Monetize Your Top Exit Pages

Google Analytics does a great job of allowing you to analyze your web traffic through a very important metric: top exit pages. This metric, along with bounce rate and time on site, is valuable as it allows you to measure the impact of changes to your webpages. Did exit rate go up or down? You can choose to optimize pages with high exit rates to try to keep your visitors longer or help them convert, or -- if the page is a logical exit point, you can monetize outgoing traffic on high exit pages by using Google AdSense. (As you may know, Google Analytics and AdSense are integrated, similarly to Analytics and AdWords, so you can optimize your AdSense campaigns using data in Google Analytics.)

If you choose to monetize an exit page, take a look at this short real-world example.

SavetzPublishing.com, on its FreePrintable.net site, provide documents and templates for individuals and businesses, ranging from business forms and certificates, to bookmarks and almost any other document someone would want to print. With sixty-six sites focusing on different niches in printing, Savetz Publishing was looking for a way to optimize their ad placement without having a negative impact on their core users. As a solution, they decided to “find the pages with the highest exit rates and put AdSense on them," according to Kevin Savetz, the owner of Savetz Publishing and FreePrintable.

Kevin has been an Analytics user for as long as he can remember and he had an idea of where the bounce and exit rates would be highest. Kevin used Google Analytics to confirm his theory and placed AdSense ads on some of these pages. He quickly realized that this advertising did not have a significant negative impact on his site’s core users and on conversions. Instead, as he describes, these ads provide “a means of monetizing traffic that would already be leaving. My users are still happy and getting relevant content.”

Savetz Publishing’s strategy highlights how sites can use AdSense to monetize traffic that is already exiting the site. AdSense can help sites like these increase overall revenue without changing their current business model. As Kevin put it, AdSense allowed him to “see a huge jump in revenue after targeting exit pages.”

And taking it one step further...As a Google Analytics user, you understand how visitors interact with your website. With this knowledge and the controls in AdSense, you can even structure your AdSense ads to appeal to advertisers who want to display their ads on your site. In turn, you will earn revenue by displaying more relevant and high quality ads.

Here are a couple suggestions to get started with AdSense on your site.

• Try testing AdSense first on your top exit pages, and then evaluate the effect it has on your relevant traffic, by referring to your top exit pages report.
• If, like Savetz Publishing and FreePrintable, you find that adding relevant ads on your site does not turn your relevant traffic away, increase the coverage of AdSense on your site. You can use the additional revenue you earn from AdSense to help you generate more qualified traffic.

Learn more about AdSense and start by testing on your exit pages.

Posted by Jeff Gillis, Google Analytics Team and Nathan Deoms, Google AdSense Team

Change to the appearance of search ad display URLs

In any given month, we experiment with hundreds of subtle variations of the Google search results page, testing everything from font sizes and colors to layouts and spacing, as well as dozens of other variables. Recently, we found that by standardizing the look of the URLs on the page, we were able to improve many of our user metrics, including ad clickthrough rates.

As a result, we've decided to update the appearance of the display URLs of all ads that appear on search results pages in the next week or so. Following the change, the domain portion of your display URL will always be shown in lowercase letters. For example, if your display URL is Subdomain.Example.com/Subdirectory, it will appear as subdomain.example.com/Subdirectory.

There’s no need for you to make any edits to your ads. All uppercase letters in your display URL domain will automatically be changed to lowercase when your ad is served.

As you've probably figured out by now, we believe that regular website testing is the best way to ensure an optimal user experience, and we encourage you to test variations of your own website. Learn how you can start testing with our Website Optimizer tool.

Posted by Lisa Shieh, Inside AdWords crew

Leadership Lessons from John Grisham’s Latest Thriller

I am a lifelong fan of the legal thriller genre, thanks in large part to John Grisham. I enjoy the legal issues, the courtroom drama, and the attorneys’ arguments. But after reading Grisham’s latest legal thriller, The Confession, I realized that this story was not just a classic Grisham thriller - it also provided leadership lessons. Don’t worry, this post will not reveal any plot spoilers.

