One of the main benefits, but also downsides of Google Analytics, is just how much data is collected. You have the ability to find the answers to the majority of your questions about your website and its visitors by using this tool. Find being the operative word unfortunately. Try asking a member of your company that isn't intimately familiar with GA to quickly get a certain metric for an upcoming meeting. If you have either asked, or been asked this question you can understand the problem.Learning how to use GA effectively takes time and practice, which most of us do not have.The most valuable implementations that I have taken part in this year have all included creating custom dashboards for different...
Read More
February 2009 Archives
On February 13-16th, 2009 a small number of Google Analytics accounts did not have their cost data imported from their AdWords account properly.
Don't fret! Google is aware of the problem and will be reprocessing the data. It will be restored to affected accounts in the coming weeks.
Read More
Using Video to Promote Your Business
By on February 25, 2009 2:55 PM
Are you viewing more video online lately? The answer is probably yes and statistics say so is everyone else. comScore reports that U.S. online video viewing surged 13% in Record-Setting December '08. In December of '08, there were over 14 BILLION videos viewed online!Are you taking advantage of this trend? As an internet marketing company, we help our clients create and disseminate video throughout the web. Here is a list of sites that you should consider when placing videos online. Remember to tag your videos with keywords that are relevant to your product or service. The idea here is to have your video achieve first page ranking for keyword searches that are relevant to your business and...
Read More
Email Marketing Fundamentals
By on February 21, 2009 2:25 AM
I've written and spoken extensively on email marketing. Perhaps one of the most Before you click send on your next email marketing campaign, consider the following fundamentals that will make your email campaign perform better, and also help you better serve the subscribers on your list. The payback is simple... greater response.First, the Three Laws of Email Marketing:The email must be anticipatedThe email must be relevantThe email must have valueSound easy enough... perhaps consider that billions of emails are sent every day that break one or more of the three laws. I would go so far to suggest that if you look at your historical email marketing campaigns, you would likely at least some room for improvement.Taking a closer look...
Read More
Is Social Media Worth Your Time
By on February 20, 2009 2:19 PM
Everyone just said "of course". And of course, I agree. With that said,you need to ask yourselve how much time are you spending contributing to blogs, updating your FaceBook page or uploading images to Flickr.Networking has always been a credible source for leads and sales. Social marketing has made networking easier and more scalable. As an Internet Marketing Company, we stay focused on networking our clients through many social marketing outlets. The results speak for themselves. The bottom line is that networking has always worked.The rules of business have not changed, just the location of the game.
Read More
Call for Questions: Google Analytics Configuration and Advanced Features
By on February 16, 2009 5:24 AM
We've been getting deluged with calls from our readers on with configuration and support questions on Google Analytics!We want to answer as many as possible (and still serve all our paying customers!) So please post them as comments to this article for now, until we have a better way to handle them.We love sharing the knowledge of internet marketing and web analytics we've developed over the past 10 years so post us a question in a comment here today!
Read More
Mardi Gras and Marketing
By on February 16, 2009 5:09 AM
I'm down visiting our New Orleans office just before Mardi Gras, and frankly taking a break from thinking about Internet marketing, email and web analytics for a few days over President's day weekend. If you know what it's like to have a mind always cranking, you'll appreciate this note.As I am walking down world famous Bourbon Street mid-day when it's still G-rated, I cannot help but notice the number of tourists fumbling with iPhones, all surfing the web. I casually eves drop, which isn't so hard for the few folks inadvertantly zig-zagging their way down the street.Seemingly everyone around me was either on the web looking for the next thing to do, or had recently got off the web at the hotel. It's probably a safe bet that the...
Read More
Consumer Behavior Should Drive Internet Marketing Decisions
By on February 12, 2009 8:55 PM
What makes more sense... using the proverbial "focus group of one" ("I think...") or "consumer research" where peers, consultants and colleagues "tell" you what they "think" or using web analytics where you use data from the consumers actions to make factual, data driven decisions? Our experience shows consistently that using unadulterated consumer behavior data to make decisions about changes to your websites is the best way to optimize your messaging, page architecture, and look and feel.Weather you have Google Analytics installed on your site already or not, a Google Analytics Certified Partner is a good idea for a next step. These organizations have been formally vetted and Authorized by Google to work with...
