YouTube now offers more analytics

Want more info about how popular your YouTube videos are, and where your viewers are coming from? According to Nick Jakobi, a product manager at YouTube,

"Google Analytics enthusiasts, those of you who post videos to YouTube may be interested to learn about our new video analytics tool called YouTube Insight. Find out location data and relative popularity of your video, as well as over-time changes. Read about this new service on the YouTube blog."

Bravo, Youtube! Check out a screenshot:



Posted by Jeff Gillis, Google Analytics Team

CPC: Maximum, average and minimum. An earlier post re-visited

As the Inside AdWords blog approaches its three year anniversary we thought it would be useful to repeat a few reader favorites from our distant past, for those of you who have joined us only recently.

Today we re-visit a popular post from 2006, regarding the several ways in which you'll see 'CPC' mentioned in your account.

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Over the years, a specialized vocabulary has evolved around cost-per-click (CPC) advertising, and many newer advertisers find themselves a bit at sea until they've spent a good amount of time with their accounts -- and in the AdWords Help Center, where they'll find a helpful glossary of the most commonly used terms.

One particular area of confusion revolves around the three types of CPCs -- Maximum CPC, Average CPC, and Minimum CPC -- so let's take a closer look at these terms:

CPC is an abbreviation for cost-per-click, and refers to the cost that you will pay (per click) when a user clicks on your ad.

Maximum CPC is a maximum amount that is set by you, the advertiser, and defines the most you wish to pay for a click on a keyword. Keep in mind that you don't automatically pay this maximum amount because the AdWords Discounter will always reduce the amount you are charged to be just one cent more than the minimum necessary to keep your position on the page.

Average CPC (also seen as Avg. CPC in your account) is literally that: an average. Since each click you receive may have a different CPC depending on a variety of factors, we show you the Average CPC in your account to give you an effective overview. The Average CPC is determined by totalling the cost of all clicks and then dividing that total by the number of clicks.

Minimum CPC (more commonly known as the minimum bid) is an amount based on the keyword's Quality Score that is assigned to each keyword in your account. The minimum bid is the least amount you may pay per click in order for your keyword to show ads.

We hope this sheds some light on the subject - and invite you to do a little further exploring in the searchable Help Center, if you'd like a greater depth of detail.

Posted by Blake, Inside AdWords crew

Starbucks At it Again...

Greetings...

Spring is FINALLY starting to arrive in Ohio and I am SO looking forward to it. Spring usually means changes are coming and new growth is here...

To that end, my blog post today is about Starbucks. My friends at Customer Evangelists posted a unique discussion about Starbucks and their use of social media.

Many banks are beginning to dip their toe into social media. It has been documented about Chase's use of "virtual branches" in virtual world games, others using Facebook or MySpace to chart into unchartered waters with the millenial generation, however, not many people has truly used social media to help "fix problems." Starbucks has hit many potholes over the past year and their stock has taken the toll and their reputation has been faltering. Howard Schultz, their dynamic former Chairman, is back in charge. Recently, they closed ALL store locations for a 3 hour period for retraining and a brand promise recap for ALL staff across the world. An unprecedented, but very necessary, step to get the Starbucks "house" back in order.

So where do they go from here? What else do they address? What needs fixing? Well, this is the message of my post...they ASKED their customers! Most everyone has some sort of feedback mechanism for customer comments, either cards, emails or website sections. Starbucks launched "MyStarbuckIdea" that collects the ideas of customers (issues, concerns, new ideas, etc.) and puts them up for a discussion and vote (how democratic and revolutionary to truly find out the pulse of the customer base at large.)

As noted by Customer Evangelists, the true test of this concept will be in the follow-through by Starbucks. Will they actually implement voted ideas? Will they provide feedback? Will they actually make changes?

If they do...this could be the turning point for Starbucks...we shall see.

Stay tuned!

Cheers!

Bruce

Did that really just happen?

Last week I went to the bank in an effort to make a deposit into my savings account. I don't keep a register for my savings account, and I do nearly all of my banking online. So, on this particular sunny Colorado day, I walked into the closest branch of "my" bank, handed the teller my endorsed check, a deposit slip (that was not complete) and my ID, and admitted that I had NO IDEA what my savings account number was.

Tom T. Teller said the easiest way to find my account was with my Social Security Number. That bugs me...he wants me to rattle off my SSN right there in the lobby of the bank with another customer making their transaction at the window next to me. In that I didn't have the time to argue the idea, I very quietly rattled off the most important numbers in my life as Mr. Teller repeated them in what seemed like a shout but I am sure was more of a conversational volume. Still, did that really just happen? UGH!!!

