I hope you were able to join us for yesterday's Web Clinic on optimizing eCommerce websites. It was a lively, actionable session and we were sifting through attendee comments all morning.

(NOTE: Subscribe to our free MarketingExperiments Journal and you'll be notified by email when our Web Clinic content is posted online.)

Our optimization experts -- Flint McGlaughlin, Jimmy Ellis and Aaron Rosenthal -- plowed through a series of research-tested concepts, best practices and pitfalls to avoid with eCommerce sites and landing pages. They also performed a rapid-fire review and critique of five eCommerce websites submitted by our Journal subscribers.

We'll break out some of those sites and the specific recommendations in future blog posts. And if those sites apply the ideas, perhaps we'll get some new success stories.

Meanwhile, one key takeaway was the idea that eCommerce site visitors fall into two main categories: Hunters and Browsers.

Hunters already know what they want, and are looking for a quick, safe transaction, while Browsers need more convincing and a different approach to prompt them to make a purchase.

To be most effective, an eCommerce site must address the motivations and thought processes of both audiences, and take them both into account when developing pages, site paths and conversion funnels. That's the foundation that should be in place before the real fun starts with page elements and design using weighted objectives.

Keeping those two audiences in mind, here are five questions that will help to frame optimization efforts for eCommerce site pages:

1. Which type of visitor -- Hunter or Browser -- is this page trying to serve? (Consider the channels and traffic sources.)
   
2. What are the weighted objectives of this page?
   
3. How does this page stop the visitor and connect with them?
   
4. Does this page instantly communicate my Business Value Proposition to visitors?
   
5. How does this page attract my visitor deeper into my product mix as it relates to the weighted objectives?

When a site or page has these fundamentals locked in, it's much easier to determine a baseline for success, test changes to increase conversions -- and measure the results. Try these questions with your own eCommerce page and let us know what you think.

Want to have your website or landing pages optimized by our experts? Just sign up for the MarketingExperiments Journal. You'll stay apprised of all our upcoming Web Clinics and have the chance to submit your site for a live optimization.

(See optimized version, right, and earlier version, below.)

"Giving your suggestions a chance to show results, I waited sixty days since rebuilding the site following your webinar participants' helpful comments," Eric said. "Conversion rate rose from 3.9% to 6.6% (30-day results)."

"I should also point out that we took the opportunity to target our paid-click advertising on those keywords which were more relevant -- and cut out those which were not productive. That reduced our ad spend by 60% yet increased conversion 200%.

"In conclusion, design and delivery of the message is foremost and many websites would benefit from your work -- I highly recommend you for that."

You can click here to read our brief containing the recommendations Eric received. It also includes the extensive guidance five other sites received at the same clinic.

You're also welcome to join our next free Web Clinic on May 7. Our optimization experts will be reviewing eCommerce websites, making specific recommendations, and answering audience questions. If you haven't participated in one of our live optimization clinics yet, what are you waiting for?

You don't want to pass up the chance for a double-digit increase in conversions, do you?

Did you catch our free Web Clinic on Wednesday? The topic was Measuring What Matters: How simplifying your metrics can increase Marketing ROI by up to 75% — and if you joined us, chances are you're already implementing new ideas and tools to improve your analytics.

If you couldn't make it, you can view the presentation here and download our free MarketingExperiments Essential Metrics Tool here (Excel file).

Metrics isn't the sexiest topic, yet it's one that most marketers have been grappling with for years and still don't have many concrete answers. In our live poll, 74% of the marketers characterized their experience level with Web analytics as moderate to novice.

There's a lot more to cover with metrics than our one-hour session allowed: Different tools, the type of website and levels of data, your depth of experience with analytics, to name just a few.

Many attendees told us the big takeaway was our blueprint for distilling several data points into just four key measurements — and using that to get beyond numbers and into your customers' mindset.

To paraphrase Dr. McGlaughlin, too often the focus with analytics is on us: the actions we're trying to force or entice, the conversion rates we want to see, the transactions and revenue we desperately need to achieve. Those are valid measures, but they obscure the intentions of our prospects and customers when they visit our sites.

