Conversion rate optimization & the Importance of E-commerce in a post Covid-19 world

E-commerce is an ever-growing field that has undergone steeper growth resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic. Due to this and consumer expectations guiding/following this trend, small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are forced to enter the space that was previously only dominated by large corporations. With technological improvements and supply chain advances, companies are now able to enter the space with far less friction leveraging tools such as e-commerce platforms (for example: Shopify, Magento, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, WooCommerce). These platforms enable companies to manage portions of an e-commerce business more easily such as inventory, order management, parcel carrier setup, and online storefronts very accessible to many offered in scalable packages for the business. Considering what these tools provide as base solutions and the previously researched elements in other studies, this study focused on elements that are not inherent to these platforms, requiring investment and consideration otherwise, such as: additional high-quality pictures, user reviews, free returns, free shipping, promotional offers. Then, these elements were tested by monitoring the change in respondent perception of various pages via a survey AB. The data was then analyzed with 4 hypothesis tests and a few other analyses to answer some key hypotheses that were synthesized following a literary review. The takeaways suggest the following: an e-commerce platform-based site provides the key base site elements and meets consumer expectations relative to their previous shopping experiences. Free shipping and free returns advertised on a site page (welcome page for this study) has a positive impact on conversion. Additional high quality product images, special offers, and displaying product reviews were not associated with a statistically significant increase in conversion in this study. As conversion rate optimization (CRO) methods should not be applied as a list of best practices in all situations, it is suggested by the author that these takeaways be considered for any specific business while knowing that these elements and others should considered and tested for any specific business as presentation choices, specific customer base, and many other factors can create very different outcome

cISP: A Speed-of-Light Internet Service Provider

Low latency is a requirement for a variety of interactive network applications. The Internet, however, is not optimized for latency. We thus explore the design of cost-effective wide-area networks that move data over paths very close to great-circle paths, at speeds very close to the speed of light in vacuum. Our cISP design augments the Internet's fiber with free-space wireless connectivity. cISP addresses the fundamental challenge of simultaneously providing low latency and scalable bandwidth, while accounting for numerous practical factors ranging from transmission tower availability to packet queuing. We show that instantiations of cISP across the contiguous United States and Europe would achieve mean latencies within 5% of that achievable using great-circle paths at the speed of light, over medium and long distances. Further, we estimate that the economic value from such networks would substantially exceed their expense

Slow Fashion Brand’s Digital Marketing: What impact does digital marketing´s slow fashion brand have on e-commerce implementation?

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Marketing IntelligenceThis project thesis aims to examine the impact of digital marketing on slow fashion brands through the implementation of e-commerce. Slow fashion brands have gained significant attention recently due to their commitment to sustainable and ethical production practices. However, their success in the digital age largely depends on their ability to utilize digital marketing tools to reach their target audience effectively. This thesis explores how implementing e-commerce can impact the overall digital marketing strategy of a specific slow fashion brand, Portuguesa. The research uses an approach of a quantitative analysis of data from slow fashion e-commerce websites and Google analytics. The findings show that e-commerce implementation can significantly improve a slow fashion brand's digital marketing performance, particularly regarding online visibility, customer engagement, and conversion rates. The results highlight the importance of aligning digital marketing efforts with e-commerce implementation for the success of slow fashion brands in the digital age. The study also points out that e-commerce implementation supports slow fashion brands' sustainable and ethical values. Overall, the thesis contributes to understanding how digital marketing and e-commerce can be used to promote sustainable fashion and support the growth of a recent slow fashion brand, Portuguesa

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

Improving the robustness and privacy of HTTP cookie-based tracking systems within an affiliate marketing context : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand

E-commerce activities provide a global reach for enterprises large and small. Third parties generate visitor traffic for a fee; through affiliate marketing, search engine marketing, keyword bidding and through organic search, amongst others. Therefore, improving the robustness of the underlying tracking and state management techniques is a vital requirement for the growth and stability of e-commerce. In an inherently stateless ecosystem such as the Internet, HTTP cookies have been the de-facto tracking vector for decades. In a previous study, the thesis author exposed circumstances under which cookie-based tracking system can fail, some due to technical glitches, others due to manipulations made for monetary gain by some fraudulent actors. Following a design science research paradigm, this research explores alternative tracking vectors discussed in previous research studies within a cross-domain tracking environment. It evaluates their efficacy within current context and demonstrates how to use them to improve the robustness of existing tracking techniques. Research outputs include methods, instantiations and a privacy model artefact based on information seeking behaviour of different categories of tracking software, and their resulting privacy intrusion levels. This privacy model provides clarity and is useful for practitioners and regulators to create regulatory frameworks that do not hinder technological advancement, rather they curtail privacy-intrusive tracking practices on the Internet. The method artefacts are instantiated as functional prototypes, available publicly on Internet, to demonstrate the efficacy and utility of the methods through live tests. The research contributes to the theoretical knowledge base through generalisation of empirical findings and to the industry by problem solving design artefacts

