blog.endai.com

Using Web Analytics To Compete

2010-04-28T22:51:10Z

I have an interesting perspective. The majority of my professional career has been spent in web development and online marketing. I had a short jog outside of this industry and during that time, Google Analytics became the dominant web analytics tool. Boy, what a difference a little time and a great tool can make. Google Analytics, in combination with their Authorized Consultants have redefined, reshaped and provided access to advanced analytics for any company that wants it...and oh yeah, Google Analytics is FREE!

Web Analytics- Start Somewhere, Go Everywhere

It's easy to get overwhelmed. Web Analytics, CRM, Supply Chain Management, etc., etc., etc. After working with many companies on enterprise analytics implementations, we believe it takes a few key ingredients to compete on analytics.

Focus- choosing where you are going to direct resource intensive efforts. Depending on your available resources, you may focus on one or a handful of initiatives that serve an overarching strategy. Some clients focus on conversion optimization, some focus on shopping cart abandonment, either way, focus is the answer.

Culture- companies that have a respect for measuring, testing and optimizing understand that quantitative evidence is best way to manage and run a company. While this sounds logical, this philosophy sometimes creates tension between management and the entrepreneurial vision of the leadership.

People- employees hired for their expertise with numbers or trained to recognize their importance are armed with the best evidence and the best quantitative tools. As a result, they make the best decisions.

Technology- there are a few advanced web analytics tools available today. Our choice, and the choice of millions of other companies is Google Analytics. GA is an advanced tool that serves many small companies and mid sized enterprises and serves them well when leveraged.

If you haven't used web analytics to compete, get started. Decide on a few KPI's that are important to your business, benchmark them and then make a change and determine if you are moving the needle.

If you using web analytics today, dig deeper. Go take a harder look at those traffic segments. Slice that segment one more time. Experiment with Multi-Variate Testing. Prove or disprove your theories. Action is the answer.

Create> Analyze> Compete

Use It or Lose It: Advanced Segments in Google Analytics

2010-04-28T22:15:02Z

What is an advanced segment?

Advanced segmentation in GA is a functionality that allows you to further dissect your data and customize Google Analytics reports. This can help you understand customers better by identifying how different types of visitors behave relevant to your goals. For example, you may discover that visitors who purchase items on your website interact more with distinct types of content. Advanced segments can help you to improve your business by identifying trends and patterns.

Why do you need to segment?

Sometimes, it is hard to find meaning in your data just by looking at the standard reports. While GA does provide you with a few standard, default segment options, these don't accurately present the depth and possibilities of advanced segments. After all, the internet is a place of great diversity so naturally your customers will differ from one another. Most likely, you may also have multiple key actions beyond sales. This means you must create multiple conditions to determine your most valuable visitors.

How to create an advanced segment in Google Analytics?

Advanced segmentation is not as complex as it sounds, and doesn't require additional implementation. All you need to do is setup the conditions correctly. To start off, open the advanced segments tab:

1. Go to "Advanced Segments" on your profile page left hand tab under My Customizations.

2. Click on "Create a new custom segment" at the top right corner.

3.    Choose the specific segment you want to mine data for. If you have trouble thinking of how to setup your segment think about a specific question you want answered.   For example, if your site has a high bounce rate then we want to find out how users who read multiple posts use the site differently from the average "bouncing" visitor.

4.     On the left hand side, we have our factors to consider - Dimensions and Metrics.   To answer our initial question we have to look at bounce rate for our site, however, the bounce rate option is unavailable in custom segments of GA. This means we have to re position our question. Our goal is to see how our users interact, so we can check for the depth of page view. How many of our visitors that don't bounce, explore the site because of the homepage? In the conditions field, we will put in "page depth", condition with a condition of "greater than" and value "1".

5.      Now you have to name your segment, in this example we will just name it "Interested Visitors" and Test Segment.

6.       GA allows you to test the segment to see if it will match any visitors. Our test shows that out of 825,242 visits to the site, 474,060 visitors were interested in browsing the site deeper than that one page. If we wish, we can further segment these readers by location, language, etc. This information is very valuable because now we can track this particular segment in almost all standard reports.

7.       If you are satisfied with the data presented, click create segment.   If you wish to access your data displaying the advanced segment we just created, go to Manage Advanced Segments and do a search for it.

8.       You will now be able to automatically see the stats for your new segment and make educated decisions about your content design and marketing plans.

Still Using setVar? Set a Higher Bar

2010-04-28T22:02:44Z

If you are still using setVar to populate a user-defined segment you should be aware that that function has been deprecated. It will still function as is, but any new features or functionality will be introduced using the Set Custom Variable code:

pageTracker._setCustomVar(index, name, value, opt_scope)

The SetVar field used to be the only way to pass a custom value to segment with to Google Analytics. It served as a wildcard, allowing any value to pass into the default user defined field. Google has expanded upon this functionality by creating introducing custom variables and adding the following;

5 Slots for Fields. This allows you to segment by multiple custom field values. If you used to capture an action like "login", as well as something like newsletter signup, it is now possible to roll these up to determine how many users who logged in signed up for the newsletter.

Group by Name - You can now group segment values by name. For example, if before you are collecting hometown values for members, you can now roll them up under the "home town" custom field group to avoid having these values appearing in one giant list.

Additional Scopes - Previously, custom variables would only be passed on a pageview. So if a visitor saw a specific custom field value on one page, that value would be related specifically to that page. Google now has included the visitor scope (the value for the custom field will apply to repeat visits as well as the current session) and session scope (the value will apply to the whole session). It is now possible to identify users based on their first action they've ever taken on a site, or even the first action in the session.

Limits - You can now have up to 5 custom fields generated on one page (before you were limited to one field - the setVar field)

What is the practical use of Custom Variables?

Google Analytics now has the ability to segment by additional metrics determined by the customized implementation. A site that focuses on user behavior for example, will want to collect information such as what the first action of value was that the visitor took. They could also compare this to the most recent action they took. Did users make a purchase first and then sign up for the newsletter? Did they join the forums first, then after discussing the product decide to make a purchase? Understanding where high-value users are is something every website can benefit from.

Keywords So Wrong? Say 'So Long'

2010-04-28T21:53:40Z

Google AdWords has recently introduced a new filtering option available at campaign, ad group, keyword and ad level.

The top right button that exists in all page views called "Filter and Views" allows you to setup one or more filters by which to segment the campaign.

Filtering is an invaluable tool to automate some of the manual optimization that would otherwise be required to identify areas that need attention.

For example, if you are looking at a Campaign overview for a few months, and notice that the average click through rate is 5%, you could create a filter to view ads with a click through rate below 5%. This would show you which ads underperformed and should be modified or paused.

Similarly, if you know you're Average Cost per Click is 1.00$, and you're average conversion rate is 2%, you can create a filter to identify keywords with a cost per click lower than 1.00$ and a conversion rate higher than 2%.

These are the keywords that are converting the best but costing you the least money.

Filters can be adjusted based on your goal. If you are looking to increase volume, identify keywords that are not producing the average or minimum number of visits that would be satisfactory. If they are not, you can either pause these or identify the underlying reasons for this behavior.

Likewise, if you are focusing on keeping a Cost Per Acquisition below a specific target, create a filter showing keywords that are costing you above a certain CPA. This will identify those keywords currently affecting your goal. Your next steps may be to create another campaign with a lower budget and copy these keywords into it.

Getting Started with Your Email Program...Again?

2010-04-28T21:29:19Z

There are several activities the smartest email marketing pros tend to nail down when either starting, or perhaps re-starting an email marketing program. This segment of "Getting The Message" is focused on getting your list in order.

Permission. Ask and ye shall receive...or not. The easiest way to undermine the performance of your email database, and reduce it from a strategic digital asset to an under performing headache, is to outright skip, or at any level ignore the requirement to get the subscribers permission to communicate with them. That's right, r-e-q-u-i-r-e-m-e-n-t. While it sounds simple and logical enough, as marketers we sometimes are under pressure to produce instant gratification and results -one of the ways this frequently manifests itself is in short circuiting the process of what's known as "affirmative consent" - incidentally this is one of the better terms and ideas in the federal CAN SPAM Act of 2003.

