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Loyalty rewards programs are a staple of retail and ecommerce brands, but what if they’re doing more harm than good? At their most basic, loyalty programs allow customers to accrue points or punch cards until free items or discounts are earned. But what if sometimes a simple “thank you” is all you need?

The Trivialization Effect 

Here’s the problem with a loyalty program that offers rewards of some monetary value: buyers often find the amount trivial. As in, why even bother? Consider for a moment the price of a fancy coffee. Five dollars sounds about right. Now, the seller of this fancy coffee hands over a punch card when someone buys, and that punch card allows for the reward of a free fancy coffee after ten purchases. Sounds pretty straightforward, until you realize the coffee shop is essentially giving buyers $0.50 as a “thank you.”

Framing is everything! You’re probably not going to turn away that free coffee, but there’s a good chance you won’t feel as though the coffee shop actually appreciates you when they’re pouring it. Why? Because sometimes a sincere “thank you” goes a lot further than a $0.50 reward. You’ll feel more valued if you’re working towards those stamps for a free coffee, rather than $0.50 back on your purchase.

The Proof in Numbers

A recent study asked hotel guests to rate how appreciated they felt upon receiving acknowledgment from the hotel. Part of the guests received a sincere thank you note, while the other part received $0.05 (yes, five cents). The recipients were to rate their feelings on a scale of one to seven. Those who received a verbal thank you ranked their feelings of appreciation at 5.6, while those who received the small monetary gift said they ranked the gesture of appreciation at 4.4.

Well, then. Of course, it’s easy to glean one fact from this particular study: the smaller the monetary gift, the more trivial consumers will consider it to be.

How Much Is Enough?

So, if you simply have to give a larger reward for buyers to feel appreciated, how large are we looking at? Another group was split into sections, with some receiving a verbal thank you, and the rest receiving varying percentages of their purchase price as a reward.

Those who received the verbal thank you felt more appreciated than those who received up to 10% of the purchase price as a reward (remember the coffee example from earlier?). However, once the reward tipped into 15% and higher, consumers said they felt more and more appreciated.

What Does This Mean for Your Loyalty Program?

Consider a points system where customers are rewarded for activities besides purchases and work towards a variety of rewards. For example, you can incentivize activities like leaving a review or sharing something on social media. In return, you can give them early access to sales or free shipping over a certain threshold.

Blending Appreciation with Social Responsibility

There is one reward that may eclipse even the verbal thank you. Remember when we discussed the Noble Edge Effect, where consumers are more likely to support businesses with a social conscience? Consumers love the chance to give back, which is funny because that’s exactly what you’re trying to do for them, isn’t it? 

The final study shows that consumers who are allowed to give their small financial gift to a charity will feel almost as appreciated as those who just get a verbal thanks. You get even more than their appreciation, too, since those buyers will see you as a socially conscious company and resolve to support you as often as possible. This one seems like a win-win, right?

In truth, balancing rewards, customer loyalty, and your genuine appreciation can be difficult. Pay attention to what your customers really want and then give it to them. Remember that loyalty goes both ways—they want you to be loyal to them, as well. 

Sore neck. Blurred vision. Difficulty focusing. The feeling that your eyes are being burned into oblivion by your computer screen. If you’ve been experiencing any (or all) of these symptoms, there’s a good chance that you’re suffering from a terrible affliction known as “working a desk job.”

Even if you love what you’re doing, sitting and staring at a screen all day can take a toll on your well-being. And while there are ways to sneak in some exercise during the workday to offset a few of these negative effects, it’s hard not to wonder: What kind of impact is this routine really having on my health?

The team at FramesDirect answered that question in infographic form. What’s more, they uncovered some tips for overcoming the hazards that often accompany desk jobs — specifically the ones that impact our vision. For more, check out the infographic below.

Know of any other tips for being more productive while working a desk job? Leave a comment below.

You’ve noticed a dip in website traffic. Your email marketing, social media and content strategy are all on target, so what’s causing a decrease in visits, and what do you do?

First thing: Don’t panic.

Keep in mind that Google updates its algorithm between 500 and 600 times per year — and that doesn’t even include the major updates such as Panda (2011’s emphasis on strong content) and Penguin (2012’s crack down on over-optimizing and keyword-based anchor text).

It’s good to keep an eye on your website visits and performance to notice change over time, but if you’re getting less traffic and fewer phone calls, it’s time to investigate further.

