Tạp trí Internet Marketing Số 20 - MAR 2013

march 2013

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MASTERING MULTIPLE DISCIPLINES

PETE WILLIAMS
>> THE ORIGINAL AND BEST INTERNET MARKETING MAGAZINE
DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY FOR THE IPAD, KINDLE FIRE, ANDROID AND THE WEB

>

INTERNET UPDATE

THE

STATE OF THE INTERNET

In this section of Internet Marketing Magazine our editor Greg Cassar cover’s the facts and provides
expert commentary on what are the big plays that have recently happened online and how they
affect you.
Google Forcing the Adoption of Mobile Advertising
Google in their new Adwords Enhanced Campaigns
training videos describe mobile as “a significant and
growing percentage of traffic” and this is why they
are forcing all advertisers to have mobile ads built
into their search campaigns as of June 2013.
As described in last month’s magazine “Enhanced
Campaigns are a new type of Ad campaign where
you have your mobile as well as your tablet and
desktop traffic within one campaign. You then use
bid adjustments to manage bids across devices, locations and time of day.”
When you convert a traditional Adwords campaign
into an Adwords Enhanced Campaign it will ask you
what you want to do with your mobile bid. See below.

Tablet traffic is fine for most business owners as the
standard business website will render just fine on
iPads etc unless the site is built with Flash.
The real issue for most business owners is hand held
mobile traffic, where the traditional website just
doesn’t cut it. The latest buzz term that every
customer at our marketing agency seems to want is
‘responsive design’.
Our early testing reveals that responsive design
(where the website adjusts itself to fit the size of
device the site visitor is on) is not performing as well
from a direct response leads/calls & sales point of
view as custom built mobile sites.
The reason for this is that the custom built mobile
site at m.yourdomain.com compliments your main
site because it is designed from the ground up to be
effective at driving the site visitor to your primary
course of action(s) such as a ‘click to call’ or lead
form submission. Whereas the responsive site is trying to be everything to every device.
The exception to this rule is at the big end of town
where there is a budget of hundreds of thousands of
dollars to be spent on site design and development,
and in those cases the responsive designs can work
very well.

Configuring mobile bid adjustment for Adwords Enhanced Campaigns

Realistically you do have the option of setting a custom bid to decrease the bid by 100% if you want to
not show up for mobile traffic because you don’t
have a mobile optimized site yet, but it’s probably
not the best way to go.

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internet marketing magazine
march 2013

So effectively Google is forcing the hand of the average business owner to become more mobile ready
in the next 2-3 months. A politically incorrect term
is ‘idiot tax’ meaning that Google is happy to increase the spend of the average adwords campaign
by changing its default settings so that it spends
more, but 95% of businesses, especially those that
manage their own Adwords campaigns without the
help of an Agency are likely to not even know what
has happened to them.

A recent example of this is where Google Adwords group’s social media usage by platform, and in parsettings changed so that by default the Keyword ticular a rise in the popularity of the Pinterest platMatching options were changed to ‘Include plurals, form:
misspellings and other close variants’ which effectively means ‘even if you chose exact match we’ll
• 67% of online adults say they use Facebook
treat it more like broad’ (meaning more impres• 20% of online adults say they use LinkedIn
sions, clicks and ultimately ad spend).
• 16% of online adults say they use Twitter
• 15% of online adults say they use Pinterest
Enhanced Campaigns will be a great move for bricks
• 13% of online adults say they use Instagram
and mortar type businesses, but whether or not ev• 6% of online adults say they use Tumblr
ery business who advertises on Google should be
forced to go down that route in the short term is up
for debate.
Zappos Launches Glance – Curated Commerce
The reality is Google is a monopoly and they can do with a Focus on Social
what they like when they like, so the key take away
here is that if you are a Google Adwords advertiser 13 years since launch, Zappos can now boast of a
you will want to have a mobile friendly version of range over 127,000 SKUs, with over 1,000 brands
your site live in the next 2 months or so before the stocked.
new changes kick in.
But having such a massive range of products isn’t
always a good thing. In fact, such a massive variety
The Breakdown of Social Media Platform Use
of items can be as much a turn-off to consumers as
poor customer service. Zappos would never let this
A recent Pew Internet Study from the end of 2012 get in the way of increasing conversion rates – even
revealed that young adults are more likely than any if it means creating a whole new shopping platform
other age group to use major social media platforms called Glance.
– probably no real surprises there.

An example of a Glance product listing and social sharing

What was interesting about the study was that they
were able to provide a breakdown of their survey

The site is designed to remove the clutter of normal
e-Commerce’s navigation and filtering options by
presenting the site visitor with ‘curated’ selections
of products.

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3

Glance is heavily integrated with email, Pinterest
and Facebook social media sharing. It also extends
the theme of sharing products with friends by offering a “Heart This” button above its “Go Buy It”
button.
“Hearting items is a core concept to develop community, and it really helps others to discover similar products and similar people” advises the team
at Zappos.

The Worlds Best Captcha
Captcha code’s are quite common on web forms in
recent years because of the rise of computer generated fraudulent form completion from hackers. A
captcha code generally has this type of look and
feel.

This is certainly the best version of Social Commerce
that we have experienced here at Internet Marketing Magazine, and feel that this could be a leading
edge play for the boutique social eCommerce store
of the near future.
LinkedIn now with Video Ads
In recent months LinkedIn have been making changes to their self-serve ad platform. One of the more
recent changes is the inclusion of Video Ads.

An example of a LinkedIn Video Ad

You have control over the cost per click and also
the cost per view. The service integrates seamlessly
with Youtube.
When a LinkedIn member clicks your video ad, the
video will take over the entire 300x250 ad unit and
play a 30 second video. After the video completes,
users will still be able to click through to your landing page or visit your website, just like with current
text ads.

Whilst researching for a new Captcha code tool recently we stumbled across this one online, which
claims to be the worlds best captcha code. This
may be true if your target market is Actuaries or
Mathematicians :)

From the Desk of the Editor
We are now into full swing for the 2013 year here
at Internet Marketing Magazine. The experts that
we’ve already featured have been outstanding
and you stand to learn a truckload from the very
exciting line up of experts that we have planned
for you.

We have started work on developing a new version of the Internet Marketing Magazine ‘Google
Play’ store app as the old one is out of date and
we have no easy way of updating it. We expect
this update to be 2-3 months off and will let you
know when it goes live.

If you haven’t got access to the member’s area Wishing you the best of success online,
please feel free to do at http://internetmarketingmag.net/become-member/ (it’s free). This
month’s complete audio interview with Pete Wil- Regards,
liams has now been added. It has lots of learning’s
in it that were not included in the magazine, so be
sure to check it out.

GregCassar

A special thanks to those who have left reviews
in the apple platforms as it really helps us out. If
you are getting good value from Internet Market- Greg Cassar
ing Magazine and you can spare 1 minute of your Internet Marketing Strategist & Editor
time to click this link to give us a quick honest Internet Marketing Magazine
review that would be greatly appreciated (click
‘view in iTunes’ then scroll down and click ‘write
a review’, thanks :).

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>

EXPERT INTERVIEW

PETE WILLIAMS

MASTERING MULTIPLE DISCIPLINES
An Interview by Internet Marketing Strategist Greg Cassar
Pete Williams is an entrepreneur, author and marketer; an expert in many forms of online marketing, including both eCommerce and direct response. Pete has a highly successful track record
in many traditional businesses as well as several pure play online businesses. Many people know
Pete Williams for his expertise in systemisation and efficiency profit hacks.
Pete, you have quite an interesting origin story. Can you
please tell us a bit about your
background – and how you were
able to sell the MCG, which is
the Melbourne Cricket Ground
at the age of 21.

