In short, whether your online sales strategy is very very nice or very very naughty over the next few months will determine whether you wake up to a stocking stuffed with shiny new subscription revenue … or an inert, lusterless lump of unengaged users.

We’re sure that you already have a plan in place (it’s the end of October, after all). But as an early gift from us to you, we’d like to share some tried-and-true tips for maximizing online sales over the next few months. They’re easy to execute and nearly error-proof – what could be better?

Check out our festive infographic below to learn:

• Key statistics on subscription sales during the holiday season
• The best days for blasting promotions to your customer base
• How to use affiliate marketing to acquire more free trial users
• How to leverage email campaigns to increase recurring revenue
• How strategic social media marketing can boost brand awareness
• And more, of course!

The post Growing Subscription Revenue for the Holiday Season [Infographic] appeared first on cleverbridge.

Going Global

Why You Should Let Your Business Travel | Todd Garcia

In this post, Todd Garcia, Senior Account Executive at cleverbridge, explains why you should seriously consider expanding your business into the global market. First, markets in Europe and Asia Pacific are growing. More and more consumers are coming online and shopping. So limiting your online business to local buyers means losing opportunities to grow your revenue. Second, the technology and expertise to assist your business in its global expansion is readily available: “The hurdles of multi-currency transactions or limited access to global payment methods are a thing of the past,” writes Garcia. Ultimately, the internet economy makes it exponentially easier for vendors of digital goods and services to acquire new customers in new geographies.

Global Subscription Experiences

Three Compliance Risks for Global Subscriptions | cleverbridge

This post looks at three areas of the customer experience that can expose your business to significant risk: the sign-up process, email marketing and renewals. These are just some of the issues that arise when you offer subscriptions to a global audience. Knowing how to protect your business will ensure that your efforts at improving your market share in key target markets will lead to more subscribers, more recurring revenue and greater customer lifetime value. Your alternative is plateauing subscriber growth or plunging into uncharted territory without guidance — a good way to inflict your business with customer complaints, lawsuits and regulatory fines.

Data Privacy and Information Security

Three Frameworks for Data Privacy and Information Security | cleverbridge

Beyond building a compliant shopping experience, global compliance involves protecting sensitive data like payment and personal information. There are many frameworks that governments and industry groups have created to assist businesses with this complex task. The main ones discussed in this article are PCI DSS, ISO and GDPR.

Credit Cards: A Nightmare Story | Craig Vodnik

cleverbridge Co-Founder Craig Vodnik examines just how vulnerable companies are to problems surrounding data privacy and information security even when they adhere to industry frameworks like PCI DSS. A recent case of a credit card data breach was associated with a global payments company. Even though that company had strong protections and secure systems in place, and was found to not be at fault for the the breach, the experience must have been challenging for the company. Craig’s main message here is that frameworks like PCI DSS are not a guarantee against hackers gaining control of your customers’ sensitive data. They are in fact, just the first layer of information security, which is why many companies choose to outsource these compliance issues to companies that live and breathe security.

Selling Online for the Holiday Season

The last quarter of the year begins next week, and if statistics and history are any indicator, it should prove to be your most lucrative quarter. You should have already planned your campaigns to boost your revenue for this holiday season, but even if you haven’t, it isn’t too late. Your affiliates are one channel you need to tap to get this boost of revenue. This post from cleverbridge Online Marketing Coordinator Jenny Rooth offers best practices for communicating with your affiliates. This is the time for vendors to strengthen their communication with affiliates in order to take advantage of November and December to generate lots of holiday season sales.

Dive into more global compliance issues with our 3 Compliance Risks for Global Subscriptions ebook

The post September Subscription Digest appeared first on cleverbridge.

For the omnichannel shopper, their journey can start with a search on a mobile device for product info and price, which spurs a visit to a retailer’s website or an in-store visit. If a company is on its omnichannel game, communication will be seamless and proactive throughout the process, providing messages and even promotions along the way.

A hallmark of the omnichannel trend is the end of the brick-and-mortar vs. ecommerce duality. For example on Black Friday this year, Amazon dominated ecommerce sales, accounting for 35 percent of all transactions. Even so, four of the top five ecommerce sellers were traditional brick-and-mortar retailers.

