Digimarketing Convo Blog

Keyword Traffic Analysis......something strange

noreply@blogger.com (priteshpatel9) — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 20:19:00 +0000

I was conducting an Analytics audit for a new client last week; drilling into the data and making a list of recommendations for the client to then implement. By the way, why is the first thing on my list always 'Set up Goals in Analytics'??

Anyway, back to my post. I got to the keyword analysis where I usually take a look at which keywords are working well by bringing in traffic which sticks to the site and which keywords/phrases generate visits which bounce. This particular B2B client has an extensive product range, all well established brands within the marketplace and therefore already generate a vast number of visits to the site from people searching for those products using Google.

I analysed all the keywords which included reference to a product name and majority of them all had seen some sort of increase in search engine traffic over a 10 month period. This was largely due to the client making small but effective SEO changes to the site and establishing a few good links to the site. However, there was one particular keyword which included brand and product term which made me stop..........and scratch my head. (Please click to make larger)

Organic Traffic for a Product Term

Since Sept 2010 this particular search term generated a good number of visits to the site via Google organic searches....not paid traffic. Then in February 2011 all this search traffic suddenly almost stopped. I checked to see if the page for this search term had dropped considerably in its ranking and actually found that the page was still ranking #1 in Google. Yes, I did sign out of Google and checked on multiple computers. I checked the tracking code on the page. All ok. The page on the site still existed and wasn't a redirect to another page.

I have a feeling this is due to a set of PPC ads above the #1 listing in Google is stealing traffic from this search term. Could that be right? Can a set of PPC ads really cause this much impact? The ads also belonged to rival companies. One of those PPC ads admittedly has well written copy along with some (well 215 reviews to be exact) Google Checkout ratings which makes the ad all the more eye catching.

Could PPC ads impact organic search traffic to this scale? All of a sudden? Like overnight? And what gets me is that there is a surge in traffic right up until the drop.

The client hadn't noticed but imagine if this keyword/search term was a huge contributor to the amount of product brochure downloads which occured? Callback requests? Technical support enquiry submissions? All stopped? Or greatly reduced in quantity and quality?

Anyone experience this sort of problem/issue before? If so, what did you do to prove your theory was right? Or am I completely barking up the wring tree with the PPC ads? Your help or questions for me to review would be most appreciated.

HSBC Secure Key Issues and Problems

noreply@blogger.com (priteshpatel9) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 10:01:00 +0000

So, I have just received my HSBC Secure Key. It's for those who bank over the internet. Everytime you log in over the interweb you are meant to generate a secure code to then input into the login screen.....everytime.

Tedious.

When will businesses learn about 'customer experience' whether it be in store or online. I know internet fraud is on the up but giving me a key ring small enough to lose or misplace is not the answer. Plus what if someone else gets a hold of this key ring and starts generating codes on my behalf?

Painful.

If you have a problem......you call the helpline. After a 5 minute robot menu you are asked to hold the line.....and hold you do.

I then turned to the web to see if others have had a problem so I start typing in 'HSBC secure key' into Google. Instantly, Google gives me an indication of what people think to this Secure Key.......

Beautiful. I hope HSBC are listening.

For me personally, I like number 2 on that list. What if I liked the way things were previously? But at the same time I also understood the risks but just for convenience sake, I liked it. It made my life easier the old way.

Why didn't you give me a choice?

Why didn't you allow me to stick to the way things were and then 'market' to me? Educate me in order to make me use the Secure Key. Teach me.

Don't just shove it through my letter box and expect me to use it!!

If you have have an issue with the overall HSBC Customer experience online and offline then please leave a comment.

LoveFilm, LoveService

noreply@blogger.com (priteshpatel9) — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 12:43:00 +0000

Don't you just love it when brands respond to your questions via Twitter and then go on to give you that additional personal customer service? I do, hence why this particular example needed to be blogged about as it elevated my experience with the LoveFilm brand a little further.

A close friend of mine recommended I see a film titled 'It's kind of a funny story'. I fired up my LoveFilm iPhone app and immediately searched for the title to add to my rental list. I found the title but there was one issue.....there was no 'Add' button on the screen. Weird.

So me being me, I went over to Twitter to find out why there was no 'Add' button. Here is my tweet:

And here is the response I received from LoveFilm:

I DM'd my email address over to them as I wanted to know when this will be fixed so I can add the title to my rental list. I got a reply via email within a few minutes from a customer service rep by the name of Retha.

The email explained why the rental list was not available (due to a problem with the supplier) and apologised for the inconvenience it may have caused. Retha also included some other titles which I may want to add to the list as a replacement or in addition to. Very simple way of keeping the most popular titles at the front of my mind. Finally, as a kind gesture Retha has added an additional DVD to my package as a result of this issue.

I was not expecting that!! Awesome!

All I was expecting was an explanation as to why their was no 'Add' button on this title. That would've done me. Instead I got more. They exceeded my expectations and as a I result of this...I'm telling you. To me it's remarkable, it's awesome and its certainly going to keep me using LoveFilm for longer.

How many brands do you know that treat you in this way via Twitter and respond to you in this way? Ones that exceed your expectations? Again, it just goes to show how powerful Twitter can be when used for customer service.

Any other brands which have exceeded expectations? Your thoughts and experiences please.

My Keystone Solutions T-Shirt

noreply@blogger.com (priteshpatel9) — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 21:24:00 +0000

Today I received my Keystone Solutions tee courtesy of Jason Thompson. Big thanks J!

Keystone Solutions is the leading provider of actionable digital analytics to enterprise brands.

Check them out: Keystone Solutions

Check me out:

Why is PR value five times the advertising value?

noreply@blogger.com (priteshpatel9) — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 18:34:00 +0000

I was going through my blogs search keyword report and came across this nice little search term which I thought I would have a go at trying to answer:

Quick answer is "It isn't. It can be anything you want it to be".

During my client days as a Marketer, our agency used 2.5 as the advertising value.

I attended a Digital Marketing conference back in 2010 and a guy presenting on PR stated that the AEV was 20!!

So why is it 5 you ask? Well it isn't, go pick a number.....a really big number.

Also see my post on AEV - What is it actually measuring and who cares?

The importance of updating your website on a regular basis

noreply@blogger.com (priteshpatel9) — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 11:18:00 +0000

Many B2B companies and Marketers fail to update their websites on a regular basis. By regular I mean weekly. I mean how often do your products change? How often do you launch new ones? How often do case study worthy projects occur? How often does your service(s) change? How often do you introduce a new brochure?

The answer to all of these of probably "not often enough" right?

So what are the implications of not updating your website on a regular basis?

Quite easy really....your website becomes stale and loses its value.

Search engines love new content. Google loves websites which contain new and up to date information, it loves original and authoritative content, it loves websites which have lots of links pointing to it. Does your website meet Google's criteria for love?

Recently, Google introduced the latest change to its search engine algorithm. The Google 'Farmer/Panda' update aims to increase the quality of search results for users by eliminating or reducing the rankings for websites which are determined to copy content from other websites and websites with content of low value. Some websites have seen a huge drop in traffic as they relied referral traffic from these types of websites which dominated Google results pages.

If you have a website which doesn't get updated often enough with unique, good quality content which others link to then Google will mark you down and start to lower your rankings as it loses it's value over time.

So what can I do to update my site more regularly?

Well, before you go start creating new things, you may want to go fix pages in your website which have become old or contain content which has no value. Spruce them up, update them.

Introduce a blog - blog about your industry, services, specialism and area of expertise. Lots of Marketers say "I don't know what to write about" and my advice is that it's not only you or the marketing department who needs to have input in a company blog. Choose members of the business who show a passion for your business, have the knowledge within the industry and know what problems prospects and customers face on a day to day basis. Form a team and brainstorm topics.

Introduce social sharing - You can make your website appear genuine by allowing people who visit your website the option to share your content with their friends and colleagues.Google now takes social sharing and its social foorprint into consideration when ranking websites and webpages. Promote your content via social networks (Twitter, Facebook etc) and look to increase quality links to your website. Remember, quality over quantity.