A5 certificates up with a history
of the Brooklyn Bridge and then
attached an inch square of that
timber, and sold it off. The word
around the campfire is that he
made about two million dollars
out of this project.

Pete: I’ve always been entrepreneurial. I started my first business when I was in high school
doing web development for some
local businesses around town. After university I had an opportunity to work in the US, so I moved
to the US for about six months
and worked there for a while,
and then, met a girl, fell in love,
the usual sort of romance holiday story. My work visa ran out
so I had to come back to Australia. During that period when I
was back here in Melbourne I was
working at Athletes Foot, and it
was a quiet store, so I had a bit
of spare time - so I spent time
behind the counter just reading books, waiting for people to
come in because there’s only so
many shoes you can stack. I was
reading a book called “The One
Minute Millionaire”, and in the
book it tells of a story of a guy
back in the 80’s/early 90’s in
New York who bought all the timber that was part of the Brooklyn
Bridge walkway and made little

I was like, ‘that’s a fantastic
idea, how really cool was that’,
and then I started to think how I
could swipe and deploy and replicate that project here in Australia. The Melbourne Cricket
Ground (MCG) was going under
redevelopment for the Commonwealth Games. The seating of the
stand they pulled down was timber and I thought I’d just literally
replicate that idea, and made a
few phone calls, tracked down
the wrecking company that was
doing the demolition. They said,
yes, they had a lot of timber and
they also had a lot of crested carpet. I just bought it all over the
phone, and to cut a long story
short basically made a series of
memorabilia pieces up, with a
photo of the MCG, a square of
that carpet, a limited edition
plaque, and wrote a press release
saying, “Twenty one year old sells
the MCG for under $500”. That
PR was the key marketing piece
because it got picked up by the
Channel 7 News, the Herald Sun

etc – it went absolutely ballistic,
because it was a good story.
Greg: Then building on that my
understanding was, you then
took the relaunch concept and
were able to repeat that success many years later. Is that
correct?
Pete: Yes, the original project
was about ten or so years ago.
The original project was all very
much offline driven, through PR.
Fast forward a few years later, I
still had a lot of carpet left over. I
decided to try to apply the online
product launch process around an
offline physical product. I built a
list and did a full online marketing launch. That went really well.

march 2013

7

We drove all this traffic to a
squeeze page. I shot a video for
the opt in page out the front of
the MCG telling the story of how I
originally came up with the idea
and how the first launch went really well and how I tried to team
up with some of the big memorabilia companies here in Australia,
but they wanted to charge too
much for it and I wanted to keep
the people’s ground in the hands
of the people and make it cost
effective - you know, little boy
made good, or the fight against
the big corporate who wouldn’t
do a good deal.
And so I told this whole story and
then used Google Website Optimizer to split test some headlines and some opt in copy and
even different versions of the
video. By doing that split testing
on the opt-in page, the original
combination that I thought win
was converting about 1 or 2% opt
in rate. Yet, one of the other
combinations we tested ended
up converting at 17%. That reduced our cost per acquisition.
I had to build the list through

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march 2013

Banner Advertising. So we did
some Facebook ads and did banners on Foxsports.com.au and
a whole bunch of football and
sports related websites to drive
traffic to this opt-in page.
We did a two and a half week
launch sequence and we ended
up doing a very nice five figures
in the first hour of opening the
cart. It was a hugely successful
launch and it just shows that you
can use these traditional online
marketing methods to sell literally framed artwork. I now plan
on making it evergreen so I don’t
have to do another launch.
Greg: One product that could
work with that is Scarcity Samurai. It adds a countdown timer as
a special offer to put price scarcity and urgency into a sale. You
could use it to offer the site visitor a special price if they take
action over the next 7 days as an
example.
Pete: Yes, that’s a great idea
and definitely worth plugging in
there.

“

With a launch you’re better
off just giving away 60, 70
even 80% commissions to
your affiliates, rather than
giving away 50% commissions and then a big prize
pool at the end.

“

march 2013

9

What are some of the big learning’s that you’ve but the margins might not be there.
had over the years from hiring and running an
outsourced remote team?
Whereas with us, we have a warehouse that does a
lot of distribution for us - which means we have a
Pete: One of the biggest things that I find when I lot more control and a lot more responsibility. We
speak to people and they’ve said, “Oh, I’ve tried can buy better because we’re getting our suppliers
outsourcing but it didn’t work for me”. You say, to drop off pallets of goods at the warehouse, so
“What were you trying to get that person to do?”. obviously that makes it easier with volumes.

“I wanted them to manage a WordPress site, write I think one thing is talking with your suppliers and
articles for us, and also manage my email”. They negotiating rebates. So rather than negotiating
are three completely different skill sets. So you’ve cheaper prices up front, which is obviously harder
got to be very careful about what you are outsourc- to do. You can negotiate with the supplier along
ing and choosing the right person for the right role. the lines of “Let’s see how much we sell and if we
hit this target in this particular quarter, or period,
I also believe its important to set positive and nega- then there’s a rebate, and there’s discount price
tive parameters when you give a brief - this is some- applied back across all of our orders for that period
thing I see happen very rarely. So effectively you of time.”
say “This is what I want” and there might be one or
two examples of what it’s meant to look like. But Greg: That’s very clever. You’re getting the same
also advise the other end of the scope, saying, “This result, you’re taking the risk away from the supplier
is what I don’t want. I don’t want this sort of font. and you’re backing yourself to make it work.
I don’t want it to look like this”. I think once you
start giving your briefs of, this is what I don’t like,
this is why I don’t like it - you start getting much
better results from your outsource team.
Something else that we’ve implemented that’s
worked ridiculously well for us is to ensure that the
last hour of every outsourced team member’s time
is spent learning something. So we’ll pay them the
last hour of their day to get self-improvement.
In the eCommerce space what’s your thoughts
on the best way to manage supplier relationships, and also to buy well when selling physical
SimplyHeadsets.com.au
products, because a lot of people in the Internet
marketing magazine community have expressed
when they’re selling physical products they’re Recently you partnered with an outdoor retail
not finding enough margin in it?
store, and you were able to structure a JV with
the owner of that traditional business to set up
Pete: Yes, this is a hard one. To not give sort of the an eCommerce part of it and own a percentage
marketing answer, to give you the real world answer of the business. How did you go about that as to
- it can be tough.
create a win-win, because often those things can
go pear shaped, if not negotiated and structured
With dropshipping you pay a premium for your goods right?
because the company who you’re buying from is
taking the risk with holding the stock and doing the Pete: The physical store is actually in the same
distribution logistics. So you’re paying a premium building as where our offices are, so we got to know
for that. It can make it easier for you to get started, the owner quite well. Their business was going well

10

march 2013

but not doing much online. Obviously, our skill set as a business is
really doing online exceptionally
well.
So, just speaking to them over a
period of time we literally just
gave away some ideas to get him
to see some results in advance.
From there we discussed that
if you want to get serious we’ll
come in and take over the eCommerce side of business - we’ll
build a brand new site and we’ll
do all the marketing and you can
back in operations because you
know the product well. We now
own part of the business.

