Marketing Your CPOnline Store
Overview ... 2
Is Your Store Ready? ... 2
Simple Marketing Strategies ... 5
Encouraging Impulse Buys ... 6
Featured Items ... 6
Discounts and Promotional Codes ... 7
Triggering Sales with Email ... 11
eNewsletters ... 12
HTML Email ... 14
Abandoned Cart Emails ... 16
Tell-A-Friend Emails ... 17
Rewarding Sites for Linking To Your Site ... 19
Affiliate Programs ... 19
Working with Search Engines ... 22
Google Product Search ... 22
Google Sitemap ... 23
Extracting Item Data ... 23
Tracking Conversions with Order Scripts ... 23
Monitoring Your Site: Google Analytics ... 24
for CounterPoint SQL
Marketing Your CPOnline Store
OVERVIEW
You have successfully created your new CPOnline ecommerce store. Now what?
By actively marketing your online store, you can entice existing customers to shop with you again and drive new traffic to your store. Let friends refer other friends to your site. Send out eNewsletters to your existing customers. Or submit your site to Google Product Search so new customers can find you. We want you to get noticed—and stay noticed. With the right tools and marketing, your online store can be a profitable endeavor—just like your brick-and-mortar store.
IS YOUR STORE READY?
Before you start any new marketing initiatives, make sure your storefront is ready. Below are a few simple ideas to instill confidence in your customers and improve the overall functionality of your site. 1. Is your home page all it can be? Your home page is designed to set the scene. It’s the shop window,
billboard, welcome greeting, and store map all on one page. Stick to simple, professional graphics and a short block of text that explains who you are. Keep your home page content new and fresh in Store Appearance / Home Page. When designing your home page:
Create a powerful and compelling headline that grabs the shopper’s attention and pulls them into your site. Your best impression needs to be above
the fold—don’t assume that viewers are willing to scroll.
Create an online ‘window display’ to showcase new items as well as a variety of your best products.
Highlight current sales and discounts.
Minimize distractions that may
discourage shoppers from staying on your website. Distractions might include logos that are too big, long paragraphs of text, non-product photos, splash pages, animations, and links to other websites. Use Extra Pages—not your home page—
for non-shopping related content. Keep graphics to a minimum to avoid
losing customers due to slow page loads. 2. Remind shoppers that you are a reputable business. As a reputable business, you care about your
customers’ sensitive information. To distance yourself from less reputable companies:
Identify yourself. In the faceless world of ecommerce, online shoppers often look for a personal
touch. Include background information about your business and let people know who you are, where you are located, and how you got started. The personal touch allows shoppers to identify with you and makes them more comfortable buying from someone they don’t know. You may even add a few professional photos of your brick-and-mortar stores or employees to reinforce the fact that there are real people behind this online store. Give your About Us page a facelift in Store Appearance / Information Pages / About Your Company Page.
TIP: Incorporate relevant key words and phrases in your About Us page to help boost search engine rankings.
Prominently display product warranties or money back guarantees in your storefront. Make
sure shoppers know that you stand behind your products. Include product-specific warranties in the item description. Include general money back guarantees in email correspondence, on the return policy page (Store Appearance / Policy Pages / Return Policy), About Us page (Store Appearance / Information Pages / About Your Company Page), or the shopping cart page (Online Shopping / Carts + Orders / Checkout Options).
Clearly state your return policy. Online shoppers need to know what their options are for
returning merchandise. Give shoppers the confidence that they can return or exchange an item if it’s not right for them. If you have a strict ‚no refunds / no exchanges policy,‛ shoppers are less likely to be disappointed if they understand your policy before they buy. Make sure your return policy is up to date under Store Appearance / Policy Pages / Return Policy.
Clearly state your privacy policy. Your job is to gather as much information as you can so you
can market to your customers. Your customers’ job is to keep their information safe and protected from fraud and overly-annoying spam. Customers are more likely to give their guarded
information to sites they trust. If you don’t sell your customers’ sensitive information, let them know that. If you plan to email them newsletters, let them know (be sure to give them a way to opt-out if they change their mind down the road). Remember: a privacy policy is legally binding contract with your website users. You’ll need to stand behind what you say. If your privacy policy isn’t up to date, change it in Store Appearance / Policy Pages / Privacy Policy.
