To Allow or Not To Allow? The Facebook Subscribe Button

When I visited Facebook today, I was greeted with the following message, direct from Facebook:

It read,

New: The Subscribe ButtonNow you can let anyone who's interested subscribe to things you share publicly.

The message also included a list of my friends who were already using subscribe. 

Fellow blogger and friend Angie Mizzell recently wrote about the subscribe button, and how she'd be using it in a way that made sense for her and her friendbase.

Will you be allowing subscribers to your Facebook updates? I can't help but notice that this feels similar to Google's "circles" in a way.  Not that that is a bad thing! On Google+, you get to decide who receives the updates you share.  You first must group your friends in circles.  A friend-in-real-life circle, an acquantance circle, an I'm-not-sure-who-you-are circle, etc.  Then, when you post something, you tell Google+ who gets to see the update. 

With Facebook's subscribe button and feature, you decide if your status update is public or for friends-only.  The public updates are shared with all of your subscribers, friends or not, IF you've opted-in to activate the subscribe button for your profile.

Will I be turning the subscribe button on? I'm not sure yet.  I pride myself on being an early adopter of all things social media, but I'm not sure how I feel about this just yet.  It seems to make a lot of sense if you're using your Facebook like Angie is. It also makes a lot of sense for folks who regularly share their blog posts on Facebook.  Like me. Hmmm...

Get the full explanation about the subscribe button on Facebook's official page about it here.

I'm curious to know if you've turned this feature on for your profile.Why or why not?

Laura Catherine Otero is a marketing professional and blogger 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. Laura can also be found on Twitter (@LauraCatherineO), Facebook, and LinkedIn. 

AdWords Top Contributor Summit

Global Top Contributor Summit: real people behind user names and friendly smiles instead of emoticons. Meeting offline for the first time!

As you may have read in the official Google blog, the Global Top Contributor Summit recently took place in sunny California. This two-day event brought together for the first time over 250 Top Contributors from Google forums. Top Contributors are longtime members of the Google Help Forums who, over time, have distinguished themselves as true experts by providing helpful tips, advice, and support to other forum visitors.

In this blog post we wanted to tell you more about the AdWords Top Contributors (TCs) and the AdWords portion of the summit. Thirty-five AdWords Top Contributors from AdWords forums in 17 languages took part in the Summit. Coming from around the world, they had a unique chance to meet the AdWords Community Leads, along with Google management and engineering teams.

Alan Eustace talks about Google's focus on users and the importance of their feedback.

The first day of the summit was a gathering of all product Top Contributors. It offered presentations from Google's SVP of Knowledge Alan Eustace, product team managers and the Google Help Forum team. Googlers and TCs also had the opportunity to discuss the future of Google's online communities. The day ended with a ceremony to recognize outstanding Top Contributors.

Google and Top Contributors: collaboration in action

The second day was fully dedicated to AdWords. TCs met with the marketing and product teams to discuss product updates and future collaboration plans. During the Q&A session with the product team, TCs once again showed their outstanding product knowledge and interest in AdWords. We heard passionate discussion between the TCs and Product Managers on to how the next version of AdWords Editor should look. Once the general sessions were over, the participants split into groups with Googlers to brainstorm future initiatives and plans. Lastly, the management team of AdWords recognized the TCs for being the most active, creative and professional members of AdWords communities. In short, the day was filled with tough questions, constructive feedback, a sneak peek of upcoming product features, and well-deserved recognition.

The Summit went by fast, but left behind many joyful memories, new friends, and great feedback. We were touched to hear how much Top Contributors appreciated the opportunity to come to summit. "I've no words to describe how proud I am, to be part of this group of so extraordinary people. From outside… someone could think AdWords TCs are people who think only on how to earn money… no heart… no altruism…. What I've seen is really the opposite. I see collaboration, friendship, respect. Really, really, thank you very much to everybody," -- Andrea, Italy

Join the ongoing summit discussion with other AdWords enthusiasts.

