Last month, March 2006, was our very first month with over $1 million in sales ($1.3 or so). Just when we were celebrating busting the million month mark, along comes this MarketingSherpa case study on JC Penney, which hit $1 *B*illion in online sales in 2005.

Before you say, “Yeah sure, that’s JC Penney; doesn’t apply to my online store,” read this case study. And of course, if you’re not already subscribed to all the Marketing Sherpa, you’re really missing out. And I’m not just saying that because Anne Holland, the editor/founder, is a friend.

After you read it, come back here and leave a comment. My biggest takeway: many of us are oversimplifying things when we look at conversion simply as customers divided by unique visitors. Many people shop for awhile (pre-Christmas, pre-wedding, etc.) and just looking at each day’s sales over the number of visitors that day may be, literally, selling yourself short.

Read the case study and think about how much money you plan to spend on paid search. If you’re only looking at the conversion rate tracked in Google’s AdWords conversion tracker, you may be doing better than you think.

And you may be able to spend more, profitably, and build your customer base that much faster.

Read, think, and come back and share a pithy comment.