris, Sydney, Berlin and New York, with a physical pop-up shop in the West Village.

Tesco

We’ve covered Tesco’s Korean subway shopping experience before, its virtual stores are also found in bus shelters. Its virtual shops have produced 130% increase in online sales and 76% new registrations for Tesco online.

Perhaps it’s Tesco’s success that inspires so many other brands to try the same.

In-home virtual shopping

Using Tesco’s API, Keytree built a virtual Tesco shop using Xbox Kinect to create an interactive layer that can turn your TV into an interactive storefront where you can literally reach out and grab products to add to cart.

At the end of this video you’ll see some diagrams on how it works.

Though not built for Tesco, this project shows what brands or affiliates could do with the technology.

Keytree’s creation also involves personalization. Imagine creating your custom Kosher or gluten free grocery store, for example.

The life-like way to navigate online shopping is reminiscent of Borders’ in-store inspired Magic Shelf, which it claims increased conversion 62%.

(Kinect technology is popping up all over the place, in Nike’s Boxpark pop-up store in London and in Tesco stores).

Online Pop-ups

A twist on the offline version, Google launched online-only pop-up shops around the web to promote pre-orders of its Chromebook product. Over a 48 hour period, the Chromebook store skipped across 12 different sites, closing after one hour’s time, with URLs seeded and shared through Twitter.

Later, it quietly tested pop-up shops in the UK as well.

Why we’ll see more pop-ups in 2013

Ecommerce has eaten away at a large chunk of brick-and-mortar shopping, but still lacks the value props of physical stores – tactility, instant delivery (aside from digital downloads and same-day shipping), and even social interaction (online co-browsing never did take off).

Online sellers are looking for innovative ways to “bridge the gap” between the online and offline experience, and pop-ups are a way to achieve this. Plus:

• Pop-ups make efficient use of retail space, allowing for tighter inventory (or no inventory in the case of 2D merchandising
• Outdoor display advertising can measure engagement and conversion rates
• Physical displays can attract new customers at potentially lower cost than online advertising and paid search
• Larger displays enable “mobile” shoppers to use their devices to transact, without depending on small screen websites and apps to explore the product catalog
• Pop-ups support real-time social electronic shopping in a way that co-browsing never achieved
• Pop-ups can combine human customer service with online shopping at staffed kiosks and pop-up showrooms
• Pop-ups enable local marketing for pureplays. Text alerts with directions to pop-up locations and special events can inject excitement to mobile marketing, especially when combined with exclusive offers.

Down the road, technological advances that may further bridge the offline-online experience gap are tactile holograms and 3D printing. Retail “showrooms” may become just that for some industries – showrooms that can manifest virtual but tactile replications of a long-tail of available products, or offer the ability to print products on-demand, cutting the costs of carrying inventory.

For now, watch for more brands to take it to the streets in 2013.

12 Types of Affiliates

1. Coupon

Coupon codes are one of the most popular methods of affiliate promotion (whether it’s the most profitable is another question). Affiliates share coupon codes with their site visitors, through social networks, in email campaigns and post them to sites like RetailMeNot and CouponCabin.

2. Loyalty / Cashback

Websites and apps that offer members cash back, donations to good causes or other rewards in exchange for shopping with partner merchants make money on the spread between affiliate commissions and incentives offered to customers. The former Bing Cashback program and Upromise.com are examples. (Hint: they loyalty is with the affiliate, not the merchant).

3. Content

Any topically focused site that monetizes its content with affiliate banner ads (as opposed to regular display ads), contextual links, widgets and image links can be considered “content affiliates.” Content can also be user generated, like discussion forums.

4. PPC

PPC marketers who run campaigns that direct traffic to merchants or intermediary pages pay for clicks in hopes to reap conversions on the other side. They typically bid on merchant-specific keywords (branded) in major search engines, within the rules of an affiliate program and paid search network. Merchants pay out only when the visitor converts.

5. Mobile

App developers like Shazaam can monetize their creations with affiliate links. Shazaam’s free app links to tagged songs in iTunes.

6. Datafeed

An example of datafeed affiliates is shopping engines, like Shopzilla or PriceGrabber. Customers browse the affiliate’s catalog and are redirected to the merchant’s website when they indicate intent to purchase (buy, subscribe, contact, etc).

7. Email

Email is a natural channel for promotion. Content sites and shopping engines may run campaigns similar to an ecommerce site. Some affiliates are topical thought leaders, and market to their list through newsletters, subscription content and “story selling” autoresponder series.