The trick is taking all those raw numbers and using them to create a snapshot of what your site visitors are thinking, as well as what they're doing. That's what really helps us adapt our processes and content and improve ROI dramatically.

Several attendees requested another Clinic on this topic, so we'll likely revisit metrics with a new session in the months ahead. In the meantime, please enjoy the complete Clinic and try our Essential Metrics Tool with our compliments.

We'd appreciate any feedback you have on the metrics Cinic or Tool, and invite you to post any other metrics-related comments you'd like to share.

Ever tested an optimized landing page that followed all the right tactics, dramatically improved the page’s look and feel, got kudos on all the internal previews – and still got trounced by the ugly duckling control page?

All Web marketers have been there. That’s why we test in the first place. But each time this situation pops up, it seems to throw us for a loop.

Today the MarketingExperiments team reviewed a test that fit this scenario precisely. The control page was a bare-bones, ultra-vanilla layout: white background, plain black text, bulleted copy and simple name and e-mail signup form. There was even a prominent typo.

The tested treatments were far more polished and professional, with masthead logo images, a few testimonials, images of client logos, copy with select phrases bolded, and different text on the “submit” button. An “Anti-Spam” medallion next to the short form was added to reassure registrants.

Remarkably, the conversion rate was nearly 14% for the bare-bones control, compared to a 7-9% range for the two treatments. We can’t show the pages, but here are a few takeaway lessons:

• Beware of copy revisions that significantly alter the offer. From headlines to “submit” buttons, it's easy to underestimate the power of two or three words to tilt the needle the wrong way. Example: “Free Access” vs. “Send me Tips”.

• Not every hero shot will save the day. Images aren’t a slam dunk, whether they are of people or product. Using a relevant photo generally attracts the eye, and the right one can add a little sizzle to the page, but portraits and logos run the risk of being divisive. Example: Logos of your Fortune 500 clients could turn off some small companies and single-shingle prospects.

• Don’t count on an incentive to lift response. Thinking of adding a freebie to make your opt-in offer more appealing? Tread carefully. It might not hurt response, but it might not help either. In this test, the treatment offering a free report finished dead last. (Keep that in mind before you produce that next whitepaper you’re certain every prospect will love.)

While these pages are going back to the lab for additional testing, the early results helped isolate several elements that should make a big impact on subsequent rounds. It’s a good reminder that even tests that fail can improve our optimization efforts, and that we still benefit … even when the ugly ducklings win.

I got a shiny, snailmail brochure today touting a famous research organization’s upcoming workshop. One track offers expert advice on social marketing to “Generation Y.” According to the blurb, selling to this audience requires a “non-traditional approach” that includes “adding YouTube and Facebook to your marketing mix and leveraging user-created content.”

Yawn. It sounds so 2006, I’m already asleep.

As I said in an Oct. 2007 blog post, if it gets to be 2008 (Mr. or Ms. CMO) and your product isn’t in the top 10 search results on Baidu, embedded in South Korean social networks, wrapped around a Brazilian YouTube video, certified carbon neutral, and bookmarked on a Google phone, better get out the cardboard box and start packing your stress ball.

Yet I’m sure hundreds of CMOs will shell out thousands to attend the yakfest, hoping to gain an edge and keep their jobs.

Why does it seem that all of these events are led by Baby Boomers who’ve never skated, surfed, played Tekken 6, or shopped at Karmaloop? I say spend your $2,000 to come on down to Jax Beach and holla at these kids surfing by the pier on spring break instead.

According to the South by Southwest interactive festival Web site, a similar panel at that conference discussed and nominated “ten terrible ad campaigns that abused the ideals of people-powered media.” The campaigns the panelists roasted included:

• Businesses pretending to be bloggers.
• Businesses pretending to be journalists.
• Businesses pretending to be “Joe Blow” in order to flog their products in blog comments.
• Bloggers and vloggers who turn out to be paid floggers.

Trouble is, the panel voting on “The Worst of the Worst in Social Media Marketing for 2007” included reps from companies that oh-so carefully arrange for product pitches on blogs.

As Jack Nicholson said, “My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch.”