A lot of Internet Marketer will
have heard of you in recent
months when you did a series
of launches with Rich Schefren
called “Profit Hacks”. What that
effectively is about, is a series
of exceptional efficiencies that
you’ve built in to your business
life. Can you give us an example?
Pete: An example would be syndication or replicating content.
If I’m going to have a conversation with someone be it on our
podcast, or in a conversation like
this, we’ll take that audio of a
conversation and then I’ll give
the audio to an outsource team
member. They will then go and

Pete Williams at his Outsourcing Workshop

create the slides and the text and
then images to match the audio.
So they’ll create the PowerPoint
slide and the keynote after I create the audio. They’ll match up
those slides to the audio and also
post the video to Youtube. That’s
one example of a massive time
saving.

and PDF’s done without me doing
any of that mechanical work.

We break down that whole process step-by-step inside one of
the modules of profit hacks. People have got a lot of ‘ah-ha moments’ out of this clarity around
what is core to your business and
making profits, and what is meThen we’ll take that audio and chanics. So use leverage through
it becomes a podcast. And then tools, software, systems and peowe’ll take that audio and one of ple where ever you can to make
my team will transcribe that au- you work more effectively.
dio that I’ve recorded and that
becomes the transcription that
will go on a blog post or a guest Did you find any big learning’s
post on a blog, or in a magazine from the launch process?
for an article or a column that I
might write.
Pete: Yes absolutely. I think one
of the best things comes back to
So, on a Monday morning I can sit the fact that Rich and I are very
down for ten minutes, ball point similar in that we have that a
out a whole bunch of thoughts traditional offline business backaround a particular topic or a ground. He had clothing stores in
piece of advice – hit record and New York City; he had a hypnosis
talk my way through it and then company, with offices all around
give it to my team. By the end New York City. My background
of the week, or even by the end also is in traditional business, so
of the day really because it’s we kind of came at the launch
ramped up that much now, we’ve from a traditional business pergot videos, audios, podcasts, spective.
transcripts, articles, guest posts

march 2013

11

If you’re going to do a launch where
you’ve got big bucks on the line,
you’ve got big affiliates promoting
for you and all this sort of stuff,
you want to test your funnels, you
want to test all of that. I think so
many Internet marketers that I’ve
seen they’ll go to market with a
launch, even some of the big guys,
with just a launch without doing
any major testing.
Whereas what Rich and I did, we
did two internal launches before
we did the big public one. So we
did a launch of the product, it was
half built and the people were
aware of that, just to his high-end
clients along the lines of “you get
a discount on the launch, we want
your feedback on the testimonials,
we want your case studies etc”.
We moulded the course from there.
The course ended up being twice as
big as originally planned from that
internal launch feedback.

one thinks this “syndicate exists”
and everyone supports everyone
just for the sake of supporting - yes
the syndicate exists and there is a
group of guys who are all friends
but they are not going to mail for
the sake of mailing.
Greg: I really like about that approach in that you really took the
risk out of it for your partners. Also,
when you’re approaching people to
mail for you, you can do it from a
position of integrity because you
already knew the stats and how it
was likely to perform again.

Pete: Something else I’d definitely
consider as well, not that it didn’t
work for us, it did work for us, it’s
not really a lesson I learnt from this
launch directly, but a lesson I learnt
during the launch from conversations with other people - when it
comes to affiliate prizes, which is
kind of like the common thing these
days, you’re better off just giving
Then we took all the lessons from away 60, 70 even 80% commissions
that first launch and we did anoth- to your affiliates, rather than giver more full-blown product launch ing away 50% commissions and then
with the videos, production, the a big prize pool at the end.
editing etc to his entire list.

Then obviously we got more learn- For those that want to follow your
ing’s from that and more refining, teachings more, how can you best
and then we went to the affiliate be found online?
launch where we had the likes of
Brian Tracey, Dan Kennedy, Geoff Pete: Well it’s probably a couple of
Walker, Brendan Burchard etc all places. The PreneurCast Podcast is
supporting this launch. We had a show that we used to do every
proof. We had case studies, we had week. We’re now doing it every two
testimonials. More importantly had weeks just because my schedule is
what the EPC’s were for the launch. a bit crazy and I have the businessI think that made it much easier to es to run and stuff like that.
sell to the big affiliates.
Also check out PreneurMarketing.
Obviously we had connections com. You can download an audio
through friendships and clearly it version of my first book and see a
helps, but at the end of the day you whole bunch of more details about
still have to get them to actually the launches and the products and
send an email. As much as every- my market and much more.

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march 2013

>

CROWDFUNDING PLATFORMS

7 CROWDFUNDING
PLATFORMS COMPARED
Crowdsourcing
king Kickstarter.
com might not be
the best bet for
aspiring
entrepreneurs to raise
funds.
You’ve got a great,
unique idea for a
product and know
that somewhere,
there is a need. Maybe you lack the cash required
to get that one-of-a-kind film into production.

only player. In addition to providing you with the
“who, what, how,” for 6 Kickstarter competitors,
we spoke with each founder personally and asked
them to share their advice about selecting the right
crowdfunding site for your venture.
1. Circleup.com

Ordinary folks and entrepreneurs alike are flocking
to crowdfunding sites to try and raise money and
generate the interest that will bring their projects
to life. With hard work, ingenuity, and help from
crowdsourcing companies, people are donating – or
not — to help decide which projects come to frui- How it Works: CircleUp is an online social markettion.
place that helps high growth small consumer and
retail companies raise money directly from a comAll crowdfunding sites operate on a similar mod- munity of accredited individual and institutional
el. A person/group submits a project idea, com- investors. Investors are able to review financial
plete with a written description, funding needed, and marketing materials for a select group of condeadline for donations, and pictures or a video. If sumer/retail companies and have the opportunity
accepted, they create a project webpage that is to make equity investments directly through the
listed on the crowdfunding site. By being a part CircleUp’s website.
of the site’s integrated social media network, the
product creator also gets back-end support. Addi- Who it Serves:
tionally, they receive not only money, but interest,
1. Retail/consumer companies (food, personal
word-of-mouth advertising, and even technical ascare, pet products, apparel) and retail/restausistance from their backers.
rants with a tangible good; or a retail outlet that
a person can touch, taste, use, or visit. CompaBackers, on the other hand, receive varying renies served typically have $1-10 million in revwards. Sometimes they get a small gift for their
enue in the current year, a track record of sucfinancial support; other times an advisory board
cess, and strong leadership teams. Only a small
position; and often, just the satisfaction of knowpercentage of companies applying get accepted
ing they helped a good cause get off the ground.
to the site.
2. Accredited investors receive access to private
Kickstarter.com might be the most recognized
investment deals that previously were difficult
name in the crowdfunding world, but it’s not the
to find.

march 2013

13

What it Costs: No fee to join or to make an invest- First GoFundMe Venture: America’s Tallest Man,
ment. Companies pay CircleUp a percentage of Igor Vovkovinskiy, raised over $46,000.00 for custhe capital raised from the online campaign.
tom shoes to aid his mobility.
Who’s in Charge: Ryan Caldbeck, founder and
CEO; Rory Eakin, founder and COO
Advice: Make sure you have a strong understanding of the crowd funding platform’s investor base.
First CircleUp Venture: 18 Rabbits, a manufacturer
and distributor of granola and granola bars made
from clean, premium ingredients, raised $500,000
on CircleUp. The bars are the bridge between
health and a treat and are now available at retailers from San Francisco to NYC.