Thank you all for coming!
AdWords Community Team

Posted by Andrew Truong, Inside AdWords crew

A look at how display builds brands for marketers today

Last week, we shared examples of how direct response marketers are driving strong results with display advertising. But you’ve heard it before -- beyond driving immediate clicks and conversions, display builds brands. And as digital budgets accelerate, for an increasingly growing number of brands, display advertising has become an important part of their strategy. In fact, in the recently conducted Advertiser Intelligence Reports study, by Advertiser Perceptions, advertisers are planning on spending more digital display dollars in the next 12 months for brand goals than direct response.1

So this week, we’re turning our attention to pioneering brands who used display advertising as a critical component in their overall marketing mix to connect with their audience, engage them emotionally, and as a result, drive meaningful results. Let’s take a closer look.

Animal Planet attracted 1.6MM viewers for the season premiere of River Monsters, putting it in the #1 spot among its target audience, by running an integrated video and rich media campaign across YouTube, AdMob, and the Google Display Network. (read case study)

Volvo drove an 88% lift in purchase intent for its new S60 sedan by leveraging the YouTube homepage and masthead unit, interactive video ads on AdMob, and standard IAB ads on the Google Display Network. (read case study)

Sealy reinvented its Posturepedic brand using YouTube promoted video ads and in-stream video ads, which drove 46% of its website traffic during the first week of the campaign. (read case study)

At OMMA Global this week, we shared a simple framework for brand building that we developed after analyzing the campaigns of our most successful brand advertisers. These “better practices” focus on three key areas: connecting with the right consumer at the right moment, delivering an engaging message, and measuring the metrics that matter.

Connecting with the right consumer at the right moment. As consumers continue to access the internet more frequently throughout the day, from a multitude of devices, it’s increasingly important for brand marketers to create device-inclusive, rather than device-specific, campaigns. And by targeting a combination of audience and contextual signals, it’s now easier than ever to reach the right person, at the right time, on the right device through the Google Display Network or DoubleClick AdExchange.

Engaging them emotionally. The best display ads don’t just leverage sight, sound, and motion, but also harness display’s interactive capabilities that drive deep engagement with a brand. Our research shows that rich media ads drive significantly better brand performance than standard Flash ads--1.7X for brand awareness, 2.7X in purchase intent, and 5X increase in brand favorability.2 We also see that newer ad formats, like mobile display and in-stream video, are even more effective at moving consumers down the brand funnel. Lastly, we’ve seen masthead ads on the YouTube homepage garner an 11% interaction rate and drive a 4X lift in engagement compared to standard ads.3

Measuring more robustly. Looking beyond simple clicks and conversions, brand marketers use Campaign Insights to measure increased awareness and interest through the lift in search queries and website visits. Paired with Google Analytics and Multi-Channel Funnels, advertisers can see a complete picture of the chain of online and offline media that drives brand engagement. And to close the loop, many of our brands match geo-targeted display campaigns to offline sales to measure the true impact of a display ad campaign.

More and more studies show that brand marketers who focus on these three levers see the the greatest return on their display ad investment. With display’s ability to connect more precisely with your target consumer, engage more emotionally with interactive messages, and measure robust metrics along all parts of the purchase funnel, it’s no wonder that display builds brands.

Watch this space.
google.com/watchthisspace

(1) Advertiser Intelligence Reports (AIR) study, Advertiser Perceptions, August 2011
(2) The Brand Value of Video and Rich Media Ads, DoubleClick, September 2011
(3) YouTube Homepage Impact Study, Compete, December 2010

Posted by Brian Zeug, National Sales Director, Display and Video

Introducing Google Analytics Premium

We built Google Analytics on the principle of democratizing data-- giving all website owners, big and small, the ability to learn from their visitors. Many websites use Google Analytics, ranging from personal blogs to large enterprises whose products and services we use daily.

We learned from some of our largest customers that they have some specific needs that the current version of Google Analytics can't meet in their entirety. Today we're addressing these needs by announcing a new option built for our largest customers: Google Analytics Premium.

We developed Google Analytics Premium around these pillars: more data, advanced tools, dedicated support and guarantees. Here’s a summary of what that covers:

• Extra processing power - increased data collection, more custom variables and downloadable, unsampled reports
• Advanced analysis - attribution modeling tools that allow you to test different models for assigning credit to conversions
• Service and support - experts to guide customized installation, and dedicated account management on call - all backed by 24/7 support
• Guarantees - service level agreements for data collection, processing and reporting

Google Analytics Premium was developed in close coordination with some of our largest clients. During our pilot phase, we’ve been working with Gucci, Travelocity, TransUnion, eHarmony and others, to make sure Google Analytics Premium meets their needs. We’re very happy with what we’ve built and we’re now ready to make it available to all interested clients.