Wait, it gets better!

So as we were finishing the transaction, I noticed that they are having a mortgage "sale." That mortgages new to the bank (even a refinance as long as the re-fi is from another institution) could qualify for up to .50% rate reduction! I was interested so I asked Tom Teller about it. He said, "That isn't really my job so I have no idea what that is all about. You should check into it and let me know if it is a good deal or not." We weren't talking about Happy Hour at Sonic (and yes, that's a good deal!!), we were talking about HIS BANK offing THEIR CUSTOMERS (ME!!) a discounted rate in a scary mortgage environment. He has no idea that I get it and that I know his job as well as he does (and I would argue that I even know it better!!!) He just had the opportunity to cross-sell me to the moon and decided that it wasn't really his job.

UGH! Did that really just happen too?

Do I really need to illustrate the moral of the story here? Assuming nothing...here goes: If you are going to roll out a marketing campaign that has the potential to increase the bank's profitability, cross-sell your customers, increase your loan portfolio, make sure your tellers understand that their job, at a minimum, includes being able to at least read the sign and understand who to the direct inquiring traffic to. That's all I ask.

Here's to training people to communicate better!

Happy Monday!
Jenna

Demographic bidding now available

In January, we invited AdWords advertisers to join a beta test of a new feature: demographic bidding. Many of you responded and helped make that test a success, and we'd like to offer our sincere thanks.

Today we're announcing that demographic bidding is now available for all AdWords advertisers.

What is demographic bidding? It's a feature that helps you target your ads to users of a particular age group (such as ages 18-24), by gender, or to combinations of those groups. You can use demographic bidding whether you are using contextual or placement targeting and with both CPC and CPM bidding. You can refine your reach based on users' gender and age on certain sites in the Google content network such as MySpace and Friendster, whose users provide that information about themselves. AdWords receives the data in anonymous and aggregate form from participating partner sites, which means that users can’t be personally identified.

Here's an example of how demographic bidding works: suppose you sell women's basketball shoes and want your ad to be seen by 18-24 year-old females. You could raise your bids to increase the frequency with which those users see your ads. You can also restrict your ads from certain users if you think they're not meeting your ROI goals. In the case of women's basketball shoes, you might find that the male, 18-24 year-old demographic is receiving a significant number of impressions but not clicking-through or converting well, and decide to restrict that group.

Overall, demographic bidding gives you more control over the demographic groups who see your ads. You can also use demographic reports, available in the AdWords Report Center, to get insight into how your ads perform for specific demographics. These metrics can help you decide how to adjust your bid modifiers and restricts to reach the audiences that give you the most clicks and the best ROI.

Lastly, it's helpful to know that demographic bidding and demographic site selection are two separate ways of targeting your ads. Demographic site selection, found in the AdWords Placement Tool, helps you find and target entire websites that, in general and based on comScore data, have the audience you're trying to reach. On the other hand, demographic bidding lets you modify your bids or restrict your ads' visibility based on the age and gender of the users viewing your ads on participating sites in the Google content network.

Ready to give it a try? Learn more and get started.

Posted by Trevor, Inside AdWords crew

Benchmarking Data Now Live!

On March 5th, we announced the rollout of our new Benchmarking reports. These reports provide context to your Google Analytics data based on industry verticals so that you can gain more insights for your own business. As of today, users should start seeing Benchmarking industry data populate in Google Analytics. The number of verticals and the quality of the data will likely grow as more and more customers enable this feature.

It is important to note that Benchmarking is opt-in only, so if you haven't yet enabled benchmarking in your account, but would like to, please do so now. Simply have your account's administrator login to the data sharing settings page and select "Share my Google Analytics data... Anonymously with Google products and the benchmarking service".

Posted by Christian Yee, Google Analytics Team

The Second Quarter

The second quarter of everything is important. In football, the team in the lead at the end of the second quarter often wins the game. In basketball, the second quarter makes a time when the players can push their abilities and stamina to the max, knowing that they have a break at the end.

In banking, the end of the second quarter also marks the half way point. So, before the year escapes us, take a minute as we wrap up the first quarter of the year to take a step back, evaluate our marketing plan and make sure we are on track to deliver. This blog will be short, but also very important! Here are three questions you should be asking:

1. Are we on track to execute the plan as written, on time, on budget and with the predicted results?

If everything is in line then you are good to go. Reality checks are the most difficult part of a marketing plan. And we like to consider marketing plans as more of a guideline to operate within. The plan is the ultimate goal to be reached barring any unforeseen circumstances. The best marketers have solid plans and execute them flawlessly, all the while understanding that the marketplace is a constant moving target. We must be prepared to evolve with our environment.


