We are retiring the pay-per-action beta

As part of Google's integration of DoubleClick, the DoubleClick Performics Affiliate network is now part of Google. To consolidate our offerings, we will be phasing out the AdWords pay-per-action beta in the last week of August 2008. As an alternative to pay-per-action advertising, Google offers two products that allow you to manage your advertising on a CPA (cost-per-acquisition) basis: the Conversion Optimizer and the Google Affiliate Network.

The Conversion Optimizer is an AdWords bidding feature that lets you specify a maximum CPA goal for ads on the Google search and content networks. It uses historical information about your campaign to automatically adjust your CPC bid for each auction to help you meet your CPA goal. In addition, the Conversion Optimizer is now supported in both the AdWords Editor and the AdWords API. You can learn more on the Conversion Optimizer homepage.

The Google Affiliate Network, previously known as DoubleClick Performics Affiliate, has been in operation since 1998. Through the network, advertisers can open their ads to all publishers in the network, or select specific publishers that match their criteria. You can set a CPA for your entire campaign or establish custom payment schedules for specific publishers -- such as a higher CPA for a particularly optimal placement. The Google Affiliate Network is currently a separate product from AdWords and AdSense. As with AdSense, publishers must apply and be accepted into the network.

If you're interested in learning more about the Google Affiliate Network, please visit our website.

Update 7-1-2008:

After receiving questions from our readers, we wanted to clarify that the Google Affiliate Network is currently available only for advertisers in the US.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

Come See The Big Three

Faithful Analytics blog readers, I don't want to bore or alienate any of you—a diverse and geographically disperse group of intelligentsia—but today's blog post draws on something close to my heart: a professional basketball team called the Boston Celtics. Stay with me, just for a few more sentences. All will become clear ...

About a week ago, the Celtics won the National Basketball Association championship over their biggest rival, the Lakers (sorry, Lakers fans). As I say when something like this happens, "Whoo-hooot!!!"

Ahem. Anyway, the reason the Celts won is that this season their management united three of the best players in the NBA: Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen. These players strove for years to win the title on separate teams, playing with less talented players, and finally, when they joined forces, everything fell into place.

How does this trifecta relate to web analytics, online marketing, and website management, the topics closest to our heart? Well, we've also got a big three for you, dear reader. And they're taking the stage July 8 in a one-hour webinar, presented by our team, called, "The Google Trifecta."

Who are our big three? You might be able to guess: one of them is Google Analytics, so you can start getting your "Whoo-hooot!" ready. Rounding it out are Webmaster Tools and Website Optimizer, two other free Google tools for website-owners. The first helps you improve your site's visibility in Google search results, and the second helps increase your conversion rate once visitors arrive on your site.

Individually each tool is powerful; combined, they offer you a holistic, detailed understanding of your website: how you're faring on Google, how your visitors land on and navigate to your site, and which combination of content most effectively gets them to convert. If you're already using one tool, you can use your same login for the others. And unlike the Celtics, you don't have to trade any co-workers or pay any money.

In this vein, we posted a couple of months ago about how you can identify your high-value, low-performing pages with Google Analytics, then test and optimize them with Website Optimizer to improve your conversion rates.

Here's the webinar info:

TITLE: The Google Trifecta: Webmaster Tools, Analytics, Website Optimizer
DATE: Tuesday, July 8th, 2008
TIME: 9:00 - 10:00 am PT (Pacific Time)
JOIN US: Register to attend (free)

In the webinar, team members will introduce each product for newcomers, highlight recent product developments, and discuss the benefits of using all three products together. And when you register, we'll also invite you to submit any questions you'd like the presenters to answer.

In case you didn't know about Google Webmaster Central, take a look. It's a one-page resource linking to many of the tools Google offers to help you build and maintain an effective site, including Google Analytics, Website Optimizer, and Webmaster Tools, the trifecta, the big three, the three amigos, the rule of three. Hope to see you at the webinar!

Posted by Jeff Gillis, Google Analytics Team

(Ad)Word of the Day: Ad Variations

Did you know that we have an AdWords Glossary? It's a great resource for learning more about AdWords; so we're starting a new series here at Inside AdWords entitled (Ad)Word of the Day. Each post in the series will cover one term in the glossary and talk a little bit about it.

For our inaugural post, we'll start with ad variations:

Ad variations are multiple versions of an ad for a single product or service, all based on the same set of keywords. Variations are a good way to test many versions of the same message to see which works best with potential customers.

One advantage of using ad variations is that AdWords can automatically show the best performing ad. If you are not sure which message will work best with your potential customers, you can simply create multiple ads for an ad group. AdWords will automatically show the best performing ad more often over time.

We hope you've enjoyed the first part of our new series. If you have suggestions for words you'd like to see, we're always listening at inside-adwords@google.com.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

Free online webinar for Google's analysis products

Staying competitive in the online space can be hard if you don't have the proper tools at your disposal. That's why we offer solutions like Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics, and Google Website Optimizer to help you improve your site's effectiveness and functionality.

