Are you excited about the upcoming release of PHP 8.4 and What’s New in PHP 8.4? If you’re a developer, you know how important it is to stay updated with the latest versions of programming languages. Let’s see What’s New in PHP 8.4 and its expected release date.

Release Date of PHP 8.4

As you may know, the development process includes multiple phases, including alpha and beta testing, ensuring that the final release is stable and robust. PHP 8.4 is scheduled to launch on November 21, 2024.

What’s New in PHP 8.4 – Major Features

PHP 8.4 will come with exciting new features that will significantly impact how developers write and manage their code. Here are some of the most notable features:

Improved Performance: One of the standout features of PHP 8.4 is its enhanced performance. This version introduces optimizations that boost execution speed and improve memory management.

New Syntax Improvements: PHP 8.4 brings several syntax improvements that make the language more intuitive and easier to use.

Enhanced Error Handling: Error handling in PHP 8.4 has received a significant upgrade. Debugging becomes a breeze with better exception handling and more descriptive error messages.

Security Enhancements: Security is always a top priority, and PHP 8.4 delivers with new security features designed to protect your applications.

Better Compatibility: PHP 8.4 ensures seamless compatibility with existing codebases, minimizing the risk of breaking changes. Additionally, it offers improved support for popular frameworks and libraries, making the transition smoother for developers.

Deprecations and Removals: As with any major release, PHP 8.4 includes the deprecation and removal of certain features.

As we eagerly await its release, it’s essential to start preparing for the upgrade. By staying informed and planning, you can ensure a seamless transition to PHP 8.4 and take full advantage of its capabilities.

Source: PHP 8.4: What’s New and Changed

Note: The current stable version of PHP is PHP 8.3, which you can get more information by visiting PHP 8.3 and New Improvements.

With this step-by-step guide, you will learn PostgreSQL Setup on Ubuntu 24.04. PostgreSQL is a powerful, open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). It’s known for its scalability, and support for advanced data types and performance optimization features.

Why Choose PostgreSQL on Ubuntu 24.04?

Ubuntu 24.04, being a stable and popular Linux distribution, provides an excellent environment for running PostgreSQL. The combination of Ubuntu’s user-friendliness and PostgreSQL’s powerful features ensures a seamless and efficient database management experience.

Prerequisites

Before you begin the PostgreSQL setup on Ubuntu 24.04, you need the following requirements:

A system running Ubuntu 24.04A user account with sudo privilegesAn active internet connection

By following the steps below, you can easily start your PostgreSQL setup on Ubuntu 24.04 and get it up and running on your server. Let’s begin the installation process.

Step 1 – PostgreSQL Setup on Ubuntu 24.04 – Installation Process

First, you must run the system update and upgrade by using the following command:

# sudo apt update
# sudo apt upgrade -y

Then, you must install the postgresql-common package which includes utilities for managing PostgreSQL. To do this, run the following command:

sudo apt install postgresql-common -y

Next, add the PostgreSQL repository to your Ubuntu 24.04 which includes the latest version of PostgreSQL. To do this, run the command below:

sudo /usr/share/postgresql-common/pgdg/apt.postgresql.org.sh

This script will add the PostgreSQL Global Development Group (PGDG) APT repository to Ubuntu 24.04.

Again run the system update with the following command:

sudo apt update

Now use the following command to install PostgreSQL on Ubuntu 24.04:

sudo apt install postgresql -yStep 2 – Start and Enable PostgreSQL Service

After your PostgreSQL setup on Ubuntu 24.04 is completed, you need to start and enable your service with the following commands:

# sudo systemctl start postgresql
# sudo systemctl enable postgresql

Then, verify PostgreSQL service is active and running on Ubuntu 24.04 with the command below:

sudo systemctl status postgresql

In your output, you should see:

Step 3 – Access and Secure PostgreSQL Service on Ubuntu 24.04

PostgreSQL uses the psql command-line interface to interact with the database. By default, PostgreSQL creates a user named postgres. Switch to this user and access the PostgreSQL prompt with the following command:

sudo -i -u postgres psql

In your output, you should see:

Now to secure your PostgreSQL, you can change your postgres user password. To do this, from your PostgreSQL shell, run the following command:

postgres=# password postgres

You will be asked to enter a password. Once you are done, exit from your PostgreSQL shell with the command below:

postgres=# qStep 4 – Configure Remote Access For PostgreSQL Server

By default, PostgreSQL only allows local connections. To enable remote access, you need to modify the PostgreSQL configuration files.

First, you need to open the postgresql.conf file in your preferred text editor like Vi Editor or Nano Editor:

sudo vi /etc/postgresql/16/main/postgresql.conf

Find the line that starts with listen_addresses, uncomment it, and modify it to allow connections from all IP addresses:

listen_addresses=”*”

When you are done, save and close the file.

Next, open the pg_hba.conf file to configure client authentication:

sudo vi /etc/postgresql/16/main/pg_hba.conf

Add the following line at the end of the file to allow remote connections:

host all all 0.0.0.0/0 md5

Once you are done, save and close the file.

