Four Ways To Boost CRO

We saw three hurdles blocking the mainstream adoption of CRO in Three Inhibitors Of CRO. To do a quick recap, they are: Pushback from ad agencies. Since CRO crimps ad spend, it threatens loss of ad agency revenues. Lack of adjective. “Companies need CRO when their websites are frictional, frictionful… or what?“ Pedantic practitioners. With … Read more

Three Inhibitors Of CRO

Digital Marketing comprises two stages: ATTRACT: Attract traffic to your website, app store page, and social media properties (collectively “website”). CONVERT: Get your website visitor / app user (collectively “visitor”) to take some purchase-oriented action. Obviously, you need to get visitors to your website before you can nudge them towards purchase. Therefore,  ATTRACT precedes CONVERT, … Read more

Are Digital Natives Losing Their Data Chops? – Part 2

In Are Digital Natives Losing Their Data Chops?, we saw six examples of digital natives showing signs of losing their data chops. The litany of such new age tech companies seems to be never-ending. In this post, I will cover eight more examples. #7. BREADCRUMBS The SDR from this San Francisco-based lead scoring startup fixed up … Read more

Convenience Needs A Measure. Exhibit A: Text Blaze

I received the following notification from a product I’d recently signed up for: You saved 3 minutes this week by using Text Blaze. Underwhelming, right? I thought so, too. Text Blaze is a nifty Chrome Extension that works like a keyboard shortcut but for autofilling your online content. I was immediately attracted to this San … Read more

Variants Are Making Phishing Attacks More Lethal Than Ever

Phishing attacks typically stoke greed or fear, just as many genuine business pursuits do. Not surprisingly, they enjoy a fairly high success rate. At 3%, it comes close to the conversion rate of leading ecommerce websites like Amazon and Flipkart. Surprised to learn that phishing emails have a success rate of ~3%. That's as high … Read more

Just Because You Can Show Digital Ads Doesn’t Mean You Should

In Digital Ads: Whose Preference Is It Anyway?, we saw how digital ads are targeted on the basis of advertisers’ specifications regarding consumer preferences (“Meta Preferences“) rather than the consumer’s own preferences. That speaks to the propriety of the advertiser to show its ads to a particular consumer. But you might be wondering, just because … Read more

All Deceptions Are Not Equal – Bait-And-Switch Versus Phishing

Bait and Switch and Phishing are both deceptive. But, beyond that basic characteristic, they’re not the same. In Bait and Switch, the deception is in the offer. In Phishing, the deception is in the offeror. Let’s get on with it. Bait and Switch Bait and Switch is a type of Dark Pattern in which “you … Read more

Digital Ads: Whose Preference Is It Anyway?

A few years ago, many disruptionistas predicted that ad blockers would kill digital ads. I pooh-poohed their predictions. TV survived DVR. Web will survive ad blockers. — Ketharaman Swaminathan (@s_ketharaman) November 6, 2015 Sorry to say I told you so but I was right: Digital ads are alive and kicking During this period, digital surpassed … Read more

Colgate Total PayTM Cashback – Most Rewarding CEM Ever?

Colgate-Palmolive is currently running a Customer Engagement Management program for its premium toothpaste brand TOTAL. Like all CEM programs, this one also mandates product purchase. The price of the product is INR 102 (US$ 1.25) and the reward for purchase is a cashback of INR 50 (US$ 0.67) credited directly to the consumer’s PayTM eWallet. … Read more

Can Fraternities Be Inherited?

Everyone is a member of some group or the other e.g. school, college, neighborhood, company, etc. Different groups have different level of affinity aka fraternity strengths. Intuitively, we know that some fraternities are strong whereas others are not. In my blog post entitled How To Measure Fraternity Strength, I proferred a formula for measuring fraternity … Read more