VWO Acquires Navilytics to Offer Visitor Behavior Analysis Capabilities

We’re very happy to announce that VWO has acquired Navilytics – the proven visitor analytics solution with prominent customers such as Atlassian, Aerospike and SingleCare. With this acquisition and our recent announcement of On-page Surveys, we’ve moved further along into VWO’s transformation from the first “no-coding required” A/B testing tool in 2010 to the first full-featured conversion optimization platform that you will see in early 2016.

Why We Acquired Navilytics

VWO integrated heatmaps with A/B testing back in 2011. Since then, marketers, and the industry, have evolved to understand that A/B testing on its own is extremely tactical. What gets real, long-lasting results is a well-defined process of continuous research, hypothesis creation, testing and detailed analysis. Recognizing this need, we realize that VWO as a product has to help businesses run the entire optimization life-cycle from a single platform, instead of depending on multiple decoupled tools and then stitching the results together.

The acquisition of Navilytics is our second step towards assembling that platform. A few weeks ago, we launched On-page Surveys, which enables our customers to ask relevant questions to visitors on their website. Navilytics adds capabilities of heatmaps (upgraded), clickmaps, scrollmaps, visitor session recordings and form analysis all in one powerful package.

These new features will allow marketers to walk in the shoes of their customers with far greater clarity. For example, you can now see how a particular visitor browsed your website, what path they took, how much they scrolled, where they clicked and in what sequence they consumed content on your page, and then trigger a survey based on their behavior asking why they did or did not take a particular action.

A little bit of back-story

As we were exploring building these capabilities internally, Conner, the sole founder of Navilytics approached us for a partnership discussion. He caught our attention as VWO is also a bootstrapped product and we have a special liking for smart people solving big problems on their own.

On digging deeper, Navilytics really excited us: Conner had been able to build it into a powerful product with all the features that we were planning to build. Finally, what began as partnership talks ended up being an acquisition.

Our vision – to build the most comprehensive conversion optimization platform

As most marketers and CRO practitioners know, A/B testing is a small (but important) activity when it comes to optimizing conversions and revenue. Most of the actual effort and time goes into understanding users – what they do, what they want and what a business can offer them that they’ll want to buy. Going to different tools and trying to make sense of the data from different angles is frustrating. VWO’s vision is to be able to integrate all the tools needed for CRO – heatmaps, visitor recordings, usability analysis, expert feedback, surveys, A/B testing, personalization – into one solid platform and provide a thoughtful process on top of it that even beginners can use without getting overwhelmed.

What’s Next?

You will see many of the Navilytics features ported into VWO and continue to live and expand there. So expect many more feature announcements in future.

In fact, all of the Navilytics muscle has been improved upon and clubbed under one functionality that we call Visual Behavior Analysis (VBA). To understand more about the features on offer, head over here.

Beginning now, we’ve made available visitor recordings, form analysis and element list.

FAQs

I’m concerned about privacy implications of visitor recordings feature. What are you doing about it?

We don’t collect visitor behavior data until the respective features (heatmaps, clickmaps or visitor recordings) are switched on in your account and/or for specific campaigns. So if you don’t use it, VWO doesn’t collect data without your permission.

Visitor recordings is cool – but will it also record email addresses, credit card numbers, passwords, etc?

No. You can choose to exclude certain fields/inputs on your website from getting recorded.

Here’s a knowledgebase article to tell you more about it.

For existing Navilytics customers, please refer to the FAQs on Navilytics.

Whom do I contact if I have any concerns?

Reach out to support@wingify.com. We will be happy to assist you with your queries.

The post VWO Acquires Navilytics to Offer Visitor Behavior Analysis Capabilities appeared first on VWO Blog.

Five Buzzworthy SEO Trends You Must Know About for 2016

Get ready for a new year of changes to Google's algorithms--and your SEO strategy. Here are five of the biggest search trends on tap for 2016. They're sure to be buzzed about next year. Read the full article at MarketingProfs

It Ends TONIGHT- 12 Hours Left to Save 35%

Hero Conf Philadelphia is April 25-27 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in downtown Philly. Act now to be part of the fun, at a fraction the cost!

Read more at PPCHero.com

Five Retail Marketing Strategies and Tactics for 2016

by Megan Ouellet, Director of Content Marketing. Reach out and say hi to Megan on LinkedIn.

It’s an exciting time to be a retailer! With eCommerce retailers opening stores, stores becoming more digital and the Internet of Things moving from concept to reality, the path to purchase has drastically changed. Customers have more options but fewer choices – they no longer have to decide where or how to shop – they simply shop at their convenience.