Launch 'How-To' articles - pick one problem which your prospects and customers regularly come up against and then produce an in-depth article every fortnight or monthly, containing how to's and guides to help solves some of these issues for your audience. Don't try and out stand your competition, out teach them! Build a loyal visitor base, those who rely on your for knowledge and expertise.

Break case studies into sections - Sometimes case studies contain a vast amount of information. Why not split it into sections focusing on each area of the business (technical, implementation, installation, delivery, consultation etc) and how members/depts participated to overcome problems faced within the project.This allows you to spread content over a period of time and increase the shelf life of your case studies.

Well there's a few ideas to get you thinking about ways to update your website with relevant, authoritative and valuable content.

Remember, content is king and use this content to move prospects through the purchasing/buying circle.

My helpful guide to what digital marketing is not

noreply@blogger.com (priteshpatel9) — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 21:25:00 +0000

My helpful guide to what a digital marketing strategy is not:

1) A new website with no further investment plans

2) Online ad placements over 12 months just to show competitors that you can afford to do it for 12 months

3) A couple of emails here and there to your 'out of date' CRM database

4) Running PPC ads for 1 month just because you have a voucher

5) Having a corporate Twitter account because your competitors have one too

6) Having a corporate Facebook page

7) Checking Google Analytics every 3 months

8) A monologue!

9) Sending irrelevant emails to an unsegmented database

10) Digital Marketing is not just a marketing activity!

You may raise an eyebrow to number 10, but if you do have a digital marketing strategy then no doubt you as a marketer will be involving sales, finance, customer service, technical and IT in the development of your strategy right? No?

So Pritesh, c'mon tell us what Digital Marketing is then!

Digital Marketing is the pratice of promoting products and.......................

No!

Go figure, go talk to you customers, go survey prospects, go talk to your sales team, go research and find out what your customers like and dislike, go find out what they are interested in, go find out which customers generate the most profit and find out what they like an dislike.

Oh and don't just turn to an agency to solve all your problems for you, you know more about your prospects, customers and business than they do.

THEN.......go learn for yourself what tactics, campaigns, platforms and messages are right for your audience, your customers......and most importantly, your business.

Car dealership utilising Facebook to increase test drives

noreply@blogger.com (priteshpatel9) — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 21:22:00 +0000

Got home from work today and cracked open a bottle of beer, grabbed the paper, sat down and skimmed through the first few pages not really paying any attention.

Nine times out of ten, when I get get towards the 'cars' section I tend to flick quicker as I'm not really interested in buying a car at this moment in time.

As I was flicking away, this Facebook logo was displayed within a car ad and I couldn't help but take notice.

"What's a Facebook logo doing on a car ad?" I thought.

What I was about to see was a corker of an idea created by a small car dealership in Milton Keynes, and probably one missed by all major manufacturers (I think).

A small local car dealership had an advert in the paper showcasing some of its new cars at bargain prices. The ad states:

"Visit our Facebook page for full specs and if you 'like' a car, we will arrange a free test drive."

How's that?

Using Facebook to advertise his/her cars, no need for a website and plus you get the local people engaged and in through the door to test drive.

Is it just me or is that thinking in 5th gear?

Open up your marketing plan and change 2010 to 2011

noreply@blogger.com (priteshpatel9) — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 20:33:00 +0000

It's that time of the year again when you, the Marketing Manager, will be working hard to develop a robust marketing plan ready for the start of the new year. This means justifying why you still require a £500,000 budget and why you need to invest in improving internal communication or investing within your own staff so that you can look to explore new channels (social media, email, mobile, web) in 2011. Your plan will go into detail about any new markets, identify any competitors within your market place and explain how you will retain profitable customers who seem to always purchase those profitable products. You will explain the routes to market for any new services or products which you are offering in 2011 and conduct a full on SWOT analysis and gather your own thoughts on how you can give your business that.....competitive edge.

Or....on the other hand, you can pop open last years marketing plan and change '2010' to '2011'.

Easyfix!

So why bother with plans?

Who is brave enough to admit that they don't have a plan and never have a plan? Everything they do is....well ad-hoc. They roll wit' it.

Marketing plans are just that. A plan. A roadmap. A journey which you and your team will review frequently and ensure you are on track to meet business objectives. Without one you and your team do not know where they are heading or how you will get to that ultimate goal (which is increase profit if you didn't know). Without one you are all like 'headless chickens' running around the office for 12 months pretending to look busy, spending valuable money, huffing and puffing whilst speed walking from the photocopier back to your desk pretending that your are overloaded with work when really, it's all a big waste of time. What you are doing has no result. No evaluation. No process.

So, you the Marketing Manager, will you admit to having a weak plan? Does your team buy into your plan? Better yet, does the Sales Director buy into your plan? Do you even know who buys your most profitable products and how you will communicate to keep them in 2011? Does your plan align with the sales plan or overall business strategy? How will reach new audiences which are digisavvy? Will you explore new channels such as social media? Will you invest the time to understand Analytics and really measure the performance of your marketing campaigns?

Is your plan a 12 month plan or are you planning for 5 years time? In which case, is what you do today going to still be applicable in 5 years time considering how fast things are changing?

Or on the other hand....do what you did last year...open up your marketing plan and change 2010 to 2011 and do the same thing all over again.

Which is worse? A complaint via E-Mail or complaint via Twitter?

noreply@blogger.com (priteshpatel9) — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 12:08:00 +0000

I asked this question on Twitter last night and it was a question to which I received some great responses to. In my opinion Twitter is much worse as the complaint is there for all to see and seems as though Twitter will have a much bigger impact on a company/brand than a complaint received via e-mail. An incoming complaint via e-mail can be kept within the four walls of a business where as a single Tweet published on Twitter is there for many to see and also exposes businesses weak points and lack of transparency.

However, a single tweet doesn't need to come from another corporate, it can come from a single person (Average Joe) who probably only spends a small percentage compared to the big customer who spends millions.

Who has more power?

For example, Company A spends £50k a year with your business and complains about a delivery via e-mail. No worries, you can swiftly deal with this one and depending on who received the complaint get it rectified quick time. No-one needs to know and can then be filed away in the round cabinet under your desk afterwards.

Meanwhile, Average Joe who only spends £100 a year complains about a delivery via Twitter and has a social following of 5000 people. They all see this complaint. Two of his followers retweet his complaint and they also have a combined following of 10,000 people who some follow your company. Does this influence their choice of supplier? Does this impact those who are checking you out? Hmmmm......

What is important is that companies on Twitter should be listening to all brand mentions and then actioning complaints via Twitter too so that people can see that you are responding and responding fast. A couple of points raised below highlight this....listening and visibly responding.

Which is worse? Your thoughts......

Here are some replies from some great followers:

@michelehinojosa: That's why I'm surprised that more companies don't do the bare minimum in social to protect their reputation.

@PauleyCreative: Twitter, esp if you're not listening!

@StrangeLoops: If you don't know how to handle customer complaints then it Twitter can be bad thing, otherwise it will help spread w-o-m

@lawweb: Public can see complaint here, but they can also see response

@hgacreative: It's got to be via Twitter. The complaint is exposed to a lot of people as opposed to e-mail.

@michelehinojosa: I argue Twitter. More public. Plus I seem to actually get a response when I tweet, and nuthin' when I write...

@AshishVij: i weigh both equally - only difference is channel, but both should be carefully handled.

@PauleyCreative: Statistics suggest... the complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business.

@garyr0binson: The impact of a tweet can be much worse. But if company ignores social conversation then unless BIG problem. they'll never hear of it & will die away. Bit of a 'tree falling over in empty woods' situ. Wrong way to be IMHO

@PeterGould83: Twitter..but depends on how it's handled! but I also think a well handled complaint on Twitter can actually be turned into a positive.

