Reaching for the top spot? "Estimated Top Impressions" now available in the Bid Simulator

A year ago, we launched the Bid Simulator, a feature that allows you to see how different keyword-level bids may have impacted your advertising results. Using data from the past seven days, the bid simulator re-calculates the number of clicks and impressions your ad could have received with different maximum CPC bids.

Today we’re announcing a new metric in Bid Simulator, “Estimated Top Impressions,” which shows you how many times your ad appeared above the search results in the past seven days and how this metric could have changed had you used different keyword level maximum CPC bids.

Access the Bid Simulator by clicking the icon next to your maximum CPC bid.

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Whether you carefully manage a handful of valuable keywords or simply want users to see your ad as often as possible, Estimated Top Impressions can be a useful metric. Ads that appear above the search results are more visible to users and tend to receive more clicks than ads that appear along the right side of the search results page.

Let's look at an example of how to use the Estimated Top Impressions column:

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In this table, the current maximum CPC bid of $1.07 captures most of the impressions that a higher bid of $1.93 could have captured (7,520 vs. 7,930). However, when we look at the ‘Estimated Top Impressions’ column, we see that the current bid of $1.07 only captures a fraction of the top impressions (4,780 vs. 6,380). Increasing the bid to $1.93 would have placed the ad at the top of the search results page for many more queries, resulting in more users seeing the ad and clicking through to the site (591 vs 662).

If one of your goals is to appear in the top position and you’ve been focusing on the ‘average position’ of your ad to gauge how prominently it’s displayed to users, Estimated Top Impressions may be a better metric for you to focus on. While average position indicates where your ad is appearing in relation to other ads on the page, it doesn’t indicate whether your ad is appearing above the search results or on the right side of the page.

Note that past performance does not guarantee future results, and simulations will only be provided if there is enough traffic on a given keyword to conduct a meaningful analysis. Additionally, top of page impressions are counted only for impressions on Google, since other sites within the Search Network may display ads differently. Estimated Top Impressions data is currently only available in the Bid Simulator, and we’re working to incorporate this metric into more AdWords reports.

For an in-depth look at bidding, check out this tutorial from Hal Varian, the Google Chief Economist: Bidding Strategy Overview.

Posted by Nathania Lozada, Inside AdWords crew

Walk the sign

Ever wonder how some shaggy teenager donning headphones and holding a sign that says $5.99, two topping pizza, standing near the corner of a busy intersection, got suckered into doing such a mundane job. Or what about that guy in the hot gorilla costume dancing around the entrance to the Halloween store parking lot urging you in. Most times - It does catch my attention whether it be annoyance, sympathy for the sign holder or the actual impulse to buy something from the message on the sign.

It seems like recent years it has become more and more popular, but I had no idea it had blown up into such a big industry. Its called “sign walking”. Millions of dollars invested in research of consumer behavior shows that the majority of Americans are impulse buyers. Sign walkers feed right into this. Sign walkers are designed to attract attention and interest from impulse buyers like you and I driving around.

Essentially, sign walkers are uniformed event staff members waving 8 foot “sales themes signs” at business entrances and on the major corners of high traffic intersections surrounding your area. Sign walkers are a very strategic way to communicate to potential customers and draw the attention from every passer by for hours and hours each day. Other industry common names used to describe sign walkers include sign wavers, street signing, human directionals, sign twirlers, sign holders, sign guys, walking billboards, human billboards and directional signwalkers.

There are many promotional companies that specialize in sign walking – some to a level that they professionally train their employees to complete hundreds of animated tricks to attract the passer by’s; including spinning, kicking, dancing and tossing six-foot custom made signs.

After doing some research, I come to find out that “sign walking” isn’t such a new thing. Its been around since the 1800’s. In 19th century London, the practice began when advertising posters became subject to a tax and competition for wall space became fierce. The banning of posters from private property in London in 1839 greatly increased the use of human billboards or “sign walkers” as they are more modernly known.

Overall, sign walking or sign spinning is an interesting guerilla (no pun intended) marketing tool. It's a definite niche in the outdoor ad market, an alternative to permanent signs or billboards, but it’s not for everyone or everything.

What is Your Klout Score? Klout for Twitter

If you are active on Twitter, have you reviewed your Klout score?

Klout "identifies influencers on topics across the social web". Yes, there are countless other websites/companies who can help you measure your so-called twitter "score" and provide you with charts/graphs about your twitter usage...but Klout is different. They have over 750 partnerships with companies like HootSuite and CoTweet. In fact, my first exposure to Klout took place on Hootsuite.

Have a new follower and not sure what their "hot topics" are? Check them out on Klout. Klout can be helpful in providing insight about a Twitter user.   It's also very helpful in analyzing your tweets and level of interaction and influence on twitter.