Restart the PostgreSQL service to apply the changes:

sudo systemctl restart postgresql

You can verify if PostgreSQL is installed and running correctly by logging in to the PostgreSQL shell with the postgres user:

sudo -i -u postgres psqlStep 5 – Creating a New PostgreSQL Database and User

At this step of PostgreSQL setup on Ubuntu 24.04, you can learn to create a new user and database. From your PostgreSQL shell, you can use the following commands to create a new database and a user with privileges to manage it:

postgres=# CREATE DATABASE mydatabase;
postgres=# CREATE USER myuser WITH ENCRYPTED PASSWORD ‘mypassword’;
postgres=# GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE mydatabase TO myuser;

To see the list of databases, you can run:

postgres=# l

To exit the PostgreSQL prompt, run the command below:

postgres=# qStep 6 – Backup and Restore PostgreSQL Databases

Regular backups are essential to safeguard your data. PostgreSQL provides tools to perform backups and restore databases.

To backup a database, you can use the pg_dump utility:

pg_dump mydatabase > mydatabase_backup.sql

To restore a database from a backup file, you can use the psql command:

psql mydatabase < mydatabase_backup.sql

That’s it, you are done with the PostgreSQL setup on Ubuntu 24.04. For more information, you can visit the official website.

Conclusion

PostgreSQL Setup on Ubuntu 24.04 is straightforward when you follow these steps. With PostgreSQL’s powerful features and Ubuntu’s stable environment, you’ll have a robust database system ready to handle your applications. Hope you enjoy it. Also, you may like to read the following articles:

OpenLiteSpeed Setup on Ubuntu 24.04 (LOMP Stack)

Change Ubuntu 24.04 Desktop to Cinnamon

Install Grafana on Ubuntu 24.04

Enable ionCube Loader on Ubuntu 24.04

FAQs

How do I check the version of PostgreSQL installed?You can check the installed PostgreSQL version by running psql –version in the terminal.

How can I change the password for a PostgreSQL user?To change a user’s password, log into the PostgreSQL prompt and run: ALTER USER username WITH PASSWORD ‘newpassword’;

How do I create a backup of all databases?Use the pg_dumpall utility to create a backup of all databases: pg_dumpall > all_databases_backup.sql

Can I run PostgreSQL on a different port?Yes, you can change the port by modifying the port parameter in postgresql.conf file and restart the PostgreSQL service.

This guide intends to teach you to Install WineHQ on Ubuntu 24.04. WineHQ, also known as Wine, is a great tool that you can use to run Windows applications on your Linux distribution. With this step-by-step guide, you can easily run Wine on Ubuntu 24.04 and run Windows apps on your server.

Prerequisites

Before you start to install WineHQ on Ubuntu 24.04, you need the following requirements:

By following the steps below, you can easily start your Wine installation on Ubuntu 24.04 and get it up and running on your server. Let’s begin the installation process.

Step 1 – Enabling 32-bit architecture on Ubuntu 24.04

First, you need to run the system update and upgrade with the following command:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Then, you need to check if 32-bit architecture is installed on your server with the command below:

sudo dpkg –print-foreign-architectures

If nothing is shown in your output, you must enable 32-bit architecture on your server with the command below:

sudo dpkg –add-architecture i386Step 2 – Adding WineHQ Repository To Ubuntu 24.04

To install WineHQ on Ubuntu 24.04, you must download and add the Wine repository to your server. To add the Wine repository key, you can run the following commands:

# sudo mkdir -pm755 /etc/apt/keyrings
# sudo wget -O /etc/apt/keyrings/winehq-archive.key https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key

Next, download the WineHQ source code for Ubuntu 24.04 with the command below:

sudo wget -NP /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/dists/noble/winehq-noble.sources

Now run the system update to apply the repositories:

sudo apt updateStep 3 – Install WineHQ on Ubuntu 24.04

At this point, you can easily use one of the following branches to install Wine on Ubuntu 24.04:

1.WineHQ Stable branch:

sudo apt install –install-recommends winehq-stable

2.WineHQ Development branch:

sudo apt install –install-recommends winehq-devel

3.WineHQ Staging branch:

sudo apt install –install-recommends winehq-staging

Note: It is recommended to use the stable branch. Once your installation is completed, you can verify it by checking its version:

wine –versionOutput
wine-9.11

Note: The latest Wine development release is available now, you can read more on Wine 9.12 Development Release.

Step 4 – Configure WineHQ on Ubuntu 24.04

At this point, you have learned to install WineHQ on Ubuntu 24.04. Now you must configure Wine on your server. To do this, run the command below with a regular user:

winecfg

Wait until your Wine configuration is updated. Then, you will be asked to set up the Wine Mono installer. Click on the Install button.

It will automatically begin downloading and installing Mono and related components. Next, you will see the following screen. From there you can adjust your desired settings and continue. When it is completed, you will be able to run Windows applications in Ubuntu 24.04.

Step 5 – Uninstall Wine From Ubuntu 24.04 (Optional)

If you no longer want to use Wine, you can easily remove it from your server. To do this run the following command:

sudo apt autoremove –install-recommends winehq-stable –purge

Note: If you use Wine Development or Wine Staging, replace the winehq-stable with either winehq-devel or with winehq-staging.

For complete removal, delete the repository file:

sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq*

If you have removed the WineHQ repository, it is recommended to remove the GPG key:

sudo rm /usr/share/keyrings/winehq*

That’s it, you are done. For more information, you can check the official docs page.

Conclusion

With WineHQ on Linux, you can easily run your desired Windows applications on your server. At this point, you have learned to Install WineHQ on Ubuntu 24.04 and configure it. After that, you can easily download and run Windows apps on your Ubuntu server. Hope you enjoy it.