While ecommerce sales still only make up 9 percent of total sales, the data show most holiday retail sales are now influenced by digital interactions, with 64 percent of all in-store sales being influenced by digital channels. Enjoy today’s infographic and read more about why meeting the omnichannel consumer’s needs improves your bottom line.

Download our Maximizing Holiday Ecommerce Guide, one of the Six Guides on Ecommerce Essentials, today.

The post Ecommerce Eye Candy — Omnichannel Holiday Retailing [Infographic] appeared first on cleverbridge.

To learn more about increasing revenue and reducing risk in the global marketplace, download our Six Guides on Ecommerce Essentials today.

EMV Chip Card Implementation

Feud Heats Up Over Chip Cards, FBI Warning | Computerworld

As we noted earlier in the month, new EMV Chip Cards are now in consumers hands, with implications for brick-and-mortar and online merchants alike. The security feature devised in Europe is meant to reduce the risk of fraudulent card transactions. The EMV cards generate a unique code associated with each transaction and are designed to work with a PIN. Whether or not to require consumers to use a PIN with their new cards has been causing some friction between banks and retailers, as detailed in this article from Computerworld.

The crux of the disagreement centers on how retailers and card issuers balance security and convenience. “The banks and card companies have come out against PINs in the U.S., saying that other technologies, such as encryption and tokenization, along with using a microchip-embedded card with signatures, would be more effective in fighting fraud than PINs. Retailers favor PINs, arguing that PINs will reduce fraud not only for lost and stolen chip cards, but also for online and telephone transactions.”

The difference between the two industries came to the fore over their disagreement with an FBI advisory statement about how to use the cards. Their original message contained several references to PINs, angering card issuers. The FBI quickly revised their statement.

Singles Day

What It’s Like To Watch Alibaba’s Singles Day Spectacle | Fortune Magazine

As American and other Western retailers dive headlong into the Black Friday and Cyber Monday kickoff to the holiday shopping season, we are weeks behind China and their instant holiday, Singles Day. The big player behind making Singles Day into an ecommerce phenomenon is Alibaba, headed by their eccentric and intriguing chairman, Jack Ma. While not every CEO may wish to emulate his style, Ma’s uncanny ability to raise revenue makes him a global role model.

When he wasn’t being interviewed by the President of the United States of America at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Manila, Ma could be found at Alibaba’s extravagant Singles Day Gala. Fortune Magazine sent reporter Scott Cendrowski to experience the day, which he describes as feeling, “similar to China’s campy Spring festival program, which commands higher ratings than the Super Bowl, but with a more commercial feel.”  The night included performances by none other than Adam Lambert, game show style contests between Chinese celebrities dressed in red or black, and a New Years Eve style countdown to midnight: the start of Singles Day.

Over the next few hours, it became clear that Alibaba won too, smashing previous sales and analyst predictions. As Cendrowski notes, “A communications person from Alibaba’s Alipay affiliate explains that in the first minute of selling, the payment system handled 85,900 transactions per second. Alipay was hoping to break Mastercard’s previous record of 60,000 transactions a second. Singles Day is shaping up to be the record day Alibaba hoped.”

By the end of Singles Day, Alibaba boasted $14.32 billion in sales in one day. The scale of business is a bit mind numbing. Econsultancy shares these 10 eye-watering stats, including the fact that “71% of Alibaba’s Singles Day sales came from mobile devices.”

If done right, there is no reason why Singles Day need remain solely a Chinese affair. eMarketer interviewed  Melissa O’Malley, director of global merchant and cross-border trade initiatives at PayPal, to explore opportunities and best practices for cross-border ecommerce with China. She admits that, “When I started at PayPal 18 months ago, nobody had heard of Singles’ Day.” The rapid rise of the holiday and its ecommerce trappings may inspire companies to try to get into the game, but O’Malley cautions reminds retailers how peculiar online marketing is in China. “Understanding the dynamics of the Chinese social media landscape is very important. It is so different from what Western retailers are used to doing. It’s just night and day. There’s no YouTube. You can’t just buy everything on Pinterest.”

