You can see the highlighted border in the image. *I only added the arrow.

Google PLA Highlighted Ad

You can see in the actual eBay listing that the product image still has the red border; which eliminates any notion that Google highlighted the original ad in the SERP. I’m not sure if the eBay user (the-la-guy) realizes what he did or if he was just trying to highlight the listing in eBay, but it is a genius way to improve CTR in Google PLAs.

Source of PLA from eBay

Will other advertisers figure this out and start adding crazy borders to their product images? When will Google figure it out and add it to their TOS that you cannot have a border around the image? Will they write a program to automatically remove borders on images? It should be interesting to see how advertisers and the search engine handle this in the near future.

Google Got Served This Time

*I only saw the highlighted border when the PLAs were featured on the right. But it really depends on when eBay advertises the-la-guy’s listings. You can see that he does it to many of his products http://myworld.ebay.com/the-la-guy/?_trksid=p4340.l2559.

Let me know if you’ve seen this and what your thoughts are on the ethics or policies of this.

Happy Bidding!

CTR is so 2011. The only metric I care about now is Teleport-Through-Rate! ~ Greg A.

Since the April Fools debut of the beta AdWords program, businesses have been teleporting customers from couches, right into the showroom floor. Business owner David Robinson stated, “We absolutely love getting customers into the store, but they often click before grabbing their wallets…or pants. It creates a bit of a problem with our more conservative staff members, and the overall plan to make money as a business.”

While Google failed to teleport to my office for an in-person explanation of the issues business owners are facing, I did receive a response from famed rep, Holly “ice cream sandwich” Breyers. “We as a search company are only responsible for driving (teleporting) more customers to businesses at an affordable Cost Per Teleport. The business is responsible for handling their displaced customers post-click.”

Google Not Responsible For Return

As a search marketer, I really love the idea of sending my companies real breathing customers with the ease of a click on my ad. But I also have to explain to businesses that traditional retargeting should be converted to relocating. Taxi and air travel fees can really add up for a proper relocation campaign.

What about the online-only players in the eCommerce world? I was able to get a hold of Jeff Bees, an employee at Amazon. After a brief rant about NASA, I was able to get Jeff to comment on Google Click-To-Teleport. “Click-To-Teleport…where the f*&$ are we teleporting them to, our robotic warehouse? This is total bull. I’m going to play with my spaceship.”

We’ll see what types of studies come out as this CTT program is more widely adopted. What will be the incremental lift of teleportation? My guess is that the lift is somewhere close to the speed of light, but only Google knows that answer.

Happy April 1^st bidding, everyone.

Google's 2012 April Fools Joke

Maybe it’s more than just a new look. The preview also includes a second instance of your ad. Does it count as two impressions, once it is expanded? Does this count against your CTR, impacting your quality score? The same question goes for the current landing page preview.

What this does show, is the continued importance of Google Seller Ratings. If you sell a product or service online, you should be participating in reviews. It helps your CTR, not only because of extra ad real estate, but because it adds relevance and trust to the user…which could help conversion rate.

I wrote more about Seller Ratings in the past:
Google Seller Ratings
CSE Ratings to Google Seller Ratings 

Or you can read about it on the Official Google Blog.

New Google Seller Ratings preview:

AdWords Seller Ratings Pre-Click

AdWords Seller Ratings Post-Click

Finally! Seriously…this has been a BIG frustration with search marketers for the last few years. Google LOVES to take your money and pump out impressions and clicks through the Google Display Network (GDN) but never reports on granular performance. You could have 100,000 keywords driving $1mm worth of clicks to your site and Google would never tell you which keyword did what. How are you supposed to optimize an account with no keyword data?

Current (Old) GDN View

This is straight from their, somewhat hidden, AdWords help file release:

“Now you can find all your Display Network targeting and exclusions in one place. We’ve moved your Networks, Audiences, and Topics tabs under the new Display Network tab to make it easier for you to build, monitor and refine your display campaigns.”

Read the actual release notes here: New Google Display Network Tab in AdWords

New GDN Display Tab

With this new data, we can finally optimize to a keyword – just like we have always wanted. This should be a very valuable update to SEMs. It should also lead to more money being spent in the GDN, now that it can be better measured. I think that this is a win-win for the advertiser and Google.

In addition to Keyword data (which I think is the real news here), Google also moved Managed and Automatic Placements, Topics, and Remarketing management into the Display tab. This is really just a bit of house-cleaning to the AdWords UI.

Happy bidding…with new GDN keyword data!

You essentially get rewarded with A LOT of SERP real estate if you have closely themed Ad Groups within your campaign and those Ad Groups have ads that are closely related to your Sitelinks. Best practice is to theme everything from top to bottom very closely to each other, and this update will reward that practice.

The problem is, many account managers and SEM professionals do not structure their accounts correctly so they will not be able to use the Enhanced Sitelinks. I have taken over and audited dozens of accounts in my career, and not many of them started out with a good architecture. This latest update will force people to make drastic changes to their accounts. This is all for the better, of course, but it will be quite the undertaking for some SEM managers.

Enhanced Sitelinks is not only a layout update, it’s Google telling you that you better start building your AdWords account architecture in the best way possible. While there isn’t an exact account architecture guideline from Google, they do have some general recommendations for building out your account located in their help documents. This is a good read from a senior member in the AdWords Community. While it is informative, there is a lot left to the imagination.

Let’s Paint a Picture, by Numbers
The main idea of account architecture is to keep topics in tightly themed campaigns, groups, keyword sets, and ads. Think of an account as a dresser. You, the account (dresser) manager, should be very OCD about how you organize your clothes.

1. Keep the socks in one drawer, shirts in another, and pants in another drawer. Those are your Campaigns.
2. Now, inside of your sock drawer you also have rows of socks. These rows are variations of dress socks, gym socks, and casual socks. Those are your Ad Groups.
3. Inside the rows are the individual socks, each pair made of a similar thread. The individual socks are your Keywords.
4. On the outside of your drawer you have large labels. The labels are in-line with the rows of socks so you know what you’ll see when you open the drawer. The labels are your Ads.
5. Under the labels on the drawer, you also have a few descriptive words written. Best Work Socks, Use These for the Gym, Very White Casual Socks. This is your Sitelink Extension.

Hopefully that helps explain AdWords account architecture to you. That was beginning to feel a bit like Memento with all of the labels.  The key is to keep things organized, properly labeled, and related to each other.

If your ads within the Ad Groups are related to your Sitelinks, your sitelinks will essentially turn into your other ads. Easier shown than explained:

AdWords Enhanced Sitelinks

The update will be interesting to see in action and analyze if it has any impact on CTR. The reason Google updates ad layout is to increase CTR, so I’m guessing that we should see a good impact on performance. If CTR and total clicks decrease, we will see the Enhanced Sitelinks go away, and this post will be history!

Google official blog post.

Happy Bidding.

The Flaw of Same Session / Last Click Attribution

Think of a traditional retail purchase at a store without eCommerce…heck; let’s imagine the Internet doesn’t even exist for this scenario.

The potential customer is watching TV and sees an ad from a new store in the area, for a product she needs for the house. The next day she heads out for a shopping trip to her usual stores, but happens to see a billboard for that new store. She knows the general location of the store but cannot find it until she spots a WACKY WAVING INFLATABLE ARM FLAILING TUBE MAN in the parking lot of the new store. She walks in and browses the merchandise, but doesn’t purchase anything until a nice young store clerk shows her to the product she saw on the TV commercial. She walks out a happy customer.

The story above isn’t unimaginable; it could very well happen 1000’s of times per day. Multiple marketing mediums touched the customer before she made the purchase. So what channel gets the credit? Did the TV ad cause her to buy from the store? Was the billboard the real winner in the marketing mix that reminded her that she wanted to shop at the new store? How about the WACKY WAVING INFLATABLE ARM FLAILING TUBE MAN? He practically ushered her into the parking lot! Or, was it the young store clerk taking her directly to the product that made the sale?

Ask 10 different people that question and you will get many different answers. The clerk would say it’s all because of his product knowledge and Brut cologne he was wearing that day. The Arm-Flailing Emporium owner would say it was the high-quality arm flailers that made the sale. Mr. John Billboard would argue that his billboard location and design really drove the sale. And the producer would say it was the amazing TV spot that was responsible for the sale.

The problem, of deciding which channel to credit the sale to, is extremely difficult to solve. If you take one channel out of the mix, the sale may not have occurred at all. So, in order to produce more sales, which channel should get more funding? Which channel drives the most sales and how do you measure that? It is a very real problem that companies deal with every day. And many companies simply make educated guesses at what works.

