In year-to-date terms, online sales have increased 10 percent to $158 billion.  This may sound healthy, but when compared to growth of 17 percent in 2007, 20 percent in 2006, and 22 percent in 2005, this year’s growth seems paltry. (more…)

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Just in case you needed more evidence that the economy is headed south: Hitwise is reporting that visits to online retail Web sites in the U.S. have declined for the eighth consecutive week.

Visits to retail Web sites were down 3% for the week ending Oct. 25 compared to that same week a year ago. Retail sites had actually experienced a bump in traffic from June through August of this year, but then started sagging in September, when they dropped by 4%. We all know the story from there.

“These declines have strong implications for the upcoming online holiday season as well as offline sales,” said Heather Dougherty, research director at Hitwise. “Everyone is aware of the role that the Internet plays to influence offline sales through research, so this slowdown may indicate a further ripple effect in sales in retail locations.”

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Seer Interactive
Adam explains that Facebook listings are creeping into the SERPs at a much faster rate than expected, giving online marketers — particularly e-tailers — strong competition for eyeballs, clicks and conversions.

“Where are these rankings showing up? Searches for Victoria’s Secret, Nike Shoes, Vodka, and Coldplay bring back Facebook as the 28th, 30th, 51st, and 28th result respectively,” he says. “While ranking 30th isn’t impressive, the fact remains that Facebook isn’t trying and they were also not ranking AT ALL a few days ago.”

And he thinks that the trend will likely continue, with the Facebook pages continuing to attain higher rankings. “These sites aren’t just full of disheveled forums, but contain videos, photos, events, message boards, product offers, downloads, even discographies,” Adam says. “The results are relevant and definitely give some retailers, ticket websites, music sites and others a pinch in the arm… If you’re able to download songs, buy shoes, and purchase lingerie from links on these pages, what is stopping Facebook from becoming the largest affiliate marketer on the web?”

MoreVisibility
So you want to target Spanish-speaking Internet users with your PPC ads? Amber Farley offers five quick tips for launching a Hispanic-focused paid search campaign — starting with testing to see whether your particular audience responds better to English or Spanish ads.

“According to comScore Media Metrix, 52% of online Hispanics are English dominant, 21% are Spanish dominant, and 27% are bilingual,” Farley says. “It’s best to test both to see what brings in the highest conversion rate.” If your target skews toward Spanish language, hire a native speaker to write and translate your ad copy.

Test your landing pages, too. “If you test the keywords and ad copy in Spanish, make sure you send the visitor to a Spanish page and vice versa,” she says. “Part of Google’s quality score for an ad, is the relevancy between the ad and the landing page.” Lastly, make sure you’re using the engines’ geo- and demographic targeting features to hone in on both national and local levels.

Seer Interactive
Adam explains that Facebook listings are creeping into the SERPs at a much faster rate than expected, giving online marketers — particularly e-tailers — strong competition for eyeballs, clicks and conversions.

“Where are these rankings showing up? Searches for Victoria’s Secret, Nike Shoes, Vodka, and Coldplay bring back Facebook as the 28th, 30th, 51st, and 28th result respectively,” he says. “While ranking 30th isn’t impressive, the fact remains that Facebook isn’t trying and they were also not ranking AT ALL a few days ago.”

And he thinks that the trend will likely continue, with the Facebook pages continuing to attain higher rankings. “These sites aren’t just full of disheveled forums, but contain videos, photos, events, message boards, product offers, downloads, even discographies,” Adam says. “The results are relevant and definitely give some retailers, ticket websites, music sites and others a pinch in the arm… If you’re able to download songs, buy shoes, and purchase lingerie from links on these pages, what is stopping Facebook from becoming the largest affiliate marketer on the web?”

Pepperjam’s 2008 Inc. 500 ranking is #70 with three-year revenue growth of 2,447.5%.

An interesting note is that this is Pepperjam’s third consecutive year on Inc. Magazine’s list of fastest growing companies. Also noteworthy is that since these rankings only include revenue growth through 2007, the ranking does not include revenue from Pepperjam Network, which was launched in January 2008 and has been by far our most significant source of revenue growth to date. (more…)