Used individually, each product can provide valuable and actionable information about specific aspects of your site. However, by using all three together, you can gain a comprehensive understanding of your pages' visibility on Google, where your visitors come from, how they interact with your site, and what content motivates them to take the action you want.

For the first time ever, the Webmaster Tools, Analytics, and Website Optimizer teams will join forces to hold a free webinar entitled The Google Trifecta. This session will be held Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 from 9:00 - 10:00 am PDT. Register to attend here.

During this online seminar, team members will:

• Provide brief introductions to their products
  
• Highlight recent product updates and releases
  
• Discuss the benefits of using all three products together
  
• Answer common questions submitted by attendees
  

Upon registration, we also invite you to submit any specific topics you'd like to see covered. We look forward to seeing you there!

Posted by Christian Yee, Inside AdWords crew

Gen Y, Party of 70 million...Your table is ready.

It seems like I talk a lot about marketing to Generation Y. If fact, I have used the term so many times in this blog alone that I am beginning to question whether or not I will ever get through to anyone. Maybe I am a lone soldier fighting this uphill battle.

Nevertheless, I will carry on.

Did you know that Generation Y makes up 21% of the American population? Did you also know that 4.8 billion pieces of direct mail were sent by financial services companies in the first quarter of 2007? The good news is that number fell to a meager 4.2 billion in the first quarter of 2008. UGH...it's no wonder that the anticipated response of a direct mail campaign has fallen below 1%.

A recent report from Mintel Comperemedia states that 69% of Generation Y (the kiddos between 14 and 31 today that make up 21% of our population) workers who can participate in a tax-deferred 401k retirement savings plan are not doing so.

Why? Are they not receiving those 4.3 billion pieces of direct mail? Mintel also reports that "In 2007, adults aged 30 and under received only 2% of investment direct mail offers tracked by Mintel Comperemedia. In contrast, adults over age 60 got 41%."

Right. While we talk about brokerages and insurance companies having all the sales skills, they are also clearly missing the boat on the greatest opportunity that will propel them into the future.

So what does this mean to you? It means that you need to identify those Gen Y customers and potential customers in your marketplace and help them understand not only WHY they should start saving now, but HOW to start saving now. In theory, it should not be that hard. A little creativity, ingenuity and segmentation and you should be good to go.

So go get 'em already!!

Make it an extraordinary day :)

Jenna

Introducing Google Ad Planner

If you're a media planner at an ad agency, you know that planning an online display buy can be challenging, particularly in scaling your campaign's reach while keeping it relevant for your target audience. Plus, how do you keep track of the millions of sites out there that might be just right for your campaign?

To make your life easier, we're introducing Google Ad Planner, a research and media planning tool that connects advertisers and publishers. When using Google Ad Planner, simply enter demographics and sites associated with your target audience, and the tool will return information about sites (both on and off the Google content network) that your audience is likely to visit. You can drill down further to get more detail like demographics and related searches for a particular site, or you can get aggregate statistics for the sites you've added to your media plan.

While Google Trends for Websites, announced last week, is designed for all users, Google Ad Planner is designed with media planners in mind. Using Google Ad Planner, you can quickly create media plans and export to a .csv file, which can be opened in most spreadsheet applications. Or, you can export to DoubleClick's MediaVisor, which helps you manage all your other media planning, buying and campaign management activities.

(Click the image for a full-size version)

We hope you'll find this tool useful and discover many relevant sites--small and large--that would otherwise be hard to find. As Ad Planner is a new product, it's currently available by invitation only. If you're interested in trying it out, you can apply here.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

Use the Conversion Optimizer with AdWords Editor and the AdWords API

The Conversion Optimizer, our free cost-per-acquisition (CPA) bidding feature for AdWords, came out of beta in January. One of the top requests we've heard is from advertisers wanting to use the Conversion Optimizer with AdWords Editor and the AdWords API. Today, we are pleased to announce that the Conversion Optimizer is now supported by both AdWords Editor and the AdWords API.

Many advertisers have told us that by using the Conversion Optimizer, they have not only made their campaigns significantly more profitable, but also they save time managing their accounts. Though one question we often hear is, "How does the Conversion Optimizer make my campaign more profitable than I can on my own?"

You probably already vary your bids by keyword and may also use separate bids for the search and content networks. The Conversion Optimizer takes this strategy a step further by automatically adjusting your bids to take into account many additional factors, including: the country the user is browsing from, the specific content network site or search partner site your ad appears on, and the broad match terms a keyword has matched on.

As part of AdWords, the Conversion Optimizer is able to consider all these factors, and then adjust your bids based on the potential value of each click. Clicks vary in value because every click has a different likelihood of converting. For example, the keyword "flowers" may have a 2% conversion rate while the keyword "roses delivery" may have a 7% conversion rate. That doesn't mean that you don't want any clicks on "flowers," but you probably wouldn't want to spend as much on that keyword as you might be willing to spend for clicks on "roses delivery." The Conversion Optimizer uses information like this to adjust your bids based on how valuable each click is for you.