Google Analytics Premium is available for a fixed annual fee in the United States, Canada, and the UK. You can get it directly from Google or through Google Analytics Premium Authorized Resellers. To learn more about Premium, you can contact the Google team or our authorized resellers. We've put together a short video:



We're more committed than ever to providing our customers, large and small, with options to measure and improve their marketing efforts. Google Analytics will continue to offer a powerful, free product as it always has and you’ll see plenty of new features and enhancements in the future. We’re pleased to help all of our customers to work more effectively with Google Analytics. Happy analyzing!

Posted by Enrique Munoz Torres, Product Manager, Google Analytics team

What’s happening on your site right now?

The web is getting faster, and not just the speed of the pages, but also the speed of change. Before, it was fine to build a website and modify it only when new products were launched. All of us avid Analytics users know that’s just not good enough. We need to be constantly on the lookout for problems and opportunities.

Currently, Google Analytics does a great job analyzing past performance. Today we’re very excited to bring real time data to Google Analytics with the launch of Google Analytics Real-Time: a set of new reports that show what’s happening on your site as it happens.




Measuring social media impact
One way that I like to use these reports is to measure the immediate impact of social media. Whenever we put out a new blog post, we also send out a tweet. With Real-Time, I can see the immediate impact to my site traffic.

For example, last week we posted about the latest episode of Web Analytics TV and also tweeted about the post. By campaign tagging the links we shared, we could see how much traffic each channel is driving to the blog as it happened. We could also see when we stopped receiving visits from the tweet, which helps know when to reengage.




Campaign measurement
Another way I’m using Real-Time is to make sure campaign tracking is correctly implemented before launching a campaign. When getting ready to launch a new campaign it’s critical to make sure your measurement plan is working before you start driving visitors to the page. With the Real-Time reports you can find out in seconds whether you’re getting the data you want in Google Analytics.

Accessing Real-Time
You’ll find the Real-Time reports only in the new version of Google Analytics. If you’re not already using the new version, you can start by clicking the “New Version” link in the top right of Google Analytics. Real-Time reports are in the Dashboards tab (though they will move to the Home tab in the updated interface next week) . You will have access to Real-Time reports if you are an Administrator on your Analytics account, or if you have access to a profile without profile filters. Real-Time does not support profile filters.

We just turned the reports on for a number of you, and over the coming weeks, everyone will have access to Real-Time. If you can’t wait, sign up for early access here: https://services.google.com/fb/forms/realtimeanalytics/. We’d love to hear about how you are using (or planning to use) Real-Time, so please share in the comments.

Posted by John Jersin, Google Analytics Team

Design updates to the new interface coming next week

In March, we unveiled the new version of Google Analytics that included, along with many other improvements, a redesigned user interface. Since then we’ve heard from many of you on how we can improve different aspects of the design.

Designers from our User Experience team took a step back objectively asked "How can we make Analytics better?" They focused on the core organization (our information architecture) and way-finding as areas that could be improved. What followed were a series of brainstorming sessions with engineers and product managers, analysis of your feedback, customer interviews, card-sort studies, and general user testing – all done to iterate on our product while keeping our users involved in the process.

Next week we’ll release these changes. The biggest change you'll notice is that we have simplified the primary navigation into three tabs – Home, Standard Reporting, and Custom Reporting – to give you quicker access to the information that matters. We also incorporated the second layer of navigation that appeared in "My Site" throughout the Home and Standard Reporting tabs.




Here's what you can expect in each tab:

Home: The Home tab holds all reports and features that allow you to quickly understand what is happening on your site. You’ll find your custom dashboards here as well as your automatic and custom alerts from Google Analytics Intelligence.

Standard Reporting: All the built-in reports to understand your audience, advertising impact, traffic sources, conversions, content, and more are now displayed in one central place.

We're also excited about the addition of a report finder in the Standard Reporting tab. This will allow you to type the name of a report you’re interested in and quickly navigate to it without needing to hunt for it in the proper section.




Custom Reporting: Google Analytics lets you build your own reports to get exactly the data you need. With the new tab, we’re making Custom Reports a more important part of the interface. You’ll be able to access any reports you’ve created here and build new ones.