Also, you may like to read the following articles:

WineHQ LTS Setup on Fedora Linux 39

How To Install WineHQ on AlmaLinux 9

Install the Latest WineHQ on Linux Mint 21

While retail media networks (RMNs) continue to evolve, they are fragmented and confusing for brands. Two experts in data and marketing  — Keen CEO Greg Dolan and Len Ostroff, SVP of sales and partnerships at Crisp — spoke about RMNs at The MarTech Conference (free registration to view the entire program).

Here are the three biggest challenges of RMNs and insights into how marketers can overcome them.

Dig deeper: Why we care about retail media networks

Include multiple retail media networks in your strategy

Your customer’s journey is more complicated than ever. If you’re a brand that depends heavily on retailers — for instance, a consumer packaged good — many of the important steps the customer makes are on a retailer’s website or in a store. Much of the data that proves the effectiveness of marketing campaigns is owned by these retailers.

Len spoke about his experience in digital advertising, where he found that retailers shared a lot of data with their suppliers. The tricky part for marketers is that there’s no standard for how the data is shared and no standard way to compare measurements across retailers. (Last year, the IAB kicked off a process for the industry to standardize by releasing measurement guidelines.)

Although the disparity in measurement standards presents a challenge to marketers, brands must explore the advertising opportunities available through each retail network — because within those networks are the touchpoints close to your customers’ sales.

Here, Len explains why data from different retailers is important and how marketers use it.

Understand each retail media network’s unique approach

Just because your valued customers make purchases through similar processes at different retailers doesn’t mean the retailers themselves have similar RMNs. Each retailer has taken a unique approach in building its RMN.

The consequences of this mean that a media strategy that works well at one retailer might not necessarily follow for another. Each RMN has its own particular “spin.” Marketers must compare and match what the RMN offers with the brand’s campaign goals.

In the video below, Len and Greg discuss how RMNs have evolved. Hearing about their experience makes it easier to see why each RMN is so different.

Loyalty is the gold standard for data

Not all customer data is equal. When engaging existing customers, loyalty data is perhaps the most valuable in driving repeat purchases and finding out what campaign strategies work best.

Many retailers have loyalty programs and memberships. Sam’s Club, for instance, requires membership for retail customers and also has an RMN. Brands can establish loyalty programs of their own. These programs are crucial for amassing first-party data, which is more important than ever with the deprecation of third-party cookies and new privacy regulations.

Len explains here why he thinks loyalty data is so important. If you’re a retailer, it’s driving your RMN. If you’re a brand, it’s a game changer for which RMNs you include in your digital strategy.

Are you getting the most from your stack? Take our brief 2024 MarTech Replacement Survey

The post 3 challenges for marketers as retail media networks evolve appeared first on MarTech.

Google’s Gary Illyes shares an unconventional but valid method for centralizing robots.txt rules on CDNs.

Robots.txt files can be centralized on CDNs, not just root domains.

Websites can redirect robots.txt from main domain to CDN.

This unorthodox approach complies with updated standards.

Successful ecommerce websites remove as many obstacles as possible between users and the products they’re looking for.

This list of features and policies was chosen based on their impact on user experience. Each removes friction from purchasing journeys to keep users engaged on your website.

29 Essential Ecommerce Website Features1. User-Friendly Navigation With Breadcrumbs2. Internal Site Search3. Product Filters4. 5. Product Videos6. Product Comparisons7. Product Reviews8. Generous Return Policy9. FAQ For Products10. Simple Checkout11. Multiple Payment Options12. SSO Integration13. Support/Help Center14. Order Tracking15. Mobile App16. Email & SMS Opt-In17. Push Notifications18. Chatbots19. Coupon Codes20. Special Offer Programs21. Wishlists22. Gift Registries23. Multilingual Support24. Loyalty Program25. Carousels26. Local Store Information27. Personal Data Policy28. An Affiliate Program29. A TikTok Shop30. Conclusion

1. User-Friendly Navigation With Breadcrumbs

The key to helping customers find the products they need quickly is to offer a user-friendly navigation system. Products should be logically categorized, with the most popular categories listed first.

Sephora knows how customers like to shop.

Some specifically seek out products by brand, while others shop by category. The navigation bar reflects this organization, along with quick links to value sets and current sales.

To help the user get back to the main page or product categories, Sephora also implements breadcrumb navigation throughout its site.

Navigation features should be tested rigorously on mobile devices to ensure that customers used to the desktop website can just as easily find what they want to purchase.

2. Internal Site Search

In addition to user-friendly navigation, site search is a feature found on most of the top ecommerce sites.

It allows customers to bypass the navigation and search for exactly what they want.

Nordstrom offers a site search with suggestions for popular brands and products matching your entry.

This site search even includes popular searches and trending searches near the customer.

3. Product Filters

For stores with a large selection of products, product filters can help customers quickly find the product needed based on features, size, availability, and other pertinent information.

Walgreens offers customers an item availability filter to sort products based on pickup, same-day delivery, shipping, or in-stock availability.

In addition, many product categories have filters related to specific types of items, separating medicines from cosmetics.

Have you considered the best way to utilize your website’s footer to help customers find your top products?

Try a list of links to the top products, services, and information that customers want to find.

T-Mobile uses its footer to direct customers to its social media profiles, English and Spanish sites, featured phones and plans, support, and company information.

The footer effectively includes links to everything the company wants customers and search crawlers to discover from any page on its website.

5. Product Videos

Adding video to your product pages can increase conversions.

Most ecommerce platforms allow retailers to add videos and images to their product pages.

Apple uses video to highlight features of its latest iPhone on its sales page. The high-quality product images and videos help sell its products online and in-store.

6. Product Comparisons

If you have a large selection of products to choose from in any category, let customers quickly compare the main features of each.