Bragging Rights: Clint’s Hotdog Cart, a local street
vendor in Lansing, MI had his equipment destroyed
by rowdy protestors. Americans are standing-up for
this small business owner, raising over $30,000.00
in just over day.
3. TechMoola.com

Bragging Rights: Prosperity Organic Foods, manufacturers of Rich & Creamy Melt® Organic butter
alternative, raised a $1,000,000 investment round
to help expand operations, and recently received
an order for national distribution in Whole Foods.
2. GoFundMe.com

How it Works: A user signs up, creates a crowdfunding website with photos and video, and shares
the link with friends and family. Organizers are encouraged to treat supporters as a part of their story
by posting Update messages and sending thank-you
notes using the site’s features.
Who it Serves: Anyone
What it Costs: Five percent of each donation
Who’s in Charge: Co-founders Brad Damphousse
and Andrew Ballester
Advice: Entrepreneurs already have their hands full
with their own projects – crowdfunding shouldn’t
be an added burden.

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march 2013

How it Works: Inventors and entrepreneurs sign up
for a TechMoola Inventor account and then complete a questionnaire about their idea/invention.
The TechMoola team reviews all questionnaires
and if the project is accepted, the inventor provides campaign details including funding needs and
deadlines. TechMoola also provides support to help
get publicity across multiple web platforms.
Who it Serves: Projects involving energy, medical,
webtech, software, electronic, communications,
computer hardware, and sports/games.
What it Costs: Ten percent of raised funds for successful projects.
Who’s in Charge: Cofounders Solomon Nabatiyan
and Tom Kelly
Advice: Choose a crowdfunding site with good traffic and the right target audience for your project.
If there is a specialized crowdfunding site for your
type of project, then you are better off with niche
attention.

First TechMoola Venture: Airmote & Airnect raised $20,000 of
its $25,000 goal to fund production of its gesture-based mouse
with an integrated keyboard.

First RocketHub Venture: Laura
Boyd Studio raised about $6,000
to launch her photography business.

Bragging Rights: Andy Krafsur
Bragging Rights: Cervia Diagnos- raised $42,000 to launch Spira,
tic is a social entrepreneurship a new line of spring powered
company that is devoted to de- shoes. Spira was subsequently
veloping a new low-cost, rapid & featured in the Wall Street Jouraccurate point-of-care diagnostic nal and quickly became the 9th
for screening of cervical cancer most searched for running shoe
in women of all ages at risk for on the Internet.
the disease.
5. RockThePost.com
4. RocketHub.com
How it Works: The project creator produces a draft on Rockthepost.com complete with 3
components: a short video, a
personal profile with images, and
a reward list. Each draft is reviewed by RockThePost’s editorial and video teams so that they
How it Works: Users post their are optimized for success. All
project using various social media ideas are welcome, but projects
on the platform. They set their must have a tangible end goal.
own funding goal and timeframe,
and explain what they will give
(goods or services) in exchange
for funds.
Who it Serves: Art, science,
business and social good projects
What it Costs: If goals are met, 4
percent commission, plus 4 percent credit card handling fee.
If goals are not met, 8 percent
commission, plus 4 percent credit card handling fee.
Who’s in Charge: Founder, Brian
Meece

Who it Serves: Any small business owners or entrepreneurs are
welcome to create a campaign.
What it Costs: 5% fee of amount
raised; 2.9% credit card processing fee; 4% flat fee for philanthropies.

on a specific group of projects,
and it’s important to find the
platform that fits your project.
First RockThePost Venture: Villy
Custom Bicycles ran a campaign
to crowd test its new line of glow
in the dark bicycles before they
were manufactured and successfully raised just over $10,000 in
two weeks.
Bragging Rights: Abracadabrapp,
launched by the Honest & Smile
agency in Spain, partnered with
Moleskine® to create a unique
iPhone video application. They
were successfully funded within
a week and have been featured
on Tech Crunch, PSFK and more.
6. Fundable.com
How it Works: Fundable is a
platform for business-minded
startups, founded by startup veterans. Companies exchange rewards and equity for funding to
grow and launch their business.
For a rewards fundraise, startups create a profile providing a
company and project overview,
fundraising goals, and perks they
are willing to provide potential
backers. Backers can offer support in the form of cash pledges
and receive rewards in exchange.
Rewards can be anything from a
pre-order of a new product, to
a T-shirt or advisory board position.

For an equity fundraise, startups
create a public profile providing
Advice: Pick a platform that ex- Who’s in Charge: Alejandro Cre- a company overview as well as a
cites you, that will support your mades, CEO, Tanya Prive, COO private profile housing their busiendeavor, and will educate you and Jonathan Block, CTO
ness documents and deal terms.
on how to maximize your success
They can then grant access to acwith the crowdfunding model.
Advice: Do your research. Each credited investors to review their
crowdfunding platform is focused private profile. Once access is

march 2013

15

granted by the startup, investors can review the
company’s deal terms and make a commitment to
invest.
Who it Serves: Business-minded startups looking
for early stage capital.
What it Costs: $99 per month during active fundraising; plus 3.5% credit card fee of amount raised
(if fundraising goals are met)

For fixed, Indiegogo takes a 4% fee of the money
raised, but only if the goal is reached. No fees are
taken if the funding goal is not met.
For flexible, Indiegogo takes a 4% fee if the goal
is reached. If the goal is not met, Indiegogo takes
9%, but the campaign owner keeps what they’ve
raised.

Who’s in Charge: Wil Schroter, founder, CEO; Eric
Corl, co-founder, president
Advice: Spend time assessing what you’d like to
get out of a crowdfund and instead, thoroughly research a platform that meets your needs, and offers
you guidance and support throughout the funding
process. Also, it’s important to realize that crowdfunding isn’t a magical source of money. Even the
most passionate and hardworking entrepreneurs
need support during their fundraise.
Who’s in Charge: Co-founders include Slava Rubin,
Danae Ringelmann and Eric Schell.
First Fundable Venture: Elevation Training Mask Advice: Fund your passion.
surpassed their fundraise goal in 72 hours. The
training masks mimic the effects of high altitudes First Indiegogo Venture: In its pre-launch phase,
for athletes who want to improve their endurance IndieGoGo sought developmental feedback from
and performance.
a wide range of filmmakers and industry leaders.
FLOW: FOR LOVE OF WATER, directed by Irena SaBragging Rights: Fleksy, an app which improves lina and produced by Steven Starr, was selected by
iPhone typing accuracy, closed a $900,000 round to IndieGoGo to be its first Showcase project and was
support further product development. Fleksy has subsequently selected to World Premiere in combeen featured in Tech Crunch, Venture Beat, Fast petition at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.
Company among others.
Bragging Rights: Before 10 year old Jackie Evan7. Indiegogo.com
cho dazzled audiences on America’s Got Talent,
she and her mom used IndieGogo to help power
How it Works: Each project creator sets up a her star performance by raising money to produce
page to address the “who, what, where, when and her second album.
why.” Users are encouraged to add video, a personal storyline, plus perks for funders to make the
Grasshopper
campaign compelling.
is virtual phone system helps entrepreneurs sound more
Who it Serves: Anyone can use Indiegogo to raise
funds for any idea or project, which are categorized into three areas: creative, cause-related
and entrepreneurial campaigns. No application required.

professional and stay connected from anywhere. Features
include toll free and local numbers, custom greetings,
multiple extensions for employees, call forwarding to any
phone anywhere in the world, voicemail to email, and much
more. Unlike a traditional phone system, Grasshopper is
managed all online and in the cloud - there’s no hardware
to purchase and no software to install.

What it Costs: Free to join. Fixed and flexible Grasshopper is committed to helping entrepreneurs and
continues to develop new and innovative tools to help
funding options available:
change the world.

