It’s almost here! The big showdown between FC Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund will take place this Saturday in Wembley Stadium at 20:45. Now, Pay by Shopping is staying neutral but is very excited that two great German teams made it to the finale.

In honor of this exciting game, Pay by Shopping launched specials today in five top online games that are only available for a short time.  Players of the Online Settlers in Germany (Die Siedler Online) have to act fast because they can get an extra 1,500 Gemstones (Edelsteine) when they use Pay by Shopping, but only until May 27^th!

Players of goal united in Germany and Austria can get 4,000 GU Stars when they spend €30 at Otto and only until June 1^st. And last, but certainly not least, players of Kickerstar, Shakes & Fidget, and Bloodmoon in Germany and Italy can get an extra 125 coins when they use Pay by Shopping. This deal expires on June 7^th so don’t procrastinate!

Pay by Shopping wishes best of luck to both teams and can’t wait to watch the game! And if you are interested in launching your own campaign similar to this one, please feel free to contact us at sales@dealunited.com.

The Pay by Shopping team took some time off yesterday to take a tour of the Olympic Stadium… From above! Visitors to the Olympic stadium in Munich can take tours where they climb the roof of the stadium, learn about the history and architecture of the stadium, and finish with the thrilling  Flying Fox.  The Flying Fox returns visitors from the roof via zip line to the other side of the stadium. It was a great time and everyone managed to stay dry… For the most part.

As I was sitting on the plane ride back to Munich from the Hague, I started trying to remember all of the great tips, crazy statistics, and key information that had been thrown at me the last two hectic days at the popular iStrategy conference. Good thing I took notes…

One of the biggest highlights for me was our CEO, Kai Boyd, giving his presentation on boosting conversion rates. He spoke to our main product, Pay by Shopping, how it works, and practical applications in the real world. He mainly focused on its application in Facebook games but also mentioned how it can be used in other browser games. He ended the session with a cutthroat round of jeopardy answers and questions such as these:

The answer: This number reached one billion in 2012. The question: What is the number of Facebook users?

The answer: This is the number one reason for shopping cart abandonment. The question: What are shipping costs?

There was a common theme at iStrategy of shifting our focus in marketing over to people. People are the future of marketing! iStrategy started out with a bang when Rory Sutherland of Ogilvy, dug deep into this theme by addressing the fact that the future of marketing is not technology but really analyzing human behavior. A great example of this is addressing the human fear of uncertainty and how that affects waiting in line. Many people get anxious waiting in a line if it isn’t moving. Disney easily addressed this by adding progress signs saying ‘from here the wait is 30 minutes.’ Problem solved.

Another great speech going with this theme was from Eric Edge, the Head of Marketing and Communications for Facebook in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. He gave his perceptions on how to present your brand to really reach people on Facebook. Just throwing an ad on Facebook is not enough. His tips included being true to your brand, being useful, being relevant, creating a connection, and being entertaining. A great example of this was the famous Oreo ad during the Superbowl. (You can still dunk in the dark.) It was relevant, creative, true to the Oreo brand, and timely.

The closing keynote speech, and my personal favorite, was from Cindy Gallup, the vivacious founder of IfWeRanTheWorld and Make Love Not Porn (It’s an incredibly interesting project that is worth looking into.) She said that the future of marketing cannot be completely data driven and instead should be data informed. Her two main takeaways to improve your work life were to 1. Identify what you love (it’s probably what you do the best anyways) and 2. Identify the conditions under which you love doing it.

iStrategy was full of many other great speakers from the sarcastically brilliant host Adam Burns to the captivating Marc Mathieu, Senior Vice President of Marketing for Unilever and many more (Really too many awesome speakers to list!) Additional highlights for me were twitter man with his megaphone shouting out tweets, the iPad mini giveaway from Acquia (which I unfortunately didn’t win), Kai’s brainstorming team winning the Star Gazer Award, the great viral video presentation from eBuzzing Social (Remember: Content is King, Distribution is Queen), and of course, the iScars (which I also didn’t win. Insert sad face here.)

Oh yeah… GOLDI came too.

Overall, I found iStrategy to be an eye opening experience and I was so happy that I could take part.  I’d love to hear feedback from other attendees from not only The Hague but also from other iStrategy conferences as well. What did you guys think the key takeaways were? Who was your favorite presenter? And what were the top highlights for you?

(This was written by Courtney Bellmann, a Marketing Manager at deal united GmbH)

Kai’s presentation at this years iStrategy was a great success. Check out the amazing sketch of his speech created by one of the attendees.

The official Pay by Shopping car is here. For our readers in the Munich area, keep your eyes peeled!

Today we’d like to share a little bit about an exciting deal we have going on right now.

Gutscheinbuch.de offers several different coupon books in categories such as Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, which are right around the corner, along with shopping, restaurants, travel, and hobbies.

Users can get one of these highly desired coupon books for free when they shop at one of our many online retailers.  To utilize this offer, just click here and follow the directions on the right side of the screen to get your free coupon book.

If you’re interested increasing your conversion rates with a campaign such as this one, please contact us at sales@dealunited.com.

Pay by Shopping’s CEO, Kai Boyd, will be attending the well-known iStrategy conference in The Hague next week. iStrategy is the leading conference for digital marketing. Topics for this conference include the future of digital marketing and strategies for improving customer engagement, driving conversions, and developing campaigns that positively ring with authenticity, relevancy, and significance. The conference will take place on May 14th and 15th in The Hague, Netherlands.

Kai will not only be attending, but also speaking on Day One of the conference.  He will be speaking, along with our friend Martin Szugat of Snip Clip, about boosting conversion rates with Pay by Shopping, Facebook Gaming, and the Pay by Shopping Facebook-App.

If you are attending iStrategy and would like to organize a meeting with Kai, please contact us at sales@dealunited.com.

Today marks the start of one of our exciting Pay by Shopping Mother’s Day campaigns.  This year, Mothers Day will take place on May 12.

In the game, the Settlers Online, users can get 1,000 gemstones and a special flower packet when they buy from any of the shopping partners listed on our offer wall.  The campaign started today and will run until May 14^th.  Hurry up! Time is limited!

If you are interested in starting a campaign such as this one, please contact us at sales@dealunited.com.

Everyone knows how important social media is and how fast it’s growing. Whether it’s Twitter or Facebook, or another one of the many fast growing platforms everyone seems to be participating. We also all know that having a Twitter account is not enough on its own.  The following infographic from BizMedia details the importance of influencers in social media platforms. It also gives a list of some of the top influencers including Seth Godin and Mari Smith.

Pay by Shopping is so excited that their home team, FC Bayern, pulled in a win last night! What a game! How cool would it be to have a finale of FC Bayern vs. Borussia Dortmund?

In honor of the most prestigious soccer competition finals going on right now, Pay by Shopping has a great special in the online soccer game, goal united. Players in Germany and Austria can get 4,000 goal united stars when they go shopping at Otto, the well-known German retailer for all your fashion and lifestyle needs. Players in Switzerland can also get 4,000 goal united stars by shopping at Robinbooks.

This special is only available until April 30^th. If you’re interesting in collaborating with Pay by Shopping to launch a similar campaign, please contact us at sales@dealunited.com.