So what's next for our designers? We have a number of improvements planned to the overall Analytics interface to bring more focus on data, as well as exciting new features that will make analyzing data faster and easier.

If you'd like to help shape Google Analytics and want to participate in future user studies, please register here.

UPDATE: 10/14/2011 11:25am PST - And we're back. The design updates are back on for everyone.

UPDATE: 10/7/2011 9:30am PST - We've temporarily turned these updates off for a couple days to fix an issue. They'll be back in a couple days.

UPDATE: 10/6/2011 3:00pm PST - These updates are now live in the new version. Enjoy!

Posted by Lucas Pettinati, Lead User Experience Designer, Google Analytics team

Learn to predict the present with Think Quarterly

In July, we launched our first issue of Think Quarterly, a publication that packages up the insights and ideas that we learn from both inside and outside of Google. Today we’re launching our second edition, the “People” issue. It explores the latest technologies connecting us and the big ideas driving society forward.

One way we can gain insight into people’s actions, intentions, and future actions is through their search behavior. When looked at in aggregate, queries can speak volumes. In “Predicting the Present”, our chief economist Hal Varian talks about how you can use publicly available tools like Insights for Search and Google Correlate to this end. In his words:

“If you type ‘weight loss’ into Google Correlate you find ‘healthy smoothie’ and ‘meal replacement.’ Not too surprising. But you also see terms like ‘vacation destination,’ ‘cruises to,’ and ‘wedding checklist.’ And if you look at the searches that occur three weeks after the ‘weight loss’ query, you see ‘weight loss plateau’ and ‘not losing weight’ at the top of the list.”

Hal’s team has uncovered a number of interesting relationships by analyzing query data. For example, here’s an infographic that shows the online and offline spending behavior of people throughout a typical week.

(click for full-size image)

For more, read the full article here. We hope you enjoy (and +1) it!

Posted by Andrew Truong, Inside AdWords crew

It’s now easier to set up Google Analytics Site Search tracking for your Custom Search Engine

Cross-posted from the Google Custom Search blog

Google Analytics Site Search reports provide extensive data on how people search your site once they are already on it.  You can see initial searches, refinements, search trends, which pages they searched from, where they ended up, and conversion correlation.  In the past we admit that setup was a little challenging, but we’re happy to announce that now we’ve made it easy to setup Site Search tracking directly from your Custom Search Engine.

If you are already a Google Analytics user (and your site has the Google Analytics tracking code on its pages), go to the Custom Search Engine management page, select your CSE’s control panel and click on Google Analytics from the left-hand menu. We’ll display a list of your Google Analytics web properties so you can select one and tell us the query and category parameters that you want to track.

Once you save your changes, we’ll generate a new code snippet.  Copy it from the Get Code page, paste it into your site and setup is complete!

You can then access Site Search reports from the Content section of Google Analytics.

Happy analyzing!  If needed, you can find help with setup here and an explanation of the differences between Google Analytics and Custom Search statistics here. Let us know what you think in our discussion forum.

Posted by Zhong Wang, Software Engineer

Google Analytics Webinar: Getting started with Multi-Channel Funnels

A few weeks ago we launched Multi-Channel Funnels, a powerful tool to help you understand all the online interactions that lead your users to conversion. With five insightful reports, you can now measure the full conversion path, from first interaction to last click. More important, Multi-Channel Funnels provides actionable analysis about how your marketing channels work together, and answers key questions such as:

• How much time does the average user take between first interaction and conversion?
• How many interactions does it take to convert?
• Which of my marketing channels are “assisting” conversions and which are “closers”?

To help you get the most out of this tool, we’ve scheduled a webinar to walk through the new reports and go over common uses with Bill Kee, the Product Manager for Multi-Channel Funnels.

Title: Getting started with Multi-Channel Funnels

Date: October 11, 2011

Time: 10am PST

Register for the webinar

Have questions about Multi-Channel Funnels? Send them to us ahead of the webinar so we can make sure to answer them. You can also vote for the questions you want to see answered most. You can submit your questions on our Google Moderator page.

If you can't attend the webinar, please check the Google Analytics YouTube Channel for a recording about a week after the live event. You can also read more from the initial announcement of Multi-Channel Funnels and watch a video about the tool.

We hope that you will be able to participate!