Your Klout score is based on much more than the number of followers have. For example, a person with 300 followers may have a higher score than someone with 3,000, because it's based on the level of true interaction you have with your followers.

Your Klout Analysis  Includes:

• Your true reach
• Your amplification
• Your network
• Your topic summary
• Your top retweets
• Most popular links shared
• Your influence "matrix"
• Your content analysis
• Who you are influenced by
• Who you are an influencer of
  

Very helpful tool, indeed. Hope you enjoy!

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Laura Catherine is a marketing professional in Charleston, SC who has been active in social media since 2005.  If you enjoyed this post, please consider subscribing to this blog via Email or RSS below. Laura can also be found on Twitter (@LauraCatherineO) and LinkedIn. 

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New for the Google Display Network: Show ads related to demographic categories

In March 2009, we announced a beta test of interest-based advertising, which included remarketing and interest category marketing, to help you reach people on the Google Display Network who are most likely to be interested in your products and services.

Early results show that interest-based advertising is helping deliver better ads and offers for your potential customers, more effective campaigns for you, and higher returns for website publishers. Remarketing was recently launched to everyone, and interest category marketing has continued to grow.

To help you better reach your customers, and to give users more control over which ads they see, we're adding some new categories that will enable you to show ads that relate to demographic categories, such as age and gender. This works exactly the same way as interest category marketing works today - Google associates categories with a particular browser by looking at the types of Google Display Network sites visited and compares that information with aggregated survey data on site visitation. For example, if someone frequently visits sites that have a majority of female visitors, we may associate her browser's cookie with the “female” demographic category. With this information, you can choose to show more ads that are relevant to women as she browses sites across the Google Display Network, exactly the same way you can currently show ads related to other categories like sports or gardening.

As with interest categories, users may view and edit demographic categories or permanently opt out of receiving interest-based ads entirely with the Ads Preferences Manager. Because the interests and inferred demographics associated with a particular browser are based on recently visited sites on the Google Display Network, and not on user data, these categories may change over time. As one of a number of companies offering ads based on inferred interests and demographics, we remain committed to providing users the highest level of control and transparency.

We're still beta testing interest category marketing (including the new demographic categories), but will be working to help more advertisers run campaigns over time.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew

Back To Basics: The Power of Exclusion (Part 2)

Last week, we saw how a website owner removed traffic from his latest promotion to study the effects of that promotion on his data. The blue line represents all visits over a 2-week period. The spike in the middle is due to a 50%-off referral-based promotion.

The yellow line is where it gets interesting. This line represents all traffic except traffic from the promotional site. Since the yellow line excludes the promotional referrals, why does it show a spike in traffic?

To find out, the store owner de-selected the All Visits segment so that only the Exclude Promo Site segment was active.

Then, he looked at each of the reports in the Traffic Sources section -- the Direct Traffic report , Referring Sites report, and Search Engines report-- to find out where the non-promo traffic spike was coming from. Here’s the graph he saw when he looked at the Search Engines report.

It turns out the extra traffic was coming from search. Happily, the referral site promotion had been even more successful than expected. Because not only was there a big spike in traffic due to the referral, there was also a spike from search. As a result of the increased exposure, more people were searching for his store.

With that mystery solved, we’re ready for the next step. How can we find out how many extra searches resulted from the promotion? And, exactly which keywords were people searching on? We’ll take a look in Part 3, next week.

Posted by Alden DeSoto, Google Analytics Team

October Doesn't Have to be Scary

October Doesn't Have to be Scary

Can you feel the chill in the air? The foreboding feeling of things to come? Yes, it's planning season...

But planning for 2011 doesn't have to be scary. Just take planning in bite-sized chunks.

1. Build a knowledge-base. I know you have a smart management team and Board. But unless your target is old dudes in suits, you may need to talk to your market before planning. This can be as fast and cheap as branch intercept surveys (you know, like the clip-board-toting folks at the mall) or as robust as statistically relevant, quantitative research that's cross tabulated across multiple data fields ... or anywhere in between. The key is to try to understand what you want/need to know and research accordingly. Click here for more information about research strategies.
2. Gather before you hunt. In many cases, the most prudent planning starts with your existing customers/members. Understand how your customers use you and why. What do your most profitable customers look like? Where do they live? What makes them profitable? We often recommend starting with customers with 2 or 3 products with you already (as opposed to targeting single-product households). These folks have started building a loyalty with you. Often times single-product customers are single-product for a reason and hard to convert. The bottom line is that you will get the biggest bang for your marketing buck if you focus on building share-of-wallet instead of acquiring new customers.
3. Don't forget your Halloween night strategies. When I was a kid, I had a 3-pronged approach to trick-or-treating: 1) First hit the houses that knew me. They were more likely to throw in a little extra. 2) Go to the bigger, more expensive neighborhoods, they usually had the full-sized candy bars (remember when people used to give those away?!?!) 3) Before calling it a night, hit the houses that knew me again - they often would dump whatever was left in my bag. Who knew, at 7 years old, what a great marketer I already was!?! 1) Target by proximity to those who are most likely to be aware of you and have a positive perception - they will be more open to your message. 2) Target those that have the highest propensity to be most profitable. In banking, this isn't always the biggest houses. You can analyze by census-tracts where the opportunity lies. (If you can't, we can do it for you!) 3) Keep talking to those that know you best. They're more likely to give you more.
4. Go into planning thinking about ROI. Too often, institutions only use ROI as a follow-up -- like a report card of sorts. It is a powerful planning and budgeting tool. Demonstrate how your department and your efforts will add to the bank/CU's bottom line.

