How to Make “Free Shipping” Profitable

Offering free shipping will improve your conversion rate. Guaranteed! But, it also can kill your profit margins if you’re not careful. So, how do you make free shipping profitable? In this article, I’ll review four simple tests that any e-commerce store owner can run to maximize profits on a free shipping offer. If you do […]

Eulogy For a Blog (Infographic)

In the spirit of Halloween, we’re posting an infographic on the death of Web Log. It’s based off this Copyblogger post. Thanks to Barry Feldman at Feldman Creative for providing today’s infographic. Enjoy!

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Overlays

Stephen R. Covey was a brilliant author and self-help visionary, but he never worked in online marketing. So, what can he teach us about managing overlay (pop-up) marketing campaigns? Apparently, quite a bit. It just so happens that Mr. Covey’s famed “7 Habits” apply directly to what makes an effective pop-up. But first, I fully […]

How to Get at Least 500 More Google+ Followers by Next Week

Google+ is still a very important part of the social media landscape. Even though Google Authorship has disappeared, we still have Google+. Growing your presence on this social media giant is as important as ever. I want to tell you how you can grow your Google+ following. Unlike Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook, there are no […]

How to Make Your Content Relatable and Actionable

Since the first Google Panda update in Feb 2011, quality of content has become a major factor on everyone’s marketing checklist. However, your content could be filled with quality and meaty information, and even be founded on some principles that have been successful in the past, but it still could suffer a high bounce rate. […]

Pain: The Missing Ingredient in Ecommerce

Don’t let the title put you off. Pain is actually a good thing, especially in an ecommerce setting. Pain can help move a customer to action. Pain can create a sense of relief in a customer. Pain can tighten the conversion funnel. Pain can improve conversion rates. Pain is obviously a significant factor in online […]

Lost in Translation: How to Drive Traffic to Your Website When You Go International

A few months ago, Gal Nissani published an article about converting your international audience. The article makes the point that translation is the most important step you can take to attract potential clients. Translation also makes browsing your website more convenient for visitors. I would like to go further and explain how to drive traffic […]

How to Persuade Customers to Convert on a High-Priced SaaS Product

At some point, you’re going to be selling a big-ticket item. Stuff that is more expensive is harder to sell. This isn’t the McDonald’s dollar menu. It’s more like Masa, in New York City. People won’t convert in the same way. But you’ve still got to sell. Here’s how it’s done. 1. Raise the price, […]

How to Create Custom Audiences in Facebook

Using Facebook ads to drive actual sales and results is no longer a myth, but are you making the most of what Facebook has to offer? In this webinar, Driftrock Growth Manager Gabi Barbosa discusses Facebook’s most powerful targeting option: Custom Audiences. At Driftrock, Gabi helps build tools to help brands reach the right people […]

The Marketer’s Guide to Real-Time Reports in Google Analytics

The Real-Time reports section in Google Analytics allows you to monitor activity on your website as it occurs from moment-to-moment, providing insights on how people are reacting to your marketing campaigns and infrastructure. This feature is great for measuring marketing initiatives that have a temporal nature, like a promotional campaign in Twitter. You can also […]

8 Ways to Stop Boring Your Email Subscribers

We constantly talk about testing email headlines, email layouts, emails for mobile, and email timing. But, what about looking at what we’re actually sending our subscribers? Would you read your own emails? Here are 8 ways to energize your subscribers: 1. Do not talk only about your services. According to recent research, we humans spend […]

8 Ways to Stop Boring Your Email Subscribers

We constantly talk about testing email headlines, email layouts, emails for mobile, and email timing. But, what about looking at what we’re actually sending our subscribers? Would you read your own emails? Here are 8 ways to energize your subscribers: 1. Do not talk only about your services. According to recent research, we humans spend […]

Using Interactive Content to Increase Conversions: 4 Examples from Top Companies (And How You Can Do It Too!)

If content marketing was 2013’s internet marketing buzzword, 2014 may well be the year of its evolution: interactive marketing. But what exactly is interactive marketing? At its core, interactive marketing focuses less on an immediate sale and more on building a relationship with customers by engaging them in conversation. With the proliferation of social media […]

The Marketer’s Guide to Instagram

In just four years, Instagram has exploded to over 200 million monthly active users (MAUs), making it the fastest growing social network on the planet.[1] While the number of MAUs falls well short of other social networks, Instagram has the most engaged users.[2] A study was done using the rock band Paramore’s social media accounts. […]