My advice to those who want the scoop on social media and reaching the elusive GenY:
#1: Don’t lie.
#2: Don’t have others shill, lie, and pretend to be authentic for you. You will be discovered, and you will probably regret it.
#3: Be authentic. If you are a zillion dollar global leviathan, own it, be it, learn to love yourself. Don’t try to be something you’re not. It’s as repelling as grandma wearing Zoë Bikini. You don’t want to see it, and neither does GenY.

Did any of the companies mentioned in this blog (except of course my fulltime employer, MarketingExperiments) pay me for it? Not a chance.

For more on this subject, check out the MarketingExperiments Creed – our attempt at an in-house reminder to keep it real. And let us know if you’ll be dropping by the beach. Our own GenY crew just got a new grill and they’re waxing their boards for these killer waves.

According to a New York Times article last Thursday, WalMart’s CEO said the company will start making their suppliers meet strict energy use and ethical standards as well as ensuring their own stores are as energy-efficient as possible. They may even put windmills in store parking lots so customers who have electric or hybrid cars (or buy them in the future from WalMart) can juice up while they shop.

When WalMart makes a commitment to go green, look out; WalMart doesn’t do trendy, so saving energy, the environment, and humans must be good for the corporate bottom line.

In a Nov. 2007 BBMG survey of 2,007 Americans, 9 out of 10 said the words “conscious consumer” describe them well. What’s a conscious consumer?

According to BBMG founding partner Raphael Bernporad, “Conscious consumers expect companies to do more than make eco-friendly claims. They demand transparency and accountability across every level of business practice.”

BBMG found that consumers are more likely to buy—if products are of equal price and quality—from companies that:

• Manufacture energy efficient products (90%)
• Promote health and safety benefits (88%)
• Support fair labor and trade practices (87%)
• Commit to environmentally-friendly practices (87%)

The most important issues to the 2,007 adults BBMG surveyed?

• Safe drinking water (90%)
• Clean air (86%)
• Finding cures for diseases like cancer, AIDS and Alzheimers (84%)
• Global warming (63%)

While quality and price were deemed #1 and #2 in importance to a purchasing decision, convenience came in #6, edged out by three other factors:

• Where a product is made
• How energy efficient it is
• Health benefits

Source: Bernporad Barnowski Marketing Group, “Conscious Consumer Report,” November 2007

Conscious consumers are conscious not only of the effect their purchasing and lifestyle decisions have on the world, they’re conscious of the effect your business decisions have as well.

Gordon Gekko got it wrong. It’s not greed that’s good, it’s green.

A book called CMO Thought Leaders: The Rise of the Strategic Marketer, published recently by global conglomerate Booz Allen Hamilton, uses interviews with CMOs and other marketing experts to scope the sea-changes successful marketers will survive and thrive in: Global penetration of an Internet-centric culture and its dramatic demographic shifts—where 1.2 billion consumers simultaneously occupy the online ocean and a myriad of invaluable, ultra-focused niches; where warp-speed concept-to-market delivery of new products and information intersects with end-users possessing unlimited ability to pick and choose what they want, when they want it, and who they want it from; where a brave new world of marketing scientists and analysts focus their experiments on one thing: discovering what really works when it comes to navigating a company through those wired and wireless cyber-seas.

It’s time for those who claim the title of CMO to “lead, follow, or get out of the way,” as my former boss Ted Turner was fond of saying. If you’re going to lead, you’d better be a marketing Übermensch—capable of drilling straight through an amorphous marketplace to the data that can feed an immediate decision on the most profitable model, the best optimization tweak, the sharpest hook, the killer copy you need to make the right changes, the right move, the right decision, right now, and as close to the end user/customer as possible—because tomorrow it will be too late: You’ll be eating the dust of a million other companies, including a half-million that didn’t even exist yesterday.

Oh yeah, you’d better put being best friends with the Chief Information Officer on your to-do list as well.

According to a fascinating article by Randall Rothenberg and Association of National Advertisers President and CEO Robert Liodice published by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the study looked at “the rise of marketing as a core function in the operations of consumer and business-to-business companies. . . . Whatever the industry, companies today have little choice but to embrace the Growth Champion marketing model — to become, as Rob Malcolm, president of global marketing, sales, and innovation at the $18 billion liquor giant Diageo PLC puts it, ’the engine room of demand creation.’".”

