Promediacorp

web development ⌘ search engine marketing ⌘ social media

Promediacorp is a team of online marketing strategists who provide a full range of services to enterprise level corporations.
Our services are intended to help your customers find you on the web, resulting in enhanced visibility, greater conversions, and increased revenue.
We manage search marketing campaigns across many industries, specializing in real estate, luxury brands, and tech.

Web Analytics & Measuring Success Overview

by Avi Wilensky

Filed under: Analytics, SES San Jose 07

This is a transcript of the live session in San Jose, August 20, 2007. Subject to typographical errors.

How do you know if you’ve been successful with search engines? You can check your “rank” at search engines for particular keywords, analyze log files to see the actual terms people used to reach your web site or make the ultimate jump and “close the loop” by measuring sales conversions and return-on-investment (ROI). This panel explores ways to measure success and what statistics you should really care about.

Moderator:

 

Speakers:

 

Matthew Baily:

Old school metrics vs. new school metrics. Old school = hits, top 10 keywords, top 10 pages, to him it’s BS. Doesn’t tell the full picture.

SEO: If you cant be found, you dont exist. Same with usability. Usability - if they cant find a conversion point on the site - not there. Analytics tells us what happens and how to improve it.

Goals: Every site needs goals. A primary goal. People need to go thru a process to convert, unless its a 2 page site. Action is made of macroactions, tiny steps. Navigation, etc. All these little things that add up. Thats where analytics is key. How can we improve the process. Where are the microactions stopping people from getting from point A to point B.

Only by segmenting traffic will you undersrtand whats happening. Can understand analytics by looking at his Star Trek example - 59 deaths in 5 years of the show. Thats a 13% conversion rate. Yellow shirt that trekies that died wore 10%, blue shirts - 7.2%, etc. Why? What is the reasoning for this. You want to figure out what improves conversion rate.

Principal of segmention: Only by doing this can you understand what factors that are causing actions on the site. We have intelligence that gives us the answers. Take these factors and apply them to site. Need conversion rates based on different users and searchers and search queries. Can figure out where you are losing visitors, gaining conversions. You need to break up traffic into different areas. Tie $ to actions.

Three C’s of analytics: #’s must be put in context - need backing , a situation. Thats why hits, time on site, are BS. Need to compare segments to eachother. Comparison- once segmented, you can compare and contrast and find problems. Especially if you are doing well in one segment and not the other. Tells you what to change and what to avoid.

Key performance indicators: What do you want buyers to do? Conversions, time on site, etc. When you look at it by segment - things look clear. If someone came searching for X, and bouncing, it gives us intelligence. He likes to segment based on keywords and keyword groups. Compares major groups against eachother. Did they come from blogs? Social news? Search? Break this down, and compare and contrast.

A case study: People that entered from homepage, lower conversion rate than thru subpage. Makes sense. Also found 404 error pages for #2 keyword. You need analytics to see these, and segmentation is key. Segment conversion names from brand name searches - do they have a higher CR? Gives focus to optimization!

Engagement factors: Look at how people found site and compare metrics. Keywords, Referrers, Ads - measure CR’s, PV’s, Time on Site. In case study - social news / social media brought 0 conversions, but lots of traffic.

How traffic compares: Blogs and articles do well for him - its like word of mouth. Topical search - pretty well engaged. Social news - competing against others - audience its more time wasting. So this forces us to look at links bringing the most sales, and find context of the link. It’s the context of the link that sets up expectation. It’s a competition for attention. You have many links competing for attention. If you get a link on a blog - you get people’s attention and the conversions will be high. More link juice + context is crucial.

START WITH A QUESTION! QUESTIONS MAKE ANALYTICS SUCCESSFUL. Measure each segment, compare and contrast the results, put the results in context, focus on business value!

Lionel L. (sitting in for Dean) from Fathom.

How do you measure success and what stats should you watch? Quick answer = technology. Not the complete answer. In fact, in his opinion, cannot automate marketing profitable. No setting and forgetting for optimization. Technology is just a piece of the process. Here to understand web analytics. Goal is to provide with some clarity and guidence how best to revisit your numbers, and take a look at it differently.

