2014’s holiday sales season is in full swing and so far the reviews are mixed.

According to the National Retail Federation, overall retail sales, including online and in-store, were down 11% from 2013, to $50.9 billion, for the kickoff Black Friday weekend.

And there were more slumping sales figures (vs. 2013) in the NRF’s research:

Overall, about 134 million people shopped over the 4-day weekend, down 5.2% Average sale per online customer is down 10.2% to $159.55 Average total spend per shopper over the weekend: $380.95, down 6.4%

Despite the disappointing early data, the NRF sticks by its optimistic prediction for …

Does anyone fully appreciate the critical importance of every element of their landing page strategy and design towards the overall success of their entire digital marketing campaign(s)?

It doesn’t seem so, judging by the majority of landing pages we come across.

Whether you’re trying to generate leads or make a sale, your landing page is the most crucial element of your entire digital campaign. It is the ultimate tipping point in a series of tipping points. It is where your visitor either becomes a lead or customer – or scampers away unconverted.

And that’s why landing pages are so important. If there …

So many landing pages, so little time. They come at you from your email box, web browser and search results. It’s so bad that we tune most of them out. At least I do.

So I thought I’d ‘stop and smell the roses’ (or is it ‘cow chips’?) of the landing pages that come my way to see what best practices are used, where I think pages could be improved and what optimizers might consider for their next round of AB tests.

Let’s Call it ‘The Good, The Bad and The Study’

The glut of landing pages makes it impossible to discuss …

Imagine you have done all the conversion rate optimization work and now you live in a world of perfect landing pages. All you have to do is get visitors to click on your link and ~ poof ~ once they see your landing page, they all convert.

It’s a dreamland scenario for conversion optimizers, but it’s not as far-fetched as it sounds.

For an extreme example, if you gave away a Ferrari to everyone who took your call-to-action, you’d likely get a 100% conversion rate – though you’d be in dreamland for entirely different reasons.

Back to reality, depending on …

Images. You already know their power to improve conversion rates, leads and ecommerce sales. It’s why you use a photo of your product instead of the thousand words it would take to describe it.

But most of us don’t realize how powerful images can be. Or, in an increasingly graphic online world, that their power increases.

If you’re looking for proof of this, try to think of a single popular social medium that has emerged in the past few years that isn’t image-based.

Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, etc.; all image-based social media. If you thought of Google+, you’re …