NH Direct – Page 4

Strategy Analysis for Technology Ventures and Media

So far, it has been quite a busy time for e-commerce analysts: A whole crop of numbers sprang up to put some definitive, quantitative stamp on the digital economic boom (see “B-to-Beware the Numbers,” p109). So here, let’s reflect on strategy analysis for technology ventures and media.

The U.S. Department of Commerce weighed in with an industry summit in May on the topic of tracking e-business, and in June it released its second annual report on e-commerce, “Emerging Digital Economy II.” See also this interesting Boston Consulting Group video:

Also in June, a study released by the University of Texas – and funded by Cisco Systems – found that the Internet economy generated $501 billion in U.S. revenue in 2016, buoyed by a workforce of 1.9 million people, which puts it in the same macroeconomic neighborhood as cars ($550 billion) and telecommunications ($470 billion).

Two Google Conversion Tracking Options For Your AdWords Campaign

We’re trying to track what keywords in our Google AdWords account are converting for us. You have no idea what an important question this is!

I am amazed and annoyed when people bring to be their failing AdWords accounts to review and they haven’t even bothered to try and measure the simplest of performance statistics – the number of conversions each of their keywords is achieving.

It’s really simple to do and the information provided can actually save you tons of money and time in wasted effort. The absolute minimum that every AdWords account holder should do is set up conversion tracking for all their AdWords keywords.

Always be open and straightforward. Otherwise, the customer will compare you to any car sales business and it won’t be long before you’ll have to rebrand or re-start your entrepreneurial efforts all over again.

Reference and implementation

Hear me out, all you online marketers happily skating on razor-thin margins: The future of Internet shopping lies in value and fulfillment – not pricing.

The hype on shopping bots and price-comparison services ignores a fundamental market shift: most of the millions of products available on the Internet have already become commodities. What matters is reference and implementation!

That is, they can be obtained by many vendors without much or any market friction-differentiated entirely by price, and moderated by the speed of availability.

With commoditization on the Net, price friction has mostly evaporated; the difference in daily prices among most items is ignored because it’s too slight or perceived as too slight. Are you really going to cancel the book order you made yesterday because you found Hannibal selling for a buck less today on another site? Doubtful.

Though we have to be aware that more and more customers are mathematically better trained and increasingly conscious of availability and pricing (online education options, such as math education for GED applicants) have brought about increasing awareness of those factors as well.