Four Absolute Essentials of High-Converting Copy

Outstanding copy is the solution to gaining higher conversions. But like so much of conversion optimization and digital marketing, outstanding copy is not easy to produce. A lot of the writing advice that I read and study isn’t very helpful. It blows out huge lists of must-haves that I can’t keep track of. Plus, nearly […]

6 User Interface Fixes That Can Greatly Increase Conversion Rates

A good user interface is about more than just pretty graphics and stylish fonts. It’s about all the “little things” that add up to a professional, compelling brand presence.  It’s about creating websites that users actually look forward to browsing and using. So what kinds of user interface tweaks can you make that can improve your […]

How to Stop Potential Customers from Comparison Shopping

Every business owner, online or offline, suffers from a problem that decreases sales, narrows margins, and reduces revenues. The problem is comparison shopping. Think about the last time you were considering a purchase. You probably checked out several different places in order to find the best options, the best prices, and the best guarantee. Your […]

Should You Listen to Your Customers’ Needs or Do They Even Know What They Really Want?

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” – Henry Ford Henry Ford famously said that he invented the Ford T without asking for any feedback from his potential customers. According to him, people were not capable of thinking about radical innovation. Since then, his words have sunk into […]

When to Use Qualitative and When to Use Quantitative Analytics

Qualitative and quantitative analytics are two essentials to understanding online marketing. From startups to mid-size companies, analyzing both qualitative and quantitative data before making decisions is crucial to growing your business. Before we get started, how are qualitative and quantitative analytics different? Here’s a low down on both: Quantitative analytics — this means looking at […]

When to Use Qualitative and Quantitative Analytics

Qualitative and quantitative analytics are two essentials to understanding online marketing. From startups to mid-size companies, analyzing both qualitative and quantitative data before making decisions is crucial to growing your business. Before we get started, how are qualitative and quantitative analytics different? Here’s a low down on both: Quantitative analytics — this means looking at […]

How SaaS Companies Can Use The KISSmetrics Funnel Report To Drive Their Growth

Every SaaS (Software as a Service) company needs a set of conversion funnels that track how many people convert into users or customers. Companies can also use conversion funnels to track important actions such as filling out a form or using a feature. In this post, we’ll run through an acquisition funnel. We’ll see how […]

Is Your Google Shopping Listing as Optimized as it Could Be?

With Google recently phasing out PLAs (Product Listing Ads), many merchants are left wondering what the Big G could do next to jerk out the digital rug from under their feet. But Google is all about relevancy, and their best way to build on the market share they’ve already captured is by continuing to hone […]

Use this Hollywood Secret to Write Addicting Opt-In Copy

You know how hard it is to pull yourself away from watching an addictive TV show. And, you know how harmless it seems to watch “just one more episode” on Netflix, but then it turns out not to be just one. What is it about those shows that make them so addictive? And, more importantly, […]

Four Hacks for Writing an Article That Sounds Genius (And Actually Is)

These days, if you’re not writing great quality content, you’re sunk. Your readers are smart people. They deserve content that is well-researched, highly informative, and worth their time. You may not be a genius, but your writing needs to sound like it. What I’m proposing is not that you try to sound artificially smart, but […]

3 Ways to Use Analytics to Increase Your E-commerce Conversion Rates

We have access to a tremendous amount of customer data these days. Even the free tools like Google Analytics give us incredible insights into where our traffic comes from and what people do on our site. Yet, 80% of online retailers do not use their analytics sufficiently. Many don’t even track important actions like conversion […]

Understanding The Essence of Google AdWords (Infographic)

For some companies, pay per click advertising is their most effective marketing channel. It brings a comparatively lower cost per acquisition than other channels and consistently brings high value customers. Many of these companies that are successful with pay per click campaigns, particularly AdWords, typically have AdWords experts working for them. If beginners are tasked […]

Is Adblock Plus Killing Your Conversions?

Editor’s note: The tone and opinions of this article is that of the author and is not necessarily shared by the KISSmetrics team. However, this article does present an interesting issue for those engaged in online marketing and we feel that you should be aware of the circumstances that it creates. With over 300 million […]

How to Create Mobile Marketing As Unique As Your Users

Your users are unique, so your mobile marketing should be, too. Indeed, since mobile consumers expect a curated and individualized experience, your mobile marketing should be perfectly personalized in order to truly engage them. You can do this with information provided by consumers over mobile. Most of us check our phones over a hundred times […]

How to Structure a Longform Landing Page for Maximum Conversions

Longform sales pages have recently become more popular. Marketers have realized that the short-and-easy capture forms may not be enough to encourage a conversion. Lots of content is powerful and compelling. Big landing pages can mean big conversions. But how do you organize this content? For example, the sales page for Marketing Bullets has nearly […]