However, the point of today's edition of "Get the Message" is not focused on email compliance with Federal statues -it's to focus on the impact permission has on your performance -you know, the performance you need right now.

Permission is really a cut and dry issue. You either have it or you don't. Naturally the marketplace has produced many shades of 'grey' in between - not surprisingly the mailers that adopt approaches that are less than clear and simple opt-in permission are called "grey mailers" - so how does that feel? We think it's "icky."

But even if you're okay with "icky", the quality and performance of your email database and campaigns is highly dependent upon not only if you have "permission" but the quality of that permission, or what's sometimes referred to as the strength of the "opt-in" (when the subscriber opts to receive emails from you).

There are many ways to get a mail-able name. Because they exist, it doesn't mean you should use them. In general order of efficacy, and level of permission they are:

1.       On Site Registration with Double Opt In.

2.       On Site Registration with Single Opt In

3.       Co-registration Opt-in, with qualifying questions

4.       Co-registration Opt-in

5.       Co-registration Opt-out (box is already checked, you have to uncheck it)

6.       Co-registration "No-opt" (you are in, can't get out! You can image how well this works.)

There are other models for capturing a reliable name, but these account for 90% of all email addresses captured today. Wireless & SMS campaigns that require users to text their email to a short code (aka SMS your email address to #VERIZON) can generate very good email-able members, and hold great promise. Circa 2009, these campaigns have represented the minority of opt-ins generated.

The remainder have varying levels of 'obviousness' as to the consumer will be receiving email from the sender. We all have seen the "tricks" that marketers deploy. In most cases, they only serve to reduce response rates. So avoid them.

The proverbial bottom line is actually pretty simple... the best lists are growing lists, and if you're growing your list, you need the subscriber's permission -before you can reap the results.

US Post Office Troubled... While Email Marketing Grows

2010-04-28T21:25:17Z

In a recent news article on Yahoo! Finance, the US GAO advises that the US Postal Service is in dire straits, and is likely to run out of money by September!

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Post-office-cited-by-GAO-as-a-apf-1733443566.html?x=0&.v=4

Email pundits and pros have jumped on this, as with the news of postal mail declining, email marketing continues to grow quickly.

There is good reason to be excited about it, with the advent of increasingly more capable enterprise class email marketing software there is great opportunity to grow sales and share --and save the trees.

Online Advertising & "The Digital Vampire?"

2009-06-24T19:11:40Z

Dow Jones Chief Executive Les Hinton referred to Google as a "Digital Vampire" today (see the article in Crain's New York).

As an online marketing company, even I am not sure how fair it is to put all the responsibility on Google for "sucking" the value from free content. Actually, I don't think it's an accurate characterization at all. Aren't they are creating value by indexing and delivering traffic!

In any case, the days of Google's image as the gentle giant are waning. Google... perhaps it's the new Microsoft.

Ending the Suspense...TweepMe.com is Suspended By Twitter

2009-06-23T19:33:11Z

Social media-ites beware, Twitter search engine TweepMe.com (www.tweepme.com) has been suspended by Twitter, ending the wait for Twitter to begin a crackdown on use and potential abuse.

While it's not quite looking like an Iranian media blackout attempt, Twitter certainly weilds the power, and arguably the right, to manage the usage of their API's as they have been overwhelmed with incredible traffic to date.

We'll post some reccomendations on a TweepMe alternative search engine shortly.

Search Regionally

2009-05-06T00:19:34Z

A much heralded benefit of online marketing, a favorite of Internet Marketing Companies, is its measurability and the ability to use the data generated by tools such as Google Analytics to continuously adapt marketing tactics. A second benefit of online marketing is its targeting ability.

The ability of online marketing to target beyond the demographic layers of mass marketing to nearly the individual level is the primary cause of its generally higher ROI rates.

One way to enhance search marketing efforts is to target geographically. The idea seems obvious for a product or service limited to a market or region, but geographic targeting can work for national search marketing efforts as well.

When a person adds a city or region to a keyword search, that person is already at a more advanced stage of the purchasing process than someone searching more general terms. Geographic targets produces a smaller pool of consumers more likely to become customers.

