Come back soon, the untapped power of the Thank You Page.

Posted on by Billy Tucker

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Most transactional websites share a common shortcoming, leaving a significant amount of value up-tapped. The Thank You page is seen as a simple confirmatory page, there to provide certainty to the customer that what they think just happened, just happened. But the Thank You Page is a comma, not a full stop.

You have battled hard to win the customer, fought to provide the right product at the right price, and you have lost many along the way. But once a transaction is complete, you’re done, there’s a tick in the box and the user begins again, <close window>, <new tab>.

But your customer is, at that moment, your biggest advocate – you are in the Golden Window. Your Advocate is brimming with delight at the purchase of that holiday, auction item, or e-book, so why stop now?

Immediately post transaction is the right time to harness their advocacy, and here are six ways to get value from the Thank You Page:

  1. Cross Sell: Have a series of pre-determined product offers, “you bought X, check out Y” – providing such offers pre-transaction is tougher and will result in a reduced conversion rate overall, but it will lead to an increase in the average basket size and may be worth while in the long run. With post transaction, there is less risk and can be used to perfect product matching.
  2. Loyalty Discounting: Reward the first purchase with a discount on an immediate subsequent purchase
  3. Voucher offer: Provide a variety of vouchers, gather opt in to email alerts to grow your email base and encourage redemption
  4. Friend Get Friend: Great time to encourage your advocates to recruit for you, make it easy for them, and provide incentives the purchaser can give away, such as discount on first purchase (people don’t like to profit from their friends, but being able to secure a discount for their friends makes them feel important)
  5. Facebook promotion: simply “click here to Like our Facebook page”, or “share the news with your friends that you just secured a holiday!”
  6. Promote affiliates: (this option is possibly the easiest to execute but the lowest value adding) add a display ad to the Thank You Page which can be sold on a CPM or on a take-over basis.

[check out RockLive in Australia and the many other agencies emerging in this space]

Take note, your Audience is growing old more quickly than you are!

Posted on by Billy Tucker

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The average age of an Australian internet user is growing fast; catering for this shift is increasingly important.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 79% of Australians over the age of 15 are online – meaning adoption is way past the Early Adopter phase (According to the Diffusion of Innovations curve) and well into the Late Majority – at 84% adoption only the Laggards are yet to join!

In terms of age profile, 96% of 18 – 24 Year Olds are already online, so new audience growth will mostly come from older age segments in the coming years. In the past two years, 55 – 64’s joined the web at almost twice the rate of their younger counterparts.

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This new older audience presents an interesting opportunity, by nature they are more considered and loyal (and/or resistant to change), and have an appealing cash pile at their disposal.

Winning the over 55’s is hard though, often they rely on personal recommendations and will Trial only after careful consideration, but they are worth the effort.

So here are six tips for appealing to an older user:

  1. Encourage linger time, provide plain and simple T’s and C’s, lots of expansive detail
  2. Include testimonials, the more the better (including Facebook ads as below)
  3. Be sensitive with lifestyle shots, don’t alienate the older demo with youthful images, equally, avoid images of over 50’s, over 50’s think associate with people in their early 40’s!image
  4. Consider a larger, easy to read font
  5. Leverage Facebook ads such as the one shown here, “friends as fans” work as a testimonial
  6. Take care to provide a generous returns policy, over 50’s are considered and risk averse.

Group Buying Industry takes the wraps off its long awaited Code of Conduct

Posted on by Billy Tucker

The Group Buying Industry in Australia has suffered some reputational damage through the conduct of some less than responsible industry players, in fact many Merchants and Customers tell us at Cudo that Group Buying sometimes resembles the wild west with shonky Group Buying startups offering dubious discounts on even more dubious experiences. This has to stop. Group Buying now represents a $500m industry in Australia and supports well over 1,000 employees. This is why at Cudo we felt compelled to act.

The Group Buying Industry Code of Conduct is being jointly announced today by AIMIA and ADMA and is an essential step towards ensuring a minimum standard of transparency and service from the participating Group Buying businesses and was called for by Cudo back in June of this year.

Although the long standing Cudo Satisfaction Guarantee means we are fully compliant with the Code from day one, we are delighted to be a founding signatory along with a small number of Leading Group Buying business, and hope that the majority of Group Buying businesses in Australia shape up and sign up to the Code.