How to lower cpcs with pay per click media sources. Last year we saw paid search trademark terms increase noticeably in the 4th quarter, and the shopping comparison engines have always increased cpcs during the holiday season. Reducing cpcs in each channel won’t necessarily lower either media provider’s revenue. On the contrary, lower cpcs should enable marketers to spend more since they’ll hit their ROI goals more easily. For the CSEs in particular, it would be beneficial if they pursued the math on this.
Efforts made to increase website conversion rate. Since even small increases can make a huge impact on revenue, our retail clients are, at present, unveiling new technology investments in time for the holiday season and hoping the needle moves in the right direction.
Determining the optimum contact strategy. Multi-channel marketers are trying to understand the appropriate online and offline media mix in order to eliminate overlap of marketing dollars.
Kicking affiliates and competitors off trademark terms. Hardly a new Top 10 concern, but those squatting on brand keywords drive up cpcs due to the increased competition on the search engines and divert a portion of the traffic away from the trademark. Fortunately, there are good tools available to monitor this, and there is always some leverage with affiliates, but last holiday we noticed marketers who typically shy away from this practice (as opposed to affiliates) running full speed on competitor trademark terms.
How promotional to be for the holiday. Nobody wants to give away more than they have to this 4th quarter in order to protect margin, but everyone’s waiting and watching the landscape to see how low they’ll need to go.
Best practices for social marketing. There is gaining acceptance in developing Social Marketing strategies, with Facebook and Twitter being the most popular places to dive in. Most of the marketers we’re talking to are looking for insight on best practices.
How to boost AOV. In the past year, many retailers saw AOV decline. Similar to the impact of higher conversion rates, larger purchases will positively impact bottom line revenues so there’s a push to devise tactics to increase it.
How to boost search impressions. For multi-channel marketers who have made cuts to catalog circ this year, site traffic is depressed. Many are looking at year-over-year impression share and realizing the impact of their marketing tactics on site traffic.
How to get more sales/leads from top search keywords. With lower conversion rates, tighter margins due to lower AOV, cuts to circ and all the rest that impacted retailers in the past year, efforts are underway to eek out more from what is working.
Reacting to sudden changes in site traffic. Google, in particular, has been really tinkering this summer making a lot of changes, and we all now know the importance of Bing in our future, so keeping tight on algorithmic changes at the search engines is a factor in sales forecasting.
Suzy Sandberg is President of PM Digital.