Customer Acquisition and Retention
articles » search engine optimization
The first e-commerce web sites were developed to create avenues to acquire new customers. That was in 1994.
Amazon.com made its first online sale in 1995.
Since then shopping cart developers have been focusing upon customer retention. The features required to aid in customer acquisition were left out of the equation.
Customer acquisition had to come through other avenues. Those avenues include:
- Search engine optimization
- Pay-per-click advertising
- Cost-per-click advertising
- Banner advertising
- Affiliate program providers
Advertising cost models include:
- Cost per action (CPA)
- Cost per thousand impressions (CPM)
- Cost per lead (CPL)
Top Five Customer Acquisition Methods - as cited from Target Marketing Magazine.(Source:IMT Strategies-imtstrategies.com)
- Search engines (46%)
- Random surfing (20%)
- Word-of-mouth (20%)
- Magazine ads (4.4%)
- "By accident" (2.1%)
More people click on natural search engine listings than paid listings. The ratio is nearly three to one.
Note: According to a Forrester Research Media Field Study, getting a loyal audience in the first place is best done by Search Engine Placement.
Achieving top search engine placement requires learning search engine optimization techniques or hiring a search engine optimization company. That increases the cost of customer acquisition.
At last, you can lower your cost of customer acquisition by achieving top search engine placements much easier. Apple Pie creates search engine optimized web pages. Your products will place better in the search engines.
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