Associate your business with third-party organizations. If you’re a member of any industry or
business organizations such as the Better Business Bureau, add their logos to your site. Similarly, if you offer PayPal payments, include their logo. Shoppers identify with these organizations. Think about Thawte. If you purchased an SSL certificate through Radiant
Systems, you are already verified as a secure site through Thawte. Some merchants choose to display this logo or similar seals on their site as evidence that they are a secure and valid site. Contact the CPOnline Support Team for information about including the Thawte seal on your site.
Include customer testimonials. Customer testimonials are a great way to add content to your site
while building trust with new shoppers. A satisfied customer will usually be happy to provide you with a testimonial. All you have to do it ask. Use CPOnline’s order status emails (Online Shopping / Status Emails) to encourage customers to provide you with feedback about their shopping experience, your products, etc.
3. Prominently display your phone number. Online shoppers feel more confident knowing you’re just a phone call away. Display your phone number—preferably toll free—in one or more locations:
Contact Us page: Store Appearance / Contact Page / Page Content About Us page: Store Appearance / Information Pages / About
Your Company Page
Header or footer area: Store Appearance / Template Selection / Header + Footer Options
Welcome emails: Manage Customers / Welcome Emails Order status emails: Online Shopping / Status Emails
Other email correspondence: Marketing Tools / Send eNewsletter and Marketing Tools / Send HTML Email
TIP:
When testing new traffic sources, get a new toll free number that you only use in specific online campaigns (e.g., pay-per-click ads). When you receive your monthly phone bill, you’ll know exactly how many phone calls you can attribute to the new traffic source.
4. Use high quality, web-optimized images and great descriptions. Imagine that the shopper is in your store to inquire about the product. What do they ask? What do they want to see? If they called you on the phone, how would you describe the item? Use lots of adjectives to describe the item. Describe the size, color, height, width, suggested uses, ingredients, materials, how/where it’s made, etc. Keep your descriptions straight-forward and honest. Most importantly, include the key words and phrases people are most likely to use when searching for your products. Keyword-dense product descriptions help increase your site’s search engine ranking and improve your customers’ overall shopping experience. Remember: a shopper will quickly move to your competitor’s site if he doesn’t like what he sees on your site or if he can’t easily find the right item.
TIP: If you use supplemental information for additional photos or information, make sure the text link includes key search terms. For example, a link that says, ‚View more images of the Rawlings Pro-Series Baseball,‛ is more descriptive than, ‚Click here for more images.‛ And because the link contains descriptive keywords, it will be more likely to show up in search engine results.
5. Make checkout as painless as possible. With CPOnline, you can optionally allow customers to quickly purchase items as guests using Quick Checkout. Quick Checkout allows shoppers to complete the entire checkout process on one easy-to-use page without having to create an account. The quicker the checkout process, the fewer abandoned carts you’ll have. Enable Quick Checkout in Online Shopping / Carts + Orders / Checkout Options.
Quick Checkout allows shoppers
to complete the entire checkout process on one easy-to-use page
SIMPLE MARKETING STRATEGIES
Much like marketing your brick-and-mortar store, there are many things you can do to increase traffic and sales volume. Below are a few simple marketing tactics to consider:
1. Email customers on a regular basis.Emails are one of the most underutilized forms of marketing. Follow up with periodic emails to let your customers see what’s new and inspire shoppers to make impulse purchases. Offer an email newsletter and allow shoppers to sign up on your website as well as in your brick-and-mortar store. In addition to newsletters, you may also want to initiate contact with shoppers who have abandoned their carts. Learn more about keeping in touch with your customers in ‚Triggering Sales with Email‚ on page 11.
2. Offer free shipping. When it comes to online incentives, free shipping is one of the best methods of converting browsers into buyers. Learn more about discounts and promo codes on page 7.