Posted by Sara Jablon Moked, Product Marketing Manager, Google Analytics team

Music: MP3s and CDs in the Multicultural Marketplace

Are ethnic groups in the US society equally acquiring MP3s and physical CDs, or are there differences in their rate of adoption? That was a question we asked in the FSU’s Multicultural Marketing Study conducted in collaboration with DMS Insights the Spring of 2011.

We phrased the survey questions “How often do you do each of the following?” and the response options were “Never,” “Sometimes,” and “Very Often,” for each of purchasing MP3s online and purchasing physical CDs.

 At first I aggregated “Sometimes” and “Very Often” for both products and the results show an increasing tendency of the use of MP3s purchased online for African Americans, Asians, Hispanics who prefer English, and Hispanics who prefer Spanish, with the latter 3 groups showing a stronger tendency for MP3s to catch up to CD’s.

The differences in the purchase of physical CDs among these groups are not as dramatic as the differences for MP3s. Clearly, CDs are an established and declining category while MP3s are a growing innovation. Then I compared the differences for only the “Very Often” category.

This analysis is more striking because it shows that Hispanics who prefer English appear to be the most aggressive ethnic group replacing CDs. This seems like a historical innovation breakthrough. Non-Hispanic Whites are also more actively replacing CDs but their overall levels of purchase are lower. Hispanics who prefer Spanish are at parity in their “Very Often” purchase of MP3s and CDs, and given the trend they may soon follow the pattern of their English preferred counterparts.

 What these findings point to is a continuous trend on the part of emerging minorities to innovate to a larger extent than the established non-Hispanic White majority. This musical category, however is quite interesting since music is so central to the lives of minorities in reinforcing their ethnic ties.

These trends lead me to ponder why companies like Apple and Amazon do not pay more attention to the tastes and interests of these minorities since they are the ones innovating precisely at the core of their business. Why are they not advertising more with an emphasis on ethnic music and with messages directly related to the cultures of central to their selves? Perhaps, as usual, change comes very slowly, and I wonder, when will they realize who their core customers are?

The data for this study was collected during March 2011. This online sample was comprised of 500 respondents per segment, for a total of 2,500, based on quotas by gender, age, and geographic location. DMS Insights managed the sample and data collection and they graciously contributed their effort to the academic program of the Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication at Florida State University. This study was conducted by the faculty and students of the graduate Multicultural Marketing Communication course offered by FSU.

How to Get the New Facebook Timeline Layout BEFORE it Rolls Out

If you've been following Facebook in the media this week, you're already aware of some pretty big changes.  Some are already here, and others are on their way. If you need to get up-to-speed, read this article about the newest changes.

One of the new changes that especially intrigued me was the new "Timeline" layout.  The video below does a good job of explaining this new layout.


I was able to roll-out the new "timeline" format on my Facebook profile BEFORE it rolls out to the general public by following the steps outlined in this Mashable article.  It's 8 steps and takes a few minutes, but if you're eager to give the features a test-drive, it will get the job done.  I'll be checking out the new features today! My next post will walk you through some of the features. In the meantime, here's a sneak peek at what my new profile looks like:

Have a great day, and remember to visit my personal blog, LauraCatherine.co if you're looking for my latest "Motivation Monday" and "Be Inspired Wednesday" posts.  I took the more personal posts from Strategic Online Marketing and made a new home for them. Of course, I'll still be sharing plenty of online marketing goodness with you here.

Laura Catherine Otero is a marketing professional and blogger 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. Laura can also be found on Twitter (@LauraCatherineO), Facebook, and LinkedIn. 

Where does the time go?...

Well its officially the end of a hot dry Summer. Pools are closed, the kids are back in school, and a very productive 3rd quarter is drawing to a close.

In our industry, some projects take a lot of planning and organization to keep all of the moving parts in order. You need to make sure everything is on target and ensure that all parties have the elements they need to pull everything off. That takes alot of effort and responsibility.

Many times you get so engrossed in the work, that all of a sudden, you blink and it's 2 months later. In the heat of the moment when you're under deadlines you don't really get the time to appreciate the effort that goes into those campaigns.

Trust me, we all know work and projects can get very hectic - Just make sure you take the time to breath and enjoy the fruits of your labor. When I get down time, or complete a big project, I try to go back through and reflect on it. I pat myself on the back, take it all in, appreciate how all of the pieces came together, and stand in front of the mirror and flex (OK not really the last part so much). Just don't let a whole summer roll by before you realize it.

