Search Box
The location of the Search Box is controlled in Store Settings and may be set to “Top” or Bottom. When set to Top, the Search Box appears as the first element of the Left Menu, at the top. Setting the location of the Search Box to “Bottom” results in the Search Box appearing as the last element of the Left Menu, at the bottom.

Top
The Top section of the Left Menu is managed by the “Advertisements” feature in Shop Site. Creating an Advertisement (Admin Menu), assigning it the Role of “MenuTopSideAd”, and setting its status as “Visible” results in the Advertisement appearing as the first element (or second if Search Box is set to “Top”) at the top of the Left Menu. The MenuTopSideAd, as with all Advertisements, may be defined using HTML or as a creative with or without an ImageMap. When using creatives to define Advertisements, the URL field may be populated to determine the destination users are redirected to when the Advertisement is clicked, and the URL Target may be specified to control where the destination is opened (same window, new window, etc). Multiple MenuTopSideAds may be defined and simultaneously visible, the order in which they appear controlled by the “Sort Order” value assigned to each. “Name” is used as the secondary sort criteria.

Categories
Setting the value of the ”Featured” parameter for a Category to “Yes” causes the name of that Category to appear on the Left Menu. If a Category contains Sub-Categories, the Sub-Categories may be made to appear on the Left Menu by selecting the value of “Featured” to “Featured with Children”. The order in which Categories appear on the Left Menu is controlled by the “Sort Order” specified on each Category (Ascending).

Custom Pages
Setting the value of the ”Featured” parameter for a Custom Pages to “Yes” causes the name of that Custom File to appear on the Left Menu. The “Add Break” value in Custom Files controls the inclusion of an additional
after the name of the Custom File in the Left Menu.

Static
The appearance of a selection of static links including “My Account”, “My Orders”, “My Wishlist”, and “My Gift Certificates” below Custom Files is controlled by the Store Setting value, “Left Menu Fixed :inks”.

Bottom
The Bottom section of the Left Menu is managed by the “Advertisements” feature in Shop Site. Creating an Advertisement (Admin Menu), assigning it the Role of “MenuBottomSideAd”, and setting its status as “Visible” results in the Advertisement appearing as the last element (or next to last if Search Box is set to “Bottom”) at the bottom of the Left Menu. The MenuBottomSideAd, as with all Advertisements, may be defined using HTML or as a creative with or without an ImageMap. When using creatives to define Advertisements, the URL field may be populated to determine the destination users are redirected to when the Advertisement is clicked, and the URL Target may be specified to control where the destination is opened (same window, new window, etc). Multiple MenuBottomSideAds may be defined and simultaneously visible, the order in which they appear controlled by the “Sort Order” value assigned to each. “Name” is used as the secondary sort criteria.

To summarize, the Left Menu is not managed directly, but rather by setting options in various features and functions throughout Shop Site that cause and control the appearance of elements in the Left Menu.

The infographic below breaks down Google’s top spenders in Google Adwords, but also highlights how CPCs (cost per click) vary across industries.
While some of these click prices are not surprising, like for health insurance or wireless Internet deals (high ticket value and/or recurring revenue), others like ‘zumba dance dvd’ are considerably high relative to retail prices. According to Google Shopping, these vids sell between $18 and $90. An average CPC of $5.18, even at the high end of margin, is an alarming cost.

It’s also interesting to note Lowe’s and Home Depot spend more on paid search per year than Amazon and eBay, with smaller catalogs. Without making assumptions about campaign efficiency, hypothetically speaking, it’s possible to advertise on more keywords and d! rive more traffic at lower campaign spend than your competition if you run a tighter ship.

So how do you run a tighter PPC ship? Here are 5 things to keep in mind.

1. Know your limit, bid within it.
Your bidding strategy requires an understanding of what you can afford to pay per click (max CPC). Very simply, if your profit margin on a Zumba Dance DVD is $20, and you can achieve a 3% conversion rate through paid search, your maxiumum CPC is $20*0.03 or $0.60. Anything higher than this and you are hemorrhaging money.
However, you often need to bid even lower than your max CPC to cover the overhead of running your paid search campaign. For this you want to estimate a target ROI percentage. This calculator can help you determine your max CPC with this in mind.
Bidding strategies are complex and beyond the scope of this article, but the key is to ensure you are not bidding based on Google’s Traffic Estimator or first page bid estimates alone.

2. Always be negative.
Keyword match types have their trade-offs. Exact match is great for control, but limits your long-tail opportunity. If you go broad, you may pull in a lot of seaweed with your catch. Negative keyword research is essential when using broad match types to prevent your ads from showing for irrelevant keyword matches.
For example, a text-to-speech product bidding on “French speaking software” may be triggered for the keyword “learn to speak French.” Adding “learn” to a list of negative keywords can prevent unnecessary impressions (which dilute click through rate)! and irrelevant clicks.
Negative keyword research is an ongoing practice. You can discover negative keywords with the Google Keyword Tool, Google Suggest, Google Search (visit pages returned in search results for the keyword) and my personal favorite, the Search Query Performance Report.

3. Be structured.
Certain keywords deserve their own Ad Groups, negative keywords, ad text and landing pages. This allows you to optimize messaging for better click through. For example, “Zumba DVD box set” could be separated from the general “Zumba DVD” group, and “box set” added as a negative keyword to the general “Zumba DVD” group. In addition to higher click through, the more focused landing page will likely boost your Quality Score as well. Both can reduce what you pay per click.