3. Expect the unexpected. If you see a spike in sales for an item that you didn’t expect—go with it! You may have inadvertently discovered a niche market or a hot new seasonal trend. With CPOnline, you can quickly respond to trends by creating a new category of items or by prominently displaying the season’s hottest sellers on your home page. Make sure that you continually review meta information for your site and add new keywords as needed.
4. Offer gift wrapping services. Especially during the holiday season, you can attract new shoppers by providing them with a valuable gift wrapping service. In CounterPoint, simply set up a
non-inventory ‚Gift Wrap‛ item. Include the ‚Gift Wrap‛ item as a featured item on the shopping cart page (Online Shopping / Carts + Orders / Featured Items) or on other pages in your store.
Use order notes to allow shoppers to include a 600 character message to the gift recipient. Shoppers can enter a message to the gift recipient which you can include with the wrapped gift (Online Shopping / Carts + Orders / Checkout Options).
Add a message to the ‚order note‛ area
Allow shoppers to enter notes on the order
5. Make the most out of each shipment. First, make sure your shipments are timely. Studies show that there is a direct correlation between the number of shipping days and a customer’s repeat purchases. The longer it takes to receive an item, the less likely it is that a customer will buy from you again. Second, include coupons or promotional fliers in each shipment to encourage repeat business (you can also use follow up emails for the same purpose; learn more about following up with customers in ‚Triggering Sales with Email‚ on page 11).
Remember: it’s cheaper and easier to keep an existing customer than it is to get a new one.
6. Sell gift cards. According to the National Retail Federation, gift cards were the most requested gift in past years. Gift cards are a popular solution for the hard-to-please and the last-minute-gifters.
TIP: Promote gift cards as featured items on the shopping cart page and in follow up emails.
7. Highlight in-stock items and top sellers. Every item that’s prominently displayed on your home page, as a featured item, etc., needs to be in-stock and ready for delivery. Don’t tie up your premium real estate with out-of-season or out-of-date products. If you want to move last season’s merchandise, add it to your ‚On Sale‛ or ‚Clearance‛ page instead.
ENCOURAGING IMPULSE BUYS
FEATURED ITEMS
CPOnline: Marketing Tools / Featured Items (also available on the Featured Items tab of applicable pages)
You can feature items in different areas of your online store to encourage additional purchases and impulse buys. Cross-promoting items across your storefront increases the visibility of each item which in turn increases the overall sales volume.
Display up to ten featured items on your Home page, Search page, Extra Pages, New Items page, Specials page, Favorites page, and/or your Shopping Cart page. In addition, you can feature items in each category (up to 15 items per category).
Enter up to 10 featured items for each page
Select the item layout for the featured items on each page
TIP:
When selecting the featured items for each page, consider: Your best selling items Impulse items
Gift wrapping services Gift cards
Related items (e.g., if you sell flashlights, you may want to feature batteries)
Featured Items and Extra Pages
When you display Featured Items on Extra Pages, you can quickly create your own customized item pages. For example, you can create an Extra Page named ‚Father’s Day Gifts Ideas‛ and feature your top-selling men’s gift items on that page. Extra Pages can help to increase the total keyword count on your site.
TIP: Learn more in ‚Working with Extra Pages.‛
DISCOUNTS AND PROMOTIONAL CODES
CPOnline: Marketing Tools / Discounts + PromosCPOnline’s flexible discount options let you tailor your promotional offers just about any way you want. When you combine discounts and promotional codes with emails, you can let all of your customers know about your special offers with the click of a mouse.
With CPOnline, you can offer discounts such as: 10% off any order totaling $50 or more
A free widget with every order placed by a new customer during the month of December Free shipping on all orders placed in January
15% ‚Thanks for your business!‛ discount on all second orders (valid only for each customer’s second order placed in your online store)
Free shipping for all customers whose total purchases in your online store equal $100 or more When it comes to online incentives, free shipping is one of the best methods of converting browsers into buyers.
