via: ROIRevolution
Last fall Google announced the release of the much anticipated Custom Variables in Google Analytics. Previously the only out of the box way to segment visitors on your site using custom metrics was to use the User Defined variable. While the User Defined method was useful for segmenting traffic into members vs non members, and for things like Michael’s Exact Keyword Tracking script, Analytics users requested more options, customizations, and more control. Well, Google listened.
Web Analytics: An Hour a Day
Unlike the User Defined variable, the Custom Variables allow you to determine the scope of the visitor engagement. Basically that means in addition to setting just a visitor level segment, you can also set session level segments, which will persist while the visitor is active on the site, and page level segments, which correspond to pageviews and events on the site. This allows you to get much more detailed with the information you’re gathering and storing in the custom variable. For example, you could separate different sections of the site by using the page level scope, or you could track if a visitor has completed a particular action during their session with the session level scope.
read full article here.
Categories: 5 Web Analytics
Tagged: What are custom variables in Google Analytics?
via: MobileMarketingWatch
HipLogic Brings Smartphone-Interface & Real-Time Data To Mass-Market Feature Phones
Mobile startup HipLogic, who has the simple intention of bringing smartphone-like features to simple mass-market “feature phones,” recently debuted a new downloadable app that brings a smartphone-oriented interface combined with real-time information to Windows Mobile or Symbian-based devices, for free.
HipLogic “Live,” as it’s being called, brings an iphone-like interface and content from real-time sources like Facebook and Twitter, wrapped up in a simple user-friendly, truly smartphone-like package. The interface itself creates a BlackBerry-type environment, including a variety of apps, widgets, real-time notifications and integrated search bar.
read full story here.
Categories: 6 Mobile Advertising
Tagged: Who is HipLogic?
via: Clickz
Do you often find yourself wondering, “I have money to spend. Why won’t anyone get back to me?”
For those of us trying to assemble online media plans and execute campaigns, when we finally get that rare good rep, we feel like breaking into song.
Unfortunately, according to the survey I’ve been running, most people on the buying end aren’t happy campers. Eighty-seven percent of my respondents are dissatisfied with the online media reps they contact to buy advertising — over 50 percent of the time.
What are today’s online media buyers unhappy about?
Sixty-four percent of buyers who contact sites they have no previous relationship with say those sites are typically slower to respond than sites with which they have a previous relationship. The majority of these buyers say requests submitted to new sites go unanswered or are answered too late. Respondents say their number one source of frustration is slow response time or unmet deadlines when they’re trying to put together online media plans.
read full story here.
Categories: 4 Too many planning tools?
Tagged: Do Online Media Planners like sales reps?
What is Digital Share of Voice in the Marketplace?
One insight I think is very helpful and should be included in all Media/Website Dashboards is what I call ‘digital share of voice’. Since we as marketers do not know how much our competitors are spending online (Search & Display advertising), one method that can shed some light is pulling traffic data from Compete.com. Compete is a powerful tool that can show you traffic and engagement metrics for practically any website. It does a variety of things like analyzing competitor keywords, identify site for affiliate and SEO link building, and helps uncover sources of traffic and more.
So back to online share of voice in the market, what I like to do for my clients is not only compare unique visitor data to competitors (as shown in the example above using Heineken and other beers), but get an idea of how effective and how much budget my competitors are spending in the online advertising space. By simply pulling unique visitor traffic, we can then compare the percentage of ‘online share of voice’
of your client’s brand to its competitors. As you can see from the example above, Heineken was clearly kicking butt in May and June as it had the largest percentage of digital traffic. Corona likely ran some sort of online marketing campaign in August or just spent a huge load of money in paid search. Looking at October and November, Budlight.com seems to be taking over 1st place as it is now ahead of Heineken in terms of internet share of voice.
Okay, this is cool, but what more is this telling us?
Well for one thing, if your clients think they can get away with spending less in digital or think that offline media is enough to generate website traffic, the digital share of voice chart is a good indicator to show if their decision making was right or wrong as we know as analysts that paid search and online display have the highest correlation with website traffic.
There is much more you can do with Compete Pro, especially if you would like to analyze how your competitors are using search. Feel free to also download my free tutorials on how to use data analysis to forecast online conversions, calculate target rate points for digital, optimize beyond CTR, CPC, & CPA and more.
Eric Melchor
Categories: 2 Online Marketing Analyst Tips
Tagged: How to track Digital Share of Voice in the Marketplace, internet share of voice, online share of voice
via: Mobile Marketing Watch
Augmented Reality Steadily Mystifying Consumers In Marketing Campaigns
Augmented Reality (AR) is a buzz word you’ll likely hear more and more in regards to mobile marketing these days, and for good reason. The concept holds the all-to-important “wow factor” needed to engage consumers in an entirely new way, and keep them coming back over and over again.