2. Has the marketplace changed?

Maybe a large company opened or closed its doors. Was there a significant event at the local university (big layoffs, a flu outbreak, etc). Did your budget change since you completed your marketing plan? These are all external factors that will play a role in how you execute your marketing plan. It's good to take a step back and make sure you are still on track to deliver. If there have been big changes around your, adjust your plan to meet the changing needs of your marketplace, but keep the goals the same.

3. Has phase one been completed (please say yes to this one!!!)?

Congratulations! Finishing the first phase of a marketing plan is worth celebrating! Calculate your ROI and share it with the world! OK, well not the world, but be sure to let your CEO, CFO and other key players in your organization know what a rock star you are. If you want your budget to increase more than the standard 3% then illustrate your value to those who don't "get it" like we do!

If you want a little help with the ROI part, post a comment here (or email me) and I will be more than happy to share the formulas with you!

Enjoy your week!
Jenna

New Help Articles from Google Analytics Authorized Consultants

As part of our desire to provide ever improving educational and help resources to all Google Analytics users, we are experimenting with providing Help Center articles authored by our Google Analytics Authorized Consultants. Our first contributors are EpikOne, the published author of this help center article and LunaMetrics, author of a series of concise and helpful explanations of POSIX Regular Expressions as they relate to Google Analytics. (Click on each of the wildcard symbols in this overview article to see them all.) Stay tuned, more articles are in the pipeline.

Posted by Alden DeSoto, Google Analytics Team

Webinar: Getting The Most From Your Print Campaigns

Next week, specialists from Google's Print Ads team will host two free online seminars called "Now What? Getting The Most From Your Print Campaign." These sessions will focus on how to develop and optimize highly effective print campaigns, as well as techniques for measuring success.

The two webinars cover identical content, so you can sign up here for either the session on March 25th or the one on the 26th. Afterwards, you'll receive an email with your access information. You can sign up anytime prior to the event but spots tend to fill up quickly. Grab yours early.

Posted by Christian, Inside AdWords crew

Introducing Google Analytics Seminars for Success

Since 2006, AdWords has been offering Seminars for Success in cities across the country to very positive reviews. Delivered by industry professionals hand-picked by Google, the seminars are one day courses offered solely to help advertisers get the most out of AdWords.

Now, as recently announced on the Inside AdWords blog, we're joining AdWords in offering Google Analytics Seminars for Success. Similar to the AdWords seminars, these are led by the most knowledgeable professionals from our very own Google Analytics Authorized Consultant program, with an agenda and content created by both the seminar leaders and our own Google Analytics team. The first seminars are now open for registration and are beginning on March 25 in both San Francisco and Raleigh-Durham.

We'll be offering two different levels of Analytics Seminars:

Introduction & User Training - designed for those who want an introduction to Google Analytics, setting up Analytics, exploring the user interface, and analyzing reports.
Here is a list of topics that will be covered:

• Introduction to Google Analytics
• Reports Interface
  
• Administrative Interface
• The Importance of Goals
• Real-world Case Studies
• What Do You Want To Track?
• Optimizing AdWords and PPC Campaigns
• Introduction to Experimentation and Tracking
  

View complete course description

Advanced Technical Implementation - designed for more technical users who want to do advanced testing, tracking, and code customization.
Topics include:

• Successful Web Analytics Approaches
• Creating A Data Driven Culture
• Google Analytics Overview
  
• Goals and Funnels
• Advanced Profile/Filter Combos
• Advanced Tracking
• Code Customizations
• Introduction to Urchin Software
  

View complete course description

Analytics and AdWords Seminars will be coming to the following cities in the next few months:

Analytics
March 25 - San Francisco Bay Area - Analytics: Introduction & User Training
March 25 - Raleigh - Analytics: Introduction & User Training
March 26 - San Francisco Bay Area - Analytics: Advanced Technical Implementation
March 26 - Raleigh - Analytics: Advanced Technical Implementation

AdWords
March 24 - San Francisco Bay Area - AdWords: Beginner & Intermediate
April 7 - San Diego - AdWords: Beginner & Intermediate
April 28 - Dallas - AdWords: Beginner & Intermediate

Sign up 7 days before the seminar date and we'll even throw in a $50 AdWords advertising credit. (View the terms and conditions of advertising credits.) You'll find more information about these seminars, including course outlines and registration instructions at http://www.google.com/awseminars. And of course, if you'd like to be informed when AdWords and Analytics Seminars become available in your area, simply fill out this form.


