Holiday e-commerce spending is poised to exceed $189 billion in the U.S., according to Adobe’s most recent forecast. That represents 33% year-over-year growth. However, online revenues could reach or exceed $200 billion if physical stores remain largely closed due to COVID and if there’s a second stimulus payment to consumers.

Uncertain spending outlook. Consumer confidence declined in October and there are conflicting data about anticipated holiday spending. Some surveys, like that from Feedvisor, assert the majority of U.S. consumers will spend at least as much as they did last year. However, other surveys (e.g., from Suzy) argue only a small percentage of consumers will spend the same or more than they did in 2019. The firm’s most recent shopping survey found that 53% of consumers were uncertain how much they would spend or will spend less; only 13% were confident they would spend more.

Big gains for Cyberweek. There’s no question, however, that e-commerce will see substantial gains over last year due to new shopping patterns driven largely or entirely by COVID. Adobe expects the traditional Thanksgiving week to see big gains over last year, especially Black Friday and Cyber Monday. But Black Friday will see substantially fewer consumers in stores and less “door busting” because of the pandemic. Most of those specials will move online, fueling more online shopping. Additionally, many malls and retailers, including Walmart, Target, Kohl’s and JCPenney, will close for Thanksgiving day this year.

Why we care. This is a very unpredictable year, with wild card elements such as consumer confidence and the potential return of COVID-19 lockdowns. However, e-commerce growth is a sure thing and multiple surveys have confirmed that holiday shopping is already underway, following Prime Day.

Retailers need to utilize every marketing tool available to gain an advantage this year. That includes Google Shopping/Local Inventory Ads and product feeds, discounts, shipping incentives, BOPIS and curbside pickup. For traditional retailers, Google My Business optimization is critical. Inventory and supply chain management will also be a key to success — making sure that enough product is available to meet demand.

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MarTech Today’s “B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide” examines the market for B2B marketing automation software platforms. This report includes profiles of 13 leading B2B marketing automation vendors, capabilities comparisons, pricing information, and recommended steps for evaluating and purchasing.

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Microsoft Clarity, a free product to help site owners better understand visitor behavior so that they can improve their user experiences, is out of beta and now generally available, the company announced Wednesday. First launched as a closed beta in 2018, Microsoft Clarity provides site owners with visual heatmaps that illustrate user engagement, individual session replays, a dashboard to help them get an overall understanding of user interactions and filters to drill down on various types of interactions.

The dashboard. The Microsoft Clarity dashboard provides an overview of how many users were clicking on non-existent links, the number of users that scrolled up and down on a page in search of something they couldn’t easily locate, how much time the average user spends navigating your site and so on. 

Two types of heatmaps: clickmaps and scrollmaps. Clickmaps can help point out which content on your page visitors are interacting with the most. Conversely, scrollmaps can tell you whether visitors are actually seeing the content you want them to see. 

Session playbacks. The ability to view recordings of individual sessions allows site owners and designers to examine user behavior as it occurred. This may also help identify edge cases and inform better site design decisions.

Filtering mechanisms. In addition to the typical filters (timeframe, browser, OS, country, etc.), Microsoft Clarity also uses machine learning to identify “rage clicks,” “dead clicks,” and “excessive clicking” across the dashboard, session recordings and heatmaps. 

“Rage clicks” are when users repeatedly click on a section of the page, presumably because they think there’s a hyperlink there when there actually isn’t. This may help distinguish parts of a page that are counterintuitive for users.

Why we care. While attracting visitors to your site is the primary objective for SEOs, that traffic isn’t going to help you meet business objectives if users can’t find what they’re looking for. Being able to identify which sections of your crucial pages are turning users away and which sections are performing well can help you improve your user experience, which can also lead to more conversions.

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Brands with an e-commerce presence this holiday season have a big opportunity to engage with the rising number of online consumers and take a piece of the growing pie. To grab market share in an uber-competitive environment, they must invest in the right digital tools to create an engaging online customer experience.

From enhanced product views to shoppable videos to microbrowsers, these tactics will help you make sales as well as increasing customer satisfaction and reducing returns. 

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Join us online December 8-9 for expert-led search marketing training, featuring Areej AbuAli’s keynote: What The Future Holds For SEO & The SEO Community.

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The number of users on LinkedIn increased 9% again year-over-year to 722 million last quarter, Microsoft reported this week. LinkedIn revenue increased by 16% and sessions rose 31% year-over-year. 

Why we care. LinkedIn’s “membership” continues to tick up steadily. Microsoft said LinkedIn saw “record levels of engagement” again last quarter and that revenue growth was “significantly ahead of expectations” as the advertising environment improved. That marks a recovery from the previous quarter when LinkedIn revenue growth was hurt by a weak job market and cuts to advertising spend amid the pandemic, the company said.