2015 has been the year of personalization as the technology allowing deep segmentation and personal recommendations based on both purchase history and behavior can automate many of these communications. In fact, 54% of all consumers would consider no longer shopping with a retailer that didn’t provide personalized and relevant information. But what should retail marketers expect in 2016?

Content Personalization and User Generated Content
2016 will be the year of content marketing as retailers will find new ways to keep customers engaged and enhance their shopping experiences. 81% of all shoppers do online research before visiting a store and shoppers are looking for information at every stage of the journey – before, during and even after the purchase. More importantly, 80% of shoppers would prefer to get their product information from articles than ads.

Shoppers are looking for content that will help them make their purchase decisions, such as ratings and reviews. And they are looking for information to help them make the most of their purchases – such as product care tips. Retailers have to be creative in order to keep customers engaged. For example, if a customer buys a scarf, the retailer should send an email with a link to a video or blog post offering 15 interesting ways to wear the scarf. This type of personal content chould be used in every communication.

Even better, retailers should make their customers the star by promoting user generated content, not only in the form of ratings and reviews but by using real customer photos in promotional pieces, by asking customers to provide feedback on products and using that in product descriptions and requesting customer information for use in product videos or tutorials.

Interactive Marketing
As retailers add more and more technology to their stores, bringing the phigital experience to life, they have even more ways to interact with customers and capture data. Magic Mirrors, clienteling, touchscreens, Occulus Rift and interactive displays in stores allow shoppers to interact with brands and products in fun new ways while enhancing the shopping experience by aiding in product discovery while reducing time and barriers to checkout.

Mobile enables a lot of these interactions. Beacons send push messages to customers while they’re in store, offering coupons or product information. Mobile shopping apps allow customers to check inventory or receive additional product details immediately. Social sites, like Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter, let customers interact with brands and other customers, sharing information, pictures and videos. This level of interaction leads to loyal customers and brand ambassadors.

Cross-Channel Marketing
Customers already expect a seamless shopping experience as they move from store to site to mobile device, but many retailers are still struggling to provide this. In 2016, the data silos will be removed once and for all as omnichannel data hubs, such as Listrak’s, make it easy for retailers to store and use the data from everyone channel in one central location.

In many cases, the shopper’s email address is the universal identifier as it is used online, in mobile shopping apps and in-store during the checkout process. It also makes it possible for retailers to identify customers across devices. For example, if a customer is logged into a retailer’s site on their laptop at work and adds items to her cart and then later, at home, she visits the site on her iPad and completes the purchase, the retailer now knows those two devices are the same account. To take it a step further, if the same customer opens the order confirmation email on her mobile device, all three devices can be tied to the same account. This makes it possible for retailers to serve up personalized content to that customer no matter where or how she shops.

Email Still Reigns
Email has been the top performing marketing channel for the past decade, returning $38 per $1 spent in 2015. And it will remain in the top spot for 2016 as long as retailers keep up with the trends.

As mentioned earlier, personalization is key. Even broadcast emails can and should be personalized based on past purchases and online behavior. Automation will play an even bigger role as triggered messages are used to nurture customers through the buying journey while extending their lifecycles. And the amount of customer data will lead to true 1:1 marketing through deep segmentation and targeting.

The Landscape of Stores will change
Department stores haven't changed much in the past 100 years. See for yourself. This was taken at the Joseph Horne Co. department store in Pittsburgh in early 1920:

Until now. Many retailers are now designing stores to fit into communities, using local materials, artists and craftsman to build stores that reflect the area they are in instead of creating cookie-cutter stores that are exactly the same in every location throughout the country.

And many stores include space for community activities, such as a yoga class, poetry slam, music studio or gym. Others simply design events to enhance the shopping experience, such as a whiskey tasting or an onsite expert who will teach customers how to iron a shirt or correctly fold clothes while packing a suitcase. Some retailers offer customers memberships to participate in the events while others are open to the public. These events drive traffic to the store and keep customers coming back.

Are you ready for the future? Mobile will become even more influential and social marketing will find its stride. Customers will shop and interact with retailers in fun and engaging new ways. User generated content will become something that both retailers and shoppers rely on. But the basics - great content and personalized email messages that are targeted to each customer - will remain at the center of your digital marketing strategy.

Join us at one of our events in NY or CA in early February to learn how you can accomplish all of this and more. This event is open to retail marketers and you can receive 50% off registration with discount code Listrak50.

