links for 2009-02-26
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How to get the AdWords keyword tool to give you mobile results.
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If you're in the retail sector, good read on how RKs clients are faring in this economy.
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SEL Article links to a Penn State PDF file w/ interesting study.
Points of note: Most info is from 2006 dogpile.
Numbers are directionally accurate, but not purely accurate – IMO.30% of Dogpile users & 45% of Web searchers do not click on an any links after a search
30% of Dogpile users did 3 or more searches before performing a click (I'd love to know this number on Google, I'm guessing it grows every year as you can do instant answer searches)There is some other good info in the (transactional vs navigational vs info searches) PDF; however, users are using many more keywords per query than in this study on engines like Yahoo and Google.
Dogpile is a meta engine with a very small user base. While the paper is a good read, please don't quote the stats and apply them to Google, Yahoo, or MSN to prove 09 data.
Make sure your Google Analytics & AdWords accounts are linked by March 3rd, 09
Google Analytics is doing an update to their system in passing AdWords to Google Analytics data. If you have multiple Google Analytics accounts; or accounts which are not linked to AdWords accounts – you might want to make sure the information is correct.
Here’s the step by step information from Google in linking your AdWords and Google Analytics account together (copy and paste email from Google):
Action required: Cost data change
Important change to Google AdWords and Analytics cost data importing
Dear Google Analytics User,
On March 4th, we will be updating how Google Analytics imports AdWords data to improve security and provide greater control and convenience. This update will require that your AdWords and Analytics accounts are linked and that you have "Apply Cost Data" selected. We are proactively notifying Administrators of Analytics accounts that will be affected by this change (you either have auto-tagging enabled and/or have a linked account without cost data applied to some or all of your profiles).
If you are receiving AdWords traffic (e.g. Visits), but the AdWords reports in Google Analytics do not contain impression or click data (e.g. CPC, Impressions, ROI), then it is likely that AdWords and Analytics are not linked or the cost data option is turned off for that profile. The cost data import option is selected by default when linking your accounts; however, new profiles created after the linking process may not have cost data implemented.
You may need to apply one of the following changes to your Google Analytics account(s) <removed> by March 3rd, 2009 to continue collecting AdWords data:
Link your accounts and apply cost data (if you have enabled auto-tagging, but you have not linked your AdWords account to Analytics)
- Sign in to AdWords and click the Analytics tab.
- If you don’t see your Analytics account, then your accounts are not linked. Follow the on-screen instructions to link your accounts. (Learn how or watch the video)
- When linking your accounts, keep the default "Apply Cost Data" box checked. AdWords cost data will now be applied to all of your current profiles.
Implement cost data (if your AdWords and Analytics accounts are already linked)
- Sign in to AdWords and click the Analytics tab.
- From the Overview page, select an Analytics account to display all the profiles for that account.
- Select desired profile and click "Edit".
- View the Main Website Profile Information box to see if cost data is already applied.
- If cost data is not applied, click ‘Edit’ from the upper right hand corner of the Main Website Profile Information box.
- In the Edit Profile Information page, select the checkbox that says ‘Apply Cost Data’.
- Repeat these steps for each profile you wish to continue receiving AdWords cost data.
- Click ‘Save’ to finish.
Please remember that you can only link one AdWords account to one Analytics account. If the Analytics account you wish to link to is not available, it is possible this Analytics account is already linked to another AdWords account. (If this is the case you can always unlink them and then link the desired ones.) Currently, due to auto-tagging, your Analytics account may be receiving data from more than one AdWords account although they are not linked. With the March 4th change, if you need to receive data from multiple AdWords cost sources these must all be applied to your profiles. If this is necessary, please read this FAQ. With cost data applied, please note that you will receive full AdWords cost data (visits, impressions, CPC, ROI, etc.) in your Analytics report.
We recommend that you make the changes outlined in this email to your Google Analytics account by March 3rd, 2009 to ensure your Analytics reports continue to receive AdWords data.
Sincerely,
The Google Analytics Team
links for 2009-02-25
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I love negative keywords. Most advertiser's don't spend enough time researching them. Here's a nice primer from adCenter on negative keyword research.
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IAB writes a fun post about unpopular b2b phrases, and then includes a link to download their b2b marketing guide. This is a great way to increase downloads without stuffy marketing language.
