Google

Google is gaining ground in the market for same-day package deliveries, stepping up competition with Amazon.com, eBay and a host of startups during the busy holiday shopping season. The service, called Google Express and available in big U.S. cities, handled 50 percent more toys in the two weeks after the Thanksgiving holiday, the peak of the year-end shopping season.

Building a website without graphics is similar to building a house without a roof — it's not very useful. Marketers understand they have to use graphics, but picking the right ones isn't so simple when there are millions of digital images to choose from. The wrong imagery is worse than none at all, while the right images can evoke a long-lasting positive brand response. So how should retailers proceed to find the best visuals? Here are three "dirty secrets" that can help you find the visual content that best suits your website and intended audience:

Social login — the ability to use social network profiles from Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter and others for online registration in a few clicks — is gaining momentum despite some public relations and implementation hiccups. If you aren't on the bandwagon, now is the time to hitch up.

After what most would consider a brutal holiday shopping season last year thanks to a well-publicized data breach, Target is rebounding with a slew of mobile and digital investments aimed at driving foot traffic. Target is the latest brand to partner with Google's Art Copy & Code program, which aims to reinvent digital advertising for iconic brands such as Nike. For Target's holiday campaign, Google helped create a mobile website with six mini-games. The campaign was created by creative agency 72andSunny with Psyop and Stinkdigital as the production partners. 

It's hard to say what shopping will look like in 10 years, or even 10 months, but it's probably safe to say that we'll still do the majority of it in brick-and-mortar stores. Which stores we choose for that shopping trip will vary by day of week, occasion and myriad other factors. The bottom line is that the utilitarian ideal of the "best for the most" is irrelevant in a world awash in individualism. It's been a wild time since that first iPhone, and there's no sign of stability yet. Product assortment is more important than store size, and someone who can actually help with advice and ideas is better than free shipping.

One Kings Lane, a flash-sales site for high-end home goods, has taken a different approach to building a high-quality affiliate program. Its solution is to block coupon, loyalty or any other nonbrand relevant sites from its affiliate program. This puts all affiliates on a level playing field, making the program very attractive to those affiliates who

As another year comes to a close, it's time for my annual roundup of omnichannel retail predictions for the year ahead. As in year's past, I'm focusing on a few interesting trends I saw come to light this year that I believe will become even more widespread next year.

Tablets are, in many ways, a nightmare for a lot of retailers. Don't get me wrong, smartphones ultimately made the expectations tougher for everyone. However, optimizing for a four-inch screen is ultimately very different from optimizing for 19 inches and up. Say what you will about how difficult it is to create a good smartphone experience, but the tasks for mobile phones are often different enough from desktops that the changes you'll often need to make are obvious.

Page views, likes, full shopping carts … we all love numbers that prove our website is popular. The problem is that much of this data can be classified as vanity metrics. Unfortunately, vanity metrics don't provide real insight into the success of your website. For better analysis, turn to actionable metrics instead. Actionable metrics are numbers that help you understand why customers are behaving the way they do. Recent research shows that only 44 percent of marketers use analytics to make decisions. Use actionable metrics to analyze past customer behavior and to shape how future customers interact with your website. 

To help retailers prepare for the increased competition, Kenshoo has put together "The 12 Tips of Christmas." These best practices will help you guide your sleigh this season and deliver peak performance across your search and social marketing campaigns. Without further ado, here are the 12 tips: