Here’s an interesting thing that I’ve noticed that is great news for marketers:

Precise stats on cart abandonment are tough because they range widely depending on the source, but if you take the mean then something like 50% of people who add something to their shopping cart never check out. That seems pretty high to me, but let’s be honest we’re all guilty of doing it – right?

Here’s another situation that was interesting to me along those same lines.  I went to go check out Angie’s List the other day. If you’re not familiar with the service, it’s a fantastic idea (especially when you’re trying to find someone to paint your new condo on the cheap!).  During the signup process, I never  realize it was a paid service – until I had already given my email address and created a password for my account.

That’s a good idea for their service, because now they have me!

I was short on time and didn’t want to go find my wallet and complete the signup process, so I closed the laptop and off I went.  True to my A.D.D. nature, I didn’t remember to go back and finish the checkout process, so guess what happened next? Angie’s List sends me an email a week that says “we noticed you didn’t finish signing up, so here’s a coupon” that would allow me to use the first month without paying for the service.

Image via Wikipedia

Smart strategy, and one that is easily achievable for your organization if you put a little thought into how you structure the calls to action on your site. Think through the service and information that you can offer on your site, and find ways to capture information about your site visitors. With cart abandonment (and signup) rates being whatever they are, why wouldn’t you want to reach back out to someone who expressed some interest in your products or services, but may have just gotten sidetracked?

Targeting and segmentation are the name of the game – so use the tools at your disposal: analytics, lists, etc. and improve on what may or may not be working on your site.  My favorite quote that relates to what we do was by Lord Kelvin over 100 years ago: “If you can not measure it, you can not improve it.”

This is exciting news for web designers and e-marketers alike! Google has released a new method for using Google Analytics with Flash!

Yesterday, at the Adobe MAX Conference in San Francisco, a joint collaboration between Adobe and a some third party developers announced a simplified solution for tracking Flash content called Google

Analytics Tracking For Adobe Flash. I have had the opportunity to work with many clients who have used the power of Google Analytics to identify and analyze trends on their web sites. But, one of the most common implementation challenges has been tracking Flash content on their pages. With this launch, tracking your Flash content has never been simpler.

What It’s All About
This feature is a translation of the current Google Analytics tracking code into the ActionScript 3 programming language that dramatically simplifies the ability to track Flash, Flex and AS3 content. This new Flash tracking code can be used to track Flash content such as embedded videos, branded microsites and distributed widgets, such as online games.Now it’s simple for Flash content developers to answer questions like: How many people have watched my video? Are we developing the right creative that attracts new users? How effective is my content at getting people to take action? The ability to answer these questions is now a reality, and the best thing is that they’re providing our entire AS3 code base under the Apache 2 License as Open Source! [From Want to track Adobe Flash? Now you can!]