Take care,

Eric

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Transform your AdWords account and win cool prizes - sign up by October 3

There’s still time to sign up for the the AdWords Train & Gain challenge which kicks off October 4.

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Once signed up, you’ll receive four weeks of free advice for improving your AdWords account. At the end of the four weeks, you’ll have learned lots of different ways to improve your account performance. If you complete all the steps and answer a short questionnaire to let us know what you learned, you could win an Android Phone. Or even a free consultation with an AdWords expert — in Sydney, Australia.

Check out the Train & Gain site for more details about the challenge, who’s eligible to compete and how we’re selecting winners. Full terms and conditions can be found here.

Sign up for AdWords Train & Gain now

Posted by Gordon Zhu, Inside AdWords crew

The “Other” Social Media Policy – the One in the Personnel Manual

Much has been written by social media and marketing experts (this blogger included) advising companies to “look before they leap,” or in other words, “create a social media plan before jumping into social media.” While some companies follow this recommendation, some do not. The results for not following this recommendation can be dismal: few followers on Twitter, few fans on Facebook, few subscribers on YouTube, and few followers on LinkedIn. However, when a company’s marketing team or senior management team write a detailed social media plan and adapt it to its customers and prospects, the results can be impressive: increasing number of followers and fans on all social media sites and excellent conversations with customers and prospects - all leading to increased sales.

However, there is another social media policy that doesn’t get as much attention. This “other” policy defines “social media” for a company. Does it only refer to family photos on Facebook? Does it only refer to videos on YouTube? Does it only refer to business connections on LinkedIn? Does it only refer to 140-character quips on “The Twitter,” as Betty White calls it? Employees need to know.

Employees also need to know if any social networking sites can be accessed during office hours. If access is allowed, employees need to know the amount of time they may spend and on which sites as well as from which equipment access is allowed. Due to security concerns, it may not be wise for a company’s IT department to allow access from laptops and mobile devices.

Employees also need to know if the company owns their social networking accounts. For instance, if employees use LinkedIn strictly for sales leads, the question arises if the company owns those contacts or the employee owns the contacts. To address this issue, an employee might create two accounts (one personal and one for the company) or use a personal email address instead of a business email address to access his or her account.

Since specific employees may be involved with social media as part of their job for your company, as social media managers, they need training as to the company’s “official voice.” How do you want your tweets to sound, your Facebook posts to read, etc.? Do you want to use an informal manner of speech, lots of abbreviations, lots of contractions, etc.? Training is critical so that there is a consistent voice for your company – and consistency helps your brand. Some Twitter examples include @Best Buy and @StaplesTweets and @ComcastCares.

And what are the ramifications for employees if they do not follow the social media policy? The details must be written out and explained to new employees and existing employees as social media marketing and social networking evolve. So, does your company have a social media policy in its personnel manual?

Note: If you would like to read some good policies, here is a link to 150+ policies.

Note: I wrote a related post in 2009: Before you jump into social media, ask who speaks for you.

Bazaarvoice Integration

We always love to share news about integrations and applications built on the Google Analytics platform. Here’s one from Bazaarvoice.

Bazaarvoice helps e-commerce sites become social by providing a platform for visitors to leave comments and reviews about products. It's user-generated content right on an e-commerce website. With this new integration, Google Analytics users can now see visitor interaction with their Bazaarvoice social content. Here's what Andy Wolfe, Product Manager at Bazaarvoice said about the integration:

“With this integration, Bazaarvoice clients can now see, in Google Analytics, the metrics on things like the number of visitors paginating through reviews, or sharing user-generated content with social networks, or clicking on related products found in reviews. Advanced Segments can then be used to compare the behavior of visits that interact with Bazaarvoice generated content vs. those that don't.”

