Data At Your Fingertips: Announcing The Google Analytics App For Android

We are pleased to announce the launch of Google Analytics App for Android phones!

With the Google Analytics App, you can access the same accounts and profiles you see when you open Analytics from a desktop browser, but you’ll see reports that are optimized for your phone. 

Swipe through these reports to see the essential data about your websites and apps anywhere, anytime:

• Real-Time: See the number of visitors you currently have and a list of the pages (for websites) or screens (for apps) that are currently popular.
• Dashboard: Monitor the KPIs and user metrics you care about the most. By default, you’ll see your Daily Unique Visitors and your Goal Conversion Rate, but you can customize the dashboard to change which reports, metrics, or segments you see.  
• Automatic and Customized Alerts: Google Analytics detects statistical anomalies in your data and can send you an alert when something unusual happens. See either automatic alerts, or customize your settings to send alerts based on your own benchmarks. 

Screenshot: The Realtime Report

Screenshot: The Dashboard

Visit Google Play to download and install the app to keep up with your data anytime, anywhere.

Peng Li, on behalf of the GA Mobile App team

More ‘Flexible’ Targeting on the Google Display Network

Last month we introduced the Display Network tab, a new interface in AdWords dedicated to making display buying easier and more efficient by combining your targeting, bidding and optimizing in one place. To give you even more control over your display ads, we’re pleased to announce the new Flexible reach targeting setting on the new Display Network tab.

In the next couple of weeks, the Networks and devices section of your Settings tab in AdWords will include a new targeting option called “Flexible reach.” Flexible reach enables you to fine-tune where your ads show by choosing your settings at the ad group level instead of the campaign level. This will give you more control over where your ads appear and who sees them.


Why the Change?
Today, you can manage your display targeting on the campaign level by selecting Broad reach or Specific reach.

• When you select Broad reach, your ads are shown on pages that match your primary targeting method.
• When you select Specific reach, your ads will show on pages that match all of your targeting methods.

Flexible reach allows you to select any combination of multiple targeting selections at the ad group level, plus the control to combine different methods for targeting and bidding at the ad group level. It also provides transparency into how your targeting selections are affecting the reach and impression volume of your campaigns.

How will this affect my campaigns today?
The Flexible reach campaign setting will appear as an optional setting in AdWords accounts in June and will eventually replace the Broad and Specific reach options later this year.

Once you’ve selected this option in an existing campaign, you can’t revert back to Broad or Specific reach and any new ad group will have Flexible reach by default. Your current targeting and bidding selections will remain the same, but you’ll now have the control to select how to target and bid on an individual ad group basis.

Learn More!
To find out more about how to take advantage of Flexible reach, visit the AdWords Help Center.

Posted by Subha Subramanian, Product Manager, Flexible Reach

Measuring a Mobile World: Introducing Mobile App Analytics

Mobile is changing the way that people communicate, work and play, and much of the growing adoption and innovation we're seeing in the industry is driven by mobile apps. There are already more than 600,000 mobile apps on Google Play alone, and we expect to see continued momentum throughout the industry. Mobile is also becoming front and center for marketers and businesses. As more of them understand the value of mobile apps, sophisticated measurement tools are becoming core to how marketers and app developers invest, analyze and market their apps. 

That’s why today we’re announcing a new set of reports in beta called Mobile App Analytics that help marketers and developers better measure their mobile apps. The reports are tailored for mobile app developers and marketers, speaking the language that matters to them. They are designed to measure the entire mobile customer journey - from discovery to download to engagement. This enables the creation of app experiences that are more useful and engaging through data-driven decisions at each stage of the app lifecycle:

1. Acquisition and user metrics such as downloads and new users
2. Engagement metrics such as retention, crashes and conversions
3. Outcome metrics such as app sales and in-app purchases

Layout of new Mobile App Analytics reports

Here’s an outline of the new Mobile App Analytics along with screen grabs of selected reports:

Acquisition and User Analysis Reports - discover your best sources of new users

New and active users - measure the number of new and active users who launch your app everyday and analyze your most valuable segments. 

