Technology-driven online marketing performance measurement: lessons from affiliate marketing

Although the measurement of offline and online marketing is extensively researched, the literature on online performance measurement still has a number of limitations such as slow theory advancement and predominance of technology- and practitioner-driven measurement approaches. By focusing on the widely employed but under-researched affiliate marketing channel, this study addresses these limitations and evaluates the effectiveness of practitioner-led online performance assessment. The paper offers a comprehensive review of extant performance measurement research across traditional, online and affiliate marketing and, employing grounded theory, presents a qualitative in-depth analysis of 72 online forum discussions and 37 semi-structured interviews with the major affiliate marketing stakeholders. As a result, the research identifies a growing need for change in the technology-pushed measurement approaches in affiliate marketing, and proposes actionable improvement recommendations for affiliate and online marketing managers

A grounded theory of affiliate marketing performance measurement in the tourism and hospitality context

Although the measurement of offline and online marketing is extensively researched, the area of online performance measurement still presents a number of unaddressed gaps, such as fragmented research and predominance of practitioner-driven measurement approaches. With a focus on affiliate marketing in tourism and hospitality, this thesis addressed these gaps and evaluates the effectiveness of practitioner-led online performance assessment. More precisely, the study explores a potential shift in affiliate marketing measurement practices, and develops a theory of affiliate marketing performances measurement in tourism and hospitality. Relying on a grounded theory research strategy, the work undertakes qualitative analysis of 72 online forum discussions, 37 interviews and 40 questionnaires with the major affiliate marketing stakeholder groups from the tourism and hospitality industry - merchants, affiliates, affiliate networks and affiliate agencies. The findings of the thesis add value to both theory and practice. The theoretical contribution of the research is twofold. First, the work furthers the broader marketing theory and in particular the distribution and promotion literature by exploring an under-researched online marketing channel - affiliate marketing - that can be employed for both promotion and distribution purposes. The study provides a detailed description of an affiliate marketing ecosystem and defines the key affiliate marketing constructs. Second, the work contributes to the performance measurement research by developing a substantiative theory of affiliate marketing performance measurement in tourism and hospitality. From the practitioner perspective, the work brings value by proposing a change in existing performance measurement practices and offering a process-oriented model of performance measurement in affiliate marketing, which details the phases and steps that managers can undertake in assessing performance. To further the findings, future research can explore the applicability of the proposed model to other industry sectors and online channels, and can develop the proposed substantive theory to a formal theory by employing other research methods, for example case studies and action research

Internet Marketing for Profit Organizations: A framework for the implementation of strategic internet marketing

Merged with duplicate record 10026.1/828 on 13.03.2017 by CS (TIS)The development of the Internet has significantly changed the face of established markets and operation approaches across a tremendous spectrum of different industries. Within the competitive environment of those industries, the opportunities and risks derived from the new platform are so ubiquitous that unused opportunities quickly translate into potential risks. Those opportunities and risks demand for a structured approach how to implement a sustainable Internet marketing strategy that targets clear business objectives. Marketing and strategic management theory describes very clear structural principles towards their operational implementation. Based on those principles an extensive literature review has been conducted which confirms the result from representative statistics that demonstrate the lack of a comprehensive framework for strategic Internet marketing. The distinct result of this research is such a comprehensive framework which has been directly derived from the illustrated principles of strategic management and Internet marketing. All major components of this generic framework are designed, evaluated in dedicated surveys and validated in extensive case studies. The main achievements of the research are: • A comprehensive review of the current state-of-the-art Internet marketing strategies • Conceptual specification of a strategic Internet marketing framework with generic applicability to profit organizations • Demonstration of the practical feasibility of the proposed framework at the implementation level (via several examples like the SIMTF and SIMPF) • Confirmation of the applicability of the framework based upon a survey of potential beneficiaries • Validation of the effectiveness of the approach via case study scenarios Changing the understanding of a former technical discipline, the thesis describes how Internet marketing becomes a precise strategic instrument for profit organizations. The new structured, complete and self-similar framework facilitates sales organizations to significantly increase the effectiveness and efficiency of their marketing operations. Furthermore, the framework ensures a high level of transparency about the impact and benefit of individual activities. The new model explicitly answers concerns and problems raised and documented in existing research and accommodate for the current limitations of strategic Internet marketing. The framework allows evaluating existing as well as future Internet marketing tactics and provides a reference model for all other definitions of objectives, KPI and work packages. Finally this thesis also matures the subject matter of Internet marketing as a discipline of independent scientific research providing an underlying structure for subsequent studies.Darmstadt Node of the CSCAN Network at University of Applied Sciences, Darmstad