If you would like to use the Conversion Optimizer, you'll need to have AdWords Conversion Tracking enabled and have at least 200 conversions in the last 30 days. To get started, check out the Conversion Optimizer homepage.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

Google Website Optimizer Service Plans

You may know that the Google Website Optimizer is a great tool to help you improve the effectiveness of your website, but you might not know where to start. Or perhaps you're in the middle of a test, but need some guidance. To provide you with the support you need, we launched the Google Website Optimizer Service Plans. These are hourly technical service plans that come in three different packages tailored to your needs:

1. One hour: This plan is designed for specific questions and quick answers. You're allowed a maximum of one call per hour.
2. Three hours: This plan is ideal for more complex issues. It must be used within six months after the first hour of service is used, in increments of 30 minutes.
3. Eight hours: Purchase this plan and use it for an entire year. It must be used within 12 months after the first hour of service is used, in increments of 30 minutes.

Technical services include, but are not limited to:

• Experiment design
• Experiment set-up and implementation
• Report analysis
• A la carte incident consultation
• Phone and internet-chat support
• Personalized training

This is an easy and affordable way to start testing and increasing the sales, leads and sign-ups you generate from your website. You can get started today by contacting a participating authorized consultant. And of course, our roster of consultants is always available for more long-term consultation.

Learn more about Google Website Optimizer.

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Inside AdWords crew

One year after the redesign

Anyone remember the previous Google Analytics interface? Here's a screenshot of the dashboard:


And another of a report with cross-segmentation clicked on:

Just over a year ago, after extensive user interviews, surveys and live usability studies, we completed a substantial redesign project and released a completely new Google Analytics interface.

And voilà:


The redesign addressed an important shift in the analytics industry's customer base. Not only are more businesses using web analytics than ever before, but an increasingly large number of business generalists (non-web analytics specialists) in these companies are using web analytics to drive decision making. We redesigned Google Analytics to help these legions of new users ask insightful questions of their data and get actionable answers.

Instead of adding reports with specialized information, the new Google Analytics places data in context making it easier to discover information relationships via navigation and data visualizations. We created a custom dashboard and introduced sparklines. We developed new graphing tools and added a new type of date slider that allows you to view spikes and dips in traffic as you set date ranges. And one of the most popular new features is one of the simplest: the ability to e-mail reports and schedule these e-mails so that information can be easily shared with key stakeholders (as well as curious counterparts).

When we announced this new version, we committed to continue adding new features in a steady stream of updates. I believe we've made good on that commitment, but you can be the judge. Below are my highlights from the last 12 months:

1. Internal site search: We've always shown you which keywords people search to find your site. Now, internal site search tracking shows you how people search once they're already on your site. See the keywords and search-refinement keywords people use, and the pages from which they begin and end their searches. And, find out how search on your site affects site usage, conversion rates, and e-commerce activity. Here's a shot of the insights you can get with site search data (click to enlarge):


2. Industry Benchmarking: With Benchmarking, you can compare your site data with site data from a variety of industry verticals. And the accompanying data-sharing settings let you control whether and how Google services interact with your data to enable and disable these features. Here's a screenshot (click to enlarge):


3. New visualizations and analysis features: You can now view many reports by hour or day and graph data by day, week, or month. You can also graph two metrics against each other over time—we call it multi-line graphing. So, for example, you can compare the number of visitors vs. bounce rates for a certain week, or see whether visitors who come to a website through AdWords spend more or less time on your site than visitors overall. In this screenshot, we've chosen to look at visitors trending in weekly units as opposed to daily. This makes it easier to spot trends when looking at longer time periods. And we're looking at visits compared to conversions:


4. New ga.js tracking code: Our new pagetag allows for a more flexibility and customization. Its just as easy to install as the old code, but allows more sophisticated users to track e-commerce transactions in a more readable way and take advantage of advanced tracking features. We've also added the Google Analytics codesite to help developers take advantage of documented customizations.

5. Correlations with offline marketing with Google Audio Ads and TV Ads integrations: Audio Ads and TV Ads customers can now track whether their Google radio and TV campaigns sent additional traffic to their website based on when and where the ads run.

6. Website Optimizer: Google's free multivariate website-testing tool is out of beta and available to everyone. And now you can even log in with your Google Analytics account.

7. Urchin Software: If you have content behind a security firewall or on an intranet or internal network that prevents you from using Google Analytics, you might want to consider Urchin 6. You can also track your website with Urchin and Google Analytics together.

8. Support and Help Centers in eight additional languages: We've added Thai, Filipino, Indonesian, Czech, Hungarian, Portuguese (Portugal), Turkish, and Polish. This brings the number of Google Analytics supported languages to 25.

9. Authorized Consultants (GAACs): This is the year of the Authorized Consultant. We've added six new GAACs in the past few months, bringing our worldwide total to 51. We have also added Website Optimizer Authorized Consultant and Urchin Software Authorized Consultant networks.

