[vc_column][vc_column_text]
E-COMMERCE
The inverted pyramid model for e-commerce homepages
The homepages of e-commerce stores have a lot of important tasks on hand.
We’re talking everything up to and including directing users to the products they want to see, highlighting key products, introducing the brand and the list goes on.
So, how does one best structure their homepage? By using a model called the “Inverted Pyramid”.
In this model, the widest part of the pyramid (at the top) represents the most interesting and important information you want to convey (the hook), with the rest of the information showing below in diminishing order of importance.
This means that the top portion of the screen should show the things that are most relevant to visitors and the things you want to prioritise.
The further down the page an item is, the fewer users see it. However, these users might be some of your most loyal customers, so this doesn’t need to be a problem.
This is especially true for mobile users, because the amount of the page viewable above the fold will vary by screen size and device.
One common trend observed from tests is that mobile users often scroll down to view more content before scrolling right back up or clicking the menu. For this reason, a ‘back to top’ link proves helpful to these users.
A pinned top navigation menu containing links to the menu, site search and cart is also a great way to help your users find what they are looking for.
This article here shows some really useful and actionable examples from some of the stores that are following this practice and making the most out of their homepages.
Should you retarget your list or not?
Have you ever thought about targeting subscribers with Facebook Ads? But what’s the point of getting their emails if you then have to pay again to hit’em up, you might be thinking?
This is a point brought up by Patri Ferreras and, as she said, there are a number of reasons to run Facebook campaigns to your email list.
+ Frequency: Sometimes your leads might glance at your emails before then forgetting all about it. If they see your brands regularly across different channels, you ensure that you occupy a spot in the forefront of their mind. And, in theory, the more touch points you use the more conversions you get.
+ Your brand will seem larger: Showing your message on different channels will show your audience that you’re everywhere, building authority and trust for your brand.
+ You hit your people in their spare time: They’re probably getting your emails when they’re at work or during their commute. Whereas, they’re mostly hanging around on Facebook in their spare time. So, these Facebook camps give you a chance to hit them when they have a bit more free time.
+ Push down your ad cost: Retargeting your subscribers will lead to higher engagement and lower CPMs on your ad accounts.
That’s it! This might work if you think you’re not squeezing your list enough.
A point to remember: Email addresses people use to subscribe to Facebook are often different from the ones they use for signing up to email lists, so simply uploading your list to Facebook might not allow you to target them all.
SPONSORED
🤷♂️ Track 1M events per month for free with Kintura – machine learning, SSL and bot detection included.
This is a tracker that has already been making waves for its advanced features such as Virtual Whitelisting on ad networks, Stacked Lists and Facebook-style machine-learning optimization in real time.
And they have another piece of awesome news. This one goes straight to your pocket. We’ll let Kintura’s founder do the talking:
“Without being sensational or even assuming you give a damn, we’ve worked really hard to get Kintura to the point where it purrs like a kitten very, very inexpensively. In fact, it got so efficient, that we figured there was no reason to charge users who weren’t going far beyond the average.”
Did you read that? Kintura is free until 1M events per month. Some trackers have 1M events as an intermediate plan. And to get things still harder for the competition, we heard Kintura might increase this to 3M events.
This is what you get with the free plan:
- Machine-learning optimization.
- City-Level Tokens/Filters.
- 1 Hot-wired SSL Domain.
- Forum support.
- Best-in-class Bot Detection.
- Only $0.025/1k overage.
Were you thinking about cutting costs? Kintura will do it straight away.
Start tracking campaigns with premium technology – at zero costs.
PS: If you want to discover more about Kinutra’s founder story and why they are offering this free plan, head over here.
SEO
Are Featured Snippets still worth it without double-dipping?
Prior to January 2020, ranking in Featured Snippets meant that your site would show up twice in SERPs – once in position zero and then again in position one. This was known as double-dipping.
However, all that changed when Google announced the de-duplication of search results. It left many wondering whether they should opt out of Featured Snippets, but is that the right move?
Cyrus Shepard from Moz ran an SEO experiment to find out.
They ran an A/B test to remove Moz blog posts from Featured Snippets and measured the impact on site visitors.
Using Google’s data-nosnippet tag, they identified blog pages with Featured Snippets and applied the tag to the main content of the page.
+ The results: After adding the data-nosnippet tag, the variant URLs quickly lost their Featured Snippets and returned to the top natural position.