@usujason: wow...great question. In my experience, complaints via email get ignored, not sure why. Twitter also gives you the opportunity to expose your transparency or lack there of.

Email campaign links using UTM tags - A word of warning!

noreply@blogger.com (priteshpatel9) — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 14:47:00 +0000

Are you just about to launch an email marketing campaign to your beloved subscribers and you also using UTM tags in your links to track visits from your campaign? If yes, then you will need to be aware of the following problem/limitation before analysing your campaign data and reporting success in one campaign or channel over another. For this post, I am going to take a real-life example and one which I have just come across. Construction Enquirer is a relatively new online publication delivering the latest news and developments in the construction industry via web, email and mobile.

This morning I noticed an interesting tweet retweeted by someone else on Twitter with the source as Construction Enquirer, so I decided to have a read of the article and clicked on the link.

I then noticed the URL in the browser address bar which included UTM tracking tags which looked like this:

http://www.constructionenquirer.com/2010/07/15/school-repairs-work-surges-after-bsf-axed/?utm_source=Newsletter%20subscribers&utm_campaign=c12970e19f-Newsletter_Template%2007_15_2010&utm_medium=email

By adding UTM tags to links you can track visits to your site by the tags defined (Source, Campaign and Medium) and will send the above info to your campaign data in Google Analytics. Have a read of my article on UTM tags for online press releases if you need an understanding on how they work.

Now, those of you who use UTM tags will know what I am about to say. The UTM tags for the news article found via Twitter are set as follows:

Campaign Source: Newsletter Subscribers
Campaign: Newsletter Template
Campaign Medium: Email

What these tags will do is split the final campaign data to show you how many subscribers via email visited the website to read the full article.

One problem. I viewed this article via Twitter and not Email and nor am I newsletter subscriber. How many other people also read this article via Twitter and are non-subscribers? Hundreds? Thousands?

So how will this effect their final campaign data?

Well, firstly, the newsletter email which started with the link above must have been cut and pasted into Twitter by the original newsletter subscriber and then shared on Twitter. The tweet then got retweeted and before you know it 100 visits have all been attributed to the source 'Newsletter Subscribers'.

At the end of the campaign, their overall data may look something like this:

Campaign: Newsletter Subscribers

Newsletter sent to: 45 subscribers

Emails Opened: 12

Click throughs: 12

Source: Email

Web Visits: 112

Subscriptions: 87

What this now says is that 12 subscribers opened the email and clicked through to the site to read the full article but the campaign generated 112 web visits via Email.

Confused?

Plus, 87 poeople then went onto subscribe for the email newsletter? Hang on.....but the email went out to subscribers only. Huh?

Where did the other 100 visits come from? Twitter of course and 87 of those converted into subscribers too.

All this confusion because some subscriber decided to copy and paste the link into Twitter and then share the article.

So, be careful when reporting campaign web visits by source when using UTM links. Remember, that your campaign links may and will (as in this case) be shared across multiple platforms and will skew your final campaign stats.

P.S - Never name your campaign 'Newsletter Template'....I suggest naming your campaign by Month or Date published so you can compare one campaign to another and monitor performance of your subscribers over time.

How do I measure my online brand campaigns?

noreply@blogger.com (priteshpatel9) — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 11:23:00 +0000

The last two years have been difficult times for businesses across the globe with the impact of the recession and economic downturn. Marketing departments within leading businesses had to work harder to ensure that their brand remains strong and maintains its market share during such turbulent times. Some businesses however, suffered due to the lack of investment in marketing and had to lose staff or even cut budgets. Is this a wise thing to do? I don't know and I don't think there is a definitive answer but what I do know is that a businesses 'brand' must work harder now than ever before.

Brand campaigns are on the top of many marketers lists at the moment as they try to gain market share or maintain a market leading position. Marketers are investing thousands of pounds on brand advertising and brand campaigns to get their company name in front of as many people as they can and have ads seen everywhere and on every site. Whilst this is a great thing to do and an easy task to set out, it is not so easy to measure if those brand campaigns have worked or not. I mean, how do you know more people have heard of you now then yesterday? How do you know more people remember things about your brand now than 6 months ago? How do you know your brand advertising campaigns have actually had any impact at all?

I wrote a while back about how to find your 'brand power visitors' by using Google Analytics to segment those who enter your site via your brand name, spent more than 2 minutes on your site and viewed more than 4 pages. These are your 'brand power visitors' and they are the ones who know of your brand name or company name and then go onto engage with your site, let's just say these visitors are the ones who want a long term relationship. Very important to know this in my opinion.

So, how do you go about measuring your online brand campaigns and measuring if your campaign had any impact whatsoever?

Before you launch an online brand campaign you need to know where you stand at this moment in time or a snapshot of where your brand sits over the last 3 months. You need to establish how many visitors visit your site via a search engine (as most do) and search by your brand name or company name. If they are searching for your website via your brand or company name it means that they already know of you right?

To do this you segment the visitors to your site via keyword 'brand name' or your 'company name' from the last 3 months or 6 months. In this example, I have used 3 months.

The above segment tells me that 87 visits out of 2,089 visits over the last 3 months came to my site via my 'brand name'. Not many right? And this also tells me now that I need to do something about raising my online brand profile and presence.

So, I go away and implement a 3 month online brand campaign consisting of large banner ad's across many wonderful, high traffic, relevant websites and you I even support my online brand campaign by sponsoring a big football team and have my brand name and web address plastered on their football kits. I am getting my brand name and website out there!

My campaign ends and I come back in 3 months time and I do the same exercise again with the same segmentation process. But this time things have changed.

After 3 months of an extensive online brand campaign supported by a sponsorship deal I notice that the number of visits to my website in the last 3 months via my 'brand name' through a search engine has now shot up to.......531!

That's 531 visits via my 'brand' or 'company' name through a search engine. 3 months ago it was 87. That's an increase of 510%!!

I also then need to see if there has been any change in 'loyalty' of my visitors. If someone likes your brand and recognises your brand then they should and want to keep coming back for more. By measuring visitor loyalty I can see how many times visitors visit my site over a period of time. If a brand campaign has worked then I expect to see an increase in the number of times visitors visit my site compared to prior brand campaign launch.

So, I go away and view the 'Visitor Loyalty' report in Google Analytics.

The 'Visitor Loyalty' report (I love this report) above tells me that I have reduced the number of visitors returning to my site just the 1 time (reduced one night stands). Great! I also reduced the number of visitors returning twice, or 3 times.

But....

I can see an increase in the number of people visiting my site 9-14 times in the last 3 months (building long term relationships) and the biggest increase is the number of people visiting 26-50 times!! Great! I have increased the loyalty of visitors and they are coming back on many more occasions and not just the once or twice and then never come back again.

You should also check to see of your 'direct' traffic report has seen an increase too, these are the visitors who know of your web address or have bookmarked your site. These are also brand visitors.

So, after my brand campaign, I saw an increase in visits to my site via my brand or company name. Over the course of the campaign I also saw an increase in loyalty from visitors as they are now coming back on more occasions. Did this online brand campaign work?

I think so.

The objective was to increase the awareness of my brand and the number of people who have heard of my brand right? What better way to measure that then by segmenting those who come to your site via a bookmark or entering your brand name in a search engine? And then viewing how the campaign has got people coming back for more and visiting your site more often. I think it's about reducing the number of one night stands with your visitors and more about building a longer term relationship.

I'd love to hear how you have gone about measuring your 'online brand campaigns' and 'brand power visitors' as opposed to just viewing and reporting clicks, visits from banner ads, time spent on site and page views etc.

Also, please feel free to leave a comment on any other types of segments which can be created to understand how your online brand campaigns can be measured.

P.S - I have added a 'Like' 'Cool' or 'Interesting' options below so please make a vote and provide me with some sort of feedback on how you feel about this post. Thanks!!

We just want a basic report please

noreply@blogger.com (priteshpatel9) — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 18:07:00 +0000

How many times has a B2B client said to you...."We just want a basic report, you know, just the top level stuff".