8. Social Media

Affiliates may certainly use Twitter, Facebook, blogs and the like to share codes, offers and links, but some social networks themselves are affiliates. Pinterest is a perfect example, it is an affiliate to a number of major brands. Pinterest also uses Facebook’s Open Graph to extend its reach, one of the first apps to launch with the new platform.

9. Bloggers

Any blogger can work affiliate links into posts. Some monetize their blog heavily this way, for example, software, electronics and beauty reviews.

10. Pay Per Call

Rather than directing visitors to websites, trackable phone numbers can be baked into content pages that can trace leads and conversions back to the referring affiliate.

11. Offline (TV, Radio, Print)

Affiliate URLs can be published in print, or announced by radio hosts, for example “Go to www.website.com forward slash ‘Ramona.’”

12. Other (not yet defined)

Quite a variety. Now the question is…

How do you attract affiliates?

1. Organic Rankings

Use Google to find ‘em. For example, search for “sunglasses reviews” to find potential affiliates.

2. Twitter

Try a search for an affiliate network + your keyword in Twitter’s own search box. Example: ‘shareasale.com sunglasses.’

3. Facebook

Search for affiliate groups and pages in Facebook search, you can start with “People You May Know.”

4. Competitor Backlinks

Use the linkdomain command (link:www.competitor.com in Google) or the various backlink check tools available on the Web.

5. Affiliate Links in Your Footer

Don’t forget your Affiliates link in your footer (I would also add to treat this as a landing page complete with SEO treatment and A/B testing).

6. Affiliate Directories

A simple search for “affiliate program directory” should do the trick.

7. Tool announcements

GoldenCAN and PopShops send announcements to affiliates when new merchants join their programs.

8. Forum announcements / sub-forum

Hot affiliate forums like 5StarAffiliate, ABestWeb and Affiliate Summit have opportunities to advertise.

9. Events, tradeshows and conferences

Affiliate Summit, PubCon, AMDays, etc. etc.

10. PPC campaigns

Run a PPC campaign for your affilate program.

11. Facebook ads

Target social ads towards affiliates.

12. Retargeting ads

Use site or search retargeting campaigns.

13. Network advertising

Within your affiliate network (e.g. CommissionJunction, ShareASale).

14. Affiliate recruitment tools

Like AffiliateRecruitment.com or LinkCapture.

Like link building, affiliate recruitment is an ongoing activity that takes hard work and some creativity. Do you have any methods to add to this list?

Infographic credit: HasOffers

We don’t talk much about affiliate marketing on Get Elastic, because an expert on this topic I am not, but I recommend these blogs if you want to keep up with industry leaders:

AM Navigator

Affiliate Tip

5 Star Affiliate Programs

But with digital disruption becoming more entrenched in consumers’ lives, product strategists and creative retailers alike are starting to recognize the limitations of this mindset as they seek new ways of generating and capturing revenue. Taking a page from online gaming, many are shifting away from existing channels in favor of developing new and disruptive product experiences first, and then working backwards from there to create custom monetization methods that fit them.

In this upside-down paradigm, conversions and transactions become subordinate to the quality of the digital relationship and the overall experience of interacting with a brand over time. A winning product experience is so delightful, entertaining, or genuinely useful to consumers that many will convert and spend almost automatically when presented with the right offer, in the right context, at the right time, using the right monetization method. The goal for merchants shifts from maximizing the value of individual transactions to boosting customer lifetime value over the course of a perpetual relationship. Since this can only be achieved by monetizing frequently over time, the most fundamental metrics are no longer conversion rate and average order value, but engagement frequency, duration, and quality.

In his report The Disruptor’s Handbook, Dr. James McQuivey of Forrester Research writes:

Obsess about minutes of engagement. In your Customer Intelligence efforts, resist the temptation to focus solely on traditional metrics like number of transactions, page views, or average revenue per user. Instead, use the same metric that digital disruptors shoot for; Facebook was explicit at its recent F8 conference that it was overhauling its bridge to the consumer in order to increase a crucial metric called minutes per day. Even an additional 5 minutes per day can deepen your relationship with the customer, generating more data, creating new revenue opportunities, and, ultimately, giving you more prominence in the mind of your customer.

At Elastic Path, we’ve abandoned traditional diagrams that depict user scenarios in the context of a funnel or cycle because they don’t capture the nuances of how consumers actually engage with the full spectrum of touchpoints, nor do they accurately represent the importance of time and duration in a digital relationship. Instead, we map customer activities onto a continuous timeline:

This schematic shows a hypothetical digital relationship for a mobile gaming company, and in it you can clearly see that there’s no real urgency to convert customers quickly, as there might be in a traditional sales funnel. While the first monetization event (marked in red) doesn’t occur until well into the conversation, once it does, the quality and desirability of the experience itself stimulates continued engagement and consumption.

