Microsites

It's not secret ... if you want to reach the "Google Generation" you'd better be a few steps ahead on technology. Text alerts and mobile banking are as expected as ATMs and online banking.

You'd also better spend more time analyzing and improving your website than you do writing newspaper ads!

Lately, we've had a lot of clients interested in microsites. And they can be VERY useful in the right situations.

What is a microsite? (or minisite, or weblet)

It's a page or cluster of pages that supplement your main website. They are usually used to highlight a particular product or aspect of your organization.

Let me give you 2 examples.

We are in the process of completing a Mortgage-specific microsite for a client. While in this supplemental portion of their website, a user can find only information important to someone who's interested in buying or refinancing a home.

We also completed a microsite for another institution who wanted to focus on their new lifestage-based sales process. Here the user is drawn into information important to their specific lifestage. They then have the option of clicking on relevant financial products that will take them back to the bank's main site.

In short, it's a way to get a reader interested and to draw them to you. A microsite can differentiate in a very targeted way and generate qualified leads. It's also a much better marketing message:

"Come to our site with information important to you."

vs

"Come to our site all about our products."

What Makes a Microsite Successful?

Content.

The number one objective of your site should be to add value - not, necessarily to sell your products.

Where your main website is traditionally an electronic brochure of your "stuff," a microsite is successful because it draws a user to it for value - entertainment, knowledge, etc.

Many retail microsites use games to bring people in. We prefer to position or clients as experts and use value-added content.

Our mortgage site includes more than a dozen articles that are important to first time home buyers, experienced home buyers, folks wanting to refinance and moving and packing information. It also includes dozens of helpful links to anyone moving or remodeling. The entire site is designed to be a one-stop resource for everything important to you before and after you complete a mortgage app.

Our Lifestage site provides links and information for anyone experiencing specific life events, like childbirth, retirement, etc.

Of course, there are countless ways to link from the informative microsite to the "salsey" main site.

In short, a microsite should be a resource that a customer or prospect will want to bookmark and come back to over and over again.

Merry Christmas,

Eric

A #NewTwitter Background Design to Share on this "Twitter Tuesday" Together

It’s “Twitter Tuesday” during an incredibly busy holiday week for many of us! My family is no exception, but I still wanted to stop by and share some Twitter goodness with you.

I’ve shared a few Twitter background designs with you recently, and wanted to share one I designed today. This one is extra-special to me.  I'll be writing about the reasons why tomorrow in a "Be Inspired Wednesday" post, so please come back for the details. :)

This one is for Historic Columbia Foundation. If you visit the HCF website, you’ll see that the Twitter background is very similar in terms of design. The neat part is how I was able to move things around just a bit to really “fit” well with the #NewTwitter specs.

For those who Tweet, please consider following Historic Columbia Foundation http://www.twitter.com/histcolumbia).  Don't forget to follow me there, too @LauraCatherineO). Also, as much as I post about Twitter, I’m still learning new things! One of those is that you can customize design colors (for your column, text, links, etc.) to match your branding. Pretty neat! I’ll post step-by-step instructions this week during our “Tutorial Thursday” time together.


click image above to expand (use your back button to come back to this post)

 In the meantime, I hope you find some inspiration from this latest design. Have a wonderful Holiday Week!


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

Last Web Analytics TV For 2010 - Out With A Bang

Well, it’s the last episode of Web Analytics TV for 2010. In this series with Avinash Kaushik and Nick Mihailovski, you ask and vote on your favorite web analytics questions via the Google Analytics Google Moderator site and we answer them.

In this episode, we award Lloyd in Capetown for his great question on how bounce rate is calculated and how AJAX sites can effect it. Lloyd, just send us an email and we’ll send you an autographed, personalized, copy of Web Analytics 2.0.

Here is the list of last weeks questions which we answered this week.

In this action-packed episode we discuss:

• (0:27) How you can see the top landing page report by keyword.
• (1:22) Calculating Avg Time to complete a goal.
• (2:11) The recommended way to do internal campaign tracking.
• (3:17) Creating funnel reports for different user types.
• (5:19) How page title and URL are used in unique pageview calculations.
• (6:40) Why you see google as a referral in Google Analytics.
• (8:25) Can you use GA to track social networking links without link shorteners?
• (9:28) Using canonical URLs to differentiate multiple links on a page.
• (10:52) Calculating bounce rate for AJAX sites.
• (13:34) Getting campaign data into Google Analytics without using URL parameters.
• (14:43) Google Analytics campaign attribution and direct traffic.
• (15:54) Working with Custom Variables in website templates.
• (17:07) Using Ecommerce tracking for tracking conversions.
• (19:02) Is there a way to see data broken down by day of the week?
• (19:48) How tabbed navigation effects funnel abandonment.
• (21:21) How to track various form selections.
• (22:23) Fnding Average number of items per order in Google Analytics.

