June, 2009

Features, Tips, & Announcements — No Comments
23
Jun 09

Combine Google Analytics Goals Data with Google Adwords

Last week on the Google Analytics Blog, Sebastian Tonkin wrote about the new a Google Analytics feature which allows Adwords advertisers to import Google Analytics goals directly into Google Adwords conversion data. This is great news for those who use the conversion optimizer feature in Google Adwords to obtain better conversion rates.  This also means that you no longer have to use two different conversion codes on the goal/conversion page. Instead of using both the Adwords conversion tracking code and the Google Analytics goal code to track other traffic, you only need to use the Google Analytics goal code.

However, I want to point out that traffic from Adwords is tracked differently than normal organic and direct traffic.  Google Adwords traffic is cookied while normal traffic is tracked as a user goes from  page to  goal page. While the Adwords conversion code is no longer needed, Adwords traffic is still tracked with cookies. Keep in mind that in order for Goals in Anayltics to work traffic can not be redirected from another site to your goal page. For example, if a user is at a site and clicks on the goal page, they can not be redirected to another site or server. The new feature is helpful, but remember the differences pertaining to Adwords traffic.

Features, Tips, & Announcements — No Comments
17
Jun 09

Using Google Analytics To Track Yahoo & Adcenter Paid Keywords

Today I want to explain a frequent question within Google Analytics and how to track Yahoo Search Marketing and Microsoft Adcenter pay per click campaigns.

Tracking Yahoo and Adcenter campaign is not the as easy as one may think, but the process is fairly straight froward.

You can easily use Google Analytics to track paid search for Adwords campaigns because Adwords automatically tags keywords. However, if you think Google Analytics is not tracking your Adwords data please see the my previous post “Linking Google Adwords data with Google Analytics.”

Unfortunately, Yahoo and Mircosoft do not automatically tag paid keywords. The only way to track keywords is to tag them yourself. I know it sounds like this will take up the rest of your day, but I assure you it is not as bad as it sounds.

The first step is to go to the Google URL tool builder and make a tag for your keywords. If you would like some general information on how to tag links with the URL builder visit this blog post at Anayltics Talk.

Once you understand how to tag URLs, the next step is to put in the correct variable for the term string. This helps you avoid manually changing all of your keywords destination URL’s.

  • For Yahoo use: utm_term={OVKEY}
  • For Adcenter use: utm_term={keyword}

These terms are extremely important as they will tell Google Analytics information about the paid keywords. More information about correctly tagging your links is available here.

The next step is to upload the data into both Yahoo! and Adcenter.

For Adcenter keywords, first download the Adcenter desktop software and then download the campaign. Next, highlight all the keywords and in the destination URL field and plug in the URL generated for the Google URL builder.  Finally, upload the changes and Google Analytics will start tracking paid search keywords from Adcenter.

For Yahoo! keywords, first download the campaign into an Excel file at the campaign summary page. Next, put in the URL that was generated into the destination URL field for all of the keywords.  Save this file. Upload the file with Yahoo’s upload feature or send the file to Yahoo! by filling out a support ticket. They will take care of the rest.

I understand that the process of correctly tagging keywords in  Yahoo and Microsoft Adcenter can be a pain. However, tracking your keywords in Google Analytics is a critical part of any paid search campaign.

Features, Tips, & Announcements — No Comments
16
Jun 09

Last URL Feature – Tracking Page Views Back To Phone Calls

 Mongoose Metrics’ AccuTrack Session product allows customers to view what web site the caller visited before he or she called into the client.  AccuTrack Session’s Last URL product feature is the key to this service. Marketers can literally see what lead customers to their site with this service. By tracking the last URL, marketers can gain understandings around their website conversion points or failures.

The Last URL  feature is accomplished through our AccuTrack Session keyword level phone call tracking product.  During AccuTrack Session setup, customers place a javascript code snippet on their campaign web pages. This allows Mongoose Metrics to chronicle each site visitor’s page visit.  We can then correlate the site visit to a phone call.  The correlated data will include the last URL the site visitor viewed just prior to placing the call.