Posted by Jeff Gillis, Google Analytics Team

Webinar: Introduction to AdWords Editor

Regular readers may have noticed that we've offered quite a number of webinars lately. If you've been waiting for an 'entry level' webinar to help you learn to manage your campaigns using AdWords Editor, we have excellent news for you.

On March 20th at 11-12pm PDT, Mollie Klurfeld, an AdWords Editor specialist, will be presenting a free "Introduction to AdWords Editor" webinar. The agenda includes demonstrations on how to use AdWords Editor to make the following bulk changes:

• Adding campaigns, ad groups, ad text, and keywords
• Editing ad texts and keywords
• Copying/moving ad groups and keywords
• Find/replace ad text, find duplicate keywords
• Advanced bid and URL changes

Following these demonstrations, you'll also have the opportunity to ask questions of our team of specialists. We hope you'll join us.

If you'd like to attend, please register here. Or, you may join the session right before it begins -- by using the 'Join Event Now' entry fields on that same page.

For more information about AdWords Editor, please visit this page.

Posted by Blake, Inside AdWords crew

Always ask why!

This week I had the pleasure of attending a credit union marketing conference. The conference itself was great. Fantastic presenters, timely topics, wonderful food and a very fun group of people. That being said, the location left something to be desired.

The conference was in a small tourist town in the midwest. I am intentionally being cryptic in that I don't have very nice things to say about this historic hotel.

I had some travel troubles on my way to the conference that had me arriving about three hours behind schedule. I was exhausted and hungry but decided to just check into the hotel, hit the vending machine and go to bed.

In the modern travel world, we have been trained to expect a decent bed, clean rooms and a good breakfast all for one price. Hampton Inn, Holiday Inn Express and Fairfield Inn are three such examples. The hotel where I was staying had clean rooms. That's it. No free breakfast and it was like sleeping on plywood with a brick for a pillow and sandpaper for sheets. I was MISERABLE.

Then I learned that the Fairfield Inn across the street not only had the free breakfast and comfy beds, but also had a lower rate! So I checked out of the above mentioned carpenter's workshop and checked in across the street. I even volunteered to pay for the night I wasn't going to stay.

I went to the front desk, checked out a day early and offered to pay for the night I wasn't staying. The clerk said, "OK." And that was it. She never asked me if everything was OK or if there was something she could do to help me. She just handed me the receipt and let me walk away without another word.

I glanced at the receipt and noticed that I was only charged for the night I had actually stayed. That's great but then I realized that one of two things had just happened.

Either 1.) I was not the first person to do this and she knew that the accommodations left something to be desired and she didn't want to hear about it again; OR, 2.) She didn't care.

Either way, she had an opportunity to address the situation and make it right with me. Maybe there was an upgrade available, maybe the hotel is looking for feedback to make it better for future guests, or maybe, just maybe they really don't care or haven't trained the staff to pretend to care.

Enough rambling. How does this relate to you? If a customer comes in to close their checking account...don't let them get away before you ask why and make every effort to do right by them. It's a simple point really.

Sometimes you will lose the battle and the customer will still walk away...but if you diffuse the situation and do everything you can to make it right with them, it is possible that they will tell everyone how hard you tried rather than how you didn't care about them.

So, will you ask why? I hope I know the answer to that question!!

Jenna

Helpful tips on our new content network tools

Over the last year, we've released a number of new tools, which all have the same goal of giving you more transparency and control when advertising on the Google content network. We've talked about the benefits that placement performance reports, CPC bidding for placement targeting, and category exclusion each offer individually to content network campaigns, but we haven't yet discussed how these tools can be used together to improve performance.

If your advertising goals focus on getting customers to perform a particular action on your site, you can effectively measure these statistics by using AdWords conversion tracking, Google Analytics, or ValueTrack. You can also follow our content network optimization tips by creating a separate content campaign, uploading ads specifically designed for the content network, and linking to landing pages that closely match the message in your ads.

In order to further improve your content network performance, you can use a combination of our tools to see detailed statistics about your content network campaigns and make changes accordingly.

• Placement performance reports and CPC bidding for placement targeting

After a campaign has accrued a significant number of clicks on the content network, you can run a placement performance report to see where your ads have appeared. We recommend that you focus on sites where your ads have received a statistically significant amount of traffic (about 50 clicks or more). For more suggestions on how to use placement performance reports, please see these best practices.

To increase traffic from sites that are performing well, consider creating a new placement-targeted campaign and selecting CPC bidding instead of CPM. This strategy allows you to bid more for high-performing sites without increasing your bids for the rest of your content network traffic in existing campaigns.