If you ever feel like you need a hand, or that stack of work isn't disappearing fast enough give us a call we're always here to help.

Until next time,
Jeremy

A look at how display drives performance for marketers today

(Cross-posted from the AdWords Agency Blog)

Few would argue that online display advertising is playing an increasingly important role in the marketing mix. While we frequently talk about how the vast majority of our top advertisers have run a Google display campaign in the last year while continuing to increase their investment, today we’re shining a light on some specific examples.

For each brand we’re highlighting today, display was an integral part of their broader marketing strategy. To make it work, they tapped into a robust display advertising toolbox and applied targeting, creative, measurement and optimization solutions that made the most sense for their campaign objective. Let’s take a look at the results.

Airbnb increased the number of nights booked from 800,000 to 2 million with help from remarketing on the Google Display Network and TrueView video ads on YouTube. (Read case study)

Groupon acquired millions of subscribers with the help of contextual targeting and auto-optimization on the Google Display Network. (Read case study)

ShoeDazzle got 45% of their conversions from the Google Display Network by applying a variety of targeting and optimization tools. (Read case study)

At the heart of each success lies a common theme: Great display advertising happens when smart strategies are applied in three key areas: Finding the right customer, showing them the perfect ad, and measuring and optimizing effectively.

Find the right customer. Reaching just the right audience is at the crux of any successful campaign. In fact, marketers are saying the biggest driver of increased display budgets is the availability of better targeting technologies. (1) From remarketing strategies that reach 84% of users on a typical list, to interest categories that show interested users your message while respecting user privacy, we’re constantly innovating to precisely connect your message with your audience. And just last month, we shared strategies for applying the right targeting mix to extract the most out of direct response campaigns on the GDN.

Show them the perfect ad. You can find the right audience, but what do you tell them? With display, marketers have a wide-open canvas to connect with consumers to drive the results they care about. And an effective ad can come in any format. In fact, many of the brands we’re highlighting today used Standard IAB display ad units but with compelling messaging and beautiful creative that really resonated with their audience.

Measure and optimize based on real-time insights. Advertisers have always benefited from transparency into exactly where ads run, their costs, and the right metrics to measure campaign performance, providing actionable insights to optimize their campaigns. Our recent investments in measurement and optimization take this further. Marketers can now see a complete picture of the chain of impressions and clicks that drives campaign performance with Multi-Channel Funnels. And applying Google’s 10 years of experience in developing optimization algorithms, we’ve launched tools like Display Campaign Optimizer, which can be used to do fully automated bidding and targeting to boost conversions and ROI.

So today, while we’re celebrating these successes, more than that, there is a valuable insight here. The display toolbox is a rich one. It’s the agencies and marketers who tap into that toolbox and apply it in ways that make sense for their campaigns, who will greatly benefit from display as a medium. So.. will your campaign be the next one we shine a light on?

Watch this space.

google.com/watchthisspace

(1) Effective Audience Targeting Leads To Bigger Display Budgets, eMarketer, May 2011

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Product Marketing Manager, Google Display, Client Communications

Web Analytics TV #21 - Short, Sweet, Delicious

Welcome to another delightful episode of Web Analytics TV! Web Analytics TV, as you well know by now, is powered by your amazing questions. In this wonderful episode we had questions from Australia, Denmark, India, Sweden, Germany, The Netherlands and even Cleveland Ohio.

If you’re new to this show, our process is simple.

Step 1: You ask, or vote on, your favorite web analytics questions. Vote on next week’s questions using this Web Analytics TV Google Moderator site.

Step 2: From a secret undisclosed location at the Googleplex Avinash Kaushik & Nick Mihailovski answer them. :-)

In this episode we award the “Ninja of the Episode” and award it to Scott in Cleveland, Ohio for a really great question about verification steps in funnels. Scott, just email us and we’ll send you a signed copy of Web analytics 2.0.

OK. Here is the list of last episodes questions.