We’re excited about the Last URL feature because we understand how online marketers positively develop with key insights and actionable metrics.

Jeff Tirey is Co-Founder of Mongoose Metrics and can be found @TireyTv

Jobs — No Comments
16
Jun 09

Internet Marketing Sales Executive Job Opening

Mongoose Metrics is based in Cleveland, Ohio.  We are currently searching for a Sales Executive with a background in Internet marketing sales.

June 16, 2009 – Internet Marketing Sales Executive

Features, Tips, & Announcements — No Comments
15
Jun 09

Phone Call Tracking Reports In AccuTrack Session

We have been getting a lot of inquires on what kind of data marketers will see in the Mongoose Metrics AccuTrack Session interface. I want to hit on some of the key metrics that are reported.

In the AccuTrack Session model, marketers are able to track as many organic and paid keywords that they want. This includes keywords in all organic search engines such Google, Yahoo, Bing, and paid search programs such as Google Adwords and Microsoft Adcenter. Because we enable marketers to track such a board range of keywords and search engines, we can offer keyword specific data such as:

•    Campaign – (This is a user defined field)

•    Keyword – The exact search query that the customer typed in

•    Source – Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc

•    Traffic – Orgainc or PPC

•    Ad – Which PPC ad the visitor clicked on (Great for split testing)

- It is important to note that this information is reported regardless if a visitor called the tracking number or not

Alongside the keyword data, the marketers can also find information about who is calling. This includes the following:

•    Time and Date

•    Caller ID number

•    Caller Name

•    Length of Call

•    Location

•    Last URL visited – This is great for seeing what page the visitor found your number and called in on

All of this call tracking data can be sorted and filtered out to a specific campaign or any other phone tracking metric.  All this data is stored in one convenient location that offers clients speed and easy accessibility. In fact, the reporting happens so quickly that I have been able to tell clients their exact keyword and last URL visited as they call in.

Features, Tips, & Announcements — No Comments
12
Jun 09

A/B Split Testing & Phone Call Tracking

An AccuTrack Session feature that I wan to highlight today is how Mongoose Metrics customers can conduct phone call tracking A/B Split Testing of ads and landing pages.

AccuTrack Session is an enterprise level service that allows our customers to track at the keyword level phone call conversions for both PPC and organic campaigns. AccuTrack Session provides additional features that to allow our customers to conduct A/B split testing.  In the case of ad testing, the customer certainly has the need to understand what keyword drove the phone call, but the customer also needs to know the keyword performance within different ads or landing pages. The ad testing could be either the ad group display ad which is shown in search results or it could be split-testing different landing pages.

With AccuTrack Session ad testing is supported.

Within the AccuTrack Session campaign setup there is an ad tracking feature. Customers simply define the ad source in the destination link of the paid search ad.  AccuTrack Session will capture the ad source form the link and log this information along with the keyword.  When a phone call conversion takes place, AccuTrack Session will postback the keyword, ad source and call details to the customer’s web analytics package.

In this way, AccuTrack Session customers can determine which keywords drive phone calls from individual ads. This is a powerful solution for large PPC campaigns where it is critical to test ad copy and landing page performance.

Jeff Tirey is Co-Founder of Mongoose Metrics. You can find him at @TireyTv

Features, Tips, & Announcements — No Comments
11
Jun 09

Twitter DM Phone Call Tracking

This is a followup to the web site posting we made last week  exploring the Twitter/Mongoose Metrics Phone Call Tracking integration through our API. We felt it would be helpful to touch upon some of the frequently asked questions in this blog post.

First, phone call tracking through Twitter has always been possible through Mongoose Metrics’ AccuTrack 1:1 service. You just need to tweet to a tracking number associated that that tracking number’s appropriate postback URL. You can do so with Google’s URL builder tool. This is helpful if you wish to include a tracking number on each tweet at a broad level.