Google Play traffic sources - understand which traffic sources are driving new users and in-app conversions through Google Play to fine-tune your marketing initiatives. 

App versions - keep track of the distribution of active users over the older and newer versions of your app so you know what to support.

Device overview - check out the top mobile devices and OS versions that your app runs on, and optimize the experience for each device.

Engagement Reports - see how users interact with your app

User behavior - assess how loyal your users are, how frequently they use the app, and the engagement level of each loyalty group.

Engagement flow - visually see the screens, actions and paths users take to move throughout your application in order to optimize usage.

App crashes - see trends in crashes and exceptions that will help you troubleshoot problems on certain devices and operating systems.

Outcome / Business Impact Reports - identify whether users are accomplishing your goals

Goal conversions - set up conversion events in your app, like spending 10 minutes in the app, or clicking on ads to gauge success.

In-App purchases - if you sell virtual or tangible goods in your app, you can measure the number of purchases and the revenue generated.

The new reports are part of a holistic experience tailored for mobile app measurement, including a new and lightweight SDK v2.0 that’s easier to implement and is opt-out ready, with a streamlined back-end infrastructure.

We’ve also revamped our sign-up process, so new users can choose whether they want to start measuring their website or their mobile app. This means you’ll be just 3 clicks away from setting up your app analytics account and downloading the SDK.

We will be opening the beta up to whitelisted users in waves, so if you’re interested in using Mobile App Analytics for your app, please complete this beta signup form and we’ll get you started soon. We anticipate the reports will be available to all Google Analytics users by the end of the summer.

Also, if you are at Google I/O be sure to attend the Google Analytics session “Measuring the End-to-End Value of Your App” (from 11:30AM - 12:30PM today, June 29) where our lead engineers will tell you more about Mobile App Analytics and some other exciting things we’re working on.

Posted By JiaJing Wang, Product Manager, Google Analytics Team

More control with "mute this ad" [x] icon

We’re investing in many ways to give users control over the ads they see. On YouTube, our TrueView ad products enables users to skip video ads. On Google search, you can click “Why this Ad?” and stop sites you’re not interested in from showing you ads. Our Ads Preferences Manager, available with one click on the AdChoices icon on ads on the Google Display Network, enables you to edit your interest categories, or opt out of all interest based ads including remarketing ads on our Display Network.  

Over the next few weeks, we’re introducing a small [x] which will appear in the corner of some display ads on the Google Display Network. When a user clicks the [x], he or she will no longer see ads from that campaign. We’re starting by showing the [x] in ads that are based on remarketing and interest categories.

Users who click the [x] on an ad will be shown a confirmation page explaining that the advertisement has been muted, along with a link to the Ad Preferences Manager. The feedback this provides will also help improve our ads over time.

The muting is not a 100% guarantee you won’t see that ad again  -- for example, the same ad could be shown by a different ad company, or the marketer could run a separate campaign targeting specific web content.  But we believe it’s an early step in the right direction of giving users control over ads, while helping marketers and websites deliver ads that perform better.

We believe this early-look feature can bring benefits to the entire ecosystem: users have a way to control their experience and signal that they aren’t interested in certain ads; advertisers are no longer paying to show ads to people who aren’t interested; and publishers will receive better performing (and potentially more valuable) ads, and spend less time filtering out ads they think won’t be of interest to their audience.

Online advertising underpins the web and supports millions of businesses. It’s already unique in the level of control it can offer users. We’re at the early stages of these innovations, with much more to come in months and years ahead.

Posted by Michael Aiello, Product Manager

Introducing AdWords Editor 9.8.1

Today we're pleased to announce AdWords Editor version 9.8.1, which includes the ability to add and edit dynamic search ads and product listing ads, as well as quickly and easily modify location targets. Here's an overview of key updates:

Manage location targeting more easily
The new Locations tab (under Targeting) lets you add, update, and copy location targets more efficiently.