In this action packed episode we discuss:

• (0:53) Setting up a funnel for a process which requires a verification step
• (3:21) The impact of using profile filters to remove internal IP addresses
• (4:05) Using regular expressions to match on event goals
• (5:15) Grouping multi-channel funnels by landing pages
• (6:24) Tracking site links with Google Analytics
• (9:27) Manual campaign tracking with links that use anchor tags
• (11:15) Best practices for tracking sites with different language sections
• (14:00) Getting a report with 3 dimensions
• (15:40) Tracking bounce rate to many product pages as one page
• (18:45) Seeing reports that have unique visitor utma ids

Here are the links to the topics we discuss:

• Video: Understanding recent changes to the Visits algorithm in Google Analytics
• One of the most elegant, and advanced, solutions to track site links by Joost de Valk
• NextAnalytics Excel plugin to access your Google Analytics data through the API
• ShufflePoints Excel / Power Powerpoint Google Analytics integration
• Automate Analytics simple tool to access Google Analytics data in Excel

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.

This series would not be possible without your awesome questions. Please submit them on our public Google Moderator site, and while you’re there don’t forget to vote for your favorite questions.  Avinash and I will answer them in a couple of weeks with yet another entertaining video.

Thanks!
Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

Google+: 108, the +1 button is coming to display ads

Earlier today we announced several exciting new additions to Google+, including many on mobile. We’d like to announce one more addition for our AdWords advertisers, +1 on the Google Display Network.

Since its introduction on search results and search ads, the +1 button has been installed on over a million websites across the web with over 4 billion impressions daily. Starting early October we’re expanding that to include display ads across the web on both desktop and mobile. For the first time, you’ll be able to run social-enabled ad campaigns that work across millions of sites in over 40 countries around the world.

If you’re running display ads through the Google Display Network you may begin seeing the +1 button and personal annotations with your ads. With a single click, people can recommend the ad’s landing page to their friends and contacts.

Incorporating personal recommendations into display ads has the potential to change the way people view advertising. A display ad becomes much more powerful when people can see which of their friends and contacts have chosen to endorse it.

For example, take Elaine, who sees an ad for discount flights. She +1’s the ad, thinking her friends might value similar deals. Now when Elaine’s friends and contacts are logged into Google and see the discount flight ad on any of the millions of GDN partner websites, they’ll see Elaine’s picture across the bottom of the ad with a note saying she +1’d it.

On desktop, the +1 button and recommendations will appear at the bottom of display ads, then fade out until the viewer hovers over the ad. The viewer can also close the overlays by clicking the ‘x’.

On mobile, the +1 button will replace the existing ‘g’ logo and recommendations will appear for several seconds, then fade out.

Elaine’s friends and contacts will also be more likely to see the ad. Because a recommendation from a friend is such a strong signal of relevance, the Google Display Network gives ads that have been recommended an extra boost by including them in the auction for any page a friend visits. Of course, if you’re targeting specific placements or audience segments (including interest categories and remarketing lists), your ads will only show on pages that match those restrictions. Additionally, your ads will never show on any placement or category on an exclusions list.

What’s even better is that the +1 button on display ads will work together with +1 buttons on search results, search ads, and websites. A single +1 applies to the same content across the web, no matter where it appears.

On the Google Display Network (GDN), the +1 button will be added to image, animated GIF, Flash, Display Ad Builder ads and select mobile inventory. You can also choose to include the +1 button on your DoubleClick Rich Media ads, which can run on or off the GDN.

We’re confident from our initial experience with the +1 button on search that this’ll be a great addition to your GDN campaigns. However, if you’re not sure that you want the +1 button and recommendations associated with your ads, starting today you can opt-out at the campaign level in AdWords under campaign settings.

To learn more about the +1 button and how it affects your ads and search results, visit our +1 button site.

Published by Eider Oliveira, Senior Software Engineer

Marketers Not Aligned With Consumer Marketing Channel Preferences

Technology is rapidly changing the way consumers interact. We wake up each day to a barrage of messages coming from both traditional and new media. We check our Facebook posts and text messages at the same time we watch television, read the newspaper, listen to the radio or conduct work online. 

Marketers have long recognized the shifts in media consumption that are redefining how customers absorb information and offers. However, recent studies indicate that marketers may not be in total alignment with consumers as to how the new media is consumed and their degree of reliance on various media for making buying decisions.

A new research study by Acxiom entitled, Tug of Love: The Changing Relationship Between Consumers and Brands found that more than four in five people (82%) believed they were in control of the relationship between themselves and their brands (with 'control' being defined as receiving the information they desire, when and through the media they want). This was more than 50% higher than marketers thought, indicating that 'push' broadcast marketing is quickly being replaced with 'pull' marketing where the individual is in charge of message consumption.