Let’s look at a few real-world examples.

In our 7 Dimensions of Facebook Commerce post, we mentioned that Zynga sells over 38,000 virtual items each second across its range of social games. Yet the strength behind this impressive statistic is a robust foundation of engagement KPIs – numbers that show Zynga players averaging 8 sessions per day at 5-7 minutes per period, and so-called “whales” playing for over two hours daily. That’s a lot of opportunities to sell them coins and farm animals.

In a similar vein, the 300 million minutes per day that consumers around the world engage with various iterations of Angry Birds affords Rovio tremendous opportunities to trigger transactions using a broad range of monetization methods – including paid apps such as the original iOS title, advertising revenue from the free Android edition, or in-game downloads like the Mighty Eagle.

In both of these examples, the most important principle is that monetization methods were built or chosen to enhance and complement engagement with a compelling product experience, not the other way around. It’s an easy enough concept to envision for gaming, but what about in other verticals?

In the case of Gilt Groupe’s recent joint project with mobile news and social aggregator Flipboard, it is quite clear that the quality and duration of readers’ interactions with the content will have the greatest impact on the success of this venture. Although conversion rates and order values are still important metrics here, it is the engagement indicators – a measure of how compelling the experience is to users – that will ultimately dictate how much demand can be generated.

Finally, the Starbucks Coffee app is a wonderful example of a compelling digital product experience from a very unlikely vertical, as well as a good illustration that minutes are not the only measure of engagement. For over a million users, it’s not only a seamless extension of the Starbucks brand, but also a perpetual in-store companion thanks to its genuine utility. By making it the fastest payment method, and then adding good account management features, rapid reloading, and a loyalty program that shares many characteristics with the best social games (I admit that I was thrilled to “level up” and achieve Gold status recently), Starbucks ensures that its best customers will keep coming back to its app again and again. Each ‘touch’ may not last long, but like a Zynga game, these digital interactions and monetization opportunities occur both frequently and predictably.

Based on their Q3 2011 earnings call, Starbucks’ approach is clearly working. To date, over 26 million payments worth $110M have been processed through the app, and over $50M is currently loaded onto over a million mobile devices. Word on the street is also that it also drives more frequent store visits, as well as increasing brand loyalty among users.

Each of these examples illustrates how starting with a deep understanding of engagement, then creating a compelling product experience around it, and finally building or selecting appropriate monetization methods to fit that experience, is the most effective way to implement a disruptive digital commerce strategy.

Looking for help with digital commerce?

A new report from Forrester Research examines the technology behind successful digital commerce, provides tactics for selecting a digital commerce solution, and looks at the digital commerce platforms available on the market today. Get your complimentary copy of Market Overview – Digital Commerce Solutions 2011 here.

Mobile is starting to have a major impact on ecommerce and the retail industry. In the not-too-distant future, we’ll see a web-connected, location-aware consumer, according to Stephanie Tilenius, Google’s VP of Commerce.

Some surprising figures:

• The average US consumer is never more than 3 feet away from their phone
• The average smart phone user checks their phone 40 times a day
• 50% of mobile phone owners use their device to shop online or to assist them while shopping in stores

Integrating Mobile into the Retail Experience

How can multichannel retailers use mobile to enhance the retail experience at every shopping stage – from browse to buy? A few suggestions:

• Connect online and offline via in-store pick-up to drive more foot traffic to physical stores. Consumers will increasing be aware of where inventory is around them. In-store pick-up, adopted by retailers like Walmart and Best Buy, can help them decide whether to buy an item they are looking for online or offline at a store near them.
• Use Quick Response (QR) codes or Near field communication (NFC) to present consumers with very targeted and personal information, creating a new in-store experience. Home Depot have introduced QR codes on products to provide user guides on certain products like plants, while Macy’s are using QR codes on clothing tags to provide celebrity fashion tips.
• Provide mobile devices to sales clerks (and shoppers) so they can browse inventory that is not on store shelves and gain access to customer data. Nordstrom are using iPads to give sales staff information about in-store customers and their recent buys.
• Offer mobile payment as a self-checkout option to help customers beat the checkout queue in-store.

Innovations in Mobile Commerce

Tilenius gave UK retailer Tesco as an example of innovative mobile commerce. When Tesco wanted to expand their market share in South Korea, they focused in on mobile shopping. South Korea is densely packed and has a very high penetration of smartphone users. Tesco put up billboards in subway stations with pictures of their products, accompanied by QR codes.