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* Search Retargeting, which gives advertisers the ability to target display advertising based on user search activities;
* Enhanced Retargeting, which allows advertisers to deliver dynamically generated display ads across the Yahoo! network based on user activity on an advertiser's site; and
* Enhanced Targeting capabilities for search advertising, including ad scheduling and demographic targeting within search.
links for 2009-02-24
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The display ad builder within Google is a good tool. It allows you to create image ads without photoshop. However, the fun ads are known as 'interactive' ads (slideshows, quizzes, etc).
Google is holding a contest (i.e. increase adoption and awareness of this feature). If you're using display ad builder, let them know and you could win some free AdWords credit.
How to view Google Analytics Funnels for Segmented Data
The Goal Funnel Visualization is a critical report in Google Analytics. This report will you see where users are abandoning your conversion activities.
For example, if you had a 3 page form fill, wouldn’t it be useful if you could see:
- Page 1 – 100% enter
- Page 2 – 80% enter
- Page 3 – 30% enter
- Goal completion: 2%
What that data shows you is that consumers are moving down the early stage of the funnel, but there is a large drop off later in the funnel. This is a perfect place to examine for usability, informational, and other issues to see why there is such a large conversion abandonment.
One of the best uses of the funnel (and many of Google’s other charts) is first segmenting users to see how that user type interacts with your site.
For example, you could view your stats only when:
- Visitors are from a social network site
- The user converted on your site
- A user came from an expensive banner ad you’re testing
- The user is on a mobile device
- The user is in California
- The user came from a particular search engine
- The user came from a paid search campaign
- The user bought a specific product
- The user came from an email campaign
- etc…
By only looking at segmented data, you could see that banner 1 is profitable, and RSS advertising isn’t leading to a high engagement. This level of detail will let you tailor your site to visitor types, but also allow you to make better decisions about which ad types are profitable. Understanding if that the $15k/month banner you’re buying from a site is leading to solid traffic is an insight that will help you make better advertising decisions.
The biggest issue with segmentation on Google Analytics? It doesn’t work with certain reports:
If you are trying to view reports that can not be segmented, there is a way around this issue.
- Create a new analytics profile
- Edit settings for that profile
- Go to the filter settings of that profile
- Create a new custom filter
- In the filter field, choose campaign source, medium, or however you’re tagging your URLs
- If you don’t know how to tag your URLs for Google Analytics, use Google’s URL builder tool.
- Save the filter
- Repeat the above step as necessary if you want new sources of traffic added to that profile
Now, that profile in Google Analytics will only contain traffic from that particular source. The biggest drawback is that this will not let you see data back in time. Google profiles only contain data from the day you set the up. However, now you can view the Goal Funnel, and any advanced reports just for traffic from a certain source.
You could set this up so that one profile is just your Google AdWords data, and another is just your Yahoo Search Marketing or Microsoft adCenter data. What to look at organic conversions from just Google, or just Yahoo? You can use a custom profile to see which search engine sends you higher converting traffic.
My favorite use is one profile for bought traffic, and another for each high priced banner or email ad. You could even just see how your email lists are performing by just looking at traffic derived from particular email campaigns.
Make sure you can analyze your data and traffic properly. Custom filters and profiles will give you fantastic insight into your customers to help you make better advertising decisions, but to have the data to know where you need to work for increasing conversion rates.
links for 2009-02-21
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Google has recently the changed the display URL policy to one root domain per adgroup.
links for 2009-02-18
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Lifetime Visitor Value is just as an important metric as conversion rate, profit per conversion, and cost per conversion.
Here's some ideas in improving Lifetime Visitor Values.
Related (from 2004): http://www.bgtheory.com/blog/value-of-a-lifetime-customer/
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Words/Query 2009 2008 2007
1 word 20.4% 21.1% 24.5%
2 words 23.6% 24.9% 25.7%
3 words 21.8% 21.9% 20.7%
4 words 14.9% 14.5% 13.3%
5 words 8.7% 8.2% 7.5% -
There's a lot of ways that YP companies can change/expand both their print books and their online presence. This is a very interesting move by SuperPages.
The customer centric focus is to be applauded. However, the execution of this program when mitigating issues between paying businesses and their customers might be interesting.
However, search companies (and YPs are the original search companies) make their money by pleasing consumers first, and advertising dollars follow customer adoption. Bold, potentially incredibly smart, move.
Nice job, SuperPages for being inventive.