4. Always be testing.
Testing landing pages to improve conversion helps raise the ceiling on your max CPCs.

5. Consider search retargeting
In very competitive and expensive search categories, one little-known way to w! ork get in front of eyeballs without paying astronomical CPCs is to use search retargeting with a service like “_blank”>Chango, Magnetic or Simpli.fi. Unlike site retargeting which follows visitors who have abandoned your site, search retargeting can display your ad around the web to visitors that have not seen your site yet.
For example, let’s say someone searches for “video conferencing software.” She does not see your ad (you do not need to use Adwords to use search retargeting), rather she clicks an organic listing which is in the data pool used by the retargeting network. A cookie is placed on her machine including the search referral keyword. Later in the week, she checks the forecast on the Weather Network, and your ad appears. The CPM or CPC through the retargeting network could be much lower than the $35 per click charged in Google.

Paid search is an important marketing activity but it’s not the only way to drive traffic. Know what you can afford to spend, keep optimizing your campaign and landing pages to improve efficiency, and look for other opportunities when costs per click exceed what is reasonable for your business.

Elastic Path Software, 300-455 Granville Street, Vancouver, BC V6C 1T1, CANADA

To populate content of a Custom Page using plain-text, simply type the text you wish to display into the “Body” input box. Manually coded HTML is entered exactly the same way…simply type the HTML code into the “Body” input box and it will be output accordingly.

If you wish to use SHOP SITE’s WYSIWIG Editor to manage Custom Page content, you must first enable “Use WYSIWIG” in Store Setting under the “General” tab. Once enabled, the WYSIWIG Editor will automatically appear when managing Custom Pages.

To populate content of a Category page using plain-text, simply type the text you wish to display into the “Copy” input box and be sure to set “Copy Content Type” to “Text”.
Using either manually coded HTML or the WYSIWIG Editor on Category Pages requires that “Copy Content Type” be set to “HTML” on Categories populated with HTML. Populating Category Pages with HTML while leaving the “Copy Content Type” set to “Text” will result in incorrect output of content.

Hint: Using a browser like Firefox with adjustable input boxes makes editing Content much easier.

“Min Gift Certificate Amount:” and “Max Gift Certificate Amount:” is Store Settings under the “General” Tab must be set to enable purchase of Gift Certificates and control the Minimum and Maximum value of Gift Certificates purchased.

Upon sending a Gift Certificate, the recipient receives an e-mail indicating that someone has sent them an On-line Gift Certificate redeemable at your store. Contained within the e-mail is a link that must be followed for the recipient to “Claim” the Gift Certificate. When the recipient clicks on this link, they are redirected to your web store and asked to log in or create a new account (standard Sign-up Screen). Once they’ve logged in, or created their account, their Gift Certificate is automatically “Claimed” and attached to their customer account. Note: The recipient MUST use the same e-mail address the Gift Certificate was sent to when logging into their account or creating their new account. SHOP SITE will ONLY claim & attach the Gift Certificate to an account with the same e-mail address the Gift Certificate was sent to.

Gift Certificates may only be claimed Once, and again, only by an account with the same e-mail address that it was sent to.

The “Reminders, Incentives & Mail” Tab in Store Settings contains a value named “Email Template” in the “Gift Certificates” section. Leaving this value blank causes a standard, no-frills e-mail to be sent to the recipient. However, you may design a more detailed and attractive e-mail to be sent to the recipient using “e-mail Templates” and selecting your template here. Of course, designing seasonally themed e-mails creates a nicer experience for the recipient, and if the sender chooses to be cc’d, them as well.

Gift Certificates may be managed using the “Gift Certificates” tab on the Admin Menu. Gift Certificate e-mail may be re-sent, re-assigned, re-dated, and updated otherwise once selected.

Gift Certificate purchases are Authorized and Settled simultaneously at the time of purchase. Record of the transaction is available on the Admin Gift Certificate screen. If refunding a Gift Certificate becomes necessary, that must be accomplished through your Credit Card Gateway Interface, and if desired/necessary, the Gift Certificate must be nullified in SHOP SITE by changing its value (Amount) to $0.00.

Record of Purchased Gift Certificates may be viewed on the Customer’s My Account Screen. Record of Gift Certificates Received is also available on the Customer’s My Account screen.

Gift Certificates can be configured to require minimum purchase to be redeemed, as well as allow or disallow combination with other Gift Certificates. These parameters apply only to system generated Gift Certificates, NO Gift Certificates purchased by customers.

Note: If you’ve configured “Gift Certificate Reminders”, customers who have received Auto-Generated Gift Certificates (promotions, etc), will receive periodic e-mails reminding them that they have one or more Gift Certificates available.

“Countries Requiring Bank Info” on the Admin Menu (don’t forget to make sure you have Permission to access this menu option) allows you to select which Countries you want to collect Required Bank Information for during the checkout process. “Hint: Use the Select All button to select ALL countries, and then Uncheck countries you don’t want to require bank information for).

When a customer enters a Billing Address in one of the countries selected in “Countries Requiring Bank Info”, there is an added step/screen in the checkout process on which bank information including “Name of Bank” and “Bank Phone Number” must be entered. Both of these fields are REQUIRED (the customer is not permitted to complete their order without completing these fields.

In the Store Settings “Checkout” Tab, you can specify “Bank Information Copy” which appears at the top of the Bank Information Container on the additional step/screen during the checkout process. Use this to explain why the bank information is being collected and how it will be used. Leaving this field bank causes no copy to be displayed on the Bank Information screen.

This feature is always ON, but will only appear to the customer when they specify a Billing Address in a country you’ve specifically selected in “Countries Requiring Bank Info”.

• Standard Checkout Label:
• Standard Checkout Copy:
• Returning Customer Label:
• Returning Customer Copy:

To make your web store more personal, you may specify the content in these areas when using the 2-choice “Log In | Guest” configuration for checkout. If no values are entered for the fields, the following defaults (legacy) are used.

Note: Customized fields are NOT used when the “Log In | Guest | Sign Up” checkout configuration is selected.