REI allows customers to do this with products like hiking bags.

When customers go to the comparison screen, they receive a detailed description of each product, ratings, reviews, and pricing.

7. Product Reviews

Product reviews and ratings are the most popular form of user-generated content on ecommerce sites.

This section of an ecommerce product page is crucial to providing social proof to shoppers that a product will fit their needs.

Amazon allows customers to add photos and videos to reviews, marking relevant reviews as verified.

Amazon has also experimented with AI-generated customer review summaries on some products.

While generative AI features are increasingly present in the ecommerce landscape, retailers should proceed cautiously, as AI content can be inaccurate.

8. Generous Return Policy

Want to increase consumer confidence in the products you sell? Offer a generous return policy and include it on your product page.

Better yet, make your return options as easy as possible.

Zappos does both by giving customers 365 days to return or exchange products and an additional way to return items with minimal hassle.

9. FAQ For Products

Another way to incorporate user-generated content into your ecommerce store is by adding a section of customers’ most frequently asked questions.

This section can help your store in some ways.

Increase the number of sales by answering your customer’s top pre-sales questions about your products.
Reduce the time your customer service has to answer product questions before and after the purchase.

Magic Spoon offers an FAQ section after customer reviews of its cereal.

When potential customers click on view more FAQs, they discover an organized section of answers for shipping, orders, and other inquiries.

10. Simple Checkout

The last thing you want to do before a customer is about to enter their credit card information is frustrate them.

Make sure that customers can easily find the shopping cart to check out. Urban Outfitters does a great job by adding a little checkout popup each time you add a new item to the shopping cart.

On the checkout page, you can see details about the items in your cart and can checkout quickly using PayPal or continue for more options.

You are also reminded of items you’ve saved for later and items that complement what you are about to purchase.

You can sign in or checkout as a guest on the following page.

11. Multiple Payment Options

Another way to make the checkout process easier is to offer customers multiple payment options instead of an account sign-up.

Online retailers like Xena Workwear let customers checkout using Shop Pay from Shopify, PayPal, and Venmo.

Customers using these payment methods on other sites will automatically be comfortable with the process.

12. SSO Integration

To help users create new accounts and sign in faster, integrate single-sign-on for your customers.

This allows customers to create an account and sign in quickly with their Google, Microsoft, Apple, LinkedIn, or another often-used account.

eBay is one of many major shopping destinations that offer this option.

Reducing friction during the signup and sign-in could improve your store’s sales volume.

13. Support/Help Center

In addition to the FAQ for your product pages and store, consider adding a help center.

This should cover any general questions people may ask about online privacy, security, payments, shipping, returns, and other shopping concerns.

Etsy offers help for many of the top support issues customers face in its help center, as well as help for sellers on the network.

This saves the Etsy support team from having to answer general questions and gives them more time to solve complex issues.

14. Order Tracking

Once your customer places an order, the top question on their mind is: When will my order arrive?

Make it simple for customers to check their current order status on your website.

AutoZone has an order tracking page that doesn’t require customers to log in.

Customers simply enter their email address and the order number they received in their order confirmation email.

The page is easily discoverable throughout the website in the footer.

Ecommerce brands on Shopify can also encourage customers to use the Shop App for easy order tracking, social posts, and review reminders.

15. Mobile App

In addition to having a mobile-friendly website that shoppers can access from any device, consider having a mobile app for your store.

Mobile apps allow you to keep your brand in customers’ minds by placing your app icon/logo on their smart devices.

You don’t have to wait for customers to open up a browser or another app for social media or email to get your latest sales messages.

You can push those promotional updates through your app to any customers with notifications as Home Depot does with its app.

16. Email & SMS Opt-In

Having a revenue-generating email list is a must-have for retailers.

If you can’t get visitors to purchase on your website, one of the next best conversions for your store would be to attain the visitor as a subscriber on your email list.

This would allow you to reach them with future sales and email promotions.

Another way ecommerce retailers can capture email addresses is by adding an opt-in form with a special promotion in the header and footer of their website.

Betabrand uses an introductory offer popup for new customer discounts via email and SMS.

A regular reminder for others is included in the website’s footer, product review highlights, and an order status page.

17. Push Notifications

If you want to bypass spam filters and social media algorithms, push notifications will be the next best way to capture your ecommerce store visitors as subscribers.

Push notification services allow visitors to subscribe to your latest updates in their browser.

When you have a promotion you want to notify subscribers of, you can send a message that will be delivered to their notification center via their browser.

Shein is one of many ecommerce brands that allows visitors to subscribe to push notifications.

Once subscribed, visitors will see the latest messages from the brand in their desktop notifications.

18. Chatbots

One of the benefits of running an ecommerce website is its ability to generate revenue 24 hours a day, seven days a week, throughout the year. That also means providing support to your customers during those hours as well.

Many ecommerce stores use chatbots to assist online shoppers with basic questions and navigate them to a specific product or support page.

Lowes uses “Leo,” an automated assistant with specific prompts for visitors to choose from when looking for a specific answer, finding a specific product, or solving a basic customer service inquiry.

Note that the chatbots for ecommerce stores are not necessarily the same as AI chatbots, like ChatGPT.

It’s important to research chat features before implementing them into an ecommerce store.

Even if the chatbot offers inaccurate information, your company may have to honor the information it provides customers, as Air Canada found out in a recent case where it had to pay a refund that its chatbot initiated.

19. Coupon Codes

We know that consumers often search for coupon codes on Google when presented with a coupon or discount box on a checkout page.