Online Attribution Issues

The very same situation occurs online with the customer never leaving their seat. They see banner ads, organic and paid search engine results, retargeting ads, social media influencers, and email reminders. These channels tie together to make an online marketing mix that each contributes to the final sale. Some channels get credit for more direct response sales than other, like paid search and affiliate marketing. While other channels, such as display ads and social, impact the awareness of a product or company more than directly driving a sale. So which is more important?

Last Click Attribution or Same Session tracking, basically gives credit of the sale to the last channel that the visitor touched. So if a user clicks on a paid search ad and then buys, they are considered a paid search customer; plain and simple. It does not matter how many other marketing mediums touched them prior to the paid search ad, they are counted as a paid search sale. Many, many companies measure their online sales this way.

That almost seems lazy, doesn’t it?

It is. But it is also extremely difficult to accurately measure a complex multi-channel marketing mix. The scary truth is that many companies have no idea what value the marketing channels, as a collective mix, adds to their company’s success. They measure each medium at an individual last click attribution model, but that only tells them that each channel is capable of driving a sale, sometimes. Not how the channels work together to make the most efficient mix.

What is the better solution, if last click attribution is wrong?

Kenshoo Attribution Example

What all of the above boils down to, is a basic lack of available measuring tools. Multi-channel attribution is the holy grail of online marketing. Unfortunately, it does not exist in a perfect form. There are a few companies out there that claim to provide multi-channel attribution measurement. These companies often assign a percentage of the sale to each subsequent visit. This methodology gives the last click the most value and each previous click less and less of a percentage value to the sale. It can also be customizable, like Kenshoo (bid management tool), but it is only as good as the attribution percentages you put into it.

You can gather patterns and make an educated guess about which channel provides the most value by using this type of attribution. But even then, it is all relative to how you setup the attribution model. And with each company being different, it is extremely difficult to build a multi-channel attribution tool for the masses. Your best bet is to invest heavily in an analytics team that will find a custom way around this issue. They will be able to closely figure out the appropriate percentages to apply to each channel.

Well, What is the Solution?

If my answer in the previous paragraph was vague, that’s because I do not know the answer. I don’t think there is a 100% correct answer. If a company can figure out an attribution model that allows their marketing team to make data driven decisions; I would call that a successful model. And really all that matters is that we are making data driven decisions to improve the company.

Google Analytics Conversion Path Example

Google Analytics and AdWords Search Funnels are great free tools on the market which help shine light on multi-channel attribution. You are able to see assisted clicks and assisted conversions within AdWords. And you can see organic, paid, banner, affiliate, and more channels within Google Analytics. Google really took a big step towards helping businesses figure out where their valuable clicks are coming from. The capabilities are more powerful than many large companies realize, and much easier to use than large analytic suites like Omniture. Google Analytics Multi-channels funnels are a great way to see the traffic and sales paths and funnels on your site. But you still have to add weight to those clicks manually and setup your own attribution formula, most likely in Excel.

The Danger of the Flaw

The big danger of Last Click Attribution / Same Session tracking is that bad decisions can easily be made with poor data. The conversion data is skewed since certain channels often receive the majority of last click sales. It’s just a fact that certain channels are further down the purchase funnel than others. And it is also all too often that a company cuts back on awareness campaigns to put more money towards direct response marketing.

The act of shifting funds from awareness to direct response is usually caused by a lack of understanding how the marketing channels work together. By cutting awareness, you also impact the future of direct response, which can then lead to a tailspin of bad marketing decisions. Appropriately attributing a percentage of sales to the first-touch awareness campaign ensures that all channels in the mix will receive appropriate funding in the future. That is why multi-channel attribution is so important.

*That’s a lot to take in. Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

To ring in 2012, here is a list of my top 12 most frequently read Search Engine Marketing resources. I visit most of these sites every day – so I tend to say “yep I read that earlier” a lot. If you want to be as much of a “Great News Everyone” downer as I can be, go ahead and give these a look. In all seriousness, I get a lot of great news, tactics, and strategic ideas from these websites. And I am very thankful to the people putting in the hours of work to make them so good. :List Below:

Alltop | http://sem.alltop.com/
The SEM information King. This is an aggregator of most SEM articles with some great usability and scanability. Alltop makes it easy to cruise through the top SEM stories of the day if you are short on time. This often leads to me finding new blogs to frequently visit. DAILY READ