• Placement performance reports and category exclusion

If you run a placement performance report and notice URLs that have received a significant number of clicks, but are driving very few sales, you can first check these URLs to see if the low-performing pages you're appearing on are similar in any way.

You can then use the Site and Category Exclusion tool to see if any categories available for exclusion match the patterns you've seen across low-performing URLs. By viewing statistics for each category within the tool you can confirm that a category is performing poorly before you exclude it.

• Placement targeting and category exclusion

If you'd like to run a campaign focused on increasing awareness of your business, you can create a CPM-priced placement targeting campaign to reach your target audience. If your primary goal is to generate awareness or maximize impressions, you should consider selecting CPM instead of CPC pricing.

You can then exclude categories for your placement-targeted campaign if you know that pages matching a certain topic or page type don't fit your business objectives. This allows your ads to appear on the placements you've selected while avoiding pages classified in the categories you've excluded.

The above ideas are just a few of the ways you can use our new tools to improve your account's performance. If you're interested in a simpler way to meet cost/conversion goals for your content network campaigns, you can use our new Conversion Optimizer bidding feature for campaigns that meet our minimum requirements.

By experimenting with different strategies and focusing on the statistics in your account we hope that you continue to find new ways to advertise successfully on the content network in the future.

Posted by Heather, Inside AdWords crew

How you start is as important as how you finish.

This is the first of a series of practitioner posts from our team on best practices we've seen through developing and working with customers on Google Analytics.

A Planned Approach

There can be few scarier moments in the humble Google Analytics practitioner's life than realising that a simple error or omission in the past has amplified over time, to play havoc with your data in the present day.

It's important to set up your filters, goal settings, and custom segments from the outset according to your well defined strategic plan. If you don't implement Google Analytics with an eye towards what you'll want to know in the future and how you'll want to monitor your campaigns, you may feel reluctant to make the necessary changes down the road. Even if you do make changes, you won't be able to apply those changes to historical data.

So, how do you produce data with integrity and immediate business application from day one? It pays to have a plan. Long before you think about pasting that little tag on your pages, you should consider a few important and underrated questions.

1) What data do I actually need?

Here we have a question so blinding in its obviousness, that it actually prevents people from asking it. But it is critical to define what it is you actually need to know, and do it rigorously.

Which metrics and measurements are actually going to inform the decisions you make day to day? Any web analytics product you use can produce a torrent of data and that data may seem like an end in itself. Be ruthless about each piece of data you ask for. Are you going to use it, or pat yourself on the back simply because you and your tool are smart enough to collect it?

2) Is the data I need available by default?

This is where the hard work really starts! Once you've been alone with your thoughts (and hopefully the thoughts of a few other interested parties) and decided what it is you want to know, you'll need to figure out whether this information is available by default or if you'll need to apply custom filters, user-defined segments, or goals.

Google Analytics has many reports available by default. They cover everything from the popularity of your pages of content to the keywords driving traffic to your site, to the screen resolutions of your users. However, you aren't the average user are you? Your needs are specific and important, and may require planning up front.

Do you want to be able to easily see the purchasing trends of your returning visitors as a group? Do you need to know the numbers of unique visitors to segments of your site? Do you need to separate out the visits of your registered users from casual visitors? All of these are possible, but all require customization to capture. Make these customizations at the outset so that you'll have a consistent historical set of data.

3) Do I know where I am going?

A degree of honest self-appraisal is required here. At first, it may be hard to imagine that you'd need more than what is offered by default without any custom filters or segments. Alternatively you may already know that you'll want to explore as much as you can.

Implementing any Analytics tool requires rigorous thinking, even when that tool is free. Prevailingly, the insights you can glean are tied to the boundaries set by the scope of your initial set-up. Sudden alterations of direction are tricky maneuvers to pull off, both in terms of technical costs, and the danger of creating a breach in the comparability between the two sets of data.

Be bold in scoping the ambitions of your Google Analytics implementation. Expect that your first taste of successfully applied analysis will create a hunger for more.

In closing…

It's easy, when setting up web analytics on a site, to regard the numbers themselves as the ultimate goal. You may rush to simply get the code on your site and see reports populated with data. It's easy to perceive the challenge as a technical one, a question of how to apply a tag to a page, rather than a theoretical and organizational one. This is an understandable, but sometimes misguided focus.

By taking an insights-based approach to your initial implementation and configuration, you will be able to implement efficiently, rely on your reports, and future-proof your need for data.

Hopefully you are up for the task yourself, but if not and you want some help with these functions, we have many Authorized Consultants who are always happy to help. You can take either path, we wish you all the very best in your analytical journey.

