November « 2010 « Mongoose Metrics

November, 2010

Google Adwords Call Analytics Explained & Compared w/ Mongoose Metrics Call Tracking

Tracking phone calls just got simpler for millions of Google Adwords users who want to understand how their PPC campaigns perform for delivering phone calls.

With Google’s Nov. 2 announcement about Google Adwords Call Analytics, the call tracking industry has been elevated alongside traditional web analytics providers as another trusted resource in the fast-growing field of marketing analytics.

“If you’re new to call tracking, using Google’s call tracking is a good place to start,” says Mongoose Metrics chief executive officer, Bradley Reynolds. But the technology only goes so far.

Of course, it only tracks one marketing source: Google Adwords, where more robust call tracking solutions offer insight into ALL your traffic sources including organic, Bing, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, display advertising, email marketing as well as traditional print and broadcast advertising.

The basic concept of the Google Adwords Call Analytics reporting platform works much the same way as many existing call tracking services. Google injects a unique call tracking phone number into the advertisement (in this case a PPC ad) and routes the resulting call (via VOIP) to the business. In Google’s offering, a limited set of data points are logged and recorded within the Adwords account dashboard.

Here’s a screenshot from Greg Sterling’s ScreenWerk blog post, “Free Call Tracking Comes to Adwords, PPCall Can’t Be Far Behind.”

To further amplify the concept, Surojit Chatterjee, senior product manager for Adwords, explains, “When a user calls the number in your ad, the call is automatically routed to your business, and AdWords notes that this call took place. Then, when you look at your AdWords reports, you’ll see the number of calls generated by each campaign, call duration, and in the near future, caller area code. You’ll still only pay for clicks on your ads, but we intend to charge for call metrics in the future.”

While it’s free for the time being, the pundits speculate that the service will eventually morph into a pay-per-call platform. Additionally, the only data points Google Call Metrics provide are somewhat limited and include only time of call, call duration and area codes in the aggregate.

Marketers who require a more sophisticated solution to understanding which marketing sources drive phone calls often turn to call tracking providers such as Mongoose Metrics. The Mongoose suite of products provides visibility into session-level, granular data about caller behavior from click to close.

Here’s how Google Adwords Call Metrics stacks up next to Mongoose Metrics Call Tracking:

For more information about how call tracking can improve ROI by up to 30 percent, schedule a meeting, download one of our many whitepapers or call 877.495.4440.

Follow us on Twitter @mongoosemetrics for the freshest links to the best sources of information about PPC, Web Analytics, Call Tracking, SEO, Social Media, Local & Mobile Search.

Features, Tips, & Announcements — No Comments
23
Nov 10

VIDEO: PBS WNEO/WEAO Reveals the Secret Story of Mongoose Metrics Call Tracking

Western Reserve PBS freelance journalist Sarah Taylor and her production team recently visited the Mongoose Metrics offices in suburban Cleveland to learn how the company helps marketers understand which of their advertising sources drive phone calls.

The nearly six-minute segment includes interviews with chief executive officer, Bradley Reynolds, vice president of development, Stephen Abbey and director of marketing and content, Kathleen Colan.

Mongoose Metrics 112610 with Discussion from Neotropolis Producer on Vimeo.

The Mongoose Metrics story on Neotroplis airs on the Western Reserve PBS television show “Neotropolis” on Fri., Nov. 26 at 8:30 p.m., Sat., Nov. 27 at 4:30 a.m. and Sun., Nov. 28. It will also air on Fusion (WNEO45/WEAO 49 on Mon. Nov. 28 at 8 p.m.

Learn more about how Mongoose Metrics call tracking and dynamic number replacement helps marketers understand how marketing sources drive phone calls. Whitepaper Download: The Top 10 Things You Can do with Call Tracking.

Features, Tips, & Announcements — No Comments
22
Nov 10

Mongoose Metrics CEO Bradley Reynolds Named to Crain’s “40 Under 40″ Business Leaders

We’ve combed our hair and we’re heading out shortly to Crain’s Cleveland Business’ annual “40 Under 40″ Distinguished Business Leader awards tonight at Executive Caterers at Landerhaven to celebrate the award for Mongoose Metrics’ CEO, Bradley Reynolds.

Here’s the story Crain’s wrote in today’s issue:

Features, Tips, & Announcements — No Comments
18
Nov 10

Top 10 Things We Learned from Twitter’s Promoted Tweets

Twitter’s Promoted Tweets Generate Leads & Brand Awareness for Mongoose Metrics – A Social Media Case Study

By Kathleen Colan, director of marketing and content for Mongoose Metrics, an enterprise-level call tracking and conversion analytics provider. Learn more about how call tracking can help you understand which marketing sources drive phone calls, download, “Top 10 Things You Can do with Call Tracking.”