Dynamic search ads and product listing ads now in AdWords Editor
Each of these ad formats has its own tab, where you can view your ads and make changes or additions. You can also manage your dynamic ad targets and product targets on two new targeting tabs.

We've also updated topic targeting, posting, and CSV import, along with other improvements. We encourage you to read through our version 9.8.1 release notes to become familiar with all of the changes.

The next time you launch AdWords Editor, you'll see a prompt to upgrade to version 9.8.1. To learn more about upgrading, including how to keep unposted changes and comments when you upgrade, please review these instructions. You can also download version 9.8.1 from the AdWords Editor website.

Note: Support for previous versions of AdWords Editor will continue for four months to allow you time to upgrade. To ensure uninterrupted use of AdWords Editor, you will need to upgrade by October 28, 2012.

Posted by Katie Miller, Google Ads Team

Search Attribution: AdWords Search Funnels

In last week’s webinar on search attribution, we explored how AdWords Search Funnels can show you the full search path your customers take prior to purchasing or “converting” on your site. This path can include different types of keywords, ranging from early searches on generic keywords (often referred to as “upper funnel” or awareness-generating keywords) to later searches for your specific brand. By better understanding the full search path and the role that different keywords played in leading your customers to buy or convert, you’ll be able to improve your advertising campaigns.

During the webinar, we walked through the Search Funnels reports, the insights the tool can provide, and some practical uses:

We received a lot of great questions from webinar participants. We weren’t able to get to all of them during the allotted time, so below are some responses and more pointers on Search Funnels.

If you’re interested in learning more about digital marketing attribution, you can also watch the previous recordings in our attribution webinar series and register for our upcoming webinars:

• Attribution Insights from Google and Econsultancy (4/26/2012) – watch recording here
• Building Blocks of Digital Attribution (5/24/2012) – watch recording here
• Search Attribution: AdWords Search Funnels (6/20/2012) – watch recording here
• Multi-Channel Funnels: Attribution Across Channels (8/9/2012) – register here
• Next Steps with Attribution – registration details coming soon

What is digital attribution? What is search attribution?
Digital attribution is the process of assigning credit to the various online interactions your customer has before a “conversion” (conversion = making a purchase or performing some other valuable action on your site). These interactions could include display ads, paid or organic search results, email campaigns, affiliate coupon programs, social network posts, and other digital interactions. Today, many marketers by default use “last click” attribution, assigning all of the credit to the last interaction before a conversion rather than considering the entire conversion path.

Search attribution focuses specifically on understanding and assigning credit to the keyword searches, search ad impressions, and search ad clicks a customer performed before converting. The Search Funnels reports allow you to view these “search paths” in detail and how some keywords assist conversions earlier in the path while other keywords occur later in the path, immediately before a conversion. By understanding the role these keywords play in the conversion path, you’ll be better equipped to design your search marketing programs.

What are the requirements for Search Funnels?
Search Funnels works automatically with AdWords Conversion Tracking. Once this feature has been set up, the Search Funnels reports are automatically available within the AdWords interface. If you aren’t yet using Conversion Tracking, Bill Kee’s recent webinar on the Building Blocks of Digital Attribution provides a great overview on how to set up Conversion Tracking. You may also wish to view our help center articles on Conversion Tracking and Search Funnels.

Could you please define the Search Funnels terms?
Sure, during the webinar we provided some definitions. Here they are:

• Search Funnel: Report describing Google.com search ad click and impression behavior prior to a conversion 
• Conversion Path: Sequence of ad clicks and impressions leading up to a conversion 
• Last Clicks: Any search ad click that happened immediately preceding a conversion 
• Assist Clicks: Any search ad click that happened prior to the “last click” before a conversion 
• Assist Impressions: Any search ad impression that was not clicked and happened prior to a conversion 
• Assist Clicks / Last Clicks: The ratio of assist clicks / last clicks for a particular campaign, ad-group, or keyword 
• Assist Impressions / Last Clicks: The ratio of assist impressions / last clicks for a particular campaign, ad-group, or keyword