Posted by Philip Walford, Google Analytics Associate, EMEA

Google Closes DoubleClick Acquisition

Today, Google completed its acquisition of DoubleClick. This acquisition is one of many steps we're taking toward enhancing monetization and serving technology for advertisers, agencies, and publishers, making search and display advertising more targeted, and improving advertising relevance for users.

Over the next few months, we'll work with advertisers, agencies, publishers, and users to determine the best approach for enhancing DoubleClick's offerings.

While the acquisition will bring about some exciting new opportunities, rest assured that it won't change our commitment to Google products, DoubleClick products, and our service to you.

For more information about the DoubleClick acquisition, please review our press release.

Posted by Trevor, Inside AdWords crew

Reminder: Website Optimizer Online Seminar Tomorrow

We'd like to remind you that the Website Optimizer team will be presenting a free online seminar tomorrow, March 11th at 9 am PDT. This one hour session will provide a brief introduction to Website Optimizer, review testing best practices, and discuss some of the top elements to test on any webpage. There is still time to sign up, so if you would like to attend, please register here.

If you'd like to learn more about using Website Optimizer, you can also visit the Website Optimizer website.

Posted by Trevor, Inside AdWords crew

Google Audio Ads, Meet Google Analytics

The Google Audio Ads and Google Analytics teams have been working hard to create integrated reporting tools so advertisers can more easily track the impact and the resulting ROI of their Audio Ads campaigns. We're very excited to announce that these tools are now available to AdWords and Analytics customers.

For the first time, advertisers can now easily track website visits, conversion rates, revenue, transactions, and other metrics generated by Audio Ads campaigns. These metrics are available in the Analytics tab of AdWords accounts, as well as in Analytics accounts.

As you can see in the image below, the Audio Campaign report shows the correlation between your campaign impressions and website traffic, for example. Keep in mind though, that the website traffic may include traffic generated by other channels, not just Audio Ads.

(Click on the image for a full-size version)

Bedding.com, a leading online home furnishings store and beta tester of the new report, used Google Audio Ads to reach their target customers in areas like Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, New York, and other smaller markets. Then, they used Google Analytics to analyze the reach and success of their campaign, by looking at website traffic, conversion rates, revenue, and more.

Here's what Ted Kavana, President & CEO of Bedding.com, had to say:

"Using Google Audio Ads and Google Analytics, we were able to reach thousands of new customers very fast and at an incredible price. As the customers arrived at Bedding.com, Google Analytics made it very simple to analyze the data and start preparing for our next advertising blitz."

Bedding.com has seen unique visits increase by over 32% and sales by 28% since running Audio Ads.

If you're new to Audio Ads and are interested in starting a campaign, just sign in to your AdWords account and look for the Other Campaign Types link at the bottom of the Campaign Summary page. From there, you can create an Audio Ads campaign. Once you've run your first radio campaign, the Audio Campaign report will automatically appear in your Google Analytics account if you've linked it to your AdWords account.

If you already run Audio Ads campaigns, learn more about how you can use the Audio Campaign report to track your progress.

Posted by Heather, Inside AdWords crew

Google Analytics integrates with Google Audio Ads

We're excited to announce that Google Audio Ads advertisers can now see how their campaign metrics for impressions, ad plays, markets, and CPM correlate with their website traffic data provided by Google Analytics, such as conversions, revenue, and transactions. Customers can see if their audio campaigns resulted in greater amounts of traffic and conversions on a regional basis.

Take a look at the two metrics in the over-time graph in the below screenshot. Audio impressions - the number of times listeners hear your ad at the time it airs - is plotted along with visits. This data helps you correlate the impact of your audio campaign to your website traffic, and decrease the guesswork about offline-to-online ROI.

(Click on the image for a full-size version)

How do Google Analytics users and radio advertisers benefit? Bedding.com, a leading online home-furnishing store and Google beta tester, is a great example. They used Google Audio Ads to target their radio campaign to specific markets and demographics, helping drive impressions to their website. Audio Campaign reporting enabled them to analyze their campaign's reach and success instantly and in-depth.

"Using Google Audio Ads and Google Analytics, we were able to reach thousands of new customers very fast and at an incredible price," says Ted Kavana, President & CEO of Bedding.com. "As the customers arrived at Bedding.com, Google Analytics made it very simple to analyze the data and start preparing for our next advertising blitz." Bedding.com has seen unique visits increase by over 32% and sales by 28% since adopting Google Audio Ads.