All in all:

Take advantage of online marketing's ability to target to find your brand's specific audience.

Search marketing ROI strong

2009-04-24T16:45:27Z

Good news for the Internet Marketing Companies, search marketing's ROI is strong according to Efficient Frontier, the largest independent research firm in the search marketing industry.

With the current economic environment causing advertisers to place an even greater emphasis on ROI for every dollar spent, the report showed advertisers increased ROI by 25% using search marketing while decreasing spending by 10.5%

According to David Karnstedt, President and CEO of Efficient Frontier, the current situation offers a unique opportunity for marketers as advertising budget cuts drop CPC's but the number of customers searching online rises.

Rising ROI at a decreasing expense should ensure search marketing's place in advertisers' future marketing mixes. Especially as search engines increase efficiency as the world wide web, and therefore search marketers, expands.

All in all:

Search marketing continues to increase ROI for advertisers while decreasing costs.

Collecting the email address is just the first step.

2009-04-17T11:56:10Z

I get a lot of inquiries from prospects and clients who are looking to grow their database. These companies have made conscious effort and are willing to invest in acquiring new email addresses. However, the process usually stops there. My question to you is; now that you have the email address what are you going to do with it? How do you convert that "hand raiser" to a purchaser?

The answer is that these email leads need to be nurtured though conversion. I would advise that you leverage technology to do all the heavy lifting. Otherwise, managing this manually will become cumbersome, slow and will ultimately fail. Enterprise level Email Service Providers, such as MarketTraq Email are equipped with functionality such as M-Streams that automatically send a predefined number of email communications until the recipient takes the desired action of economic value.

This stream of communication is your vehicle to nurture that email lead through the conversion process. According to a study by Marketing Sherpa, using automated triggered emails improved conversion rates by 158%.

Most trigger email series are based on behaviors that are present. However, an overlooked aspect is taking the next action based on the absence of a behavior. For example, if an email is not opened sending a follow up email 3 days later with a new subject line.

Remember; don't stop after you get the email address. That email address only becomes valuable when they take your action of economic value.

Online Display Advertising's Comeback

2009-04-09T14:55:10Z

Online display advertising has been declining, according to Nielsen, with spending dropping 6.4% in 2008. With the advent of search, email and SEO as online marketing vehicles, display advertising has grown stale.

This current decline, however, is the result of marketers, and the occasional Internet Marketing Company, not realizing the full potential of online display ads.

Initially, online display ads were grouped with non-online display ads. They were approached in a similar manner, where advertising is placed based on the demographic audience of the surrounding content. This method is based on broad generalizations culled from data generated the previous six months to a year taken from a small population of the actual audience.

This method is obviously very hit-or-miss and very difficult to measure based on results.

The great advantage of online advertising is its ability to generate data nearly in real time.

This data allows placement of online display ads, not based on content of website, but by user behavior. A display ad can be put on a website visited by a person based on whether the previous online activity suggests that that person is a potential customer. A few companies already offer this service and Google is offering what it calls "interest-based advertising" to expand its revenue stream beyond search.

This enhanced ability, along with ever-increasing creative possibilities, should lead to a renewed interest from marketers in online display advertising.

All in all:

Effective online advertising is finding the right mix of display, search, email and SEO for they each influence one another.

How online advertising can get a brand through the economic downturn.

2009-04-07T01:51:12Z

Whenever the economy takes a slide, the marketing department of a given brand is one of the first to face a budget cut. How to maintain marketing effectiveness in the midst of a budget cut is one of the primary challenges of a brand's marketing arm. During the current economic downturn, the answer can come from an Internet Marketing Company in three forms: paid search marketing, search engine optimization and email marketing.

Paid search marketing is a cost effective means of maintaining or increasing marketing effectiveness while confronting a budget cut. Paid search is measurable in nearly real time, providing a brand's marketing department with the ability to constantly adapt and adjust keywords in an ever changing marketplace. Paid search has also proven effective in reaching potential consumers with an "intent to purchase." That segment uses the most specific keywords.

