Archive for the ‘General’ category

Well fitted web analytics for fitted furniture company

August 11th 2008 by Andrew Banks in General, Google AnalyticsNo Comments »

Strachan, a fitted bedroom and home office furniture company in Leeds, are a client I have been working for with prego*, to give them further insight into their website traffic and online marketing activity.

Strachan’s extensive range of fitted bedroom furniture is being marketed through a range of online marketing activities but lacked deep analytical reporting to identify where marketing spend was working best and where marketing campaigns could be optimised to drive a better return on investment.

Through the work of prego*, and deep integration of Google Analytics into the Strachan Furniture website, Strachan now have a full insight into each and every enquiry coming through their website and into every penny spent on online marketing – allowing them to shape their marketing and get a much lower cost per enquiry.

AOL to buy Bebo for $850 million

March 13th 2008 by Andrew Banks in General, WebsitesNo Comments »

Various websites are reporting that AOL has come through as the buyer of Bebo for the small sum of $850 million.

The BBC is reporting “Rumours that the social network Bebo would be swallowed up by someone have been swirling around for at least a year. Google, Yahoo, MySpace and Viacom have all been names as potential suitors. Now the truth is out – and it’s AOL which has picked up the prize for $850m”

Time Warner have now confirmed this with a statement on their website and have also confirmed that this is a purely cash deal.

“AOL announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Bebo (http://www.bebo.com),a leading global social media network. Together with its AIM and ICQ personal communications network, the acquisition will give AOL a premier position in the fast growing world of social media with a network of approximately 80 million unique users.”

I strongly suspect that the ongoing saga with Microsoft trying to by Yahoo is going to force a period of consolidation between the larger players in social marketing and search as they try to strengthen their position in the market place. It’s started with Bebo and I predict we will see a lot more of this in the coming months as organisation try to strengthen their position and protect themselves from being bought out.
So who do you expect to be next and are we seeing another major dot com boom era? Should we expect the same as last time and prepare for the bust to follow?

Microsoft to (possibly) buy Yahoo

February 1st 2008 by Andrew Banks in General, SEO / SEM2 Comments »

If reports that are coming to the surface at the moment are to be believed, Microsoft are attempting to purchase Yahoo for $46 billion.

Although this is in it’s very early stages I can’t help wondering what this could mean five years down the line for us involved in online marketing. Microsoft and Yahoo already lag far behind Google in terms of search volumes but could their combined user base help them to catchup with Google in the search market?

The reach of both of these companies is huge, with Microsoft’s dominance in desktop computing they have the potential to push their/Yahoo’s products out to the majority of computer users at will giving them every possibility of catching up with Google. Imaging your default homepage now being Yahoo, your Microsoft Passport and Yahoo accounts being merged, your pictures on your PC being synchronised with Flickr (goodbye Picasa).

One big plus I see in this is the for the pending launch of Microsoft Gatineau. The biggest feature I see within Gatineau is the ability to profile your website users by age and gender, based on information from their passport account. If the same information can be harvested from a Yahoo account then the accuracy and validity of this data is massively increased.

There are many potential benefits to come from this deal, if it happens, and it will be interesting to see how this develops.

This also seems to be backed up by a report from Reuters and the full letter to the Yahoo Board has been publiched by the Time Online

Welcome…

January 22nd 2008 by Andrew Banks in General2 Comments »

Welcome to Good Together, the online blog of Andrew Banks, an e-commerce and online marketing consultant.

The idea behind starting this blog is to help spread some of the knowledge I have gained over the last eight years working in e-commerce and online marketing, and also to start a little community of people working in the same field or with the same interests.

Although this will be the main subject of this website, there will no doubt be little diversions from this along the way.

A little about me…

Having worked in the online marketing and e-commerce industry since 2000, I have been lucky (or not!) to have experienced working on both sides of the fence – client and agency side. For anyone who hasn’t worked on both sides I’d thoroughly recommend it as it really gives you a valuable insight into the challenges each side faces when dealing with the other and will often make your relationships with your agencies/clients much easier in the future.

The majority of my job titles have been related to the developments of the websites but more often than not my roles have involved managing the projects and providing strategy and direction for the e-commerce and online marketing aspects of the job. To be perfectly honest this is the area I get the greatest satisfaction from, and can make the biggest difference in when working with clients.

I’ve been fortunate enough to work for some of the UK’s biggest brands including the Halifax Bank (HBOS), Thomas Cook, Glen Dimplex and Schroders plus some smaller, but often more interesting, clients including Sinks and Taps, Kitchen Appliances Direct, Magic Loans, WhatsMineIsYours.com, Rensburg Sheppards, Kate Rusby and Retail Profiling Consultants.

So what do I do now?

I’m currently working as an independent consultant, offering e-commerce and online marketing advice and guidance to businesses of all sizes. I still dabble with e-commerce development and am currently working with prego*, an Otley based marketing company on projects for their clients.

If you’re interested in having me work with you on your projects, why not get in touch.