ecommerce

OK, so I thought I'd got some of the major predictions for the year. Deirdre's back in the office for half a day, and wallop, she's got a hole lot more to add to the list. And their corkers:

The relative peace of these first three days back in the office has given me far too many opportunities to procrastinate on the rather impressive email mountain that's appeared in my inbox over the holidays. In a further, and I'd like to think, rather productive attempt to put off tackling this I cast an email out to the sages of the uk-netmarketing list hunting for 2008 predictions for digital media, either those they'd found online or, if brave enough, any of their own.

It might be an age-old stereotype, but in that freaky way that activity online mirrors the real-world, so it does here, too. A survey produced by Bizrate.com, reported by eMarketer, showed that the balance of US online buyers in 2002 shifted towards a majority of female buyers.

Strange that BT would choose a series of flying pigs to feature in their adverts promoting broadband Internet access. I'm still scratching my head and trying to figure out whether they thought they were being post-ironic. Maybe I'm missing the humorous side of it, altogether.

Return on Investment (ROI) is the word on everyone's lips at the moment. It's definitely coming up trumps on buzzword bingo in pitches and meetings at the moment and with good reason. This whole web thang ain't never gonna work if it doesn't make money, but then after the shake-out last year that message has been firmly imprinted in everyone's brain.

Successful Conversion Rates
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - January 26, 2001

Working on a new website, or testing a new marketing tactic is always a tad nerve-wracking, especially when you don't have any previous results to compare your campaign against. There are so many factors involved in successfully converting a passing browser into an interested party, a benchmark for a 'successful' site can be a real help in working out whether you're on the right track.