Optimization and cost reduction with performance improvements on web pages

Comparison between websites to improve their performance and optimization. Applied bibliographic research to understand and survey the concepts applied at work, adopting quantitative research through a questionnaire aimed at random audiences, documentary research to support important information on websites, informal magazines and descriptive research to analyze the effect of this study based on in the information presented. Five sites were adopted, one of which is a previous version and the other is a current one, with different characteristics to check its performance and optimization on the web. As explained, it was possible to verify the bottlenecks regarding the performance and optimization of the websites. With the applications of the necessary tools it was possible to improve the performance of the sites and with that the loading of the page became faster due to the compression in the loading of the images and also in the use of JavaScript, Css and Html. With the tools properly presented to improve performance and optimization, it is prominent to express the due improvements of the sites used in everyday life

A User-Centered Approach to Landing Page Optimization in a Software-as-a-Service Business

There are two essential steps in the digital marketing process: acquisition and conversion. Acquisition describes the efforts of getting a potential buyer to visit a business's website. Conversion is concerned with convincing that prospect, who has arrived on a website, to take a desired action, thus to convert. The process of improving conversions is called conversion rate optimization (CRO). While marketers increasingly understand the importance of optimizing their website for conversion, often CRO is only done in a quantitative way, relying on web metrics and visitor behavior. This limited approach does not consider the reasons behind visitors' behavior, their underlying needs and way of thinking when evaluating products and services online. Yet, those reasons are crucial to understand when optimizing for conversion. The objective of this study is to investigate how methods from user-centered design can aid in uncovering the needs and thought process of website visitors evaluating a Software-as-a-Service solution online. Additionally, the visitor's overall buying process is studied. The study is conducted as semi-structured interviews and retrospective testing with six recent website visitors interested in the SaaS service. Thematic analysis and customer journey mapping are used to analyze the interview data. The results indicate that visitor needs are mostly connected to inquiring service-related information, such as performance or features, as well as the pricing range. Additionally, aspects such as ease of getting started, service flexibility and quality support had a strong influence. It was found that most of these aspects are typical for successful SaaS solutions. The overall decision making process of choosing a SaaS solution proved to be fairly unstructured. However, being present in the minds of potential customers before they feel the need to search for solutions actively seems to be crucial in order to be considered. In addition to that, the first impression of a business's online presence also largely impacts visitor trust and consideration. Regarding the final decision making, it is to be noted that technical visitors are strong influencers but the final provider selection is a collaborative effort. Concerning the page itself, visitor conversion is generally favored when presenting relevant content to visitors in relevant order, while leaving out irrelevant content

Online advertising: analysis of privacy threats and protection approaches

Online advertising, the pillar of the “free” content on the Web, has revolutionized the marketing business in recent years by creating a myriad of new opportunities for advertisers to reach potential customers. The current advertising model builds upon an intricate infrastructure composed of a variety of intermediary entities and technologies whose main aim is to deliver personalized ads. For this purpose, a wealth of user data is collected, aggregated, processed and traded behind the scenes at an unprecedented rate. Despite the enormous value of online advertising, however, the intrusiveness and ubiquity of these practices prompt serious privacy concerns. This article surveys the online advertising infrastructure and its supporting technologies, and presents a thorough overview of the underlying privacy risks and the solutions that may mitigate them. We first analyze the threats and potential privacy attackers in this scenario of online advertising. In particular, we examine the main components of the advertising infrastructure in terms of tracking capabilities, data collection, aggregation level and privacy risk, and overview the tracking and data-sharing technologies employed by these components. Then, we conduct a comprehensive survey of the most relevant privacy mechanisms, and classify and compare them on the basis of their privacy guarantees and impact on the Web.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft