The ROI Revolution Blog

Site Architecture & Google Analytics

2009-07-08T19:19:10Z

Typically when someone decides to use Google Analytics on their website they grab the code and paste it on the site without thinking too much about what they're doing. Many of those who are new (and even some not so new) to Google Analytics don't understand how site structure will affect Google Analytics. If you are thinking about installing Google Analytics or if things aren't quite working like you expected, consider mapping out your site architecture to see where you can simplify things before you get in too deep.

Domains:
If you can help it, one domain will make the Google Analytics setup and tracking much easier. By increasing the number of domains, you will complicate the tracking process. Because Google Analytics uses first party cookies, each time your visitor travels to another domain, you have to pass along all the information about who they are and where they came from. Doing this again and again could potentially result in a loss of data and your referral information might not make it to the final destination. That means that if you are running paid advertising campaigns you won't be able to attribute the sale or conversion to its correct source, which might make it look like you're losing money when actually your paid campaigns are very profitable. By simplifying the number of domains on your site you will not only save yourself some headaches with the Google Analytics Tracking Code, but typically it will make for a much better user experience since the user will know where they are at all times.

Subdomains:
I've given subdomains its own category because tracking them with Google Analytics can be much less painful than tracking separate domains. Let's assume your site has one domain and two subdomains: my.widgets.com and shop.widgets.com. A simple code modification will make the tracking seamless. But add in a few other domains to the equation and you begin to see a web of confusing data. Stick to subdomains instead of additional domains whenever possible. This not only makes the tracking easier, but it's much better for SEO and quality score to have a single domain to drive traffic to.

In-house applications vs. 3rd party applications:
If you have the option always choose applications that give you the most control. Using 3rd party applications, shopping carts specifically, will cause additional complications with Google Analytics tracking. Typically 3rd party shopping carts are on another domain and they don't allow you to paste your own javascript code on the shopping cart pages. When someone goes from your domain to the 3rd party's domain there's no way to pass along the visitors information without Google Analytics code on the pages. Even if you use the utm_nooverride=1 method to maintain the referral information, there's still the issue of whether you will be able to get the transaction level variables on your domain's receipt page in order to pass the information into Google Analytics.

Not all 3rd party applications are bad. There are 3rd party applications that have made efforts to integrate with Google Analytics, so you can consider using an application with a plug-in for your tracking needs. There are also customizable shopping carts and CMS' that will allow you to track Google Analytics effectively.

When it comes to having a successful Google Analytics setup, the simpler your site architecture is the better. Draw out your site's architecture on paper before installing Google Analytics. Is there anything you can simplify? Making all the necessary changes up front will save you a lot of time in the long run.

Latest Urchin Version 6.6 Ready and Available for Download!

2009-06-29T18:15:29Z

Urchin has done it again! Version 6.6 is available for purchase, as an update to your already purchased license and for trial.

Version 6.6 introduces some really great improvements to the software including:

A deeper integration with Google AdWords, including Budget Alerts, a Keyword Generation Tool, direct links to AdWords (so you don't have to switch between programs), an Urchin Tag Manager, AdWords Optimizer, and a Copy Campaign Tool!

New Reporting:

Time On Site Report under Content Optimization, Content Performance, Engagement Metrics
An entirely new reporting section called Advertiser View and Section (If you're upgrading from an older version of Urchin, you'll need to reprocess your data to populate these reports.)
Click here for a complete list of Urchin 6 Reports

Also new:

External Authentication (LDAP)
New Urchin "Home" Page (modified to provide metrics for all the profiles that are visible to the logged-in user)
Automated CPC Data Import from Yahoo Search Marketing (YSM)
Data Export API

For more information on the benefits and features of Urchin 6.6, check out this table.

If you currently own Urchin 6, simply download the software to have the latest updates.

If you don't yet own Urchin 6 Software you can purchase it online for a one-time licensing fee of $2,995.

AdWords Conversions: The One vs. Many-Per-Click Breakdown

2009-06-25T15:41:02Z

There's a lot of confusion regarding Google's recent change to conversion metrics with the AdWords conversion tracker. Previously a "1" in the "Conversion" column would tell you there was at least one conversion that happened within 30 days of that date. You were happy with this limited knowledge.

Messy and/or complex data was disguised as clean & simple data. The "1" was all you knew. If the user clicked an ad and purchased something, you'd see a "1." If the user bookmarked the page with the conversion tracking script and went back to it a week later, you'd still see a "1." If another purchase was made two weeks later, you'd still see a "1." Simple, right?

In early April, Google exposed some of the potential mess to be more in line with the way conversions and transactions are tabulated in DoubleClick and other online ad platforms. They changed the name of "Conversions" to "Conversions (1-per-click)" and added a new metric called "Conversions (many-per-click)". While the 1-per-click conversion spot can only be filled once, the many-per-click conversions are incremented whenever any of your conversion scripts run within 30 days after a click.

Under the new system, consider the following scenarios and what conversions would be tracked for each:

The user clicks an ad, goes to the landing page, then opts-in to an email newsletter. This triggers a lead conversion.

Conversions (one per click): 1
Conversions (many per click): 1

The user refreshes the conversion page:

Conversions (one per click): 1
Conversions (many per click): 2

The user returns to the lead conversion page a week later from a bookmarked link:

Conversions (one per click): 1
Conversions (many per click): 3

The user gets an email from your company two weeks later and then buys something, triggering a sale conversion:

Conversions (one per click): 1
Conversions (many per click): 4

The above scenarios highlight the increased importance of clean data. The new many-per-click conversion tracking stats may be telling you nothing more than the fact that you've got a messy conversion tracking installation.

The problem can be magnified with additional metrics available in AdWords Reports. Reports give you the option to display columns revealing the exact number of each "type" of conversion... whether "lead," "sale," "sign-up," "page view," or "other." These values, however, are all of the many-per-click variety.

Let's revisit the scenario above, this time with some additional metrics available in the reports:

The user clicks an ad, goes to the landing page, then opts-in to an email newsletter. This triggers a lead conversion.

Conversions (one per click): 1
Conversions (many per click): 1
Lead Conv. (many-per-click): 1

The user refreshes the conversion page:

Conversions (one per click): 1
Conversions (many per click): 2 (incremented by 1)
Lead Conv. (many-per-click): 2 (incremented by 1)

The user returns to the lead conversion page a week later from a bookmarked link:

Conversions (one per click): 1
Conversions (many per click): 3 (incremented by 1)
Lead Conv. (many-per-click): 3 (incremented by 1)

The user gets an email from your company two weeks later and then buys something, triggering a sale conversion with a value set at "$100":

Conversions (one per click): 1
Conversions (many per click): 4 (incremented by 1)
Lead Conv. (many-per-click): 3
Sales Conv. (many-per-click): 1 (incremented by 1)
Sales Conv. Value (many-per-click): $100

The user clicks through to a few pages on the site, then uses the back button in their browser to return to the page with the sale conversion tracking code:

Conversions (one per click): 1
Conversions (many per click): 5 (incremented by 1)
Lead Conv. (many-per-click): 3
Sales Conv. (many-per-click): 2 (incremented by 1)
Sales Conv. Value (many-per-click): $200 (incremented by $100)

Reliable tracking is imperative, especially when tracking non-sale and sale conversions together. In the last example above, the "2" sale conversions were really only a single conversion. There is no way to tease the true number out of the data.

Track it once

Clean up your conversion funnel tracking to ensure the tracking script runs only once per conversion. You'll need your web developer's help with this, but there are two primary methods to make sure a single conversion is only counted once:

Better Tracking: Put the conversion tracking script on a page that automatically redirects to the "real" thank-you page after a second or two. This will keep the conversion tracking page from being bookmarked, but won't restrict the "back" button from triggering another conversion on the conversion page reload.

Best Tracking: Set a cookie on the thank-you page with the conversion tracking script. This cookie value can be set to "first-view" for the first view of the page. If the page is reloaded, set the cookie value to "repeat-view." The trick is to test for this cookie value before running the conversion tracking script. Only run the script if this is the "first-view." The cookie should be valid for at least 30 days duration.

Once your data is clean, you can start making sense of the conversion stats. You'll have reason to be confident in your bid decisions and ROI.

Calling Out All AdWords Newbies---Read AdWords Step by Step: A Guide to Building Successful AdWords Campaigns.

2009-06-24T21:22:00Z

If you are new to advertising with Google AdWords and want some additional help setting up your campaigns, but cannot yet afford agency services, read Step by Step---a help guide to getting started with AdWords .

This workbook is a simple, easy-to-understand, 35-page guide that maps out the process of setting up your very own AdWords campaign from start to finish.

The book lays out in 3 fast chapters the processes of organizing your account, picking the right keywords, and writing targeted ads---all essential components to a successful AdWords campaign.

Each chapter is then broken down into simple steps that any beginner would be able to understand, along with a section of key terms and a helpful worksheet at the end to guide you through the setup process of your account.

First, let's start with the section on Organizing Your Account. This section really focuses on helping you, the advertiser, organize your campaign around your personal business goals, concentrating on one goal per campaign. After all, how could you hone in on a specific cost per conversion or certain ROI level for a campaign, if it had more than one goal?

That brings me to another aspect of this handy guide that I liked. Not only does it describe how to go about setting up your campaign, but it also lays out a sample campaign with various goals and how you would break these down into logical ad groups. This process is not so clear in the beginning stages of learning Adwords, so I think advertisers would find this particularly helpful.

I also found the second chapter on Picking the Right Keywords beneficial. If you have the wrong keywords or if your keywords are too general, you will never get your conversions at the right price (or you may not get any at all, for that matter!), so readers, this chapter is essential. It walks you through the steps from start to finish of developing and refining a keyword list and even provides you with links to the tools you will need for this research.

Chapter 2 has a helpful example showing you how to group your keywords, once you have created your keyword list. Many advertisers make the mistake of improperly grouping their keywords or making ad groups with too large of a keyword list, and this guide teaches you how to avoid these common mistakes. It even covers the importance of negative keywords and gives examples of some essential negatives such as "free" and "cheap" that many advertisers commonly make the mistake of not adding.

The final chapter, Writing Targeted Ads, walks you through a 3-step process of ad writing, giving you samples of poorly written ads in comparison with great ads, pointing out in each which parts of the ad are right, and which parts are wrong.

In essence, this short quick, how-to guide would be helpful to any AdWords beginner setting up their first campaign. I would not recommend it to advertisers who immediately want to spend tons of money advertising online, but if you want to get started with some basic campaigns on your own, this guide will give you knowledge you need to get started.

Tie It All Together: Linking Google Analytics Goals With AdWords

2009-06-19T12:05:59Z

Isn't it annoying when you have to click back and forth between your Google AdWords account and your Google Analytics account to see which campaigns, ad groups, and keywords are bringing the most profit bearing conversions for you? Well I have good news... You don't have put up with that headache any longer!

We've seen it in our client accounts for some time now, but Google has just announced that it is now possible to import your goals and transactions from Google Analytics into your AdWords account.

To be able to do this, you must first have your Google AdWords account linked with your Google Analytics account. Once that is set up, you just have to make a few clicks, and you're done.

In the new user interface, you can find conversion tracking under the tools tab.

In the old interface, you can find the Conversion Tracking section under the Campaign Management tab. You should see a box that allows you to "Link your Analytics Goals and Transactions."

Click on that link, and you'll see a list of all goals and transactions you've created in all profiles of your Analytics account. Simply select which ones you want to see in AdWords and click "Link". You are also able to edit the action names.

Your current AdWords conversion actions will remain as you've set them up. Similar to adding additional conversion actions, the reporting should look the same to you, but now, AdWords is including all of the goals you've just linked to and takes all of those conversions into account when calculating your conversion rate and cpa.

You can now take the time you previously spent going back and forth between your two accounts and can spend it optimizing your AdWords account to bring in the most profits for you!

Have You Used Google's New Wonder Wheel?

2009-06-10T14:37:48Z

A few weeks ago our agency received an update that Google released a new tool called Wonder Wheel. I could not help but conjure up all these funny images related to wheel of fortune. After a training session with our Google team, I realized that even with a funny name, this was a very powerful keyword tool.

Here's how to find Google's new Wonder Wheel:

When a searcher types a query into Google a new Show Options link now appears

After clicking the Show Options link a new list of options will populate on the left hand side of the browser window. At the very bottom of the list is the link to the new Wonder Wheel tool

Click the link and a Wonder Wheel will automatically populate for the query currently being searched~

Click any of the "legs" of the Wonder Wheel to get an even more refined wheel~

While searches can use the Wonder Wheel to help narrow their search results, there is a plethora of different ways that advertisers can use this tool to optimize their AdWords campaigns:

Creating New campaigns: If you are starting a campaign from scratch, using this tool can help you decide how to organize your campaigns. Using each leg of the wheel can be a great starting point for creating ad groups. The legs of the wheel are partially based on search volumes, but you will want to also reference Google's keyword tool as well as other resources to get keyword ideas.

Negative Keywords: Google obviously views these keywords as related, so if you see terms that you do not want to advertise on then add them as negative keywords! This is Google's way of giving advertisers more transparency as to how their expanded broad match works. Before adding broad match keywords to your account be sure to reference this tool to ensure you do now show for any highly irrelevant terms.

Building Out Content Campaigns: This tool can be very useful in developing content campaigns. Use each leg of the wheel to build out uniquely themed ad groups for your content campaigns. Then write highly targeted ads around those themes. We've recently learned it's best practice to use 4-6 broad match keywords in content ad groups.

Additional Keywords: If your campaigns have been on autopilot for a while, it's highly likely that your keywords lists are a bit stale. Use this tool to add fresh new keywords to your campaigns.

Ads are being shown next to each generated Wonder Wheel, so adding the relevant queries found by researching with this tool will bring you additional clicks and hopefully conversions! The ad auction for these clicks works in the exact same way as regular google.com clicks.

Hopefully you will find this new tool as useful as I do. Remember to use it in your searches as well as your adwords optimization!

Are you or is your outsourced provider maximizing the results from your Google AdWords account using tools like the new Google Wonder Wheel?

Get a second opinion with our unique Google AdWords account audit and strategy session.

Power Using the New AdWords Interface, Part 2: Integrated Placement Performance Reports

2009-06-08T21:45:55Z

Where are your ads showing up?

A few weeks ago, I posted an article outlining the benefits of the new integrated search query reporting feature built into the updated AdWords user interface.

I covered in depth how the Search Query Report (SQR) could be used to capitalize on new keyword opportunities, previously hidden in the depths of the report center.

I also covered how the new interface's integrated SQR makes finding money-hemorrhaging search queries you're matching on easier than ever to identify and exclude from your account.

Today, I'll be covering the other advertising power tool provided to advertisers in the new interface, the Integrated Placement Performance Report (PPR).

The SQR is only half of the equation for successful micromanagement of your AdWords account since it is only used on the search network.

While most advertisers start their AdWords campaigns on the search network, many continue to neglect the content network. The AdWords content network can be the biggest and most profitable source of traffic for many accounts. As such, using the Placement Performance Report has given us the ability to see which content network websites (placements) our ads are showing on, as well as how they are performing.

While we've had the ability to run PPRs in the AdWords report center for some time now, like the Search Query Report, Google has recognized its usefulness and integrated it into the interface for easier use.

Integrated Placement Performance Reports have made it easier than ever to take charge of your content ads by allowing you to easily identify content sites where you're converting well, as well as sites where your ads are wasting money. Think of it as the SQR for the content network.

To see where your content ad groups are placing ads along with those placements' performance metrics, select any ad group enabled to run on the content network and click on the Networks tab.

You'll be presented with a chart showing the aggregate data for that ad group, segmented into the search network, and the content network.

Under the content network, you'll see two subsections for any Managed placements you've specified for the ad group as well as the Automatic placements where AdWords has placed your ads based on your keyword list. In order to view the placements themselves, make sure you've clicked the 'show details' link next to 'Automatic placements.'

Scroll down to see the list of placements at the bottom of the page. Placements are listed at the domain level along with their performance metrics to the right, just like keywords. You can sort by any column to easily prioritize your work.

Just like with keywords or search queries, I like to sort by cost to see the domains where I'm spending the most money first.

One of the best features of the Integrated Search Query Report is the ability to seamlessly add a domain as a managed placement or conversely exclude the domain from the ad group. To perform either operation, simply check the box next to the target domain and click the appropriate button on the top menu bar.

You can even drill down to an even greater level of detail by viewing placement performance by the URL. This feature is especially useful if you find yourself spending lots of money on a few select domains.

If you notice lots of spend, clicks, or even impressions coming from a particular domain, you can use the 'See URL list' button to see performance metrics for individual pages on that domain.

By taking the time to analyze performance on this level, you can unlock the potential of domains that may have been wasting clicks or impressions due to irrelevant placements.

From the URL report, you can elect to manually manage individual URL bids or alternatively, exclude individual URLs without excluding entire domains. This is particularly helpful for comprehensive sites with lots of variety, a la about.com or ezinearticles.com, where you may have ads turning in top notch performances on pages relevant to your business, but not on the myriad of other content offered by those websites.

With the integrated URL report, you can bid up the pages that are performing well for you while excluding the irrelevant, money wasting pages, all from the same domain. Talk about granularity!

If you're amped about these breakthrough features in the new AdWords interface, and would like to learn about even more new features and their advantages, be sure to check out our new AdWords user interface webinar where you'll see how the new AdWords User Interface will save you hours of your limited time, help you cut wasted adspend, and discover hew highly relevant keywords and placements to scale your online profits!

Google AdWords Updates Editor to Version 7.5.1

2009-06-04T23:21:41Z

On Monday, Inside AdWords, Google's official blog for everything AdWords related, announced the release of a new version of AdWords Editor.

With this new version there are a couple of very helpful updates that increase efficiency when working on your account.

Additionally, the desktop-based keyword tool within Editor has been enhanced by creating a more robust capability in order to increase your presence on both Google's search and content networks.

There are three main upgrades that come with updating Editor to version 7.5.1:

1. Increased efficiency with CSV import feature: Now you are able to work on your AdWords campaigns within Microsoft's Excel and then import them back into Editor.

This is a nice added feature because occasionally you can make sweeping changes more quickly to your account by using various filters within Excel. And if you can take care of the tedious changes more quickly, it frees you up to focus on areas where vast improvement can be made.

Having the luxury to now work in Excel and then import the changed spreadsheet right back into Editor is a great new benefit.

2. The ability to download certain campaigns only when downloading recent changes: Is your AdWords account so large that you could step away from your computer, grab a cup of coffee, a donut and watch an episode of Seinfeld while the account downloads before returning to your computer and begin making changes? If the answer is yes, than this feature is a great addition for you.

With the updated version of Editor you can now download only the campaign or campaigns that you intend to work on.

It's not the biggest update in the world, but when you just want to make one or two very quick changes, this makes the effort more fluid and efficient.

3. New ways to organize new keywords that you research: For quite a while you have been able to conduct keyword research through AdWords Editor in order to avoid the more time consuming user interface. Now, on the search-based keywords tab you have the ability to search for keywords by category.

This new feature is similar to when you browse by category to identify placements for your content network campaigns.

You probably have a good list of keywords that fit your target customers already; however using this feature may uncover some keywords hiding under rocks that could provide valuable traffic for you that are relevant to your product or service category.

As has always been the case, Google comes out with another winning upgrade to their AdWords platform.

The next time you open AdWords Editor you will be asked if you would like to upgrade.

With the benefits mentioned above, it's hard to find a reason not to.

AdWords Increases Transparency of Search Query Performance Reports

2009-06-03T10:47:59Z

If you manage an AdWords account, you're most likely familiar with the Search Query Performance Report, which allows you to view the exact search queries users have typed when they clicked your ad.

Being able to see these actual queries for your broad and phrase match keywords gives you the opportunity to add the queries that perform well as keywords to increase granularity, and find queries that are not converting and add them as negatives to cut the fat.

The only catch was that some queries with very low volume were pooled together in a line item called, "other unique queries." The main issue was that although the queries contained in this grouping had low volume, some advertisers saw that collectively, "other unique queries" accounted for a significant portion of overall traffic.

Needless to say, it's a bit frustrating to run a report for the sole purpose of gaining insight towards what users are typing when they click your ads, only to find that a decent percentage of the data is still hidden behind the curtain.

But, to the excitement of AdWords advertisers everywhere (we're excited at least), last week Google announced that they are getting rid of the "other unique queries" field entirely. So from this point forward, Search Query Performance Reports will include all queries regardless of click volume, the one exception being that clicks from users who have blocked their referrer URL will continue not to show. Also keep in mind that queries done before this update that were listed within the "other unique queries" field will stay that way, so this update doesn't affect your reports retroactively.

Google mentions in their blog that this change will likely result in longer lists, and emphasizes that your focus should still be on the most trafficked queries since concentrating your efforts there will have the greatest impact. This is a very good point, and advertisers will have to make sure to not get caught in the weeds since these reports can be massive, but simple sorting and filtering can make even the most daunting lists manageable.

The bottom line is that this update will only help those managing AdWords accounts, and is just another example of why Google continues to be at the top of the PPC game.

Last Chance To Attend Miami Google™ Analytics Seminars For Success!

2009-05-31T12:14:23Z

One last post before our June 10-11, 2009 seminars in Miami, to remind you that there is still time to take advantage of Seminars for Success, where we share our Google Analytics knowledge with you in person!

Which Google Analytics seminar day is for you?

The Introduction and User Training, on Wednesday, June 10th, is for you if you generate and interpret the reports in Analytics and would like some in depth user training so you can better understand how to really leverage Google Analytics as a powerful website and online marketing reporting tool.

The Advanced Technical Implementation Training, on Thursday, June 11th, is for you if you are the webmaster for your website, are comfortable working with html and javascript, and you either need the technical set up of Analytics explained/shown to you or you have an analytics account, but are not satisfied with the results from a technical setup viewpoint.

There will be plenty of time for Q&A so you can get all your questions answered in a dedicated learning environment.

There is a limit of 40 persons for each session. Learn more about what will be covered and save your seat at our Google Analytics Seminar for Success today.

Each seminar costs $499 (or $998 for both sessions). For attending a session you'll receive a $50 AdWords credit (so you'd receive $100 in AdWords credit for attending both sessions) when you register at least 7 days in advance of the session(s) you'll be attending.

The seminar will be at the Embassy Suites Miami - International Airport.

Each session will be a full day from 9am to 5pm. In order to keep the cost of the seminar as low as possible, lunch will not be provided, but morning and afternoon breaks will be offered.

Don't wait! You can get the training you need to set up and use Google Analytics in one (maybe two) days!

Resellers Rejoice: Google Relaxes U.S. Trademark Policy

2009-05-30T10:57:00Z

To the delight of many, Google announced an update in their AdWords trademark policy that will go live on June 15th for advertisers in the U.S. only.

In short, a few categories of advertisers who were previously unable to use a trademarked term in their ad text will be allowed to do so - even if they don't own the trademark or have explicit approval from the trademark owner to use it.

These lucky advertisers include the following:

Resellers of the trademarked goods or services
Sellers of components, replacement parts or compatible products corresponding to a trademark
Informational/review sites that provide non-competitive and informative details about the goods or services corresponding to the trademarked term.

So for any of these types of advertisers who have ever felt the pain of bidding on a trademarked keyword but were unable to use the actual term in their ad text, rejoice! By allowing advertisers to highlight their specific inventory to users and create more specific ad creatives, Google intends for the increased query to ad text relevancy to boost CTRs, improve Quality Scores, and increase conversion rates.

Dan Friedman of the Inside AdWords crew makes a great analogy on the AdWords blog, likening the problem to newspaper ads from a supermarket only listing the categories of products on sale, such as "Buy discount cola" and "Snacks on sale". Would this really be any good to you if you didn't know what kind of cola or snacks were being offered? Not at all, and so this is why Google is making this change to improve ad quality and user experience by discouraging overly generic and low quality ads.

As a simple PPC example, let's say that you're a company who retails Boston Red Sox merchandise online (what great timing for this policy update!). The MLB has always been especially stringent on policing their trademark laws, so if Mr. HugeRedSoxFan Googles "boston red sox apparel", he'll see your ad with others that have fairly generic headlines such as "Boston Team Apparel", "Boston Baseball Apparel", etc., with the exception being the official Shop.MLB.com ad that has "Boston Red Sox Apparel" as the headline.

Under the new policy, you'll be able to specifically state in your ad that the apparel you sell is not just any random Boston team or Boston baseball organization apparel, but is in fact Boston Red Sox Apparel. It's just what Mr. HugeRedSoxFan is searching for, and he'll have no doubt about what you're selling if he clicks on your ad.

Of course, there are advertisers who aren't particularly overjoyed by this new update.

Starting June 15th, trademark owners may see their trademarked term ads blending in with the landscape and also lose their previously clear CTR/Quality Score advantage. For trademark owners as well as those bidding on trademarked terms, it will be imperative to not lose focus on differentiating your offer within your ad text when the new policy takes effect. Also, for competitors, critics, and counterfeiters -- sorry, but you're still not allowed to use trademarked terms in your ad text.

So for all you lucky advertisers:

You can go ahead and submit ads now that contain trademarked terms for review, and eligible ads* will begin showing in the U.S. only on June 15th.
If you have ads in your account which were previously disapproved for trademark policy reasons but will comply with the new policy, you can submit those ads for re-review now and eligible ads* will begin showing in the U.S. only on June 15th.

*To determine which ads adhere to the new policy and are eligible to run, Google will check BOTH the creative and the landing page content. Your site must either sell (or clearly facilitate the sale of) goods or services corresponding to a trademarked term, or as information site you must clearly provide non-competitive and informative details about the goods or service corresponding to the trademarked term. Therefore, make sure that your landing pages meet these guidelines!

For FAQs regarding Google's trademark policy, please click here.

How To Use Google Search Suggest's New Enhancements To Monitor Your Brand and Keywords

2009-05-29T10:56:21Z

Google wants you to find the information you're looking for fast, without having to search multiple times to get what you want.

While I won't bore you with all the details of what's changed, I'll briefly summarize the main changes: Google has added AdWords ads to the Google Suggest box, tries to point searchers of "navigational queries" directly to the website, and makes suggestions not just on the homepage of Google.com, but on the search results page as well.

An example of a search suggestion box showing a navigational link and an AdWords ad is below:

Pretty cool, huh?

Well, I'll give you some ideas on how you can use this new tool to research variations of major keywords, observe what customers are saying about you and your brand, and see what people think of your competitors.

Open up a new window and start to type in your brand name or product and see what comes up.

Many times I see "scam", "fraud", "reviews", "complaints", and "alternative" being suggested for particular brands. There's nothing you can do to change this, but it should give you some insight into what your customers are typing in regarding your brand or product.

Keep your customers happy and the search volume should be very low for these types of terms, meaning Google won't suggest them, and therefore people won't get the funny idea that you're running some sort of scam. Remember, it's not what you say about your brand that counts; It's what Google says that matters.

You can use this same method for your competitors' brands and products. It will give you great insight into what others are saying, be it praise or frustration.

Another way to use this feature to grow your business is to begin to type in some of your major keywords. Do you see any that you're not bidding on? Do you see any that might make for good negative keywords in your account? These search terms that Google is suggesting to its users are sure to gain additional volume over time, as searchers realize that one of the suggestions being made is actually what they meant to search for in the first place.

I predict the wide, broad terms might even lose volume as users begin to type in a broad search term, then refine it with one of the suggestions Google makes.

For fun, if you want to just play around with the tool, I like to type in a brand with the word "is". You'll get some pretty funny suggestions:

What is Google's Search Suggest tool saying about your business?

If you are a self-managed AdWords advertiser and found this tip helpful, you may want to learn more about our Google AdWords account audit and strategy session where we'll research and then present specific tips for your account structure, campaign settings, keywords (including negatives), conversion tracking analysis and much more.

Understanding Correlations in Google Analytics

2009-05-28T14:25:04Z

Website traffic does not exist in a vacuum. Here's a simple example: Jack comes to your website on Monday after seeing one of your AdWords content ads and he likes what he sees. He's a careful shopper though, so he's not ready to commit quite yet and leaves the site for the day. He takes some time and does some comparison shopping throughout the week, talks to some of his friends and comes back to your site again after typing your company name into Google and clicking on an organic result. He sees an offer for a 10% off coupon if he signs up for your newsletter, so he does, and then leaves the site again. In a week, he gets an email about a sale you are having, and clicks on a link within the email, finally making a purchase on this, his third visit.

So the big question is - how does this show up in Google Analytics? Does AdWords get any credit for the sale? The simple answer is no. Depending on if you are tracking your emails in Google Analytics (and how you are doing it), you'll either see a conversion for the email, the organic branded search or even a direct visit. Wouldn't it be nice to know that at one point AdWords had something to do with the sale? Better yet, wouldn't you like to know the Campaign, Ad Group and Keyword that was responsible?

Jack's example is a very common one, and pretty simple in comparison to the way a lot of people use the Internet, so it is important to try and understand the relationships between your different traffic sources.

Still don't care? Let me give you a real-world example of what can happen if you ignore it:

Case Study: A company that deals in a software product noticed that it was getting what looked like a pretty poor return on Content Network traffic from AdWords (responsible for what Google Analytics reported as roughly 5% of daily revenue). In an attempt to reduce costs, they decided to pause this traffic completely. The result was that almost immediately they noticed a 15-20% drop in daily revenue!

What the heck happened? Well, it turns out a large percentage of that content traffic was coming back as either organic branded traffic or direct traffic. They never bothered to look at the relationship between their content traffic and other traffic sources, and it cost them.

Conversely, by understanding this relationship, they have been able to not only gain back the 15-20% that they lost, but improve the return even further!

So how can you learn from their mistake? Here are a few things you can do, ranging from fairly simple to more complex, to help you grasp the relationship between your marketing sources and mediums:

Method #1: Look for basic correlations.

Depending on your site and where you are spending your advertising dollars, your traffic will have a different dynamic. Since my specialty is in dealing with Paid Search traffic from Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing, and MSN AdCenter, I am going to focus on analyzing results from AdWords.

The two most common sources that will see a bump from AdWords traffic are direct visitors and organic traffic from branded keywords (and possibly email visitors).

There are a few ways that you can look and see if there is any kind of relationship between these different kinds of traffic. The first and most basic is to use the Google Analytics timeline to compare date ranges for these different kinds of traffic.

First, select a date range you would like to compare. In this case, we're doing a week-to-week comparison:

Second, you can choose to show the Medium from the dropdown list. This is optional, but since we're looking at really top-level data, it does the job:

Here's what we saw in the report:

Now, we're simply looking for clues here - nothing set in stone. We just want to know if there's a possibility that cpc traffic is affecting direct and organic traffic. We'll do more digging in a bit, but as you can see from the trend, it looks like all three sources trended down from the previous week. This simply means that there is an opportunity to learn more. This is something you most likely want to check again if you make any major changes to your AdWords strategy.

If you have the time, you can do this at a more granular level, by breaking it down into day-by-day trends. You'd get something like this:

Looks like there is some kind of relationship there, doesn't it?

You can also see basic trends by using Advanced Segments feature of Google Analytics. You can select the following segments:

to see the data over time for all three mediums.

Note that if your traffic is unbalanced (i.e. 80% cpc), this graph may be a little harder to read, in which case I recommend exporting the data into Excel to get results similar to the ones I've posted above.

Either way, it still seems clear that there is some kind of relationship here. This of course begs the question, what is that relationship and how can I quantify it? For that, you have some more options.

Method #2: Use the User Defined Variable within Google Analytics.

This method will provide you will a much more specific level of analysis than method #1, although the two can be used in conjunction. Typically, you would do this after checking to see if there are any correlations by doing a more general analysis. I'm going to cover this strategy as it pertains to AdWords, although you could certainly modify this strategy to do even more robust analysis.

The idea is that whenever a visitor comes to your site via AdWords (or YSM or MSN), you set the User Defined variable for Google Analytics that does not get overwritten. You obviously have to do some coding to accomplish this, but it's fairly straightforward.

Even if the regular Google Analytics cookies are overwritten, you still have the User Defined variables hanging around unchanged so that you can see which percentage of direct and organic (and other) traffic has at one point clicked on one of your ads.

You do this by using segmentation within your All Traffic Sources report. First, I recommend changing the view to Medium again, and then clicking on one of the non-cpc mediums on the list. For example, if I segment direct traffic by User Defined, I might see the following report:

Because this report only represents direct traffic, and that 'not set' represents people who have never been tagged as having come from cpc, that means that a whopping 41% of all direct traffic for this time period has at one point come from AdWords! Not only that, but if we wanted to go over to the Ecommerce tab, we would get a feel for whether or not those visitors are more valuable than normal direct traffic.

Eventually, you'll be able to break down all of your traffic in this way:

What you are seeing is the residual effects of AdWords traffic - traffic you otherwise would have missed entirely. If you want to take it a step further, you could include the Campaign, Ad Group, and Keyword in your User Defined variable and get even more bang for your buck!

Even though this is a great way to get more data, there still are some other questions. What about people who use multiple computers? Or delete cookies? What can you do? I won't go into too much detail, but the idea is similar.

Method #3: Use a custom system.

This really depends on what's possible with your internal customer organization systems, but there are a variety of things you can do here. One I've seen is to keep a custom cookie for users that is then associated with them when they create an account for your store (or sign up for your newsletter). This way, even if they come back from a different computer later, you can see their entire history and associate it with a keyword.

I've seen a lot of different variations of this system - but the vast majority of this information will still be limited by the same things that limit web analytics in general - mainly cookie blocking/deletion and JavaScript disabling.

That's it! Feel free to customize these ideas to fit your own needs.

Tracking Transactions back to the Initial Referrer with Google Analytics

2009-05-21T14:20:00Z

Google Analytics, by default, will attribute transactions to the last referrer. While this is all fine and good, there are some situations where you would really like to be able to track these transactions back to the initial referrer rather than the last referrer. For example, you may be spending money on AdWords traffic to get visitors to the site initially, but many of the actual transactions aren't occurring until later when they've returned to the site organically. You can change your Google Analytics Tracking Code so that it credits these transactions to the initial referrer rather than the last referrer, allowing you to get a better handle on the return for your paid marketing efforts. One issue with changing your Google Analytics code so that it gives transaction credit to the first referrer rather than the last referrer, however, is that this is a permanent change affecting all profiles. You can't have one profile that gives first referrer credit and another profile that gives last referrer credit because both profiles will use the same set of cookies, even if those profiles use separate account numbers. You can work around this, however, by using a local, modified version of ga.js. The original ga.js modification and idea comes from John Henson at Lunametrics, though I've tweaked a few things for my own purposes. His post that I'm referencing isn't directly related to this modification, but there are some tie-ins to the overall idea of using different cookies. If you want to switch all of your profiles over to track initial referrer rather than last referrer, you can just use the following code:

If, however, you want to be able to track first referrer in a separate profile, you will need to follow these steps: 1. Upload ga.js file to your site. Get the file here. Remember where you uploaded the file as you'll need this later. 2. Create a profile with a new account number: To do this, start with the Analytics Settings page, click "Add Website Profile", then select "Add a Profile for a new domain". You can enter the same URL as your current profiles, but selecting this option means that this new profile will use a new account number, separate from all of your existing profiles. After you create this profile, make a note of the account number or "Web Property ID" as we'll use this later. 3. Add the following code to your site, either before or after your Google Analytics Tracking Code:

You will need to supply the correct path for the local ga.js file that you uploaded to your site back at step one and the account number for the profile that you noted when you created the new profile at step 2. That's all there is to it. To see best the effect on your ecommerce attribution, I would also add Shawn's transaction filter set to your profiles. This filter set will add the source, medium, and keyword to the end of each transaction ID. You can then compare the Transactions report for both profiles to see both the initial referrer and the latest referrer for each of your transactions. I feel obligated at this point to offer an explanation for this code and how it works. You shouldn't feel obligated to read it, however, so feel free to drop out at any time. For additional advanced javascript techniques and other Google Analytics know-how to help you get the most out of Google Analytics, join Shawn Purtell and Michael Harrison in Miami for our Google Analytics Seminar for Success. Again, what follows is rather technical in nature. The second code I gave you differs from the code above it in a few important ways: 1. I use the firstTracker object instead of pageTracker. This is important if we want to be able to register events or virtual pageviews for one or both profile types. 2. Instead of using _gat._getTracker, I use _roit._getTracker. I modified the local ga.js file to use roit instead so that the original tracker object, pageTracker, would not be affected by the local ga.js code. This is important in case the standard Google Analytics Tracking Code happens to be placed below the initial referrer tracking code. 3. The code checks for the presence of __roia instead of __utma. That's because the local ga.js file uses an entirely separate set of cookies than the standard Google Analytics Tracking Code. That's how we're able to attribute transactions to the initial referrer in one profile and the last referrer in other profiles. There are several important aspects to what both of these codes do: 1. They check to see whether or not this is the first visit based on the existence of the __utma or __roia cookie. If it exists, we make sure that the original referrer won't be overridden by anything new. If it's missing, we let the tracking code run as normal so that all usual referral data is captured in the __utmz cookie. 2. The first thing we do to prevent the original referral from being overwritten is to use the _setReferrerOverride method. This method tells Google Analytics to use the referrer we pass to it rather than the actual referrer. In our case, we want Google Analytics to treat this as a direct visit, so we pass the empty string to this function. There's no official documentation available for _setReferrerOverride, but I believe credit for discovering this method goes to Ophir. He also gives an excellent use for the function in his post. 3. We set all of the usual UTM Campaign variables to use a bogus parameter name. I use the parameter name "zzz" here, but you can use something else if zzz is a legit parameter name for you or you think it might become one in the future. Also note that you can technically call all of these methods without parameters with the same result: pageTracker._setReferrerOverride(); pageTracker._setCampNameKey(); pageTracker._setCampMediumKey(); pageTracker._setCampSourceKey(); pageTracker._setCampTermKey(); pageTracker._setCampContentKey(); pageTracker._setCampCIdKey(); This can be done based on a how the methods handle parameters, however, and does not indicate how these methods are normally used. Most of the methods used to override parameters are officially documented. I found the _setCampCIdKey method on my own, though it's likely others know about it. This method tells Google Analytics to use something other than the gclid parameter for tracking AdWords hits when autotagging. There's probably not much use for it other than preventing a second AdWords hit from overriding the referral data for a previous hit. That just about wraps things up. Feel free to leave comments if you want additional explanations on a particular aspect of these methods, or for any other reason. Again, we'll be going over techniques like this and so much more in our Google Analytics Training Seminars.

5 Advanced Segments for Ecommerce Analysis

2009-05-15T13:43:17Z

Back in the day when I was but a wee web analyst, if I wanted to segment my website traffic data with Google Analytics, I had to use filters. This meant a lot of upfront work, a flimsy and fragile analysis environment, and way too many profiles.

It was also pretty limited. I could segment by dimensions and a select handful of metrics only. If I wanted to see only the traffic that came from a specific source and then bought a high priced item from my online store, I was out of luck.

Now, though... Now we have Advanced Segments. You kids are so lucky these days with your iPhones and text messages and Advanced Segments. Why, in my time we had to work for our segmentation.

Instead of complaining about the past, though, I guess I'll just look to the future with five advanced segments that can help you breeze through your own analytics ecommerce data. Hit the jump for more information on how you can start slicing and dicing your way toward better insights about your sales.

1. Visits with Transactions

Even the default advanced segments have a lot to offer. The Visits with Transactions segment gets rid of all the non-converting traffic, showing you only those visits that included a purchase from your site. You can look for popular pages, sources, geographic locations, and keywords that helped your customers decide to buy.

Try checking out the Visits report and selecting the Visits with Transactions, Paid Visits, and Non-Paid Visits Advanced Segments. Then graph by hour. How do transactions correlate to the rise and fall of paid and non-paid traffic throughout the day? Should you dig a little deeper and perhaps adjust your advertising day parting accordingly?

2. Landing Page Testing for Revenue

The Top Landing Pages report is great if you're only interested in bounce metrics, but what if you want to see how much money a landing page generated? One way of getting at this data is by creating an advanced segment for each landing page.

Once you apply these segments to your reports, you can see all traffic that originated at a specific landing page. In addition to revenue, try analyzing time on site, internal site searches, and clickpath data. You can use the information that you collect here to supplement your Google Website Optimizer reports with additional metrics. If one landing page generates more orders but the other generates more revenue, which is the true victor?

(Believe it or not, you can actually use the Map Overlay report without configuring an advanced segment to access ecommerce data for landing pages. Just go to the report and choose the Landing Page dimension from the dropdown.)

3. Product Correlation

Now that Secondary Dimensions and Pivoting have been announced, it's possible to do some deep digging right inside your data tables.

Even with the advent of these tools, sometimes it's easier and more effective to put the blinders on, zoom in on one slice of data, and just ignore the rest. When it comes to product correlation, sometimes an advanced segment that focuses on one product type or category is the best way to go.

After applying the segment, you can browse through your reports—the Traffic Sources reports are a good place to start—with an eye toward correlation. Is there an errant ad group that seems to be performing well for a specific product, despite its unrelated ad text and keywords? Maybe you've struck gold with one traffic source/product combination and you never realized it? Use these insights to better target your advertising and really squeeze the opportunity for all it's worth.

4. Big Ticket Transactions

Let's say you have a number of loss leaders on your site designed to attract customers to your big ticket products. If you're interested in the sources that drive only those high value visitors to your site, you can create a segment that ignores low revenue transactions and focuses only on the big ones.

Previously with profile filters there were very few ways to modify your report data based on the actual metrics of your site. With advanced filters, you can select a metric from the blue list to the left and set a value or a threshold. If you only want to see transactions with revenue greater than $50, just set the segment like this:

Now you can learn a thing or two about the high rollers on your website.

5. Return Customer Efforts

If you have any sort of membership programs, tracking returning transactions and customer retention is a great way to increase revenue. Using the New vs. Returning report is a very basic way of examining these trends, but it's based on the Google Analytics cookie. People surf from multiple browsers and multiple computers, but if you have a membership program or the ability to track customer accounts, chances are you will know whether or not someone is a return customer.

Try dynamically inserting the customer's status into the "affiliate" ecommerce field (more information about the fields can be found in Caitlin's article from last week). It would like something like:

pageTracker._addTrans("123456789", "return", "15.00", "0.00", "1.00", "Raleigh", "NC", "US");

Because each transaction now has a marker, you can create an advanced segment to zoom in on only those with the "return" tag.

Now monitor your retention efforts. You're testing out a new coupon program? Did it boost your return customer transactions? Did it boost overall revenue? Now you can find out.

There you have it. Five ways to slice and dice your ecommerce data with Google Analytics Advanced Segments. Let me know in the comments if you've found any cool ways to customize your own data, and whether or not you find these useful. If you're looking for more tips on advanced segments and other Google Analytics know-how, join me and my co-presenter Shawn Purtell for our Google Analytics Seminar for Success.