Gillissa News » Marketing

Xbox Slim On Sale

mhiscock — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:39:11 +0000

This week marks the release of the Xbox Slim and no doubt demand will be high and many stores will run out of stock very quickly. As we’ve seen in recent months with the new iPhone and iPad, huge surges in demand can play havoc with many retailers stock levels and can leave many shoppers disappointed and in the current climate, no retailer wants to have to deal with any more disgruntled customers then they have to!

Such surges in demand and the risk of products running quickly out of stock on the high street has driven more and more customers to the web where they are well versed with the plethora of product listing sites now accessible over the internet. Many retailers are getting wiser to the importance of having visibility on these, yet I am still surprised at the numbers who aren’t keeping their stock availability up to date online.

If products are on many sites, then understandably it can seem an arduous tasks to ensure the stock numbers online are kept accurate, but both customers and sites such as Amazon are demanding this real time information as the online customer experience becomes more and more important. Nothing is worse for Amazon than an item ‘appearing’ to be in stock online only for the customer to find after purchasing it that it has in fact sold out, which can cause huge problems for the retailer in its relationship with Amazon.

We developed Feed Manager as a solution to this problem as we found that many retailers had the information available to update their product feeds, but simply didn’t have the ‘thing’ that could feed this information out to the web and where it needed to go. There are many strategies for retailers to achieve maximum results and Feed Manager is the most advanced solution on the market for adapting the data it receives in from the retailer and using it for whatever purpose the retailer needs.

With Christmas just around the corner, stock availability will be an critical issue for many retailers and so it is highly advisable to get their listing processes in order so that their online product display matches the real picture in the warehouse.

Continued Search Marketing Growth

mhiscock — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:40:16 +0000

Recent search marketing figures released have indicated worldwide spending on internet marketing will reach £40.6 billion pounds, almost a 12% increase on the previous year, according to figures released by eMarketer.

As you may be aware, online advertising has grown to such an extent in recent times that its expenditure outweighs the more traditional forms of advertising; television and radio. (A topic discussed in the previous Gillissa blog post ‘The Growth of Online Advertising’)

With these increased spending figures, Jared Jenks, author of the worldwide spending report, quoted “These rates will be unmatched by other media”.

In accordance with the forecast from eMarketer, Efficient Frontier found that the UK’s search marketing sector grew by 10 percent over a twelve month period, indicating the trend of search marketing prospering within difficult financial times has continued, whereas other forms of advertising have not been so profitable.

However, CPC (Cost-Per-Click) rates were significantly reduced when compared to the same period the previous year, though CPC rates did rise again in the final quarter. Such an analysis seems to imply that the search marketing sector is certainly making headway in working its way out of the recession.

In accordance with this perception, Efficient Frontier suggest that a major increase in search advertising spend in the United Kingdom is imminent.

With search marketing’s continued prosperity, and its new found status as the number one method of advertisement, it appears that any predictions of future growth for search marketing are accurate.

Furthermore, the team at Gillissa have certainly noticed a surge in impressions and traffic this year, evidently coinciding with the continued popularity of online advertising. (Except for the time period during the World Cup, especially when England were still in the competition!)

Global Search Continues To Prosper

mhiscock — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:31:57 +0000

A recent report by comScore has indicated a tremendous growth for search marketing, perhaps correlating in a significant boost to search engine marketing.

Between the twelve month period of December 2008 and December 2009, the global search market grew by 46%.

In fact, an estimated 131 billion search queries were carried out from the home and at work by people aged 15 and above.

This undoubtedly illustrates the level of interest in internet searches and the massive potential that search marketing holds, by enabling the advertiser to reach an audience of this magnitude.

In terms of countries, the United Kingdom was the fourth largest search market in the world, behind the United States, China and Japan.

In terms of search engines, Google retained the position as the outright market leader, handling 87.8 billion searches (accounting for 66.8%).

Again, in relation to December 2008, this year saw a 58% increase for Google.

Search Marketing: An Increasingly Popular Method Of Marketing

mhiscock — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 15:53:55 +0000

There was encouraging news for search marketing as a whole, based on a recent report devised by search marketing firm Efficient Frontier.

