Every time I read a “best practices” guide to optimizing landing pages, I cringe. I know full well the limitations and the biases inherent in what the teacher is about to dispel to the pupil. Even worse, I know full well the pupil is likely to accept the teachings as gospel, and run off to begin implementation. Honestly, I don’t blame them- implementation led by a methodology will inevitably outperform pure talent or intuition. However, the assumption in that last…

...continue to read "Problems with Landing Page Optimization?"

It’s been fun seeing how focusing in on customer conversion rate optimization has become the 2006/2007 Rallying Cry for Marketers, according to independent research firm Forrester Research Inc.

In a report titled, "Marketing Technology Adoption 2006," June 2006, Forrester interviewed 371 marketing technology decision makers and influencers, and more than 40 percent say their organizations "have plans to implement Web interaction optimization software by the end of 2007."

We are glad to see the market catching up with what we have…

...continue to read "Web Interaction Optimization Software"

We’ve all been frustrated when trying to contact companies for questions and support. This doesn’t have to be.

Paul English founder of GetHuman.com sent us his thoughts on Bryan’s fresh new ClickZ article Building More Effective “Contact Us” Pages.

Hi Bryan, I enjoyed your column on contact pages. I’m the founder of the www.gethuman.com site, and we will soon be publishing and maintaining info about contact forms and email addresses. In addition to the contact us pages, there is of course…

...continue to read "Building More Effective “Contact Us”Pages"

In the Visits/Visitors debate, side with Unique Visitors

Analysis doesn’t happen in a vacuum. And as we’ve said a thousand times: you can torture the numbers to confess to … uh, we mean, rationalize … just about anything.

Matt Belkin of Omniture blogged recently about the differences between Visits and Unique Visitors as they relate to measuring reach and as they factor into the Conversion Rate formula. Matt argues that Conversions per Visit is more important than…

...continue to read "The Great Debate: or “When All You Have is a Reporter, Every Analysis Looks Like a Nail”"

Future Now would like to extend our congrats to Bazaarvoice for launching their new website today.  Bazaarvoice helps customers build business with word of mouth on their eCommerce website. 

Our very own Chief Persuasion Officer Bryan Eisenberg is an advisor as well. 

We expect big things.

...continue to read "Bazaarvoice.com Launched!"

Bob Hughes, Wall Street Journal reporter who’s covered the auction market and author of the novel "Late and Soon" (published in October 2005 and worth reading), was discussing online auctions with us. We asked him if he would share some of his thoughts.

"Way back in the last millennium – 1999, to be exact – the world of big-money art auctions meeting the online world looked pretty grim. Sotheby’s, the renowned auction house, joined forces with online heavyweight eBay to offer…

...continue to read "Online Auctions"

From AdAge.com "What Blogs Cost American Business"  — Blog this: U.S. workers in 2005 will waste the equivalent of 551,000 years reading blogs.

About 35 million workers — one in four people in the labor force – visit blogs and on average spend 3.5 hours, or 9%, of the work week engaged with them, according to Advertising Age’s analysis."

Have you checked out our new podcast of GrokDotCom.com; it will only take about five minutes? We are waiting for iTunes to approve…

...continue to read "Waste Five Minutes Or 551,000 Years"

The e-tailing community is humming with talk about the new effort at the Gap.com. Gap’s aggressive stance on improving its customer experience is a delight to watch. Its goal to cut down clicks and make online shopping even easier has been the focus of a $10 million redesign. A recent “New York Times” article chronicles the experience:

When women browse Gap.com’s T-shirt section, they do not have to click to a new page to see details about the 16 shirts shown…

...continue to read "Grading the Gap.com Redesign"

Andrew Goodman just released a new book. We just ordered it and we will be reviewing it. Knowing Andrew it will be worthwhile owning.

Here is the description on Amazon.com:

Don’t get lost in the digital haystack! With thousands of links for every search, the chances of your products being found online are slimmer than a needle. But there’s good news: you can pinpoint your marketing message with help from Andrew Goodman’s newly released Winning Results with Google AdWords. You’ll discover AdWord…

...continue to read "Winning Results with Google AdWords"

Bryan and I asked each other that question when we first met Betsy Weber. We thought it might be a "cute" title then; now we know better. Betsy is a relentless evangelist for TechSmith; a software company that publishes three programs we find invaluable in our work 1) SnagIt  2) Camtasia 3) Morae; she never misses an opportunity to make them look good. Betsy is always spreading the word. I don’t know what they pay her or how they measure…

...continue to read "What Is A Chief Evangelist?"