With Twitter phone call tracking, our focus was on how AccuTrack Session can use our API to integrate with Twitter’s API  to construct unique DMs to all followers. Each of these DMs will include a unique phone tracking number. This is a mass auto DM method.  With Mongoose Metrics’ AccuTrack Session API there is an auto phone number provisioning method that allows you to select your follower and provision a new tracking numbe into the DM. Hence, constructing a DM and provisioning and publishing phone number can all be done in one step. Since AccuTrack Session charges only for the publishing of the phone number, a Twitter auto DM phone call tracking campaign could be launched at an affordable cost related to the size of your list.  Since each follower now as a unique tracking number each call will be published to their DM.

Before you consider phone call tracking your followers through Twitter’s DM think about waht your Twitter community would think of this advertising.  I must admit that I am not engaged enough in the Twitter community to understand its marketing potential. Your followed may consider these positings spam.  I suggest caution because there are many in the Twitter community who have well constructed arguments against mass DM methods.   Here is a great discussion I found that brings out the arguments on both sides of the issues.

I’m in the camp that believes that if you don’t like what you’re getting in your DMs you should unfollow.  However, I would be wary of conducting a phone call tracking campaign through mass DMing if your followers are not expecting such messages.  I think a far more sound approach would be to create a Twitter account where followers know ahead of time that there will be marketing DMs. There is currently now way to segment followers in Twitters and this seems like the best compromise.

Marketing DMs could come from a Twitter account such as “[mycompany]CallForDeals”. Think of a local restaurant where it is hard to get a table and  reservations free up at the last minute. Consider the travel industry where last minute promotions can entice customers. These are just two quick example, but  I’m sure there are many other inductries where phone call tracking through Twitter’s mass DM can proves helpful.

In the end it’s up to you and your Twitter community to find ways where this model might work. However, from a technical level, phone call tracking to Twitter DMs can easily be done through Mongoose Metrics’ AccuTrack Session API.

Jeff Tirey is a Co-Founder of Mongoose Metrics you can find him @TireyTv

Features, Tips, & Announcements — No Comments
11
Jun 09

How Keyword Publishing Threshold Controls Phone Call Tracking Costs

I wanted to take some time in this post to outline an important cost control feature within our AccuTrack Session service. I’m really excited about this service and look forward to sharing it with you  To back up a moment, AccuTrack Session is a business class keyword level phone call tracking service that allows our customers to understand  what drives phone calls from both paid search and organic search campaigns at the keyword level.

A key innovation with AccuTrack Session is our billing model. It uses a Session Publishing Cost (SPC) and Mongoose Metrics only charges a small fee to publish a tracking number to our customer’s ppc/organic campaign visitor session.  The SPC is the only cost and there are no minute usage costs nor monthly tracking number rental fees.  The SPC billing model benefits our customers by making it far simpler to understand the keyword level phone call tracking costs.  As part of Mongoose Metrics commitment to business class phone call tracking, we understand that campaign setup and management need to be simple and fast for our customers. Anything else will only delay campaign setup and add extra management time for our customers. AccuTrack Session’s billing model will remove concerns over  monthly minute usage.  This means that our customers can create keyword tracking campaigns with less decision and communication overheard both internally and with their PPC clients.

Ok, back to Keyword Publishing Threshold…

 Since AccuTrack Session charges a session publishing cost the first question about our pricing model is what happens with high volume keywords?  To solve this problem we have a Keyword Publishing Threshold which acts as a maximum cost per keyword spending.  As a simple example, if a campaign had only one keyword, but that keyword drove 5,000 clicks  and the SPC cost was 9 cents per publishing, we would not charge $450 monthly to track that keyword.  We realize this level of spending for an individual keyword is unrealisitc.