This is my first time using Search Funnels, what three analyses do you recommend?
Search Funnels offers some great ways to quickly pull out some actionable insights. First, in the Assisted Conversions report, sorting in descending order by the ratios “Assist Clicks / Last Clicks” and “Assist Impressions / Last Clicks” provides an easy way to identify which of your keywords assist the most conversions and are having most of their contribution overlooked in AdWords’ last-click model. You may choose to test different bidding or budget strategies for these keywords to ensure you capture their value. For example, if a particular keyword has a ratio of three, then for every last click conversion the keyword provides, three additional assists were provided. The keyword would receive no credit for these assists within AdWords under the last-click model. However, utilizing the insights gained from Search Funnels you may wish to explore whether increasing this keyword’s bid drives more users down the conversion path by placing these high-assisting ads in higher positions.

Second, the ‘Time Lag’ report can help you to identify how long your customers take to convert. In particular, the ‘Time From First Impression’ report can help you approximate your customers’ research cycle, from the time they first see one of your search ads, to them eventually converting with you. Within this report, you may also want to explore whether your most valuable customers take a certain period of time to convert. For example, many advertisers find that customers that consider their purchase for longer are actually more valuable customers.

Finally, the top paths report is another great resource. You can dive in to the most common paths your customers take before converting with you. In particular, you can try to identify whether customers begin their journey by researching on broad generic keywords and whether they complete their conversion on more branded keywords.

What is the history window and how important is it?
By default, Search Funnels includes all of the paid search interactions your customers had in the 30 days prior to the conversion occurring. However, this feature can be customized by selecting from the drop down menu at the top of the interface. You can select to change the history window to either 60 or 90 days. This is an important consideration. The length of time that makes most sense for you will likely depend on the type of products you sell. For example, if you’re a business that sells high-consideration product or services, you may want to extend the window to 90 days, as it may take customers a long time to purchase and you would want to ensure that you include all of their interactions with your search advertising. Before selecting a history window, you may also want to examine the ‘time lag’ report to identify on average how long it takes your users to convert.

What are impression assists? And how should I value them?
Impression assists occur when a customer sees one of your search ads, but does not click on it, before later clicking on another of your ads and converting. The impression could be providing a branding effect.  For example, if you are getting a lot of assist impressions and their average position is relatively high, it's possible that those impressions had a positive impact on the customer coming back and converting later. You could test this hypothesis by bidding keywords to different positions and measuring the impact on impression assisted conversions.

What about attribution beyond search?
Search Funnels uncovers a crucial part of the path to conversion by showing all of your Google search ads that a user either saw or clicked on, before they converted for you. However, you may be interested in understanding how your customers interact with your other online channels too. In our upcoming webinar on August 9, we’ll be walking through Google Analytics’ Multi-Channel Funnels, which allows you to examine not only the path within paid search, but also display, organic search, social, e-mail marketing, and more. Register here.

Happy analyzing!

Posted by Simon Rosen, Global Sales Lead for Search Funnels and AdWords Conversion Tracking

Ad Traffic Quality Resource Center available in additional languages

Last November we introduced our revamped Ad Traffic Quality Resource Center, a site designed for advertisers and publishers to learn more about invalid clicks. We have been working hard on improving the site since then. First, we’ve received your requests to make the content of the site available in more languages than just English. The site is now available in most languages supported by AdWords, such as German, French, Polish and Arabic.

Second, to help you better understand your ad traffic we have also added a video walking you through how to read your web server logs and help you identify which visits are a result from clicks on Google AdWords ads (sorry, English only).

We hope these additions to the Ad Traffic Quality Resource Center will be helpful. As always, we are looking forward to hear your feedback in our AdWords Community.

Posted by Ad Traffic Quality Team

Workflows Simplified - Introducing Flow Viz PDF Export and Alerts Widget

GA users have voiced their feature requests around Flow Viz, and we’ve listened. The team is very happy to introduce a new feature for Flow Viz: PDF Export.

The PDF export will respect your interactions within the flow. If you highlighted a connection, or changed the dimension, the exporter will print those out as well in color.