10. You: We have a sophisticated, engaged and vibrant user base from whom we're learning daily. We're so excited about the future: it's palpable at Google, and it all comes from you and our ecosystem of users, bloggers, consultants, and developers. We have many more new developments underway that I believe you'll enjoy so I hope you continue to stay engaged with this blog, our Google Group and our codesite.

Posted by Brett Crosby, Group Manager, Google Analytics

Landing page load time now affects keywords' Quality Scores

Google designs its products with user experience as the number one priority. Early in Google's history, our founders, Larry and Sergey, articulated this philosophy in Ten things Google has found to be true. One of these principles is "Fast is better than slow." We've found this rule to be especially applicable to the landing pages of AdWords ads. When a user clicks an ad, a landing page that loads quickly provides a better user experience than a landing page that loads slowly.

In early March, we announced that we'd soon incorporate an additional factor into Quality Score, namely landing page load time -- where load time is defined as the amount of time it takes for a user to see the landing page after clicking an ad. In early May we announced that landing page load time information had become available on the Keyword Analysis page.

Starting today, this load time factor will be incorporated into your keywords' Quality Scores. Keywords with landing pages that load 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.

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.

How can I improve my load time?
The AdWords system re-evaluates landing pages on a regular basis. If you make significant improvements to your landing page's load time, you should see a better Quality Score and lower minimum cost-per-click (CPC) bids. Note that your Quality Score may change/increase gradually over a number of weeks after you improve your load time.

To learn more about load time and landing page quality, please see this article in the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Heather Lane, Inside AdWords crew

Soap is smarter than the bank?

If you don't use iGoggle, you should. I see my email, the weather, my countdown to vacation and all of my RSS feeds on one simple (and colorful!) homepage.

My Google Reader (those RSS feeds I subscribe to) showed this headline: "Banks: Less Differentiated Than a Bar of Soap." Seriously? I read the article and think that the author and I share a similar vision of bank branding. Take a read for yourself! Click here

I would love to hear your thoughts!

Make it an extraordinary day :)

Jenna

Make Your Content Reports More Useful

Here's another practitioner-focused approach from James Tipton, one of our specialists in New York.

A Web Analyst is on an eternal quest to understand content consumption. When Visitors come to your site, what do they read? What fascinates them? What do they find depressing?

In this quest, the Google Analytics' Top Content report can be powerful and full of insights. But depending on your website platform and use of URL parameters, it can also appear cluttered and, in rare cases, confusing.

For example, dynamically generated query parameters, such as session IDs, can exponentially increase the number of URL's displayed and may even result in the unhelpful "other" listing in your content reports. As a result, the report may no longer be instantly useful when you look at it.

In your Top Content report, “other” shows up when your website data contains more than 50,000 unique URL’s for a given day. It is important to point out that there are no pageview limits, only limits to the number of unique URL's that can be displayed in the report. So no matter how many times your pages are viewed, data is still captured, processed and presented correctly. The "other" category comes into play only when more than 50,000 unique URL's are registered.

You may be thinking that 50,000 unique URL's on a single day seems like a lot. But you may be surprised at how quickly multiple sets of query parameters can cause your site to reach that limit. It goes without saying that trying to evaluate the bounce rate, exit percentage, time on page and other such lovely metrics for that many pages can be a daunting task. Seeing the "other" category can create an even bigger challenge, and take away from your quest for the long tail in your data.

Luckily, Google Analytics has a couple of simple solutions for cleaning up unnecessary URL parameters from your content reports.

Let’s assume that our website is www.example.com and our product pages' URL's look like this:

www.example.com/products/awesomeproductpage.html?sid=ap5829g2k&param=supervalue

In this case both "sid" and "param" in the URL above are URL parameters, and both are being added to the URL by the website platform (and hence they're unnecessary).

So how do you keep your Google Analytics reports clean and useful?

The first way to address unnecessary parameters is to use the Main Profile Settings in your account.

Here are the steps:

1. Click into the "Profile Settings" page and then on "Edit" in the "Main Profile Settings Information" bar.
   
   
2. Enter the query parameters you'd like to exclude in the "Exclude URL Query Parameters" field and click "Save Changes."

Note that in the Exclude URL Query Parameters area we have added sid and param, since we want them filtered out.

Advice: We recommend that you always maintain an unfiltered "master" profile, because you never know when you may need to see those parameters. When you exclude parameters, do so in a duplicate profile. Then you can relax knowing you won't be caught off-guard.

The second way to address non-essential parameters is to use the features within the Internal Site Search set-up and use the Internal Site Search admin panel.

To enable Site Search, click on "Edit" under the "Settings" column next to the name of the profile on your analytics Settings page. Next, Click "Do Track Site Search" and, after you fill in the appropriate query parameter ("query" in the example below) in the Query Parameter field, select "Yes, strip query parameters out of URL."

Then hit Save. Going forward all the URL parameters will be removed, presenting you with a clean list of URL's you can better understand in your Google Analytics report.