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march 2013

march 2013

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march 2013

>

E-COMMERCE

10% OFF OR FREE SHIPPING?
charms of free shipping while the other 50% were
put in the tough spot of saying no to 10% off.
It’s worth noting that this particular test was run
on an online shop that sells a wide variety of consumer items but nothing that would be considered
a high ticket item. The average order value hovers
around $60.
It didn’t take long to see that the competition
wasn’t fair and a winner was quickly announced.
Free shipping performed 100% better than 10%
off. Since the goal of this promotion was to convert
people who abandoned the shopping cart, offering free shipping ended up doubling the conversion
rate of the campaign.
Everyone loves a good promotion. When we are in
the customer’s role our decisions seem very simple:
if an offer saves us money then it’s a good offer and
we should act upon it; but as retailers things can
become a lot more complicated. We have different
goals than the customer and more often than not
the long term value of a customer is much more
important to us than a single specific sale. While
two different promotions might leave us with a different bottom lines, the conclusion over which one
was the better choice isn’t always obvious.

Considering the items sold, average order value
and the segment of visitors this promotion targeted; automatically going for the higher converting promotion was not a clear-cut choice. In some
cases the discount was too steep to turn a profit or
make the promotion worthwhile for the business.
This time our cart abandonment segmenting features really came in handy so after calculating the
right cutoff point the cart abandonment campaign
was adjusted to offer the free shipping promotion
only to customers whose cart total was above the
cutoff point. The rest had to settle for a 10% disMany of our clients opt to try and recoup visitors
count. I think both groups ended up quite happy.
who abandon the shopping cart by offering them
a promotion. An interesting question came up
That’s the important thing, no?
over which promotion would entice more visitors
to come back and complete their orders. Would a
customer prefer to get a 10% discount of the total Barilliance
or would Free Shipping sound like a better proposi- helps e-commerce sites of any size to increase sales and
conversion rates by providing visitors with a personaltion?
ized shopping experience. Our Software-as-a-Service
So we tested. Two different cart abandonment
email templates were prepared and A/B testing
was used to see what works best. 50% of abandoning visitors received an email alluring them to the

(SaaS) delivery and Zero Integration technology are making it super easy for online retailers to reap the benefits
of our products without upfront investment.

Barilliance was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in
Tel Aviv, Israel.

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19

>

A/B TESTING

OPTIMIZATION AT THE OBAMA
CAMPAIGN: A/B TESTING
By Kyle Rush

fly. We had enough traffic to get
results on each test within minutes. Soon our colleagues from
other teams gathered around us
to see what the excitement was
about. It was captivating to say
the least.

to separate the field groups into
four smaller steps so that users
did not feel overwhelmed by the
length of the form. Essentially
the idea was to get users to the
top of the mountain by showing
them a small incline rather than a
steep slope. We called this projHow we a/b tested
ect Sequential because it turned
Optimization was the name of the Optimization was a science for us. our donate form into a sequenced
game for the Obama Digital team. We started off with a hypothesis process.
We optimized just about every- and then we came up with several
thing from web pages to emails. tests to prove (or disprove) it. For We had no idea if it would work.
Overall we executed about 500 example, our hypothesis might be It was a gamble because it took
a/b tests on our web pages in “less copy is better” and to prove a decent amount of development
a 20 month period which in- that we would chose 5 areas of time, but we put our best foot
creased donation conversions the site to remove copy. We used forward. We placed the fields into
by 49% and sign up conversions several tools to measure the af- four groups: amount, personal
by 161%. As you might imagine fect. Optimizely for a/b tests, information, billing information
this yielded some fascinating Google Analytics for general data and occupation/employer. We
findings on how user behavior is gathering and the Blue State Digi- considered a number of factors to
influenced by variables like de- tal tools to enhance or gut check determine the order of the field
sign, copy, usability, imagery and our data. Sticking to a hypothesis groups, but the most persuasive
page speed.
was beneficial because it allowed was error rates. For months we
us to retain focus on our goals. had been tracking validation erWhat we did on the optimization Of course not every a/b test fol- rors which occured when users
team was some of the most ex- lowed this strategy, but we kept submitted an invalid value in a
citing work I’ve ever done. I still with it for the most part.
form field (e.g. nothing in a reremember the incredible trafquired field or an improperly
fic surge we got the day the Su- Design and Interaction
formatted email address). The
preme Court upheld Obamacare. By June of 2012 our donate pages occupation/employer fields genWe had a queue of about 5 ready- had undergone nearly 14 months erated the most errors because
to-go a/b tests that would nor- of optimization. The low hanging users would leave them blank
mally take a couple days to get fruit had been picked and it was even though they were required—
through, yet we finished them in difficult for variations to beat the people don’t like giving out inforjust a couple hours. We had nev- control. We were working with a mation they think is unecessary.
er expected a traffic surge like page that was engaging and had a The billing field group produced
that. We quickly huddled behind low error rate, but it still looked the second most errors because it
Manik Rathee—who happened to like a long form. To solve that is hard for users to enter a 15-16
be the frontend engineer imple- problem we started work on a digit credit card correctly.
menting experiments that day— variation that made the form look
and thought up new tests on the easier to complete. Our plan was

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Using this information we determined the field
group order: 1. Donation amount, 2. Personal information, 3. Billing information and 4. occupation/
employer. By putting the easier field groups first we
not only lowered the engagement barrier (all you
had to do was click a donation amount button to
get started vs. typing your first name), but also to
produce a sense of investment before users reached
the difficult parts of the form.
Our donate pages were responsive so we enabled
the Sequential functionality on screen widths
greater than 1023px to keep the mobile donation
process as simple as possible. We used CSS animations to switch between field groups because they
are visually smoother and much more performant
than their JavaScript counterparts. Browsers that
did not support CSS animations were given a JavaScript fallback. For a better experience with validation errors we used JavaScript to validate the fields
in each field group when users clicked the next button. This made it easier for users to find and correct
errors because they were looking at only a few form
fields rather than all 16 at the same time. This also
had the latent effect of lowering requests to our
servers since we did not process the donation until
all form fields were valid.
We were very happy with the finished product because we felt like we had achieved our goal to make
the donation form simpler, but how did it fare in
a/b testing?

By turning the long donation form into 4 smaller
steps we increased the conversion rate by more
than 5%. Turns out you can get more users to the
top of the mountain if you show them a gradual
incline instead of a steep slope.
We began a/b testing the first iteration of Sequen-

tial on July 26th, 2012 and it replaced our standard
donation form on August 7th. After vigorous optimization we ended up with what would almost be
the final version of Sequential on August 7th. On
November 1st we were delighted to see that our
friends at the Romney campaign liked it so much.

Copy
It probably comes as no surprise that copy affects
conversions. Lots of people are familiar with classic
copy tests like this one. Like 37 Signals we had lots
of success with altering the copy on our web pages.
About halfway through the campaign we figured out
that of all variables that affect user behavior (design, usability, imagery, etc.), copy has the highest ROI. This is because copy adjustments are just
about the easiest change to make on a web page,
yet they can produce some of the biggest gains.
In late 2011 we launched a product called Quick Donate which made donating extremely fast and easy.
Users who had Quick Donate could donate with a
single click through email or on the web and even
through SMS. The program was cutting edge because
nobody had engineered donations through email
before and at the time the Federal Election Commission did not allow political campaigns to use cell
phone carrier short codes to raise money through
text messages (the FEC later reversed this decision
after Quick Donate launched). The programs was so
successful that the stats behind it are kind of overwhelming. By the end of the campaign more 1.5
million Quick Donate users donated $115 million.
Quick Donate users donated four times as often and
gave three times as much money. The program received a lot of optimization simply because of its
success.
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21

There were two ways to sign up for Quick Donate.
First, you could create a BarackObama.com account and then, in your account settings, save your
billing information. The second way we designed
to be much easier. After submitting a donation we
gave users the option to create and account and
save their credit card using the information they
had just submitted with the donation. We called
this the Quick Donate opt-in page and it received
a lot of traffic since the campaign brought in tens
of millions of donations. The page itself was very
simple: Users with an existing account only needed
to enter a password and users without an account
only needed to create one. Underneath the password field was the option to enable SMS donations.

testing a ton of images. We tested photos just
about everywhere from donate pages to sign up
forms and about everywhere else you can imagine.
As with layout and usability we learned a lot about
how users react to different kinds of imagery. We
found that there are many variables in photos that
can affect conversions, but possibly the biggest
impact had to do with the context in which the
photo was used.