In the United States, 88% of consumers use coupons when shopping, using coupon sites like slickdeals.com, groupon.com, and retailmenot.com.

If you want to keep customers on your website throughout the checkout process, give them great deals via your own coupon codes.

Victoria’s Secret has an offer codes page to compete with coupon sites and publishers with coupon sections that double as affiliate revenue generators.

20. Special Offer Programs

Does your ecommerce store have special discounts for students, military, first responders, and others?

Ensure your product pages highlight those offers – especially for high-ticket items.

Samsung does a great job of doing this for new website visitors.

21. Wishlists

Add wishlist functionality to help customers find the items they wanted during previous visits.

The Nintendo Store makes it easy for logged-in users to save an item to their wishlist – they just click or tap the heart.

This will ensure they know exactly what they want the next time someone needs a birthday present idea or wants something for themselves.

22. Gift Registries

If you search gift registries on Google, you will find dozens of well-known brand retailers.

Target, Amazon, Walmart, Crate & Barrel, and Bed, Bath, & Beyond are just a few that appear on the first page of SERPs.

Why are gift registries important to driving sales? Let’s just look at wedding registries for a moment.

CNBC reported findings from Baird’s 2022 survey that Amazon leads as the top wedding registry provider with 45% listing penetration.

Walmart offers gift registries for babies, weddings, and classrooms. You can also create a custom registry to celebrate any occasion you choose.

23. Multilingual Support

If your ecommerce store caters to customers in a specific region, you have two options to support the top languages spoken in their region:

Depend on Google Translate to help customers translate your website into their language.
Create multiple versions of your website for specific languages.

Xfinity uses English on the www subdomain and Spanish on the es subdomain.

24. Loyalty Program

Do you want to increase customer retention? Offering a loyalty program is one way to encourage people to shop from your e-commerce store again.

These are typically free or paid programs where customers get private or early access to the best deals.

Many allow customers to accrue points per purchase, leading to rewards such as a specific dollar amount off your next purchase or a free product.

Ulta is one of many brands offering a free rewards program for loyal customers.

Customers can join for free and earn points redeemable for products and services online and in-store.

25. Carousels

While marketers may disagree on the value of homepage image and video carousels, many ecommerce brands use them.

Major retailers such as Walmart, eBay, Home Depot, Samsung, Wayfair, Lowes, Costco, Sam’s Club, and Kohls have carousels with their latest promotions and sales.

Chewy is another ecommerce brand that features a carousel on the homepage. This carousel promotes discounts for auto-ship orders, healthy pet food, flea & tick medications, pet bedding, and more.

26. Local Store Information

If your ecommerce brand also has physical store locations, you can boost offline sales by adding details for the nearest store to your website’s header.

This would allow customers to shop online, reserve for in-store pickup, or browse their local store inventory before making an in-store purchase.

Brands like Hobby Lobby ask about website visitors’ location to bring them more from their nearest store.

27. Personal Data Policy

Depending on where your ecommerce store is based and the customers it serves, your site may need a policy that notifies visitors of the data collected about them on your website using cookies from the website and other analytics tools.

Michael’s ecommerce store displays a popup advising visitors about cookie usage to enhance user experience and analyze website traffic.

Visitors then have the option to accept the policy, learn more about it, and adjust cookie preferences.

28. An Affiliate Program

Offer an affiliate program to get more content creators talking about your product.

This lets your top customers monetize their content by promoting their favorite products.

Major retailers like Target offer an affiliate program and creator network to create more brand ambassadors.

29. A TikTok Shop

Having an established presence on social media is a given. However, some brands have extended their ecommerce selection to TikTok Shop.

TikTok offers Shop products in a dedicated feed, allowing brands to partner with content creators on the platform for influencer marketing content.

Brands like OtterBox have even added vertical videos and branded hashtags to their websites to promote social commerce further.

Conclusion

Building a successful ecommerce website requires focusing on what you know about your customers, their journeys, and their needs. Then, you need to make those journeys as easy as possible to follow on your website.

The following principles apply as you build ecommerce shopping experiences:

Prioritize a seamless user experience for all devices and platforms.
Make navigation intuitive, search functions intelligent, and information readily accessible across all site sections.
Product descriptions should be detailed and immersive, featuring user-generated content like reviews and customer photos. In the near future, expect technologies like augmented reality (AR) to revolutionize how customers interact with products online.
Blend your online presence with brick-and-mortar locations, allowing for convenient options like buy-online-pickup-in-store (BOPIS) or in-store returns for online purchases.
With growing concerns about data privacy, clearly outline your personal data policy and emphasize secure payment options.
Make a strong commitment to transparent customer service and simple return procedures. This fosters a sense of confidence crucial for long-term brand loyalty.

The success of any ecommerce website ultimately depends on exceeding customer expectations.

Stay current on the latest trends with new technologies, and strive to deliver an exceptional online shopping experience.

More resources: 

Featured Image: Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock

Having a website that doesn’t convert is a little like having a bucket with a hole in it. Do you keep filling it up while the water’s pouring out — or do you fix the hole then add water? In other words, do you channel your budget into attracting people who are “pouring” through without taking action, or do you fine-tune your website so it’s appealing enough for them to stick around?

Our recommendation? Optimize the conversion rate of your website, before you spend on increasing your traffic to it.

Here’s a web design statistic to bear in mind: you have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression. If your site’s too slow, or unattractive, or the wording isn’t clear, they’ll bounce faster than you can say “leaky bucket”. Which is a shame, because you’ve put lots of effort into designing a beautiful product page and About Us, and people just aren’t getting to see it.

