eCommerce Analytics

One question that we’re repeatedly asked by our customers is how they compare to the “average” online marketer or retailer in terms of conversion rates, number of campaigns, customer acquisition, etc.  Many times it’s hard to pinpoint exact numbers with much accuracy because of differences in business model and marketing channels, but a new survey that just came out on eMarketer gives a fairly nice overview of how current online retailers (limited to the US) are doing in regards to email marketing.

Read Better than average? »

Marketing Sherpa put out the 2009 Email Marketing Benchmark Guide today. One of the insights from the report is that email, in a down economy, is the comfort food that direct marketers curl up with next to the fire. That is, retailers will depend on it more than ever. At Istobe, we’re not surprised. Email marketing, after all, is a mature medium where smart retailers can meaningfully personalize content at a low cost.

Read Marketing Sherpa Says Importance of Targeted Email Will Increase During Economic Downturn »

Many customers have asked us to help them better understand the effect marketing messages have on their customer base. Almost everyone we know uses multi-channel marketing in one form or another - whether it’s email and web ads or email, web ads, and direct mail - most companies are using more than one medium to get their message out to new and existing customers. The problem many companies have is determining how and when to target each customer with the appropriate message.

Read Multi-Channel Marketing and the Zone of Influence »

While working on a proposal the other day for a prospective customer, I decided that I’d go the extra length for him in an attempt to demonstrate where exactly the company could make up some ground in its effort to realize a bit more bang for its buck in its email marketing program. That is, the company wanted to make more money from its existing customer base. When I looked at the company’s email marketing statistics, I was surprised to find that their clickthroughs per purchase was much higher than any company I’d seen.

Read Clickthroughs Per Purchase is the Gold Standard for Targeted Email »

The blogosphere is awash in tips for doing email targeting.  Some are good (almost anything advocating testing email performance) but some are just flat out wrong.  Here are three commonly held tenets of email targeting that you should ignore.

Read 3 Email Targeting Myths »