Join us in welcoming Urchin 6.602 to the world, the long-awaited multilingual upgrade to our "run-it-yourself" web analytics package. This release adds support for all 11 of our supported languages, including English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Dutch, Japanese, Chinese (both simplified and traditional), and Korean.
Read the complete Changelist for all the details, or visit our Download page to get the goods.
Urchin 6.602 also includes a bunch of significant new features, including:
1-Click Installer -- no need for an "outboard" database anymore
GeoDB user adjustments -- don't need the full GeoDB? Run fast & light with Urchin 6.602
Updated compression utility -- allows data archives greater than 2GB
Option to select which profiles (and their overview data) to display on users' default "home" screen (aka, roll-up report)
Bing.com support (hooray!)
...and lots of bug fixes and documentation updates
Urchin 6.600, released in June 2009, was a major upgrade, so you may want to revisit that blog post for more info.
Urchin 6.602 is available now as a full-featured 30-day demo from our download servers and licenses can be purchased from any of our Authorized Consultants for US$2995. Check it out!
Urchin 6.6's built-in Keyword Generator Tool makes managing your campaigns a lot easier.
A local credit union is saturating broadcast and full-page newspaper ads with the fact that they are "Giving back more than $4,000,000 to their membership."
Pretty darn impressive, huh?
Well, of their 183,000 members, that comes out to less than $22 per person - or 4 days worth of Mocha Lattes.
I guess the point is that we need to view everything in perspective.
How much has your institution lent to businesses and consumers this year? Even if it doesn't sound like much to your "banking" ear - it likely sounds like a fortune to your community.
As part of our Fast.Forward. program, we've asked numerous industry leaders - from Google and beyond - about the online marketing trends they think will be significant in the year ahead. This week we'll talk about making your campaigns more personal by targeting mobile devices and increasing the accountability and sophistication of the metrics you use to evaluate your campaigns.
Penry Price, Google's VP of Global Agency and Industry Development, offers his thoughts on these topics.
To increase the personalization of your campaigns through mobile advertising, visit www.google.com/advertisers/mobile, and learn how to plan, target, create, and measure mobile ad campaigns with AdWords.
Whether it's robust reporting for media buys across platforms, or sophisticated-but-simple measurement tools like Google Analytics, Website Optimizer, and YouTube Insight, you can commit in 2010 to "being greater with data." Get more information about these measurement and optimization tools here.
Visit www.youtube.com/fastforward, to stay engaged with the industry dialog and keep up with additional perspectives on successful marketing in 2010 and beyond.
Over the past few months we've received a lot of great feedback from our developers about what they wanted to see in the Google Analytics API, and it included adding access to Google Analytics newest and most powerful features, such as advanced segments, custom variables and more. Today we want to let you know about improvements to the Google Analytics Data Export API, including the following highlights (all the details of this release can be found on our public changelog and public notify group):
Support for Advanced Segments
With advanced segmentation, you can look beyond your aggregated data and peer into the nuances of traffic and visitor activity on your site. For example, the average time on site for all visits could be 60 seconds, but when you segment by country, you might learn that average time on site of visits from Germany is over 2 minutes.
We've added two new ways to use advanced segments through the API:
Create them on the fly by specifying their expression directly through an API query.
Use advanced segments created in the Google Analytics web interface through the API.
This video describes exactly what advanced segments do and how you can use them with the API.
Goal 5-20 and Configuration Data
With the recent Google Analytics launch enabling up to 20 goals, many of you asked for access to this valuable data. Good call! So now, you can access 48 new metrics around goal performance. We've also added all the goal configuration data, including name, type, and step names for each profile.
Take a look at this video describing how to work with goal configuration data in the API.
Custom Variables
Custom variables are powerful new ways to describe visitors, visits and pages within Google Analytics. In this new release, we've added 10 new dimensions to access custom variable data. In addition, every custom variable that you've used is now available through the Account Feed.
We've updated all our documentatation at http://code.google.com/apis/analytics. Please continue to give us feedback to improve our product through our public google group. We can't wait to see the new apps that come from developers using this data. We're hoping that you spend your holiday tinkering with it :-)
Enjoy!
Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics API Team
I have successfully returned from a fantastic trip to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia! I keynoted a forum on product development, management and innovation for a contingent of Asian bankers. Great interaction and learning occurred along with the networking of bankers from across the Asian region. I thoroughly enjoyed the forum and the experience.
