The Internet is made up of two (or three) types of people. Emotional browsers, methodical browsers, and people stuck somewhere in between. This was explained in my last blog article (Emotional Browsers vs. Methodical Browsers), and now I want to focus on how you can ensure you have content for each of these types of people.

If you can meet the needs of the different browsers, you are far more likely to convert them into customers. But what are their needs? What do you need to include on your site to keep these different types of people happy?

Emotional Browsers.

Depending on your products, these can be the most easy people to impress. The whole idea behind an emotional browser is that they are emotional. Therefore, your brand, and products need to capture and dazzle their emotions. This is easily said than done.

So what’s the easiest way to make these people happy? Have great products! And if you don’t have products unique to your site, make sure you have the best images, and the most creatively written descriptions to really engage and excite the customer. Another thing that emotional people love, is sharing their emotions, and seeing what other people are saying. How? Social media. If a potential customer can see other people getting excited about a product, they themselves will get excited.

Time for an example. Let’s say you sell clothes. Your clothes are amazing. They are unique to your company. So you take some amazing photos that capture the essence of the items, and your brand. They look great, and make anyone who looks at them say “Aw, I want that!”. How can you reinforce this? Creative descriptions, and social media. Give them reasons to think about your brand, and how great they will look in it. That’s what you want. Pure emotion.

Methodical Browsers

So you understand how to target emotional browsers. Great. What about the methodical browsers? These are the people that are logical about their purchases, and like to make informed decisions based on data. These people are the hardest people to sell to, but at the same time can be the easiest to sell to. Confused? Let me explain.

These people want data. They want facts, figures, specifications, testimonials, reviews, and anything else they can get their hands on that reinforces they should buy the product. The hard part is making sure your site has all this information readily available. If it doesn’t, they’ll move on to another site that can answer their questions. Depending on your price, they may come back, however they are more comfortable buying from a company that has all their answers.

Let’s say you sold consumer electronics. “Competitive industry” you’ll say. A lot of people who are browsing for electronics online are methodical. They know what they are looking for, and they just need to find the right place to get it. They come to your site, and it has brilliant images (that also cater to emotional browsers), descriptive copy, product reviews, company testimonials and most importantly in-depth product specifications. These specifications are the raw data they call crawl through, which often answers all of their questions. So many sites forget that this kind of information can convert a browser into a customer.

Here’s a table

To illustrate my point, I have crafted this handy table. It shows, at a glance, some things you should focus on when optimising site content for both groups of people.

So there you have it.

This is obviously a larger topic than two blog posts. People could (and probably do) write their thesis on this. The point of these two blog posts was to show that there are different types of browser behaviour, and that you need to cater for each of these to ensure you are capturing the hearts and/or minds of everyone coming to your site.

Let me know if you have any questions about this by leaving comments below, or you could let us know on our Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or YouTube pages.

In this ExceedTV Insight Jason Greenwood interviews Exceed Online technical manager, Sergei Fillipov about his experience at Magento Imagine 2012 in Las Vegas

At the Magento Imagine eCommerce Conference 2012, Exceed Online was honoured with the prestigious Magento Partner Excellence Award.

The Partner Excellence Award recognises the top 10 Global Magento partners (of almost 400 in total) who have had the greatest success in their respective market – defined as both selling Magento Enterprise, and delivering quality implementations to customers. Evaluations for the awards are based on client satisfaction surveys performed by Magento on all of their partners.

‘View Through Conversions’ is an exciting metric in AdWords that is unique to Display Ad Network and Remarketing campaigns and allows you to measure which converted visitors saw your remarketing ads (but did not click on them) and then went on to convert following that viewing. In this article we discuss why this should matter to you!

Google Remarketing Basics

Google Remarketing allows you to segment specific groups of visitors (audiences) that have viewed your website that originated via AdWords ads. Ads targeted at these audiences run on the Display Ad network and display when that particular visitor/searcher matches that audience criteria.

As you can imagine, Remarketing ads (and their associated creative) are highly targeted and can help to reinforce your brand in the mind of your visitors or prompt them to purchase if they did not originally convert to a customer on their first visit via an AdWords search or display ad campaign.