Introduction: Twitter launched a beta advertising platform called Promoted Tweets on Nov. 1 to a select group of 20 advertisers around the world. Promoted Trends, a separate product was also launched on Nov. 1. Mongoose Metrics is actively participating as one of the 20 beta testers in Promoted Tweets.

With the news yesterday that Twitter is set to release it’s own analytics product, we thought it was a good time to share initial thoughts on the Promoted Tweets program, and give further insight into the reporting capabilities:

1. Just like Google Adwords, you can place advertisements in front of niche audiences. You can buy key terms, including hashtags, to strategically position messages in campaigns.

2. You can own hashtags. For example, we ran Promoted Tweets last week during #PubCon, generating more than 40,000 impressions. At this moment, we’re in a bidding war for #Twtrcon.

3. The haters will hate. But it’s minimal. As usual, the minority is often vocal.

4. Your Klout score will significantly improve. Ours went from 43 to 70 since participating in Twitter’s Promoted Tweets beta which began on Nov. 1.

5. Follower count increases. Followers increased by 700 since Nov.1.

6. If you do it right, you can track conversions and actions. Add Google’s utm_source code for links to sought-after conversion steps. In our case, whitepaper downloads about call tracking.

7. Conversions increase. Qualified leads are significant.

8. Brand awareness increases. Mongoose Metrics’ Promoted Tweets have been viewed more than 150,000 times. More than 3,000 people have engaged with our content. Influencers notice, and website traffic is up.

9. The landscape is dynamic. Promoted Tweets began appearing in searches and user streams within Twitter and HootSuite on Nov. 1. On Nov. 16, Promoted Tweets started appearing in TweetDeck.

10. Twitter’s built-in analytics dashboard is powerful, and presents a wealth of actionable data.

Conclusion: We are exploring a variety of uses for Promoted Tweets, including hashtags and keywords related to industry events and terms. We’re still learning, but so far it appears that Promoted Tweets, and the related anlaytics platform, will be powerful tools for marketers.

What do you want to know about Promoted Tweets? Send an @message to @mongoosemetrics and we’ll get the conversation started!

Addendum: Here’s a further explanation and some data from Brian Solis, “The Future of Advertising has been promoted: A New Study”

Features, Tips, & Announcements — No Comments
16
Nov 10

Read Write Web (@rww) Spots Mongoose Metrics Promoted Tweets on TweetDeck

It’s no secret by now that Promoted Tweets have come to Twitter.

Mongoose Metrics is currently one of 20 companies in the world participating in the beta test that began on Nov. 1 and goes through Jan. 2011. Twitter began rolling out the advertisements within Twitter’s new dashboard as well as within third-party client, HootSuite.

According to the brainy folks at www.ReadWriteWeb.com (@rww), Promoted Tweets have migrated — as of today — to Tweetdeck as well.

Spotted: Inline Advertising in TweetDeck Search Columns

Features, Tips, & Announcements — No Comments
11
Nov 10

Top 10 Random Things I Learned at Pubcon

The majority of married guys don’t wear wedding rings.
SEO Geeks are some of the kindest, most misunderstood people.
Chris Brogan is right. Talk about other people 12 times as much as you talk about yourself.
Your Facebook fan base should consist of 10 times as many customers as you want. Your Facebook fan base should be 10 times the size of your email list. Your Facebook fan base should consist of 10 to 20 percent of your local geographic population.
Fail quickly.
Social media has overtaken porn as the number one activity on the Internet.
Own your online presence now. The time to start online reputation management is long before someone starts talking trash and ranking in your search results.
According to New York Times tech reporter David Pogue, “The depiction of Mark Zuckerberg in ‘The Social Network’ is accurate.”
“Likes” may start to overtake “Links” in search engine ranking pages.
Twitter is getting pulled into real-time search more than any other social media.

Thanks PubCon!

By Kathleen Colan, director of marketing and content for Mongoose Metrics. Mongoose Metrics is an enterprise-level call tracking and conversion analytics provider. Learn more about how call tracking can help you understand which marketing sources drive phone calls, download “Top 10 Things You Can Do With Call Tracking.”

Features, Tips, & Announcements — No Comments
10
Nov 10

#PubCon Keynote Redux: “My Biggest Mistakes” by @unmarketing @copyblogger @prsarahevans @chrisbrogan

Dateline: Las Vegas, Nov. 10 PubCon Keynote Day 2

My Biggest Mistakes and What I Learned

by Chris Brogan, Sarah Evans, Scott Stratten and Brian Clark #PubCon Keynote 2010

Social media has overtaken pornography as the number one activity on the Internet.

