ChoiceStream

SearchEngineLand notes companies who aren’t taking advantage of real-time behavioral targeting – customizing their websites to create a more welcoming and engaging destination – are missing the boat. “To get the greatest ROI from behavioral targeting, employ it on pages where visitors choose where to go next, such as the homepage or category pages. These can be crucial intersections for those who are not necessarily sure of what they would like to see.” Further, SearchEngineLand notes, “Onsite behavioral targeting is useful in determining [a consumer’s] source of interest and matching the experience to that interest. Once you set several distinct options, each calling for a different need or interest, the personalization engine will find the group of visitors for whom it is most suitable. Using these analytic and predictive capabilities enables you to promote various offerings on your site, engaging your visitors and encouraging them to learn more about your products and services.” Read the full article at Search Engine Land

U.S. retailers this year geared up for the annual back-to-school shopping season, the parents and children didn't fill the streets and shopping malls - they stayed inside, and online, cruising for bargains on the Internet. Overall sales this August were up only slightly from last year, failing to give stores the boost they needed after a sluggish summer. However, among all the uneven retail numbers this year exists a bright spot that has been growing for years, and is leading companies to overhaul their traditional business models: the online retail market.
Online sales in August were up for a 13th straight month, rising 7.2% from July compared to a 1.5% gain the same month in 2009, according to MasterCard's SpendingPulse data. "People are just shifting their dollars to the Web," said Sucharita Mulpuru, vice president and principal analyst for Forrester Research. "The Web is definitely a channel where people are able to find better prices and better values." Read the full article

Intel Labs has a prototype remote that can tell who you are by how you hold it and press the buttons. It's between 80-85 % accurate so it's not ready for prime time, but scientists think it has potential. "It's probably not appropriate for things that would be better done with a log-in or a button press or something like bringing up your profile or implementing the V-Chip, the parental control type of things," says Jeff Hightower, senior scientist and engineering manager at Intel Labs. However, he says, the remote would be good for customizing content and providing personal recommendations. Hightower uses the example of his home digital video recorder. The programming box provides recommendations based on the shows both he and his wife watch. Instead, he'd rather see the box turn on and see his recommendations in one list and his wife's in another. "If you had something like this technology, that could infer who was using a particular remote and who might have been watching a particular program, that would give a way to implement that," Hightower says.Read the full article

Only 1% of retailers on the Internet Retailer 500 send a series of automated welcome messages to new subscribers, according to a recent white paper from marketing services and solutions provider Listrak. “Creating an eCommerce Welcome Series to Increase Subscriber Engagement and Email ROI” finds that only 51% of the Internet Retailer 500 deployed even a single welcome message to new subscribers. In addition, 16% of the messages were personalized with the first name or other relevant information, and 40% offered a special discount as a thank you for subscribing. Listrak advises that welcome messages have the highest open rates of all email campaigns and that using a series instead of a single message creates opportunities to nurture the relationship, including turning one-time buyers into long-term customers and brand advocates.Read the full article at Marketing Charts

In an effort to track how shoppers are using retail web sites and define premium position within site search results new research finds that 94% of shoppers click between one and 10 products, and from there, they look for price, product features and preferred brands as key differentiators. The study also reveals that two-thirds of consumers begin the shopping process online, and that half convert offline. The path to purchase, in most cases, starts with a combination of search engine and site search on retail web sites for price, brand and feature information, as shoppers surveyed consult an average of 4.1 information sources during the process. Read the full article at Retail Touch Points

One-third of U.S. companies plan to maintain or increase marketing budgets in the 2010-2011 fiscal year, and a higher percentage will set up guidelines and metrics to prove accountability. According to MarketShare Partners, marketers and agencies continue to struggle with finding the metrics to justify dollars spent on campaigns. Fifty-eight percent of companies working with budgets up to $1 million admit they will implement tools that measure return on investment (ROI) to measurable outcomes, compared with 40% for those working with higher budgets. Companies with lower budgets favored working on developing metrics, while 58% of marketers with budgets of $1 million or more believe having a "big idea" was more important. Read the full article at MediaPost

While marketers have long believed customers acquired through word-of-mouth referrals are more valuable, a new study from Wharton University has even put a number on it: WOM clients are about 16% more profitable than those generated by conventional advertising. These customers initially generated a higher profitability than others with the same demographics. And while that difference eroded over a three-year period, they remained more loyal -- a trait that did not degrade with time. Combined, that resulted in a 16% difference. "In the short run, these word-of-mouth clients are more valuable because of higher margins," says Christophe Van den Bulte, a professor of marketing at Wharton University."And in the long run, they are more valuable because there is less churn."Read the full article at MediaPost

Women spend more time visiting online retail sites than men and make a greater contribution to e-commerce in terms of buyers, transactions and dollars, according to comScore. Women and men visit online retail sites at a similar rate. Fo example, in the 15-to-24 age bracket, both 60% of men and women visit online retail sites. Both women and men start visiting online retail sites at a slightly higher rate in each succeeding age bracket, with women developing a slightly larger lead each time. In the 55-plus bracket, about 70% of men visit online retail sites, with closer to 75% of women doing so. However, women spend significantly more time during these visits than men as, overall, women spend about 20% more time than men visiting online retail sites. Read the full article at Retailer Daily

Two-thirds of consumer electronics and computer shoppers start their research on the web, but purchases are split evenly between online and stores, a new study finds. Web monitoring firm comScore conducted the poll, which was sponsored by search marketing firms Searchandise Commerce and iProspect 52% of the polled consumers conducted online research or bought laptops or notebook computers online, while 42% did so for televisions. Audio speakers, at 11%, and home theatre systems, at 12%, made up the bottom of the list.Read the full article at Internet Retailer

The Federal Trade Commission is considering proposing a do-not-track mechanism that would allow consumers to easily opt out of all behavioral targeting, chairman Jon Leibowitz told lawmakers on Tuesday. Testifying at a hearing about online privacy, Leibowitz said the FTC is exploring the feasibility of a browser plug-in that would store users' targeting preferences. He added that either the FTC or a private group could run the system. Leibowitz said that while Web users on a no-tracking list would still receive online ads, those ads wouldn't be targeted based on sites that users had visited in the past. Stay tuned.Read the full article at MediaPost