Microsoft's Latest Ad Buy

Microsoft today announced that it is purchasing Rapt, an advertising technology company specializing in sophisticated analytical tools. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Today's is the latest in a frenzied string of acquisitions by Microsoft and other Internet heavyweights looking to expand the reach and technology underlying their online advertising businesses. Most recently, Microsoft purchased YaData, an Israeli company specializing in behavioral targeting technology.

The Rapt buy is about helping well-funded Web publishers manage their advertising efforts with premium analytics and campaign planning features. Microsoft will fold Rapt's technology into its Atlas Publisher Suite (APS). Atlas is one of the brands Microsoft acquired through its purchase of aQuantive.

Consistently, Web publishers say that they want to focus on driving ad sales by improving their content and their users' experience, but that is only a small part of the equation, said Scott Howe, general manager of Microsoft's APS.

"Selling online advertising if you're a publisher is hard, and it's getting more complex as time goes on," Howe said.

Where many publishers need help is in the technical aspects of managing ad sales, such as pricing, forecasting and selling remnant inventory.

Rapt's Yield Advisor product, which Microsoft will begin promoting to publishers as soon as the deal closes, offers predictive tools for sites to plan ad sales around future-looking inventory estimates.

Pricing analytics are designed to help sales teams determine the optimal rates to charge advertisers, aimed at minimizing the amount of unsold inventory.

Microsoft expects the purchase to round out its suite of offerings for publishers.

"As a result of this acquisition, we feel like we have no gaps," Howe told InternetNews.com. "We can partner with the publisher very narrowly or very broadly."

The announcement comes just a day after Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced its first ad product following the close of the DoubleClick acquisition -- also a service for publishers to manage their ad inventories and sell remnant space on their sites.

In their latest ad moves, Microsoft and Google are both courting publishers. The principal difference is that Google's Ad Manager, a free, hosted service, is intended for small companies with marginal sales staffs, while Microsoft's acquisition of Rapt is geared for high-end publishers with large content networks and sales staffs. Among Rapt's clients are The New York Times Company, Fox Interactive Media, Yahoo and Microsoft itself.

source:- internetnews.com/

Five Tips For Improving Ecommerce Website Usability

ECOMMERCE AND USABILITY: What did you spend in man (or woman) hours and advertising dollars last month to drive traffic to your ecommerce storefront? And what will you spend this upcoming holiday season? If you're like most Internet retailers, it might just seem like the total expenditure of a small nation. Is it more than you need? What are the other options to improve long-term customer value? Let's look at some practical tactics for improving the usability of your ecommerce site to increase long-term customer interaction with your products and your brand.

- Identify Users By Email Address; Not Username:-
It might seem like a good idea on the surface to enable people to customize their user experience with personalized usernames, but most consumers change their personal profiles frequently. How do you ensure your "forgot username" function doesn't get overloaded? Try using an e-mail address to identify users rather than a username. E-mail addresses (while changed frequently) are easier to remember, often require no special characters and are most always unique, so users avoid the problem of someone else already taking their preferred username.

- Shorten the (Perceived) Distance To Checkout Completion:-
Can't see the forest because of the trees? Probably so. Often times, ecommerce merchants think they "get" the optimal user checkout experience, but breaking the process up into shorter segments allows users to focus on one step at a time. There's less to think about at each step and less information to enter (or screw up). Consider splitting the ordering process into just five sections (supposing they are logged in); delivery address confirmation, delivery option selection, entering payment details, order review/submission and confirmation.

- Address (and Publicize) Common User Issues:-
All the time you've spent building out a comprehensive FAQ section should not go to waste. It's important that throughout the ordering process, common user questions and queries are addressed. Users might want to know how long delivery is expected to take, or if they have to enter extra information such as their date of birth, they might want to know why. Go through the ordering process and ask yourself at each stage: What queries might a user have? Answers to these queries should either be provided on-screen, or through a hyperlink. Take this a step further by cutting off issues at the pass. If you give your users a "dashboard" to see account activity, this is the perfect place to highlight these issues.

- Establish Trust With Users:-
Many consumers are still not 100% comfortable buying online - no surprise, right? They might be concerned about giving out their credit card number, or about not receiving the items they've paid for. It's therefore important that you acknowledge and allay these concerns to put users' minds at ease. Try and think about the concerns users might have at each step of the ordering process, and try to address them. For example, who is this person or company I am buying from? Including information on your company and the people behind the company is essential to your success. Links to this information should always be included in the navigational architecture of your users' experience, but consider calling out this information within a sidebar during the actual checkout process. If you're worried about abandonment or leakage in general - open up the link in a new browser window.

- Success From Confirmation Emails:-
Once a user has placed their order, a confirmation e-mail should be sent immediately - no waiting until you can process the order. Confirmation e-mails should be brief and tell users important information such as the order number or tracking code. Including contact information for a real customer service associate from the company might be a little too much for the business process of smaller enterprises, but if you can manage, there is no substitute for conveying yours is a quality product from a quality company.

source:- websitemagazine.com/

NetSuite - A Leading Silicon Valley ERP, CRM and Ecommerce Software Company

A leading vendor of on-demand, integrated business management software suites for mid-market enterprises and divisions of large companies, today announced the details of its expansion in the Denver, Colorado metro area, including the opening of a new sales and services facility in the city of Centennial. The announcement came at a NetSuite-sponsored event held at the Denver Ritz Carlton and hosted by NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson for NetSuite customers, prospects, local government officials and members of the media.