Esquire magazine recently debuted an interactive AR issue of its magazine chocked full of engaging elements made possible by downloading a small piece of software and holding the magazine up to your webcam- see a video of the issue in action here. Similarly, GE implemented AR into an awareness campaign a while back to show its potential and to improve awareness of its “green planet” agenda. You simply print out a page with a special image printed on it, hold it up to your webcam and watch the AR magic happen. See the video here.
read full article here.
While still in its infancy, marketing campaigns that integrate augmented reality are becoming more common everyday, and are increasingly mystifying consumers by letting them interact with various brands in a way never before available. Marketers are quickly taking note and putting the concept to good use. Accordingly, I wanted to showcase some examples of marketers and brands utilizing augmented reality in really cool ways.
Categories: 9 In the News
Tagged: Examples of augmented reality
If you are looking for an automatic recurring billing system that can handle customer transactions online such as online credit card transaction processing, membership join and login, product orders and subscription renewals, customer information gathering and business intelligence reporting, then you might want to check out Paysimple. I have used them and it was fairly easy to setup email invoicing, ACH processing, and easily incorporate into one of my web pages. Most of the services out there can do these, but what I can tell you is that the customer service at Paysimple is exceptional. They respond to all my inquiries quickly and have been very helpful. Feel free to check out their services at Paysimple.com.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: A good automatic recurring billing system - Paysimple
via: MobileVentureBeat
Flurry and Pinch Media to create mobile analytics powerhouse
Two analytics startups, Flurry and Pinch Media, are announcing a merger today as they try to create a mobile data analytics leader. While Flurry has been focused on e-commerce, Pinch Media was focused on ad optimization. Together the companies intend to go beyond just providing data and become a media company that offers services to developers, such as ways to mine data from users and target them with recommendations for mobile apps.
The merger will create a company with 20 employees in San Francisco and New York. When the deal closes, the combined company will be known as Flurry, and its leaders hope it will be better able to keep up with the fast-changing smartphone industry. On the analytics side, the company’s competitors will be Medialets and Mobclix.
read full article.
Categories: 6 Mobile Advertising
Tagged: Who is the leading Mobile Analytics firm?
via: MobileVentureBeat
Flurry unveils deal with comScore for measuring mobile audiences
Mobile analytics firm Flurry is teaming up with web market researcher comScore to help measure the audiences for mobile apps.
The two will combine comScore’s mobile panel data with Flurry’s data on how much mobile apps are used. The companies will thus be able to offer better data to app publishers, ad agencies, marketers, advertisers, ad networks and others. The service will cover the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry mobile phones and will be available through comScore in the first quarter.
Web Analytics: An Hour a Day
Clients will be able to get more accurate data about how consumers use mobile apps. With access to usage on more than 50 million phones, Flurry can measure real-time consumption data for apps that use its analytics system. It can show how frequently and for how long an app is used, where the user is, new versus repeat usage and other data. That lets app publishers and others better target consumers. Meanwhile, comScore offers audience measurement reports.
read full article here.
Categories: 6 Mobile Advertising
Tagged: How to measure mobile application usage
via: ROI Reveolution Blog
You don’t get a second chance to make a good first impression. The moment you upload your new campaigns & ad groups, even if paused, Google gives you an initial quality score. If it’s below average you’ll be paying more per click until Google has enough data for your actual performance to determine your quality score.
If you don’t come out of the gate with your best foot forward, you’ll pay a premium on your first 100+ clicks. Worse, you may be tempted to give up on a keyword prematurely based on astronomical bid prices. Pay attention to the checklist below when launching new campaigns, ad groups or keywords into your AdWords account.
The good news is that all these suggestions won’t just help your initial quality score, but should actually increase the long-term quality of your AdWords campaigns.
Here’s how to get the best possible initial quality scores in Google:
Keeping up with the changes on your site can be nearly impossible. Equally challenging is keeping up with those changes in your Google Analytics reports. Yesterday Google announced a new feature called Annotations to help you remember what happened on your site, who did it, and when it happened.
Any user with Google Analytics access can write comments on the over-time graph to indicate any notes they have for that particular event. This will save a lot of time for companies where the tasks are distributed between numerous people, which means you the analyst will no longer have to spend hours figuring out why all your data has changed. Just view the annotations to see if any major updates or changes were made! In addition to this new feature, Google also released the ability to use the Custom Variables in Advanced Segments and Custom Reports, and the new Tracking Code Setup Wizard. To view more information about these you can visit the Google Analytics blog.
read full article here.
Categories: 4 SEO and SEM
Tagged: Don't tell, secrets on how to pass the Google Quality Score Checklist
December 12, 2009 · 1 Comment
FoneGigs has launched a complete directory of real-time search engines. The directory will be updated frequently. Please let me know if you wish to recommend a search engine that is not covered here or update certain information that is listed. Email Eric at Eric@smartdigitalspending.com.
Categories: 4 SEO and SEM
Tagged: The Complete Directory of Real-time Search Engines