Speaking of Site Search: if you haven't activated Site Search yet, do it today. It only takes seconds (OK, maybe a couple of minutes) but it's well worth the small effort needed.

So when do you use each of the above recommended methods?

Use method one, Main Profile Settings, when you want exclude just some of the parameters.

Use method two, Internal Site Search Settings, when you want to exclude all the parameters.

In closing, excluding query parameters from your profile will dramatically reduce the number of unique URL's you have to sift through and make the Top Content report immediately useful. Now, rather than hundreds of distinct URL's all pointing to the same page, you may see a single entry per page. That means you'll spend less time de-duping URL's and more time evaluating them.

Good luck, and happy data hunting!


Posted by James Tipton, Google Analytics Team

AdWords system maintenance on June 21st

On Saturday, June 21, 2008, the AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. PDT, for maintenance -- as was noted in our previous maintenance update, earlier this month.

While you won't be able to sign in to your accounts during this time, your campaigns will continue to run as usual. This particular maintenance may last up to one hour longer than typical maintenance sessions.

AdWords system maintenance typically occurs on the second Saturday of each month from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. (Pacific time), with this month being an exception to that rule.

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 Heather Lane, Inside AdWords crew

I won't tell that you swore!

Thanks for the lead-in, Bruce! And thank you, Robert for the excellent question and completely point!

In banking, there are more swear words than you will find in the Handbook for Drunken Frat Boys (I am making that up, and mean no offense to anyone!). And I am not talking about the typical four letter words. Our version of swearing include words such as SALES, PROFIT and COMMISSION. I am not afraid of those words and am doing my best, one client at a time, to change the way our industry thinks!

For eons, insurance agents and investment brokers have been associated with sales. Their compensation was primarily based on the number of clients and the types of products they sold in a given time period. As these business units started dabbling in banking, they found tremendous success in leveraging their current client relationships AND SELLING THEM BANKING PRODUCTS. I know this drives you nuts. It drives me nuts too...but for VERY different reasons!

Go back to the above paragraph and re-read the sentence that is italicized. Do you get it? That's where the lack of sales culture comes into play in the banking industry. Leveraging existing clients and maximizing the relationship. Some may call that sales, others will avoid the "s" word and call it customer service. I call it smart.

As bankers, we need to get better at that. Call it what you want, but in an environment of shrinking marketing budgets we are being asked to do more with less. This is a training function that will cost you very little but can increase profits tremendously! Your greatest investment should be in the way your highest performers are compensated. Salaries are overrated and generally overpaid. To compensate with no regard for goals, exceeded expectations or increased portfolios makes about as much sense as paying a teenager to sleep in. It's what they are expected to do and shouldn't be rewarded until they do something remarkable (like get out of bed before there are four digits on the clock!)

Robert, I could ramble all day about this topic...and I have some very strong opinions on this subject matter. But getting right down to your question, "what stands in the way?" The answer is simple: The Banker Mentality.

It is tragic that the industry I am most passionate about is also the slowest to change. You can ask a majority of the CEOs out there why they do the things they do and the answer will unfortunately be, "because we've always done it that way." The "if it ain't broken, don't fix it" frame of mind seems to hold much of the industry hostage. Banks will not experience unparalleled success until we, as an industry, break away from that thought pattern.

On the plus side, there are banks and credit unions that do very well. They embrace change, compensate based on goals vs. expectations, and spend the necessary time to TRAIN their employees that there is a difference between the plaid trouser used car salesperson and helping customers meet their financial goals.

Keep the ideas rolling :) We love to feed you the knowledge you are hungry for!

Make it an extraordinary day!

Jenna

Baseball and Bank Marketing....

Greetings...

Today, I went to a minor league baseball game. It was a great game and I was able to spend time with my brother and his family. The unfortunate piece was that I am in Philly travelling and I am not with my family...its Father's Day and I miss the crew!

So...back to my point. Minor league baseball. Some "no names" playing a game, you may think. Actually, it is a brand of entertainment that is amazing and provides a platform for my blog entry. I will make a two-for-one hit today...addressing Robert's question to Jenna and adding a twist!

First, Robert had a great question that I will jump in and add my two cents. He wanted to know why in most "true" sales organizations, a top salesperson can and routinely does, earn more than the CEO. Why is that not the case in banking? Think about your bank...does your BEST salesperson earn more than the CEO? Is there an endless ceiling to the compensation plan? If you said "YES" then your bank is in rarefied air...elite among the banking industry.

This is my connection to baseball...minor league players abound. The best of the best, no matter from what school, geography or background, can make it to the big leagues and earn an amazingly contract an salary. So same should be true in our banks. The goal is profitable growth for the bank...getting hits, right? The more hits we get the better our average and the better the average the more attention (pay) we should receive. When the ocean rises so does the ship! The ocean is EVERYONE participating on the sales and service process and the Ship is the Board and CEO. If we can take this approach then everyone wins...

Your job as a marketer...be the agent of change and focus your efforts on making the ocean rise!