First place to start is a definition: A term that is losely used by marketers to cover A-Z. According to WAA its the trackin, collection, measurement, reporting, and alaysis of quantitive internet data to optimize websirtes and web marketing initiatives. A little short sighted, because in his opionon there needs a more robust opinion. One focused on ROI, not just quantative analysis. A paradigm shift for marketers - you need to connect the Silos. The cross channels - the TV, offline media, etc. At the end we are striving for max profitibility.

Analytics is time consuming and difficult. 82% Don’t know what it is - organizations struggle with the topic. Many are too busy to manage / monitor it. About Half struggle with the tools- w/ 2 years experience. It’s confusing because theres too much info to collect. We are trying to reach billions across multiple channels - there’s search, emerging platforms - mobile, gaming, 2.0 sites - YouTube, social media, 3rd party ad servers - Atlas, etc. And CRM. Too much data to close loop entirely. That said, we need to consider technology that reaches beyond visits, click streams, and other ways to collect market information. Analytics measures all marketing, not just online marketing. Brick and mortar + offline advertising + sales teams, call centers, etc. are all part of the mix.

Most of us look at one silo at a time - search, tv, email. We need to collect info across all channels and make it actionable. First question is what data do we need to make great decisions to produce great results. Few measure all this and connect the silos. Many marketers cannot or do not measure ROI. Third party tracking is key to integrating your marketing programs for analysis. We can use techniques, such as call tracking, etc.

Conversion funnel analysis. Evaluate keywords for both paid and unpaid data. Analytics tells us to make decisions how much to spend on paid ads. Gives us the tool to make investment decisions.

How do we get started? Before we can extract any data, we need to start with the basics. Test theories. Need a plan and tie it back to marketing objectives. What will give you efficiency and profibility. User patterns. Correlation between offline and online activity. Can’t track all of it, but technologies are emerging. It’s about OBJECTIVES not metrics. Identify what data is available and not available. Regularly work with the data. Can’t put it on a shelf. Can’t automate this stuff. Continuous process.

What stats should we care about? Every organization is unique and has it’s own objectives. At the end, what counts is that the data goals align with business goals. Depends on the business. Proper upfront work - find out what metrics are available.

Continuous cycle of monitoring, reporting, and analyzing. Key is to use tools to spend time in the data. Think beyond the CTR. Make sure tools are flexible to measure data sources - PPC, SEO, CRM, Call Center, etc.

Laura Thieme:

Searc, site, blog, and social media analytics. Landscape is changing in what you need to track. Is your data accurate - organic vs. paid - comes up alot. Autotagging, etc. What does your KPI matrix look like? Are you using Google Analytics and another tool or just one?

New Google Analytics and Bounce Rate Obsessions.

Basic Paid Search KPI - your basic dashboard - ad console. Any variation based on what you’ve customized. Advanced KPI s - deeper - CPA, Cost Profit, Net Profit, ROI, ROAS. Not always possible. They need 27 tools to service 5 clients!

Recommends book: Managing Customers as Investments  Sunil Gupta. The value of customers in the long run.

Do a checkup on tracking URL’s and tagging. What about Autotagging - some people are told by Google that Autotagging does everything that you need. Wish there was a standard. Are you 100% confident that everything is accurate? Are you tracking spider activity? Google can index content within hours. Don’t believe the 3-6 months myth. Latency, ROAS, competition. Webposition Gold tells you whose next to you - competitive analysis.

When to run ranking reports? They do biweekly. Automatic schedule reports in PDF is nice. Need to look at bounce rate by KW - otherwise meaningless.

Clicktracks funnel reports slide. Shows the microactions in visual. Darker pages are most persuasive. Heat maps. Case studies and company profile is where the most important for us.

Top traffic drivers were blog entries to her site.  Bloggers have such an effect on SEO in her opinion. Double traffic by blogging, but bounce rate is up. Obscure off topic queries giving 100% bounce rates.

Tracking is like solving a crossworld puzzle. Can be time consuming, time wasting as well. Time is money. Not everyone is good at crossword puzzles.

Agencies are more willing to invest in this. Be willing to spend time discussing the findings. Influence what your clients think.