Step 1: Check your code.

Even seemingly simple website tweaks could result in the accidental deletion of your tracking code.

Whether you’re using Google Analytics or a marketing automation tool such as HubSpot, double check to make sure you’re receiving the accurate performance data from your entire website.

It sounds like an obvious check, but you won’t believe how often it can happen if you have a webmaster or someone else making website edits for you.

Step 2: Analyze your keywords.

Those search terms that had you on page one of Google last week — are they still holding up?

If a few of your website pages dropped from the first, second or third search result position down to seven, eight or nine, that could result in a major drop in visits to your website.

I recommend you look at your larger traffic-driving keywords and overall pages to see if there has been a decline in placement across the board. 

Even a drop in placement from the 1st page to the 2nd, 3rd, 5th+ page could be a sign that you’re in penalty — meaning Google sees suspicious or outdated tactics and lowers your search result ranking or removes your website completely from its pages.

There is plenty of keyword tracking software out there that can do all the heavy lifting for you. All you would need to do is check your rankings and monitor for big keyword shifts. From there, you should evaluate how bad the drops in rankings are and adjust your SEO strategy.

(Download the “How to Rank Above Your Competition Using Ahrefs.com” eBook to learn more about the free tool that shows which companies are ranking for your search terms.)

Step 3: Take a look at Domain Authority.

A key factor in calculating your search engine ranking is Moz’s Domain Authority.

It’s calculated by the frequency of new pages published, number of pages, number of outbound and inbound links and quality of links, among other parameters — and it’s so influential that Google weighs it in the algorithm.

So when Moz rolls out an update to the Domain Authority of all websites, if you’ve lost quality backlinks or stopped making updates, your ranking could fall and subsequently get a loss in website traffic.

You can keep an eye on it here.

Why is this important? Well, your website’s authority tells Google a lot. If your authority is dropping, it’s a signal to Google and other search engines that maybe the quality of the site isn’t as good as it used to be.

If the quality is suffering, Google doesn’t want to damage its reputation as a search engine and deliver poor results.

You want to keep an eye on this on a monthly basis and make adjustments as you see your authority start to change. If it’s getting better, keep doing what you’re doing! If it’s declining, then it’s time to change your strategy — either by adding content that people would find interesting and linking to or reaching out to high quality sites for a link back to your site.

Step 4: Analyze for toxic backlinks.

Although Google says bad backlinks can’t hurt you, they definitely can.

Even if you believe you have strong and clean link building practices, you could be in penalty and not even know it — thanks to Google’s Penguin update.

You definitely should look for referral links that you wouldn’t necessarily want your website associated with. You can see this by taking a look at your referral traffic in your web analytics or marketing automation tool — pull up the data and ask yourself these questions:

• Do you have any partners in different parts of the world? 
• Do you see an increased amount of links coming in from a different language?
• Do you see links to pages that don’t exist on your website? 

Those are definitely things to watch out for as that could be a clear sign of a hacked website or unfavorable links. Unfortunately, I’ve been seeing a lot of this lately.

If you uncover toxic backlinks, compile a list and call in the professionals — it’s time to submit a disavow file to Google and start the cleanup process.

Step 5: Call in the outside reporting.

If you’ve made it this far and still haven’t found the issue, I recommend purchasing reports from SEMRush. This tool provides a small amount of data to show where you’re ranking, charts to show a drop in organic keywords and a look at whether there’s an algorithmic change.

Once you have the data,  a look the organic graph and analyze what it’s telling you: If you’re seeing declines in keywords and traffic, then check and see if it coincides with an algorithm update.

Typically, you can pinpoint what month and year your decline took a nosedive and research to see if Google rolled out any updates during that timeframe — there would likely be extensive coverage on Moz with advice on how to remedy the situation.

Final Thoughts

The truth is, Panda and Penguin are just the beginning of changes Google is going to roll out over the next decade.

Usually major algorithm announcements are made the same day they’re rolled out in search, but I tend to see movements in website data weeks — or even months — before that.

You’ll tend to see major movements in other industries before they’re rolled out everywhere, so that’s why I like to keep my ear to the ground.

You never truly know what Google will change next, so you have to keep analyzing what’s happening with your online presence and stay up to date with tactics and trends — it’s all part of a strong inbound marketing strategy.

We’ve got a bunch of great content on understanding keyword fundamentals, ranking above competitors and tips for increasing website rankings to help you master your search engine marketing strategy.