The Impact of Visual Design on Web Persuasiveness

Many commentators of web persuasion have suggested that content is the key factor responsible for creating credible (and therefore persuasive) websites. Research in a variety of fields has been devoted to identifying accurate methods of determining a website\u27s trustworthiness in order to help organizations promote credibility and teach users to critically analyze it. By focusing on the credibility of content, however, researchers are promoting an unbalanced perspective of web persuasiveness that privileges textual content over visual design. This thesis hypothesizes that visual design significantly impacts web persuasiveness. First, exploration of current theories of web persuasiveness reveals the importance of persuasion in measuring a website\u27s success and the need to expand consideration of persuasive factors beyond the credibility of content. Next, Chapter 2 demonstrates the impact of visual design through explanation of the perceptual process and the theory of halo effect. Then, design principles from theorists such as Tufte, Kress and Van Leeuwen, Mullet and Sano, and Kostelnick and Roberts are suggested as a means for determining whether or not a visual design is \u27attractive.\u27 To study the effects of these design principles (or their absence) on web persuasiveness, I conducted a pilot study where one group of participants used an \u27attractive\u27 website while another group used an \u27unattractive\u27 version of the same website. Results from this study suggest that visual design does have a positive impact on web persuasion

ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF ARTISTIC ARCHITECTURE ON PERCEIVED USABILITY AND WILLINGNESS TO USE MOBILE COMMERCE APPLICATIONS

Creating a useful portable browser or program is a demanding challenge for organisations due to the size constraints of the display area, which additionally is contingent on usability, internet connectivity, efficient backup power and mobility. Users also expect performance equivalent to that of microcomputers. Portable display programmers need to surmount these challenges without compromising users’ concerns for safety and confidentiality. Various works in the past couple of years revealed the ability of a strongly perceived artistic architecture of a mobile website as a push to overcome clients’ reduced  skill. The investigation conducted in this report sought to determine the distinct impact of eight artistic display  on the  of a mobile website or program and the corresponding clients’ . Organisations may thus take advantage of this knowledge to improve usage, trust, frequency of adoption and consequently financial rewards on m-commerce applications. This study uses a  with a screening objective. Data for the experiment was sourced through a web-based questionnaire program, . At the same time, social network sites were used to disseminate the questionnaires to enable gathering a good number of respondents. The data collection instrument had  statements with  threshold for  Ninety-six  participants took part in the inquiry. In contrast, seventy-six  participants completed the exercise, signifying an estimated.  was used in the study of the association concerning the .  package was utilised in the evaluation of the . Findings revealed that artistic architecture bears a substantial impact on  of portable websites and programs as well as influences  artefacts on such platforms. , as well as the  of an application, turned out as two features with the highest impact on the two  factors. That the orientation of their effects is a reverse of the conjectured outcome suggests that future work should explore this issue

Clicks to conversion: the value of product information and price incentives

Journal ArticleThis study uses clickstream data obtained from a large online durable goods retailer to examine how different types of information - product-related and price-related information provided by retailers - impact purchase-related outcomes for consumers. Using mixture-modeling techniques to analyze latent differences among customers, we find that consumers fall under three distinct categories - directed shoppers, deliberating researchers and browsers. In examining the impacts of information on purchase outcomes, we find that product and price-related information impacts consumers in these three shopping states differently. While product information highlighting features of product alternatives in a category has the strongest impact on deliberating researchers, specific price incentives related to category-level discounts increases the likelihood of purchase for both directed shoppers as well as browsers. Price incentives relating to site-wide free shipping have a positive impact on purchase for all consumers. Surprisingly, category-level discounts have a negative impact on deliberating researchers, while rich product information hampers the purchase process of directed shoppers. We discuss the managerial implications of our findings and the role of clickstream analytics in designing dynamic targeting and information provisioning strategies for online retailers

