Content Marketing

It took almost two years, but a seller who filed a class-action lawsuit against eBay over its Featured Plus optional listing upgrade has reached a court-approved preliminary settlement. The retailer, while denying the allegations and not admitting fault, has agreed to pay $4.75 million to settle the lawsuit, including $7,500 for the seller who initiated the lawsuit. Furthermore, it stopped offering the feature earlier this year. But sellers shouldn't necessarily expect to receive a check in the mail — the default method for distributing funds to class members with active eBay accounts will be to give them account credits.

Marketers have made their lists and they're checking them twice, sometimes even three times. If the conversion needle isn't moving, you might need to rethink your digital strategy. To avoid any holiday hiccups, here are 12 tips on how your content management and personalization strategies can boost conversions, foster brand loyalty and keep customers returning year-round:

Remarketing uses website visitors’ on-site behaviors to trigger specific campaigns such as emails and retargeted advertisements. When done right, it elevates marketing from irrelevant noise into personal service, extending and differentiating the retailer and stimulating purchases. In fact, it's been shown that two times to three times more site abandoners will buy when remarketed to, making remarketing a powerful tool in a marketer's arsenal.

Gap placed strong third-quarter investments in its growth plan, including introducing omnichannel, getting the company ready next year for responsive supply chain and beginning its seamless inventory for 2015. There are several investments and strategic plans that the company will continue to stick with because they're part of the long-range plan. In that bucket are investments such as China, Old Navy International, Athleta growth, recent growth with Intermix, and the global outlet. Earlier this year, Gap decided to focus on seamless inventory in addition to its growth initiatives. 

Rounding up the year's best tips to help you optimize your business.

Plenty of retailers have leveraged user-generated content (e.g., customer photos and videos) from contests and promotions in branded marketing campaigns before, but not quite like Sears just did. The company's Startup + Developer Challenge, held this past summer, was a "code-a-thon" designed to find the best and brightest minds in the tech community of Silicon Valley — and then use those minds to Sears' benefit.

Instagram, Facebook's insanely popular photo-sharing app, introduced video capability in June to compete with the rise of Vine's bite-sized videos. Within 24 hours, Instagram's 130 million users uploaded over 5 million videos.

Swedish furniture giant Ikea, fearing a legal backlash, has removed an article about a lesbian couple from Russian versions of a customer magazine that is distributed all over the world. An Ikea spokeswoman said the move was made in accordance with laws in Russia banning "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations." The company replaced the article in Russia with a story about a designer living in China.

The most important fact for retailers when thinking how to enhance their online shopping experience is that modern e-commerce has been a part of consumers’ lives for almost 20 years. Millennials don't know a world without online shopping, and even older consumers are extremely sophisticated e-shoppers today. Both groups have also had over six years to become obsessed with their smartphones. Imagery, and interactivity with images, is expected.

Social paid advertising and real-time marketing are changing the way retailers strategize their campaigns. Jennifer Kasper, group vice president of digital, new media and multicultural marketing at Macy's, spoke with eMarketer's Rimma Kats about how the retailer is approaching social media, as well as the key role Pinterest will play in its 2014 efforts.