For as long as we can remember, the catalog has been a vital part of the shopping experience. Catalogs are so ingrained in our daily lives that it can be easy to forget they have a very rich and interesting history.
Why was the first catalog created? What catalog trends went in and out of fashion? How did the catalog develop into what it is now?
Read on if you’d like to find out, as we present the history of the catalog, including some flashbacks to great vintage material.
Find Out How Your Online Catalogs Are Performing With a Ready-To-Use Dashboard in Google Analytics
May 22, 2017 by Joost Buijs
Understanding how shoppers use your online catalogs can be difficult, and the default reports in Google Analytics (GA) don't always give you the statistics you need. In this post, we’ll explain how you can set up GA to retrieve useful statistics for your catalogs. We’ll also provide a ready-to-use custom dashboard that includes the most important key performance indicators (KPIs) such as pages viewed per session (exposure) and number of products clicked. This way, you can quickly and easily find out how your catalogs are performing.
Product Update: Hotspots Visible on Hover (and How This Helped A.S. Watson Increase Their CTR by 96%)
Apr 12, 2017 by Joost Buijs
Hover states have been with us since the invention of the mouse, and for good reason—they tell users where to click. So, when A.S. Watson asked us to improve the hover states of their hotspots, we immediately set out to work. During a period of two months, we ran several A/B tests where we made their hotspots visible on hover. In doing so, we were able to achieve a 96% increase in their click-through rate (CTR—i.e. the ratio of shoppers that click from the online weekly ads to the online store).
We're delighted to finally make this update available for everyone. Read on to learn more about the update and how you can make use of these benefits.
For over a decade, email has proven to be one of the most effective tools available to marketers in terms of ROI and we believe this trend will continue in 2017. One way to empower or start a new email campaign is by featuring your catalog in your email. For your inspiration, we dug through dozens of our customers’ newsletters, so we could find and share some of the best examples. Make sure to read on as these examples could give you valuable insights on using your catalog in your email newsletters.
The Online Catalog as a Source of Inspiration: 7 Great Examples of Visual Storytelling
Feb 6, 2017 by Joost Buijs
With the rise of social media and ecommerce, the retail market has become increasingly competitive. These days, shoppers can browse and purchase products from retailers at the other end of the world in just a few clicks, making it much harder to maintain a strong customer relationship. One way to secure customer loyalty in this environment, is through visual storytelling and the catalog is a great tool to help you do so.
Read on as we explain why and share some great examples of catalogs that tell a beautiful brand story.
The online catalog can provide a lot of value by helping shoppers discover deals, products and promotions that they would otherwise not look for. When employed effectively it can yield up to 308% higher conversion than other channels. You might have managed to upload your first catalog to Publitas, but how do you turn it into such an effective channel? This post will help you getting started and serves as a checklist to make sure you’ve got the basics covered.
We've made sure that you can easily and effectively tag the products in your online catalogs with hotspots, but how you do so remains up to you. You can choose the type of hotspot, set the size and placement of the click area, turn icons on or off, adjust the icon's position, and write your own mouse-over texts. With so many options available, it can be tricky to figure out the best way to tag your products. To help you out, we wrote this best practice guide. It contains lots of useful tips and advice, so check it out!
Holiday Inspiration: Great Examples of Gift Guides and Christmas Catalogs
Nov 21, 2016 by Joost Buijs
The holiday season is here! During these two months, your holiday sales can account for as much as 20-40% of your annual sales. Having said that, it’s easy to understand why making your brand stand out during this season will significantly affect your bottom line. One way to do so is by using a gift guide or Christmas catalog to inspire gift-seeking shoppers and help them decide on the right gift(s) to purchase. We’ve collected some of the best gift guides and Christmas catalogs we’ve seen published with Publitas so far and shared them in this post for your inspiration.
October Rollout: Product Detection, Improved Mobile Embedding, and New Languages
Oct 31, 2016 by Joost Buijs
This month we’ve made several improvements to Publitas to help you achieve better results with your catalogs. Most notably, we’ve added a product detection feature in the hotspot editor so you can save time when adding product hotspots. We’ve also improved mobile embedding to keep customers on your site when they open an embedded catalog from their mobile phones. Read more to learn about each update and some other useful changes we’ve made.
You may have noticed that some retailers have added their online catalog to their Facebook Page. This is a great way to reach fans on Facebook with engaging content. We created this short guide to help you embed your catalog (or any other type of publication) on a Facebook Page, quickly and easily.