Global Compliance

Life After Death (of Safe Harbor) – EU Data Protection in the Wake of Schrems | Cyber Law Monitor

Any business with operations, customers or data within the European Union or European Economic Area is grappling with the fallout from the European Court of Justice’s recent ruling that effectively ended the US-EU Safe Harbor agreement. In short, Safe Harbor was a framework agreement that allowed US companies to comply with customer data protection laws in the EU. Owing to recent government surveillance scandals in the US, the ECJ ruled in the Schrems case that Safe Harbor was not sufficient to protect EU citizens’ data. This change may expose companies to major compliance risks with hefty penalties.

The post above from Cyber Law Monitor examines temporary recommendations from the European Commission, which “offers alternative methods for compliance with EU data protection laws, while also highlighting the efforts the Commission is taking to develop a renewed and sound framework for personal data transfer to the U.S.”

Moving froward, no business has a clear idea yet of how the future of trans-border data will work. BNA shares this interview with expert James H. Koenig, who was a panelist on a recent Bloomberg Law webinar on the demise of the Safe Harbor Program. He recommended a keep calm and carry on approach.

“Despite the uncertainty, all companies are doing something on a risk basis in light of the ECJ’s decision. Some are moving ahead to devise a global solution without awaiting or depending on the promised Safe Harbor 2.0. Others are taking interim measures. The appropriate approach varies, depending on the type of company and the sensitivity of the data at issue.”

Keeping up with constantly changing rules and regulations can be a drain on a company’s resources, but the risks of non-compliance are high. UK authorities recently slapped publisher Trinity Mirror with a fine totaling over £70,000 for a VAT payment that was sent only one day late.

This decision could be a sign that regulators are taking a closer look at businesses, and expert Meera Rajah says, “It is really important that businesses recognize and understand the potential impact of either late submission or late payment…To avoid such a mishap, it is imperative that you understand the solutions available and keep on top of your VAT returns.”

To learn more about increasing revenue and reducing risk in the global marketplace, download our Six Guides on Ecommerce Essentials today.

The post November Ecommerce Digest appeared first on cleverbridge.

via GIPHY

This post from HubSpot details seven last minute Black Friday tips to prepare your website. Their tips run the gamut, especially looking at whether your site can stand up to the notorious Black Friday traffic. Author Jeffrey Vocell says, “One of the big concerns for marketers and respective IT folks around this time is a surge in traffic. Many websites can see multiple-times the traffic that is standard during other times of the year, and it all happens over the course of a few days.”

Read the whole article to see HubSpot’s last minute recommendations for how best to manage your site traffic, your site speed, your site security, your return policy or other consumer information, promotions and site SEO for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Of course, your work doesn’t end when your customers place their orders. Be sure your ecommerce marketing remains on track through the rest of the year with HubSpot’s handy Ecommerce Holiday Marketing Calendar 2015. If you’re selling physical products, for instance, they provide this helpful list of shipping deadlines, reproduced below.

Want more? Download our Six Guides on Ecommerce Essentials today. 

The post Ecommerce Eye Candy — Last Minute Black Friday Tips appeared first on cleverbridge.

That’s right, the holiday season ecommerce bonanza is coming.

For our October Ecommerce Digest we take a closer look at the expected growth for online holiday sales, landing page optimization for the holiday rush, as well as recent news that touches all online retailers: the proliferation of ad blocking software.

Bright Outlook for the Holiday Season

Happy Holiday Season Expected for Retailers | eMarketer

In this analysis by eMarketer, we see that the overall forecast for the holiday shopping season is strong. Ecommerce continues to make up a significant component of holiday shopping. They expect online sales “will hit 9.0% of total retail sales this season, or $79.40 billion, up from 8.3% share last year.”

eMarketer also asserts that mobile ecommerce continues to grow. “We estimate that by the end of 2016, 25.0% of all retail ecommerce sales in the US will take place via mobile devices.”

Their analysis of a recent study by Signal found, “an impressive 60% of respondents intended to increase mobile holiday buying activity.”

Optimizing Your Site for Seasonal Sales

SEO & Black Friday: How Are Brands Preparing Their Landing Pages? | Econsultancy

How carefully do you curate your seasonal webpages? This article from Econsultancy examines different landing page strategies in terms of the strength of their SEO.