How Shoppers Rank Promotional Tools
Free Shipping 84%
Sales and Special Offers 77%
Coupons and Rebates 74%
Free gift-with-purchase 62%
Limited time deals 56%
[Source: the e-tailing group, Mindset of the Multi-Channel Shopper]
Selecting the Discount Method
CPOnline: Marketing Tools / Discounts + Promos / Basic Settings
As a general rule, promotional codes and discounts will apply to the entire order, not just to specific items.
1. Choose a discount method to use in your CPOnline store:
None (Disabled)—No discounts will be used in your CPOnline store.
Use Global Discount—Give everyone who shops at your store a discount. Discounts can be
defined as a dollar amount or a percentage and can have starting and ending dates, a minimum order amount, and a maximum discount amount.
Use Promotional Codes—Select specific groups of shoppers who are eligible to receive discounts.
Shoppers enter a valid promo code during checkout to receive their savings. Discounts can be defined as a dollar amount or a percentage, or you can offer free shipping or a free item. Like global discounts, they can have starting and ending dates, a minimum order amount, and a
maximum discount amount. Plus, you can define ‚rules‛ so you can tailor your promotional codes just about anyway you want.
Defining a Global Discount
CPOnline: Marketing Tools / Discounts + Promos / Global Discounts
Global discounts are given to everyone who shops at your store. Global discounts can have a discount type (percent or amount), start date, end date, discount amount/percent, minimum order amount, and a maximum discount amount.
Defining a Promo Code
Promo codes are entered during checkout. You may offer promo codes to shoppers who meet certain criteria. Creating these promotions is a two-step process: first, you will create a Discount Rule that specifies conditions for the discount; then, you will create a Promotional Code that uses that Discount Rule.
Create a Discount Rule
1. Go to Marketing Tools / Discounts + Promos / Discount Rules. 2. Click Add New Rule button
Select the discount method to use in your CPOnline store
For example, give 10% off of every order over $100 during the month of October
3. Specify the conditions for this discount.
Select one or more rule conditions that must be met in order to receive the discount. Rule conditions can include:
Customer’s Email Address is # of Prior Online Orders is At Least # of Items in Current Order is At Least Sum of All Online Orders is At Least Current Order Includes Item # Last Order Was Placed On or After Weight of Current Order is At Least Customer’s Billing Zip Code Is
Create a Promo Code
1. Go to Marketing Tools / Discounts + Promos / Promotional Codes. 2. Specify general options for all promotional codes in use:
Allow Codes Via Links: Specify whether or not to allow promotional codes to be accepted via URL in either an email or web page
Specify whether a customer can use the discount more than once
If you select a category in this field, than any promo code using this rule will apply to the entire order for any order that contains any item from this category (assuming all other conditions are met) Select one or more conditions that must be met in order to receive the discount
Allow Entry During Checkout: Specify whether or not to allow shoppers to enter a promo code on the shopping cart page
Reset Code After Order: Specify whether or not to reset each shopper’s saved promo code when that shopper places an order. If you select No, the promo code will be saved with the shopper’s account and will be used as the default on the shopper’s next order.
Default Promotional Code: Optionally enter the default promo code that will be entered automatically for all orders where another promo code is not already in use. Shoppers can overwrite the default promo code by typing over it. To prevent shoppers from overwriting the default promo code, change Allow Entry During Checkout to No.
3. Click Add New button
4. Add or Edit the Promotional Code Enter a unique
promotional code
Click Add New to add a new promo code based on a discount rule you’ve already defined
List includes all valid promo codes. Click on a code to view the details.
Specify whether or not to allow shoppers to enter a promo code on the shopping cart page
Non-Discountable Items
If there are specific items you don’t want to discount, you can mark individual items as non-discountable in CounterPoint (answer No to Discountable on the Ecommerce tab of Inventory / Items). Any order-level discounts (e.g., customer discount percent, promotional code discount, etc.) will not include any of the items you’ve marked as non-discountable.
TRIGGERING SALES WITH EMAIL
Whether you’re sending out coupons or you’re updating customers on the season’s hottest trends, emails are an inexpensive and effective communication method that you can use to trigger repeat sales.
