Was your Christmas 2013 better than Christmas 2012?

For many retail businesses most revenue is generated between October and December. If you do one thing in January, make sure you take time to review last quarter's performance compared to the Q4-2012.

Did you have more visitors from all channels? Was revenue up from all traffic sources? And what about other key metrics; average order value, email list size, site speed, international sales? If you've seen a decline in any of these areas you now have plenty of time to put things right, especially as improving some of these things won't happen overnight. Growing an email list that is engaged with your brand, for example, is much more valuable at Christmas time than a list you bought in October to squeeze some last minute sales out of your site.

We've been sitting down with our clients with our one-page Christmas review and helping them set a strategy to exceed last year's numbers in all areas and address any missing links. We have been helping clients perfect their Analytics reporting, online marketing strategy - including email, PPC and SEO - as well as solving technical problems and advancing theirecommerce platform capabilities.

                                                          

This year we built Flowercard a mobile template which increased mobile
conversion rate by 39% - What can you do to maximise sales this year?

If you would like us to put together our one-page Christmas review for your business email us at info@moneyspyder.co.uk or call 0207 492 1929.

Happy New Year!

The MoneySpyder Team

Best Ecommerce articles from December 2013

Here's our round up of the best Ecommerce articles from December 2013 Link Building Strategies: The Complete List - This classic list of linkbuilding strategies has been updated. Read here for inspiration. How to Improve Your Organic SEO and Beat The Paid Search Results - Top tips for increasing your CTR from organic listings. Read here. Digital Marketing & Analytics: Two Ladders For Magnificent Success - A solid set of checklists for changing the way your business markets and measures. Read here. How to Grow Your Blog to 100,000 Visits Per Month Within 1.5 Years - Great tips on growing your online readership whether B2B or ecommerce. Read here. Ecommerce in 2013 - Have Retailers Finally Figured Out Mobile - Mobile has been high on the agenda in 2013. Here's a round up of the state of the industry. Read here. If you need help with any of the above areas - SEO, Linkbuilding, integrated marketing, content creation, or Analytics - take a look at our site to see what we do, or drop us an email.

The 2013 Round Up

As 2014 is now upon us we wanted to update you all on 2013 at MoneySpyder. What better way to do that than with a round up of our case studies, drawn from platform and consulting clients? Here are our top three case studies from the year: Checkout optimisation has always been the quickest way to increase conversion rates - We launched a new site for Bodie and Fou in August and have seen a 50% increase in conversion rate through their improved checkout. Shopping Feeds started dominating Google Search results in 2013. At MoneySpyder we have seen a dramatic improvement in results for Google Shopping since they introduced Product Listing Ads. Google Shopping accounts for between 20%-50% of all traffic for some of our clients and converts at upwards of 6%. Responsive Mobile Templates have been on the agenda all year. In February we launched a mobile template for Flowercard and saw a 39% increase in conversion ratesthrough mobile. See our best practice mobile guide here. Mobile isn't going anywhere - In December about a third of all traffic to our client's sites was via a mobile device, with John Lewis saying that Christmas Day will be the cross-over point where mobile. We've been busy building websites as well. Among others, we've launched www.bodieandfou.com, sentwithalovingkiss.co.uk and www.flamingogifts.co.uk.  If you are interested in increasing your conversion rate by 50%, adding a mobile template or increasing your traffic from Google Shopping, give us a call on 0207 492 1929 or email us at info@moneyspyder.co.uk.

Best Ecommerce Articles from Around the Web - November Edition

Well, it's official - Amazon is predicting that online Christmas sales will peak at 6pm on 2nd December. Now that has been sorted out, here is a round up of some of the most useful articles and blog posts we've read this month.

So if you need a bit of inspiration to bump up your Christmas site conversion, or improve your content, look no further:

1.             7 Ecommerce Optimization Tips to Help You Achieve Record Breaking Holiday Sales - A good checklist for making the most of Christmas sales. Read here.

2.             What content marketers can learn from the 'Jerusalem' cookbook - An interesting article reiterating the importance of interesting content that looks great; tell a story, add quality images. Read here.

3.             Search: Not Provided: What Remains, Keyword Data Options, the Future - Everything you need to know about (not provided) keywords in Analytics and how to cope. Read here

4.             Future of retail is in ‘bricks and clicks’, says John Lewis - A good mobile site is the link between online and in-store purchase. More stats from John Lewis here.

5.             The 7 High-Converting Places to Add Email Sign-Up Forms to Build Your List - A comprehensive look at where to put your email sign-up forms. Read here.

If you need help with any of the above areas - site optimisation, content creation, Analytics, SEO or email marketing - take a look at our site to see what we do, or drop us an email.

Regards

The MoneySpyder team

Google Analytics Summit – the Key Announcements & What They Mean for You

The Google Analytics Partner Summit happened earlier this month. It’s an opportunity for Google Analytics Partners (like MoneySpyder) to meet together next door to the Google campus in Mountain View and get the inside scoop on developments for Google Analytics.

Here are the top three announcements that we think are going to make it easier for every business gain insight and add revenue in the coming months.

1. Migrating to Universal Analytics – Universal Analytics was last year’s big announcement but until now there hasn’t been a way to migrate all your data into the new version. Previously if you wanted to take advantage of Universal Analytics you had to do it without all your existing data.
2. Demographic Segmentation – Previously the demographic section of Google Analytics was limited to location and language. Now it is possible to segment your data by age, gender, and even interests. These insights comes from the data Google uses to target ads on the Google Display Network. You can see what Google thinks about you on your settings page. It's not always totally accurate, however, as we're not into 'Metals and Mining' or 'Maritime Transport' half as much as Google thinks we are.
3. Analytics Academy – Not only are there more how-to videos and tips in Analytics itself, Google have launched the Analytics Academy. The course lasts three weeks and is self taught via online videos and is a must for all newcomers to Analytics.

To get access to the additional features of Universal Analytics and demographic data you will have to make some changes to your tracking code. A simple way to update your code would be to install Google Tag Manager. Tag Manager allows you to make changes to your tracking codes without re-deploying your code or bothering your developers. Get in touch if you want more information on setting this up or any other Analytics quandaries.