This feature can be found in all Flow Viz reports, including the Visitors Flow, Goal Flow, and Events Flow. You can go to your favorite Flow Viz reports and check it out now.

Besides PDF export, we’ve also been working on another useful feature. 

Ever wished that you have easier access to your alerts? What about a quick glance at the trend of your alerts, to see if there are any anomalies? Look no further. The GA team has been hard at work to bring the new alerts widget to your GA dashboard.

This new widget gives you a view on the number of automatic and/or custom alerts that you had over the date range selected. If you click on the widget, it will lead you to the intelligence events report, simplifying your workflow. 

This widget will automatically be included in all your newly created dashboards if you select the “starter dashboard” option. In addition, if you have already created a customized dashboard and would like to add this new feature, you’ll be able to find the alert widget under the TIMELINE visualization. 

Under the “Add a metric” drop down menu, you’ll be able to choose “All Alerts,” “Automatic Alerts,” or “Custom Alerts.” To learn more about alerts, please check out our help contents page.

Thank you for giving us your continuous feedback, and we hope these new features will help simplify your analytics workflows. Please reach out to us with questions and comments, and we are always happy to take additional feature requests under consideration.

Posted by Jerry Hong, Google Analytics team

Branding DIY

Branding DIY

Everything has a brand … that instant thought that helps us to categorize everything in our lives. How do you manage yours?

Here is a link to our latest contribution to CUinsight.  If you enjoy it, please comment and share. 

Meet Freelance Illustrator and Artist Paula Joerling

It’s 10-10-10time. I hope you’re enjoying these glimpses into the lives of these inspiring + artistic + biz-savvy ladies! There are a total of 8 ladies (including myself) this time around, so we have 1 day left in this series (just me!) after today. Now, it’s time to meet Paula Joerling!

Name of Business: Paula Joerling Studio

Links:

Blog - Facebook– Etsy Hand Made
Etsy Vintage

Years in Business:
I have been a freelance artist in one form or another for 30 years. I have been a freelance illustrator for about 8 years.

Brief Bio:

I am a freelance illustrator living in Atlanta Georgia. My designs are primarily used for the gift and tabletop industry. Typically, I work in watercolor and collage and enjoy incorporating fabric, stitched paper and found objects in my art.

A Glimpse At Paula's Artwork:

Question:

Is it necessary for your business to line up with your soul purpose? What value is there to having that aligned?

I guess for me, it is. I have had odd jobs here and there and it never feels right. All I could think about was what I would be doing if I were back in the studio. I sometimes wish that I could be the type of person who could work a 9-5 job. Creating things gives me great satisfaction and is a part of my make up that I can’t shake; nor do I want to. The value in having it aligned is being able to be what and who I am 24/7.

Current Projects:

Currently I am working on a series of collage pieces that will make their way to my etsy handmade shop.

A Note from Laura:
For more information on the 101010 Project and to see all the questions and answers check out the 101010 Website.  (Note: Due to life's unexpected twists & turns, this session of the 101010 Project features eight participants instead of the intended 10.)

If you've missed any of the 10-10-10 posts on this blog, links are below.
Shari’s response,
Valerie’s response,
Stephanie’s response,
Dani’s response,
Phyllis’ response,
Robin’s response,

Paula’s response (today’s post)

Laura is a marketing professional and blogger 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 Examples - Targeting your keywords

In this fourth and last part of the series “AdWords Examples,” we’ll examine how to select and then evaluate keywords. If you missed the previous parts in the series you can find them here: Campaigns, Ad groups and Ads.