Feb. 2, 2016

Convene - New York City

Details and Registration

Feb. 11, 2016

Pelican Hill Resort - Newport Beach

Details and Registration

What We Learned from Testing Content Freshness on 13 Blog Posts

Posted by karl62

We came across a case study on YouMoz with an interesting experiment to find out if traffic and rankings of blog posts could be increased by just changing their publishing dates. Specifically, the author tested to see...

1. If you update a blog post's date, will it receive a boost in the search engine results pages (SERPs)?
2. Can you fake freshness?
3. Do you have to make changes to the content?
4. If there is a boost present, how long does it last?

Our experiment: overview

We set up a test of our own test to see if the experiment could produce similar results. The site used in our experiment did not rely on traffic from blog posts; therefore, we didn't expect to see significant improvements, but still thought testing was worthwhile.

The details of our experiment

• The test was performed on a total of 13 blog posts.
• All the posts were originally posted between mid-2014 to mid-2015, but did not have consistent organic traffic. Some posts received zero views a full month prior to the experiment.
• The content was not edited.
• URLs for the posts did not change.
• The content topics were relevant to current search queries.
• Only the publishing date of each blog post was changed. On September 22, the dates were changed to either September 21 or September 22, so that the blog posts looked like they were no more than one day old.
• Posts were not shared on social media.

The plan

Before going ahead with the test, we took a look at the test posts to see how they were performing a full calendar month prior to the test.

We wanted to include a mixture of blog posts in this test. As you can see, some blog posts weren’t receiving any organic traffic prior to the experiment.

The results

By comparing the data before (August 21 – September 21) to after (September 22 – October 22), you can see that on the majority of the posts, total organic views increased after the experiment was implemented. Blogs 1 and 4, however, did not improve. Blog 1 was originally posted on August 21, 2015, and was intentionally put in the experiment to prove that traffic does not improve if the blog is no more than one to two months old.

The experiment yielded an increase of 167.27% in organic traffic to the blogs, and increased unique page views by 226.92%.

Overall, general organic traffic improved. However, looking at data from Google Search Console, the blog posts did not improve in terms of clicks, impressions, nor keyword rankings. There was a slight improvement in average click-through rate, from 0.57% the month before the experiment to 1.40% for the month after. The reason for this result is likely that the chosen site did not rely on traffic from blog posts, which means they did not have large amounts of traffic before the experiment.

In the YouMoz post, the author states that their blog posts were already receiving consistent organic traffic and “If your post never ranked to begin with, changing the date isn't going to do much, if anything.”

Here is an example from Google Search Conole showing that the experiment had minimal influence on impressions:

Conclusion

For our experiment, changing the publication dates on the site’s blog posts did briefly increase organic traffic. However, results in the SERPs did not improve.

This test was meant primarily as a means to corroborate the study previously shared on YouMoz. Instead of seeing the improvements as having the makings of a long-term strategy, our team believes in the potential of using freshness to our advantage by updating the content with relevant information and images, then changing the publishing date to reflect the update.

In this way, you're not trying the game Google or see artificial results; you're making changes that could benefit your brand, the audience and, in some cases, your rankings in the SERPs.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

Daily Search Forum Recap: November 30, 2015

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today...

Five Things to Know About the Divergence of Mobile Search Results From Desktop Results

Search engine providers are tailoring search results to different devices and rolling out algorithm updates that add mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. Here's what you need to know about these trends. Read the full article at MarketingProfs

Google Image Search Lets You Save Images For Later With Stars

Google brings back starring for saving image search results to your photo collections. The post Google Image Search Lets You Save Images For Later With Stars appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

Why Customer Match is the biggest thing to happen to email since Hotmail

Now available on Google and Facebook, features like Customer Match or Custom Audiences are expected to revolutionize digital advertising, especially within the email marketing sphere.

Don’t Leave Me: How To Optimize Exit-Intent Popups

I love exit-intent popups. I know, I know. They get a lot of hate. People complain about how annoying or irritating they are. But here’s the thing – they work! We already know that attention spans are low. People land on your site, browse around for a bit or read a blog article, and then [...]

The post Don’t Leave Me: How To Optimize Exit-Intent Popups appeared first on The Daily Egg.

Solar Power Systems Increase Community Resilience

Today, solar power systems provide a highly effective way for communities to improve their chances for being better able to function in the case of potential widespread emergencies.

Communities must adapt to the many changing conditions and threats that can occur in the event of an emergency or natural disaster. Solar energy and renewable resources are key components to increasing both community adaptability and resilience.