Jenna...the rest of the answer to Robert is for you!!

Thanks for the great question Robert!

Cheers!

Bruce

Boot Camp for Google Analytics

Did we say, "Boot Camp for Google Analytics?" How does that work, one might ask? Do I have to get up at 5am to have someone yell at me about goals, funnels and filters, now repeat! Get that bounce rate DOWN mister! Conversion rate UP, lady! Now give me 5 industry benchmarking metrics and hit the showers.

Whoa, whoa...not at all...

It's more like boot camp for your online-marketing brain muscle, highly enjoyable, in an idyllic New England setting, with the coolest folks around. Get into scary good shape (knowledge-wise) with the Online Marketing (OM) Boot Camp, hosted by EpikOne and co-sponsored by Google at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont.

For four days (June 17-20), you'll learn how to use the latest Google marketing and analysis products, get informed about the online advertising industry, and network with Google Analytics experts. Instructors include Google's own analytics evangelist Avinash Kaushik, Ben Bullock and Alex Ortiz from the Google Analytics team, and Justin Cutroni, Seminars For Success instructor and author of Google Analytics Short Cut.

Our users often ask us about training opportunities, and this is a great one for both beginners and advanced users, including agencies. The boot camp has various course levels on topics such as Adwords, Google Analytics and Website Optimizer.

Day 1 is a thought-leadership summit where attendees will hear analytics evangelists speak and enjoy a cocktail networking opportunity in the early evening. Days 2-3 will encompass various course levels of Google product training taught by industry experts.

Only 70 seats are offered for this education-only camp, so you'll get lots of discussion and hands-on training. For more information and to register, visit www.OMBootCamp.com.

Posted by Eva Woo, Google Analytics Team

Use Website Optimizer with content management systems

One of the most common questions the Website Optimizer team gets asked by advertisers is whether or not Website Optimizer will work with content management systems (CMS). This morning, the team launched a new Technology Partner program to call attention to those global CMS providers that have been certified as fully compatible with Website Optimizer.

If you'd like to use Website Optimizer to test your CMS-managed web pages, you'll now have a central location to find information on all Website Optimizer certified platforms available to you. Although you can still use Website Optimizer on non-certified platforms, the Website Optimizer Technology Partners make it easier by offering specific documentation and technical support. Most also provide auto-tagging functionality, which will make it easier for you to launch your experiments.

If your current CMS provider isn't yet a Website Optimizer Technology Partner then we encourage you to ask them to join - it's a free and easy way for you both to benefit.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

The latest newsletters to start the summer

Could your AdWords account use a little oomph? If so, then the latest AdWords Industry Newsletters have some fresh ideas for you.

This quarter's Retail issue features tips for getting a head start on your holiday campaigns and using Google Trends to understand your keyword traffic. In the Tech B2C issue you'll find original research on consumer electronics buyers and tips on streamlining keywords with AdWords Editor. And, just in time for the summer season, the brand-new AdWords Travel Industry Newsletter is here for advertisers selling travel-related products and services.

We also have a new resource for financial marketers: the Financial Services Industry Knowledge Center. Here you'll find tips, guides, success stories, and Google product recommendations specifically for the financial services vertical.

If you want to find an Industry Knowledge Center for a different industry, please visit this page.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

The Web Analytics Championship!

There's nothing like a little healthy competition! When you reach a certain level of expertise at some discipline, adding a little competition against others can help you to develop new skills and improve your "game" more than anything else. And it can be a lot of fun!

That's why we're hoping you'll grab your laptop, hook up your favorite mouse, stretch out your fingers, and join:

The Web Analytics Championship!

presented by the WAA

(Cue "Star Wars" theme song) If you choose to join the competition, you'll have a few days to analyze the last month of traffic to the website www.webanalyticsassociation.org using the WAA's Google Analytics account. Then, simply email in an analysis or recommendation for how to change the site or marketing, or even a simple insight about their traffic, keywords, or visitor navigation.

Basically, you are acting as a one-time analyst. What do you think is the most insightful traffic data? What reports and trends should be acted on? (As a starting point for readers of this blog, read what Avinash says about bounce rate - it might be a good place to start, and you can see this metric clearly in almost every Google Analytics report.)

Entries will be judged by a panel of experts (Neil Mason, June Dershewitz, and Avinash Kaushik), and prizes will be given for the most effective and insightful analyses. Here at the Google Analytics team, we might also might send a prize to the finalists, and also, we're hoping to do a blog post here after the championship where we'll name the contest winners and show the recommendations and insights they submitted. We're talking fortune and glory (cue "Indiana Jones" theme song) -- the techniques you use to analyze the data may be immortalized to inspire many a future analyst or marketer.

If you don't have a Google Analytics account, this would a good way to learn about Google Analytics, and since we've made actionable data discovery as intuitive as possible within Google Analytics, finding insight is not a difficult task.