It is known as Remarketing because you are marketing to visitors that:

• Have come to your site previously via an AdWords ad
• Already viewed your site and been exposed to your brand previously

How Does Google Do It?

The Remarketing system is one based on Cookies and Javascript Tags, much like AdWords and Google Analytics are. An AdWords account user that sets up a Remarketing campaign is provided with special ‘Remarketing Codes’ (Javascript Tags) that match their audience settings and these are inserted into the appropriate pages on the site.

The Remarketing codes set unique cookies in a visitor’s browser whenever they hit a page with these codes. These codes place them in the appropriate audience and whenever they then hit a page where the appropriate Display ad should show for that audience, the cookie triggers that ad to display.

It is a very clever system but not without its pitfalls, which will be addressed in another article.

Typical Audiences

With Google Remarketing you can make your audiences as broad or specific as you like. You can set up a campaign for all visitors that came to your site via an AdWords ad. However, that would be pretty broad and crafting unique creative would be impossible.

A better one might be to create an audience that saw your checkout page but did not see the order success page. This might be called your ‘abandoned cart’ audience. You could then craft creative (Display Ads) targeted at this audience with a special discount coupon listed in the creative. If they clicked your ad, you would then land them on a (presumably hidden) special site page detailing the offer and associated coupon code that would incentivise them to convert into a customer on that visit.

You can also get more specific. Let’s say you sell Teddy Bears online. Now let’s say that you have the following main categories on site:

• Famous Bears
• Coloured Bears
• Dressed Bears
• Personalised Bears
• Other Stuffed Animals

Now, you might have an audience set up where the criteria is that they viewed your Coloured Bears page but did NOT view your Famous Bears page. You would then craft an ad, advertising the famous stuffed bears you offer like perhaps Yogi Bear.

The options and audience combinations are almost endless and you can make them as generic (not recommended) or as targeted as you like.

Enable View Through Conversion Tracking

This is not enabled by default but should be to see the full value of your Remarketing (and Display Network) ads. You find this setting by going through your AdWords account using the following tabs:
Tools and Analysis > Conversions > Purchase/Sale Conversion > Advanced
and it looks like this:

Highly Value Metric

Google defines a View Through Conversion (VTC) as:

“A View-through Conversion happens when a customer sees an image or rich media ad, then later completes a conversion on your site. This is different from a Click-through Conversion, which happens when a customer had previously clicked on an ad (such as on the Google Search or the Google Display Network) and then completed a conversion on your site.
The data you see in your reports can be affected by how you’re tracking view-through conversions. Here’s how, depending on whether or not the feature is enabled or disabled in your account:
Disabled: If a customer views your display ad, doesn’t click it, and then later clicks on a search campaign ad, we’ll count one view-through conversion and one click conversion.
Enable: If a customer views your display ad, doesn’t click it, and then later clicks on a search ad, we’ll count only the last conversion type (the click conversion, for example).”

The VTC metric is a highly valuable one because it quantifies essentially ‘free’ conversions. They are not free in that they have clicked on an AdWords ad previously and not converted but the actual Remarketing ad that may have pushed them over the edge to convert has not been clicked (though it has been viewed) prior to the conversion.

To help quantify the value of these conversion, simply multiply the number by the average order value for your PPC conversions using Google Analytics or your analytics tool of choice.

Some argue that there is no way of guaranteeing that your Remarketing ad triggered the conversion but if it happens within 30 days (the default tracking period in AdWords), then it is a good bet the ads at least helped.

This is what the VTC column looks like in AdWords admin:

Conclusion

All in all, the VTC metric can help you quantify the value of your Remarketing campaigns beyond just the traditional ‘click through conversion’ metric. Ideally you’d have custom Remarketing landing pages too but simply tracking VTC’s is a great start in helping you understand what ad methods are driving revenue for your website.

So how do you use VTC data and what % of those conversion do you attribute to your Remarketing ads? I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject.

I’d love to hear some stories from out in the trenches so feel free to comment and share away!

Jason Greenwood
Digital Account Manager
Exceed Online

Exceed Online is a full service eCommerce and Online Marketing agency serving clients throughout New Zealand and Australia.

There are two types of people who use the Internet. There are emotional browsers, and methodical browsers. These two different groups of people will browse the Internet differently, and knowing what each group need can help enhance their browsing experience, and drive them towards the checkout.

