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5 Must Steals From REI
Here re five easy steals from http://www.rei.com that will increase your Holiday sales:

* Red DEAL or SALE button Far Right.

* Deal of the Day (you can put this anywhere).

* Loyalty Program (there are canned ones you can install).

* Trigger Point Free Shipping (below Login).

* BIG Search Box Next to logo.

Red Deals Button
REI.com is aware that the right side of a website can be a gutter. If you use the F design idea, and they do, and watch eyetracking you know you can manipulate a visitors eyes with things like a long horizontal menu bar. Since everyone clicks on DEALS REI.com puts it far right and in a somber red (to match their black menu bar).

Deal of the Day
REI.com's is above their footer in the middle (another potential gutter). DEAL shoppers will find that link no matter where you put it, so put it in a potential gutter and you convert "dead space" to ROI positive with a simple graphic and idea. At this time of year and with social media being so HUGE if you don't have a great Deal of the Day lined up you will suffer at the hands of the REI.com's.

Loyalty Program
I hesitated to put this in since installing a loyalty program can feel like invading Russia in the winter. Don't let it get that way. Buy a canned and simple loyalty program or create some easy way to reward your most loyal shoppers. If you can't get your website loyalty together by the holidays use your "Multi-Buyer" segment and serendipitous give them something no one else gets (via an email). Find your 80/20 rule (20% of your customers will do 80% of your sales) and REWARD the 20%.

Free Shipping Trigger
When I was a Director of Ecommerce my boss was so skeptical and worried about Free Shipping I had to do extensive analysis and tests. Here is what we found:

* Free Shipping Triggers are always exceeded by 40% or more.
* Free Shipping beats no Free Shipping every time.
* Make sure your Shipping Schedule is PRESENT and easy to understand.

REI.com's $50 Free Shipping probably produces an Average Order Value (AOV) of just under $100 (or more). Remove the objection (shipping costs are seen as a "don't buy" objection) and your buyers will buy. Interestingly all orders, all shipments FREE SHIPPING didn't always win. Seems Free Shipping is related to BUYER PSYCHOLOGY so some friction actually helps, some hurdle may help buyers feel special.

Big Search Box
My theory is REI.com's menu system is so complex they have to have great internal search. Even if your navigation is perfect expect half of your customers to want it their way (by using search). If you want to get really cool make sure you are merchandising your search sets with either faceted search or dynamic zones (zones you fill with content based on behavior or modeled analytics).

The great title of this scoop says it all. Everyone is creating content marketing but no one is sure how the top of the conversion funnel, those things we do like blogging and social media that drive traffic, and the bottom of the funnel, the magic land of conversions and ROI live, are connected.

There are several problems trying to connect traffic generation to ROI and conversion including:

* Attribution.
* Lack of accurate tools.
* TIME.
* Lack of predictive analytics.

Attribution, knowing where converting traffic came from, can be a bear. Conversion funnels can be peppered with visits; content and referring URLs What was the magic combination that actually created the conversion? Sophisticated analytics model attribution and assign some weighted value, but this is riff with bias and accurate enough (generally) to calm the riot. Some modeled attribution still beats NONE since no modeled attribution can lead to cutting off your websites proverbial nose to spite its face.

Time is part of the attribution problem. Some content lasts for a day and that are all its ever going to do. Other "evergreen" content can last for a year sending converting traffic all along. How do you know when you have short or long term content? By how it behaves and that is defining a bard door after horses are already out.

There is a missing algorithm in all of this. The magic QUANT math that can accurately connect funnel tops to bottoms. The problem is that QUANT math better be flexible and have some Artificial Intelligence-like flexibility or it isn't of much use since the web is a constantly changing sea of data, attribution and time.

We will master these complex FACTORS and find a way to better connect our funnel tops and bottoms someday soon. In the meantime bailing wire and chewing gum ROI systems will continue to rule our content marketing investments.