What is surprising, according to an Internet Retailer survey, is that almost half of retailers surveyed are placing the emphasis on search engine optimization over paid search marketing.

SEO takes more time and effort from a brand for effectiveness compared to paid search. However, while SEO is not as adaptable as paid search, its results are longer lasting as they remain long after the brand has ended spending. Time, instead of money, is the greatest investment of effective SEO.

Email marketing, depending on the brand, is possibly the most effective means of maintaining revenue during an economic downturn. Email marketing, by its very nature, engages potential customers who have already expressed interest in a given brand's product or service. This greatly reduces the amount of "waste".

All in all:

When marketing resources are scarce, the internet offers three cost effective avenues to reach potential customers.

Paid Search Ads vs. SEO

2009-04-01T20:35:59Z

The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) has released its findings on search marketing spending for 2008. Over the course of last year, a total of $13.5 billion dollars was spent on search marketing with nearly 90% of that total spent on paid search ads.

SEMPO also provided some good news for any Internet Marketing Company by predicting spending on SEM will double over the next five years to $26.1 billion dollars in 2013.

With research showing that consumers are more willing to click on organic search results, why was such a large piece of the 2008 search marketing pie spent on paid search?

Marketers used to traditional advertising are more comfortable with the guaranteed placement and consistency offered by paid search results. Also, data shows that paid search ads work well among searchers with an "intention to buy" who is exactly the group marketers are scrambling to attract, and marketers enjoy the direct, measurable results generated by paid search ads.

Also, the disparity between spending on paid search ads and SEO is a natural occurrence due to the fact that paid search is a media expense, whereas optimization costs decrease over time where once the site is performing well in organic search results, a marketer can start to throttle back the spending and go into SEO maintenance mode. SEO's largest expense is time- testing code, copy and linking changes to determine what is having a positive effect on rankings.

All in all:

Paid search ads have several benefits for marketers; however, as SEO efforts begin returning results, it is important to find the right combination of SEO and Paid Search.

Better Email Marketing with Stronger Calls To Action

2009-04-01T06:36:21Z

A strong Call To Action is critical to your email marketing success. Here are some ideas to help you get more from your next email marketing campaign by strengthening your email's call to action (CTA).

The most commonly used call to action is still the inherently logical "Click Here" however testing proves that this all too common CTA isn't the best performer for your email.

Have you used this recently? If so, here is a short but pointed rationale for improving your call to action to engage more subscribers on your email list to click through to your website.

First it breaks with fundamentals of email marketing. For starters, it fails to adequately answer the question in every busy subscribers mind... "who cares?" --there is no promise or offer made in the blanket statement... "click here" --directive, simple, and logical, yes... but optimal direct response? Not really.

One simple method for devising your optimal call to action is to think about some of the principles in search engine optimization. In good SEO, you would choose keywords to focus on that your customers are likely to think about and search on when looking for your product or service. Email shouldn't be all that different conceptually, and for good reason --customer orientation --think like the customer. Your customer isn't out looking to click links... they are interested in relevant, valuable content and opportunities.

Another variant on "click here" is "buy now" --while this to is good and directive, it is not falls short... it doesnt answer the question "what's in it for me?" Sure, as the marketer you want the email list subscriber to "buy now" --but is that what the customer starts with?

First... Your first objective is to get the click to the website, then to engage in conversion, so your CTA in the email body should be a "killer offer" that compels the click. Of course the purchase funnel collapses without getting from email to website, so settling for "click here" is an expensive proposition... consider "see dozens of limited availability selections now!" instead.

Second...add calls to action. In a recent study we performed the number of clickalbe links in email bodies is up to five for retailers, and somewhat less for the average mailer, but in all cases the number of links is up. Why... it works. You can use multiple treatments and CTA's to generate the click... why settle for just one.

Finally, you need to get send that click to the right place, do you drop everyone on the home page? The landing page should be as well engineered as the subject line and email body itself. If you take them from a highly engineered experience to a "generic" page subsequently, conversions will suffer. At a minimum be sure to sample the "keywords" in the CTA on your landing page.

Change up your call to action in your next email marketing campaign, and watch the results improve.