“What group do I fall into” you ask? Well, let’s first establish the difference between the two, and then you can decide where you sit.

The Emotional Browsers

These are the people that fall in love with a product as soon as they see it. They might be browsing their favourite site and see a particular item of clothing that interests them. They fall in love with it. They are convinced that without this product, they may (and in their eyes, will) wither up and die. They convince themselves that this product could not have any flaws. “Even though it is 7 sizes too big, I can make it work” they will tell you. There’s no arguing with these people. They are heart-set on whatever it is they have found.

The Methodical Browsers

On the complete flipside to the emotional browsers, we have the methodical browsers. These are the people who employ German-like efficiency during their browsing experience. They carefully plan every buying decision based on rigorous research and careful thinking. No snap decisions with these people. They are interested in the facts, figures, specifications, shipping costs, reviews and any other data they can find to help make their decision. These are the people that may say “I like the product, but the reviews are average, and factoring in the shipping cost it is a risk I don’t want to take”. Unlike the emotional browsers these people are looking to justify the purchase with data. They value the opinions of others to aid their buying decision, and no feedback will go unnoticed.

The Mixed Browsers

I decided to include a secret hidden type of Internet browser: the mixed browser. These people are both emotional, and methodical. I think I fall in this category. Occasionally I will find something where I am convinced I cannot live without. I would jump through burning hoops just to own whatever it is. Other times I will take a very methodical approach, read all the information, ask other people their opinions, and check out any reviews. Sometimes it’s price. The more expensive something is, the more methodical I become. Sometimes it is a matter of conscience. Do I really need this product? Either way I am on the fence between the two, and so are many others.

So Where Do You Sit?

Don’t worry, there is no wrong answer. As I say you can either be one or the other, or a mixture of both. The reason I wrote about this today will be presented in my next article. Now that you know the difference between emotional browsers and methodical browsers, we can start to think about how you can cater for each group on your website. You need to have content for both these types of users to ensure both are involved, and have what they need to push them over the line and into the checkout process.

To stay up to date with Exceed Online, including blogs, ExceedTV, news, and events, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Youtube.

Infographic authored by TastyPlacement

At the Magento Imagine eCommerce Conference 2012, Exceed Online was honoured with the prestigious Magento Partner Excellence Award.

The Partner Excellence Award recognises the top 10 Global Magento partners (of almost 400 in total) who have had the greatest success in their respective market – defined as both selling Magento Enterprise, and delivering quality implementations to customers. Evaluations for the awards are based on client satisfaction surveys performed by Magento on all of their partners.

“We are extremely honoured to be recognised by Magento,” says Kyle Aspinall, Managing Director and founder of Exceed Online. “2011 was a busy year of growth for us and an award like this confirms the hard work, effort and innovation that our employees bring to work every day.”

Other news highlighted by Magento was the momentum gained since its last conference in helping customers spur business results. Over the past year, the Magento community has doubled in size to 808,000 registered members and with X.commerce, there are a total of 1.1 million members in its developer community. Magento is sustaining growth through continued investment across its full product suite, from its Enterprise Edition and open-ecosystem solutions, to its cloud-based Magento Go offering.

The growth of the Magento community has also driven the growth of Magento Connect, one of the world’s largest eCommerce application marketplaces. With more than 5,600 extensions now offered in Magento Connect – a growth of 73 percent – any merchant can now customise, enhance and extend almost any area of their Magento store. Additionally, Magento saw 71 percent growth in its Solution Partner network to reach almost 400 solution partners around the world.

Exceed Online estimates 6,000 merchants are operating their online business on Magento throughout Australia and New Zealand. Recognised retailers such as Harvey Norman, Office Max, Bing Lee, and many more recognise the flexibility and cost effectiveness of Magento.

“Digital commerce has changed global consumption patterns, making it essential for companies to deliver the most relevant information to consumers at the right time and through the channel most convenient to them,” said Aspinall. “Our recognition as a strong performer in the global commerce space is due largely to our deep understanding of how consumers behave in the digital marketplace. This knowledge, combined with our technical expertise, enables us to create powerful user experiences which re-inforce the merchants’ brand personality, and that is what sets us apart in the global eCommerce space.”