You should follow up with your customers at least once or twice a month. Industry news, tips-and-tricks, and helpful hints combined with a low-key, special offer makes an excellent follow-up formula. In addition to triggering new sales, emails also build brand awareness, instill confidence, and increase customer loyalty.
Start by collecting email addresses on your site. You can also ask customers in your brick-and-mortar stores if they would like to be added to your email list.
CPOnline includes several email utilities to help you keep in touch with your customers, including: eNewsletters: Send an electronic newsletter featuring new items and items on special to a select
group of customers
HTML Emails: Send graphical emails for sale notifications, special offers, or new item updates to
a select group of customers
Abandoned Cart Emails: Identify which shoppers have abandoned their carts and promptly
send those shoppers an email with a reminder or special incentive
Select any discount rule that applies to this promo code
Add or edit code-specific messages for this promo code Select the type of promotion for this code (percent off, amount off, free shipping, or free item)
Tell-A-Friend Emails: Allow shoppers to easily notify their friends about items in your store
ENEWSLETTERS
CPOnline: Marketing Tools / Send eNewsletters
Send an electronic newsletter featuring new items and items on special to a select group of customers. Include links from your newsletters to items in your storefront and optionally include promotional codes. Learn more about online discounts in ‚Discounts and Promotional Codes‛ on page 7.
Selecting the Recipients
CPOnline: Marketing Tools / Send eNewsletters / Select Recipients
1. Select a specific group of shoppers who will receive your eNewsletter. For example, you can send an eNewsletter to just those shoppers who subscribed to your eNewsletter who reside in Mississippi and Tennessee who haven’t visited your site in the past six months.
Editing the Content
CPOnline: Marketing Tools / Send eNewsletters / Edit eNewsletter Content 2. Edit the subject line and body of the message.
Include customers who are subscribed or not subscribed to your eNewsletter
CPOnline indicates how many names the
eNewsletter will be sent to Create filters based on the customer’s company, zip code, state, etc., to limit the number of eNewsletter recipients
Enter the subject of the eNewsletter
Edit the introductory content and closing content for the body of the message
Including New and Sale Items
CPOnline: Marketing Tools / Send eNewsletters / Promotional Options
3. Include new items and/or items on special in your eNewsletter along with the item descriptions for each item. The new items and items on special come directly from CounterPoint.
NOTE: If you use HTML formatting in your long descriptions, you should not include the
descriptions in your eNewsletters. Item descriptions with HTML will not display properly in eNewsletters.
Optionally include item descriptions for new and sale items
Sending eNewsletters
CPOnline: Marketing Tools / Send eNewsletters / Send eNewsletter
4. Before you send eNewsletters to a group of customers, it’s a good idea to send yourself a test message first. Enter your email address and check the box to indicate that you want to send a test message. Single test messages are sent immediately.
5. After you are satisfied with your test message, uncheck the box and press the Save + Send Now button. eNewsletters are queued for delivery between 10pm and 6am CST.
HTML EMAIL
CPOnline: Marketing Tools / Send HTML Email
Send graphical emails for sale notifications, special offers, or new item updates to a select group of customers. You can include promotional codes and links from your newsletters to items in your storefront. Learn more about online discounts in ‚Discounts and Promotional Codes‛ on page 7.
TIP: Let Radiant’s Design Team create your HTML email template!
Selecting the Recipients
CPOnline: Marketing Tools / Send eNewsletters / Select Recipients
1. Select a specific group of shoppers who will receive your email. For example, you can send an email to just those shoppers who subscribed to your eNewsletter who reside in Mississippi and Tennessee who haven’t visited your site in the past six months.
Send a test eNewsletter to yourself before sending it to your shoppers Edit the introductory
content for new and sale items in the body of the message
Editing the Email Settings
CPOnline: Marketing Tools / Send HTML Email / Settings 2. Edit the subject line and sender’s information.
Creating the Email
CPOnline: Marketing Tools / Send HTML Email / Create Email
3. Create two versions of your email: one for recipients with email clients capable of viewing HTML emails and another for plain-text email clients.