Only you know deep inside that most of the actionable insights and the golden nuggets lay hidden deep inside the data chucked (puked) out by your analytics software. It's where the sexy stuff is but only you and I know that and it does take time to find those golden nuggets.

A 'top level stuff report' means Visits, Pageviews, Time spent on site, Overall site bounce rate and all the other aggregated data presented on dashboards. It's only this data that c-level execs understand and can get to grips with easily so it's all they require and as a result many strategies go stagnant after a few months or buy-in for further improvements take longer. As soon as you mention "75% of traffic has been generated from non-brand related keywords, an increase of 15% from last quarter, therefore the SEO strategy seems to be working so we should drill deeper to see how we can further optimise the strategy".

Silence.

Further silence.

"All I want to know is top level stuff ok?"

So as us #measure peeps seek to further our knowledge and keep up with the latest technology and new ways of measuring new channels, what are we also doing to educate the so-called non-#measure generation? How do we educate clients to accept more complex reports/presentations and action the insights presented to them.

I am talking here about the HIPPO's who were brought up without the Internet, their website has only just become an importants part of their business and measurement was never a REAL priority for them?

In the next few months I will be running workshops for our clients so I can a) break em into the #measure world b) get them over the 'i just want a top level report' requirement and c) make them think harder about their next campaign, strategy and plans.

I'd be interested to hear from others how they overcame the 'top level stuff only please' type clients and how they nurtured clients to educate and understand the importance of #measure.

Internet Marketing Podcasts

noreply@blogger.com (priteshpatel9) — Tue, 11 May 2010 12:54:00 +0000

Love digital marketing, web analytics, SEO, conversions, segmentation and PPC? Then check out these podcasts and be sure to add them to your listening lists. Note: All available via iTunes.

Beyond Web Analytics is my favourite podcast of them all. Presented by Rudi Shumpert and Adam Greco with some great guests including Eric Peterson, Stephane Hamel and my main man Jason Thompson....and they talk about all things web analytics.

Ion Interactive have Conversations on Conversion and its all about conversion rate optimisation, testing and landing page design.

Inbound Marketing University is a great video podcast with many great expert speakers and evangelists. The beauty of a video podcast is that you get to see the presentation slides too!!

Tim Ash presents Landing Page Optimisation podcasts - I think the title says it all really.

Marketing Elements is a new one to me and cover all things Internet Marketing. The one I have downloaded is about Social Media and Integration with other channels. Great stuff!

PPC Rockstars is a cracking podcast exploring all things PPC with some great advice and tips.

Run Marketing is one which I come across last week actually and seems pretty good. Can't find the URL but its available via iTunes by searching Run Marketing.

Search Engine Strategies Expo podcasts are excellent. Covers some great topics, subjects and includes some excellent guests including Bryan Eisenberg and also Avinash Kaushik's FULL presentation in New York.....a must listen.

Finally SEM Synergy which covers everything about search engine marketing.

So without any further or do.......go download now!

My next challenge....

noreply@blogger.com (priteshpatel9) — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 09:36:00 +0000

A quick personal blog post this time to let you all know that, as from Monday, I will be joining the team at Pauley Creative, the digital marketing agency for the construction industry.

Pauley Creative design and build the websites, web applications and digital marketing strategies that create brand awareness and drive new business for product manufacturers, specialist contractors and construction-related professional services companies.

Having spent a few years within the construction industry I have come to realise that the construction supply chain (from initial design through to build) is a long and complex one with many processes, people, roles and all with their own unique objectives, which is what makes this industry all the more exciting and challenging at the same time. It is also a time when digital marketing is making huge strides within the industry as more and more businesses are looking for new and cost effective ways to increase brand awareness online and to leverage existing relationships. It is also a time when construction firms need to look forward to the future and think how will I communicate to the generation of tomorrow.

And I couldn’t really argue with a business whose slogan contained my favourite word:

Straightforward, measurable, digital marketing for construction firms.

Guess which word it is?

A brave move I know, moving from client side to agency side but I felt that it was time to leave the broader client side role behind and move into a more specialist role within a specialist business like Pauley Creative. This is my bag really!

What will I be doing? Well I will be advising clients on developing their digital marketing strategies and guiding them on how to measure and quantify campaigns and returns to meet business objectives. I’m also looking forward to advancing the in-house team and clients’ knowledge in web analytics by providing basic training workshops as an extra value added service which I am sure many clients will enjoy and learn from.

You will also find me blogging regularly on the Pauley Creative blog so be sure to subscribe and also register for Pauley Creative’s newsletter, My Digital Insider, which contains expert advice and in-depth discussions to help marketers and business owners market their construction firms online.

As much as it is my ambition and goal to add value whoever I am working for, I honestly believe I am joining a business which can also make a difference to the industry and add value for their ever growing client base.

So, from Monday, feel free to pick at my brain at any time! Ok, not Monday as I will be trying to find my way around the place but after that is ok.

P.S - Thanks to everyone for their personal messages. Much appreciated.

Measuring the power of your brand by identifying your brand power visitors

noreply@blogger.com (priteshpatel9) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 09:58:00 +0000

Part of an SEO strategy is to build up traffic using various keywords and paid for search terms in the form of PPC. Keywords hold vital clues as to how people find your site or information and all to often many marketers just merely skim over their keyword reports, occasionally reporting any unusual keywords or to see if the top 10 keywords have changed since last month.

It all gets a bit too boring for me to be honest. Segment to add some pazzaz into your data!!

So here is how you can use Advanced Segments to measure your brand awareness by segementing those who find your site via your brand name and then stick to your site (measuring engagment).

1) Open up Advanced Segments

2) In the first ciretria select the dimension Keyword and choose condition as 'Contains' and enter your brand name. (Note: You can also choose 'Exact' as a condition)

3) In the second criteria select the metric Time on Site and choose condition as 'Greater to than or equal to' and enter 120 seconds (two minutes on my site is actually quite long)

4) In the final criteria select the metric Pageviews and choose condition as 'Greater to than or equal to' and enter 4 pages (4 pages is quite high for my site)

5) Finally name your segment and press Test Segment and you are done!

TIP: You may wanto to check your average pageviews and average time on page/site first before setting your bar and adjust your limits accordingly.

Your report should now look something like this (click to make bigger):

As you can see, out of a total of 30,724 visits came to my site and of those 6,575 visits arrived to my site via a brand keyword. Now, for my site, I have many products which include the brand name so that is why I set the condition as 'Contains'.

We then move onto Time on Site and of those 30,724 visits nearly 33% (11,483) spent equal to or more than 2 minutes on my site. Is that good or bad? What can I now do to increase that 33% to 40% or even 50%?? I can segment further and look at what pages those 33% of looked at for more than 2 minutes. I can then make adjusments to copy or call to action buttons or include more links or inlcude videos to make them spend longer on my site.

Finally we have Pageviews. Out of 30,724 visitors 13,432 visitos viewed more than 4 pages. So what? Well I can segment those visitors and see if they converted into any of my GOALS after viewing so many pages. What actions can I take to increase conversions of those that viewed 4 or more pages? They must be engaged right?

And then the crucial number at the bottom................

How many of my 30,724 visitors came to my site via a brand keyword, spent 2 minutes or more on my site and also viewed more than 4 or more pages? (Came, Spent and Viewed)

Answer: 2,672 brand power visitors!! Which equates to 8.69% of my overall traffic.

Now is that good or bad? Well that's for you to decide and have a play with your own data. Use this data as a benchmark and set yourself KPI's and Objectives around improving your brand awareness.

How much of your precious ££ have you spent raising your brand profile online and offline? How much time have you spent creating content for people to find? How do you know your brand is raising more of a profile within your own market sectors?

TIP: This report won't give you answers. It is merely giving you actionalble insights into further questions to ask.

