All Script And Tols For Free: 🔍 Mobile commerce shines this holiday

Dec 01, 2020

Good morning, Search Marketer, happy #GivingTuesday

The Cyber Monday numbers are coming in, but online shopping's surge amid the pandemic helped propel Black Friday to become the second biggest day ever in U.S. e-commerce sales, according to Adobe. While in-store foot traffic was off by roughly 50% compared to last year, online purchases included more "groceries, clothes and alcohol, that would previously have been purchased in-store," said Adobe analyst Taylor Schreiner.

Not surprising, curbside pickup was a standout for brick-and-mortar locations. Stores that offered curbside pickup for online purchases took a larger share of in-store sales over the weekend. Adobe expects 50% of retailers to offer curbside pickup in the days leading up to Christmas due to shipping restraints and said mobile now drives 60% of visits to retail stores.

Let's also take a moment to acknowledge how far mobile commerce has come. Mobile accounted for 40% of online spending in the U.S. based on the trillions of visits tracked by Adobe, up 12% from last year. Mobile's conversion share was even higher among the more than one million Shopify sites at 69% of Black Friday sales. Shopify said Monday that it saw global orders peak at over 102 million at 12:00 p.m. EST on Black Friday, up 84% from 2019.

A reminder, we are just ONE WEEK out from SMX. Check out the agenda here. I hope you'll join us.

Ginny Marvin
Editor-In-Chief

Social Short

Facebook to buy customer service platform Kustomer

Facebook said it intends to buy Kustomer, a five year-old startup that specializes in customer relationship management and has a platform that unifies customer conversations across channels, including messaging, into one view. The deal is valued at roughly $1 billion, the Wall Street Journal, which broke the news, reported.

"Our goal with Kustomer is simple: to give businesses access to best-in-class tools that deliver excellent service and support." wrote Dan Levy, VP of Ads and Business Products, and Matt Idema, COO, WhatsApp in a post Monday.

Why we care. Messaging has continued to grow as a significant customer service channel. The acquisition will help bolster Facebook's business operations and social commerce offerings through its messaging services. Kustomer already integrates with Facebook Messenger and is working on an integration with Instagram messaging. Facebook said it plans to help Kustomer scale but also signaled to the antitrust watchers that it will "continue to support the numerous options that businesses have to integrate their CRM platform of choice with our messaging services."

SEO's: Optimize your landing pages and convert more users with less traffic

With so much riding on your landing pages, and only seconds to capture a visitor's attention, it makes sense to optimize those pages for customer conversion. Unfortunately, that's easier said than done. In this white paper from 97th Floor, you'll learn the methodology of multivariate testing and why it might be the SEO tool to beat.

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Search Shorts

JavaScript rendering, click bots and content removal

Google JavaScript rendering before indexing. There is a good dialog between some SEOs and Googlers around why it may appear Google will index a JavaScript document prior to fully rendering it.

Click bots for ranking. A Reddit thread suggests that you can build a click bot to influence your Google rankings. John Mueller of Google said "it makes no sense, but knock yourself out."

Rank after content removal. Google said that even after you remove a piece of content, Google can still rank that page for that content.

3 Video storytelling essentials digital marketers must know

Sponsored by Cloudinary

In an increasingly digital world, video is becoming the new norm for visual storytelling. It's no surprise, given that video is a highly visual and effective medium for communicating with a brand's audience. According to Databox, almost 60% of marketers said video ads tend to drive more engagement than static images.

To create online experiences that resonate with customers, every business should consider emerging video technologies that mirror the in-person experience, such as 3D and 360-degree videos. These immersive tools will build strong customer engagement that push the boundaries of the digital experience. However, the key to using these tools effectively is to first get back to the basics and understand all of the fundamental strategies that can improve a brand's video visual storytelling – one that reaches the right audience and generates strong ROI.

Read More »

T-minus 1 week until SMX

Join 1,000+ search marketers online Dec. 8-9 for SMX. Actionable search marketing tactics, community networking, forward-thinking keynotes, and more — just $249!

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