Reduce Reliance on Fossil Fuels

Eventually, hydrocarbon fuels will become scarce, causing prices to skyrocket. It is only a matter of time before the country faces another fuel crisis. By adopting solar power systems, communities can protect themselves against future price volatility in the fossil fuel market.

Using solar energy to supplement or replace power from the electrical grid can reduce a community’s reliance on the unpredictable costs and business practices of utility companies. It can also lower energy costs substantially, which helps reduce future economic uncertainty.

Photovoltaic technology provides energy security, as local solar development ensures a reliable source of power, no matter what fuel crisis may arise.

Be Prepared for Emergencies

When a tornado, earthquake, flood or other natural disaster or emergency situation occurs, communities must be able to respond quickly with appropriate recovery efforts.

Lighting and communications are essential in the event of an emergency, as is power for critical operations. Solar power systems can provide electricity wherever and whenever it is needed.

Highway message signs and advisory radios powered by the sun can be used to convey important information. Photovoltaic vehicle laminates and portable solar generators can prepare communities to handle the effects of emergency or disaster situations.

Create Power Resilient Critical Facilities

Storms and other extreme weather events can knock the power out for days at a time.

Although hospitals and other critical facilities may have generators, the rest of the community can be left without energy. In addition, traditional generator power depends on the availability of fuel. Once the fuel supplies are gone, so is the electricity, leaving emergency shelters and mass care points without reliable sources of power.

Communities can use solar power to create critical facilities capable of meeting the public’s needs during and after an emergency situation. Medical centers and fire and police stations must be adaptable, functional and able to provide services throughout any crisis event.

Installing solar energy systems at these locations and at designated shelter areas will help ensure that emergency services are always able to respond to any disruptive event in the community.

Adopting solar power to address a growing community’s developing needs is of particular importance in lower-income areas, according to many experts. As PV power is renewable and cost-effective, solar energy can be used to bridge the gap between the poor and the well-off, helping to relieve more vulnerable populations from added suffering from the damaging aftereffects of a natural disaster or emergency situation.

Every community must address the matter of resilience now, to be adequately prepared for the future. Contact an experienced alternative energy expert in your area to learn more about how solar power systems can help to meet the changing needs of your community.

Where Leading Fashion Retailers are Driving Traffic Black Friday

By Donna Fulmer, Market Research Manager

Some early reports have indicated that while online shopping is soaring today, traffic at malls is a little lighter than retailers may like. I can attest that my husband - somewhat begrudgingly - got up early on his day off to drive our daughter to her retail job by 5:45 a.m. so she didn't have to fight the traffic and waste time looking for parking - only to find that traffic was light and the parking lot was only a quarter full.

Looking at today's inbox of emails from leading fashion retailers, it seems the light foot traffic may have been anticipated. It will be interesting to see if the efforts seen in these emails help to turn the day around for brick and mortar stores:

Granted, I had to scroll to the bottom of this Forever 21 email, but this is a pretty generous in-store only promotion -

What came earlier this morning from Forever 21, however, was a much stronger push -

And while this J.Crew email does not promote an in-store only event, it's obvious they want to make it's very easy for me to find my nearest store -

Gap, too, is trying to drive traffic in-store, however, it's unfortunately again at the bottom of a long, scrolling email and less obvious than the Forever 21 promotion -

(It's worth noting that of course all of the other emails I have received from fashion omnichannel retailers have clearly communicated that Black Friday deals apply both on-line and in-store.)

So what about pureplay retailers? Even online only merchants must know that the traditional website is not the only place their customer may want to shop today. Kudos to YOOX.com for this effort to capture shoppers wherever or however they may want to take part in Black Friday deals today:

How are you driving shoppers to your brick and mortar stores today?

Reasons to Ditch “Batch and Blast” and Get Started with Email Marketing Personalization

We all like to believe we’re special. Or as anthropologist Margaret Mead wryly put it, “Always remember that you are absolutely unique — just like everyone else.”

That belief (or state of denial) is why so-called “batch and blast” email is usually less effective than email campaigns customized to your unique market. In a recent study of marketing professionals by Experian Marketing Services, 62 percent said a personalized email subject line is crucial.

The study also revealed that personalized promotional emails generated transaction rates and revenue per email six times higher than non-personalized emails. The personalized mailings had 29 percent higher unique open rates and 41 percent higher unique click rates. For triggered email campaigns (in which emails are triggered by a calendar event, a business action or an action taken by a website visitor), personalization doubled transaction rates.