"How can I increase the number of brand power users to my site?"
"How can I increase the time spent on my site for those who come to my site via a brand keyword?" (They already know of you right?)
"What type of content does my brand power users want to read or view?"
"What do I need to do to keep my brand power users coming back for more?"

Now go play..........

Will Mann - My FollowFriday for this week

noreply@blogger.com (priteshpatel9) — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:12:00 +0000

It's been a very interesting week this week. I have started to follow a few more interesting peeps on Twitter primarily from the construction industry. Over the past 2 or 3 months I have noticed a rise in the number of construction industry companies and individuals involving themselves in conversations on Twitter. I know @ESIbuilding introduced @Sandtoft last week which is another great addition as well as @RSSprojects to the communities developing on twitter. This week though I have suddenly noticed that they have all stepped up a gear or two by asking more questions and creating more discussions and just generally getting involved, a great sign so keep it up folks.

Anyway, my follow friday this week is Will Mann (@will_mann).

Why?

Firstly, I've never met the guy, but what I know we both share the same passion for the web, the latest digital innovations and trends, SEO, Analytics and most importantly.....how the construction industry can embrace all of these things.

I love reading his blog which is focused around the web, media and journalism and also includes a monthly web stats feature on the performance of the top construction industry publications. He consistently delivers great information to those who work in digital marketing (like me) within the construction industry (like me). I really recommend subscribing to his blog if you do work in marketing and are involved in the construction industry.

Oh, finally I also have to give a shout out to my man @anders1156 (Rob Scott) who finally started his blog this week all about Architects and Architecture.

My top 3 posts by Will Mann:

1) Brand Journalism - How could it work in the construction industry
2) Presentation: Future Trends in Construction Media
3) Why don't construction media websites have ABCE certificates?

Keep up the great work Will.

P.S - Coffee?

Why your website should be like a world class football team

noreply@blogger.com (priteshpatel9) — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 12:54:00 +0000

I was explaining how websites work to a 'fresh' out of college student (my cousin) at the weekend. After about 15 minutes of starting off with the basics it didn't take long for him to go cross-eyed! Bless him.

SEO, CRO, Visits, UX, Goals, Content, Keywords, PPC, Inbound Links, Page Ranks, Scores etc etc

I then had to break it down to him that a website should be like...well....Manchester United (that's who he supports). This is how I explained the basics of a website and its functions to him:

"Your website should be like Manchester United. A well organised team who know what their own job roles are. Your team (website) is there to create you goals so that you can win more games (win business). To help you achieve these goals you will need players (web pages). However, these players (web pages) will need to be strong and will need to keep the ball (visitor) as much as they can in the form of possesion (traffic stickiness). Sometimes, some players (web pages) will give away the ball (visitor) too many times (points of leakage) and they will need to be either replaced or trained up (optimisation) but you can only find points of leakage by watching each player closely (using Analytics). Some of these players (web pages) will occasionally receive the ball halfway (campaign landing pages) and will require extra flair and intelligence (content) in order to pass the ball (visitor) to another player (web page) preferably a striker. Ideally that player (web page) needs to pass it to someone like Wayne Rooney (conversion page) who will shoot and most likely score (goal!!). There will be times when Wayne Rooney gets tired and goes off form (optimisation) and you will need to get him back into shape (testing) and ultimately increase his performance (conversion rate). Manchester United don't play the same opposition every week so therefore you will need to adjust your players (web pages) to handle different types of opposition (traffic type). Not every player (web pages) can handle the same opposition every week so they need to be flexible but good at keeping the ball (engaging content).

"Why don't I just have a website full of Wayne Rooney's then?" he said.

"Why has Sir Alex Ferguson bought players like Nani who can hold the ball (engaging content) and Antonio Valencia (landing page)? Because Manchester United are a team (website) and they work together and they all need different skills in order to pass the ball (visitor) to the likes of Wayne Rooney (conversion page) to get you your goals (conversions, leads, business opportunities, money, sales)"

After I had explained it in this form he better understood the purpose of a website and then started scribbling what looked like a site map but in the form of a 'tactics' blackboard you would see in a football teams dressing room at half-time. My work was done!

So, my question to you is this "Are your Michael Carricks, Nani's, Valencia's and Wayne Rooney's performing on your website?"

P.S - If your thinking about leaving a comment on 'world-class' and 'Manchester United' then don't even think about it.

The Benefits of Blogs in the Construction Industry

noreply@blogger.com (priteshpatel9) — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 09:20:00 +0000

I was doing my usual routine Analytics check up on my blog yesterday and decided to checkout my keyword report with an emphasis on my 'long tail' keywords. Long tail keywords are niche or very specific keywords used in search engines to reach a webpage, site or landing page.

I was quite suprised to see so many keywords and search terms used to get to various posts or information on my blog. I then decided to apply a filter to my long long long list of keywords and search terms which included the keyword 'construction'. I was suprised to see some of the search terms used in search engines to get to my blog which were construction related. Below are the 13 search terms which include the keyword 'construction'.

Now, just by looking at the keyword report which includes the keyword 'construction' it gave me an idea of what people are searching for and the infomation they require.....hence....the title of this blogpost is in relation to search term number 10. Just by looking at the above search terms I am so so so pleased to see people searching for advice and guidance on social media use for the construction industry. High five!!

TIP: If you ever get writers block then use your keyword report and view the long tail keywords for inspiration for your next blogpost.

Ok so, what are the benefits of blogs for the construction industry?

Well, firstly blogs can be used to promote your business and provides a platform for your business to give information, opinions and reviews about anything construction related and will be of value for your target market. Notice I say VALUE!! For example, a company involved in the drainage sector, could blog about recent legislative changes and how it will impact others within the drainage sector or provide design guidance to engineers and design managers. In addition to this, the blog can be used to enhance brand perception and reinforce ones business as the technical experts or market leaders within the industry.

See, the beauty of the construction industry is that there are, and I know there are, so so many things anyone could talk about. The construction industry revolves around legislation, economic impacts, regulations and best practices.

Upcoming Legislation or Legislation Explained
Sectors which are booming
Impact on Goverment spend
Buidling Regulations/cutbacks
Design Guidance
Installation Guidance
Project/Life time cost analysis
Benefits of one material to another
How-to's
Do's and Don'ts
Products technical capabilities
Reviews
Real in-depth Case Studies

TIP: Brainstorm with your team and come up with a list of ideas or topics you could blog about and then either use intelligent people within the business to write a short post or use a specialist to do it for you. Always remember to target your blog posts to someone and make sure you understand their needs prior to blogging.

Product manufacturers can use blogs to inform architects, designers, technical designers, design managers, contractors, sub-contractors and installers (entire target audience) of all the reasons why your brand is the market leader. Today's Buyers now use online as a medium to source product informaiton when making buying decisions, Consulting Engineers and Specifiers are using the web for more detailed and technical analysis of products and require education prior to specifying a product. Give them what they need! This is where blogs can come into play. Provide information of value and educate your audience. Don't just keep putting news stories on your blog, that is why you have a 'News' section on your corporate website.

TIP: Blogs are not a place to sell. It is a place for your to provide information of value to your target audience. Notice I say VALUE....again!!

Another benefit that a construction blog will provide to your business is traffic. A blog will increase traffic to your corporate website or campaign landing pages considerably. Traffic from your blog can be of much higher quality too as the referred traffic has come from a post which maybe of real value and is now looking for further information or even have a live project enquiry!

TIP: Use the blog to link to useful whitepapers, brochures, technical documents on your own business website. Measure how many people are referred to your website from your blog and then converted into a newsletter subscription or brochure download/request or registered for further valuable information.

Ok, so there's a bit about Blogs for the construction industry and particular product manufacturers. But, what are the benefits of a blog from a search engine optimisation point of view?

Search engines love blogs! Simple. A blog has new, fresh content regularly and therefore search engines love new, fresh content. Obviously this depends on the blog owner whose responsibility it will be to make sure the blog stays topical, informative, new and the content is fresh. Blogs are free to set-up. Ok, they may be free to set-up but also think about the time and resource required to keep it up to date.

