Additionally, there are also consumers out there who may not feel the need to build those stronger relationships. Simply feeling “connected” via following a brand on Twitter might be just enough to get them to buy the product or tell their friends about that product/brand.

I think this is a challenge that all tweeting brands face - finding that perfect balance of interaction, responsiveness, and sincerity to really create a positive impact on a consumer.

You actually have to build actual relationships. I want to be real friends with the folks that are in my community.

Heh… was at a meeting today where the person I met with gave me “warm feelings” but you could tell it wasn’t any more then that. He didn’t really care about building it into a relationship.  It really turned me off to the organization.

Obviously, I wasn’t at the meeting. Maybe you guys talked about this level of distinction.

However, you also bring up a great example of how Twitter can produce a direct ROI. I think as we move forward, we will continue to see more examples like yours where the company reaches out to a consumer, which in turn leads to a sale, rather than the more basic promotional tweets that consumers click-thru to make a purchase.

Thanks for the comment. Hope you had a great time in SF, we hope to see you here next month!

The client sent me new code and I pasted in, voila. As far as I can tell that works nicely now. She’ll happily click away and check GA tomorrow to see.

Many thanks and keep up the good work.

You got it! You’re still using the “urchin” tracking script. You need to swap that out with the new script. To do that…
* Logins to GA
* Click “edit” next to your GA profile”
* Click “check status” (tiny link on the top right)
* Copy that code, and replace the “urchin” code

That should do it!

Thanks for a speedy response. I’ve put the URL in for you to look at the source of the page. It’s right below < BODY >.

Yep, I saw the post above about ` and ‘ being different :-)

It’s probably something very simple, maybe I’m using old GA code?

Thanks!

Did you move your Google Analytics javascript to the top of your code?

Also, be sure you didn’t copy and paste directly from the blog post. It needs straight quotations, and often copying and pasting makes squiggly quotations. Type it out word for word in notepad, then copy it in.

Let me know if that helps.

User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0; Trident/4.0; GTB6; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; Media Center PC 5.0; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30618)
Timestamp: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:08:57 UTC

Message: ‘pageTracker’ is undefined
Line: 257
Char: 2
Code: 0
URI: http://www.MYdomainNAME.co.uk/

How do I define it? I’m not a JS guy! Thanks

I think there is a direct ROI. 

The goal is to be able to reach users with purchase intent, right?  ALL the time I get folks who tweet, “Should I use product X or Y?”

I can reach out to that user and we have a new customer.

For me, it almost happens a couple of times per day.

By the way, the answer is no because the air is moving along with the earth.

They’re creating a lot of hype but I feel it will eventually die off, unless they come out with some truly revolutionary improvement other than what they launched with.

I do like the little tool tip that you get when mousing over the right side of a result, like a preview with more info. See, trying to be objective.

Honestly I havent used it enough to give a really strong opinion, but plan on using it more to see if there is any real advantages. I’m pretty stuck on Google though.

I don’t think that Bing is the end-all answer to Microsoft’s search engine challenges against Google--and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them re-tool again in the near future, as they did with Microsoft Live. 

Thanks for the feedback!

http://crazyegg.com

Google’s Conversion University is a great place to get started also:
http://www.google.com/support/conversionuniversity/

Thanks,
Jason

Edward:  Bing replaced Live Search as the search engine on MSN.  Although Bing is basically a rebranding of Live Search, there are some small differences--like the “Related Searches” pane.  Another change Microsoft made to this new version mimics a feature of Google, where Bing offers search suggestions as a user types in a query. 

So not earth-shattering changes, but it is different from the old MSN search.

One thing we’ve done is use unobtrusive JavaScript to retroactively tag links based on a class name. If we place an < a > tag within a specific class, our JS goes back through and appends the tracking automatically. That could be an option for you? Feel free to email me if you’re interested.

What if they arrive via paid search, remember your brand name and arrive via organic search, then finally return one last time via direct traffic before the purchase? You need to know that to plan your marketing efforts and user experience to match their three stage process.

Two useful links: http://blog.programmableweb.com/2009/06/08/microsoft-releases-bing-api-with-no-usage-quotas/
http://www.bing.com/developers/

Having the appropriate <a href=http://www.pitstopmedia.com/sem/ppc-keyword-match-types>ppc keyword match types</a> can definitely have a huge positive impact on the campaigns. I once managed to cut down the cpa significantly just by switching a few keywords to exact match.

I am working on fine tuning our email marketing strategy and adjusting some expectations.

Thanks for the info and encouragement on email marketing!

The State of Email Marketing Today

@Justin - All good questions. From my perspective, it’s all about providing the most relevant content to your subscriber base. The “trick” is figuring out what’s relevant to each subscriber (or segment of subscribers). Depending on the size of an organization and the abilities of their ESP there are various ways to try and determine relevant content.  Here are a couple of ideas for smaller organizations:

* Segment by purchase history: Provide content (new features, examples of implementations, case studies, etc.) directly related to the product(s) purchased or service(s) being used.  It sounds like you are already doing this at Clearspring. I would also consider giving a nod to other products or services you offer that might interest them (as a secondary message).

* Ask: It may be as simple offering a few types of email communication (newsletters, special offer, feature updates, tip of the week, etc) that they can choose from when submitting their email address.

* Data mine (& adjust):  This is can range from simple to complex.  For smaller organizations it may involve looking at some interesting user trends and brainstorming possible ways to continue the positive ones and curb the negative ones.

The great news for Clearspring is that you are actively helping achieve the end goal of getting relevant content to consumers when and how they want it.

In terms of e-mail marketing, I work at a small startup.  We have an e-mail newsletter for each of our products.  But what else…

I’m not Apple.  We don’t have super rich data sets about our customers so that we can hyper target rich messaging to them via e-mail.  I know that user A uses product X and user B uses product Y.  Even if we did have the data, I don’t have the time or the man power.  What can I do?

On a very basic level, I wonder what data should be collected that would improve our e-mail marketing enough that it would move the needle.

Amy G

I’m actually writing a book right now regarding this very topic so to speak.  I shared with my wife that for the first time in human history, we have a visual into a small glimpse of the soul of mankind.

By keyword research, using root phrases like above, or “how to” is so revealing to what people really think, its mind blowing.

There is an associated anonymity that the internet provides people, so for the first time, ever, you have people typing their unspoken minds into Google looking for information they may be afraid to admit out loud. 

So what people may be afraid to say, they find the courage to type and scratch their curious itch, regardless of how weird it might seem to others.

Very thought provoking topic.  Thanks for the post!

Will

If, like me, you feel a few missed clicks are worth sacrificing for better page loading then I say: leave it be.

Don’t lose hope. In the coming months, who knows what services will pop up!

* Exact match is often the most expensive keyword and broad can be the cheapest (despite what Google says).
* When I use the GA filter Chad mentioned, I find as long as I’m using 2+ words in my keyphrase, many of those broad match keywords really do capture excellent traffic.
* Broad match doesn’t capture the scary random traffic as much as people think...at least not in my experience.
* Negative keywords are seriously under-used and can really help out.

Looking forward to hearing more!