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Author: Kevin Mackin

Collaboration makes for smarter marketing

I want to talk about collaboration ...

Getting website visitors to return

A typical online new visitor conversion rate is somewhere around 4-5% (source: Coremetrics Benchmark™ for Retail Q2 2010). Whilst that is interesting, the flip side is that it shows that 95% of new visitors to your websites do not convert/buy. ...

Building the brand experience via social channels

I’ve been thinking lately, why have marketers transformed social media into a complicated tool that brands continually misuse and fail to integrate successfully into other marketing campaigns? The essence of social platforms is people authentically connecting with other people; it’s not supposed to be overly massaged ...

Do you hear a Who?

The 1954 book ‘Horton Hears a Who’ by Dr. Seuss tells the story of Horton the Elephant who, in the afternoon of May 15 while splashing in a pool, located in the Jungle of Nool, hears a small speck of dust talking to him. It turns out the speck of dust is actually a tiny planet, home to a city called ‘Who-ville’. ...

Analysis Paralysis?

While some of us are still getting our heads around using basic web analytics services to count website hits and email click-throughs, the leaders in our field in Australia and around the world are using deep dive analytics to significantly up their marketing advantage. There is no longer a point of discussion about ...

Ignorance is not bliss

As a marketing manager (we do most of our stuff online) I have a budget to look after and my main goal is to maximise the return from my marketing investments. I have lots of tactical choices available – banner ads, search, print, emails, newsletter sponsorship, social media and so forth. To decide where to allocate ...

A job half done...

Imagine you’re working in a department store in a large shopping centre. Each time a customer walks in, they must move to the counter and answer some questions before they can begin browsing: What store did you come from? How long will you spend here browsing? Have you been into our store before? What items will ...

Don't like data? The online game isn't for you

Getting stuck into data analysis for your website isn't everyone's cup of tea but it's plain as day now that using data to make marketing decisions is the only path to success. So, unless you're willing to: 
convince yourself that you have a love for data that will stand the test of time, or have someone ...

Of the Sheepdog and Wolf


Once upon a time, in the faraway land of Marketania, there lived two most unlikely friends – a sheepdog and a wolf. Most evenings they would get together on the wind swept hills of Marketania and share stories of their adventures during the day, only occasionally straying on to the topic of most interest to ...

Do you want fries with that?

The online equivalent of “Do you want fries with that?” is fast becoming “Customers who bought this, also bought ………”. But the science around this area, behavioural based merchandising, is a lot deeper than just adding a simple product recommendation based on what someone else has bought. How about recommendations ...

Making use of all that 2010 advice

By now we’ve all read a million articles talking about important learnings from 2009, tips for a better 2010 and hot predictions for the year ahead, all of which offer really useful information and insight. So, perhaps you’re now at the stage of tweaking your marketing plan, bedding down new strategies and firming ...

So you've got web analytics, now what?

You have come to expect a certain amount of unique visitors to your website every month. You know that 30% of website hits bounce and the average time spent on the company site is around 1 minute, 10 seconds. Your overall traffic has increased by 48% in the last month (which is great news) and it’s only the start ...

The adventures of SuperMulti

Faster than a speeding shopping trolley. More powerful than a social media strategy. Look. Up in the sky. It’s a store front. It’s online. It’s SuperMulti!
 
 Yes, it’s SuperMulti, strange visitor from another marketing world who came to Australia with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal ...

5 ways to offers your customers can't resist

It takes deep customer insight to provide a truly personalised online experience. And customisation of every touchpoint and throughout every channel is the key to keeping customers engaged – and coming back for more. Your customers need to feel like you know exactly what they want, when they want it. Of course, ...

Australian Business Community versus Free Web Analytics

There was a gasp from the gallery! The result was not at all what the industry pundits had expected. In the case of the Australian Business Community versus Free Web Analytics, the jury had weighed up the pros and cons, considered the evidence and made their surprising decision: Free Web Analytics was guilty as charged ...

The (marketing) Christmas wish list

Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! Christmas is in the air! I know I run the risk of causing a few people to roll their eyes and move on because the thought of the approaching silly season can be a little too much for many of us. I’m cool with this, but I’m going to take that chance and hope that for many of you, this is ...

Of love lost...



Lucinda sat quietly on the rickety old bench perched high on the cliff top. She gazed wistfully across the sun-drenched beach far below and dreamed of what might have been… The mistral breeze tickled her golden locks, sweeping them backwards and up in reminiscence of Farrah Fawcett.  Why had she ...