All Things D | http://allthingsd.com/
This is the new kid on the block; at least to my reading list. So far it has been a great resource for breaking technology news, which includes search engine news and all things Internet media. Interestingly enough, it is owned by DOW Jones and published by the Wall Street Journal. Check this one out. DAILY READ

Search Engine Watch | http://searchenginewatch.com/ppc
One of the classics with a semi-recent redesign. This is a go-to site to find a wide variety of search engine articles written by experts in the field. I link to the PPC focused part of the site, but Search Engine Watch has dynamite content for SEO, Analytics and all things Internet marketing. DAILY READ

Search Engine Land | http://searchengineland.com/
The people who bring us SMX search marketing conference run a pretty good blog, too. Over 30k likes on Facebook and LinkedIn is a good sign that this is a go-to search destination. If you can’t make it to the world-class search conference – at least check out the blog on a regular basis. WEEKLY READ

Official Google AdWords Blog | http://adwords.blogspot.com/
Why not hear it from the horse’s mouth? Sure you can get conspiracy theory blog posts that cover an alpha AdWords test, but you may as well get the real details from Google. Besides covering their features in detail, they often share some industry insights and link to other useful tools that you may not have heard of. Worth a look every morning after you brush your teeth. DAILY READ

Google Retail Blog | http://googleretail.blogspot.com/
I happen to be a big fan of retail marketing and may or may not work for one of the largest consumer electronics retailers in the world. This Google blog is mainly filled with insights, strategy success stories, and infographics. Good stuff. WEEKLY READ

Search Engine Journal | http://www.searchenginejournal.com/
Another allstar cast of writers and guest blog posts. This is where you can find cutting edge strategy and real world insights from expert search marketers and key players in the industry. Another daily or weekly read. DAILY READ

TechCrunch | http://techcrunch.com/
Not necessarily a search website, but it has great web industry news that many times touches the world of search marketing. If you work with anything Internet, you should be on top of industry news like this. DAILY READ

SEOmoz | http://www.seomoz.org/blog
The great Rand Fishkin http://www.seomoz.org/users/profile/63 once said, “I know Jordon loves PPC, but I wish he would care more about SEO and read SEOmoz.” OK – maybe he didn’t say that, but I heard it loud and clear with the quality posts that he writes. I like to frequent The Moz about once per week to keep up on all of the SEO news and tactics. Plus they create some amazing infographics. WEEKLY READ

PPC Hero | http://www.ppchero.com/
Brought to us by Hanapin Marketing agency. They sometimes believe in quantity over quality, but there are some real gems within the pile of posts they produce. PPC Hero is a good resource for everyone from beginner to expert. You can tell that Hanapin has some talent within their walls. WEEKLY READ

Certified Knowledge | http://certifiedknowledge.org/blog/
One of the main partners in Market Motive, an expert SEM and SEO certification training course, Brad Geddes has created an expert knowledgebase at Certified Knowledge. He and his colleagues contribute to the blog and create high quality, thought provoking content. It’s a nice gesture to give us high quality free content, since he charges about $3000 for his class. WEEKLY READ

Uncrate | http://uncrate.com/
Almost nothing to do with search marketing, aside from some banner as buys within the site. And that’s the point. After a day full of search marketing at work and home, Uncrate is my 10 minute escape on the Internet. Delivering 3 or more incredibly cool guy things, it’s a man’s wishlist for his next splurge. DAILY READ / DREAM

7 ½ Myths about PPC. Because there are just too many complete lists in the world.

1. Big Pockets only, during Black Friday and Cyber Monday

1. If you’re selling TVs or Laptops, yes, you have an insane amount of competition and should Not do major holidays. *Only play with the big guys if your site has the right offers and value-adds to your visitors. I would also stick to long-tail keywords that have been proven winners for you in the past.
2. BUT if you are specialized in B2C or practically any B2B, don’t worry about big retailer competition. You should be able to run smoothly with your normal budget. Target and Amazon won’t be bidding on cold air condensers or 3M label glue.

2. Just press play, it takes less than an hour to start PPC

1. It takes hours of research, years of experience, and hours of implementation to do it right. Those who say otherwise, Self-made Guru or Agency, are probably not doing a great job – and you should look elsewhere for PPC services.
2. True Pay Per Click / Search Engine Marketing professionals specialize in one main skill. If they are also a designer, UXer, programmer, and delivery driver – it’s very rare that they would be great at PPC.