Forrester Research reports that eCommerce is growing at a double-digit rate year-over-year in North America and Western Europe; growth is even faster in the Asian Pacific market, which now accounts for more than 40% of the total global online population.

This explosive growth in digital commerce has contributed to an explosion in demand for Exceed Online’s core expertise. “We build our methodology around what we call ‘Agile Commerce Framework’” says Aspinall. “Rather than seeing their online offering as an adjunct to the brand, we take a comprehensive “whole of customer” view of our clients.

This involves a complete examination and recommendation of how the brand behaves, a full analysis of the customers digital marketing goals and their internal resources, and a comprehensive and full support suite of managed commerce services. “This combination enables clients to communicate and deliver consistently and confidently on brand promise across a multitude of new digital channels.” says Aspinall. “The future in this space is very exciting”.

About Exceed Online

Exceed Online is a consulting-centred eCommerce Agency engineered to transform marketing for the connected world. Their differentiated capabilities and structure have enabled them to become a market leader, operating as an independent company.

Exceed Online has deep industry expertise in Business-to-Consumer (B2C) and Business-to-Business (B2B). Exceed Online’s clients include P&G, Nestle, AvisBudget Group, Contact Energy, Sky TV, Brightstar Corp, Singapore Airlines, Dermalogica and Warner Music.

http://www.exceedecommerce.com.au

About Magento

Magento is the fastest growing e-commerce platform with over 100,000 merchants and brands worldwide and a host of Industry Partners that create applications and extensions for the Magento platform. Magento is a feature-rich, professional Open Source eCommerce platform solution that offers merchants complete flexibility and control over the presentation, content, and functionality of their online channel. Based in Los Angeles, Magento is a fast-paced, entrepreneurial organisation dedicated to the mission of enabling the eCommerce ecosystem.

http://www.magentocommerce.com

To stay up to date with Exceed Online, including blogs, ExceedTV, news, and events, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Youtube.

Tried And True

Ask any PPC Manager what they use most often when determining how to deliver their AdWords ads and it’s a good bet they’ll say ‘even ad rotation’. If you have multiple ads running within a given ad group, it will rotate delivery of these ads evenly so they are shown an equal number of times. This is important as it allows you to test various ad versions to see which one best meets your campaign goals.

The other ad rotation options are:

• Optimise for Clicks (Default)
• Optimise for Conversions

The rotation setting options look like this:

The rotate evenly setting used to be indefinite. This meant that your ads would continue to rotate evenly until you changed this setting. No longer says Google in a recent AdWords blog post.

The Shake Up

Google has determined that web searchers are better served by having this delivery method expire after 30 days and then delivery reverts back to being optimised for clicks. This is a setting that you have no control over and that you cannot change.

Having some things automate is great but we online marketing agencies like to have granular control over our ads and this removes one of those options. This is a big deal. It’s a big deal because so many people use this option and prefer the old, indefinite behaviour. To those outside the online marketing space this change may seem trivial but for those of us that develop tactics around specific functionality in AdWords, this is a significant change.

Sample Size

The key issue here is sample size. Depending on the traffic demands for specific Keywords, it may take much longer than 30 days to determine which ad is performing the best. By choosing an arbitrary date range of 30 days, they have neglected to take into account Keyword demand variables and this is a serious oversight.

Solutions

It remains to be seen if simply pausing and resuming a campaign or ad group will re-set the 30 day period or not. If it does this may be a relatively straightforward solution, albeit one that requires extra time on each account every month. Other than that all ads will require an edit and save of some sort. Time will tell how strict the Google rules end up being.

Let’s hope Google come to their senses soon and change back the functionality to the way it was as this is a change that has not been well received by the de-facto resellers of AdWords – the agencies that manage AdWords accounts for their clients. Google got this one wrong – will they admit it?

I’d love to hear some stories from out in the trenches so feel free to comment and share away!

Jason Greenwood
Digital Account Manager
Exceed Online

Exceed Online is a full service eCommerce and Online Marketing agency serving clients throughout New Zealand and Australia.

This week your hosts Jason Greenwood and Lance O’Grady talk about the different Google Analytics Traffic Sources and how you can use these to enhance and improve your online business.