I am not going to go into all the detail blogs, traffic and SEO as this info is widely available on the web already. Do a search! So, there it is. A brief but helpful look into why construction businesses and especially product manaufacturers should use blogs to:

Become an expert within the industry
Break news
Provide guidance and expertise
Drive more traffic and quality traffic to your corporate website
Increase web conversions
Perform research in the way of polls or surveys
A platform to allow your target audience to provide feedback in the form of 'comments'
Most importantly - become a resource! A valued resource!

View Eric Petersons' book in 3D using Google Books

noreply@blogger.com (priteshpatel9) — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 09:24:00 +0000

I come across the NEW 3D feature on Google Books this morning whilst searching for Eric Petersons' book on Marketers Guide to Understanding How Your Website Affects Your Business.

Now, firstly, its probably the wrong kind of book to be wanting to read in 3D but I think the 3D feature is actually pretty cool and will or may work on only selected books.

Imagine your next product brochure available in 3D? You can view products in situ actually rendered in 3D to give your readers a different viewing experience.

Get your 3D glasses ready and check this it out:

1) Go to Google Book and search for Web Analytics Business Books. You will see Eric Peterson's book in the list. Click on it and then click on the 'View in 3D' button (click on image to make bigger):

2) It will then take a few seconds to render into 3D and then BOOOM!!(Click on image to make bigger)

3) Here is a close up:

Quite a cool feature huh? Does it actually make reading in 3D easier? Are you at risk of not only ruining your eyesight but giving yourself constant migranes too. I don't know but its new and its cool!

Now go try it out on other books!! (Preferbly one with pictures and not so much text)

Google Analytics add Goal Sets 2,3 and 4 to custom reports

noreply@blogger.com (priteshpatel9) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 10:09:00 +0000

Today, Google Analytics extended the option to select Goal Sets 2,3 and 4 (Goals 6-20) to the custom reports facility. Previously you were only able to select Goal Sets 1 (Goals 1-5) within your custom reports which made it frustrating when you want to know which campaigns were converting for each goal specified in Goal Sets 2,3 and 4.

Check out my post on how to set up goals and create custom reports.

If you are running a website with 10-15 or even all 20 goals then this feature is super sexy in its own way. By creating a custom report by campaign you will be able to identify each and every conversion by each and every campaign (remember 'campaign' is derived form the UTM parameters/tags set in your links).

Here is a screenshot of how I set up my 'Conversions by Campaign' custom report:

You can see my 'tabs' at the top split into 'sets' and within each set are my individual goals. For example, Goal Set 1 are all my downloads, Goal Set 2 are all my Enquiry submission, Goal Set 3 are all my Requests and finally Goal Set 4 are all my Subscriptions/Registrations. I have selected 'Campaign' as my dimension which will list all of my campaigns including Advertising, PR and E-Mail campaigns.

By saving and running this custom report I can quickly view which campaigns has got me the most or least conversions for each goal set. Which campaign got me the most subscriptions? Which campaign generated the most call back requests? Which campaign failed to generate Product B brochure downloads?

I would also advise you to create custom reports for KEYWORDS and LANDING PAGES. You will quickly be able to see which landing pages are creating the most goals and which keywords go onto converting or not converting. Each will give you insight into what you should correct and where you should put your efforts.

Enjoy....i know i will!!

Opt-In or Opt-Out and the impact on email marketing metrics

noreply@blogger.com (priteshpatel9) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 09:31:00 +0000

When collecting prospect or customer data via your website or any paper based forms you 'must' and 'have' to think about 'how' you are collecting that data.

Many companies, mainly B2C, will offer the 'Opt-out' mechanism where you will be given the option to opt-out of receiving any further marketing material from that company in the future. Meaning if you miss the statement, you have automatically opted-in. It's common ground for B2C companies to employ this tactic in order to increase the volume of data for future marketing purposes.

But quantity does not mean quality.

Opt-out data will have a significant impact on your stats when used for any form of marketing, be it email or direct mail. Why? Well the person may have misread or skipped your statement (usually in small print) and therefore will not have indicated or provided you with sufficient consent to receive further information from you. So when you send your marketing email campaign to a bunch of opt-out contacts they may regard it as spam.

"I don't remember asking to receive this!"

This in turn could have a detrimental effect on your spam rating and most importantly your brand.

However, opt-in data carries quality and is reliable. Each source (webpages or forms) will need to be manually selected or ticked by a visitor or reader in order to receive further marketing information from you. This means that the person want to hear from you. By capturing opt-in data as opposed to opt-out data you will see a considerbale improvement in your email open rates, click throughs, deeper levels of engagement and an increase in conversions of your email campaigns. Again, it all comes down the fact that the contact HAS specifically asked for you to send more information. For B2B businesses most communications will be always about product or services. But not everyone wants to know about every product or every service you have to offer. How do you deal with this?

TIP: Don't just send any old information without understand specific interests of your contacts. Some maybe interested in one subject and another segement interested in another. Use progrossive profiling to capture additional data and interests of your contact database or lists.

"Oh, here is the newsletter I subscribed to"

So, collecting data is not about building databases and lists as quickly as possible, it is about being ethical and building a group of quality contacts who a) want to hear from your company and b) are prepared to engage with you and your brand. If you are purcasing a list always ensure you ask the vendor 'how the data was captured' as it maybe 'opt-in' or 'opt-out' and as you have already read above, it will impact your conversion rates and other key metrics.

Here is another great post by Seth Godin who gives great examples of when to use 'opt-in' and 'opt-out'.

How businesses can use Twitalyzer to measure social media performance

noreply@blogger.com (priteshpatel9) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:45:00 +0000

Tweet: How to measure social media success
Tweet: 732 free tools to measure social media
Tweet: How to measure social media success
Tweet: 101 free tools to help your understand social media
Tweet: 11 ways to increase success on Twitter

Does the above sound or look familiar? Is your timeline full of tweets like this?
There are hundreds of free tools out there being tweeted all day, everyday. Tools which allow you to monitor your social media activities but there is no one tool as good as Twitalyzer. It really is ‘serious analytics for the social media expert’. Ok, firstly I am no expert but I do love analytics and social media.

I was introduced to Twitalyzer about 5-6 months ago and I have to say it is the most advanced bit of kit I have come across for measuring performance on Twitter. Notice I say ‘performance’ and not success. By understanding and establishing your key performance indicators you will also find it easier to reach your objectives or goals.
Step back to my ‘732 free tools to measure social media’ tweet example. Slight exaggeration I know. The problem marketers and businesses have today is that there are lots of websites, software and apps out there that will help you measure your performancem, some even claiming to show you success. Its just a bit to confusing if you ask me!

How do you know which tool or tools to use? How many websites will I have to bookmark to get me the data I need? Which metrics do I monitor? Which KPI’s should I use to help me accomplish my objectives?

Look no further.

This is why Twitalyzer is great. Because for me, and for you, everything needed to measure and analyse your business social media performance is in one place. No more needing to keep visiting those 15 websites on a monthly basis to collect all the data and then export into a spreadsheet and run a few calculations. Twitalyzer 2.0 is the complete package!

For this review I am going to try and not go into all the finer details so much but give you an overview of what insights can be drawn from using Twitalyzer if you are a business with a Twitter prescence.

Twitalyzer - Serious Analytics for the Social Media Expert

Twitalyzer, created by Eric T Peterson and Jeff Katz, is a measurement tool for short-media messaging or micro-blogging with Twitter being the dominant platform. Twitalyzer has been created for businesses and not for the casual user and for those where accountability is important. It takes data and puts into meaningful key performance indicators such as Clout, Influence and Impact.

Quick look at the menu options. Every report provides you with insights into how you are performing as a business and whether or not your social media strategy is working for you. Reports are shown as graphs, sometimes interactive, and also as visualisations.

