Ecommerce Links: March 2014

With a quarter of the year already behind us, it's time to Spring forward with ecommerce goodness. Enjoy our top 10 picks from the month.

• Content marketing is hot -- but not fully utilized by many ecommerce sites. Content Marketing Institute shares some outstanding examples of retailers using retail apps for content marketing.

• What are proactive experiences, and why are they the future of UX?

• Amazon is showing the world how to raise prices -- and getting away with it. But copying Amazon is not always a smart move. CrazyEgg spills on uncrazy strategies for raising prices without customer backlash.

• Wider Funnel tells you why trying something radically different, like using a tea cozy as a hat, applies wonderfully to conversion optimization.

• Bitcoin's booming, but understanding the value of Bitcoin means finding the right balance.

• If you missed Adobe Summit last week -- you really missed out! Thankfully the Adobe Blog has a lot of great session coverage. Check out the recap of how Sears uses customer analytics.

• Nothing's more buzzworthy and mystifying in online marketing than Big Data. It's not surprising that at Adobe Summit last week, the Big Data session was more than full. And equally unsurprising that most attendees interviewed before the show could not define Big Data. But everyone can benefit from learning how to how to make big data smaller<-- Session recap here.

• Marketing Experiments conducted an intriguing test -- what converted better, a radio button or drop-down menu?

• 76% of businesses don’t use behavioural targeting (segmentation based on what customers do on your site). SmartInsights walks you through what is and how to use behavioral targeting on an ecommerce site.

• Why are smartphones twice as bad as tablets at conversion? Tim Ash explains how smartphones are different and what you should do to optimize for them.