Selling Points: Optimizing E-Commerce

TrialPay Supports Senate Hearing on Aggressive Online Sales Tactics

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

This afternoon the Senate Commerce Committee, chaired by Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), will hold a hearing on "Aggressive Sales Tactics on the Internet and their Impact on American Consumers."  The committee also released a report on these practices.

The hearing's focus is on deceptive post-transaction offers -- cases in which, after completing an online transaction with one merchant, the consumer receives an offer from an unrelated merchant that often results in the consumer being charged unexpected monthly fees.  These post-transaction offers have generated thousands of consumer complaints and deserve close scrutiny from legislators and regulators. 

TrialPay cares about this issue because the long-term success of our business depends upon consumers trusting online merchants -- and the kind of post-transaction offers currently under investigation undermine that trust.  We are grateful to the Senate Commerce Committee for investigating these deceptive post-transaction offers, and we encourage other companies to join TrialPay in calling for more consumer-friendly industry practices. 

Posted by Clint Smith, TrialPay's VP and General Counsel

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Top Online Merchants Share Their Holiday Sales Tactics

Thursday, November 12, 2009

A holiday retail report released by the National Retail Federation last month forecasted that overall holiday retail sales would decline this year, but that’s not the case for online merchants. According to Forrester Research, online retail sales in the U.S. are expected to increase 8% this season.

Industry experts say this is due to an increased number of bargain hunters turning to the Web for deals—which means online sellers are looking to implement the most compelling promotions. So what can online retailers do to increase holiday sales and create happy customers? We recently polled our merchant partners to find out, and here are their top answers:

Social Media
Online merchants are looking to attract and engage more users by tapping into social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. According to Shop.org's annual eHoliday Study, 60.3% of retailers have already made enhancements to their Facebook pages, 58.7% have improved their Twitter pages, and 65.5% have updated their blogs and RSS feeds. Merchants are also implementing marketing videos to distribute via social networking sites in order to increase the stickiness of their Web sites and to create a viral effect. Click here for best practices for businesses on Twitter, and here for five tips for a successful Facebook fan page.

TrialPay
TrialPay’s Get It Free payment platform helps online merchants increase sales over the holidays—even if their products have little or nothing to do with gift-giving. Our partnerships with great holiday-shopping destinations (such as Gap, Best Buy, Pacific Sunwear and more) present a great opportunity for merchants to convert more customers. Software companies, subscription services and online game developers use TrialPay to let customers purchase the hottest gifts for the holidays and get a present for themselves in the process—the merchant’s free product.

Incentives
This year, online retailers are responding to consumers’ desires for incentives such as money-saving bundles and free shipping. Grouping complementary items together at a discounted rate creates an incentive for customers to buy their original item, plus one or more products that they hadn’t initially intended on buying—which increases conversions and boosts average order values. And while free shipping can be an effective marketing strategy, it can also be expensive, especially for large ticket items or those with a small profit margin. But merchants who don’t offer free shipping can offer other creative incentives instead.

Discounts
With holiday shoppers actively looking for the best deal on the Web, online merchants are offering discounts through e-mail campaigns, via social networking sites and directly on their Web sites. While a lower price can effectively attract more customers away from the competition, merchants must also be careful not to negatively cut into profit margins.

Have any other smart marketing strategies for the holiday season? Please share them below.

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Four Tips for Effective Plain Text Marketing E-mails

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

As we recently discussed, the number of people who access online information on their mobile devices has skyrocketed—which means so has the number of people who won’t be able to read your HTML e-mails on their text-only devices.  Plain text e-mails surely don’t have the glitz and glamour of HTML e-mails. But they have a very important advantage: they are readable no matter what platform your readers are viewing them in.

Whenever possible, send your marketing emails as plain text. This will ensure your messages are much smaller than HTML, and readable in every e-mail platform. Here are four tips to ensure you’re sending effective plain text e-mails:

1. Get creative with punctuation
Without rich formatting found in HTML e-mails, it can be difficult to break up your plain text e-mails into digestible segments. But by getting creative with punctuation, you can easily create headlines and make important content stand out. Try CAPS in place of bold, and use spacing, dashes and asterisks to break up big chunks of text.

2. Use a menu
Unlike HTML e-mails, plain text e-mails cannot have several columns—which means they have a tendency to get very long. To avoid overwhelming your readers, use a menu or brief summary at the top of your plain text e-mail.

3. Include an HTML version
For your readers who are in fact opening your e-mail on their laptops, always include a link to a Web-based HTML version of your message. This is where you can get creative with images and rich formatting.

4. Send a test campaign
As with any e-mail marketing campaign, be sure to send a test campaign for proofing. This is especially important for plain text e-mails because they have a tendency to have abrupt line breaks. And since your audience will likely read your e-mails on a variety of platforms, make sure you open your test campaign on your computer, your mobile device and your MP3 player.

Be sure to check out our other tips for effective e-mail marketing campaigns.

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Direct ad relationships provide higher payouts, special holiday promotions

Thursday, October 29, 2009

When it comes to selecting an offer-based monetization platform, it’s imperative to select a company with direct advertiser relationships. Not only will this ensure the highest payouts, but it will also allow for creative holiday promotions that can incrementally increase sales.

TrialPay has the most direct relationships in the industry, and partners with large, name-brand advertisers (such as FTD, Netflix and Real Networks) to enable game developers to maximize margins and significantly enhance user experience.  While other offer platforms use third-party affiliate networks to acquire offer inventory, TrialPay “cuts out the middleman” and increases payouts by going direct—often more than double the industry average.

TrialPay is also able to facilitate Featured Offers for special occasions and holidays, such as Green Patch’s Mother’s Day campaign, which leveraged TrialPay’s direct relationship with FTD to provide relevancy and increase user engagement.

Leading up to Mother’s Day, Green Patch added two featured offers on its payment page, replacing existing display ad inventory.  By clicking on these offers, players could earn 4,500 GreenBucks (Green Patch’s standard currency) or 150 Gold (Green Patch’s premium currency) for free when they sent flowers with FTD.  TrialPay’s direct relationship with FTD made the integration seamless, and the creative promotion tied the virtual world together with a real-world experience.  

During the short Mother’s Day campaign, Green Patch earned tens of thousands of dollars in new revenue, and its average payout was 7 times higher than the industry average. Click here to learn more about TrialPay’s social apps and casual games monetization solutions, where you can also download the entire Green Patch case study.              

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Virtual Goods Summit 2009

Monday, October 26, 2009

With the total U.S. market size for virtual goods expected to reach $1 billion this year (that’s twice the amount of 2008!), it seems virtual currency, virtual goods and virtual economies are on the minds of Internet and social media professionals everywhere.  Those looking to talk about what's changed, what's working, and the key challenges facing the industry will be in San Francisco this week for the Third Annual Virtual Goods Summit on Friday, October 30.

This year, not only is TrialPay exhibiting, but our GM of Social and Casual Games, Will O’Brien, will be speaking on the panel, "The Payments Landscape – Virtual Goods Payment Options” on October 29 at 4:10 p.m. Don’t miss it!

The 2009 edition of the Virtual Goods Summit will bring together executives from leading companies in the virtual goods ecosystem, including Playfish, Zynga, PayPal and TrialPay. The Summit will also offer Virtual Goods University, a half-day seminar covering topics ranging from why virtual goods are effective to the ins and outs of managing a virtual economy.

It’s not too late to register. Use the discount code TRIALPAY to get 15% off tickets to both Virtual Goods Summit and Virtual Goods University.

See you Friday!

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