To illustrate how useful this can be, here’s a screen shot showing the Bazaarvoice integration:

Users are raving about this integration. According to Paul Dempsey, E-Marketing Manager at Alternative Apparel, one of many clients using the Google Analytics - Bazaarvoice integration, “Now, it's really easy to see the influence of user-generated content on our conversion goals. Did they increase now that we've enabled reviews? We can find out.”

And according to Kris Irizawa, Web Analytics Analyst, Logitech, “We love going into Google Analytics and, with a few clicks, segmenting out visits that interact with Bazaarvoice. I can look at all my reports to uncover additional value from user-generated content, such as location based stuff, new vs. returning, keywords, search terms, and more.”

For more information on this integration, check out the Bazaarvoice site.


Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

Strategic Planning & Accountability Go Hand-In-Hand

As strategy planning is just around the corner (if not already here), do you find yourself digging out your 2010 Strategic Plan to see what you have accomplished, or is your strategic plan routinely referenced to ensure your strategic objectives are being met?

If your strategic plan is dusty or even hard to find and you are wondering why ½ of the tactics are not yet implemented, there clearly may have been a breakdown in accountability and follow-through. Strategic Plans fail all too often because leadership does not hold employees accountable.

Accountability and follow-through are imperative in making your strategic plan a living, breathing document that truly guides your organization to fulfill your vision. To transform your organization through the strategic plan, leadership must build and sustain personal accountability starting with management and continuing through to frontline employees. The process is simple, but it makes a world of difference…simply determine who is responsible by when, set priorities for each person, and monitor progress.

This year, when you begin the Strategic Planning Process, assign accountability to the strategic objectives and then monitor your plan on a regular basis. Plans are monitored on a regular basis help to ensure personal accountability and organizational progress.

Latinos Online And The Theory of Telepresence

As mediated communications increase in their importance, the question of how cultural differences may influence how people relate to each other in mediated situations becomes salient. Some time ago I published "A Theory of Electronic Propinquity" which basically states that the degree to which people are comfortable communicating via phone, teleconference, etc., varies with the degree to which there is a feedback mechanism in the channel, the complexity of the information being communicated, the skills of the communicators, the rules imposed on the communication, and the availability of alternative channels for communication that may be preferred over the current choice. A colleague Joe Walther at Michigan State University has done important research on the theory, but no one has done a cross-cultural comparison.

In particular, now that Hispanics are distinguishing themselves by embracing social media and online communications to a larger extent than other cultural groups in our society, cross-cultural comparisons are relevant. My hypothesis is that one of the reasons why Hispanics are eager to embrace social media, blogs, and other mediated online communications is because many of these media provide the feedback mechanism needed for satisfaction with the medium. This is because Latinos seem to rejoice in obtaining immediate feedback. That is, a fluid and spontaneous interaction. Further. As we have been raised with the expectation that we will be part of a close knit social group, we tend to have more skills to interact, even when the communication is mediated by technology.

Clearly, the complexity of the information is a limitation in that complex interactions are more difficult when mediated. Still, social media allows for broad bandwidth, or ample amount of information. Thus, social media is more acceptable in some situations than even face-to-face communications.  The rules for interacting in social media are flexible and it is precisely the lack of rigid protocol that is likely to entice Latinos to find satisfaction in modern online communications.

In other words, I have reasons to believe that new media allows Hispanics to recreate the village where everyone knows everyone else and where interactions are spontaneous. This cultural tendency towards going back to the village, but now in a global metaphor, liberates Latinos and other cultural groups. These are groups that have thrived in environments where interaction is free and enriching of everyday life. Environments where the satisfaction of life is found in social coexistence. Societal norms have stifled human communication but the emergence of online communications appear to be breaking them. That is why Latinos embrace these technologies, because they are technologies of liberation.

Clearly, we need to study these trends and consumer behaviors in much more detail. Still, the observable evidence is that the small village of our ancestors is now back online.

New Twitter Background Design Specs (#NewTwitter Background Size)

Updated with a pixel-by-pixel breakdown for the #NewTwitter (scroll down for image) and special video with an even more detailed breakdown of this space!



If your Twitter profile background was designed to fit Twitter before the #NewTwitter format was introduced, you may need to make some changes to your design.  Your background graphics/photo(s) may look "cut off" in the #NewTwitter.  Why? The #NewTwitter 2-column format takes up more room, leaving less space for your background design. Don't have the time or software to design your own? Not to worry, just stop on over to Themeleon and build your own background.