Linking Research and Policy: Assessing a Framework for Organic Agricultural Support in Ireland

This paper links social science research and agricultural policy through an analysis of support for organic agriculture and food. Globally, sales of organic food have experienced 20% annual increases for the past two decades, and represent the fastest growing segment of the grocery market. Although consumer interest has increased, farmers are not keeping up with demand. This is partly due to a lack of political support provided to farmers in their transition from conventional to organic production. Support policies vary by country and in some nations, such as the US, vary by state/province. There have been few attempts to document the types of support currently in place. This research draws on an existing Framework tool to investigate regionally specific and relevant policy support available to organic farmers in Ireland. This exploratory study develops a case study of Ireland within the framework of ten key categories of organic agricultural support: leadership, policy, research, technical support, financial support, marketing and promotion, education and information, consumer issues, inter-agency activities, and future developments. Data from the Irish Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority (Teagasc), and other governmental and semi-governmental agencies provide the basis for an assessment of support in each category. Assessments are based on the number of activities, availability of information to farmers, and attention from governmental personnel for each of the ten categories. This policy framework is a valuable tool for farmers, researchers, state agencies, and citizen groups seeking to document existing types of organic agricultural support and discover policy areas which deserve more attention

Purchasing through Social Platforms with Buy Buttons: Academic and Practical Considerations

Social commerce sales are considerably increasing in recent years. Social platforms (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, and WeChat) play a strategic role in world economy. However, social platforms ran into several burning issues: low ad conversion rates, social platform users’ free-riding behaviors, etc. Although buy buttons, a clickable navigation element leading users from a social platform to an e-commerce platform, could be a solution for such issues, the outcomes of using buy buttons did not reach many professionals’ expectation. This thesis studied four issues related to social shopping with buy buttons. First, as it is undetermined whether a social platform should roll out the buy-button feature or not, it is necessary to study whether the presence of buy button is associated with better outcomes (e.g. users’ higher willingness to purchase through the social platform) or not. Second, as social commerce is a remote shopping mode in which buyers and sellers cannot have face-to-face interactions, high risk and low trust could be two crucial barriers of social commerce. Hence, it is needed to study how risk- and trust-related factors influence users’ direct purchasing behavior. Third, considering that social commerce could be risky, this thesis wants to examine whether the presence of safe shopping measures (vs. an unsafe shopping scenario) can improve the performance of social shopping or not. Finally, social commerce involves a purchase path from a social platform to an e-commerce platform. There are many pain points (e.g., re-entering billing and shipping information) in the purchase path. Meanwhile, as social shopping risks and pain points in the purchase path could be caused by a same factor, the silos between social platforms and e-commerce platforms. It is interesting to study how safe shopping measures and integrated path-to-purchase (users can complete a purchase without leaving the social platform; vs. separated path-to-purchase in which users have to leave the social platform and go to the e-commerce platform to complete a purchase) jointly influence users. In order to answer these questions, three essays have been included in this thesis. Several online surveys were conducted. The between-subjects experimental design and the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique were used. The results showed that the presence of buy button was related to better outcomes. It found that risk- and trust-related factors significantly influenced users’ direct purchasing behavior. Both the safe shopping measures and the integrated path-to-purchase design can generate better outcomes of using a buy button in social shopping. In most circumstances, users showed more positive reactions when the safe shopping measures or the integrated path-to-purchase was present. However, no significant interaction effects between the safe shopping measures (vs. an unsafe shopping scenario) and the integrated path-to-purchase (vs. the separated path-to-purchase) were found. The theoretical contributions have been discussed in contrast to previous literature. This thesis has added academic value by offering new insights for previously established variable relationships in a different research context and studying variable relationships that have not been examined in previously relevant studies. From a practical viewpoint, as buy buttons inject e-commerce capabilities into social platforms, this thesis implies that socially focused platforms could reap benefits from social commerce by rolling out a buy-button feature. It is recommended that social platforms wanting to roll out buy buttons take safe shopping measures and create a seamless shopping experience for users.Tesis Univ. Granada.China Scholarship Council grant number: 201606170055National Natural Science Foundation of China grant number: 7170206