Time-strapped commuters scan the items they want with their phones and voila, their groceries are delivered within minutes or hours to their homes. Tesco’s virtual shops led them to take the number one position for online groceries in South Korea.

Tilenius ended her talk with this future shopping scenario: She goes into a Gap looking for some jeans. She finds a style that she likes but they don’t have it in her size. She scans the NFC tag for the style, selects her size and buys. The next day, the jeans, in her size, are delivered to her door.

It’s win-win for both retailer and shopper. And coming soon to a store near you.

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The second keynote, entitled The Impact of Technological Innovation on Consumer Behavior and Retail As We Know It, was given by Ray Kurzweil. Described as “the restless genius” by the Wall Street Journal and “the ultimate thinking machine” by Forbes, Kurzweil is one of the leading inventors of our time and bestselling author of The Age of Spiritual Machines.

During his Shop.org presentation, Kurzweil explained how technology trends are accelerating opportunities for innovation and how retailers will find new and exciting ways to utilize technology to transform their customer service capabilities.

3D Printing Turns Physical Products into Digital Ones

As an example, he cited the rapidly evolving industry of 3D printing, described in The Economist technology article, Print me a Stradivarius, earlier this year. According to the article, you call up a blueprint on your computer screen and press print. The 3D printer builds up the desired object gradually by solidifying a thin layer of plastic or metal dust using glue or a beam. At the end of the process, the object – whether that is a spare part for your car or a violin – emerges.

The scale of precision is getting finer and finer as the cost of 3D printing hardware begins to drop. At some point, 3D printing will make it as cheap to produce one, bespoke item as any of the mass-produced thousands that roll off assembly lines today. In a few short years it will likely become possible to buy digital versions of products like shoes, bicycles, or even housing, which you’ll be able to download, print, and assemble, or email to a friend.

When 3D printing finally comes into its own, not only will production lines and waste be eliminated but intellectual property rules will require stiffening to protect product designers. Once objects become digital files, they become fodder for internet pirates who can copy and distribute them at will. As we’ve already seen with music and movies.

Fast forward to the 2025 holiday season. Millions avoid the shopping malls and instead shop from home. You make your selections and rather than having to wait days or weeks for the physical products to arrive at your home, you receive your digital versions immediately, customize them to your taste, and print them on your household 3D printer. (Nearly) instant gifts!

Looking for help with mobile commerce strategy? Contact the Elastic Path consulting team at consulting@elasticpath.com to learn how our ecommerce strategy and mobile strategy services can improve your business results.

I asked Geno what he believes are the 5 worst things that can happen to your affiliate program, and of course, how to prevent them from happening. Here’s how he responded:

Coupon Code Box

When I reach a “coupon” or “promo code” box in the checkout process, it is natural for me to go to a search engine and look for a coupon. So it is for nearly every online shopper. As a result, some merchants tend to view coupon affiliates as a “nightmare.” The visitors they refer almost never pay the full price, plus, in addition to the discount, the merchant has to pay a part of the final price back to the affiliate in commissions.

Two solutions work well in this regard:

1. Don’t use discount-off-total-price coupons, rather offer those that will work better for your profit margin. Examples would be “free shipping” type promos, or “buy 2, get 3rd free” offers, or other similar deals.
2. Allow the consumer to search for any available coupons or deals without leaving your shopping cart. For example, in early 2009 Macy’s added a “Find one now” link next to the promo code box.



Some affiliate programs decide to avoid coupon affiliates altogether. This isn’t necessarily the best solution, in my opinion. There are numerous situations when they can add value, and besides, the line between a pure “couponer” and an affiliate that employs other marketing tactics, but also uses a coupon to enhance conversion, isn’t always that clear.

Cutting Ties with Affiliates

“Hasty” has never been synonymous with “wise”, and this is especially true when talking about affiliate manager decisions to terminate affiliates. If while reviewing your affiliates’ performance statistics, you notice that a particular affiliate is sending you many clicks, but few, if any, sales, this sometimes leads managers to suspect such an affiliate of fraudulent behavior. Assumptions, however, are only assumptions unless proven to be fact. So while you are looking into the clicks history, talk to the affiliate network/platform on which your program is run, and/or contact the affiliate prior to making any decisions.