The "New Twitter" Background Specs:

At 1280 X 1024 screen size (a recommended standard size), here is the breakdown of space:

Your new background (overall) should be set up as:
1260 pixels wide X 895 pixels tall


Let's break this new background down so you'll know how much room you have in each area:
Left-hand side of #NewTwitter background: 110 pixels wide X 895 pixels tall
Top of screen (all the way across the top): 1260 pixels wide X 15 pixels tall (this leaves room for scroll bar)
Right-hand side of screen: 110 pixels wide X 895 pixels tall
Middle of screen: (hidden by 2 columns in Internet explorer, the right-column is semi-transparent in Chrome and a few other browsers): 1,040 pixels wide by 880 pixels tall

Visit my Twitter profile to see how I've made use of the space. It may look like there is extra space over on the left if you are not using the #NewTwitter yet.  I also have an example of a #newtwitter background below.  You will see it as it appears as a file and then what it looks like when it's been loaded onto Twitter.

click to enlarge (to full size) this Twitter background I designed for Charleston Wedding Studio

Sneak peek of the new Charleston Wedding Studio Twitter background before it goes LIVE

With the new layout, twitter users can read your "bio" without having to click away from their current screen to visit your profile, so there isn't a need to reiterate it over on your background unless you so desire (or wish to add in other social info a la Facebook, etc.)

Have a great week!

Laura Catherine Otero is a marketing professional and blogger in Charleston and Columbia, SC who has been active in social media since 2005.  If you enjoyed this post, please consider subscribing to this blog via Email or  RSS. Laura can also be found on Twitter (@LauraCatherineO), Facebook, and LinkedIn. 

Lessons From Weekend Football...

Good morning...

We all know how the game went on Saturday and Sunday...depending on who you follow-- College or Pro.  My Buckeyes romped and the Bengals limped, but still won!

The greatest part about this time of year?  Mondays!  We ALL get to be the best coach and GM around...by analyzing what did or did not happen in the game.

Take the same logic and become a Monday Morning QB for your team...follow these simple steps:

• Calculate ROI for EVERY measurable marketing activity
• Review your strategic plan for gaps, changes, and Plan B's
• Review the week's results, by branch and product, to determine what worked and what did not
• Talk to the team...and hear 1st hand the feedback from the front-line-- and then incorporate what you learn into the planning for next week
• Review the other "teams" and so how they progressed...or failed...and bring that learning into your planning for next week, too!

Being the Monday Morning QB is the safe place to be...but ONLY is you implement the changes and take the learning from the week/weekend and bring them to life in your planning for next week/weekend.

Cheers!

Bruce Clapp

When Do You Send Emails to Customers?

Does your company follow the industry standard approach when it comes to sending emails to customers, whether your company is B2B or B2C? This means that on Tuesday or Wednesdays, you finalize your email message, your distribution software or vendor, and click send. But do mid-week, late morning, and early afternoon emails generate the highest read rates, click-thru’s, and responses?

A recent AOL survey reported that 62% of respondents checked their work email over the weekend, which raises the question, “Are Saturdays or Sundays better days to send business emails?” While this is an interesting idea for marketers, many Americans wish to better manage their work-life balance, but with gadget overload, this is becoming more and more difficult. If businesses add more emails to the mix, there will be no “off switch,” and employers will expect all employees to be available 24/7/365.

Here’s a sample of for-profit and non-profit email arrival (all are Pacific time):
• Ford’s emails arrive on Wednesdays at 7:30am
• Staples’ emails arrive on Wednesdays at 2:30am
• The Daily Grill’s emails arrive on Thursdays at 9:05am
• PF Changs China Bistro’s emails arrive on Thursdays at 10:15am
• Cheesecake Factory’s emails arrive on Wednesdays at 6:30am
• Brandweek’s emails arrive daily at 7am
• Harvard Business Review’s emails arrive daily at 5am
• Disney’s emails arrive on Fridays at 12:15 am
• Starwood Hotel’s emails arrive Wednesdays at 8:30am
• Kimpton Hotels’ emails arrive on Wednesdays at 6:45 am
• Joe de Vivre Hotels emails arrive on Wednesdays at 7:15am
• Canine Companions for Independence’s emails arrive on Wednesdays at 10am
• World Wildlife Fund’s emails arrive on Fridays at 3am

While the majority of this email sampling arrive mid-week, would I prefer to read 100-200 emails over the weekend as opposed to during the week? Here’s a better idea, would I just prefer to decrease the number of emails that I receive by 100-200 a week? Since that option is not realistically possible (unless I change email addresses), email messages will continue to arrive at a myriad of times on every day of the week – with the hope of standing out so I take notice and take action.

What about you? Are you reconsidering when to send your company’s emails?

Chrome 6 Issue Corrected

Chrome version 6.0.472.55 was an incremental update to a new version of Chrome released on September 7 and announced here. There was a bug in the JavaScript engine that reported the wrong type of some JavaScript objects in a very specific case. This caused Chrome to incorrectly execute Google Analytics' JavaScript, providing an artificially high visitor count for some websites, for their visitors using that particular version of the Chrome browser. Note, not all Google Analytics accounts were affected. The affected period will vary for accounts but would not have appeared before September 7.