Similar to the 2008 campaign, our splash page was
the subject of a/b tests with different photos. Optimizing the splash page with a/b tests was a lot of
fun because it received so much traffic that results
came in quickly. One of the splash pages we ran
was for a contest called Dinner with Barack. If you
We tested many variations of this page, but one of won, you got a free trip for yourself and a guest
my favorites was when we adjusted the headline. to have dinner with the President. To sweeten the
The original headline of the page—which had not deal even more the First Lady would be at the dinbeen tested at this point—read “Save your payment ner as well. If you want to see what you missed
information for next time.” That is pretty simple out on, you can still watch video from several of
and straightforward and we definitely didn’t want the dinners.
to make it longer. Our idea was to make the headline seem more connected to the donation that We had so many great pictures of the previous Dinusers had just made. Our new headline read “Now, ner with Barack that we wanted to see which persave your payment information.” The first head- formed the best. In the following test we had two
line made the Quick Donate opt-in seem discon- photos. The first was a medium shot of the Presinected from the donation while the second did dent at the dinner table, but it didn’t have much
exactly the opposite.
context as you nothing was in view/focus. Previous
tests showed that large photos with focus on the
President increased conversions. The second photo
had a wider frame that revealed the First Lady and
two dinner guests. We hoped that users would be
more likely to convert if they could see just how
close they would be sitting to the President of the
United States during dinner.

By making the follow up ask more connected with
the first ask, we increased conversions by 21%. As
with Sequential, we were also delighted to see
that the Romney campaign loved Quick Donate.
Imagery
Photography was a huge part of the Obama brand.
We had several photographers that took lots of
amazing photos of the President, the First Lady By changing the photo on the splash page we lifted
and everyone else. We took advantage of this by conversions by more than 19%.

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Conclusion
We knew from the beginning how valuable a/b testing could be in helping us achieve our goals and we
took it seriously. We spent countless hours thinking
critically about user psychology and implementing our ideas with a/b tests. We had developers
working around the clock to ensure that we always
had an a/b test running. In looking at the overall
results I think you could say our efforts paid off.
We increased donation conversions by 49%, sign up
conversions by 161% and we were able to apply our
findings to other areas and products.
However the effect our optimization efforts had on
conversion rates was not the only benefit. Along
the way we uncovered lots of interesting ways in

which design, imagery, copy, usability and page
speed affect user behavior. We were able to answer very specific questions like what kind of form
input and label alignments are best for conversions
and error rates. We were able to second guess our
assumptions about how a web page should look and
behave. We learned how to answer questions and
we ended up with a treasure trove of best practices.
Kyle Rush

works on web apps and focus most of his
efforts on optimizing the user experience.
Kyle is an Optimizely certified partner for
a/b and multivariate testing.
kylerush@gmail.com

>

ADVERTISEMENT

march 2013

23

>

CONVERSIONS

PERSONALIZED CONTENT
AND BEHAVIORAL TARGETING
FOR IMPROVED CONVERSIONS
By Peep Laja

500 different people go to Amazon.com. Each
one sees a different version of the home page.
How come? It’s personalized! It’s no secret why
Amazon does that: content personalization makes
money.
A new survey by Adobe and Econsultancy finds that
52% of digital marketers consider the ability to personalize web content to be fundamental to their
online strategy.
Content personalization and behavioral targeting
are the next 2 big things that are going to give you
the conversion lift you want. Both of them should
be looked at seriously by anyone looking to keep
rocking in the future.

highly engaged, which in turn has a direct impact
on the merchant’s bottom line.”
- Blair Lyon, Vice President of Marketing with Monetate
This is where content personalization comes into
play. It lets you target different content to different types or groups of visitors based on their behavior or other factors.
How it works?

What is content personalization?
People visiting your site have different intentions:
some are there to buy something, others simply doing research, and some might be trying to get a job
with you. Then you got your first time visitors, and Image Credit
returning ones. Some don’t know why they’re there
and are looking for a way out.
It works by looking at the data that is available to
you about the visitor – things like location, keywords
Despite of this, most websites and landing pages they searched for, ads they clicked in, whether
display exactly the same content for all visitors – no they’ve been to the site before and also things like
matter what they’re searching for or how they got buying history – and compares that against a set of
there in the first place. These websites try to ap- variables that you have put in place.
peal to a wide range of visitors simultaneously, and
thus are not exciting many.
Those variables could include:
• Location – city, country, region
Wouldn’t it be awesome to display different con• Device – iPhone, iPad, Android phone/tablet,
tent and call-to-actions for different types of visiWindows, Mac, Linux
tors? Essentially making your visitors feel like that
• Search keywords – did they arrive while
the page speaks their language?
searching for shoes or shirts?
• Visitor frequency – First , second, third, fifth
“Creating a one-to-one customer experience contime visitor?
tributes significantly to customers that are more
• Date and time of day, proximity to payday

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march 2013

• Referring URL – where did they come from?
• Customer history – have bought before,
what, how much did it cost?
• Sessions behaviour – navigation clicks, page
views

And finally like this if you are, like me, from Estonia:

There are many more variables which can be taken
into account like age, gender etc – possibilities are
pretty much endless and it depends a lot on how
much info you have about that customer already.
Location targeting
How about showing people ads relevant to their
location? Seems like an obvious idea – and it works
really well. According to a recent study location
targeting more than doublesperformance of mobile
ads.

All this makes buying for customers around the
world easier as they can see prices in their national
currency and don’t have to Google exchange rates.
Less friction equals more paying customers.

Ad targeting and Amazon
Similar system is used in targeted ads on websites
Monetate has found that across its significant cli- across the web. Let’s say you read an article about
ent base when it personalized experiences based the latest Android phone on a news site. Eventuon international visitors’ geo-location, it improved ally you navigate away and read something else on
conversion rates by as much as 100 percent.
another site, and you see ads about Android phones
there. It works by tracking your behavior across
Paramore
the web through the use of cookies, and then using
Paramore, an american rock bands merchandise that data to give you relevant ads. Some think it’s
store, uses geo-location data to direct visitors freaky, some consider is useful since you’re actufrom different parts of the world to their respec- ally seeing ads you might be interested in.
tive pages.
The same thing happens on Amazon where it uses
This is how it looks when you visit from the States: your interaction history and other data to drive
more sales. This is how “More Items to Consider”,
“Frequently bought together” and “Customers Who
Bought This Item Also Bought” lists are generated –
using user behavior data.

And like this if you do it from the United Kingdom:

You don’t even necessarily need to buy something.
The other day I was looking at external hard drives
on Amazon. A couple of days passed and I got this
e-mail from them:

march 2013

25

Systems in use for ad targeting on
big retail sites like Amazon are
very complex and are what are
called learning systems. Meaning
that they are capable of looking
at the data and learning from it
all by themselves.