Read More
Internet Marketing Landing Pages
By on February 9, 2009 11:19 PM
For ten years we've been working with a variety of direct response internet marketing companies. One variable that has consistently separated the winners from the rest in terms of leads generated and sales produced has been the landing pages.To believe that in this day and age direct and online marketers are still sending search marketing and display advertising traffic to a un-optimized or poorly optimized landing page is difficult. It's even worse when it comes to email marketing to a house list --which is perceived as "free" which leads to even less attention to the quality of the page clickers land on.First a few pointers to the vast "unwashed" small businesses out there that are spending on search engine marketing traffic to...
Read More
Hiring a Search Optimization Marketing Company
By on February 5, 2009 11:38 PM
I get a dozen requests a week for advice on hiring a SEO firm.Arguably, flattery may get you everywhere in marketing, but not in the Google SERPs. I know the struggle of many online marketers when it comes to SEO, and so here are just a few tips for small to mid-size firms considering hiring an SEO.Set a budget.Going into the process, you have to consider what you would be willing to invest to achieve the kind of results you expect. In order to do this you need to chose your keywords up front, and determine how many searches there are on those keywords. That is, are those keywords economically viable if you were to rank high on page one?Calculate your proforma return with assumptions on the number of clicks if you were to achieve...
Read More
You don't have to be a programmer or developer to be an advanced user of Google Analytics. One of the most powerful aspects of the tool is also one of the most basic features to set up, Goals.
The first step towards setting up goals is determining what you would like to consider a conversion for your website. These are unique to every site but often include; a lead form filled out, a reservation made, a purchase completed, a download, or simply a view of a particular page. Goals usually have an action of economic value for the company or individual running the website, but will always need a unique thank you page or URL that is specific to the goal being complete.
Once your goals have been est...
Read More
Internet Marketing Companies and Clients
By on February 3, 2009 10:24 PM
Internet marketing companies work with clients in three ways.The Agency Tells.This is easier than trying to understand the client, right? We just tell the client what the problem is, what they need to do to solve it and just do it. We use all of our previous experience to "prove" how smart we are and that we are experts.The Agency Accepts.The client tells us what they want and we deliver. We don't ask any real questions. We don't look at previous data. We just take the order and get to work.The Agency Guesses.Of course, agency gurus don't call this guessing, they call it a diagnosis or analysis. If you didn't know any better, you would swear it was guessing. A couple of agency people spend...
Read More
Analytics 3.0 "Predictive Analytics"
By on February 3, 2009 12:43 PM
With the advent of Google Analytics the rapidly dominant standard in web analytics, hundreds of thousands of small to mid-sized online marketers jumped in and began reporting on consumer behaviors on their sites. This made for great discussion and was thought provoking. It spurred marketers to "copy and paste" GA tags into their sites at a blistering pace, in short order, GA had an 80% market share.Big players like Omniture had a long head start, and though their relative share of the market fell, they also held tight to the larger and enterprise client base. Their product was mature --and considered complex.Google rolled out Google Analytics 2.0 which ushered in a generation of enterprise-class online marketing features....
Read More
Internet Marketing Companies- Educators and Implementors
By on February 2, 2009 9:18 AM
Continuing with my comparison of the early days of television advertising and today's online advertising environment , I wanted to drill down a little more on the client / agency relationship.As an online marketing company, we should not be surprised when we speak to companies that have not embraced internet marketing or email marketing. Many companies have used traditional marketing to launch and grow their business. In some cases, companies have been using broadcast, print and direct mail for 30 to 40 years. Many of these companies have had great success with traditional marketing tactics.Just last week, I was speaking to an 8-figure retailer who has recently started an internal conversation about the benefits...
Read More