Click on 'Dashboard' and you will be presented with a display as below showing the the key metrics and measures along with a quick view graph and a symbol to show you at a glance whether that metric or measure has improved or decreased. Each one provides you with a different picture or area you may or may not need to focus on.The top 5 metrics and measures are the most important to maintain.

Full list of defintions for each metric and measure can be found here.

The ‘Impact’ metric is displayed with a ‘tick’ which means my score has remained unchanged over a 30 day period. Very good. The ‘Impact’ metric is calculated by taking the number of followers, unique references, frequency of uniquely retweeted, uniquely retweeting other tweeters and frequency of updates. Impact is the most important metric as this is the number of people paying attention to you with their measured participation. Everything you do or tweet will have an impact on other metrics and measures, but what is important is that you use the data to guide and improve in areas where needed/required.
My ‘Influence’ and ‘Clout’ are also healthy which means that I am doing well in order to get my business mentioned/referenced and/or retweeted by others. If this decreases you need to ask yourself "Is my content relevant to my followers?" If the content is of poor quality then the less chance it will be retweeted.
My ‘Generosity’ levels have dropped which indicates I need to retweet tweets of relevancy more often. Having said that, it doesn’t mean retweeting everything as this will also have an adverse effect on metrics elsewhere such as ‘Clicks’ or ‘Influence’. You should only retweet something which reflects your social media interest or offering. So if I was a business, why should I retweet something that does not reflect what I do or the personality of my brand?

The ‘Engagement’ measure has increased which indicated I am engaging more with other tweeters. If you click on the blue graph you will be presented with a more detailed view over a period of time. Again, businesses should be asking “Why has the level of engagement decreased?” “Why did it increase?” “Who are we engaging with?”

I also like to use ''Hashtags' within my tweets, hashtags are a great way to join mini communities who have the same interest or topic/subject. This is a good way of increasing the 'Engagement' metric and 'Followers' measure. Below graph indicates the increase in followers over a 30 day time period.

My ‘Updates’ measure has also decreased which tells me the number of updates posted on Twitter has fallen compared to the last 7 day count. So as a business you should ask yourself “Why has the number of updates fallen or decreased?” Is it because you don’t have enough content to publish? Is it because your business has been focusing efforts elsewhere? Use the data to give you insights into how and what to improve.
Under each metric you will also have the option to click on ‘Details’ or ‘Define’. Details will give you a closer look at each metric so for this example I have chosen the ‘Engagement’ metric.

The red line represents my Goal which I had set myself and will look at shortly. The blue line is my 30 day average. As you can see my engagement levels at Tuesday 16th of February stood at 76.7%. By Wednesday 24th of February my engagement levels had increased to 88.7%. As a business you should ask yourself “What activities caused my Engagement levels to increase over those particular days?” “Did this have an effect on any of the other metrics or measures?” “Did I make more connections in that week because of activities X,Y and Z?” Again, use the data to help you work out what was successful.

You can view each metric and measure in further detail by selecting the drop down box.

At any date point you can also add ‘notes’. Here you should add notes on every activity which takes place and will have a direct impact on your social media activities and performance? For business users conducting multiple activities this is priceless. Add a note for every activity you implement onto the graph so that you can look back and see which activity caused spikes and which activity caused numbers to decrease.

What notes should I add? Did you publish a blog post? Which you would mark as Good. Did you post a new corporate video which will have an influence on the number of times it gets retweeted (viral)? Did you make an announcement that your site had to close from a few days due to maintenance? In which case you would mark as Bad. This facility is similar to the Annotations feature on Google Analytics and other web analytics tools.
Below is an example of my ‘Impact’ report before and after a Construction Marketing event I attended back in February of this year:

You can see my note (Green symbol) which is my note/reminder that this is when I attended the SMAEC event and since the event my ‘Impact’ has seen a sharp increase. The second peak is when I published my post-event blogpost titled ‘Is the Construction Industry ready for Social Media? No’. Again, my impact increased due to my blogpost. I can also check my web analytics tool to see if the traffic to my blog converted into subscriptions. We can clearly see the impact of a couple of tweets, a blog post over various metrics and measures.

My note also appears on other metric reports too. Screenshot above shows the 'Velocity’ report and again you can see that after this event my Velocity had increased quite sharply

Twitalyzers definition of Velocity is an indication of the relative frequency at which a user publishes updates in Twitter. Remember the red line? This is my benchmark which I had set in the Goals section of Twitalyzer. Doing pretty well huh?

Screenshot below for the ‘Retweeted’ report.

This shows you how often your tweets have been retweeted over a given time period. Many people use ‘Retweets’ as a measure of reach and as the number of retweets increase your reach increases. Is your reach getting you more followers? View the Follower trend screenshot above. Does this have an impact on your ‘Engagement’ now that your following has increased? Again, notice the high levels of retweets during the event and after the event? This was due to the post-event blogpost.
Use each metric and measure to answer business questions. How many new connections did I receive on the back of activity X? Did my web traffic increase because of activity Y and how many led to conversions? By what percentage has my newsletter subscription increased since activity Z or tweets? Ask yourself ‘real’ business questions and mine the data on Twitalyzer and your web analytics tool to get a broader, wider and accurate picture of your social media performance.

It’s important, as with any other analytics tool, that you put the data into context and you use the data to provide you with insights to drive action.

So now that you have a little understanding on how to use the dashboard and the metrics/measures available we can now move on and set us some Goals.

You may need to give yourself some time before you actually set some figures, use your current scores to set benchmarks or targets for you to maintain and achieve. Remember to be realistic when setting your goals! I had set myself an ‘Engagement’ goal of 95% and I am currently at 76.7% which indicates I am still way off my target. I can now set myself a micro-strategy of how I will go about increasing my ‘Engagement’. For example I could join more conversations, using the hashtag to engage with more people and more online communities (#measure community for example)

Most importantly remember to review your Goals on a quarterly or half yearly basis as they may need fine tuning or will indicate where you need to adjust your efforts.

Twitalyzer also counts the number of clicks each of your tweets has received. From a business point of view this is a great measure to view what traffic had been sent to your website or blog from each of your Tweets. Now go back to your web analytics and go see how many of these click turned into conversions of some sort.

Another important part to Twitalyzer is ‘Sentiment’. The Sentiment Analysis report provides you with the ability to easily track the general tone of conversation for your business. Sentiment is analysed by picking up keywords contained within your tweets. Click on the screenshot below for an explanation of ‘Sentiment’.

Quite simply green means positive and red means negative. Over a period of time have a look to see where and why you have used negative keywords within your tweets. Does this reflect or impact your brand? Are people saying negative things about your business in which case you have had to provide a positive response? Are you involved in positive or negative conversations?

By clicking on the green or red parts of the graph, Twitalyzer will display the negative or positive tweets affecting your ‘Sentiment’ measure. You also have the ability to set or add your own words or filters. Many people use the hashtag #fail to inform others of a negative tweet or review so therefore if you, as a business, tweet #fail or join the hashtag #fail then your negativity will increase accordingly. Ask yourself, do you really want to be saying negative things about others? What kind of persona do you want to build?

My final part of this review is the ability to find out who your top influencers are. These are the people who you engage with regularly, who retweet things you post and act as an indicator of who you should be engaging with more often. You may have 10,000 followers and be following 5000 but how do you know you are connecting with the people who you should really be connecting with? Let this report tell you who you should increase your engagement with. (Sorry if you have been missed off the list…I don’t control it…you do!)

So, I am not going to give the entire game away in this review, but if you are a business heavily involved in Twitter for both marketing, customer service and sales then I really recommend using Twitalyzer to measure your social media performance and success and to help you accomplish your micro and macro goals which form part of your social media strategy.

Remember: Use the data to give you insights to drive action and improve what you are doing.

Twitalyzer has a lot more to offer than just what I have outlined above including Tagging other users, competitors, partners and individuals to benchmark your performance against. Imagine tagging a competitor and comparing their 'Impact' to yours? Or even comparing Engagement levels over a period of 30 days? Does your participation and efforts stack up to theirs?

