In e-commerce there are a number of concerns for merchants. One challenge that all merchants face is figuring out how to increase site conversion—that is how to convert your site visitor into a paying customer.
Runa, a company specializing in conversion marketing, offers services that can help an e-tailer rescue lost sales, improve marketing ROI and protect profits.
Conversion Marketing: When SEO and SEM Are Not Enough
A number of merchants rely heavily on search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) tactics to bring shoppers to their Web site, but as many e-tailors know, getting people to your site isn’t always enough to produce revenue.
According to Runa, last year alone, e-tailers collectively invested $21B to drive traffic to their Web sites; however the average conversion rate of all visits that actually resulted in a sales transaction averaged around two or three percent.
Heather Dawson, Runa's chief customer officer, said that Runa’s conversion marketing services takes over where SEO and SEM stop. “Online retailers spend money on SEO and SEM to increase site traffic, and our service takes that traffic and increases revenues for the retailer by delivering the right price to the customer before they abandon their cart and leave the site,” she said.
How the Dynamic Merchant Offers Work
According to Dawson, pricing is the top influencer for converting traffic to sales when the shopper is on the merchant’s Web site. The Runa service encourages a customer to purchase before they abandon their shopping cart.
Runa uses a number of consumer behavior and tracking analytics to offer personalized and time-limited dynamic pricing for products that were of interest to the shopper.
When a shopper lands on your site, Runa tracks a number of "actionable analytics," including the referral URL, search keywords, the shopper's transaction history and demographics info. It also tracks post-click shopper behavior, including the products viewed, the browsing pattern of the shopper, the cart value and cart abandonment.
 Merchants can offer a special discount or shipping deal to prevent the shopper from abandoning their cart.
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From there, the dynamic sale price can be offered based on the merchant's rules and the shopper's behavior. When the cart is abandoned, the Runa service presents the price offer to encourage the customer to check out instead of abandoning the cart again.
For example, Runa could prompt the buyer to check out instead of abandon the cart on their second visit, by offering the customer a special discount on the item or free shipping. According to Dawson, when a merchant uses Runa’s cart abandonment recapture offers, they can expect to see up to 15 percent of abandoned carts become sales.
The interesting part about Runa's service is that customers who convert on their own — meaning those customers willing to purchase at the regular retail prices — never see the dynamic offers. Instead, only those who abandon their cart one or more times will be prompted to act on a special offer.
Runa provides e-tailers with an online dashboard control where they can enter discounts and choose the products for the recapture offers. You can also have reports e-mailed to track any of your Runa campaigns.
Runa Pricing and Availability
Runa’s conversion marketing services are available now. The SaaS solution offers easy installation with minimal tags for enabling Web sites. The service is available with no up-front cost to the merchant, and the service is based on pay-for-performance business model.
Vangie Beal is a veteran online seller and frequent contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com. She is also managing editor of Webopedia.com. You can tweet with her online @AuroraGG.
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