One of the main characters, attorney Robbie Flak, demonstrated attributes of an inspirational leader. He led his team by clearly assigning and defining tasks, elaborating action plans, and leading meetings. But most of all, he demonstrated an open door policy of communication. Everyone on the team knew what was happening with the trial at all times. He did not keep secrets. He did not tell some people some aspects of the case and other people other aspects of the case. He was an inspirational leader because he understood the value of his team and the importance of their working together as a cohesive unit.

When trial preparations are in high gear, and then the ensuing trail gets underway, there is no room for petty squabbles among team members. The legal environment is not the place for disagreements, name calling, pouting, or any other form of inappropriate business behavior. In The Confession, those negative behaviors were non-existent because Robbie Flak’s leadership style set the tone. Yes, there was no doubt Robbie was a typical lawyer with a volatile temper, a tendency to be dramatic, and a charismatic presence. But, he was able to rein in his team so that they believed in him, believed in his cause, and wanted to help him succeed for his client.

How many leaders can talk the talk and walk the walk of inspirational leadership and achieve the same results?

Positive news for negative keywords

Negative keywords are a great way to refine your keyword lists and filter out unwanted impressions for your campaigns. By excluding specific terms that aren’t relevant to the services you offer, you can improve the relevance of your ads and make your campaigns more effective.

In addition to filtering out specific terms in the context of a single ad group or campaign, many advertisers maintain a set of core negative keywords across several campaigns. Examples of these terms might be free or trial -- search terms that aren’t promising if you’re looking to sell products on your website. Negative keywords like these don’t require granular management on the campaign level, and we’ve heard from many of you that you’d like a more scalable way to manage these broadly-applicable sets of terms.

Now, we’re happy to introduce a new way to manage negative keywords across multiple campaigns: negative keyword lists. With these lists, you’ll be able to manage a group of negative keywords in your account’s Control Panel and Library and associate them with multiple campaigns.

(click for full size image)

For example, say you have a set of negative keywords you always add to any campaign running on the Search Network. Previously, you’d need to copy that set to every new search campaign you created in your account. Now, with shared lists, you can simply create a single negative keyword list and associate it with each search campaign. If there’s a new negative keyword you’d like to add to all of those campaigns, just add it to your list and it will automatically update across each campaign. Similarly, if you create a new campaign, you can add your negative keyword list to exclude all of the necessary terms with just a few clicks.

Visit our Help Center to learn more about how to get started with negative keyword lists.

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew

2011...

Greetings!

It's here...and quickly accelerating! 

2011.

We planned for it...we celebrated its beginning...and now we must maximize the opportunities.  For our bankers and credit unions marketers, the future is here now.  You have to turn on your energy, focus your team and realize the potential into real opportunity!

So where do you start??  Here are the top 4 ideas...

1. Bring the plan from the shelf to the front line- engage your staff in turning the plan into daily actionable goals, duties and accountabilities
2. Move forward- each day that you wait to launch your plans means one less day to make the results occur
3. Measure- everything! Pre-, Post- and during...to ensure your efforts are focused on the best source for success 
4. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate- the more you share, the more broadly it is shared, the more everyone will be on the same page and in unison forward

2011 means opportunity...are ready to seize your share??


Cheers!
Bruce

New Email Marketing Study Highlights Missed Opportunities for Bankers

As social media channels continue to proliferate and traditional communication channels become more expensive, bankers struggle with how to maximize the effectiveness of the email channel within their marketing mix according to a just released study from SubcriberMail, a Harland Clarke company. The study entitled, Email Marketing Within Financial Services Institutions, surveyed 71 banks and 191 credit unions, finding that email marketing among these organizations to be strong and growing.

But, while many organizations are leveraging email to inform and communicate news and product information (50% for both banks and credit unions) and even cross-sell existing customers (56% of credit unions/42% of banks), a far lower percentage of credit unions and banks use email as part of a multi-channel onboarding and/or activation process (26% and 27% respectively) or use email for delivery of an electronic receipt.

This is a missed opportunity since studies show that new account holders are very open to all channels of communication early in their relationship and that as many as 75% of customers open and read transactional emails. In addition, in working with financial organizations across the country in the development and implementation of onboarding programs, early customer engagement, cross-selling and retention are all positively impacted by adding email marketing to the communications mix.