Same applies to terminating affiliates due to inactivity. In fact, this is probably one of the largest mistakes that affiliate managers routinely commit. I’ve seen this happen with numerous Internet Retailer Top 500 merchants in nearly every major affiliate network [good example here]. An inactive affiliate doesn’t hurt your program! And the fact that they’re inactive may very well be your fault. Have you motivated them persuasively enough (through bonuses, cookie life increases, tiered commissions, other opportunities) to get active with your program? Some say “focus on the top producers, and terminate the rest.” I say “don’t rely on existing super affiliates only, but grow your own super affiliates.” I’ve seen this happen before. It does work.

Trademark Violators

Needless to emphasize that trademarks are among the most important assets of any business. It is for this reason (unless generic words are involved) I’m generally for protecting trademarks while running an affiliate program. The two main areas where you want to protect them are paid search campaigns and domain names. The former (when an affiliate is targeting trade names specifically) nearly always provides high CTR results, while the latter ensures quick organic SERP rankings. Both provide high conversion rates as the referred traffic ends up being highly targeted and already well-familiar with the merchant’s product/service.

Now before you call an affiliate a “violator,” you want to clearly specify what is prohibited. That is done in your affiliate program agreement which each affiliate is required to concur with while applying into your affiliate program. If you haven’t taken the time to prohibit trademark PPC bidding or registering domain names with your trademarks, then how would they know that it’s not permitted?

Also, if / when you decide prohibit trademark use (either in PPC ads or in domain names), you’ll want to police and enforce your rules. For paid search monitoring, I personally use Brandverity’s PoachMark, while for domains name policing CitizenHawk is a good one to use.

Loyalty Affiliates

As I was managing a program for a major ecommerce brand, we had an affiliate apply in our program. They ran a popular game app on Facebook, and we decided to give this relationship a try. The click numbers were great, and so was their conversion rate. However, as we analyzed the sales they drove in, we uncovered a troubling pattern: over 85% of the orders they referred got cancelled within the “free trial” period. Thankfully, our “locking periods” were set long beyond the free trial period, and we were able to reverse the unnecessary commissions. But we learned an important lesson there: not every type of affiliate is right for every affiliate program.

Every time a sale occurred the above-quoted affiliate was rewarding its members with “virtual currency.” Other types of loyalty affiliates may have cashback patterns in place, or remunerate their users by other mechanisms. All of that is fine as long as it is compatible with your business model. If you’re online retailer, and your affiliates reward their users with points, cashback, or even charity contributions, that often works well for both parties. If, however, you run a pay-per-lead affiliate program or a sell a service with a long free trial period, such type of affiliate may not work for you. At the end of the day, you want the end user’s actions to be motivated by an interest in your product/service, and not a virtual currency credit, or any other remuneration.

Mandatory Disclosures

On December 1, 2009, new Federal Trade Commission’s endorsements/testimonials rules came into force. In essence, these FTC’s rules say that when there is a sponsor-endorser relationship between an advertiser and a marketer who publishes a testimonial about the advertiser’s product/service, such a relationship must be clearly disclosed on the marketer’s website. This includes affiliate marketing (i.e. merchant-affiliate) relationships as well. Every merchant with an affiliate program is expected to educate and equip their affiliates to comply with these rules, as well as for police and enforcing such compliance. The sad reality is that many merchants are still not compliant with these rules (which already results in high amount fines paid to the FTC). To avoid trouble you want to include the necessary language in your affiliate program description and program agreement, as well as equip affiliates with sample disclosures, regularly reminding them of the importance of these, as well as policing affiliate compliance with the FTC’s requirements.

Conclusion

In conclusion, let me say that no problem is unresolvable. However, every merchant getting into affiliate marketing must understand one thing from the very outset: your affiliate program is a marketing campaign which requires management. It’s not an auto-pilot way for you to get hundreds of salespeople to work for you on performance basis. It’s a campaign that must be managed. Only then you will avoid the pitfalls/nightmares, and succeed with it as a marketing option.

]]> http://www.getelastic.com/5-worst-affiliate-management-nightmares-and-how-to-avoid-them/feed/ 2 http://www.getelastic.com/ecommerce-coupons/ http://www.getelastic.com/ecommerce-coupons/#comments Wed, 06 Apr 2011 08:03:23 +0000 Linda Bustos http://www.getelastic.com/?p=10921 One of the perks of being an ecommerce blogger is I’m privvy to review copies of some excellent books. For the ones that are on-point ecommercely (hey, I take some creative license with the English language) they get a mention on the blog as I believe we’re all on the hunt for great e-biz content and I’m often asked what are good ecommerce books to read.

Instead of the typical 8th grade book review format, I like to post an excerpt of the actual book, one I think will give you immediate takeaways for your business, or at least, food for thought.