The competition is easy to join: simply sign up to be a Web Analytics Association member, which brings a lot of benefits such as discounts to industry events, informational newsletters and best practice guides, exposure to thought leaders and peers who also work in web analytics, and access to advanced instruction about website analysis techniques. The Championship started on June 1 and there is still plenty of time to do some analysis and submit an entry. You'll definitely come away a better user.

We're rooting for you! For more details, visit the Web Analytics Championship page and FAQs.

Posted by Jeff Gillis, Google Analytics Team

"Are you there Portland? It's me, Seminars for Success"

This month, we'll be bringing the Seminars for Success program to The Rose City, otherwise known as Portland, Oregon, for the first time. Portlanders will be able to attend both AdWords and Analytics sessions in June and July. In addition to the seminars' debut in Portland, we've also made a couple of updates to the general program:

New Advanced AdWords Seminars
After a year-long hiatus, we'll be re-introducing the Advanced level of AdWords Seminars, designed for those who are already familiar with the program and want to learn advanced techniques for optimizing their AdWords performance. If comfortable with the basics, or you've already taken the Beginner / Intermediate level, then the Advanced session is right for you. You'll find a detailed course description for our Advanced session here.

Two-day, Back-to-Back Format
To make the most efficient use of your time, we'll be offering the AdWords Beginner / Intermediate session and Advanced session back-to-back over two days in all of the upcoming seminar cities. That means you can attend the Beginner / Intermediate session on day one, and then the Advanced session on day two without any lag time in between. (And yes, that means if you sign up for both sessions, you'll receive two $50 credits for a total of $100 in AdWords advertising. More information about the terms and conditions of the credits can be found here.)

If you're not near Portland, Oregon, don't despair. We'll also be offering AdWords Seminars in the following cities:

July 15-16: Seattle, WA
July 21-22: Chicago, IL
July 28-29: Scottsdale, AZ
August 28-29: Houston, TX
September 22-23: Los Angeles, CA
October 20-21: Boston, MA
October 27-28: Columbus, OH

For more information about Seminars for Success, including registration details, course outlines, and past attendees' comments, please visit www.google.com/awseminars.

Posted by Vivian Leung, Inside AdWords crew

Track online impact of Google TV Ads using Google Analytics

Google TV Ads can be an effective means of reaching new customers and driving incremental traffic to your website. Now, you can track the online impact of your TV campaigns through your Google Analytics account.

How it works

Using Google Analytics, you can now easily track website metrics, such as visits, conversion rates and revenue, alongside metrics from your TV Ads campaigns, including:

• Impressions delivered
  
• Number of ad plays
  
• Cost
  
• CPM paid
  

By viewing these metrics together, you can analyze the online impact of your TV campaigns, and use this information to optimize your campaigns as you learn.

The image below is a sample Analytics report illustrating the correlation between TV campaign impressions and website traffic. Keep in mind that website traffic may include traffic generated by other channels, not just TV ads.

(Click the image for a full-size version)

How to set it up

To access the TV Campaigns report, you'll need to link the AdWords account containing your TV Ads campaign to your Google Analytics account. Then, once you've run your first TV campaign, the report will automatically appear in your Google Analytics account. From your Analytics account, locate your TV Campaign metrics from the AdWords drop down under Traffic Sources on the left navigation bar.

If you're new to TV 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 TV Ads campaign.

How to learn more

We'll be holding a webinar that covers how Google TV Ads can help drive more web traffic and increase your sales volume, turning TV viewers into your customers. This free webinar is on June 19th at 10am PDT, and we invite you to sign up here.

You can also read about how other advertisers are finding success with Google TV Ads, and check out our product demo to learn how to create a campaign step-by-step.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

AdWords Editor 6.0 for Windows and Mac

Today we released version 6.0 of AdWords Editor. Version 6.0 offers new and updated features to help you edit your AdWords campaigns faster and more effectively. For example, this version includes new bulk editing tools, better downloading for account statistics, and a new option for updating minimum CPC bids. We've also listened to users' requests for support within AdWords Editor for CPC placement targeting and the Conversion Optimizer, so version 6.0 includes support for both of these features.

Before you upgrade, be sure to export an archive of your account in order to preserve comments and unposted changes. After you've installed version 6.0, download your account, then import the archive file.

You can download version 6.0 now by visiting our website and clicking 'Download AdWords Editor.' Also, within the next few days, existing users will receive an automatic update prompt when starting the application.

If you'd like to learn tips for using AdWords Editor, including how to use the new features in version 6.0, please sign up for our free webinar on Tuesday, June 10, from 10:30-11:30 PDT. An AdWords Editor specialist will provide live demonstrations, and you'll have an opportunity to ask questions of our team of specialists.

Finally, we invite you to join the AdWords Editor forum to receive occasional product news and tips from the AdWords Editor team.

Posted by Christian Yee, Inside AdWords crew

AdWords system maintenance on June 7th

On Saturday, June 7th, the AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT, for 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 -- with this month being an exception to that rule.

In the interest of giving you advance notice, there may also be maintenance on Saturday, June 21st. However, we will confirm before that date.

