7+ Super E-commerce and Mobile Must-Reads to Enjoy Before the Big Game: E-commerce Link Digest

Well, Big Thinkers, it’s Big Football Weekend™ here in the States, our unofficial national holiday when we take a moment to reflect on what we truly cherish… eating hot wings, drinking beer, and watching ridiculously large athletic men bash the bejeezus out of one another while chasing an (under-inflated) football around the field. All that—plus the best commercials of the year!

So, before you settle in to your Barcolounger to bask in the fun, take a few minutes to enjoy these 7+ super e-commerce and mobile must-reads. Then bring on the game!

1. MarketingProfs explains what consumers dislike about mobile email, which pairs nicely with a post from the other day that asked if you are still making this major email marketing mistake.
2. Google is definitely working to figure out its place in the evolving mobile ecosystem. Apparently, they’ve lost 1.6% search share (month over month), to Yahoo. Then Google took a big hit on its quarterly earnings, at least in part due to the growth of mobile and customers’ use of apps to find what they’re looking for. By contrast, Facebook had a boffo 4th quarter; Quartz thinks data—especially on mobile—is the magic ingredient in Facebook’s revenue growth. To help make sense of what’s happening in the space, I took apart what Apple, Google, and Facebook’s earnings can teach us about mobile marketing and e-commerce. You should check it out. I think you’ll like what you see.
3. While we’re on the topic of Google, Search Engine Land has a great piece on how to dissect your organic traffic by intent & funnel it into sales. They also shared data from RKG that shows Google’s Price Listing Ads (PLA’s) drove 56% of non-brand Google AdWords clicks in Q4. Clearly, that’s huge. Which makes their look at dissecting organic traffic all the more important now, doesn’t it?
4. In one last bit of Google news, Search Engine Land reports that the search giant’s mobile search descriptions now say if you’re blocking Google. Again, I think this represents another place where Google’s looking to improve customers’ overall mobile search experience—and, by extension, keep customers from using anything else to search.
5. Switching gears, eMarketer poses a great question: Does mobile help marketers gain customer loyalty? Roughly, yes, at least if you do it right. Of course, part of “doing it right” assumes you understand how your customers use mobile in their lives every day. To help, you might want to check out this look at why mobile changes everything—and nothing at all. Good stuff.
6. Building on that thought, The Future of Commerce blog rounds-up the best of NRF 2015, noting that, for retailers, data mining is a slam dunk. As noted above with Facebook and mobile above, your data provides a huge competitive advantage, something I talked about at length in a recent Travel Tuesday post, though it applies equally across industries. Check it out when you get a moment.
7. The latest episode of Thinks Out Loud, our weekly marketing and e-commerce podcast, says mobile e-commerce goes back to the future. Among other topics, it explores the wide-open world of e-commerce in an increasingly mobile world such as Amazon Amazon dropping its mobile wallet offering and how mobile apps and sites may actually work together. Great stuff, well-worth your time.

Well, that ought to get you through until kickoff on Sunday. Hope you have a great weekend, and that your favorite team, whomever it might be, wins (For the record, I’m a Giants fan and have no horse in this race).

Like this list? Then make sure to check out this round-up of 7+ Marvelous Mobile E-commerce Posts: E-commerce Link Digest, these 7 Magical Mobile Marketing and E-commerce Picks, and the rest of our E-commerce Link Digest series. Plus don’t miss the top posts of 2014 right here.

And, if you want to learn even more about how customers changing behavior shapes e-commerce and marketing, be sure an register to receive a special report I’ve produced in conjunction with hotel marketing firm Vizergy, “Digital Hotel Marketing in a Multiscreen World.” While it’s targeted specifically at hotel and resort marketers, the lessons apply to just about any business. You can get your free copy of the report here.

You can also check out these slides and video from my recent webinar, “Digital Marketing Directions: Three Key Trends Driving Your Marketing Next Year”:

And, finally, you might want to take a look at some of our past coverage of the e-commerce, mobile commerce, and digital marketing overall, including:

• 10 Key Posts about Millennials and Mobile: E-commerce Link Digest
• The Secrets Behind “It’s All E-commerce” for 2014
• The Zen of Digital Marketing Strategy
• 7 Steps to E-Commerce Heaven
• Today and Tomorrow: Mobile and The Changing Customer Journey
• Mobile Makes E-commerce Even More “Frictionless”
• Your 2014 Internet Marketing New Year’s Resolutions – Thinks Out Loud Episode 56