How Viglink does it?

Look at the picture below.

This is the standard commission chart of Amazon Affiliate program. For 8.5% commission, you’ll have to help Amazon for selling  3131+ product in a month. And If you’re small publisher, 3131+ sounds very tough.

But VigLink has thousands of small publisher like you. So, it gets 8.5% commission from Amazon. Now let’s do a simple math here!

After cutting viglink’s 25%, you get 6.375% commission on every affiliate sale. You were receiving 4% before but now its 6.375% which is 59.375% more than standard commission.

My VigLink Revenue

Thus, Using VigLink can help you to get 59% more from Amazon Associates.
Disclaimer: I use VigLink and above links are manually and Auto-Affiliated by Viglink.

How to earn 59% more from Amazon Associates? posted by Ankit Kumar. You can follow Ankit on Twitter or contact him here.

Just got a $35.20 from Shopify as an Affiliate Payment! $35.20 is not a big amount but it’s big deal for me. Adding a single dollar in my passive income excites me and Shopify pays 20% recurring commission to the Affiliates. Wish me for my journey towards good Passive Income!

Thanks Shopify!

Shopify Affiliate Payment January 2012 posted by Ankit Kumar. You can follow Ankit on Twitter or contact him here.

What is PayPal Access?
Paypal Access is a new solution which provides Single sign-on solution using PayPal account. A customer can login and checkout into your store using his PayPal account. Cool idea, isn’t it?

How does it help a Customer?

1. He doesn’t have to worry about creating and managing multiple accounts at different stores. He can just Login with PayPal.
2. He doesn’t have to send his data to the store. He feels more secure and confident.
3. He’ll get personalized shopping experience based on his shopping history and data.

Update

Thanks Ankush (PayPal Access Team) for providing more information. It wasn’t sure that PayPal provides contact information of users to Retailers/Merchants (Read Is PayPal Access a bad idea)  but now it’s clear.

Paypal Access in Action

Information stored at Merchant’s side (Magento Go)

Click to Enlarge

I really think that PayPal access is going to be a great solution. Let me recite Ankush here!

There have been social identity solutions but no real commerce identity solution so far. PayPal Access is the first commerce identity solution which is more geared towards shopping activity.

Do you use Magento Go or PayPal Access? I would love to get your opinion.

Paypal Access, Magento Go and Conversion Rate posted by Ankit Kumar. You can follow Ankit on Twitter or contact him here.

Do you have what it takes to be a good freelancer? posted by Ankit Kumar. You can follow Ankit on Twitter or contact him here.

So, I really liked the newsletter. It isn’t too fancy or text-only type but clean and elegant. A logo at top, text Section, an image and couple of call-to-actions.

A good template to use!  The email also looks good in my Gmail Inbox too.

You can create it within 5 Minutes using MadMimi. If you’re a Small Business owner or someone who wants a DIY email marketing solution, Mad Mimi is highly recommended for you.

See this video! You’ll learn about the simplicity of Madmimi. You can manage contacts, create lead forms, design emails, see stats and everything without any technical knowledge.

What’s new in MadMimi v2?

1. Improved Web Forms ( I love it!)
   
2. Cool Social Sharing
3. Awesome Stats
   
4. Organisation of Campaigns
   

What do you think about your ESP? Are you willing to try Madmimi?

DIY Email Marketing with Mad Mimi V2 posted by Ankit Kumar. You can follow Ankit on Twitter or contact him here.

The answers are what you’re looking for your own e-store. They are the key factors which help your e-store to stands higher in crowd and sell more.

One more thing, online selling is not much different from your brick and mortar store. The concepts are almost same.

1. Branding

Are you a Brand-Crazy person? Do you like Prada or Gucci? Do you like Starbucks?

I mean who don’t like them as long as they are not Gandhi or any Saint.

A brand is a belief. This is the most powerful thing. This is reason why you decide to pay higher price.

So think one more time, how do you brand your business? What are the current efforts for branding? Is this really helpful? Is it costing too much? Can you measure ROI (return-on-investment)? Is it scalable?

If you’re getting more ‘No’ than ‘yes’, then it’s time to tune your Brand-Building process.

Now, it’s question time. How can you build a strong brand if you’re totally new?

The answer itself is good enough to fill hundreds of papers. So I’m going to make it short.

These are the effective ways to build a stronger brand using Internet.

1. Unique Design:  Good enough to hold them! If you’re able to amaze them, you can sell even more.
2. Utilize Social Networks: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are very helpful here. They got some very innovative products to promote a brand. Spend some time to discover the ‘best practices’.
3. Run multiple Display Advertising Campaigns: Bore people with your ads.
4. Participate in conversation and Q&A sites
5. Showcase your Testimonials, Reviews and feedbacks across the site and networks

2. USP

USP stands for Unique Selling Proposition.  How do you differentiate your business from others? What are the product differentiators?

A buyer usually spends a good time on research. He searches for
• Price
• Quality
• Deals
• Reviews etc
So think again! How do you differentiate your products? Is it price, quality, customer support, any guaranty (Money Back, warranty etc.) or payment flexibilities?

When you find your USPs, showcase them everywhere. It’ll help buyers to make decisions.

For example, I’m willing to pay higher for fast shipping. I can spend few extra bucks on different shop if it offers EMIs (Easy Monthly Installations).

3. Store Experience

A good store experience is must for Ecommerce success. If your cart or design sucks, nothing is going to help.

Make your store as much as user-friendly you can. Get a good design, speed-up the store, smooth the Cart and get higher conversion rate. A good Ecommerce platform or software is a necessity.

Offer number of features but don’t confuse them with lot of options. Simplicity is also necessary.

An example: Yepme.com: Store Review.

4. Customer Retention

A business is never going to be a success without the army of Loyal Customers. Customer retention is helpful to get more sales and to build your brand. A loyal customer not only buys from you but he also spreads the good words in his network.

Also you’ve to apply less effort to sell something to them again. They’ve already used the product and they won’t be in question zone.

Simple advice, always be connected with your existing customers. Let them feel special.

Ask for regular advice (design or feature) using newsletters, blogs or surveys. Thus they’ll be connected and feel like a part of the business and not only a proposition/asset.

5. Multi-Channel Marketing

There are opportunities lying everywhere in Internet. Some businesses are making millions from Facebook. Some businesses are killing their competition with Search Engine Marketing.

The mantra is to spread your reach everywhere. It’s not that hard with Internet.

Let me ask you something. How do you promote your business? What are the current quality traffic sources?
If you can only list 2 or 3 traffic sources, be ready for sudden loss.

If you’re totally depended on search engines, a negative change in ranking algorithm can affect your whole business. If you rely on Ads for traffic, their policy change can bring you to a danger situation.

An ideal marketing strategy should focus on no. of marketing channels. You can use Email Marketing, SEM, Affiliate Marketing, Referral Marketing, Social Media and offline campaigns to diversify your reach.

Thus you’re not dependent on a single source and they’ll also bring you regular amount of buyers. All it needs good and specified targeting and regular data-driven optimization.

Now, it’s time for your participation. What are the success factors behind your business? How to do you sell more? Please share!

Learn how to get more sales Quickly!

5 Key success factors for E-Commerce Business posted by Ankit Kumar. You can follow Ankit on Twitter or contact him here.

Common problem with Subdomain tracking

The Google Analytics data had two problems.

• Self-Referral issues (Counts visits among subdomain as Referrals)

• Revenue Sources were only Direct and Self-Referrals.

Are you facing the similar problem? If yes, then read forward and fix your Subdomain tracking. If you’re having different problem related Google Analytics, contact me.

Fixing Self-Referral issue

The problem arises because of using wrong tracking code provided by Google in past. People were using Period before domain (.migrelief.com) and included domain hashing (_setAllowHash).

It was overwriting _utmz cookie and caused self-referral. Well, the _setAllowHash method is deprecated now.

Solution:

• Remove (.) from your domain in _setDomainName method. 
• Remove _setAllowHash method.

Update: Google Analytics is providing the new working tracking code now.

Ecommerce Revenue sources Problem

If you see the similar images in Your Google Analytics reports, your marketing campaigns are useless. You have no idea what are the origins of sales. You can’t even use Multi-channel Funnels.

Steps to fix the above problem:

1. Perform a test for sale using a different traffic source than Direct. You can use a different browser than your default one and Google your branded keyword for this.
2. Check browser Cookies at Thank-You (Receipt/Success) page. There should be no different domain hash, source or double utmz for Google Analytics.

If your cookies have any of the above condition, your thank-you page has a problem. Let’s fix this!

1. View source of your thank-you page.
2. Check for Default Google Analytics code in header <head>. It always happens in case of Content Management systems or because of single header for all pages. The solution depends on this step.
3. If you find the tracking code in header it means you don’t have to use _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); again in your Ecommerce tracking snippet used in .
   Remove the line which has _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); from your ecommerce tracking code.
4. Finally add _setDomainName (domain.com’) method just after _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-XXXXX-X']); in your ecommerce tracking snippet.
5. It should work now! Perform a test again for sale with different traffic source and see the results after some time.

If you’re still having the same problem, ask me or hire me to fix it.  Don’t forget to share the article if it helps!

Subdomains and Ecommerce tracking with Google Analytics (Working) posted by Ankit Kumar. You can follow Ankit on Twitter or contact him here.

Just landed at Yepme.com via a YouTube Ad. The site claims itself as “India’s first online Fashion brand’.  How can I miss the chance of reviewing ‘India’s first Online Fashion Brand’?

First Impression of Yepme.com

Clean design and faster site. Server|Servers is|are in India and the pitch ‘India’s first Online Fashion Brand‘ motivated me to explore.

The home page is more effective than its landing pages. You see a model wearing a cloth, you want to look like alike and it increases the chances of a sale.

I didn’t find any clear USP (Unique Selling Proposition) at the website. 30 days return policy, Cash and Delivery and supports are good but not enough to differentiate from other players.

Although, I like the Dressing Room concept at Yepme. I’ll recommend to edit this page a bit and use it as landing page. I wonder why they are not strongly promoting it. All I can see a small link at top navigation bar and a banner at footer.

Good?

• Dressing Room Concept
• Products with Popular models
• Good Social Media Presence (75k+ fans @ Facebook)
• Call-me option at Product Pages
• Good Product Descriptions

What’s bad?

• Search Engine Optimization: Poorly optimized for Search Engines. Page titles are not optimized for products and as well as many pages. Multiple 404 pages are indexed by search engines. Permalink structure is also not much encouraging.

• Utilization of Social Media: The updates don’t promote the products usually. There is also lot of clutter present there. I’ve no idea about there Paid campaigns @Facebook too. Facebook campaigns are very important for targeting Indian users.

• Prices displayed without shipping charges: This creates uncertainty for customers or even costly experiences leading to negative feedback. Cart abandonment rate will increase.
  

• Recommend and Win Shopping Credits: Don’t open it for public! People will flood their network with promotional emails, tweets or updates. Overall result will be harmful (Excess amount of promotional emails will go to the spam and will create noise. It’s bad for Branding).  Think about ReferralCandy and offer it to the new and existing customers.

Ever bought something from Yepme? Post your Yepme Review here!

Yepme.com: Store Review posted by Ankit Kumar. You can follow Ankit on Twitter or contact him here.

The most common traffic sources for any sites are.

1. Organic traffic
2. Paid traffic
3. Referral traffic
4. Social Media
5. And finally Direct (Add Email Marketing or similar campaigns) ones

Google has a big slice of pie for Organic and Paid traffic. Most people use Google Search engines and Adwords.

So if you’re not considering Google here, Think Bing or Yahoo for organic. And you’re familiar with the facts that how many people really use those search engines.

For most sites, Referral traffic play a major role. So, you can work more for Brand Development and Link building. Referral traffic will work more if they are referring you as a Recommendation. Getting links from non-related website and low quality websites are not going to help.

Think about participating in many causes, carnivals running on the web. It’ll help for traffic and as well as branding you as a socially committed.

Google has also entered into Social Media. Google+ is creating lot of buzz. But still Facebook and Twitter are big players. So, launch multiple campaigns and target people there.

Some businesses are doing good in Facebook ads. Twitter trends (Damn Expensive!) is also good for brand development.

You can actually use Social media for sale or traffic generation and not only for Customer support. All it needs some viral contents. They’ll flood your website with traffic.

And finally direct traffic. No one gets your website address in their dream . You’ve to drive them to your site before they remember your URL. So not much here.

Action steps:

1. Start with your customers. Connect with them on their favorite places like Facebook  and Twitter.  Get fans and followers.
2. Content Marketing is new hot traffic channel. Article publishing, guest blogging, PR sites etc are helping business. Content Marketing has two advantages. They bring traffic and as well as help for building authority.
3. Email Marketing is evergreen. Every net savvy people use it for 50% of their online tasks. Wise and authentic Email Marketing can bring new customers. It’ll also help for building loyal users.
4. Offline promotions (TV & Print), Stumble Upon (Yes, it’s still alive!), Q&A websites are really useful too.
5. Start Referral Marketing and Affiliate Marketing. Ask your customers to post about your business in their network (Facebook. Twitter or Blogs etc). You can also think about offering incentives for their sharing efforts.
6. Tweak your current Sale Funnels. Don’t only focus on Macro Conversion (Sales, Leads) but also think about micro conversions (Follow at social networks, Comments, repeat visits etc).

Can you ignore Google for your website? posted by Ankit Kumar. You can follow Ankit on Twitter or contact him here.

Most of the BigCommerce and Interspire users,  find it very hard to enable conversion tracking for Google Analytics. It’s very important for any Ecommerce Business owner. And if you’re using Google Adwords, ROI is incomplete without Conversion Tracking.

Anyways, let me clear something here. Google Analytics E-commerce Tracking and Google Adwords Conversion tracking both are different things and different tracking codes are required.

E-commerce tracking helps you to see various sales data inside the Google Analytics and Conversion tracking helps you for calculating ROI of your Google Adwords campaigns.

Google Analytics E-commerce Tracking steps for Interspire/Bigcommerce

It’s automatically done. You don’t have to put any codes.

Update: Some people are having problem with Ecommerce Tracking in Google Analytics. If you’re having the similar problem and your Google Analytics code is new one(Asynchronous version), try to use traditional Google Analytics code. it should work.    

Adwords Conversion Tracking

Are you done with above e-commerce tracking? OK, so adding Conversion Tracking won’t be hard.

Steps:

1. Go to Affiliate Setting.
2. Just paste this code in the Conversion Tracking Code box. Don’t forget to replace ‘Your-merchant-ID’  with your own Adwords Merchant ID in the following file.
3. Now do a test order and check for the ‘Amount‘  in thank-you page source. It should match your product value.

All set! Happy selling! If you need any help for conversion or E-commerce tracking at your BigCommerce /Interspire Store, feel free to contact me.

Read How to get more sales quickly. And don’t forget to browse my E-commerce article category.
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Bigcommerce and Interspire Conversion tracking posted by Ankit Kumar. You can follow Ankit on Twitter or contact him here.