Write comment August 21, 2007 11:42 am

Advanced Paid Search Techniques

by Avi Wilensky

Filed under: Adwords, PPC, SES San Jose 07

Advanced Paid Search Techniques
How can you best tap into long tail terms? Are there targeting techniques you’re overlooking? This session examines these and other techniques to help you get more out of paid search.

Moderator:

 

  • Danny Sullivan, Conference Co-Chair, Search Engine Strategies San Jose

Speakers:

 

Eduardo Llach:

 

Talking about multivariate targeting w/ Online Dating: CTR in NYC can be different than Denver. What they do is if the conversion rate is higher in one market, go deeper.

 

Geotargetting -uses IP address - all AOL users come from Virginia - problematic. Country mapping is 100% accurate. State mapping is 50% accuracy, City mapping is 30% accuracy. Still need nationwide if running on a state level, not to miss 50% of searchers. Large variation for basic products - different cities have different conversion rates. Income level of city is a factor.

Run a campaign nationwide, then replicate on city level - can get major difference in conversion rates from different cities.

 

Day of week, time - if conversion rate is higher, bid higher. If conversion rate goes up on Tuesdays, bid higher on Tuesdays. For different industries, time is a factor. Finance is busiest on Mondays.

Creative and Landing Pages. It’s all about mixing up all the variables.

Jon Kelly:

Topic: Long Tail Keywords & Geo Targetting

Shows the standard head / tails keyword search curve.  Shows example of long term word “Topeka home loan rates”. These small phrases add up. There is clearer intention, better conversion, and less competition  - which means lower bids.

Three Action Steps: Calculate click value 2) reward users choices 3) whats champaign data.

For a low volume phrase - how do you calculate probality of conversion? What’s the value if they do turn into a consumer? You need to model your market.  Geography, Product (auto insurance), and Request - rates? company? comparison? In retail maybe brand, color, and size. You need to model marketing.

Keyword bucketing: Put similar keywords in same bucket. Bad strategy because you lose some information. The right way to do it is to think of your keywords as tags - like tagged photos. Tag phrases. City phrases have poorer conversion than state conversions in his business. Figure out what a lead is worth - one way is by geography. Use tags to calculate lead value.

Reward the user’s choices: You don’t have to read minds when working with tail keywords. Give a targeted landing page for the individual query. You can still get a leg up in competitive markets if you tag keywords and create compelling landing pages.

City Phrases or Brand Phrases? City phrases are problematic because they are also brand phrases. “Tampa Bay Mortgage” is a company/brand and city modifier. Dual intent. Watch out for this.

Homynyms: “Mobile Home Loans” - also dual intent. Mobile Alabama, and mobile homes.

State phrases: In Texas the click volume was higher than Florida, and Texas is more populated? Was strange case. Turned off state targeting - then did individual markets. Problem was Houston. Traffic spikes in Houston, and conversion dips. Found it by looking at outliers and things that don’t make sense date. Geotargetting works well if you look at your data and see where conversions are low and what to do about it.

Matt VanWagner:

Talks about DKI - Dynamic Keyword Insertion

Claims: Pros - improves CTR, QS, Improves ad relevance

Cons: Loss control of add

DKI Ads Gone Wild. Searched “used fish” - you can compare used fish prices on dealtime and pricegrabber. We’ve all seen these. Sometimes the ad just said “used”.

What is DKI - at it’s core - it’s essential away to customize ads and save time.  It’s an “insert keyword here” feature. Helps the information scent in many cases. Transforms generic ads into custom ads.

How does it work? Google - “Starbucks” - if you can get it in the ad and bypass the TM - get the keyword bolded. The DKI word needs to get data from the keyword list, not just from the query. If it’s too long, defaults to another ad.

Can use all types of capilization schemes. Can violate Google’s own ad policy by making ads all caps. Like PPC is a good example - looks better than Ppc. Good example to use DKI is with caps. Good for state abbreviations. In broad match, need to make sure order of words is proper - “Red Sneakers”.

Yahoo - didn’t need DKI until Panama - called - Dynamic text. On Yahoo can’t buy plural and singular of a word. Might cause problems. Yahoo gives more leaway with casing. In Advanced match - word order is important.

DKI works best around Adgroups tightly organized - Red Sneakers, Blue Sneakers, etc. Or you have one dominant word like “camera”. Less successful in a conception campaign - like getting an emotional message. Also less successful for branding.

