Silent night, Holy night… All is DOT COM, All is DOT BRIGHT!

Yes, it was a bright day this week for many dot coms as e-commerce retailers achieved a new milestone. Cyber Monday 2016 was the best online shopping day in the U.S. ever with $3.54 billion in sales reported the following morning. Mobile accounted for 56% of online shopping visits, another chart topper. This figure represents…

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Why don’t consumers make that last click stick?

It's an increasingly unhappy plight for online retailers -- shopping cart abandonment. An estimated $4 trillion in annual abandoned merchandise results in an $18 billion loss for retailers each year. But perhaps the most staggering stat is that 68% of all consumers abandon their online shopping cart. And e-commerce retailers don't have as many options…

Do we trust the opinions of those we don’t know?

We trust our friends. That’s a given, right? But do we trust, respect, and value the views of those we don’t know because they happen to post an opinion about an organization, product or service we’re considering working with? It seems that we do. In the marketing industry, these contributions are known by several different…

You can’t just fake this stuff up…

You can’t just fake this stuff up… Or can you? Many have read and likely enjoyed, like me, the satirical talents of the writers at The Onion, a mock news website that comments on everyday happenings. But this year a number of mock journalists generating content for fake news websites are capturing attention now because…

Facebook encourages you to lean on your friends

With social media more and more becoming a destination for product research, it’s no wonder that Facebook is investing more in features on its site to let users share their thoughts with friends. It appears Facebook is prepping to challenge TripAdvisor, Google+, Foursquare and other established “review site” players. With good reason, it seems. 37%…

Cross-promotion reigns supreme

I’ve been noticing the increasing convergence of product advertising with movie promotions. Cross-promotion isn’t new, by any means, but there seems to be a focus now on tying in a product with a popular sci-fi genre movie. For example, right now Nissan is levering its 2017 Rogue crossover in a heavy rotation of video ads…

Remarketing / Retargeting — You say po-tate-o, I say po-tot-o. Shouldn’t we turn those excessively repetitive ads off?*

Perhaps I’m ultra-sensitive about it right now because I recently bought a pair of shoes from a well-known online retailer — Ok, ok, you dragged it out of me — Zappos! You see, I have the shoes in my hot little hands, er, on my long and skinny feet, right now. I won’t need another…