“Growth Champions” was a term coined for the leaders of marketing teams by Harvard Business School gurus John A. Quelch and Gail J. McGovern, who labeled these visionaries “Super-CMOs.” (See also “Growth Champions” by Edward Landry, Andrew Tipping, and Jay Kumar).

Here are other key insights from the book that Rothenberg and Liodice mention in their article:

• “The consumer is not an idiot; she is your boss. Consumers have near-total control of communications channels, choices, and content is now the principal underpinning of companies’ marketing strategy.
• The “purchase funnel” has Web feet. Interactive media are perceived as central to marketers’ new growth mission, capable of supporting brand awareness, retail traffic generation, product trial, loyalty programs, and other needs.
• Marketing experimentation is accelerating, along with the need for new metrics, as communications cost barriers continue to plunge.
• Marketers’ arsenal is expanding. The definition of “advertising” is changing to include multi-platform campaigns, marketer in-sourced infotainment, user-generated content, complex CRM programs, and other activities rarely associated with traditional advertising.
• There is a race for new capabilities among media, agencies, and marketers as the marketing-media value chain grows more tangled and competitive.”

Adrenaline rushing? Invigorated? Ready for the challenge?

If your visionary board, your CEO, or your company president has seen the benefit of empowering a super-CMO to make change as quickly as possible and as close to the consumer you can get in order to drive company growth, congratulations; but as Ted Turner also said, “Here’s the rope; go hang yourself.”

If you have any of the latest versions of SKYPE installed on your computer you may have noticed a little feature that converts any phone number on any website you may be browsing into a clickable phone number. The way it works is that it actually inserts CSS into the web page you are looking at to convert the text into a clickable SKYPE phone number.

Is this having an effect on your marketing?

We don't really know, but one thing we do know... users that have this plugin will definitely notice ads that include phone numbers over ads that do not because of the extra emphasis given to the ad with the SKYPE code. Another interesting point is that when you click the number it does not go to the actual landing page on the systems we tested it with which leaves Google with lost click revenue and companies that will have a harder if not impossible time of tracking customers who call by clicking that link (unless they use a special phone number just for PPC ads). We are pointing out PPC but this goes for any site that displays phone numbers with html (it can't read text on images).

In a recent article over at Adotas, they take a hard look at how changes in algorithms at Google can have a painful impact on sites that depend on the giant search engine for organic search results.

And if you think this applies just to small companies, consider this passage from the Adotas article:

“Now that Google has changed its algorithm, many sites are seeing a backlash that cannot be ignored. Answers.com has reported traffic to have gone down about 28% and ascribes this to the changed Algorithm of the search giant. Having an average of 3 million visitors in June, the loss has been significant.”

We have seen a number of algorithm changes at Google over the last few years, and each time thousands of businesses online feel the pain.

A sudden loss in ranking can be particularly frustrating for companies which invest significantly in professional SEO help, only to find that investment flushed away by the next tweak over at Google.

The problem can be compounded for those companies which depend not only on Google for organic search listings, but also use AdWords to drive additional traffic.

As we have noticed through our own research, promoting a site through AdWords can also be vulnerable to changes in competition and gradual increases in cost per click.

An alien MBA might reasonable ask, “Are you nuts? Why put your business success in the hands of one or two channels over which you have no control?”

Good question. And there is no doubt that any company which depends too much on traffic through Google is putting itself in a very vulnerable position.

The rational answer always has to be that one should develop additional marketing channels and promotional strategies. You have to expand your sources of traffic and reduce your risks.

In a sense, the lure of “free” organic traffic through Google has made too many companies lazy.

It’s also likely that some online businesses have succeeded to date without any real marketing strategy as all. Some will have either lucked out or worked hard to get a substantial and regular flow of traffic through Google, and have simply never bothered to explore other channels.

These companies are the most vulnerable and, if they crash and burn, they will really have nobody to blame but themselves.

But for every company, large and small, it makes sense to do a traffic audit and determine whether or not their revenues are too dependent on Google, or on any other single channel.

If the answer is yes, then it’s time to think like an alien MBA and put things back into balance.