Today’s featured book is Geno Prussakov’s Affiliate Program Management: An Hour A Day. If you’re familiar with the Hour A Day series, you’ll recall that these books are very action-oriented, with bite-sized daily readings that can guide you from start to finish in tackling the tasks on your own. But I find these books are also great if you’re overseeing or outsourcing these activities, but you want to know more about the topic to make you a more well-rounded online marketing ninja, and also to know how to judge whether your team or consultant is doing their job!

I chose a section of Week 2: Data Feeds, Coupons, and Plug-Ins. This is Thursday’s entry, Develop Your Coupon Strategy.

What Coupons Should Merchants Offer?

Just as it is with banners, you will explore new options for coupons as you go, but I recommend at least six coupon types for merchants to use in their coupon strategy:

One or Two Coupons That Are Good from the First Through the Last of the Year

It should aim at getting the customer to spend more money than an average customer would. examples of such coupons may include “Free shipping on $99+ orders” or “$15 off each $120+ order.” If you do not limit the use of these coupons to an either/or setup, more than likely they will be published side-by-side at coupon and noncoupon websites alike.

Two or Three New Coupons for Each Month

They should preferably target price points different from the ones quoted earlier. For example, you may run such coupons as “$5 off $45 order” and “$17 off $100 order” during the first month of the year, “$7 off $60 order” and “$20 off $120 order” during the second month, and so on. If possible, create and support dynamic links (texts or banners) that always show the current monthly coupons. this will show your affiliate that you care about their time and are willing to provide them with such support.

Short-Term Coupons

They may be valid for a time as short as a weekend and as long as a week. to get your affiliates interested in these, you want to make them look more attractive than your regular yearly or monthly coupons. For example, you may offer a 25 percent discount on all orders received during a particular weekend (post-Christ- mas time is a good time to run something like this). alternatively, you may choose a particular product on which your markup is high enough to offer something as attractive as several coupons I ran for Russian legacy. two of them read like this: “$200.00 off a Black Women’s Mink Hat with ear-Flaps” and “$300.00 off a large authentic soviet Banner/Flag.” Coupon sites are always on the lookout for such coupons.

Holiday-Specific Coupons

These may reward “early bird” purchases or offer more attractive deals than those of your competitors. A good example of the latter is something a gourmet food client of ours offered—free shipping with an option to choose the exact delivery date at the same time as the order placement.

Deal of the Day Promos

These may be limited to a week, or, if your technical and time resources allow, you can run them for as long as a month or even longer. Deal of the day promos should really provide incredible bargains and, if possible, be automatically dynamically updated on the affiliate sites. such campaigns may have a tremendous impact on your sales.

Coupons Exclusive to Select Affiliates

Make sure that those affiliates whom you value most are aware of your ability to do this. there will be some affiliates that will not want to put up the coupons that all other affiliates (remember, there is competition here!) are using. exclusive coupons will get such affiliates attracted and motivated to activate their accounts by putting these coupons up at their sites.

Types of Deals That Convert Best

I know that as you’re reading this section of the book, you could really use some experience-based advice on the types of deals to offer through your affiliate marketing program. Whether through the affiliate channel or any other online marketing initiative of yours, you want to offer what really converts best. the more popular and better converting deals are as follows:

• Dollar or percentage off coupons
• Free shipping deals
• Discounts tied either to the number of items purchased (73 percent of customers go for the “Buy 2, get 1 Free” deal offered by an ink merchant whose program we manage) or to the sale amount that qualifies the customer for a deal.

What Makes a “Killer Coupon”?

I’m glad you asked this one! the following are the recommendations that will help you put together coupons that will convert:

• Word it eloquently and attractively.
• Have a short and simple coupon code.
• Make sure the coupon is really offering a deal (and not something available at your website by default such as free shipping on all $70 orders, for example).
• If possible, try to offer a coupon not available through your own website or your own marketing endeavors. Coupons that are truly exclusive to affiliates are always more highly appreciated. It is ok to let your affiliates promote the same coupons you already advance on your website, but let them also have access to a set of coupons not available anywhere else but through your affiliate channel.
• Make a coupon landing page (instead of directing the traffic to your home page).
• If possible, make a precoded affiliate link that would automatically apply the coupon to the shopping cart when clicked.
• Make the coupon banner available in all sizes, displaying the coupon code on each banner.
• let your affiliates choose between a set of banners and/or a coupon code.
• treat every holiday as a reason for a good coupon.

With time, you will be getting suggestions on coupons from your affiliates. Listen to them, and make use of the most valuable ideas to make your coupons more effective. unless there are really strong reasons against it, marketing through coupon websites should be part of your affiliate strategy, occupying not less than 10 percent of your time.

