TrialPay Supports Senate Hearing on Aggressive Online Sales Tactics
Tuesday, November 17, 2009This
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
Top Online Merchants Share Their Holiday Sales Tactics
Thursday, November 12, 2009A 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.
Four Tips for Effective Plain Text Marketing E-mails
Tuesday, November 3, 2009As 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.
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.
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.
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.
Virtual Goods Summit 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009With 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!