3. Cha-ching. Instant sales!

1. Google AdWords defaults to a 30 day cookie for a reason. They understand that sales don’t happen instantly, and often times not on the first visit.
2. If you as a business owner think that PPC is a magic bullet to your bottom line, I have some snake oil to sell you. It takes time to figure out the best use of PPC for each business. And if you don’t have a few months to invest and fine-tune, then you should wait until you can afford it. PPC is an investment, treat it as one and give it time to grow, but also have an exit plan to cut losses if it goes poorly.

4. I run the business, so I can run PPC! And my nephew can when I’m on vacation.

1. *See #2 above.
2. Let a pro handle it. But work with the PPC professional, for goodness sake. Work as a team. You are THE expert in your business. You know the keywords regular customers use. You know the hot products or products with the biggest profit margin. Share that insight with your Agency, Consultant or In-house PPC expert. Just don’t micromanage the keywords too much.

5. Set it and forget it.

1. Active management, active profit. That is my PPC credo.
2. If you set-up your account and don’t change a thing, a few things will happen. You will either slowly begin to slip in the rankings and fall off of Google’s 1st page, or you will pay too much per bid and waste money. You will also grow into a terrible PPC manager.
3. It’s not only about managing bids. Ad copy needs refreshed and tested, budgets need updating, settings need tweaked, and keywords need updated and expanded – to name a few things.

6. You’re not allowed to bid on competitors or trademarks.

1. Short answer: You CAN bid on brand names and some trademarks.
2. I don’t condone it, but you can. If another company is bidding on your name, why not retaliate until they receive your cease and desist letter? Or if you legitimately sell a brand name product, you will obviously want to bid on the brand. It can get messy when big brands are involved, but it’s possible.
3. *Bid away – but not in the ad copy. Brands and trademarks can often times be bid on, but they can’t be used in your ad copy. You’ll be stopped before you even start.

7. Google is just a call away for help.

1. 866-2-Google
2. That’s the number. Call it, see how much they can do for you. Google will be helpful for some things, but you get what you pay for with the phone number above. It’s FREE.
3. In order to get some attention and some more valuable help, spend somewhere close to $100k per month for a few months. They’ll call you this time. Spend more than $1 million per month and you can have a Google rep help you with strategy, create reports, make bid and copy changes, and even do some big account restructuring. Plus you can get into some cool Alpha and Beta AdWords programs. Work for a big retailer and maybe they’ll even take you out to dinner ;)

7 1/2.  Online ROAS is King.

1. It’s nice, but up to 6x the sales can occur offline if you have a physical location. And don’t forget cookies for retargeting, and customer acquisition for remarketing. If you break even to gain a customer, you have already made money in the long run.

The trick is to use Special ASCII HTML Character Codes to make the arrow. You can find the code on an ASCII site or just copy this ⇒ and never lose it. You simply past this into your ad copy and away you go; boosted CTRs in most cases. Who in their right mind wouldn’t want an arrow pointing to their CTA or their value prop? It grabs the eye and pushes it into your next statement. It’s a glorious thing.

Current Appearance in Google

 

Previous Appearance in Google

I have run into a few approval issues in the past, so you have to use it wisely. I like to put it in established campaigns that have never had an approval issue. Maybe it’s me being superstitious, but that has slipped it past the approval a lot easier. The trick is simple, but use it wisely. You don’t want every ad out there with arrows, otherwise the differentiator is null.

In the past few years of using this with about 5 different clients, I have seen anywhere from 8-14% lift in CTR versus the same copy without the arrow. Traditionally, in place of the arrow would be a period, comma, plus sign, or hyphen. The arrow took all of them down.

So why am I revealing my ultimate secret now? Short answer: Because I left the agency life for corporate. Longer answer: Because I can’t risk having an ad disapproved by legal at my new job, and we actually have Google reps that care about us and look at our accounts. Weekly calls and near daily communication with our Google reps doesn’t leave me much room to do things like this anymore. So I figured I would share the love with my agency and freelance friends out there. The worst that can happen is you get your ad disapproved. The upside is you get a good CTR and your ads look and perform better than your competition.

*There is a good chance that a Google rep will read this and could put in a note to their engineers to fix this, but hopefully not. I think it’s a harmless loophole in their system. And you should be rewarded for finding it. And you should definitely be rewarded for reading this post! Thank you.

Happy bidding, everyone!

Below is a typical situation of an online business with a retail heritage. This has happened to multiple businesses I have worked with in the past. They will go nameless; but real experience has shaped this advice.