Radio ads can be a major factor in driving conversions on your website. Consider these stats: radio reaches 94% of all Americans over the age of twelve every week. Almost half the US population listens to the radio while driving, and over a third of listeners prefer radio to other mediums during the day. When listening to the radio while browsing the Internet, more than half of users search for items they hear about on the air. Furthermore, 22% of online users make purchases after performing a radio-driven search. (Radio Advertising Bureau 2006, Arbitron + EdisonMedia research, 2003 and Emarketer, 2007)

These reports are currently available for all U.S. users. Audio Campaign reports will appear automatically in your Google Analytics page if you've linked your Analytics and AdWords accounts. If you want to learn more about the benefits of radio advertising through Google, get ready for this exciting new integration by checking out Google Audio Ads.


Posted by Christian Yee, Google Analytics Team

Landing page load time will soon be incorporated into Quality Score

As part of our continuing efforts to improve the user experience, we will soon incorporate an additional factor into Quality Score: landing page load time. Load time is the amount of time it takes for a user to see the landing page after clicking an ad.

Why are we doing this?
Two reasons: first, users have the best experience when they don't have to wait a long time for landing pages to load. Interstitial pages, multiple redirects, excessively slow servers, and other things that can increase load times only keep users from getting what they want: information about your business. Second, users are more likely to abandon landing pages that load slowly, which can hurt your conversion rate.

When are we making this change?
In the next few weeks, we will add load time evaluations to the Keyword Analysis page (we'll notify you when they are available). You will then have one month to review your site and make necessary adjustments.

After the one month review period, this load time factor will be incorporated into your keywords' Quality Scores. Keywords with landing pages that load very slowly may get lower Quality Scores (and thus higher minimum bids). Conversely, keywords with landing pages that load very quickly may get higher Quality Scores and lower minimum bids.

To learn more about the upcoming change, please see this article in the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Vivian, Inside AdWords crew

Category Exclusion for the Content Network

We've updated the Site Exclusion tool to give you more control over where your ads appear on the Google content network. It's now called the Site and Category Exclusion tool, and it allows you to exclude certain categories of webpages from your content network campaigns in addition to excluding individual sites.

If you find that you're repeatedly excluding many sites of the same type, either to optimize for the content network or to further control your campaign's exposure, using category exclusion can be a simpler way to control your ads' visibility. Category exclusion can be used with any type of campaign running on the content network: keyword-targeted or placement-targeted.

Here's how category exclusion works: when we use our contextual targeting technology to scan a page in the Google content network and determine relevant ads to show, we also check to see if the content on the page matches any of the topics or page types available for exclusion. If there is a match between a category you've excluded and the page's classification, your ads won't show on that page. We classify pages dynamically, so even as the content of a page changes your ads should be prevented from showing for categories you've excluded.

Before using category exclusion, it's important to consider the following points:

• All sites in the content network are already required to comply with Google's AdSense policies. Several levels of review are in place to detect that pages in the network comply with these guidelines. However, some advertisers have requested the ability to avoid additional types of content that don't meet their advertising goals, and we've released category exclusion in order to provide this control.
  
  
• Excluding a category could potentially block your ads from appearing on a number of relevant pages and severely impact your campaign performance. We recommend that you refer to the statistics provided in the Site and Category Exclusion tool before making any exclusions. Keep in mind that a low clickthrough rate on content network pages is not necessarily an indication of poor performance, especially if your goal is to maximize ROI. Further, your ads' clickthrough rate on the content network does not affect your quality score, minimum bids, or position on Google.com or other pages in the search network.
  
  
• While webpages are categorized to the best of our technology's ability, excluding a category does not guarantee that you have excluded every related webpage. If you see that your ad has shown on an undesired webpage, you can exclude that page by adding the URL through the tool's Sites tab.

Category exclusion is our latest tool to give you increased control over your content network campaigns. If you are looking for additional insight and flexibility when advertising on the Google content network, we encourage you to check out CPC bidding for placement targeting and Placement Performance reports.

Posted by Trevor, Inside AdWords crew

Rob Thomas gets it!

Last night, my husband and I attended the Exile in America concert featuring MuteMath, Alanis Morrisette and Matchbox 20. I am a fan of all three and was REALLY impressed that none are studio artists (you know, those who cut a great studio album but can't carry a tune in a bucket live)! The are all remarkably talented.

In the middle of the encore set by Matchbox 20, Rob Thomas (the lead singer...for those of you hiding under a rock for the past 10 years) said,

"You guys have no idea how much it means to us that you came out tonight. We know you spent a lot of money to be here and we appreciate that. There are a lot of ways you can spend your money, but only one way you can spend your time and you chose to spend your time with us tonight."

WOW.

Never thought I would hear a band leader say something like that, but it's true. Seth Godin has blogged about the same thing.