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This is interesting. Add phone calls and chat conversations to Google Analytics.
I can't tell yet if they are using confidence factors to determine which traffic created the call, or what happens on a high trafficked site.
It is one option to look at; but there are many ways to do offline tracking and it's first important to list out what you need to make solid decisions before choosing a vendor.
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Creating an environment for your idea will make it more successful.
SES, Marketing Motive, and bg Theory Team up to Take a Fresh Look at the Content Network in 2009
Google AdWords has made many strides in improving the content network over the past few years. Some of the changes in ‘08 have created an environment where you can do some very granular targeting that can lead to providing highly targeted clicks and leads.
If you were creating a new product to help stock brokers in Los Angeles. However, you don’t have a huge budget and have decided that you want to reach them while they are reading their morning news on high quality sites. You could set up an ad that:
- Is only shown on the New York Times business section (bottom right placement)
- And only if the article is also about stock brokers
- And it’s between 6-8am
- And it’s a weekday
- And the user is in Los Angeles (or the article is about Los Angeles stock brokers)
Targeting someone by a section of a website, location, time of day, day of the week, and article content (that’s an important factor) is some of the most granular targeting you could buy on the web. If you were just trying to create awareness for the product, you could even decide to pay on a CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) basis. If you’re looking to ROI bid, then you could bid on an CPC basis instead.
If you are buying on a CPM basis, you should use rich media (video, interactive, image, or flash) ads.
There is much more to the content network, such as organizing with a content, placement, and search campaign. Blocking your ads from being shown on certain sites. And the list goes on.
If you’d like to learn more, we are presenting a two hour webinar on Thursday Feb 26 at 9am PST, 12pm EST.
The details and pricing can be found on Marketing Motive’s website.
links for 2009-02-17
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The actual FAQs, guides, etc for the adCenter Desktop.
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I've seen a few iterations of this tool over the past year or so, and it's made some great strides. Essentially, it's offline management and research for your adCenter campaigns. Thanks Microsoft.
AdWords Retiring Google Mobile Business Pages – Quick Mobile Site Creation Guide
Search Engine Land recently reported that Google was removing their mobile business pages. These were pages where you could enter some business information and then drive users from your mobile ads to these pages instead of to your website.
Personally, the pages weren’t useful as you didn’t have much control over the formatting, and couldn’t really make a nice mobile page.
The easiest way to make a mobile site is to first install WordPress. Secondly, install WordPress Mobile Edition plug-in.
If you are using WordPress as your website publishing platform:
- FTP & Enable the plug-in
- Do not make the mobile template the default template. The plug-in will detect if the mobile version needs to be triggered.
- Customize the mobile template as much as you desire (you can upload an image, change the navigation to your main pages, etc)
If you are not using WordPress as your website publishing platform:
This is the low tech approach to a mobile page. This option should only be used if:
- You don’t want to pay someone to design your site for mobile devices
- You don’t have the budget for a full mobile compliant site
- You just need a site to let a visitor know your locations, phone number, and basic information etc on a mobile phone
- You want a cheap option to display a mobile page while your testing out the effectiveness of mobile advertising
WordPress is a blogging platform, but in this case we’re just using it for a few mobile pages; here’s my suggestions
- Create a subdomain (like mobile.yoursite.com)
- Install WordPress in that subdomain
- Install WordPress Mobile Edition plug-in
- Use the mobile edition theme as your default theme
- Customize the mobile edition to fit your website’s overall color and design scheme
You will need to be able to create a subdomain, mysql database, and have ftp access to your site. Pretty much everyone using Plesk or cPanel for their hosting control panel have these abilities.
Final notes on time:
If you’ve never played with WordPress before, making your site mobile compatible will take a couple hours. The installation is easy. The control panel is also easy to navigate. WordPress is very easy to use. However, since it is a new system that you’ve never seen – allow 2-3 hours of time.
If you’ve used WordPress before, making your site Mobile compatible will take 5 minutes of time, plus however long you wish to spend customizing the theme after installation.
If you do not want to use WordPress…
There are other easy ways to create mobile pages. Most of them are 3rd party hosting systems. As I’m a huge fan of controlling your site, I’d recommend you host this yourself if possible.
If you cannot, then browse around the web and choose one of the many options currently available. If you like it, please post a comment here (or contact me) so we can recommend other good mobile hosting options. Thank you.
Google AdWords
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