We'll continue to update you via the blog as we always have, but please make note of the June 7th date, the tentative June 21st date, and our scheduled maintenance further down the road.

Posted by Heather Lane, Inside AdWords crew

New Analytics Report: TV Campaigns

Hot on the heels of this March’s release of the Audio Campaigns report within Google Analytics, we’ve just added more offline-to-online reporting features: TV Campaigns reporting. This report represents a further integration between Google Analytics and AdWords, and another helpful tool for you to measure the online effects of offline marketing.

AdWords TV Ads is an all-digital system that distributes advertisers' TV ads to participating channels nationwide. You can upload your TV ad—a video file—to your AdWords account and, with a few clicks, start a campaign by choosing from more than 90 nationwide TV stations to air the ad on. You can also specify the time of day and week, audience demographic, and type of program you'd like to target. If you need help creating a TV ad, you can find and connect with production specialists through our Ad Creation Marketplace. It’s a simple and streamlined process for TV advertising.

And the best part: it’s highly trackable. If your AdWords account is linked with your Google Analytics account, you can easily see what happens to your online traffic while a TV spot is running. The current available TV metrics include:

• Impressions delivered
• Number of ad plays
• Cost
• CPM

You can now track these metrics and plot them alongside metrics already within Google Analytics, such as conversions, visits, and time on site. This way, you can see correlations between a TV campaign and your website traffic. Take a look at the below screenshot of TV spots run by a pet company. It shows website visits plotted against the number of TV impressions (how many times your TV ad played). If you've already linked your Analytics account to your AdWords account, this data appears automatically within Analytics when you run a TV ad.

Audio Campaigns and TV Campaigns are especially helpful for marketers taking advantage of the offline advertising options within AdWords. AdWords is running a promotion in which Google will cover the cost of creating your TV ad through our Ad Creation Marketplace, up to $2000.


Posted by Jeff Gillis, Google Analytics Team

Website Optimizer Contest

We recently blogged about how you can use Google Analytics and Website Optimizer to identify your high value pages and set up experiments that will eliminate the guesswork from their design. Now that you're on the path to increased conversions and more efficient funnels, we thought we'd give you the low down on a new contest that might spark your interest.

Earlier today at the SMX Seattle conference, the Google Website Optimizer team announced the launch of the Google Website Workout contest. The idea behind the contest is simple: they're looking to help four businesses "pump up" their websites so they can get more sales, leads, or signups. Their consultants will work with the four winners to increase site performance by identifying and testing which combinations of page design, copy, and graphics yield the highest conversion rates.

To enter, just visit their contest site and answer a few easy questions about why your site needs a workout. They're only accepting entries through June 17th, so don't wait to enter. Check out the short video below for more details:

Posted by John Stona, Website Optimizer Team

Pump Up Your Site with Website Workout

Today at the SMX Seattle conference, the Website Optimizer team announced the launch of the Google Website Workout contest. The idea behind the contest is simple: the team wants to help four businesses "pump up" their websites so they can realize more sales, leads, and sign-ups. Our consultants will work with the four winners to increase their websites' performance by identifying and testing which combinations of page design, copy, and graphics yield the highest conversion rates.

This short video explains how the contest works and what you can expect:


(If you are having trouble viewing the video, please visit the contest page.)
Entering the contest is easy -- visit the contest site and answer a few questions about why your site needs a workout. We'll only be accepting entries through June 17th, so please enter soon.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

Time Flies!

So, it's Tuesday already. I am officially a day behind in blogging, but you already knew that. I have been racking my brain to come up with another clever blog idea. A nugget of wisdom hidden in some random, run of the mill day. But it's been quiet here. I need to enlist your help.

We have been racking our brains to come up with a way to make our corner of the blogosphere a little more interactive, more engaging and more exciting. Yup, I just admitted that I think I am boring you.

So, here's what I want to know...WHAT DO YOU WANT TO KNOW! I can give you stories of real-life experiences that apply to us as marketing executives and help you understand why it's important. However, if it isn't relevant to you, why bother?

I am asking you for your ideas. Hot topics you would like some perspective on. Insight on a challenge you are facing. Or maybe you do want to hear me/us ramble about a relevant experience we've had. Regardless, we want to hear from you. Submit a comment to this posting with your ideas and we will help you out.

Make it a great week!
Jenna

Upcoming Print and Audio Ads webinars

Over the next two weeks, we're offering free webinars covering Google Print Ads and Google Audio Ads. Traditional media ads can drive more traffic and conversions to your website, all from customers that are local to your business -- in these webinars, we'll cover different ways you can expand your advertising reach with print and audio ads, including how to get started and best practices you can use once your campaigns are up and running.

We hope you'll be able to join us for one or both of the webinars:

• Google Audio Ads: Wednesday, June 11. Sign up here.
• Google Print Ads: Wednesday, June 18. Sign up here.

We encourage you to attend both sessions to learn how Google can help you reach the right local customers, at the right time, with the right message.

Posted by Heather Lane, Inside AdWords crew