A fix was released for all versions of Google Chrome on Wednesday, September 22. Chrome users were automatically updated to version 6.0.472.63 over the last few days.

You can determine whether a profile was affected by comparing visit data from September 7 to approximately September 22 with a previous date range. If you think your account was affected and want to segment out visits from that date range from the affected Chrome release, you can create an advanced segment similar to this one.

We are working closely with the Chrome team to ensure that an issue like this does not happen again. While we believe this issue is fixed, we’ll be closely monitoring this issue over the weekend and beyond.

Posted by Jeff Gillis, Google Analytics Team

New! Status Dashboard

Google Analytics processes huge volumes of data for websites around the world everyday, thanks to Google’s globally renowned infrastructure. While we never stop focusing on system reliability and scalability (here's an example), we also want to make sure our users have an easy way to get the latest updates from us should there be a problem.

Today, we’re pleased to announce that we have launched the Google Analytics Status Dashboard. Now anyone can visit this Status Dashboard to check on the current status of components of the Google Analytics system.

The dashboard reports on the three main components of Google Analytics:

• Data Collection (whether data from websites are being collected by the Google Analytics servers correctly)
• Web Report (whether users can view the reports correctly when they sign in to their Google Analytics accounts)
• GData API (whether the Google Analytics APIs are working properly)

The Google Analytics Status Dashboard represents an additional layer of transparency that we believe will benefit all Google Analytics users, from Fortune 500 companies to personal websites. The Status Dashboard is the best place to check for service availability of Google Analytics anywhere in the world. You can also get the updates pushed to you by subscribing to the RSS Feed. And of course, you can always get updates from us here at this blog or by following us on Twitter (@googleanalytics) and get help from the Google Analytics Help Center or the User to User Forum.

Posted by Yi Wang, Google Analytics Product Team

Updated Keyword Tool: Out of Beta

In early August, we announced that the updated Keyword Tool was nearing the end of its beta phase. Today, we wanted to let you know that we’ve fully launched the updated Keyword Tool.

What does that mean for you? It means we’ve combined the best features from two previous keyword tools into one. The previous Keyword Tool and Search-based Keyword Tool are no longer available in AdWords. The updated Keyword Tool is now the only Keyword Tool available in AdWords, so you can now simply call it “The Keyword Tool.”

The Keyword Tool’s benefits include:

• Flexible search options: Search by any combination of keyword, website/URL, and category (where available) and receive a single set of results.
• Easy Keyword Refinement: Filter results by word or keyword match type.
• Negative keywords: Easily add keyword ideas as negatives right from your keyword list. Just click on a keyword and use the drop-down menu to select and save your negative keyword.
• Advanced options: View statistics for mobile search and use data filters based on local searches, search and ad share, and more.

In addition to these improvements, we’ve also changed how we calculate Global Monthly Searches and Local Monthly Searches. Statistics in these columns are now based on Google.com search traffic only. Previously, they also included traffic from search partners. We've updated these statistics based on advertiser feedback, and hope you find them more helpful for keyword selection.

While we recommend using the Keyword Tool while signed in to AdWords, you can also access the tool without signing in. We hope you like the new streamlined version of the tool and we look forward to bringing you more features soon.

Posted by Jason Shafton, Inside AdWords crew

Shout it from the rooftops!

How often do you share the good news that's happening within your branch? Whether it's bank related or not, product specific or people specific? Many times customers get to know your employees on a personal level and would be happy to hear good news in their lives.


Print a flyer and put it at the teller line, create a poster and place it in the lobby. Run it on your outdoor marquis sign, if it's a big deal place a small ad in your local newspaper. Not only will the person celebrating the good news know they are appreciated so will the community. Talk about showing value in your employees.


MarketMatch has some good news to shout! We have an employee that is running an "Ultra Marathon" tomorrow. That's a 50K race run on trails...31 miles in layman's terms. You better believe that everyone at MarketMatch is proud of him! We've been talking about it for weeks and now the day is finally here...WISHING HIM THE BEST OF LUCK FROM HIS MARKETMATCH FAMILY!


Whether it's an award they have received, a goal they have accomplished, a new baby, a promotion...you name it, let people know about it. Get that "feel good" feeling in your branch, not only from your employees but from everyone that walks in your front door.

Celebrate those who work hard and before you know it everyone will be working towards something.


Make it a great Friday. Enjoy your weekend and until we talk again.