Here are the links to the topics we discuss:

• Apply segments to your funnel reports using PadiTrak
• Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools in the App Gallery
• Avinash’s blog on how time on site and time on page are calculated

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

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

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

10 of our favorite AdWords innovations from 2010

As 2010 comes to a close, we’ve been reflecting on the ways that AdWords and online advertising as a whole have evolved over the past year. From the launch of new search ad formats on Google.com to Search Funnel reports that illustrate search behavior leading up to a sale, 2010 saw a number of new developments that we hope have made AdWords an even more powerful and effective way to reach your customers.

Here are 10 of our favorite new ad innovations from 2010:

1. AdWords Campaign Experiments: Experiment with bid, keyword, ad group and placement changes, then measure how they impact your campaign performance.
2. Search Funnels: Understand the Google.com search ad click and impression behavior leading up to a conversion.
3. Product Ads: Highlight your most relevant products with pictures and prices directly on the search results page with Product Listing Ads and Product Extensions.

Product Listing Ads


Product Extensions

4. AdWords Call Metrics: Include a Google Voice phone number in ads that appear on Google.com, and measure the number of phone calls generated by your AdWords campaigns.

Call Metrics
5. Click-to-call Phone Extensions: Make it easier for potential customers to reach you by including a clickable phone number in ads that appear on mobile phones with full Internet browsers.

Click-to-call phone extensions
6. Display Campaign Optimizer: Save time and increase conversions on the Google Display Network with this new automatic bidding and targeting tool.
7. Enhanced CPC: A bidding option that automatically adjusts the Max CPC bids that you’ve set based on the likelihood that your ad will convert, leading to more conversions and higher profit.
8. Broad Match Modifier: A keyword match type giving you more potential traffic than phrase match with comparable ROI.
9. AdWords Automated Rules: Save time by scheduling automatic changes to your AdWords account based on criteria that you specify.
10. Remarketing: Show your ads to users who’ve previously visited your website as they browse sites across the Google Display Network.

You’ll always find the latest features at Google Ad Innovations, a place to explore new Google advertising technologies, watch short video demos, and try out select new tools. We have even more in store for 2011 and look forward to sharing these innovations with you soon!

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew

Forget What You Know…

If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we were to remember nothing.

-William James

This quote may come in handy when brainstorming new ideas. Certainly your experience is worth a great deal, but sometimes, when it comes to developing new, innovative ideas for promotions, product development, campaigns, or customer communication it helps to initially throw out “what you know.” Putting everything and anything on the table in a brainstorming session can be a great way to brainstorm new ideas.

Many times, we hear banks defending certain marketing tactics with the statement “this is how we have always done it.” Not a very compelling reason, is it? Customer and market perceptions are always changing, so even if you are considering to re-execute a past successful campaign, that doesn’t mean it will be successful when executing it in the future.

If you plan only to repeat successful promotions, you may be missing out on an idea that could be even more successful. Also, if you rule out all unsuccessful promotions, you may be ruling out a good idea that was poorly executed or a good idea that would have been more successful with different situational criteria.

In some scenarios, you can take your brainstorming a step further by removing resource restrictions. If money, supplies, people, and time weren’t limited, what would you do? The ideas you come up with might not be plausible, but they may cause you to uncover new ideas within your resource limits that can make a huge impact.

A healthy dose of “forgetting” is crucial for our ability to think big.

Happy brainstorming!

Jamie

What's Next for Debit Rewards?

At a time when banks are trying to catch their breath from the reduced fee income impact of Reg E, the government has proposed a cap on interchange income that could equate to a 70%-80% reduction in fees that a bank can collect as part of debit card transactions. In travels across the country, it is clear one of the first casualties of these regulatory changes has been the reconfiguring or elimination of Free Checking at the largest banks.

Will these changes also eliminate debit card rewards programs that are funded by interchange fees?

Earlier this month, JPMorgan Chase Bank announced that they will be phasing out their debit rewards programs. It is clear in talking to bankers that almost all other financial organizations that offer rewards programs are also evaluating their options as we enter the new year. Even if the proposed limit of 12 cents a transaction is increased (as has been discussed over the past few weeks) banks will need to respond in a way that has the least impact on an increasingly disgruntled customer base, while still compensating for some of the lost funding.