So, as the great bank marketers we are, we need to start thinking about how we can get (and keep) our customers' attention...especially those who only have one account with us.

Happy Thursday!
Jenna

Conversion Tracking Issue on March 5

On Wednesday, March 5th from approximately 9am to 2pm PST, some web pages containing the AdWords Conversion Tracking code snippet presented visitors with a browser message indicating a Google server certificate had expired.

This issue has since been fixed. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused.

Please note that conversion tracking data collected during this brief period may under-report the number of actual conversions achieved.

Posted by Trevor, Inside AdWords crew

AdWords system maintenance on March 8th

On Saturday, March 8th, the AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PST due to our regularly scheduled maintenance. While you won't be able to sign in to your accounts during this time, your campaigns will continue to run as usual.

AdWords system maintenance typically occurs on the second Saturday of each month during the above times. We'll continue to update you via the blog as we always have, but you may want to take note of our intended dates and times to help you plan for any scheduled downtimes further down the road.

Posted by Blake, Inside AdWords crew

Benchmarking now available plus additional opt-in settings

We're happy to announce the launch of two related new Google Analytics features: a beta version of industry benchmarking and a data-sharing settings page. Both are designed to give our customers more choice and better control over their data. We are also launching an integration with Audio Ads today, which we'll discuss in more detail in tomorrow's post. All of these features will begin appearing in customer accounts today, though benchmarking reports may take up to a couple weeks to show data.

Industry benchmarking is a commonly requested new service that enables customers to see how their site data compares to sites in any available industry vertical. We believe this data will provide actionable insights by providing context for users to understand how their site is doing. For example, if you have a travel website and you get a spike in traffic on Mondays, you may want to know whether other travel sites get that same spike on Mondays.

You can also compare your site against an industry vertical different than your own. For example, you might see that your industry's traffic dips at certain times of the year while another industry's traffic increases. Based on that information, you may wish to explore cross promotional opportunities to drive traffic back and forth.


For more information, take a look at the benchmarking FAQs in the Google Analytics help center.

Of course, benchmarking only works if people can opt to share their data into the system, so we're also introducing a new data-sharing settings page. On this page, customers can choose whether to opt in or opt out of sharing their Analytics data. To be clear, we are not sharing individual data with competitors; we bucket data into industry verticals and then anonymize and aggregate the data. Once you opt in, it may take a couple weeks for the reports to populate.

You can also elect to share your data with other Google services. This setting will allow us to provide you with additional advanced new features. For example, many of you have asked us to integrate Conversion Optimizer (which is currently only available to AdWords Conversion Tracking users) into Google Analytics. By opting to share your data with Google, you'll be able to take advantage of these related new features as they become available. For more information, take a look at the data-sharing options FAQs in the help center.

Look for tomorrow's post on the Audio Ads integration.

Posted by Brett Crosby, Group Manager, Google Analytics

Oprah's Big Give

Did you watch it? I did. And I cried through half of it. What an amazing idea for a reality television show. Finally, reality television reflecting the heart of the American Spirit.

The show got me thinking...as marketing professionals, why don't we do more of this? I know that we don't have Oprah's wealth, staff and resources, but if you really watched the show you know that really, she picked a few evangelists that would be willing to champion a cause and RAISE money for the cause. Oprah didn't give them money (with the exception of a small start-up purse) they had to find the resources themselves.

So here's what I am thinking. We can do that...we can so totally do that. And I don't just mean for our cause, but for everything we do. Isn't it time that we step up and become our own best product evangelist? Do you really believe in your bank, or are you just collecting a paycheck? Is this your passion or is it just your job?

For me, it's a passion. I so whole heartedly believe in MarketMatch and the value we provide to banks and credit unions all over the country that I could shout it from the mountaintops.

Do you feel the same way about what you do? THEN WHY AREN'T YOU SHOUTING???

This is what I want all of us to do...or at least start trying to do. I want you to start telling your story. The story that you believe in the most and the story of the brand in which you live.

All of your friends should know what gets you excited, how you got there and why you love it so much. This goes for your entire family too. Friends and family are the greatest support network you've got. If they know you feel strongly about something (with the exception of politics of course) aren't they usually willing to do whatever they can to support you?

My friends and family will inevitably embrace my passion. I don't give them much choice in the matter. They hear me talk about it endlessly and they find the enthusiasm is contagious. Soon they end up trying it themselves.

Wouldn't it be great if all of your friends and family fell victim to your enthusiasm? It represents a lot of opportunity and support for your passion.

Become the best evangelist you know.
Happy mountaintop shouting!
Jenna