Alex Baar | International Digital Marketing | E-commerce

A collection of links with information about the new cookie law , that is in force in the UK at the 26th of may, and other countries in the EU will follow shortly after that. I still hope, that at least, permission is not necessary for analytics cookies. Plugins / Checkers Plugins for browsers to see what cookies there are currently used at your website. A Google Chrome plugin that gives you feedback about the usage of cookies at your site: http://www.cookielaw.org/get-started-with-optanon.aspx Another plugin for Google Chrome that gives a detailed report about the cookies your websites uses: http://www.attacat.co.uk/resources/cookies#axzz1qhd4xxwV   Examples A few photoshopped possibilities can be found here . Some live examples that I found so far: The site below is using a nice mechanism. People are asked for consent, by a bar at top of the screen. But also a banner is shown at the site, telling the user it's status: Cookie status ...

Cultural differences in international social media Cultural differences in international social media: Mixi (JP) - Facebook (US) I like to research and experience cultural differences in digital marketing in general. This time let's take a closer look at cultural differences in social media. There are not only linguistic differences, otherwise you could simply translate everything, but there are also differences in behavior. So if you are a global player and you have a brand communication manual or a social guide, be aware there might be local differences necessary. Especially in social media, where there is direct contact with fans, customers and their friends, it is so important to communicate the right thing and to understand your audience so you can take the right conclusions. Global social media behavior A while ago, I saw a presentation by Fons Trompenaars  and in his presentation he described some real nice cases of different reactions in the world at the ...

The EU " cookie directive " is forcing European website to ask users for consent for most (marketing) cookies. (cookies which are not part of a service (cookies which are necessary for the service or for the performance of a contract) do not need consent. Many webshops and websites are struggling on how to ask users their approval for using certain cookies. I photoshopped some idea's and found some example websites with idea's how to deal with the new law in a visual way. Just for my better understanding on what we can do to comply to the law in it's current form I summarized some idea's in this article. They are just idea's, since I could not find any commercial websites that are already complied to this directive. There are still discussions and different interpretations between countries. Let's hope the commission revises this e-privacy directive. But with the information available now,as from the 26th of may this cookie law is enforced in th...

Weibo, many people in western Europe or the USA, don't know what Weibo is, but in China, Sina Weibo is really big. Sina Weibo receives 1 in every 100 visits in China! If I say: "weibo is a Twitter +", probably you will get an idea. I started to do some desk research to learn about Weibo. Interesting for myself,  to learn about what Weibo is, why Weibo got so big and what can be learned from the services and features they offer and of course it is always interesting to look at cultural differences in (online) marketing. This article is based on desk research and I will add many links in the article. Sina.com is an online media company in China. Sina owns Weibo. Weibo is often described as a hybrid form between twitter and facebook. Details about Sina can be found at Wikipedia . Why did Sina Weibo became so big? Sam Flemming and Eugene Chew explain why Sina became so big in this  interesting video. An important reason is that they are very good at ...

Increasing the Average Order Value? There are many (online) possibilities to do so. Always keep the first two options (cross sell and up sell) as the "mothers of increasing average order value" in mind. Increasing AOV: be there at the right time with the right offer Cross sell Cross selling is when you offer your customers related products that they buy at the same time, for example an HDMI cable with an HDTV, or the matching earrings to a necklace. There are automated tools to do so and there are manual options in most webshops. Up sell Up selling means persuading your customers to buy a similar, but higher priced item. The easiest way to up sell is to offer alternative products on your product pages, showing the next few similar, but more expensive products. But you can also be more creative, by using some tools that are described below. Imagine when people see a product page of a product but as an alternative you will see a higher priced item, but higher rate...