Final Thought: Does improve CTR - YES. QS - NO, Relevance - Yes and No.

Michael Sack:

Three strategies: Day Parting,  Hi - Lo Optimization, Portfolio.

Dayparting: Best when you have competive market conditions, limited sales windows, identifiable dempgraphic targets by time, and business capabilities - like a call center. Also patterns in conversion that suggest to daypart.

You need good analytics and ability to track keywords on hourly basis. Need the ability to plot performance against time using analytics, and ability to adjust bids based on data.

Can automate dayparting with rule based portfolios based on performance.

Hi Lo Optimization is a theory based on analysis that suggest most phases have a high performance window. Works by setting a high bid for a defined period of time, and all other times bid is set to minimum. Requires higher level of analytical capability. Looking for small windows of time to bid super agressively, and then bid normally other times.  Heatmaps can shows high impact ROI times.

Portfolio PPC management as an advanced strategy. It’s a strategy to minimize keyword management. De-risks market fluctuation, requires large groups of keywords. Treat keywords like stocks or investments. Look at cost, return, risk, performance tracking, market behavior. Keywords are an investment. You know the performance, and try to achieve goals based on results. Bidding is like playing blackjack. Question is do you take a hit on 17 or stand. And there is always someone that doesn;’t know how to play - and they play stupid. Uneducated PPC marketers change the table. Ego bidding - like being #1. Drives the CPC up. They ruin the landscape.  So we need to put keywords into portfolios - like mutual funds. You have many eggs in different baskets. Not tied to a single investment. Diversification - lets you chose tail terms - and don’t want to manage hundreds of thousands of bids. Use porfolios to bid more effectively.

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Write comment August 20, 2007 5:04 pm

Earning Money From Contextual Ads

by Avi Wilensky

Filed under: Contextual

This is a transcript of the live session in San Jose, August 20, 2007. Subject to typographical errors. 

Earning Money From Contextual Ads
This session looks at the way publishers can generate revenue by carrying contextual ads offered by major networks. Learn about some programs out there and tips on getting more from the ads you carry.

Moderator:

 

  • Danny Sullivan, Conference Co-Chair, Search Engine Strategies San Jose

Speakers:

 

Danny intro’s how many are earning money off of AdSense.

 

Jennifer Slegg:

 

How to influence ads that appear. Title tags are most important for getting targeted ads. Make sure they have good keywords. Metatags influences AdSense. Alt tags in images. Proximity - Ad units should be placed near content to influence ads. If you have a site and not getting relevant ads - can contact Google to get tools for more relevant ads. Stop words - not as big as used to be, words trip the paid service announcement ads.

 

Enabling image ads if have too many text units. Adding images gets more CPM ads, and will look less ad heavy. No PSA’s in second ad units. The ad unit that appears first in HTML will have the highest CTR. Even if it looks high up on the page, it won’t get the highest paid ads. The highest paid ads are the ones highest in the HTML.

 

Borders - beginners mistake - assume blended is best. Test different colors, styles, corners.

To test YPN, you need to split test. Some people make more with YPN.

Drawing attention to your ads: Labeling sponsored ads works.

AdSense for search - some people report dismal results or make alot. Hit or miss.

Offer a site search solution, so you can monetize the ads.

Banner blindness - big problem. So, some things you can do is Ad Rotation - OpenAds, - different colors, styles, sizes, mix them up- and CTR goes up. When testing, setup custom channels so you can see which ads people respond best too. Can make sidewide changes based on that.

 

CPA ads - referral ads - super targeted. Don’t go overboard. Don’t select everyone just because Google says they are performing well.

 

Think about the links. Think about the words that are leading to the page. Make sure you have good keywords in link text. Helps get more relevant ads.

 

Remove clutter - everything can influence ads. Externalize Javascript and CSS. User section targetting, so you don’t dilute ads on page. Want best ads for your content.

 

Ad Titles is a good trick becoming more well known. Optimize ad title colors. Hyperlink “blue”, or a “brighter” version works great. Use an external link thats different.

 

Use filter lists with caution. Some people blacklist poor paying ads. Only filter competitors, grossly mistargetted ads, and inappropriate for audience.