The statistical data provided claimed that retail clients spent 17% more on search engine markets in the fourth quarter than in the same period for 2008.

This is probably relative to the fact that Efficient Frontier also reported a ninety percent increase in retail-related search queries.

Though there was such a significant increase in searches, conversions did not follow such an impressive positive trend within the same period of time.

Evidently, in such harsh economic times, people are searching online for retail bargains, and, based on the conversion levels reported, such bargains were not found.

From the acquired data, Efficient Frontier provided a trend, indicating that they anticipate 2010 to see advert spending growth somewhere in the region of 15-20%.

In addition, further research shows that Google increased its share of total search spending for the final quarter of 2009.

Google accumulated 74.5% of total outlay, Yahoo 20.4% and Bing 5.1%.

These values were almost identical when relating to capturing search advert clicks, ultimately confirming Google’s status as the runaway leader in the competition for leading search engine.

Online Advertising Prospers In The Recesssion

mhiscock — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:45:24 +0000

The recession currently experienced within this country at the moment is undoubtedly having a negative effect on all aspects of the economy.

The consumer is tightening purse strings during the harsh economic climate, meaning that sales figures are generally in decline in comparison with recent years.

Unsurprisingly, this is the case with overall marketing spend; which fell this quarter again, for the ninth quarter in a row.

Reported by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), overall advertising spend decreased by seven percent in the final quarter of 2009.

However, this quarter saw online advertising spend increase by over eleven percent.

Whilst advertising as a whole continues to struggle within the economic climate, online advertising evidently prospers.

In terms of economic recovery and the marketing sector, online advertising is certainly leading the way.

The IPA reported further that the positive growth of internet advertising is exceeding expectations, whilst search marketing remarkably accounts for almost half of the total spend on all forms of advertising.

Christmas Sales and the VAT rise

mhiscock — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:51:39 +0000

Within the previous Gillissa blog post ‘Boxing Day Sales Start on Christmas Eve’, it was mentioned that an online sales surge was expected during the festive period as retailers were introducing their sales as early as Christmas Eve.

Unsurprisingly, the sales figures for the festive period eclipsed the sales figures for the same period last year, and also included the busiest shopping day of 2009, Monday the 28th of December.

Fundamentally, the impending increase in VAT can be attributed to the increase in online sales over this period.

Therefore, because this period was successful, the majority of leading brands have decided to postpone the VAT rise on products, in order to maintain the levels of online sales accumulated towards the end of the year.

In addition, the recent difficult weather conditions experienced within this country may have also attributed to the surge in internet retail.

With more difficult weather conditions expected, the decision by some retailers to freeze the VAT price at 15% may result in the continued strength in online sales that is desired.

However, all information points to the fact that internet marketing is an increasingly popular retail option.

To read the full article, please use the following link:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/retailing/article6971099.ece

Boxing Day Sales Start on Christmas Eve

mhiscock — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:20:42 +0000

Within the previous Gillissa blog post: ‘Predicted Sales Patterns This Christmas’, it was mentioned that websites would begin to offer discounts for various products on Christmas Day itself.

This assumption is now considered incorrect, because, retailers are now launching their Boxing Day sales on Christmas Eve!

This effectively means that consumers using the internet have a 36 hour head start over consumers using the more traditional method of shopping around the high street stores.

Quite surprisingly, it is expected that 4.5 million consumers will shop and spend online on Christmas day, the same number of people that will attend a church service on the same day.

This only goes to show how far online marketing has come in recent times, holding as much prowess on a religious holiday as a religious service.

Numerous stores have indicated that Christmas day is one of the busiest days of the year in terms of traffic.

Though factors such as the current weather and the imminent VAT rise this year have assisted online purchasing, it is undoubtedly becoming a more popular experience year-by-year.

To read the full article please use the following link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/6858609/Boxing-Day-sales-start-on-Christmas-Eve.html

Shop Safely This Christmas!

mhiscock — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 12:52:06 +0000

According to IMRG, at least 90 percent of internet users will be doing some level of Christmas shopping online, with 70 percent even planning to do more than half of their Christmas shopping using the World Wide Web.