"Our Denver presence is a strategic investment that we believe will accelerate our growth," said Zach Nelson, CEO of NetSuite. "The information technology sector is growing rapidly in the Greater Denver and Centennial areas, due in no small part to the region's highly qualified and educated work force. We hope to leverage this expertise and regional location to service our growing customer base in the central region with world-class sales and professional services teams."

NetSuite's new office is located at 8000 S. Chester Street, Suite 100, in Centennial, Colorado. The office will augment NetSuite's sales and consulting teams located at its headquarters in San Mateo, California. Marc Huffman, formerly General Manager of Canadian operations for NetSuite, has been appointed General Manager for NetSuite's Denver office and will oversee all Denver area operations. NetSuite expects to have over 65 employees in the Denver office by year end, with continued expansion through 2009.

"I am so pleased to have NetSuite, a leading Silicon Valley software company, join our strong and dynamic business community in Centennial like other top employers such as Ceridian, Pitney-Bowes and TEKsystems," said Centennial Mayor Randy Pye. "Centennial and the metro Denver area are known for their highly-qualified, educated work forces and are recognized centers for expertise and growth in the information technology sector. We expect that NetSuite will be extremely successful by taking advantage of our attractive business environment."

NetSuite has a growing list of customers in Colorado from a wide range of industries, including online retail, distribution, professional services and non-profits. At NetSuite's Denver launch event today, three Denver-area based companies described how they benefit from using NetSuite to run their businesses. These customers include:

-- Imagine! -- a non-profit business with approximately 650 employees serving and supporting individuals with developmental disabilities and their families throughout the greater Denver area. Imagine! uses NetSuite to manage its business -- from tracking and supporting the over 2,000 consumers of its services to coordinating the 250 providers that are part of its network to

giving families self-service capabilities for managing key insurance information and service authorizations.

-- RLE Technologies -- a manufacturer and distributor of monitoring systems for data centers has been in business for over 23 years in the Denver area. RLE Technologies uses NetSuite for tracking its work orders through the sales process with its ever growing network of distributors, to integration with its Materials Resource Planning system, to managing its billing and financials.

-- Accuvant -- offers Internet security products such as anti-virus and managed solutions to its customers, in addition to maintaining a healthy security services consulting business. Headquartered in Denver, Accuvant has over 150 employees in offices throughout the West and Central regions and uses NetSuite to manage sales, marketing and finance operations. Particularly, consulting personnel enter time and expenses that are billed to clients and the sales teams track orders for both product and services. Accuvant finds the ability to have visibility into its commissions as soon as an order is submitted particularly helpful.

Source:- foxbusiness.com/

Ecommerce solutions advice

Online retailers have been offered advice for ecommerce solutions in a new report.

The study by Retail Systems Research found that innovations in web design, like featuring comprehensive reviews and video, should be embraced.

"Ecommerce winners will be the ones to invent something new, not track what customers tell them they want," the report says.

As more and more shoppers are going online, retailers can not afford to be lazy.

"Today, retailers can no longer assume that their sites are able to easily handle increased holiday volume or that customers will stick around to wait for a web page to load," the report adds.

"Delivering quality web experiences while using advanced web technologies is now a competitive necessity."

The report clearly thinks that innovation - and proper testing of that innovation - is the way forward in ecommerce solutions.

But isn't it better to have a simple website that lets users easily interact with a company, or will such a site look amateurish and affect sales?

Business Feet deliver targeted results through internet marketing and SEO web design

Source:- businessfeet.com/

Ecommerce Development Tips - Components of Ecommerce

Ecommerce or electronic commerce is the process of conducting business activities like buying and selling through various electronic systems like the internet or other computer networks. Hundreds and thousands of people are dialy jumping onto the ecommerce bandwagon to start their online business. If you are also one of the many who want to be a part of this revolutionary idea of doing business then the first thing that you must do is to hire ecommerce development services.

Some Components of ecommerce

The most integral component of ecommerce is the development of your own website. You need to have an internet presence if you want to be a part of this process of doing business. Herein, many a ecommerce development company, India will come to your rescue, who have the proven expertise in not only developing an ecommerce website but also in various other components like Search Engine Optimization, special online carts, development of special transaction pages, search engine marketing, internet market, amongst a host of others.

Special Components

Ecommerce or open source Commerce is an online store-management software program and hence a very important component when it comes to ecommerce. The best part about this program is that is an open source software meaning that it is available free of charge under the aegis of the GNU General Public License. It has across the board browser compatibility and can cater to an infinite number of products and categories. These are just some of the advantage of this special component. The ecommerce development services of any company would profess expertise in this significant component.

An online store management software branched out from the open source software mentioned earlier and this is known as Zen Cart. This project differs from the other project on not only aesthetic lines, but also as a result of a few extra features like a Voucher/Gift Certificate module, sales download mangers, amongst other aspects. There are many more components that help in getting your ecommerce business on track and giving it a push in the right direction.

Choice of the Best Services

The choice when it comes to an ecommerce development company, India that has professional expertise in the field of ecommerce is seemingly endless. However, you must be sure to choose the one that can meet all your demands and requirements to the T. Therefore, it's best that you undertake your selection with the utmost care, analysis and research.

Like any other business, the business of ecommerce also requires the requisite attention. You just cannot take it for granted and it is proper planning and management that would see your getting the best of results in this regard. So, understand ecommerce first up and only then embark on your journey.

Article Source: ezineArticles.com