Search Engine Marketing

As adoption of the tablet approaches its tipping point, more and more retailers are looking to create an optimized experience for the tablet shopper. This article explores some ways that retailers can improve this experience and ultimately drive sales.

Global e-commerce marketplace Rakuten Inc. has rebranded Buy.com, which it acquired in May 2010, to Rakuten.com Shopping. Between now and Jan. 30, merchants and consumers will still be able to go to Buy.com to access Rakuten's U.S. subsidiary. Starting Jan. 31, however, the site URL will change to Rakuten.com. Anyone going to Buy.com will be redirected to the new URL.

EmpireCovers.com, a Philadelphia-based online retailer that manufactures and sells automotive, marine, patio and power sport protective covers, has seen new customer acquisition as well as its clickthrough rate increase since launching a program on Google's new Shopping platform earlier this year. In addition, EmpireCovers.com's cost-per-acquisition (CPA) and cost-per-click (CPC) rates have declined since it began using Google Shopping.

This week's top article of the week (as determined by readers’ clickthroughs) focuses on search, specifically the search options you offer consumers on your website. While shopping cart abandonment has become somewhat of a sexy topic in the retail industry, the more prevalent issue of site abandonment — consumers are unable to locate their desired product and quickly exit the site — is often overlooked. Ofer Alt, CEO of Celebros, addresses the issue of site abandonment in his article by detailing four ways that an effective site search program can turn site visitors into paying customers. 

PROBLEM: Bedroom Furniture Discounts (BFD), a cross-channel retailer of furniture, wanted to optimize its paid search program.
SOLUTION: Hired a third-party provider of online interaction management tools, including a Google AdWords-based conversion solution.

Facebook is working with a data mining firm to show marketers that consumers who see ads on the social network actually buy advertised products. The company has purchased data on 70 million U.S. households from Datalogix, which culls information from loyalty cards and programs from more than 1,000 retailers, according to The Financial Times. Datalogix matches emails and data associated with those cards and programs with emails and information required to set up a Facebook account, according to the report. Using this information, the company can say whether a consumer purchased an item after seeing it advertised on Facebook.

Julie L. Daly, president of the e-commerce division of Avenue, a cross-channel retailer of plus-sized women's fashion, offered attendees to her session at eTail in Boston this week a peek into how the brand increased its number of new buyers by implementing an organic search program based on nonbranded search terms.

Online merchandising teams spend considerable time grouping items together and deciding which products to display when consumers enter specific search terms. Likewise, SEM teams dedicate resources to identify the keywords and phrases that lead to the most relevant landing pages. What these teams rarely do is share how their efforts can be integrated to produce results. 

Petco, a leading pet specialty retailer, deployed LP Insights to aggregate and analyze data from multiple customer touchpoints as well as gain a comprehensive understanding of customer sentiment across the online and in-store experience. Erin Smith, Petco's director of customer care, shares the retailer's success story.

Fifty percent of Google Product Search traffic will be switching to paid Google Shopping by July 28. Online merchants who aren’t ready for the switch will face some serious repercussions.