As a digital web design and conversion agency in Melbourne, Australia, we’ve been helping our customers optimize their websites for over 10 years, but it wasn’t until mid-2019 that we decided to turn the tables and take a look at our own site.

As it turned out, we had a bit of a leaky bucket situation of our own: while our traffic was good and conversions were okay, there was definitely room for improvement.

In this article, I’m going to talk a little more about conversions: what they are, why they matter, and how they help your business. I’ll then share how I made lots of little tweaks that cumulatively led to my business attracting a higher tier of customers, more inquiries, plus over $780,000 worth of new sales opportunities within the first 26 weeks of making some of those changes. Let’s get into it!

What is conversion?

Your conversion rate is a figure that represents the percentage of visitors who come to your site and take the desired action, e.g. subscribing to your newsletter, booking a demo, purchasing a product, and so on.

Conversions come in all shapes and sizes, depending on what your website does. If you sell a product, making a sale would be your primary goal (aka a macro-conversion). If you run, say, a tour company or media outlet, then subscribing or booking a consultation might be your primary goal.

If your visitor isn’t quite ready to make a purchase or book a consultation, they might take an intermediary step — like signing up to your free newsletter, or following you on social media. This is what’s known as a micro-conversion: a little step that leads towards (hopefully) a bigger one.

A quick recap

A conversion can apply to any number of actions — from making a purchase, to following on social media.

Macro-conversions are those we usually associate with sales: a phone call, an email, or a trip to the checkout. These happen when the customer has done their research and is ready to leap in with a purchase. If you picture the classic conversion funnel, they’re already at the bottom.

Micro-conversions, on the other hand, are small steps that lead toward a sale. They’re not the ultimate win, but they’re a step in the right direction.

Most sites and apps have multiple conversion goals, each with its own conversion rate.

Micro-conversions vs. macro-conversions: which is better?

The short answer? Both. Ideally, you want micro- and macro-conversions to be happening all the time so you have a continual flow of customers working their way through your sales funnel. If you have neither, then your website is behaving like a leaky bucket.

Here are two common issues that seem like good things, but ultimately lead to problems:

High web traffic (good thing) but no micro- or macro-conversions (bad thing — leaky bucket alert)

High web traffic (good thing) plenty of micro-conversions (good thing), but no macro conversions (bad thing)

A lot of businesses spend heaps of money making sure their employees work efficiently, but less of the budget goes into what is actually one of your best marketing tools: your website.

Spending money on marketing will always be a good thing. Getting customers to your site means more eyes on your business — but when your website doesn’t convert visitors into sales, that’s when you’re wasting your marketing dollars. When it comes to conversion rate statistics, one of the biggest eye-openers I read was this: the average user’s attention span has dropped from 12 to a mere 7 seconds. That’s how long you’ve got to impress before they bail — so you’d better make sure your website is fast, clear, and attractive.

Our problem

Our phone wasn’t ringing as much as we’d have liked, despite spending plenty of dollars on SEO and Adwords. We looked into our analytics and realized traffic wasn’t an issue: a decent number of people were visiting our site, but too few were taking action — i.e. inquiring. Here’s where some of our issues lay:

Our site wasn’t as fast as it could have been (anything with a load time of two seconds or over is considered slow. Ours was hovering around 5-6, and that was having a negative impact on conversions).

Our CTA conversions were low (people weren’t clicking — or they were dropping off because the CTA wasn’t where it needed to be).

We were relying on guesswork for some of our design decisions — which meant we had no way of measuring what worked, and what didn’t.

In general, things were good but not great. Or in other words, there was room for improvement.

What we did to fix it

Improving your site’s conversions isn’t a one-size-fits all thing — which means what works for one person might not work for you. It’s a gradual journey of trying different things out and building up successes over time. We knew this having worked on hundreds of client websites over the years, so we went into our own redesign with this in mind. Here are some of the steps we took that had an impact.

We decided to improve our site

First of all, we decided to fix our company website. This sounds like an obvious one, but how many times have you thought “I’ll do this really important thing”, then never gotten round to it. Or rushed ahead in excitement, made a few tweaks yourself, then let your efforts grind to a halt because other things took precedence?

This is an all-too-common problem when you run a business and things are just… okay. Often there’s no real drive to fix things and we fall back into doing what seems more pressing: selling, talking to customers, and running the business.

Deciding you want to improve your site’s conversions starts with a decision that involves you and everyone else in the company, and that’s what we did. We got the design and analytics experts involved. We invested time and money into the project, which made it feel substantial. We even made EDMs to announce the site launch (like the one below) to let everyone know what we’d been up to. In short, we made it feel like an event.

We got to know our users

There are many different types of user: some are ready to buy, some are just doing some window shopping. Knowing what type of person visits your site will help you create something that caters to their needs.

We looked at our analytics data and discovered visitors to our site were a bit of both, but tended to be more ready to buy than not. This meant we needed to focus on getting macro-conversions — in other words, make our site geared towards sales — while not overlooking the visitors doing some initial research. For those users, we implemented a blog as a way to improve our SEO, educate leads, and build up our reputation.

User insight can also help you shape the feel of your site. We discovered that the marketing managers we were targeting at the time were predominantly women, and that certain images and colours resonated better among that specific demographic. We didn’t go for the (obvious pictures of the team or our offices), instead relying on data and the psychology of attraction to delve into the mind of the users.