In this series we’ve been following Lisa, who has been creating a campaign specific to lava lamps in the Google Store. To ensure people can find her lava lamps on Google.com, Lisa makes a list of relevant keywords that closely match the theme of her ad group:

lava lamp

buy lava lamps

google lava lamp

lava lamps for sale

cool lava lamp

green lava lamp

red lava lamp

blue lava lamp

yellow lava lamp

electric lava lamp

best lava lamp

office lava lamp

The following image shows what it may look like when an ad written specifically for the lava lamps in the Google Store is shown for a relevant search. Lisa has been able to achieve this by creating a tightly themed ad group with related keywords and ad text, which, along with strategic bidding and Quality Score, has increased the likelihood of having her ads appear as they do here:

How to choose keywords

When choosing keywords there are several good strategies:

• First and foremost it is important to think like the customer. In this case, you may ask yourself the question “If I really wanted to buy a cool lava lamp, for what would I search?” Then write these ideas down and try to expand on them, using synonyms and alternative ways of saying it. 
• You can also get additional keyword ideas by using the Google Keyword Tool, which helps you generate keywords based on your initial ideas. In this case a good alternative keyword that is not already in the above keyword list could e.g. be ‘google motion lamp’. You can find the tool in the Opportunities tab. Here’s how you can use the Keyword Tool. If you discover some good keywords you would like to use, it’s never too late to add them. Here’s how you can add more keywords to your existing ad groups.
• Use negative keywords: if Lisa knows that a keyword is less likely to lead to a sale, she may exclude the keyword from her ad group or campaign. In the ad group for lava lamps, Lisa might consider using ‘make your own lavalamp’ or ‘DIY lavalamp’ as negative keywords, which would prevent her ads from showing to users who make such searches. Discover how to use negative keywords here.

See a number of other useful tips about keyword selection in our article How to build the best keywords list.

We hope you find these examples useful and that you feel better equipped to regularly improve and optimize your current campaigns.

Posted by Gorjan Dimitrov - The Help Center Team

Do You Own Your Niche?

In general, company presidents or CEOs believe that their businesses are worthy of being industry leaders or trend-setters. But in reality, the majority of businesses are simply members of the pack. It is very rare when a company surpasses its competition and owns its industry or niche, but when this happens, the business is such an incredible stand-out that both the business press and mainstream press take notice. Consider all the attention garnered by Facebook, Apple, Zappos, Southwest Airlines, Coca-Cola, Nike, etc. So how do you own your niche?

In Stephanie Chandler’s book, “Own Your Niche – Hype-Free Internet Marketing Tactics to Establish Authority in Your Field and Promote Your Service-Based Business,” tactics are presented for creating and owning a niche in a service-based arena. However, many of the useful and easy-to-implement tactics can be applied to both product and service environments.

As you develop your business, consider these questions:

[1] Do you offer services that generate rave reviews? If not, how could you improve your customer experience?

[2] What is unique about your business versus the competition?

[3] What do you want your business to be known for?

[4] What values do you hold in high importance?

[5] Could your values or belief system become part of your brand positioning?

Some of the important tactics detailed in the book include:

[1] How to identify and connect with your target audience.

[2] How to build an effective blog and an eBook to promote your business.

[3] How to distribute content that demonstrates your expertise in your industry.

[4] How to handle your own PR and get media to come to you.

[5] How to generate exposure with proven offline methods including professional speaking, direct mail campaigns, and publishing.

In the words of Stephanie Chandler, “It’s important to make sure you don’t cast the net too broad, but instead narrow it down to a niche that’s small enough so that you can stand out and large enough that you can earn a living. You can also evaluate potential industries to see what kind of competition is out there.”

So what are you waiting for? Start now, and you just may own your niche!

__________

Learn more: http://businessinfoguide.com

Connect on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/bizauthor

Connect on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorStephanieChandler

Connect on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/bizauthor

With new search ads in Google Maps for Mobile, mo' lo' means mo' dough for advertisers

People use their mobile devices to discover and engage with the world around them. Searching for local information is one of the most common activities on mobile - in the US, 94% of respondents said they had done so, and nearly every surveyed country reported numbers over 80%. With Google Maps, they make informed decisions about places to see, shops to visit, meals to eat, and more.

To enable advertisers to better connect with potential customers via mobile search, we have redesigned our local ad formats for Google Maps for Mobile. These have produced measurable results - in initial tests, these redesigned formats increased click-through-rates by 100%. This visual redesign will be rolling out today to the newer versions of Android phones. 