HTML emails will be seen by recipients with email clients capable of viewing HTML (graphical) emails
Text-only emails will be seen by recipients with email clients capable of viewing plain text emails
Sending Emails
CPOnline: Marketing Tools / Send HTML Email / Send Email
4. Before you send an email to a group of customers, it’s a good idea to send yourself a test message first. Enter your email address and check the box to indicate that you want to send a test message. Single test messages are sent immediately.
5. After you are satisfied with your test message, uncheck the box and press the Save + Send Now button. HTML emails are queued for delivery between 10pm and 6am CST.
ABANDONED CART EMAILS
CPOnline: Marketing Tools / Abandoned Cart Email
When online shoppers add items to their carts and then leave your online store without completing the order, they have abandoned their shopping carts. The most frequent reasons shoppers abandon their carts include:
Higher than expected shipping charges A better deal on a competitive website Shopper got side-tracked or just lost interest
Use Abandoned Cart Emails to identify which shoppers have abandoned their carts and promptly send those shoppers an email with a special offer.
Keeping Abandoned Carts
If you are going to actively target shoppers who abandon their carts, you may want to keep abandoned carts for at least seven days to give you enough time to find and contact customers who abandoned their carts. Change the length of time you keep abandoned carts in Online Shopping / Carts + Orders / Cart Options. After the specified number of days, CPOnline will automatically empty and remove any abandoned carts.
Sending Abandoned Cart Emails
Abandoned cart emails will only be sent once per abandoned cart.
1. Go to Marketing Tools / Abandoned Cart Email / Select Abandoned Carts.
2. On the Select Abandoned Carts tab, select the email filter method and date to view a report of shoppers that have abandoned their carts on, before, or after a particular date.
3. On the Settings tab, enter the subject of the email as well as the sender’s name and address (i.e., your name and address).
Send a test email to yourself before sending it to your shoppers Edit the introductory
content for new and sale items in the body of the message
4. On the Create Email tab, create two versions of your email: HTML and plain text. Use the Rich Formatting email editor to format the HTML email text and include images and/or links to your site.
TIP: Include a special offer or promo code in your email. Special offers are a simple yet effective tool for turning lost sales into profits. Learn more about creating special offers in ‚Discounts and Promotional Codes‛ on page 7.
TELL-A-FRIEND EMAILS
CPOnline: Marketing Tools / Tell-A-FriendFriend emails are the electronic version of word-of-mouth advertising. Shoppers can use Tell-A-Friend emails to easily notify others about items in your store. Tell-A-Tell-A-Friend emails can be an effective marketing tool, as email recipients are typically very willing to read an email that comes from a trusted friend.
When Tell-A-Friend is enabled, the icon and link display on every item detail page.
HTML emails will be seen by recipients with email clients capable of viewing HTML (graphical) emails
Text-only emails will be seen by recipients with email clients capable of viewing plain text emails
Basic Options
Email Editor
Enable Tell-A-Friend email links
Email messages can use either the shopper’s email address or a specific email address (such as your store’s email address) as the From email address
Include dynamic information, such as your friend’s name, the item name, and a link to a specific item or your website Enter the text to use in the body of each Tell-A-Friend email
REWARDING SITES FOR LINKING TO YOUR SITE
AFFILIATE PROGRAMS
CPOnline: Marketing Tools / Affiliate Program
An affiliate program is a simple way to drive traffic to your storefront by rewarding other sites for advertising your products or linking to your site. For each referral that results in a sale, you pay the affiliate site a small commission. Unlike pay-per-click advertising, affiliate programs only cost you money when someone makes a purchase on your site. The more affiliates you have, the more opportunities you have for shoppers to find your site through an affiliate website.
According to www.practicalecommerce.com (A Win-Win Situation: Why Affiliate Marketing Works),
affiliate marketing was directly responsible for $95 billion in online sales last year, and the affiliates earned over $6.5 billion in commissions.
To use the affiliate program, you will provide a special link to each of your affiliates that they will include on their website. When a shopper clicks one of these links to reach your CPOnline store, CPOnline will recognize which affiliate site the shopper originated from. If the shopper makes a purchase in your CPOnline store, CPOnline will include a special affiliate code with the shopper’s order that indicates the correct affiliate.