Debbi

Web Analytics TV #12 - The power of the API

Lo and behold, it’s another episode of Web Analytics TV. In this exciting series with Avinash Kaushik and Nick Mihailovski, you ask and vote on your favorite web analytics questions via the Google Analytics Google Moderator site and we answer them.

In this episode, we are delighted to have Rod Jacka as our special guest on Web Analytics TV. Rod is the Managing Director of Panalysis, a specialist web business analytics company and GA Certified Partner, Rod has experience in every web analytics tools, and if you need any consulting help in Australia then Rod's your man.

Here is a list to last weeks questions.

In this action packed episode we discuss:

• (1:45) Why does you own site show in the Referring Sites report?
• (3:15) Is there any way to export more than 5 columns in a pivot report?
• (4:15) Getting app integrations migrated to async tracking
• (5:55) Is there a way to grant read-only access to Website Optimizer?
• (6:50) How to cross IDs set in Custom Variables with other GA data
• (8:50) In which report can you find the PPC search terms (not bid terms)?
• (10:20) Tracking links from emails that point to sites not being tracked by GA
• (12:25) Thoughts about optimizing the async code
• (15:15) If a user keeps clicking every 29 minutes, can a session last for 9 days?
• (16:50) What could cause advanced segments on reports to have different totals?
• (18:28) Why should people use other web analytics products when GA is free?
• (20:50) Does GA track transactions in the same session or across session?
• (21:08) How to get the goal funnel data through the API?
• (22:28) What does “other” mean in the traffic sources overview reports?
• (24:18) Is it possible to get segment-able motion charts?
• (25:42) Why do product revenue and transaction revenue show different values?
• (27:36) Where you can find unique visitor data in Google Analytics
• (29:35) Why do advanced segments that match pages return other pages?
• (31:22) Is it possible to export data from one account into another account?
• (33:08) How to link multiple AdWords accounts to one Google Analytics account
• (34:15) How to distinguish website referrals from desktop applications

And here are the links to the topics we discuss:

• Google Analytics / Excel integrations built using the API
• Get free funnel abandonment data through the API using PadiTrack
• The video for the “visualize” button in Google Analytics
• Sample code mashup to build your own segment-able motion charts using the API
• How advanced segments work in the API

As always, if you need help setting up Google Analytics or leveraging the advanced configuration options, we recommend hiring a Google Analytics Certified Partner.

If you found this post or video helpful, we'd love to hear your comments. Please share them via the comment form below. And, if you have a question you would like us to answer, please submit a question and vote for your favorite question in our public Google Moderator site. Avinash and I will answer your latest questions in a couple of weeks with yet another entertaining video.

Thanks!

Post content Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

Color your market, market your color...

Where do you begin when choosing colors for your marketing materials? What were your reasons for making that particular choice? Was it because you liked those particular colors? What did the colors you chose, say to you? Do you know what your choice of colors say to your audience.

Yes colors do talk! In fact they say more than you might think. The choice of your color palette not only enhances the appearance of a poster, website or brand mark, but in fact they also influence our behavior.

Take for instance a hospital. Hospital walls are usually covered in colors such as white, green and blue. White is the most common color to be seen on a hospital wall due to the peaceful and calm mood it provides as well as denoting cleanness. It implies sterility, which has the effect of making patients feel reassured. Blue and green are considered to be the most relaxing and refreshing colors, promoting peaceful atmosphere, which encourages concentration and healing.

Another example…fast food restaurants are decorated with vivid reds and oranges... Studies have shown that reds and oranges encourage diners to eat quickly and leave - and that's exactly what they want you to do.

Keep in mind - Not all colors mean the same thing throughout the world. Different cultures have different meanings. In Brazil purple signifies death or a loss, Yellow signifies sadness in Greece, and red in Asian cultures, is a traditional color for celebrations or weddings. So they key is to know your audience and know the culture before finalizing any color choices.

“Color is an intense experience on its own.”

Jim Hodges

Here is a listing of the most common colors and their meaning according to North American mainstream culture:

Red --excitement, strength, passion, speed, danger.
Blue -- trust, reliability, belonging, coolness, calming.
Yellow --warmth, sunshine, cheer, happiness
Orange -- playfulness, warmth, vibrant
Green -- nature, fresh, cool, growth, abundance
Purple --royal, spirituality, dignity
Pink -- soft, sweet, nurture, security
White --pure, clean, mild.
Black --sophistication, elegant, mystery
Gold -- prestige, expensive
Silver -- prestige, cold, scientific

“Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions.”

Pablo Picasso

What do you want your message to say? Do you want to calm your market and let them know you are stable and secure? Do you want to scream in their faces and tell them that you have the best rates around. Color can be a huge factor, in so many ways, it is sometimes overwhelming and can make or break a response. If you need some advice or information on how to put this information to use, just give us a call.

