Selling Points: Optimizing E-Commerce

Offer completions are an important component of nearly every casual game developer’s virtual currency monetization platform. By displaying targeted, quality advertiser offers as an alternative to direct payments (such as credit cards, PayPal and mobile SMS payments), ad-supported payment platforms can help casual game companies significantly increase payment conversions. But platforms with low-quality offers can just as easily have a negative impact on sales. Follow these five rules to ensure that your ad-supported payment options boost your sales, not harm them. 1. Focus on quantity and quality It’s beneficial to have a variety of offers for your users to chose from, but it is equally as important to ensure that every offer is of the highest quality. Each offer you present is a direct reflection of your own brand. When users successfully and easily complete an offer, they are far more likely to become repeat customers. For the highest quality offers, select a monetization platform that maintains direct relationships with its advertising partners. 2. Display relevant offers Quality and quantity certainly are important elements for successful offer completions, but for optimal results, each offer you display must be relevant to your target audience. This can be done on a broad scale by presenting offers that would appeal to the majority of your users. But some monetization platforms, such as TrialPay, are able to target each individual user and present offers that will most likely compel him or her to make a purchase. 3. Deeply integrate offers Offer completions are an integral component of monetization platforms, and they aren’t just limited to your payments page. Many platforms can incorporate offers directly into any page of your game, such as on the wall of a virtual room. This kind of deep offer integration can significantly increase payment conversions, especially when offers are displayed in high traffic areas with high user engagement. 4. Don’t spam or scam your users Surveys are a popular way for casual game developers to monetize users, but be wary of platforms that predominantly use co-registration offers. Unlike pure market research surveys, co-registrations sell your customers’ information, spamming them indefinitely. It’s imperative to use a monetization platform that will handle your customers’ information as honestly as you would. Unsure if your payment platform is reputable or not? Check its Better Business Bureau rating. 5. Offer customer support Many users are seasoned veterans when it comes to offer completions. But for many others, ad-supported payments are a relatively new concept. Enhance the user experience by giving clear and concise directions on how to complete the offer, and give immediate customer service for those who still may be confused. For added peace of mind, choose a payment platform that supplies its own reliable customer support. Be sure to check back next week for a look at how to best implement direct payments into your virtual currency monetization platform.

Lavasoft: Best Download Interstitial
Welcome to TrialPay’s Best Of Web (BOW) Awards, where we recognize the savvy online merchants that best utilize TrialPay’s e-commerce solutions. This month we’re honoring Lavasoft for their successful implementation of one of our top touchpoints, the Download Interstitial.

TrialPay’s Download Interstitials help online merchants convert customers before they have a chance to download the free or trial version by providing hundreds of ways to get a free upgrade. Customers get free access to the full version and merchants get paid in the process.

Lavasoft was the originator of TrialPay’s Download Interstitial, which has helped the company sell thousands of additional copies of Ad-Aware every month. Below are ten reasons why Lavasoft’s use of this touchpoint is so successful.

Top Ten Elements of a Successful Download Interstitial

1. Prominent placement on the company’s Web site (Lavasoft’s home page) directs any customer who attempts to download the free version to this page.
2. The page uses the same header used on all other pages of the company’s site.
3. The full version of the product is displayed prominently and highlighted with a red banner.
4. Both products are visually represented.
5. Customers are offered a clear choice between the free version and the upgraded version.
6. There is a concise explanation of how TrialPay works.
7. TrialPay’s logo prepares customers to receive a TrialPay-branded e-mail with directions on how to get the full product for free.
8. A compelling product description lets customers know why they should upgrade to the full version.
9. A comparison chart lets shoppers see the differences between each product at a glance.
10. Additional terms and conditions avoid any confusion about who is eligible for this special offer.

Are you interested in implementing these best practices into your own download interstitial and receiving custom creative free of charge? Contact your account manager today.

A complicated checkout process is a surefire way to lose crucial customers. It could test customer patience and give them plenty of reason to shop elsewhere. But there are a few things you can do to optimize your checkout flow to encourage more shoppers to complete their transactions on your site. Just follow these five tips: 1. Use as few pages as possible At grocery stores, shoppers instinctively head for the shortest line. Online, it’s no different; consumers always want a quick and convenient checkout. The fewer pages your checkout has, the quicker shoppers can finish their transactions. Simplify your checkout by consolidating similar forms, such as shipping, billing, and credit card details, on the same page. Or better yet, incorporate all forms into an easy one-page checkout. 2. Put the shipping costs in plain sight Shipping costs must be disclosed early on in the checkout process so that customers can make informed purchasing decisions. Finding high shipping costs at the end of a long and complicated checkout can frustrate any shopper enough to abandon his cart. Many retailers avoid exposing this high cost altogether by offering free shipping. But if you want to avoid using such an expensive promotion, try offering purchase incentives from another company instead. 3. Offer a variety of payment options Not too long ago, the only payment choice online shoppers had was which credit card brand they would like to use. But thanks to the ever-growing alternative payments industry, customers have endless options when it comes time to checkout. With millions of shoppers putting away the plastic in favor of more secure, convenient or affordable alternative payment options, merchants that only accept credit cards are simply turning customers away. 4. Include a customer service contact Regardless of how much you simplify your checkout, some customers may still require assistance. It’s important to include customer service contact info or a help menu directly on the checkout page. Otherwise, a confused customer will have no choice but to abandon their cart to find your site’s help page, or worse, make a purchase on your competitor’s site instead. 5. Take measures against cart abandonment If a customer still decides to abandon his cart, a pop-up is an effective way to grab his or her attention and save the sale. Make your pop-up a little less pesky with a special offer or incentive to complete their sale, such as the page abandonment tool pictured below that offers a chance to get the product free through TrialPay.

When Amazon.com began offering free shipping in 2002, it sparked an undeniable trend among countless e-commerce sites. Ever since, online retailers from Best Buy to Victoria’s Secret to JCPenney have offered free shipping as a regular incentive or as a special promotion because of its innate ability to increase sales, boost average order values and attract loyal customers.

But while the benefits of free shipping might make any online retailer want to absorb the cost, it just isn’t an option for many businesses. Oftentimes it’s just too expensive, especially for low-ticket items with a small profit margin or big and bulky products that might cost upwards of $50 to ship across country.

Some merchants combat this problem by folding the shipping and handling costs into the price of the product. But this is a risky move since today’s savvy online shopper will spot an overly-inflated price the moment she Googles the product name.

So what can you do boost sales, AOV and customer retention without having to worry about the high cost of shipping? Offer a free product, gift card or valuable coupon from another company or advertiser as an incentive. The perceived value of the incentive will be much greater than the perceived value of free shipping. And it will cost far less than the price of shipping and handling.

This might sound too good to be true, but many advertisers are more than willing to provide online merchants with a product at little or no cost because:

1. They will receive valuable exposure on your site.
2. They know that the lifetime value of the customers they will gain is greater than the cost of the discount or product they are providing.

This is something that happens quite frequently in the software industry, as small software companies practically give away their products to gain exposure on a larger company’s site. And TrialPay recently launched its Purchase Incentives program, which lets online merchants select from a catalog of low-cost incentives with a high customer-perceived value. Adopting a similar strategy will encourage more shoppers to buy from your site and add more to their carts. And with free shipping almost the norm these days, offering something else might be the best way to make your site stand out among the competition.