Landing Pages for Coupons

As mentioned, it’s preferable that each coupon has its own landing page. However, this point is being all too frequently ignored by merchants. Your coupon-specific landing page should do the following:

• Reinforce the details of the promo/campaign
• Provide instructions on how to redeem the coupon
• Spell out any restrictions the customer should be aware of
• Contain a clear call to action

More than 95 percent of the merchants whose coupon landing pages I have reviewed—and my sample contained more than 100 coupon campaigns of different mer- chants—either have only one or none of the previously mentioned points covered. Very few merchants do it the right way, but those that do register higher conversion rates. this makes both the merchant and the affiliate happy and builds up an affiliate program.

Figures 8.8 and 8.9 contain exemplary landing pages—created by merchants specifically for their affiliate coupon campaigns—which either cover all of the previously mentioned points or apply the coupon/discount automatically. Remember to have accompanying landing pages for each affiliate coupon you offer.



Buy.com supplies a detailed landing page for each coupon. Upon clicking the Redeem Now button, the coupon automatically applies to shopping cart.



Sierra Trading Post effectively reinforces the deals providing full disclosure of restrictions to be aware of.

Geno Prussakov is a Cambridge grad and the author of A Practical Guide to Affiliate Marketing, Online Shopping Through Consumers’ Eyes and his own blog AM Navigator. An internationally known speaker and online marketing consultant, Geno is the founder of Affilinomics and was voted the “Best OPM of the Year” for 3 years in a row (2006-08) by ABestWeb.com.

]]> http://www.getelastic.com/ecommerce-coupons/feed/ 3 http://www.getelastic.com/store-app-in-the-app-store/ http://www.getelastic.com/store-app-in-the-app-store/#comments Thu, 04 Nov 2010 09:01:01 +0000 Peter Sheldon http://www.getelastic.com/?p=9906 About a year ago, Apple started hiring mobile commerce product managers. Last week, we got to see the fruits of their investment – the all new Apple Store iPhone app. This app complements the existing App Store and iTunes applications on the iPhone, and allows iPhone owners to purchase the entire suite of Apple hardware, accessories and software products directly on their iPhone.

Until last week, Amazon and Best Buy led the field both in m-commerce app innovation and customer experience, but the new Apple Store app raises the bar. Although late to the party, Apple has ensured that the its store app offers nearly the exact same functionality as the e-store, offering a true multi-channel experience for consumers. The app is completely integrated with a customer’s Apple ID, which speeds up checkout, as addresses and payment details are pre-populated. This may also enable Apple to personalize the user experience, though no immediate evidence of personalization is apparent at this time.

The new app includes 10 notable features that we are used to seeing online but stand out as ground breakers in a mobile commerce application:

1. Multi Channel Merchandising

Offers on the app homepage change in sync with the offers on the web store, ensuring cross-channel merchandising consistency. Notice how the featured icon changed to reflect the theme of the “Great Gifts for the Holidays” promotion. This change to the navigation menu occurred dynamically without an update of the app.



2. Gift Options

Apple allows you to add gift packaging and a message to items in the cart.



3. Product personalization

Not only can you add engraving to eligible products in the app, but you get a real-time preview of the message as you type, just like in the web store.



4. Upsells

When adding items to the cart, related upsell products and services are suggested. This feature is fairly unobtrusive, with a simple “Skip” button enabling a quick bypass to the shopping cart.



5. Rating, Reviews and Q&A

It’s not uncommon to see ratings and reviews in an iPhone ecommerce app, as they are a powerful multi-channel research tool for shoppers whilst visiting a retailers physical store. But Apple has gone a step further and added their Q&A forum functionality to the Store app, allowing customers to read answers to popular product related questions.



6. One Page Checkout

Apple has done a great job of integrating the Store app with users’ Apple account profiles, enabling the re-use of saved profile data including shipping, billing and payment preferences. This allows Apple to offer an intuitive 1-page checkout process on the iPhone. Interestingly, in the App Store (not to be confused with the Store app), users have commented that they find the shopping experience on the app quicker than on the web.



7. Selecting Product Variants

Although other iPhone apps including Amazon have this feature, most use the standard Apple iOS list control to present the variation options. Apple has added an intuitive variant selection screen that includes color swatches for products that are available in different color variants. This approach makes selecting a variant very easy, especially when more than 1 product variant type exists (e.g. colors and memory capacity).