And this was the one with the tiny
banner:

This doesn’t mean that content
personalization is only for the big
boys. There are tools available Image Credit
for companies of all sizes, and it’s
becoming a more crowded mar- Results
ketplace by the day.
Results were 149% increase in
clickthrough rate to the Careers
Case studies
page. For benchmarking they
also measured worldwide click
Case #1 – Visual Website Opti- through rate to the same page
mizer
and got 0.43% as the results. For
The team over at Visual Website visitors from India without the
Optimizer were looking for engi- banner, clickthrough rate was
neers and designers to join their 9.17%.
team over at their New Delhi office in India.
With the banner, clickthrough rate
for Indian visitors was 22.86%.
To increase job applications from This is an improvement of 149%
their own homepage, they ran an compared with normal 9.17%.
behavioural targeting campaign
for users accessing their homep- Case #2 – BedBathStore.com
age from India. For that they
used their very own software, Visual Website Optimizer.
The test was about having a tiny
banner displayed on the right
hand side of the screen which
said “We’re hiring in Delhi :).”
Half of the visitors from India
were shown the usual page and
other half the new version with
the banner on the right.

BedBathStore, an Lynbrook, N.Y.
based online retailer of bed and
bath products was looking for
ways to increase conversions of
their eCommerce site. They experimented with traffic segmenThis is what the original looked tation and personalization of web
like:
experience of its visitors.

Image Credit

26

march 2013

“We wanted to increase overall
revenue and profitability through
superior conversion,” says Cofounder and COO Mike Reichman.
“Conversions are the key to increased revenue, decreased ad

spend and increased return on
investment.”
They used software that responds
to specific visitor interests or
needs, and displays relevant campaign banners on pages. “Now, if
a person is searching for bedding,
we can do a targeted banner for
the bedding category,” Reichman
says. “The offer can appear in
the bedding category on our site
and can say anything from ‘Shop
our Luxury Bedding and Save 10
Percent,’ to ‘Free Shipping on All
Bedding Orders Over $75.’”
Banners can also be targeted
by how many times a visitor has
been to the site, number of pages
searched in a given visit, or geography or region of visitor.
Conversion
rates
increased
throughout the site by 10% since
implementation of targeting
strategies. That’s thousands of
dollars of more revenue with a
simple change.
Getting started with content
personalization
You might be thinking now that
content personalization is valuable, but probably complicated
and time-consuming. Luckily
there’s software that can help
you out.
Personalization software
While Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer
described the content personalization technology as being “a
few years away”, there’s a lot
that’s here already now.
In fact, there’s a multitude of
companies offering content personalization of various sorts. As
mentioned before, Visual Website
Optimizer is an option. So are

their competitors Optimizely and Convert.com,
and other prominent testing tools (Test&Target and
so on).
Then there are tools like:
• Personyze
• Monoloop
• Monetate
• Apptus
• Gravity (content personalization for publishers)
• Avail (ecommerce personalization)
• Apsalar (mobile behavioral targeting)
• Vero (targeted emails based on user behavior)
• Runa (personalized offers)
• OneSpot (personalized content ads)
• PersuasionAPI (in private beta as of this writing)
As always there is no one size that fits everyone.
Check them out and see which one fits your needs.
Step 1: Choose your variables
First analyze your incoming traffic – where it is
coming from, what are they doing on the site? Take
a look at organic search and the keywords they use
to land on your site.

Once you have created your initial set of rules
(variables) and customer segments it’s time to take
all that info into your personalization software of
choice. Whatever software you chose, it should be
pretty straightforward with most of them.
Below an example from Visual Website Optimizer:

Image Credit

Simply choose your variables from the first two
boxes and add the value to the last one. You can
choose between AND, OR statements.

Step 3 – Run it
Time to see your personalized segments in action. There’s always a chance that something went
After analyzing current behaviors and traffic sourc- wrong, so run it for a period of time and analyze
es, go ahead and try to figure out how to make the results, make adjustments as necessary.
their buying experience even better. Start small at Keep tweaking and playing with until you have
first, choosing your top three audience segments something that you are satisfied with and works to
and go on from there. Remember that the more boost conversions.
segments you create, the more content / personalized experiences you might have to create. So Conclusion
start small so you wouldn’t get overwhelmed and You want to provide the best experience possible
kill your motivation.
to your visitors – so ideally they only see stuff relevant to them. This is why content personalization
Another good one to start off with is using your is so incredibly important. Higher relevancy leads
top 3-4 organic keywords and personalizing land- to higher revenues – win-win across the board.
ing pages for all of them so that they mention that
keyword in the copy.
Peep Laja

We recently wrote a blog post about getting quality
traffic that converts – take a look there for hints on
where to get good traffic from. Combing good traffic with personalization is pure gold.
Step 2: Configure rules and create segmented
content

is the face of ConversionXL. Peep is an
entrepreneur and internet marketer. He
runs a unique web marketing agency called
Markitekt, a startup called Traindom and
several niche internet business like T1Q
and others. He has a free website called
Dreaminder.
If you want to get in touch with Peep, shoot
him an email at peep@conversionxl.com

march 2013

27

>

28

march 2013

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>

E-COMMERCE

8 MOST COMMON DROP
SHIPPING PROBLEMS SOLVED
By Pawel Grabowski

Best Way to Handle: Ring your
client. Never inform them via
email. Customers prefer personal contact, even if it means bad
news about their order. Also, if
You don’t have to hold any stock. If you are thinking of starting up possible, try to source a product
Your financial involvement is min- a dropshipping online store, read from another supplier. Alternaimal. Hell, you can start a drop on. What follows is a list of the tively, see if you can get a similar
shipping eCommerce store for almost common issues and problems product by another producer. Sugmost nothing. You don’t have to you will most likely come across gest any alternatives you might
worry about fulfilling orders and, and my recommendations on how have to a customer. Quite often
a thing that attracts so many to to solve them.
they will be happy to change their
this form of eCommerce, you can
order to another product.
run it practically from anywhere. Ready?
Problem 2: Delay With Order
Unfortunately, all is not that great
Processing
with a drop ship business.
Picture this. You received an orWhen you run a drop ship busider through your store. Straight
ness, you are ultimately giving
away you rush to place it with the
away the control of a massive porproducer and await for it to be
tion of your business to someone
processed so you could inform the
else.
customer that it has shipped and
pass the tracking code to them.
It is not you but a producer or a
Yet, the order confirmation does
drop shipper that process your
not arrive.
orders. You have very little influ- 8 Most Common Dropshipping
ence over when that’s going to Problems Solved
Best Way to Handle: The usual
happen. You might be on top or
time to process an order is up
at the bottom of a queue but you Problem 1: Item Out of Stock
to 24 hours. If you hear nothing
simply don’t know. You can’t conback from the producer or drop
trol the packaging and what goes Probably the most common of all shipper after that, follow up with
into the pack and all that is just problems you will experience.
them immediately. These days
the tip of the iceberg.
customers are used to have their
Even though most producers and orders processed within 24 hours
In short, after you have passed on order fulfillment companies try too. It is the imperative for your
the order, your control over what hard to keep their Ecommerce own brand that even if the order
happens with it ends.
partners informed about product isn’t processed within that time,
availability, it often happens that you at least know the reason and
This is also where most problems the product someone ordered approximately when it’s going to
start.
from your store is out of stock. Or happen.
it has been completely discontinued.
Doesn’t drop shipping seem like
an ideal way to run an online
store? Sure, and it seems so easy
to do too.