Interestingly, the perception of having the ability to filter messages that were either inappropriate or not of personal interest increased with age, possibly due to less messages being sent using electronic channels and due to improved targeting available for older households. Older households also benefit from having longer relationships with their brands, resulting in less bombardment of messages occurring.

Despite feeling in control, however, one in four households still say they receive 'inappropriate' marketing communications, while marketers feel they do a better job of targeting. Even with this ability to screen messages, only 27% of consumers believed their brands understood them or communicated with them appropriately. The good news is that some of the best numbers were recorded for financial services communications, even though less than half believed they were understood and communicated with well.

One of the most surprising findings in this study and in a recently published study from the European Journal of Marketing entitled, Comparing Perceptions of Marketing Communications Channels (Vol. 45, No. 1/2, 2011, pp 6-43), was that although email is well established and widely used by marketers, the traditional channels of television, radio, newspapers and to a significantly greater degree, direct mail retain historically favored attributes of trust and reliability. Conversely, some of the newer media such as SMS and mobile received much lower rankings than marketers believed they would, making these channels less powerful or accepted by consumers of any age category. In fact, direct mail was reported by both customer and prospect groups in both studies as being in the top two marketing channels preferred next to email.

In the Acxiom study, 71% of current customers cited direct mail as an appropriate way of reaching them, with 57% of prospects preferring direct mail. These acceptance ratings were far above what marketers thought who were asked the same question. Only 35% of marketers thought prospects would welcome direct mail. They were much closer with customer perception, noting that they believed 75% would be positive about direct mail. Email acceptance was 77% for customers and only 52% for prospects, still significantly higher than other newer media. In fact, only 12% of consumers felt mobile advertising was appropriate, with the figure for SMS being only 9%. As could be surmised, marketers believed the acceptance rate on these media options would be much higher. Despite the industry focus on and massive growth of interactions through social media, only 4% of consumers wanted to be reached using these channels.

Customer Acceptance of Alternative Marketing Channels (Acxiom, 2011)

Prospect Acceptance of Alternative Marketing Channels (Acxiom, 2011)

The European Journal of Marketing study dug deeper into the perceived attributes of the different media channels as determined by both the sender and recipient. As could be expected, channels that were considered annoying or irritating included SMS, phone, door-to-door and email. Consumers found direct mail to have the qualities of being informative, reliable and trustworthy, while they found most mass marketing to be informative and enjoyable.

Perceptual Mapping of Marketing Channel Attributes - Recipient (European Journal of Marketing, 2011)

'Senders' as defined by the study had a pretty close correlation with recipients regarding most marketing channels except they viewed email in a significantly more favorable light than consumers. Part of this bias may be caused by the lack of measurement between the stages of clicks and consumption of the email opened. The chart below illustrates the perception of the senders of marketing messages on the same dimensions as the above graph.

Perceptual Mapping of Marketing Channel Attributes - Sender (European Journal of Marketing, 2011)

Regression analysis found, not surprisingly, that a marketing offer is more likely to be successful if the recipient regards the information as important. In addition, higher involvement with the product or service is also more likely to result in greater engagement. Finally, it was found that receivers are more likely to be persuaded by the marketing offer in a particular channel if they find communications in that channel to be enjoyable and entertaining, and if the channel that has a reputation for reliable information. Again, this illustrates why some traditional channels such as direct mail and, to a lesser degree, email continue to perform well.

While the Acxiom study was conducted in Europe and the European Journal of Marketing Study was conducted in Australia may impact the specific numbers, but most likely dramatically change the trends found. Both of these studies and a recent white paper published by The Winterberry Group entitled, The Multichannel Revolution: New Media, New Approaches, New Opportunities also emphasized that no single channel strategy will be enough in today's multichannel world. Instead, marketers need to develop a long‐term, audience‐driven multichannel strategy, gaining insight into customer attributes, demand drivers and response cues that are the key to optimal budget allocation.


Finding that right balance of media (and having the courage to respond quickly to its changing dynamics) will
prove essential to growth in tomorrow’s competitive marketplace.

I would like to hear from you. How is your bank's media mix changing as you plan for 2012 to reflect changing media consumption patterns, shrinking budgets and greater emphasis on ROI?