When I was in Kuala Lumpur, I had to go to the Petronas Twin Towers...formerly the world's tallest buildings (now 3rd tallest) to take in the sights and the views. Amazing!
I had two items imprinted on me during the trip. The first simply reinforced that banking is widely similar across the world. We all struggle with competition, managing rates is critical, and customer insight is mission critical to marketing success!
The 2nd has to do with the Petronas Towers and what they represent to me. They represent mankind's focused efforts to be leaders and that the view DOES change from the top. Translation? When you focus on an outcome, get everyone on board, and have the insights necessary....you can overcome any obstacle, create great new innovations along the way, and have an amazing view from the top!
The translation to you this morning....sitting at your desk drinking some coffee...is quite simply....take on the tasks that seems daunting, but engage your entire organization for assistance and include your customer along the way. They will paint the picture of success for you!
So, with December quickly fading and January 2010 quickly approaching, the time to think about new initiatives is now. Think BIG, act BIG, and include your customers in a BIG way!
Shoppers increasingly use their smartphones to search the internet, and we typically see an increase in shopping-related queries on Android, iPhone and Palm WebOS devices during the holiday season.
Ensure that your online campaigns perform well on mobile devices with full internet browsers by viewing device statistics on your Campaign Summary, Ad Groups, or Keyword reports within AdWords. Just select the "Device" segment option under the “Filter and Views” drop down.
You can now compare clicks, impressions, CTR and other performance metrics for desktop vs. high-end mobile devices. Note that this data only dates back to June 3, 2009.
Now is the perfect time to optimize how you target consumers on-the-go. Here are a few best practices we think you'll find helpful:
Create separate campaigns and ad groups for your ads that appear on mobile devices. This makes it easier to customize ads, keywords and bids to optimize performance.
Put your call to action in a spot on your landing page that's easy to find. Keep in mind that it's a bit more difficult to navigate websites on a mobile device, so consider shortening your checkout process.
Most mobile phones don't support flash, so make sure your landing page is written in HTML and contains little or no Flash.
We hope these tips help you create great campaigns both for desktops and mobile devices this holiday season.
The majority of online Americans now visit social networking sites, and Hispanics and other minorities continue to visit them more than Non-Hispanic whites, according to the 2009 Multicultural Marketing Study by the Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication at Florida State University, DMS Research, and Captura Group.
The study also reveals that social media usage among Hispanics and other minorities continues to grow by double digits with Facebook and MySpace leading the way. What’s more, smaller social networking sites such as Hi5, Black Planet, Twitter and LinkedIn have strong appeal with certain ethnic groups.
Most online Americans visit social networking sites at least twice a month
In the past year, we found that usage of social networks across ethnic segments has grown exponentially. Marketers take note: most Americans now use social networking sites and use them as increasingly important means for communication and information.
Although ethnic minorities are still more likely to visit social networking sites when compared to Non-Hispanic Whites, the gap has closed considerably as social networking has become more popular.
Most ethnic segments now prefer Facebook over MySpace
In 2008 we found that MySpace held a firm lead over Facebook. Today, the tables have turned and Facebook has become more popular among all of the ethnic groups that we analyzed with the exception of Spanish-Preferring Hispanics.
Social media preferences are beginning to fragment among minorities
When considering a social media strategy, marketers should take note that ethnic groups have preferences between social networking sites. Consider the case of Hi5, a social media site with a strong presence in Latin America. Its success in the southern hemisphere has made it extremely popular with Spanish-Preferring Hispanics in the U.S. who want to connect with family members back home.
Today, Hi5 competes with both Facebook and MySpace among Spanish-Preferring Hispanics (29.1 percent usage versus 36 percent and 41 percent, respectively).
These findings are important because as social networking has become ubiquitous, specialized sites have become viable options for advertisers looking to target ethnic audiences.
Asian Americans are twice as likely to use LinkedIn and Twitter
The 2009 study also included the usage of LinkedIn and Twitter. We found that both sites are still emerging and most popular among Asian Americans. We attribute the popularity of LinkedIn and Twitter among Asian Americans to higher income levels and technology adoption.
More social media growth expected for 2010
In the past year, usage of social networking websites has exploded among all ethnic groups and we expect this trend to continue. While preferences of certain social networking sites might change over time, social media promises to remain relevant for all ethnic groups.
Urchin 6.6's built-in Keyword Generator Tool makes managing your campaigns a lot easier.
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