The updated formats feature several key improvements:

• Important calls to action like “get directions” and “click to call” are now more prominent in the ad and clickable in more places.  
• A new hyperlocal marker shows the user how close they are to an advertiser’s business location.
• Clicking on the ad now takes the user to an advertiser’s website from within the app, making it simple to browse the site without losing context or access to maps app navigation.

Above: Current view of local ads in Google Maps for Mobile  

Below:  Launching today, newly redesigned local ads in Google Maps for Mobile

Ads in Google Maps for Mobile are one of many ways advertisers are delivering relevant local answers to people’s questions on mobile. Likewise, a recent campaign from T-Mobile shows how search ads, combined with location extensions, enabled them to reach users close to their store locations across mobile search and maps.

T-Mobile understood that they needed to adjust their goals and tactics to cater to mobile user behavior. On the difference in user behavior between desktop and mobile campaigns, Kari Nicholas, Media Director of T-Mobile USA explained, “Consumers searching on mobile devices tend to be further down the purchase funnel and have a more informed opinion about what they want, which presents an opportunity for us to influence their decision regarding where to buy while they’re on the go. That’s why we felt it was essential to provide a way for them to easily find our retail locations.” T-Mobile’s approach of using mobile location extensions drove over 160,000 click-throughs and a click-through-rate of 13%. To read more, download the full case study, here.

T-Mobile’s mobile search ads on Google.com and Google Maps for Mobile contain locally relevant information like a user’s distance from their closest location, and the ability to call and get directions to their closest store.

Mobile technology is enabling people to connect with businesses in new ways via smartphones and tablets. People use search and click to businesses’ websites, but they are also clicking to make phone calls, find directions to walk into local stores, and more. To take advantage of these new local search ads on Google Maps for Mobile, make sure you’ve done the following:

• Target the relevant campaigns to mobile devices
• Enable ads to show to search partners
• Finally, have location extensions enabled within AdWords to take advantage of all these new features - so be sure to enable them if you haven’t already!

We’re looking forward to further understanding mobile usage trends and helping businesses better connect with their customers on the go.

Posted by Jay Akkad, Product Manager, Mobile Ads

Meet the founder of the 10-10-10 project: Robin Norgren

Robin Norgren

Robin Norgren is the mastermind behind the 10-10-10 project I’ve been sharing on the blog this week.  She’s also an artist, life coach, mama, wife and so much more. Robin is courageous (did I mention she is a military wife?) and not afraid to live for what she believes in.  She's also one of the hardest workers I've come across in a long time.  Never giving up, always finding a way, always open to looking at things in a different way. Having faith, staying positive and even encouraging others during these times are also part of Robin's norm.   It’s time to share her response to my 10-10-10 question.  If you’ve missed any of the other 10-10-10 posts on my blog, I’ve included links at the end of the post. 

Name of business: Robin Norgren Studios

Social media links:
Website – Twitter - Facebook

Years in business: 4 years

Brief Bio:

I strive to live life to the fullest.  No matter what.  I have grown into myself through my love for Jesus and HIS LOVE FOR ME. Art, motherhood, business, creativity and yoga are the cherished vehicles for this deepening.   Life can be FULL, JUICY, MEANINGFUL, PURPOSE FILLED, LOVELY.  I want to help you come to your fullest life.  I create workbooks, ecourses and workshops that chronicle my change and growth and offer you ways to find out what YOUR FULLEST life will be.

Question: 

Is it necessary for your business to line up with your soul purpose? What value is there to having that aligned?

Answer:
I have always thought that everyone had the same answer to this question: yes OF COURSE you would want to have your business line up with your soul purpose.  Then I had a client the other day explain why she did not think this was necessary.  Her words: "well my family is my soul purpose… everything else is just about making money." 