Recording Affiliates as Sales Reps in CounterPoint
Configure CounterPoint to import the affiliate code as the sales rep for the order:
1. Record affiliates as sales reps
In CounterPoint, select Setup / Ecommerce / Control and go to the Customers tab. Change Record affiliate as to Sales rep.
Record affiliate as a sales rep
2. Create a new user for each affiliate and define their commission amount
Select Setup / System / Users and define a new user for each affiliate site. Check the Sales rep checkbox and enter the appropriate commission code. To add new commission codes, go to Setup / Systems / Commissions.
3. Optionally enter an affiliate for each customer
Select Customers / Customers. On the Ecommerce tab, optionally enter an affiliate for each customer. The affiliate code entered here will be used as the sales rep associated with this customer.
Use standard CounterPoint reports to track the commission due to each affiliate.
Setting Up an Affiliate Program
CPOnline: Marketing Tools / Affiliate Program / Options
From Store Management, you can create an affiliate program and maintain a list of your affiliates with their names, emails, and affiliate codes.
Mark this affiliate user as a sales rep and indicate the appropriate commission code
Determine how long the customer is considered to have originated from an affiliate site
Enter the affiliate code and press the Generate Link button to automatically create a properly-formatted web address
Enable the affiliate program to begin tracking affiliate sites
1. Enable the affiliate program 2. Optionally validate affiliate codes
You can optionally validate the affiliate codes used in your storefront to ensure that only the affiliate codes you’ve chosen to use are stored and exported to CounterPoint. You don’t have to set up your list of valid affiliate codes within CPOnline. CPOnline will simply accept any affiliate code included in a URL, and will store that code with the appropriate order(s).
3. Select the affiliate mode
You have three options for determining how long the customer is considered to have originated from an affiliate site:
First Order Only – Same Session: The affiliate code is included only with orders placed during the same browser session in which the shopper clicked the link on the affiliate site. If the shopper closes their browser and returns directly to your site at a later time to place an order, that shopper is not considered to have come from an affiliate.
First Order Only – Anytime: The affiliate code is included with the first order placed by each customer originating from the affiliate site, regardless of when the order is placed. Subsequent orders do not include the affiliate code. You must also enable permanent cookies in
Configuration/Setup / Store Setup / Customer ID Cookies.
All Orders: Every order placed by a shopper that originates from an affiliate site will include the affiliate code, so the affiliate gets credit for all orders placed by any shopper that originates from their website.
Adding Affiliates
CPOnline: Marketing Tools / Affiliate Program / Add New Affiliate
For each affiliate, enter the affiliate code, company name, and email. The affiliate code is a unique identifier for each affiliate. The affiliate code will become part of the unique URL that links from the affiliate site back to your site.
You must provide a unique URL link to each of your affiliates. This URL can be any valid URL that reaches any page in your storefront, appended with the following text: ?AFF=affcode where affcode is a unique code indicating the affiliate. Codes can contain up to 10 alphanumeric characters (but no spaces and no special characters). For example, if your ACME was one of your affiliates, the unique URL that would point from ACME’s site to your site would be http://www.mystore.com/index.htm?AFF=ACME.
The affiliate code uniquely identifies each affiliate and is used in the URL
To have CPOnline generate a link to your home page using a specific affiliate code, simply enter the desired affiliate code in the Affiliate Link Generator and click Generate Link.
Finding Affiliates
There are different ways to find and recruit affiliates:
Contact businesses in your area that may be willing to serve as an affiliate. If you have more than one website, let each site serve as an affiliate for the other.
Join an active network, such as CommissionJunction or LinkShare. Most networks alert their members when a new merchant joins their program, and encourage them to see if they’d be a good match.
Do keyword searches based on your product line. Browse through the high ranking sites and look for reputable content-rich sites that are relevant to your target market.
WORKING WITH SEARCH ENGINES
Search engines play an important role in the success of an online business. Take a look at the results of one study that analyzes how consumers find products on the internet [Source: Overture]:
Of those shoppers using search engines, most will explore only the first few pages of search results. In fact, 87% of all traffic goes to the websites listed within the top 20 results for any search.