Product extensions now available to all U.K. advertisers

Back In November 2009, we announced the U.S. launch of a new AdWords feature called product extensions. Today, we’re excited to announce that product extensions are now available to all U.K. advertisers. Joining our growing family of ad extensions, product extensions are a way for you to enrich your existing AdWords ads with more relevant and specific information. Product extensions allow you to use your existing Google Merchant Center account to highlight your products directly in your search ads. When your AdWords text ad appears, and your Google Merchant Center account contains products that are relevant to the searcher’s query, product extensions show the images, titles, and prices of your products in a plusbox under your ad.

(click for full size image)

With product extensions you can show users the products from your site that are most relevant to their current query. You're charged the same cost-per-click (CPC) whether a user clicks on your main text ad or any of the offers within the product extensions plusbox; however, you won't be charged if a user simply expands the plusbox without clicking through to your site.

Advertisers using product extensions have found that the additional product information has helped improve the performance of their search campaigns. For example, SonyStyle.com, reported seeing a 9% increase in conversion rates for their ads with product extensions.

It's easy to get started with product extensions. First, log in to Google Merchant Center and add your AdWords customer ID to your account. Then, simply log in in to AdWords, select the campaign and navigate to the Ad Extensions tab. To add product extensions to an existing campaign, click the ‘New Extension’ button. No need to create new campaigns or ad groups, update your keywords or change your ad text.

Product extensions are available to all U.S. advertisers, and now, to all U.K. advertisers, but remain in a limited beta outside of these countries. Over time, we hope to offer product extensions to all advertisers globally.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew

Learn about using Sitelinks in a new online course

Ad Sitelinks is an AdWords extension feature that allows you to extend the value of your existing AdWords ads by providing additional links to specific, relevant content deeper within your sitemap. Rather than sending all users to the same landing page, Ad Sitelinks will display up to four additional Destination URLs for users to choose from. These links can help you improve your clickthrough rates and shorten the path to conversion. Learn more about Ad Sitelinks, including how to set them up and manage them in your account in this short, online course.

This course is best suited for advertisers who are comfortable with text ad management.

Please click on the country flag most appropriate to you to watch this course now.

(US) (UK)

If you have a few minutes to spare, check out some of our other courses in the AdWords Online Classroom.

Posted by Gordon Zhu, Inside AdWords crew

Banking is Not Social

Banking is not social ... in fact, it's quite private.

Money is private too ... but it allows you to do social stuff.

So, if you want your Social Media program to work, you're going to have to focus on the social stuff.

Determine what your target likes to do. You can do this as simply as asking them in a questionnaire or you can use tools like P$ycle to segment your customers and determine their lifestyle preferences.

Consider focusing your Social Media messages on the social things that your customers or members like to do - then spin the message to discuss how you can better help them save/borrow the money to do those things.

What cool things are you doing with your Social Media program. Brag about it by leaving a comment below.

Take care,

Eric

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Back-To-Basics: The Power of Exclusion

I have a friend who owns a store in my neighborhood. He decided to run a 50%-off special on a site that specializes in one-day promotions to its members. His goal was to get wider exposure for his store and gain some new customers. If you look at the graph, you can see that the day that the promotion ran, traffic to his site spiked. Traffic then dropped off to normal the next day, but this was expected given the nature of this particular campaign.

The store owner was happy to see the spike in traffic, but he wanted to learn more. So he did something clever and created an advanced segment. But instead of creating an advanced segment for traffic from just the promotional site, he did the exact opposite. He created a segment that excluded all the promotional traffic.

Why? It’s a great example of what I call the power of exclusion. More about that in a minute, but first let’s look at how you would create a segment that excludes traffic from a specific site.

First, click the Advanced Segments drop down and click “Create a new advanced segment”.

From the menu on the left, drag Source into the working area. Select the condition “Does not contain”. Enter the name of the site from which you want to exclude traffic, for example “example.com”. Then name and save the segment.

To apply the segment, click the Advanced Segments drop down again and select your newly created segment. (You’ll see it under Custom Segments.) In this case, I named this segment “exclude promo site”.

Take a look at the graph below and you’ll see why this was a smart idea. The blue line is all traffic. The orange line is all traffic except traffic from the promotional site. Notice something interesting? That’s right. The orange line also shows a spike, even though it doesn’t include any referrals from the promo site.

This is the power of exclusion: If you want to find out how effective something is -- whether it’s a traffic source, a promo, or a campaign -- try excluding its influence from your data. You might be surprised at what you find.

So, why is there a traffic spike in the “exclude promo site” segment? Tune in next week and find out. In the meantime, watch this short video tutorial to re-acquaint yourself with advanced segments.

Posted by Alden DeSoto, Google Analytics Team