We improved site speed

Sending visitors to good sites with bad speeds erodes trust and sends them running. Multiple studies show that site speed matters when it comes to conversion rates. It’s one of the top SEO ranking factors, and a big factor when it comes to user experience: pages that load in under a second convert around 2.5 times higher than pages taking five seconds or more.

We built our website for speed. Moz has a great guide on page speed best practices, and from that list, we did the following things:

We optimized images.

We managed our own caching.

We compressed our files.

We improved page load times (Moz has another great article about how to speed up time to first Byte). A good web page load time is considered to be anything under two seconds — which we achieved.

In addition, we also customized our own hosting to make our site faster.

We introduced more tracking

As well as making our site faster, we introduced a lot more tracking. That allowed us to refine our content, our messaging, the structure of the site, and so on, which continually adds to the conversion.

We used Google Optimize to run A/B tests across a variety of things to understand how people interacted with our site. Here are some of the tweaks we made that had a positive impact:

Social proofing can be a really effective tool if used correctly, so we added some stats to our landing page copy.

Google Analytics showed us visitors were reaching certain pages and not knowing quite where to go next, so we added CTAs that used active language. So instead of saying, “If you’d like to find out more, let us know”, we said “Get a quote”, along with two options for getting in touch.

We spent an entire month testing four words on our homepage. We actually failed (the words didn’t have a positive impact), but it allowed us to test our hypothesis. We did small tweaks and tests like this all over the site.

We used heat mapping to see where visitors were clicking, and which words caught their eye. With this data, we knew where to place buttons and key messaging.

We looked into user behavior

Understanding your visitor is always a good place to start, and there are two ways to go about this:

Quantitative research (numbers and data-based research)

Qualitative research (people-based research)

We did a mixture of both.

For the quantitative research, we used Google Analytics, Google Optimize, and Hotjar to get an in-depth, numbers-based look at how people were interacting with our site.

Heat-mapping software shows how people click and scroll through a page. Hot spots indicate places where people naturally gravitate.

We could see where people were coming into our site (which pages they landed on first), what channel brought them there, which features they were engaging with, how long they spent on each page, and where they abandoned the site.

For the qualitative research, we focused primarily on interviews.

We asked customers what they thought about certain CTAs (whether they worked or not, and why).

We made messaging changes and asked customers and suppliers whether they made sense.

We invited a psychologist into the office and asked them what they thought about our design.

What we learned

We found out our design was good, but our CTAs weren’t quite hitting the mark. For example, one CTA only gave the reader the option to call. But, as one of our interviewees pointed out, not everyone likes using the phone — so we added an email address.

We were intentional but ad hoc about our asking process. This worked for us — but you might want to be a bit more formal about your approach (Moz has a great practical guide to conducting qualitative usability testing if you’re after a more in-depth look).

The results

Combined, these minor tweaks had a mighty impact. There’s a big difference in how our site looks and how we rank. The bottom line: after the rebuild, we got more work, and the business did much better. Here are some of the gains we’ve seen over the past two years.

Our dwell time increased by 73%, going from 1.5 to 2.5 minutes.

We received four-times more inquiries by email and phone.

Our organic traffic increased despite us not channeling more funds into PPC ads.

We also realized our clients were bigger, paying on average 2.5 times more for jobs: in mid-2018, our average cost-per-job was $8,000. Now, it’s $17,000.

Our client brand names became more recognizable, household names — including two of Australia’s top universities, and a well-known manufacturing/production brand.

Within the first 26 weeks, we got over $770,000 worth of sales opportunities (if we’d accepted every job that came our way).

Our prospects began asking to work with us, rather than us having to persuade them to give us the business.

We started getting higher quality inquiries — warmer leads who had more intent to buy.

Some practical changes you can make to improve your website conversions

When it comes to website changes, it’s important to remember that what works for one person might not work for you.

We’ve used site speed boosters for our clients before and gotten really great results. At other times, we’ve tried it and it just broke the website. This is why it’s so important to measure as you go, use what works for your individual needs, and remember that “failures” are just as helpful as wins.

Below are some tips — some of which we did on our own site, others are things we’ve done for others.

Tip number 1: Get stronger hosting that allows you to consider things like CDNs. Hiring a developer should always be your top choice, but it’s not always possible to have that luxury. In this instance, we recommend considering CDNs, and depending on the build of your site, paying for tools like NitroPack which can help with caching and compression for faster site speeds.

Tip number 2: Focus your time. Identify top landing pages with Moz Pro and channel your efforts in these places as a priority. Use the 80/20 principle and put your attention on the 20% that gets you 80% of your success.

Tip number 3: Run A/B tests using Google Optimize to test various hypotheses and ideas (Moz has a really handy guide for running split tests using Google). Don’t be afraid of the results — failures can help confirm that what you are currently doing right. You can also access some in-depth data about your site’s performance in Google Lighthouse.

Tip number 4: Trial various messages in Google Ads (as a way of testing targeted messaging). Google provides many keyword suggestions on trending words and phrases that are worth considering.

Tip number 5: Combine qualitative and quantitative research to get to know how your users interact with your site — and keep testing on an ongoing basis.

Tip number 6: Don’t get too hung up on charts going up, or figures turning orange: do what works for you. If adding a video to your homepage slows it down a little but has an overall positive effect on your conversion, then it’s worth the tradeoff.

Tip number 7: Prioritize the needs of your target customers and focus every build and design choice around them.

Recommended tools

Nitropack: speed up your site if you’ve not built it for speed from the beginning.

