You know you need a good web analyst who can do more than just “puke out data” - but where do you find these talented people?
At Search Engine Strategies San Jose, 2008, I caught up with Avinash Kaushik, author of Web Analytics An Hour A Day, Google Analytics evangelist and Elastic Path webinar guest, and asked this very question.
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Here’s the Coles Notes version of the interview:
One of the biggest mistakes when crafting job requirements is putting too much emphasis on knowledge of the tools, whether Omniture, Google Analytics or Coremetrics or whatever. If your candidate already has knowledge of the tool, fantastic, but it shouldn’t be a requirement.
In a few weeks you can teach the tool, but you can’t teach the mindset and techniques that make a great analyst. Without curiosity and out-of-the-box thinking, your analyst will simply […]
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Comparison Shopping Engines (CSEs) are product marketing websites that display aggregated product offerings across multiple retailers. Examples include Shopping.com, Nextag.com, Shopzilla.com and PriceGrabber.com. Consumers often visit CSEs to find the most attractive offer on a product they have already determined they want to purchase. However, some consumers will also use CSEs as part of their product discovery and research process. Once on the CSE, the consumer is able to evaluate various offers from multiple retailers in one place, saving time while finding the best value.
CSE traffic is important to retailers because it represents a sizable set of internet users at some point in the buying cycle, and therefore in the retailer’s target audience. Most CSEs (including all the examples above) charge retailers on a per click basis. Every time a consumer clicks on the offer of a certain retailer, that retailer pays the CSE. The actual amount charged for […]
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I was looking through some stats for the blog and noticed several people recently visited my post on eBay Bucks, that I wrote back in May. It occurred to me that the eBay Bucks test period was supposed to end in mid-August and today was the 25th.
I was surprised, that I hadn’t heard or seen anything written about the program. According to the eBay Bucks FAQ
You can earn rewards from May 15, 2008 to August 14, 2008. Note that only purchases paid for after enrollment are eligible … … For users that earn rewards, eBay will email a reward coupon which includes a code to redeem rewards. Reward codes will be issued before August 22, 2008. Users may also access their reward code by logging into http://rewards.ebay.com.
How do I redeem my reward? You will be emailed an eBay Bucks coupon once your reward is ready before August 22, […]
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Last year we posted cart buttons from over 100 top online retailers. Just over a year later, I spotted 46 out of the 111 retailers using different button designs. But does that mean they’re testing? Not necessarily.
According to Bryan Eisenberg and Future Now, 75% of retail sites don’t test anything. So, many of these examples below could be the result from a site redesign. Also, there may be tests that I missed if I am included in the control group of a test (being shown the original button).
If you’re not testing, you’re leaving money on the table. If you think it’s too expensive or complicated, please join us on September 11, 2008 for a live webinar with Bryan Eisenberg, the author of Always Be Testing to learn how easy it is to get started with Google Website Optimizer (free tool!). Come ready with […]
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Amazon SimpleDB just released an update that includes a new feature called
QueryWithAttributes. With this update, developers will be now able to retrieve
all the information associated with items returned as a response to a particular
query. The feature provides additional flexibility because it enables you to
retrieve anywhere between one and all attributes for each item. This highly
requested feature simplifies application development process for all clients of
Amazon SimpleDB. Instead of issuing a Query request followed by a series of
GetAttributes requests, application designers can now use a single API call to
retrieve all information about items stored in Amazon SimpleDB.
I am very excited about this new feature because it simplifies my
application code. This is useful for developers who are not used to parallel
programming or who utilize programming languages that do not support parallel
programming.
The updated API documentation is here. I also highly recommend reading the Query 101, Query 102, and the best practices articles from our […]
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Join Kevin Harmon from Inflatable Madness and yours truly as we wax poetic on all the changes happening at eBay. Breaking News: eBay - It’s a Whole New Ballgame
I’m starting to like this podcasting thing.
Just my 15%
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I feel like a salmon swimming up-stream fighting against the current. I don’t think auctions are dead … yet, but, we may be eulogizing them soon, just like Adam Nash eulogized eBay Express.
If Auctions are dead, than the idea that I am going to present won’t have any impact, but it also doesn’t have any downside. If Auctions are not dead, just held captive by the Fixed Price hordes, than by not even considering my idea, eBay will be turning their back on their brand and a very profitable business.
The premise: Auctions are a niche and should be treated like one. Fixed Price is the dominant ecommerce standard and is what eBay should focus on to grow, but they don’t have to sacrifice Auctions to do it.
There current strategy will end up sacrificing auctions, because they don’t have the balls to make the hard choices. eBay Express failed because of […]
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Would you be comfortable supplying your credit card number to an outdated, haphazard looking website? Most people wouldn’t, and that is exactly what makes it important to pay attention to the message your site is sending to visitors. Consumers want to buy from companies, not websites, and further, they want to feel confident that those […]
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If you’re new here, welcome! And thanks for subscribing to Get Elastic. Friday is Blogger Digest day where we highlight posts from other blogs that are of value and interest to online retailers and Internet marketers.
Linda deserved a day off so today’s Ecommerce Blogger’s Digest is the Search Engine Strategies edition brought to you by me, Jason Billingsley. I have big shoes to fill. Naturally, all of the links today are search related so get your SEO hat on (choose a color) and get clicking.
Tis’ the season for conferences (why not win a free full passes to Shop.org, Online Market World, or SMX East in our Big Ecommerce Conference Contest?) and here are some tips on how to make the most out of internet marketing conferences.
Couldn’t make it to SES San Jose? Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim was on site snapping photos of all the things you missed, including the […]
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If you are interested in my 15% on these recent changes and want to actually hear me talk about them, then go to http://podcast.auctionbytes.com and click on the top podcast.
I have to warn you it is longer than most podcasts (18 minutes) so make sure you’ve had your coffee. We don’t cover all of the changes but I think it still might be interesting for you. Please no critiques of my picture or radio voice; I can be very sensitive
Just my 15%
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