At some organizations such as Chase, email welcoming messages many times arrive at the customer's home before the customer returns from opening a new account. This communication is used to thank the customer for opening their account, encourage usage of engagement services (online banking, debit cards, direct deposit) and describe future communication the customer will receive from the bank.

So why the hesitation in using email as a communications tool? According to the survey, while the fear of phishing or fraud was a significant concern, the primary controllable challenges to successful email marketing included the effective collection of email addresses in the first place in addition to subscriber churn (or addresses going bad). Roughly 40% of banks and credit unions found both of these issues to be an impediment to success.

To address these concerns, the SubscriberMail study suggested a holistic, company-wide approach to collecting and confirming customer's email addresses at every touch point. This would include collection and verification at the branch level, call center, and even as part of direct mail efforts and at the ATM. The key is to establish the collection and maintenance of an email address database as an overarching corporate initiative that will result in both lower communication costs as well as improved marketing effectiveness.

Unfortunately, senior management support of such an initiative was far from a reality according to the survey, with less than 30% of the bank respondents stating that senior management was supportive of email marketing strategies. With a subscriber email address valuation estimated to be an average of $118 according to a recent DMA Email Experience Council calculator, marketers need to continue to seek managerial support for their email collection initiatives.

Another challenge to keeping a subscriber database up-to-date comes from the customer's perspective, since allowing email communication is directly correlated to the relevancy and value derived from the emails a customer receives. As with traditional direct mail, relevancy depends on effective segmentation of the email database and timely communication of opportunities, events and offers. Again, both banks and credit unions were found to fall short in their efforts to segment customers, with far fewer than 50% segmenting their email database in any manner. Interestingly, only half of the responders had email initiatives planned in the next six months, indicating a less than robust email strategy and the potential for the customer to undervalue email communication from their financial institution.

Overall, the SubscriberMail survey results illustrated a tremendous amount of untapped potential with the email channel and the need for the same type of discipline with email marketing as with other direct channels. With increased focus on the collection and cleansing of email database files, improved segmentation and more consistent use of this communication tool, return on marketing investment can be improved at a time when bank marketing budgets are being reduced.

I am interested in your results and use of email within your bank.

If you are interested in this free survey, simply follow this link to the download.

Starbucks Joins the Logo Redesign Fray

By now, everyone has either heard or read the latest news announced by Starbucks. To celebrate the company’s 40^th anniversary, Starbucks has redesigned its logo. The corporate name (Starbucks) and the company’s main product (coffee) have both been removed from the logo, but the original image of the company (the siren) remains.

According to the Starbucks website, “The Siren has been a part of Starbucks from the beginning. Her image, originally derived from a twin-tailed siren in an old sixteenth-century Norse woodcut, was at the center of Starbucks original logo. She embodies Starbucks and our coffee – evoking coffee’s allure and its seafaring tradition.”

Over the last 40 years, there is no question that Starbucks has built an incredibly strong brand. The company serves coffee, food, and products in its stores around the world –more than 15,000 in 50 countries, according to the company’s website. In addition, Starbucks has created unique partnerships and sells products in affiliated locations other than its stand-alone coffee-houses, such as, banks and supermarkets. The logo represents quality coffee, a commitment to global responsibility, a dedication to creating and maintaining a diverse corporate culture, and creating a warm and welcoming place for people to connect.

If the mission of Starbucks is “to inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time,” why would Starbucks choose to lose the core elements of its brand when redesigning its logo? A green siren will not represent the company in the same manner as when the name and key product were included. The word Starbucks is critical to the company’s brand – or in other words, its connection to its consumers and fans.

If Starbucks wanted to change its logo as part of its 40^th anniversary celebration, perhaps, it should have added design elements that highlighted its mission – a person, a cup, or a neighborhood. However, the secret may be out: Starbucks hired the graphic design team from The Gap, since this logo redesign is reminiscent of The Gap’s proposed logo that appeared one week during October 2010, only to disappear the following week.

Read the announcement in Starbucks’ own words:

http://www.starbucks.com/customer-service/faqs/brand-evolution