Google Optimize: run A/B tests

HotJar: see how people use your site via heat mapping and behaviour analytics.

Pingdom / GTMetrix: measure site speed (both is better if you want to make sure you meet everyone’s requirements).

Google Analytics: find drop-off points, track conversion, A/B test, set goals.

Qualaroo: poll your visitors while they are on your site with a popup window.

Google Consumer Surveys: create a survey, Google recruits the participants and provides results and analysis.

Moz Pro: Identify top landing pages when you connect this tool to your Google Analytics profile to create custom reports.

How to keep your conversion rates high

Treat your website like your car. Regular little tweaks to keep it purring, occasional deeper inspections to make sure there are no problems lurking just out of sight. Here’s what we do:

We look at Google Analytics monthly. It helps to understand what’s working, and what’s not.

We use goal tracking in GA to keep things moving in the right direction.

We use Pingdom’s free service to monitor the availability and response time of our site.

We regularly ask people what they think about the site and its messaging (keeping the qualitative research coming in).

Conclusion

Spending money on marketing is a good thing, but when you don’t have a good conversion rate, that’s when your website’s behaving like a leaky bucket. Your website is one of your strongest sales tools, so it really does pay to make sure it’s working at peak performance.

I’ve shared a few of my favorite tools and techniques, but above all, my one bit of advice is to consider your own requirements. You can improve your site speed if you remove all tags and keep it plain. But that’s not what you want: it’s finding the balance between creativity and performance, and that will always depend on what’s important.

For us as a design agency, we need a site that’s beautiful and creative. Yes, having a moving background on our homepage slows it down a little bit, but it improves our conversions overall.

The bottom line: Consider your unique users, and make sure your website is in line with the goals of whoever you’re speaking with.

We can do all we want to please Google, but when it comes to sales and leads, it means more to have a higher converting and more effective website. We did well in inquiries (actual phone calls and email leads) despite a rapid increase in site performance requirements from Google. This only comes down to one thing: having a site customer conversion framework that’s effective.

Customers’ expectations are rising and marketers are working to meet those expectations with personalized content at a growing number of touchpoints — from social to website to mobile app to drive-through menu, and even to virtual reality experience. It’s that need to maintain a compliant, on-brand experience that is leading more marketers to adopt or upgrade digital asset management systems (DAM).

Here are some of the ways a DAM can aid an organization:

Better communication between in-house and freelance/contract workers.

Improved distribution of assets to clients, partners or other outsiders.

More efficient utilization of existing resources. 

Increased efficiency in the workflow for internal approvals. 

Faster conversion of assets into different sizes, aspect ratios and file types for different marketing applications.

Higher efficiency on the front end, in the creation of brand assets, and on the back end, in the distribution of those assets to various martech and adtech systems.

Easier compliance with changing brand standards and licensing terms. 

Improved branding consistency to the customer with an eye toward loyalty and retention.

Ability to quantify the usage of each individual digital asset, and therefore track ROI on the cost of creation and distribution. 

While these are all highly desirable capabilities, your organization may not need all of them. Deciding whether or not your company needs an enterprise-level digital asset management platform requires you to follow the same evaluative steps involved in any software adoption, including conducting a comprehensive self-assessment of your organization’s business needs, staff capabilities, management support and financial resources.

Explore DAM solutions from vendors like Adobe, Bynder, Cloudinary and more in the full MarTech Intelligence Report on digital asset management platforms.

Click here to download!

Use the following questions as a guideline to determine the answers:

Are you getting the most from your stack? Take our brief 2024 MarTech Replacement Survey

Read more on digital asset management

What is digital asset management (DAM?)

How to do a DAM audit

DAM software vendors

DAM implementation guide

Dam business case

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In a recent Instagram Reel, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, revealed a top signal the platform uses to rank content: sends per reach.

This metric measures the number of people who share a post with friends through direct messages (DMs) relative to the total number of viewers.

Mosseri advises creating content people want to share directly with close friends and family, saying it can improve your reach over time.

This insight helps demystify Instagram’s ranking algorithms and can assist your efforts to improve visibility on the platform.

Instagram’s ‘Sends Per Reach’ Ranking Signal

Mosseri describes the sends per reach ranking signal and its reasoning:

“Some advice: One of the most important signals we use in ranking is sends per reach. So out of all the people who saw your video or photo, how many of them sent it to a friend in a DM? At Instagram we’re trying to be a place where people can be creative, but in a way that brings people together.

We want to not only be a place where you passively consume content, but where you discover things you want to tell your friends about.

A reel that made you laugh so hard you want to send it to your brother or sister. Or a soccer highlight that blew your mind and you want to send it to another fan. That kind of thing.

So, don’t force it as a creator. But if you can, think about making content that people would want to send to a friend, or to someone they care about.”

The emphasis on sends as a ranking factor aligns with Instagram’s desire to become a platform where users discover and share content that resonates with them personally.

Advice For Creators

While encouraging creators to produce shareworthy content, Mosseri cautioned against forced attempts to game the system.

However, prompting users to share photos and videos via DM is said to boost reach

What Does This Mean For You?

Getting people to share posts and reels with friends can improve reach, resulting in more engagement and leads.

Content creators and businesses can use this information to refine their Instagram strategies.

Rather than seeing Instagram’s focus on shareable content as an obstacle, consider it an opportunity to experiment with new approaches.

If your reach has been declining lately, and you can’t figure out why, this may be the factor that brings it back up.

Featured Image: soma sekhar/Shutterstock