It made me sit back and think about whether or not my thoughts would change now that I heard another perspective.  And guess what?  It has!  I have been chugging along for about 4 years now attempting to integrate my career with my soul purpose.  But what I realize is really my soul purpose DEEP DOWN is very close to this women's assessment.  I want to make sure that my family ALWAYS feels like I am there for them no matter what.  And this has been tested quite a bit with my husband being deployed with the military the majority of the past three years and my choice to stay home with my daughter to make that transition easier on her. 

I have tried very hard to keep that dream alive of integrating the two.  At this point I do a ton of late night and early morning work in order to keep that dream at least burning a little on the back burner.  And I dare say that in the future it would seem a reasonable expectation to go for with my hubby retiring from the military in five years and my girl getting older.  But for now I am satisfied with just doing all I know to do to run my business but keeping my soul purpose clear: to make the best life possible for my kids.

Current Projects:
Robin Norgren is currently completing her life coaching certification and would LOVE to offer you a FREE 15 minute mini session – sign up for her mailing list here: http://www.robinnorgrenstudios.blogspot.com/p/life-coaching.html

One of Robin's recent videos on art journaling (love!):

Video link here for those reading by email.

Sneak Peek at Robin's Art:
View more of her work (and classes offered) here.

A note from Laura: I'll be continuing the 10-10-10 project in the coming days with answers from 2 other talented women on this very question!

If you've missed any of the 10-10-10 posts on this blog, links are below.
Shari’s response,
Valerie’s response,
Stephanie’s response,
Dani’s response and
Phyllis’ response.

For more information on the 101010 Project and to see all the questions and answers check out the 101010 Website.  (Note: Due to life's unexpected twists & turns, this session of the 101010 Project features eight participants instead of the intended 10.)

Laura is a marketing professional and blogger 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. 

EPS, TIFF, or JPEG? CMYK, PMS or RGB?

EPS, TIFF, or JPEG? CMYK, PMS or RGB? What does it all mean when it comes to a logo? 

If you don't live in the graphic's world and know these by heart, here's a quick reference to help you know what they are and why knowing is so important.

EPS, or Encapsulated PostScript, is created from mathematical curves and lines which stay in focus and in proportion no matter how large or small the file gets. This means there is no pixelation and your logo will look the same at 1 inch in size as it does at 10 feet. These types of logo files are ideal for uses from letterhead to billboards. An EPS of your logo should be the first thing you send when you need something designed or printed. 

A TIFF is an image that is pixel-based, put together from thousands of tiny blocks. If printing at its original size, it's great. A normal high-resolution image has over 90,000 tiny blocks in one square inch. However, if you blow that image up large enough, though, and you'll start seeing some pixelation. Shrink it down past the point of no return and the image will get blurry as the pixels blend and blur.

JPEGS are perfect for web work, Powerpoint presentations, and other applications that don't demand much of an image. Like TIFFs, JPEGs are pixel-based. They are also compressed and generally at a low resolution, so the file size stays relatively low. However, if you enlarge them you'll see plenty of pixels and an overall fuzziness that comes from the compression process. Remember that you may think it looks ok on screen, but it's the worst choice for anything printed.

CMYK, PMS and RGB refer to the color format of the image. RGB colors are made of red, green and blue light, and are only accurate on computer and television screens. RGB colors cannot be used for printing. CMYK stands for cyan, magenta, yellow and black. These are the four inks used in the printing process and when combined make every printed color in the rainbow. But, CMYK isn't always accurate when it comes to reproducing a specific brand color. That's where PMS colors come in. The Pantone Matching System, or PMS, is a universally recognized color scheme to which every printing company subscribes.  It standardizes the colors, and different manufacturers in different places can refer to the system to ensure colors match without direct contact with one another. The pantone colors are often referred to as spot colors, whereas CMYK colors are process. 

So now when you hear or see EPS, TIFF, or JPEG; CMYK, PMS or RGB; you'll know exactly what they mean. 

Until next time, 

Gail 

MarketMatch is a full-service marketing consulting firm, dedicated to the credit union and community banking community. We utilize knowledge-based strategies to help you FOCUS on the efforts that will generate MOMENTUM and yield the greatest RESULTS for your bottom line.

Learn more here.