Because today’s email marketing services allow for more detailed data about customers, users can implement some pretty impressive personalization that likely wouldn’t have been possible a couple of decades ago. Logistics like fully optimized mobile applications and time-delayed messaging are now par for the course, as is message micro-customization based on consumer behavior.

“With so many available tools, businesses of all sizes can now employ the best email strategies for reaching customers,” writes Jayson DeMers in the Huffington Post. “When used correctly, these tools let businesses of all sizes compete with even the largest corporations. As more marketers discover the value of personalized marketing, businesses that don’t personalize their efforts will likely find their campaigns are largely unsuccessful.”

“To get started with such customization, conducting customer research is imperative,” explains Vertical Response Senior Content Marketing Manager, Linzi Breckenridge. “Your success with email marketing lies in understanding as much as you can about your contacts so you can better communicate with the groups of people likely to find your message relevant,” she says.

Since personalizing messages for a world’s worth of potential customers is probably still out of technology’s reach, here are tips for identifying whom to target in your next campaign.

• Identify your target market(s), segmenting the groups of customers most likely to buy your goods and services. Think about which segment of the population has a problem your product is able to solve. Narrowing that down keeps you from wasting time and energy, and maximizes your chance of gaining and keeping customers, growing profits and expanding market share.
• The most common ways to segment are by demographics, geographic location, purchasing behavior and/or psychographic segmentation (interests, hobbies, lifestyles, values and attitudes). The most common demographics used are age, gender and income level, notes social media blogger Lisa Furgison, all of which can be collected from your customers and embedded for reference onto your website or blog platform.
• To help you form your messages, some marketing professionals recommend identifying common themes among your best customers and conceiving of actual “personas” that represent them in their various forms — including their shopping objectives and possible objections to buying.
• Further fine-tune your target market by analyzing email data to identify customers who answered calls to action, like clicking to open windows announcing new product arrivals. “Knowing if, when and how contacts engage with your email is useful in determining which contacts find the message relevant,” notes Breckenridge. “You can continue the communication with those who respond, and tweak or completely change the message for those who don’t.”
• Limit your target market to a manageable size. Warns Furgison: “If you overdose on segmentation, you could get frustrated and make your email marketing strategy more complicated than it needs to be.”
• Consider rewarding loyal customers with discounts or special sneak peeks of products. “With a marketplace overflowing with options, repeat buyers are a much smaller segment than they once were,” Furgison notes.
• Identify, target, and maybe reward brand advocates — customers who praise your products on social media or provide you positive feedback.
• Make an effort to bring back inactive customers, possibly with a promo. Such emails have titles like “We miss you!” or “It’s been a while,” notes Furgison, who also advises that surveys should find out why customers have strayed.
• Place the customer’s first name or user ID at the top of the message to quickly capture attention, advises Kevin Gao on targetmarketingmag.com. “If the user took the time to register with your business, then there is some implicit trust between both of you,” he says. “Remind them of your relationship by promptly showing their names. This tactic is especially important for consumers on mobile devices as the limited space means brands need logical personalization right away.”
• Ask customers for information so you can provide even more apt customization in the future. “But avoid being greedy,” warns Gao. “Customers don’t want to spend time with a detailed registration page that asks for demographic data or other personal information. Ask for the minimum, use that in personalized emails, and expand your data as the relationship grows.”
• Messages to customers triggered by real-time behaviors — such as reminders that items have been left in a “shopping cart” — can be very effective. “Even if the visitor receives it minutes after leaving the site, it does help the brand to stick in their mind,” states Gao. “Personalization should also be included in standard messages, such as shipment confirmations, where companies can suggest additional products or services, perhaps at a discount.”
• Consider customizing email messages to arrive at the optimal times for your customers depending on demographics and time zone. For example, emails to student customers could arrive in the evenings when they’re most likely to be browsing via computer.

Lastly, always test your email campaign before sending. Having more than one pair of eyes review the email reduces the chance of suffering from an error. After making the effort to boost open and click rates with personalization and segmentation, the last thing you want is to waste it on a typo.

Conclusion: Move beyond the old-fashioned and ineffective approach of “batch and blast” to get the best results with email marketing.

VerticalResponse has made segmentation and tracking email campaign results a snap. Sign up and start sending up to 4,000 emails per month for free.

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The post Reasons to Ditch “Batch and Blast” and Get Started with Email Marketing Personalization appeared first on Vertical Response Blog.