One approach, employed by UK retailer Currys, favors leaving your Black Friday landing page up year-round. Author Ben Davis says, “Currys has had one page ranking consistently all year. [Their Black Friday landing page] peaked recently at number one and has been live continuously since Black Friday 2014…Currys page is the only British retailer ranking for a host of Black Friday search terms.”

Keeping their site active, while regularly updating content and linking to other seasonal pages has positioned them well to take excellent advantage of the seasonal rush.

Davis emphasizes that overall web presence may be less important than a well targeted landing page. Amazon’s inconsistent ranking for key seasonal search terms illustrates his point. “Amazon is ranking well, so [they] might not be worried by its blip in the SERPs for the phrase ‘Black Friday 2015’, but it still shows how search performance can be affected if you don’t keep an eye open.”

Speaking of Mobile: Let’s Talk Ad Blocking

Ad Blockers — Friend or Foe? | cleverbridge Ecommerce Blog

We have known for months now that the fall release of Apple’s iOS 9 would support ad blocking on Safari. Its launch brought on a flurry of articles about the implications for online retailers, advertisers and consumers.

Randall Rothenberg at AdvertisingAge points out that “Ad blocking is the latest crisis du jour” for digital marketing, presenting significant challenges to the industry.

Meanwhile, Mark Jones at PerformanceIN highlights the reaction of City A.M., one UK site which has banned traffic from readers using ad blocking technology. City A.M. is currently “informing users that the site ‘relies on advertising to fund its journalism,’ and asking users ‘having trouble seeing adverts on the page’ to deactivate ad blockers if they wish to view the content.”

Even APM’s Marketplace is getting in on the deluge of commentary about ad blocking. In this recent piece, they explore new trends in digital advertising, meant to resonate personally with consumers. Brian Wong, CEO of the digital marketing firm Kiip, makes the point that while traditional advertising strategies attempted to overwhelm viewers with ads, “those laws of physics are different on mobile. In fact, you see a brand many times and you get more annoyed.” Listen to the whole piece to learn about what Kiip and others are doing to market to customers in today’s increasingly ad-hostile atmosphere.

All the tumult ad blocking technology has wrought inspires some self-reflection, as noted in this article from Econsultancy. The trade industry group Interactive Advertising Bureau admitted, “We messed up.” The current backlash has inspired IAB’s senior VP Scott Cunningham to confide, “We were so clever and so good at [digital advertising] that we over-engineered the capabilities of the plumbing laid down by, well, ourselves. This steamrolled the users, depleted their devices, and tried their patience.”

As we saw in this week’s Ecommerce Eye Candy, not every analyst agrees with the woeful tune sung by most articles on ad blockers. For a more comprehensive look at how ad blocking is affecting the entire industry, be sure to see Signal’s handy infographic below about the rise of ad blockers.

To learn more about strategies for holiday season ecommerce, download our Six Guides on Ecommerce Essentials today.

The post October Ecommerce Digest appeared first on cleverbridge.

“Deloitte forecasts an 8.5 to 9 percent increase in non-store sales in the online and mail order channels during the 2015 holiday season.” — Deloitte

With some of the biggest holidays right around the corner, now is the perfect time to start thinking about how you are going to maximize your holiday promotions.

We suggest utilizing the tremendous power of your affiliates. Your affiliates can serve as a huge additional source of holiday revenue.

So what’s the best way to help your affiliate business thrive during the holiday frenzy? We talked to cleverbridge Marketing Services Manager Jessie Adamczyk to get some advice. Adamczyk oversees a successful global affiliate platform, working with thousands of affiliates. She gave us four simple steps to maximize affiliate holiday promotions.

1. Think Further Ahead

“Don’t email your affiliates five days before you want to run a promotion,” says Adamczyk. “If you want your campaign to be successful, you need to prepare in advance.”

It sounds so easy, but everyone knows how busy things can get. It is essential to be organized and equipped. Have your annual promotional calendar planned out so you can contact affiliates at least one month before. Better yet, send affiliates your annual calendar along with individual reminders as each holiday approaches.

2. Keep a Global Perspective

When you sell digital products you have a huge advantage. You can sell anywhere in the world, especially if you’ve got a great ecommerce partner. It’s easy to do some research on the major shopping holidays in other regions. Use that information to plan some unique holiday campaigns that will appeal to your international customers.