As a dropshipping store owner
myself I can guarantee you one
thing, if something is to go wrong
with the order, it will.

march 2013

29

Why? Because the customer might ring you. This
usually happens if you sell expensive products and
someone has purchased through your store for the
first time. Their trust levels in you are low and
through their order, they are ultimately putting
you to the test.
Problem 3: Wrong Item Sent to Customer
I have to say that this hasn’t happened to me so far,
however, I know it is many Ecommerce store owners worst nightmare so I am including this problem
on the list.
Shipping a wrong product to a customer is a bad
customer service, fact. It always leaves a bad impression regardless of a good will of the customer.
And no matter what the circumstances, it is always
you who are the guilty party.

If however, the order has already shipped, proceed
in the same manner as with the previous issue discussed above.
Problem 5: You Were Billed Wrong
A problem that does not affect the customer, yet
still quite common.
Best Way to Handle: Always review the invoice
carefully. This becomes especially important if you
are paying straight away via credit card and don’t
have a credit line with the producer. Sure, you will
most likely receive a credit from the producer, yet
your spending ability will be limited for that month
nonetheless.

This is one of the most unfortunate aspects of drop
shipping. No matter what the mistake and who
made it, it is always you and your reputation that
suffers.
Best Way to Handle: First of all, know your producer or drop shipper return policies back to back.
In fact, you should know them before you ship your
first product. This way, when the complaint from a
customer comes, you will be able to instruct them
on what to do straight away.
Also, it is a good idea to offer a customer a discount for a future purchase or at least a small token to apologize for your mistake.
Problem 4: Wrong Quantity Shipped

Problem 6: The Shipment Went to a Wrong Address / Orders Got Confused
Different producers have different ways of handling orders. Some want you to email them over,
others prefer you to order by phone. And as much
as email greatly reduces the chances for a spelling
error, it is quite easy to happen over the phone.

Similarly to the problem above, the shipped product may have been right but the quantity is wrong.
This has actually happened to me few times. It is
not such a problem if more items are sent but the As a result, orders might be shipped to an address
problem starts when it is less than the customer that doesn’t exist. Or to a completely different
has ordered.
person (if orders got mixed up for instance).
Best Way to Handle: Sometimes you are actually
able to stop this error from happening. Always review the invoice from the drop shipping company.
They usually send them before goods leave the
warehouse and if you notice a wrong quantity on
them, ring them straight away and stop the order
from being shipped.

30

march 2013

Best Way to Handle: It is imperative that you hold
some sort of proof of the shipping address you have
supplied the producer or drop shipper with. Reshipping items cost money and you must be sure whose
fault it was before you agree to any costs.

Problem 7: Item Arrived Damaged
This luckily never happened to me, although I know
some drop ship business owners to whom it did.
Best Way to Handle: This problem is actually pretty
easy to solve. In most cases, the producer will ship
out a replacement part or the whole item. However, it is good that you know your producers warranty
terms and conditions. I am lucky to be working with
producers that offer lifetime replacement guarantee, however, it might be different for yours. So,
better check that up.
Problem 8: Wrong Tracking Code
A minor problem, yet still something that has to be
sort out. Sometimes the tracking code you receive
is either invalid or its for a completely different
package.
When you think of it, your producer or drop shipper you use issues tens if not hundreds of tracking

codes a day. With such a volume, it is quite easy for
a simple human error to happen.
Best Way to Handle: Always test tracking codes before you pass them on to your customer. Simple.
Running a drop ship business may seem like an easy
thing to do. Unfortunately, in such a business model
you rely greatly on a producer whose products you
use or a drop shipping company they use to ship
their goods. And as always when you leave the control over such an important aspect of business to
someone else, mistakes can happen.
Luckily, usually they are easy to rectify, albeit at
first sight they might look quite serious.

Pawel Grabowski

is the owner of TheHappyBike.com, an online
store selling garage bicycle storage systems.
This article is originally published on eCommerce
Insiders

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31

>

FACEBOOK

HOW TO SET UP
A FACEBOOK OFFER
By Cara Pring
Big news recently was that Facebook rolled out What do Facebook Offers look like in action?
Facebook Offers (still in beta testing) to five coun- This is the step by step journey a Facebook user
tries – Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan and goes through to redeem a deal.
Turkey. Below is a short overview of what Facebook
Offers are, how they work, and how you can set one
1. The deal shows up on their Timeline
up in a couple of minutes.
What are Facebook Offers?
First of all, let me clarify that Facebook Offers are
completely free to set up and redeem. There are
no costs on either side. Hurrah! Facebook offers are
essentially coupons that you can offer to Facebook
users that appear on newsfeeds (desktop and mobile) and through wall posts that can be promoted
as sponsored stories (ads). When people redeem the
special offer they are prompted to share that story
on their wall so that their friends can also take advantage of it (plus get you some much-appreciated
viral spread).
At this point they are only available to bricks and
mortar stores – that is Facebook placepages. If you
have an address on your Page so that people can
check-in, you have access to offers (if you’re in one
of the countries trialling it). Once someone claims
your offer within Facebook they are sent an email
with the details to redeem within your store.
How do you set up a Facebook Offer?
If your page is eligible (ie. you’re in one of the beta
testing countries and you are a place page), you can
set it up following these easy steps:
1. Go to your Page
2. Below your status bar, click the ‘Offer, Event
+’ image

32

march 2013

2. They click ‘get offer’
3. They see a ‘Offer sent’ message, telling them
to check their email for details and when they
need to redeem the offer by

4. They choose who to share this story with – the
offer redemption will be posted to their timeline
and just like any other post you can choose who
will see this. If you’re like me and don’t really
want people to know you’re going to buy some
cushions on sale, you can choose ‘only me’ and
click OK.
5. The activity is displayed in their timeline and
newsfeed (to those who they selected could see
it) – if this post was public or visible to their
friends they will then also be able to claim the
offer, even if they are not fans of the Page

6. Check their email to see the details of the offer to set up and you can limit the number of people
who can redeem. The only words of caution I would
give would be to make sure your offer is something
people will get excited about – if you just offer 5%
off one item in your store, the offer may not work
that well. However if you offer something that gets
people excited – like a buy one get one free or a 25%
off deal, well you’ll probably find that your offer
works well in driving more sales and new customers.
Cara Pring

7. They go instore and get the special deal!
Last few words of advice
My advice is to trial a Facebook Offer if you’re able
to. I would. I think they are an awesome way to
get more people into your store and get some viral
spread – everyone wins. Particularly as they are free

has enjoyed extensive experience in
social media strategy and campaigns for
businesses of all sizes - from small startups
to multinational corporates like Qantas and
Bupa. Her focus now is small to medium
businesses who are looking to expand their
social media activity and generate real return
for their efforts and spend. She has her own
social media blog at www.thesocialskinny.com, where this
article originally appeared.

>

CHARITABLE GIVING

SPIKE HUMER, Entrepreneur &
Business Growth Expert
My goal is to raise $7,500.00 for
victims of domestic violence &
sexual assault
I’m walking a mile in high heels to raise critical funds for
WEAVE - a dedicated provider of services for victims of
domestic violence and sexual assault since 1978.
Be part of the solution to ending violence against women and take the “next step” by supporting the Walk A
Mile in Her Shoes event. Make a quick and easy
donation here.
If you are in or plan to be in the Sacramento area, join
me at the fun filled event festival on May 4, 2013!
If you’d like to find our more about WEAVE, you can
visit www.weaveinc.org

march 2013

33

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Tạp trí Internet Marketing Số 20 - MAR 2013

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