8. Store Finder Tools

Most mobile commerce apps have a store finder, but the Apple Store app goes a step further. Not only does the app use the phone’s GPS to easily locate the nearest store, it also allows the customer to see what events are going on the store and book reservations for the Genius Bar, One to Ones, Workshops and Business set-ups. These tools are a great examples of multi-channel enablement for the mobile consumer who wants to see if they can get checked into an Apple workshop whilst in downtown on a Saturday afternoon.



9. Online & Offline Help

In Linda’s last blog post Customer Service Scorecard, What’s Your Grade? she highlighted the importance of having the customer service number clearly visible in the checkout. Well, Apple was listening! The checkout in the Store app has a convenient “Call Apple” button that integrates perfectly with the phone. Also, they offer a convenient help section with answers to common shopping queries – again, a top recommendation for improving customer service.



10. Store Reservations and Notifications

Products can be reserved using the Store app for pickup in a nearby retail store. This again is a great example of enabling multi-channel commerce, providing the mobile consumer peace of mind that their trip to the Apple store will not result in disappointment. Finally, the most novel feature in the new Store App is the in-store notification system that uses the phone’s GPS and Apple notification alerts to remind shoppers when they enter the retail store that they have a meet-up appointment, and allows them to check-in. We can expect to see more retailers leveraging this combination of location services and the iPhone notification mechanism for many other purposes, including special offers and in-store personalized recommendations.



All in all, a commendable effort by Apple that is receiving mostly positive reviews in the App Store. Only a few minor negative points should be noted:

• The shopping cart is not synced between the App and the web store. This can be annoying for consumers who intend to use the App as a shopping list and expect the cart in the app to the reflect their cart on their desktop/laptop or vice versa.
• Advanced configuration of Mac options (e.g. hard drive and memory size) is not yet supported.
• Currently, there is no dedicated iPad version of the new Store App. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see this soon, possibly to coincide with the release of iOS4 later in November. If so, it will be interesting to see the experience that Apple creates.

Finally, don’t just take my word for it, go check out the Apple Store application yourself! (Link for US iTunes accounts) What do you think of it?

]]> http://www.getelastic.com/store-app-in-the-app-store/feed/ 7 http://www.getelastic.com/affiliate-consultants/ http://www.getelastic.com/affiliate-consultants/#comments Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:46:43 +0000 Linda Bustos http://getelastic.domain7.com/?p=7527 I recently caught the replay of a web clinic presented by Marketing Experiments titled Affiliate Marketing: Tests and tactics that increased clicks and leads by 165%. The presentation is full of great tips for both retailers and affiliates and I encourage you to watch the whole thing, but there was one point that stood out as a really novel idea:

“Solicit advice from your affiliates, many are seasoned online marketers who can offer you valuable insight on what does and does not work.”

Improving your landing page is essential when you have an affiliate program. Not only does it impact your revenue and your affiliate program performance metrics, but it’s crucial to retain high quality affiliates. According to the 2009 MarketingSherpa Ecommerce Benchmark Survey, 74% of respondents cited “finding high quality affiliates” as a significant challenge, and 50% “keeping high quality affiliates.”

High quality affiliates are motivated by the profitability of working with you. Even if you have a higher commission, with a stinking conversion rate the affiliate isn’t making maximal money. They are thinking earnings per visit.

Reaching out to your affiliates to work with them on conversion optimization is not just “a bit of free consulting” for yourself, it lets your affiliates know you are committed to increasing their performance as well as your own. Offer affiliates some flexibility in landing page design, product copy or headlines, soliciting their input and facilitating tests. The higher earnings per visit the affiliate can achieve with your program, the more likely the affiliate will promote your offers above others on their own sites and in their email and online advertising campaigns. And the less likely you’ll be tempted to continually up the ante on commissions to retain top affiliates.

]]> http://www.getelastic.com/affiliate-consultants/feed/ 0 http://www.getelastic.com/coupon-characters/ http://www.getelastic.com/coupon-characters/#comments Fri, 08 Jan 2010 11:01:14 +0000 Linda Bustos http://www.getelastic.com/?p=4829 Did you catch the ecommerce tip on the Office last night?

Jim Halpert gave the office staff a quick update on business performance, mentioning that customers were using coupon codes online, but they were still having a problem differentiating between the letter ‘O’ and the number ’0′. (Another tricky one is the number ’1′ and the lower-case letter ‘l’.)

This is a common problem with coupon codes, especially ones that are a long string of random characters:



Customers will have more success with codes that are more intuitive (GAP20 for 20% off at the Gap, for example), but it’s best to just come up with codes that can’t be confused:



Who knew the writers of the Office were so ecommerce savvy?

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