“From the Day of the Dead to Boxing Day, you should pay attention to opportunities outside your time zone.” Adamczyk says. “For example, Christmas Advent is huge in Europe. You can plan a different promotion each day leading up to Christmas. Back-to-school time is also a peak time for software sales in many regions.”

3. Get Creative With Your Calendar

Start planning your annual calendar now. Include all of the obvious holidays from all of the areas you serve. But don’t overlook more obscure special days that you can use to your marketing advantage. “I’ve seen great success when clients target random holidays, the ones that aren’t so obvious,” Adamczyk says. “Mother’s Day, Independence Day, even St. Patrick’s Day can be real money makers when you take advantage of your affiliate network.”

4. Know How to Communicate With Your Affiliates

“Treat your affiliates like partners, not an afterthought,” Adamczyk says. “Take some time to get to know your affiliates, and have a plan to communicate with them appropriately.”

Affiliates routinely receive more than 200 emails per day. Adamczyk suggests creating an email newsletter to communicate general news with all affiliates, and then follow up with a personal email or phone call to your individual affiliates directly.

“Start by focusing your efforts on high-volume affiliates,” Adamczyk says. “The time you take to cultivate relationships with affiliates is never wasted.”

Make it as easy as possible for affiliates to promote your products. Provide them with marketing materials that they can use if they want to. But also be open to their ideas for success. Every affiliate works differently. Some like coupon codes, others prefer graphics and banners. “The more flexible you are, the better your results will be.”

Keystone

Take advantage of your affiliate network to really cash in on holiday promotions. If you follow the common sense steps above, you’ll have a full calendar of lucrative holiday opportunities.

Learn more about holiday ecommerce (and more) by downloading our six guides on ecommerce essentials.

The post Four Simple Steps to Maximize Affiliate Holiday Promotions appeared first on cleverbridge.

This time of year, it is easy for merchants to get excited over increasing sales numbers. Most merchants depend on holiday season ecommerce to meet their yearly numbers and remain profitable. But those glaring dollar (and euro) signs can blind merchants from the onslaught of chargebacks and disputes to come in the not-so-distant future. Some easy preventative measures can help merchants reduce holiday season ecommerce chargebacks, keep their customers happy, and most importantly – keep those profits in their own pockets.

According to risk-management provider Verifi, “chargeback volumes [among its clients] can increase by as much as 50 percent during the holiday-shopping season.” Whether you work with a third party risk mitigation company, or handle everything in-house, chargebacks are the payment elephant in the room everyone wants to ignore, but shouldn’t.

Fraud Chargebacks vs. Customer Chargebacks

For simplicity, breaking down chargebacks into two separate categories can help identify opportunities in your company for prevention: fraud chargebacks and customer chargebacks.

Fraud chargebacks are when you, the merchant, are maliciously attacked by a fraudster. They are looking to steal your products using everything from stolen credit card data to misappropriated valid consumer information. And with the number of data breaches reported this year (and unreported), it has become harder to identify valid vs. non-valid purchases.

These type of chargebacks can be the most harmful to your bottom line if there is a hole that fraudsters can exploit. Do you track velocity? Do you use an address verification system (AVS)? Does your current payment processor validate orders at the point of sale? After the sale? Does your website have the most up-to-date encryption on the purchase page? Do you have a dedicated fraud prevention specialist for verifying sales that “don’t make sense?” Answering these questions can help prevent some fraudulent sales – specifically the fraudsters who are less elegant in their attack schemes.

Customer (non-fraud) chargebacks occur when customers place a valid order, but dispute the charge anyway. These type of chargebacks can harm your bottom line and your brand as a whole. And if a merchant loses positive brand recognition starting Black Friday sales in mid-July won’t help them remain profitable.

According to risk-management provider Verifi, “chargeback volumes [among its clients] can increase by as much as 50 percent during the holiday-shopping season.”

Some of the most common types of customer chargebacks are:

• Services not rendered/not as described
• Non-receipt of merchandise
• Credit not processed
• Cardholder does not recognize

All of these can be prevented with some simple planning on the merchant’s end.