With epower comes great esponsibility

Last month’s Marketingmag.com.au poll posed the question: 'Who is held accountable for the outcomes of your web site?' The results surprised me and I am hoping that we might be able to pool our knowledge to understand what it means. Please use the comments section below to add in some of your own thoughts and maybe ...

Sophisticated marketer or sophisticated customer? Which are you?

Even before I read the recent findings from Epsilon International’s survey I would have said that we struggle as marketers to communicate with our sophisticated prospects and customers in the most appropriate way. Now, I’m absolutely positive that most of us will continue the battle to stay relevant… unless we start ...

Online marketing or stalking?

Stalking is bad. It is scary, spooky and downright illegal – why is it then that some of our online colleagues in Australia resort to it as a viable marketing strategy? Sadly, it may be because they don’t realise they are doing it or they are too lazy to do their marketing properly. We should all band together and ...

Learnings from the Online Retailer conference

I had the pleasure of attending the inaugural Online Retailer event in Sydney recently and I must say, I was impressed. The quality of exhibitors, attendees and speakers was high and the topics addressed and discussed very valuable. My congratulations go out to the organisers – they created a lively and engaging ...

Tackling your biggest challenge

I couldn’t help but notice that a recent poll on Marketingmag.com.au showed that an overwhelming number of us (almost 50%) felt that our biggest challenges were measuring marketing ROI and securing internal support for budgets.   These have always been among the top issues faced by marketers but I would have ...

Why you need a strategy this Christmas

The 2009 Christmas holiday season is likely to be one of the most challenging shopping seasons online retailers have ever faced. The economic recession has turned even the most generous spenders into cost-conscious consumers. So, how are you preparing for this Christmas season? Are you and your website ready to ...

Sitting back and watching the cash roll in

Catchy blog title isn’t it? And no, I didn’t write it just to get your attention. It’s absolutely true and relates specifically to our strategies for marketing to existing customers. We’ve all seen those terrific cross-sell and up-sell opportunities on websites. From iTunes to JB HiFi and Coles, many of us find ...

Relentless marketing optimisation

Way back at the end of WWII, the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement throughout all aspects of life was born. At the time, this revolutionary mandate called Kaizen found life in the business world and has been deeply connected to the success of several major Japanese businesses during the country’s post-war ...

Outsourcing your web analytics?

My football team is not doing very well this year – I was at the game the other week and apart from being cold and wet (I’m in Melbourne), we had not scored a goal by half time. So my mind started to wander and I got to thinking of the way the game has changed and how there are now all these statistics and information ...

Garbage in, garbage out – online campaign interaction

Knowing how well an online marketing campaign is working, is critical in working out how much to spend on each of the various campaigns in a mix. As professional marketers, we need to track the campaigns and report the value of the outcomes. You would expect this to be pretty straight forward – you run a banner ad ...

Web traffic is more than just the laws of attraction

Let’s drill down into the nitty-gritty of web traffic and look at why people need to invest in tactics for keeping customers/prospects engaged online. We all tend to focus on the attraction part (which is fundamental too, don’t get me wrong) but what really matters is whether online visitors actually ‘convert’ and ...

Mind the gap: integrating digital and traditional marketing

I noticed some recent discussion on marketing websites about the disconnect between digital and traditional marketing departments, and was intrigued. In this day and age, why would you keep these two marketing teams separate? Surely they share the same goals, are talking to the same people and utilise the same key ...

Web marketing ain't so tough

It's a common misconception that the internet has turned the marketing world on its head, and that conventional tactics for customer engagement are no longer relevant. While there might be significant differences in how we approach online channels, we shouldn't abandon all that we've learnt from marketing traditions ...

Hammering your site when a screwdriver may be better

It’s 10 o’clock on a Tuesday morning – you are sitting in a management meeting (again) trying to figure out how to generate some more revenue for the business. You know that traffic to your website (website hits) is a good indicator of the volume of leads into the sales funnel – but the web site traffic is a bit ...

Why is Google Analytics a free service?

Generally in business, things that are 'free' have some alternate revenue stream or strategy driving them. On the internet, people have become accustomed to using 'free' products and services where the revenue stream is driven by advertising on the site and most do not think twice about taking them onboard. In ...

more about our blogger

Kevin Mackin

Kevin Mackin, FAIM AMAMI CPM, is passionate about disruptive technologies having pioneered advanced CRM systems in the 80s, headed an internet development team in Silicon Valley in the 90s and kicked off Asia Pacific’s online meeting market from 2000. By background, a product marketer – Kevin is currently General Manager Aus/NZ for leading web analytics firm Coremetrics (which just happens to be a technology which is disrupting some traditional marketing norms by bringing accountable measurement to the space). kmackin@coremetrics.com and +613 9653 7397.

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