Oh finally, Twitalyzer also integrates with Google Analytics giving you a complete picture from intital tweet through to conversion. Now that can’t be bad can it?

Recommended reads and views: Twitalyzer Blog, Twitalyzer Handbook (PDF), Twitalyzer Help, How to get started in Twitalyzer in 5 minutes (VIDEO), Integrating Google Analytics with Twitalyzer (VIDEO).

Businesses need to eliminate the 'gut feeling' approach when making business decisions

noreply@blogger.com (priteshpatel9) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:37:00 +0000

Ever heard your Exec say "My gut feeling is....." or "I think we should do it because I have a gut feeling that our competitor...."? Many businesses today still operate on creating and making business decisions based on 'gut feelings'. Scary I know!

I recently had a debate with my Exec on 'data driven actions' rather than relying on the HiPPO's (Highest Paid Persons Opinion) 'gut feelings' to drive business actions (which most often turn out to be incorrect or harmful to the business itself). How can anyone drive action through their own 'gut feelings' when they have no data to back up their feelings or tell them otherwise? This lead me onto the question:

"How important is data to a business in order to make better business and marketing decisions?".

Marketers have had a whole new world opened up to them in the last few years in the form of analytics or business intelligence through various tools and technologies which gathers and sorts various forms of data such as website visitor data, transactional data, campaign data and then when segmenting this data for more data you get a whole new level of data. An important criteria of a marketer today is not just creativity but must also be able to understand and read data in order to gain valuable insight that could lead to better business and marketing results/performance. Keyword here is 'insight'. Read and analyse data to give you insight to drive actions. Marketers are now seen as the 'intelligence' within organisations who's focus it is to use current and predictive analytics to give execs information on future trends and forecasts and collaborate with other departments to drive further action. Is the marketing department suddenly the feeders within the business to other departments?

A recent survey of 600 managers at more than 500 blue-chip companies in the U.S and U.K conducted by Accenture Analytics found that:

43% had failed to employ professionals dedicated to analytics.

5% use analytics to support supply chain and resource planning

33% are worried about the data being exposed to non-management staff

46% agree that technological resources and systems greatly hinder the effective use of enterprise wide anlaytics

So 57% of businesses had realised the importance of analysing data to drive better business decisions but only 5% use it to support the supply chain of information which begs me to ask the question "What is the data being used for?" Ok, I think its important to establish at this point that not everything needs to be analysed, every business should define the business questions which the data should answer.

Almost half of those surveyed see resource as being an issue which I can almost agree with. It takes time, effort and skill in order to get the best out of data. I have to go back to 2006 when Avinash Kaushik wrote a post about the 10/90 rule:

Cost of analytics tool, technology or service: $10

Required investment in 'intelligent resources/analysts: $90

Bottom line for magnigicent success: It's the people!

Agree? I do.

The problem businesses face today is that they don't know what the data is telling them, whether the data is actually what the data they should be looking at and if the data they have is accurate. This is where 'data driven cultures comes into play. It take people to understand, mine and draw information from the data and thus takes intelligent people to do so. This video by John Lovett is inspiring and I hope more businesses adopt 'data driven cultures' in the future: Building a Culture of Measurement

Every business action should have evidence behind its decisions in the form of data. Not gut feelings.

Love to hear thoughts from businesses who use data successfully.

BAM Analytics App for the iPhone

noreply@blogger.com (priteshpatel9) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:08:00 +0000

After having spent the last few weeks researching and contemplating which analytics app to download for the iPhone I finally made the choice of downloading BAM Analytics by Blast Advance Media. Was it a bad move? I don't think so. Having downloaded the app to my iPhone it meant having my web stats with me at all times.I am someone who wants to know web stats NOW! I want to know how my campaigns are progressing NOW! I want to know how many conversions my e-mail campaign which went out at 1pm has generated now that it is 4pm. I want to know NOW! Hence by having my web stats with me where ever I maybe, it certainly helps me and my heart run along smoothly.

This nifty little app is great for when in meetings with agencies, clients or execs of your own business when quick stats are required for unplanned questions.

No more of this...."How many conversions did we get from the campaign we did last month?" to which you reply "erm...if i remember correctly something like 45 or 50!". The actual figure happened to be 80!

There are about a dozen web analytics apps available, mostly for Google Analytics, there are apps available for Omniture and Webtrends too. Ok, my opinion, the best apps are Analytics App and BAM Analytics with the latter taking the lead as it loads the data much more quicker than Analytics App which was a deciding factor me.

So, here is what you get for your buck!

As soon as you have logged in with your Google Analytics details you will be shown all you websites under your account profile. Quickly select a web site to show the stats for and up pops all the reports available with the most common reports at the top and then more specific reports towards the bottom. A totla of 65 reports are available to you to choose from.

Screenshot above shows the reports available in the Overview Reports and Traffic Sources groups. Selecting the Quick Overview report shows you all the 'dashboard' stats such as Visits, Pageviews, Pages/Visit, Bounce Rate, Ave. Time on Site and % of New visits.

For those running E-Commerce websites there are many reports for you too:

For a full list of reports (believe me there are lots) please visit the BAM Analytics website.

Once you click on a report the data is shown on screen just as though you were viewing the stats on a desktop machine. The data is very quick to load on a wi-fi connection and still quicker than other apps on a 3G connection. Speed was a very important factor for me and BAM Analytics is certainly delivering the BAM for me! Here is the screenshot for the Visitor Overview report:

The menu options at the bottom allow you to view profile, home, reports, view graph in landscape mode, compare date ranges and select date range.

Ok, what about if you wanted to compare one month to the previous month or yesterday's stats to the previous days stats? Well you see the 'Scales Icon' at the bottom of the above screenshot? Select that and it takes you to a 'compare to past' option:

Select your date range and click on Compare Reports and..........BAM! There you have it, this months Visitors Overview report compared to last months report.

Ok, here is the best part of this app. Custom Reports. That's right, you have the option to create your very own custom reports right from within the app. Here is an example of 'create custom report' screen:

As you can see, you have two tabs 'View Metrics' and 'View Dimensions'. Metrics contains Site Usage metrics such as Bounces, Bounce Rate, Entrances, Exits etc followed by Content Metrics (Pageviews, Visits with Search etc), followed by Goals (Goal 1, 2, 3, 4, Total Goal Completions etc), followed by E-Commerce (Unique Purchases, Quanity etc) and finally Advertising (Clicks, Cost, Impressions, CTR etc). You have 3 choices for the Metrics tab.

The 'View Dimensions' tab contains Visitors (Hour of the Day, Week, Month etc), Traffic Sources (Campaign, Keyword, Source, Medium etc), Content (Page Title, Page, Refined Keyword, Site Search etc), E-Commerce (Days to Transaction, Product SKU, Category, Visits to Transaction etc) and finally Systems (Browser, Connection Speed etc).

For this example, I want to create a Custom Campaign Report which tells me the dimension Campaign, and the metrics Visits, Bounce Rate and Total Goal Completions.

Once you have then selected your metrics and dimension you are now ready to Save Report. The report will then appear at the bottom of the Menu Screen (first screenshot) and you can select it form there. Once selected it will then take a couple to seconds to fetch the data and put it together to create your report. Once its done then...........BAM!!

There you have it! A custom report which now shows me the Campaign Name, Visits, Bounce Rate and Total Goal Completions. How handy and smart is that!

With the endless amount of data available to you via this neat, small and quick app it makes BAM Analytics one of the best, if not the best analytics app available for the iPhone. A highly recommended app for any marketer requiring quick and immediate access to their web stats.

Pro's:

Speed
Easy to read interface
Over 60 reports
View graphs in landscape mode
Compare reports/date range
Custom Report facility

Con's:

Occasionally crashes when creating custom reports which require big numbers or varied metrics.
That's it