Traffic impact? Instead of gaining visitors by opting-out of Featured Snippets, they actually lost a significant amount of traffic quite quickly.
Overall, an estimated 12% drop in site visitors was observed for all affected pages after opting out of Featured Snippets (95% confidence level).
+ The lesson: Ranking for the Featured Snippet provides more value in terms of clicks compared to just ranking in the number one spot.
By using data-nosnippet attribute, they were able to stop Google from pulling data in that section of the HTML page to use as a snippet.
Not only that, it also allowed them to confirm that they would rank again in the SERPs, whether that be in position one or lower.
The biggest negative from this experiment was that the Featured Snippet wasn’t returned to these pages.
So, as the results of this experiment show, if a keyword triggers a Featured Snippet it’s typically in your best interest to rank for it.
FROM THE CREW
What can we say after two years?
It actually doesn’t feel that long ago for us… Time flies, right? Seriously though, it’s been very exciting from day one.
We had never sent any email campaigns of any sort before the very first newsletter, so this was the first time we had anything to do with email or with content. You can imagine that this meant we had plenty to learn.
We share these lessons here every now and again, and we’ll be doing more of that in the coming weeks… However, today, we just want to say “Thank you!” to you.
The reason we could live to the ripe old age of two is because of you! You’re one of the 12,726 people who reads this newsletter every weekday. You tell us when things go wrong, when we do things right and help make us better every single day.
As much as we try to do our best regularly, without you telling us what is best, we wouldn’t get far. Don’t get us wrong, we enjoy what we do and we’re excited to continue improving, but it’s a two-way street…
We try to be as transparent as possible. That’s why, a few weeks ago, we published an annual report of what we did in 2019 that goes into the detail of our revenue, expenses, reflections on the past and future plans.
Our goal is to bring marketers the type of news, tech and actionable advice they need to improve their performance in one single, jam-packed daily read. We basically want to filter through the noise so you can focus on what matters. And that’s what we’ll continue to do in our third year too!
If you want to give us the most awesome of awesome birthday presents, you can just share this newsletter with your marketer friends.
Cheers,
The Crew.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
- INSTAGRAM: New Stickers are being rolled out on Instagram allowing businesses to promote food delivery and gift card purchases in their Stories.
- SEO: Chris Walker walks us through his process of on-page SEO and ranking a video for local keywords in minutes.
- E-COMMERCE: Don Wilson and Christian Lovrecich discuss how they built Gearbubble, a $600M POD e-commerce platform.
- GOOGLE: Jarod Spiewak shared a Google spreadsheet which allows you to quickly run estimated metrics for any lead gen campaign.
- AMAZON: The company announced that third-party sellers will be able to once again ship some non-essential goods to Amazon’s warehouses.
BRAIN TEASER
I’m found in socks, scarves and mittens. I’m found in the paws of playful kittens. What am I?
You can find the solution by clicking here.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things affiliates like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
Why your business needs a villain
A little backstory: Do you know “DudeWithSigns”? Seth shares funny signs about popular topics on Instagram, amassing over 7M followers in the process. To give you an idea of what he does, he recently shared a pic of himself with a sign reading “Stop Posting Your Home Workout!”
You know, ever since we got locked down at home a lot of people turned their living rooms and garages into gyms, and they definitely don’t miss a chance to post it on the ‘Gram.
So Seth came up with this sign idea. And it went viral.
The fact: Beachbody is a home workout company with a creative CEO, Carl Daikeler. As a response to DudeWithSigns, he posted a pic of himself holding a sign that says: “Keep posting your home workouts (you’re inspiring people)”:
That sparked a movement on Instagram as countless people started posting these pictures to join in with Carl’s “protest”.
Now, you might be among the ones that posts your workouts on Instagram. Or maybe you stand on DudeWithSigns’ side. Either way, it doesn’t matter!
This is about marketing. Carl Daikeler’s counterpunch generated him a good amount of effective advertising. Considering the cost of that sign, the ROAS is undoubtedly good.
But would this have worked without DudeWithSign?
Definitely not.
This is just a marketing lesson for all of us: You need an antagonist in your marketing if you want your story to hook the audience. Be it a hater, be it a customer turned enemy, be it your competitor.
Would Obi-Wan Kenobi be the same without Darth Vader?