Various predictions like IMRG have stated that for internet retail during this time, Christmas 2009 would mark the greatest growth in internet sales, highlighted further by the widely-anticipated ‘Manic Monday’ on the 7th of December.

Taking all this information into account, more people will be shopping online in this period than ever before.

Therefore, there is a greater importance for consumers to be wary of the dangers of internet shopping, and not fall for the numerous traps out there.

In fact, only yesterday, the team at Gillissa encountered a problem, which we duly notified Google of.

Immediately, our attention was drawn to the fact that for a search query, two adverts within the sponsored links section had identical headlines and descriptive text.

An unusual sight in itself, we decided to explore the two adverts further.

By clicking on the adverts, we found that the link offered a redirect from the display URL to websites with completely different domain names.

Instantly, we knew this website was dubious as Google does not permit the use of redirects.

Furthermore, all of the multiple sites created for the adverts were almost identical in presentation and layout, with duplicate content.

Pricing in US dollars yet advertising in the United Kingdom, the websites all contained atrocious forms of spelling for the simplest of everyday words.

Exploration to the shopping cart presented more evidence that this particular website/s was not legitimate.

We discovered that the websites did not have viable SSL certificates, and had obtained a variation of an SSL certificate that can be easily obtained within a matter of minutes.

With all this evidence, it is safe to assume that is website was attempting to commit fraud, rather than advertise products competitively.

Hopefully the factors we found can save you from being a victim of fraud!

To find out more ways of avoiding illegitimate websites, please use the following link:

http://www.computeractive.co.uk/computeractive/features/2253684/safe-shopping-online-christmas-4896657

Does Plus Box Make A Difference?

mhiscock — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:22:35 +0000

Previous Gillissa blog posts have discussed the recent feature implemented by Google, commonly known as the Plus Box; which can change the manner in which products are advertised within the sponsored links section of a Google search results page.

Typing in a search query on Google can generate an advert with Plus Box capabilities, providing the option of showing images of products from that specific advertiser.

By clicking this option, numerous images from that advertiser will appear that are relative to the search query, giving the customer greater opportunity to assess the products available from the advertiser that attracted the customers’ attention initially through their text advert.

The visual enhancement alone is reason to suggest that adverts containing the plus box option would be more successful in terms of Click-Through-Rate (CTR).

Coupled by the fact that the Plus Box option can dominate more advertising space, the suggestion is rational.

However, Gillissa felt it was necessary to undertake a test, using statistical data, to determine an outcome on the effectiveness of Plus Box advertisements.

Using the reporting tool found within the Adwords Client Centre, I gathered the impression and click data for campaigns from 3 clients, comparing the click through rate of adverts that did, and did not, contain Plus Box capabilities.

The results were conclusive, that Plus Box does make a difference, for the better!

Every piece of analysis created all followed the same trends.

Click through rate, albeit marginally, is greater with Plus Box capabilities than without.

For more information on Google Plus Box, please use the following link:

http://www.gillissa.co.uk/news/the-new-google-adwords-plusbox-129

Predicted Sales Patterns This Christmas

mhiscock — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:49:54 +0000

As I am sure everybody is aware, tax will revert back to its familiar figure of 17.5%, from the 15% introduced in November last year.

Such a change in VAT will have a significant effect on the Christmas period for consumers, as this change comes into effect on January 1st next year.

Consequently, retailers are expected to introduce cheaper prices before the VAT rise, even numerous weeks before Christmas itself.

Additionally, retailers could begin their January sales before January, immediately after the Christmas shopping period has ceased.

In terms of online marketing, research suggests that websites could begin to offer discounts on Christmas Day itself.

Further suggestions indicate that Monday 7th December is expected to be the busiest day for online Christmas shopping.

Shopping comparison site Kelkoo predict that 72% of people would use the internet for shopping this Christmas, with 38% intending to do the majority of their shopping online.

To read the full article, please use the folliowing link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8365939.stm