Our Keyword Publishing Threshold thresholds solves the cost problem with high frequency keywords.

 What happens is that with every campaign there is a Keyword Publishing Threshold.  The threshold says, “Do not charge for a session publishing once individual keyword spending has reached X level”.  As an example, if a customer’s Keyword Publishing Threshold was set to $48.00, our SPC billing system would charge for the phone call session publishing until $48 accrued for that month.  After that, AccuTrack Session will continue to make the tracking phone number publishing but there will be no more charges.

AccuTrack Session’s cost controls for high volume keywords allows our customers to have campaigns with both high volume keywords and low frequency long-tails with no worries on excessive spending.

If you have questions about this feature or about AccuTrack Session please give us a call.

 

Features, Tips, & Announcements — No Comments
5
Jun 09

AccuTrack Session – Ease of Use for PPC Managers

This post provides an overview of Mongoose Metrics’ AccuTrack Session keyword level phone call tracking product. In particular it will describe how a key benefit of AccuTrack Session is its ease of use.

Our customers want a phone call tracking platform that is easy to setup and easy to manage.  This is especially true for online marketers who manage PPC campaigns.  Marketers want a product that does not require a great deal of acclimation or extensive maintenance.  Low maintenance is of particular importance as its common for PPC campaigns to make experimental changes in keywords and bidding.  The last thing our customers want is to make changes in their PPC campaign only to be saddled with further maintenance burdens within Mongoose Metrics.

AccuTrack Session keyword level phone call tracking was designed to meet these needs.   AccuTrack Session, is our new keyword level phone call tracking product designed to track phone call conversions from both PPC and organic search campaigns.  AccuTrack Session uses ans an innovative pricing model where the customer only pays for the publishing of the phone number.  The Session Publishing Cost (SPC) pricing model allows our customers to easily understand what their campaign’s phone call tracking costs will be by looking at their monthly paid click volume.  There are no minute usage charges with AccuTrack Session nor are there monthly charges for holding the tracking phone numbers.

Easy To Understand Campaign Cost

Keyword level phone call tracking often requires the need for many phone numbers and there are uncertainties around phone call minute usage.  Often an analysis of the campaign’s traffic volume, major keywords and call usage is required before a keyword level phone call tracking campaign can begin. In addition there is often the need for client communication and budget approval.  With AccuTrack Session the decision process is simplified.  To predict cost, only an estimate of the campaign’s monthly click volume is neecessary.  Since there are no minute usage charges, a huge uncertainty regarding minute usage cost is removed from the decision making process.  This means faster decisions and greater efficiency when launching a keyword level phone call tracking campaign.

Easy Setup

Setup requires only basic HTML skills. .  It is a one-time setup and no further changes on the campaign website are required.  Once setup, AccuTrack Session publishes the tracking number to the campaign page. This removes the need for customers to manage and publish tracking numbers.  In addition, there is no need to upload your campaign’s keywords to AccuTrack Session .

Automatic Tracking Number Management

AccuTrack Session automates the provisioning of tracking numbers to the customer’s campaign.  Tracking numbers provisioned are private numbers used exclusively for the customer’s campaign. These numbers are not shared across different campaigns or customers.  The benefit with automatic tracking number provisioning is that as the customer makes changes to their campaign there is no need to return to Mongoose Metrics to provision more numbers.  Tracking numbers can be either local or toll-free.

Automatic Postback Reporting to Web Analytics Package

When a phone call comes in through an AccuTrack Session campaign, the call is automatically reported back to the customer’s web analytics account.  The reporting includes the keyword that drove the call in addition to call details such as the incoming caller’s phone number and call duration.  For example, Google Analytics users can then see the phone calls reported in the Campaign section of Google Analytics and by filtering to the dimension of ‘keyword’ they can then see what keywords drove phone calls.

Like all Mongoose Metrics’ products, AccuTrack delivers reliable data into the customers preferred web analytics package in a simple and easy to use system.