To increase your chances of being highly ranked by today’s most popular search engines, design and configure your store to be ‚search engine friendly‛ and plan to invest some of your marketing budget in Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
In addition to creating a search engine friendly site, CPOnline includes utilities to assist you with ranking your site on Google. Because CPOnline uses item- or category-specific page titles, you can submit individual pages to help increase search engine placement.
You can also increase your Web site traffic with pay-per-click services.
GOOGLE PRODUCT SEARCH
Google Product Search helps shoppers find the items you sell. Google Product Search is a place where you can easily submit all types of online content. Using item attributes (e.g., price, description, brand, etc.), you can describe the items you sell so that shoppers can find your items more easily. The better your item’s attributes, the more likely it is that your item will appear in relevant searches. Depending on the relevance of an item, it may be included in the main Google search index, Google Product Search, Google Local, etc.
It’s free to submit your items to Google Product Search.
GOOGLE SITEMAP
Marketing Tools / Google SitemapGoogle™ Sitemaps provide an easy way for you to submit all your URLs to the Google search engine index and get detailed reports about the visibility of your pages on Google. With Google Sitemaps, you can automatically keep Google informed of all your web pages to help improve your Google coverage. CPOnline allows you to create a Google Sitemap file in the root folder of your CPOnline storefront. You can control the freshness and accuracy of your Google Sitemap file by creating a new sitemap as often as once per day.
Creating a Google Sitemap
1. Create a Google Sitemaps account. Visit the Google Sitemaps homepage to create a Google Sitemaps account and add your sitemap URL. When asked about the verification method, choose HTML file.
2. Email the validation filename to CPOnline Support Team. Google will let you know the exact filename of an HTML file that will be placed in your store directory (example:
googlef195738a75f5d829.html). Email the filename to cponline@radiantsystems.com to place the file in your store directory. The file will allow Google to validate that you own the site.
3. Create new sitemap. Go to Marketing Tools / Google Sitemaps / Create Sitemap and click the Create New Sitemap button.
EXTRACTING ITEM DATA
CPOnline: Marketing Tools / Extract Item Data
If you need to submit your raw data to a search engine other than Google, an online newspaper, or other online service, select Marketing Tools / Extract Item Data to open the raw data in a new window. Data columns include the item’s URL, title, description, price, link to the image, label, and item ID. Simply copy and paste the data into a spreadsheet or other tab-delimited file.
TRACKING CONVERSIONS WITH ORDER SCRIPTS
CPOnline: Online Shopping / Carts + Orders / Order ScriptsOrder Scripts are used by search engine promotion companies to track conversions (i.e., an order that is placed as a direct result of a search engine’s result). Scripts can include dynamic information such as
Create a new sitemap as often as once per day
order number, order total, discount code, affiliate code, etc. You can optionally enter Order Scripts so you can easily incorporate Yahoo! Search Marketing scripts, Google Analytics scripts, BizRate order surveys, or any other third-party JavaScript that should run when as order is completed.
The Order Scripts page only tracks activity related to the Shopping Cart and Checkout pages.
Alternatively, you can track other pages by inserting the tracking scripts into the page footer in Store Appearance / Template Selection / Header + Footer Options.
MONITORING YOUR SITE: GOOGLE ANALYTICS
Google Analytics is a free service that allows you to monitor your site’s visitors and site usage. By adding a few lines of code (provided by Google when you register for the free service) to the header area and order scripts, you can view detailed behind-the-scenes information about your site.
Google Analytics helps you find out what keywords are attracting shoppers, what advertising copy is generating the most responses, and what landing pages and content are making the most money for you. Learn more in ‚Google Analytics‛ in the CPOnline PDF Library or visit www.google.com/analytics.
Simply copy and paste order scripts into the Order Script editor. If you have multiple scripts, paste them in one after the other.
Optionally include dynamic information (e.g., order amount) in the order script. Place the cursor in the desired location and then click the appropriate variable.