That’s one of the reasons the glitterati of social media Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan), Scott Stratten (@unmarketing), Sarah Evans (prsarahevans) and Brian Clark (@copyblogger) headlined this morning’s keynote address at Pubcon 2010 in Las Vegas.

As social media matures and grows, the panel shared some of the mistakes – and lessons – they’ve learned along the way:

On Mistakes:

@unmarketing – I’m failing right now keeping up with engagement. I’ll be damned if I can keep up. It’s almost becoming work. I’m not keeping up with the engagement platform I built. That’s not what I wanted it to be and it keeps growing. It’s already breaking down.

@copyblogger – My first three years failed completely. I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t understand marketing. What I figured out was that the Internet was a direct marketing platform. I figured out that the content was the marketing. I figured out that if the content was valuable it attracts people to you. Since then I’ve read every sales and marketing book ever written.

@prsarahevans – Pushing too fast, too hard, coupled with naiveté and excitement.

@chrisbrogan — I’m failing right now because I built a model that I had to be there to make the money. I’ve started using post-it notes to delineate passive income and active income – you need the blend – I’m re-building my business model for 2011.

Moving forward, here’s what each said about taking one immediate action to improve your communication style and your success:

@chrisbrogan — Talk about other people 12 times as much as you talk about your own stuff – go find the people that are growing up and retweet them.

@unmarketing — Stop buying our books for one week. Stop trying to find the new thing and the new tactic. Do something with our books. Execute. Ask yourself: what can I implement this week since I read these seven books – it’s the ones that are implemented that work.

@prsarahevans — Partner with a good cause – some of our best learning comes from there – some of our biggest success come from the experiences we’ve had with nonprofits.

@copyblogger –You’ve got to keep learning. You can spend all your time reading and never do anything. If you recognize you’re not doing anything right now you’re probably afraid. So recognize it and do something.

Learn more about Mongoose Metrics and how call tracking conversion analytics can improve your ROI by up to 40 percent. Download the whitepaper: “Top 10 Things You Can Do with Call Tracking.“

Features, Tips, & Announcements — No Comments
2
Nov 10

PubCon, Promoted Tweets & Google Adwords Call Metrics

PubCon — the mac daddy of all search and social media conferences – begins next week, Nov. 8 – 11, in Las Vegas with more than 1,800 registered participants. The Mongoose team is delighted to be attending, especially in light of our recent status as beta testers in Twitter’s Promoted Tweets experiment and Google’s announcement today of a call tracking platform for AdWords accounts.For at least a month now, the buzz about PubCon has been heavy with the help of social media. Search the hashtag, #PubCon on Twitter, and you’ll see what we mean. And yes, we purchased those Promoted Tweets you see running through the #PubCon search stream. Of course, PubCon has a Facebook page and a LinkedIn group as well where hundreds of participants are busy making plans for a seemingly endless array of panels and parties.Speaking of social media, today is Day #2 of Twitter’s Promoted Tweets in HootSuite and we’re only one of 20 beta testers in the world for the experiment. Needless to say, in between preparing for PubCon, we’re a little overwhelmed handling a diverse mix of responses to our foray into the uncharted territory of Promoted Tweets. Judging by our engagement numbers (very positive) and the @mentions from Tweeps (negative and positive), we’re closely watching how things continue to develop. (Look for more detailed blog posts from us about our Promoted Tweets experience in the near future).And just to make things interesting, Google today announced call tracking for Adwords accounts. Yes, we’re a call tracking provider and this development seriously demonstrates the efficacy of call tracking for search marketers who want to understand ALL of their conversions – online AND offline.Here’s what the feature will apparently look like within Adwords:Blogger Greg Sterling wrote “Free Call Tracking Comes to AdWords, PPCall Can’t be Far Behind,” and authored a piece for SearchEngineLand.com titled, “AdWords and Google Voice Hook Up to Form “Adwords Call Metrics.“Of course, many others have weighed-in on the announcement, including BIA Kelsey’s, “Google Adds Call Metrics to AdWords, a la Google Voice.”So if you want to chat about search, social media or marketing optimization drop us a line on Twitter @mongoosemetrics or try and find us at PubCon. Hope to see you there!In the meantime, if you want to know more about how call tracking can significantly optimize your online marketing efforts, check out our call tracking library for a white paper download filled with facts that will make you a believer.

Mongoose MetricsConversion & Call Tracking Blog