 

One ad unit vs. three. One can make more than 3. More is not always better. Beginners mistake - overloading page with units. Don’t overload customer with advertising - give a good user experience.

 

AdSense on forums. CTR is low. Change style and colors, so people dont skim overthem. Image ads do better on forums. Attract the CPM advertisers - have a link to send them to Adwords.

 

Blogging with AdSense. Try YPN RSS ads. Section targeting. Use ads on individual pages rather than homepages. Never put ad units on homepage. Image and flash heavy sites - add image ads - not text ads.

 

Protecting your AdSense account:

 

  • Don’t mix adwords and adsense accounts
  • Unsecured connection - don’t go into a public computer
  • Keep raw logs for bad clicks
  • Use ad tracker - it gives you lots of information including IP’s clicking
  • Adsense keeps changing policies - keep up to date
  • Email whitelist on your spam filter- add Google.com, etc.

If you get banned for any reason, they will give you 3 days to rectify. Sometimes they block the account, domain, or page. Resolve issues as soon as possible. Don’t do anything to incite clicks such as buying traffic, emailing people to click ads, blabbing stats or beta tests - can’t give out stats. NEVER CLICK ON YOUR OWN ADS! Even if interest in products.

If you get suspended, look at logs. Adtrackers come in handy. Look for something unusual. Competitors sometimes try to sabatoge you. You need raw logs , if you dont have them, get them! Formally appeal any suspension if it happens. Invalid clicks include bad traffic sources, or inciting clicks (ie in a newsletter). Thank you!

Shoemoney:

 

How he got started - always into creating free services for himself and friends. Started a mobile service where one can upload pictures and also in the ringtone business. Started March 8, 2004. Made $4 a day and was ecstatic. Got obsessesd with how cool. Started reading WMW and DP, bought ebook. Read all of JenSense.com, got more into marketing - within 6 months - got fired for reading too many books on subject.

 

Looks for a site that is completely functional, and then monetize. Looks for site that has a min of 1000 visitors a day. Don’t kill a site before it gets started. Positive aspects - so easy, anyone can do it. Negative - lots of work, need to target properly. Be careful not to ruin user experience. Also, people have to leave your site to make money. Goal is to build subscription base - RSS readers - repeat traffic. With contextual advertising - there is black, white, gray - so much creativity - not much defined as good or bad. Innovative or ATBB - about to be banned. At one time, people put images above ads, like girls in bikinis to draw attention to ads. Thats no longer allowed. “click here or you will die” tags.

 

Contextual Arbitrage: Buy traffic from MSN for $.05, and then get $.60 from Google. Find value of visitor. Buy traffic for cheap, and send it to my page that has a good CTR - good return.

 

Bear Share is the biggest filesharing P2P network. They ask if you want it to make the homepage Bear Share. Your startpage is google.bareshare.com. Infecting alot of people. Against TOS because modified Adsense code.

 

Just look at digital point forums to see how many people are getting banned. Shoemoney has been warned a few times, but always complies. Keep a good record of compliance.

 

YPN is a mess right now. Still unstable. Bad targetting. Too focused on advertisers and not publishers. Lot’s of false alarm compliance issues.

 

Tools: Uses Crazyegg.com - Heatmap- where they click. Can see best positioning. Also uses Analytics and raw logs.

 

OpenAds.org is a new free product - v 2.3 0 You can throw in your Yahoo and Google account and varies colors and styles and mixes up ads. Digg users and FF users don’t click on ads as much. Set up a rule that if they are coming from Digg or Firefox, lets show them something else.

 

CPC is most important metric. 1 click and gone effect. The most money you can make from one click, the better. Test EVERYTHING. Use an Ad server if possible, use analytics, heatmaps, and communication!!!

 

Bryan Vu:

His job is to help Adsense publishers do better. Ads from Googlers don’t count as paid clicks. New ad formats. Gadget ads. Video content. Goal is advertiser performance balance and publisher. Publishers can create channels for different demographics. New products that are coming out. Acquired feedburner to help monetize feeds. Just announced deal for content syndication with Seth McFarland (Family Guy), trying to get more use out of the Adsense API, and Adsense for Mobile.

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Write comment August 20, 2007 2:53 pm
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