Beyond changes to the checking account offerings already implemented or planned at most banks, potential changes to reward programs could include one or more of the following:

• Elimination of a reward program already in place: A difficult option given that many consumers enrolled and active in reward programs are the higher value relationships at a bank. Some banks are considering the elimination of rewards programs for only certain categories of accounts (i.e. Free Checking). 
• Assessment of an annual fee for reward-based debit cards: Some organizations already have an annual fee that is waived for the first year of enrollment.
• Reduction in the value of point/reward interrelationship: This is an option that impacts the most active and loyal rewards program participants the most.
• Introduction of a relationship-based reward program: Changing a points based reward structure to a program like Bank of America's 'Keep the Change'  provides additional flexibility since the foundation is around an expanded banking relationship.
• Introduction of a merchant-funded reward program: Shifting the cost of the rewards program to the same merchants who will benefit from the change in interchange regulations, hyperlocal rewards program companies like Bling Nation (that recently signed an agreement with PayPal), transaction history rewards company Cardlytics (that recently signed an agreement with ClairMail for immediate mobile reward notification) or one of several other merchant-funded programs may either replace or supplement current rewards offerings.

The last option above can actually be a revenue generator for banks since the merchant not only funds the reward, but usually pays the bank a marketing fee.

Any of the changes to reward programs discussed above will require significant customer communication to avoid a negative customer experience at a time when many household checking accounts may also be changing. It will be the role of bank marketers and product managers to try to retain the loyalty of some of the most valuable households who have enjoyed the benefits of these rewards.

At the same time, it will be important to heavily promote the use of debit and credit cards to help offset some of the impact of these regulations. The benefit is not only the increase of interchange income from increased transactions, but also improved retention achieved from the more engaged customer.

If you have a rewards program at your bank, I would love to know how you are planning to respond to this most recent challenge originating from a supposed consumer-focused regulation.

Optimize And Analyze For Mobile, part 3

This is part 3 of a timely 3 part guest post on mobile analytics strategy and implementation by Feras Alhlou at E-Nor, a Certified Partner in Northern California. Here's part 1, which explained how to look for trends in mobile traffic to your website, and here's part 2 about giving your reports more dollar power.

3. Act on your ROI

At this point, you are equipped with your positive trends and the (hopefully high!) revenue numbers generated on mobile devices. You’ll hopefully get additional time/resources to better assess and improve your mobile presence and mobile marketing initiatives.

But, we still have some more ground to cover, including more segmentation. Let's ratchet up your insights:

More Segmentation.

For your mobile traffic (viewable via an advanced segment or a profile you make specifically for mobile traffic), segment by medium (traffic channel) or campaign (e.g. Back To School Campaign). Take a look at these two metrics:

Bounce rate by medium:

click to enlarge

And conversion rate by medium:

click to enlarge

Do more with Google AdWords.

You notice in the reports above that your cpc (paid-search) traffic from mobile devices is not as prevalent as other mediums. Your results show that your mobile site is experiencing a high bounce rate and a low conversion rate - a good indicator that something is very wrong either on your landing page, or in your ads. Either your ads are not bringing in the right traffic, or you're scaring traffic away.

What you're most likely doing is proving that your site is not optimized for mobile device visits.

Fortunately, you can further back this data up within AdWords. Google AdWords now allows more visibility into campaign performance from different devices. In AdWords, in your Campaign reports, click on ‘Device’ in the Segment drop-down.

click to enlarge

In this situation, in the last cell in the rightmost column, you notice a 0.03% conversion rate for your mobile devices (compared to 0.52% on the non-mobile devices) and you know exactly where the problem is.

To fix the awfulness in the conversion rates, here are a few tips:

• create a separate campaign for your mobile devices
• send traffic to a custom landing page (or to your mobile site if you have one),
• and/or better target the mobile traffic (by device, or using the click-to-call feature).

Last but not least and for tor the technically inclined, and to get a more comprehensive perspective on your mobile presence, take a look at the code site page on mobile. If you're developing for a mobile platform, you can use Google Analytics to track the following:

• Activity on websites specially tailored for low-end mobile devices
• Activity on standard websites accessed from high-end mobile devices
• User engagement with a native iOS or Android application (using the Google Analytics mobile SDK)

In addition, there are a number of new niche analytics solutions specifically built for mobile, so keep on the lookout, and see if a specific tool has a feature that you really need. And, for more analytics tips and insights, follow @ferasa on twitter or check out the E-Nor blog.

Happy Analyzing!

Posted by Jeff Gillis, Google Analytics Team and Feras Alhlou, E-Nor