The Short Introduction:

Congratulations, you have a very successful business. Your multi-thousand square foot office, toll-free number, warehouse, showroom, and local brand recognition are all very impressive. You have won the business game. Now you decide to go and conquer the Internet while you’re at it. It makes sense.

Many businesses simply do the same thing they did when they started their traditional business. They built it, and expect customers to come. So, they commission a web development company to build them a website. Then they load up the products, slap their 300 dpi logo in the top left corner and wait for the money to flow in. They will soon be rich and plan on telling their other business group buddies how easy it was.

It’s not Apples to Apples:

The Internet does not have busy roads to your front door, location doesn’t matter. Consumers don’t care where you are, as long as their experience is good and you get them their product in a timely fashion. Don’t charge tax and offer free shipping and you have yourself a happy customer, even if you’re in the middle of Wyoming.

The Internet is not influenced by your 20 closest business friends. Old school word of mouth is weak. So you impressed your traditional business friends with your website and they told their friends and family. Chances are that many of those friends of friends already have your offer fulfilled online by someone else. And if they don’t, they are still going to price-shop, offer-shop, find coupons, and find better deals somewhere other than your website. Internet friends are not loyal. You need to earn their business and then earn it again every time after that.

Your amazing warehouse and talented shipping guy do not give you a large advantage. It only gives you the advantage on small items that aren’t ordered by the case pack. If you sell equipment or large items like ovens or chairs, guess what, your competitor who just started his website last week is at an even playing field with you by simply drop shipping the merchandise. That means he gets the manufacturer to ship it for him; all without the overhead cost of a warehouse or a shipping crew.

Yellow Pages worked in the past for my brick business and now they offer this amazing online version of marketing! Yellow Pages does not offer the quality of online marketing that you need. Yellow Pages, ATT, Deluxe, and even Google AdWords Express do not get you what you need. They are taking advantage of traditional businesses trying to get into the online world. Ignore the cold-calls and search and find a reputable online marketing agency. An agency focused on eCommerce marketing will help you succeed far better than any directory-type company could every do.

Wait, don’t change everything:

Want to easily cut tens of thousands of dollars out of your marketing budget? Cut the old fashioned paper catalog! Why would you need a catalog if everything is digital? Well, because your mailing list isn’t going to switch to email overnight and email does not replace a physical catalog for many reasons. Stick with the catalog and see a big lift in traffic and sales with each mailing. You can scale back the size to save on production and mailing costs; but I have seen some clients take a big hit because of their decision to cut a catalog.

Save even more money by cutting back on customer service. Maybe that intern can answer some emails and your receptionist can answer phone calls a few hours a day. Don’t cut customer service. Online customers are needier than catalog and traditional customers. They expect you to be available all of the time. Or at least during business hours on the phone, and extended hours for chat and email. The eCommerce world moves fast, and customer service is needed to keep things moving. Whatever you do, don’t cut customer service. More than likely you will want to staff-up with more web-savvy CSRs than before. And your CSRs need to know the product and be the human-catalog in order to answer every question, because it could prevent a sale if it goes unanswered.

No brick and mortar equals no upkeep! Wait, not so fast slumlord. You need to keep your property, online or offline, up to date. Your website needs to be modern, functional and continuously tested and improved for optimal user experience and conversion rate. Just because you don’t have a building to pay for, does not mean regular web maintenance is not needed. Be sure to budget for website upkeep and occasional redesign, just as you would for building upkeep.

The Hard Truth:

Online business takes just as much work and dedication as a traditional business does. If you make the leap into eCommerce from traditional, you need to be as hungry as you were when you started out with your offline business. Passion is still needed. Guerrilla marketing and startup mentality is a must to succeed.

Starting your first business online is also challenging. The initial investment and operating costs are typically less. No building, no point of sale system, less capital. However, there are a lot operational aspects you won’t know that a traditional business owner will know. This is where good partnerships, mentorship and professional groups come into play. Use all resources available to harness the power of online and offline business methods. A good mix of knowledge and passion is needed to succeed. You should also plan on partnering with a technology company that offers web development and online marketing. You need the help to succeed.

My experience has driven the above advice. There are bits and pieces that you should digest, new or old business owner. I have seen each of the failures and victories first hand. There is a lot more to cover, but these are some important aspects of eCommerce to focus on if you want to succeed.