1. Make sure you send what you are advertising/selling. This may seem simple, but merchants may think they can make a last minute change if they are out of a certain product. Or even something like your webpage not being fully optimized and showing a certain shade of yellow that is not the same as the shirt you send your customer.
2. Make sure you send products to where the customer asks. Additionally, make sure you are sending to valid addresses, matching shipping and billing addresses, valid AVS, and proof of delivery if the product is expensive. Visa and MasterCard have started making adjustments to evidence submitted in chargeback cases, but nothing will help you if you send a product to a wrong address, or if AVS is not a match and you send it out anyway.
3. If a customer wants a credit, and you have the product still, credit the transaction back. Do not haggle. Do not keep some money for your “inconvenience.” Do not give a store credit (unless customer EXPLICITLY agrees). You will lose these chargebacks every time. If the customer still has the product and agrees to send it back, credit the customer after you receive it. If the customer does not agree to send it back, then work with your processor and see what they suggest in this situation.
4. For cardholder doesn’t recognize, is your messaging clear to the customer? Do they know what is going to appear on their credit card statement? Are you a subsidiary, and the parent company appears? Simple steps like adjusting a credit card descriptor helps a lot.

The beauty of these preventative measures is that most cost almost nothing.  You can handle them on your own if you have the resources.

Verifying AVS, velocity checks and delivery verification should be something you already have in place. Most DIY payment gateways have these as basic fraud options and requesting proof of delivery should be part of your delivery method anyway.

If your gateway does not have adequate preventative measures, check with your credit card processor and ask if they have credit card investigators/fraud investigators screening your transactions. They might not catch the transaction until after you authorize it, but with their help you can run a refund, lose a fraudulent sale and keep your merchandise.

If a chargeback does come in, work with your payment processor. Remember that they weren’t the ones who ran the transaction, and they aren’t the ones who initiated the dispute. But they do want to work with you to get your merchandise or money back.

If you don’t have any preventative measures in place stop reading this article and go fix that. Right now. The upfront costs do not compare to the dangers of losing your money, your merchandise, your brand reputation, and your ability to take credit cards – all due to chargebacks from the most wonderful time of the year.

Keystone

Chargebacks are a part of doing business, but they don’t have to put you out of business. Preventative steps can be taken to mitigate the costs, and optimize your profit during the busiest time of the year.

Tim Russo is the Fraud Prevention Team Leader at cleverbridge

The post All I Want for Christmas Is No Chargebacks appeared first on cleverbridge.

This infographic from Offerpop is based on their research report called Top Holiday Marketing Trends for 2014. Among the more notable findings of the report is that brands are investing more in social this year and that they are not interested in untested networks. The former, I am sure, is due to the efforts of networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to drive revenue through their advertising capabilities.

I am curious to hear from our readers how well social media advertising and brand promotion works for you. Does social advertising drive revenue or generate leads for your business, and is November and December an especially effective time for it?

Let us know how you handle social advertising for the holiday season in the comment section below.

The post Ecommerce Eye Candy – Holiday Social Media Marketing Trends [Infographic and Research Report] appeared first on cleverbridge.

This chart shows the top ten spending days made online from desktop computers in 2013. Guess what. They were all in November and December.

Suffice to say, November and December sales are important for brick-and-mortar and online stores alike, and there is a lot you should be doing to maximize your holiday season revenue. You should have started by assembling your colleagues and partners who are responsible for SEO and PPC focused content, email campaigns and all the relevant landing pages for those channels. You should also perform load tests to make sure your ecommerce platform is ready to handle an increase in traffic, and that your servers and networks are capable of processing at least several times the expected amount of orders and their attendant confirmation pages, receipts and login information. At the same time, work closely with your customer service team to provide them the knowledge they need to satisfy any and all customers inquiries, whether they are issues related to coupons or how to access a program.

This infographic from AmeriCommerce called Holiday Sales: The Numbers, gives some advice you can count on. Cyber Monday is definitely the big kahuna of holiday season shopping, but your bottom line is going to depend on more than one day. These past three weeks and the next month are going to set the tone for your entire previous year and your approaching one. Shoppers are hunting online for gifts starting in October and all through November and December. Your job now is to help them make their purchasing decisions early and easily.

Holiday Sales – Infographic [Infographic] by the team at AmeriCommerce

The post Ecommerce Eye Candy – Holiday Season Numbers [Infographic] appeared first on cleverbridge.