Posts Tagged: Google

Analytics / Features, Tips, & Announcements / PPC / Search Marketing / SEO / Social Media — 3 Comments
28
Oct 11

Understanding Google’s New Search Default Restrictions

Google has found a way to start tightening the rope around search, and more specifically, SEO. According to Brad Reynolds, CEO at Mongoose, “Google is changing the face of web analytics by encrypting search results.” As a result of this change, anyone who logs into their Google account (i.e. Google+, Gmail) and then conducts a search via Google will no longer have referrer data sent along with it. That referrer data reveals what search terms were used in order to find a particular business or website. Paid ads, however, will not be affected by this change.

Who does this impact?

In a blog post, Google says less than 10% of searches will be affected by this change. Additionally, in a Search Engine Land Article, Matt Cutts a Google Software Engineer estimates the affected traffic to be 1-2% of search volume.  Aggregate query data will continue to be available and include visits from users who are not signed into a Google account. This change only concerns organic search results while the user is logged into a Google account. It does not impact direct traffic, PPC traffic or affiliated traffic.

How does this affect the user experience?

In the Search Engine Land article: Google to Begin Encrypting Searches & Outbound Clicks By Default with SSL Search, Danny Sullivan does a great job of describing the setbacks from this change. This encryption prevents sophisticated keyword-based targeting from being used. It is almost as if we’re taking a step backwards in the progression of custom and personalized information. Instead of creating a better user experience, this is essentially making the consumer work harder. Take for example someone searching for a specific product, but since referrer data isn’t passed along to the company, the user lands on a basic web page. Now the user has to navigate through the website in order to find their particular product – essentially making the entire process more time consuming for the user. As a marketer, having the capability to track and analyze specific keyword information will become harder to obtain.

Why the change?

There is much speculation and controversy around why this change has been made. The majority of comments we have seen believe it is a way for Google to make more money and gain competitive advantage. Google mentions there is a growing importance of protecting the privacy of personalized search results. In an effort to protect users and their privacy, Google feels this is reason enough.

There are two additional facts we find to be confusing. First, Google will continue to offer this data to their paid advertisers, which seems inconsistent with the goal of protecting user privacy. Second, Google will continue to gather this organic search result information without passing it on, thus giving them exclusive intelligence related to search results. Some say this will hurt small businesses that cannot afford to pay for online marketing services, while others mention that this is a step in the right direction towards protecting the privacy of the consumer. The debate will be ongoing as more people become aware of this change in the marketing and SEO world.

With change, there is naturally going to be resistance. Like many changes, there will be pros and cons. At the moment, Mongoose is more interested in the long-term effects. Specifically, we’re curious to know how this will impact the way we search and if this will become a standard across all search engines. Will referrer data one day disappear for good – paid or not? Again, going back to Search Engine Land’s article, Sullivan claims that the future is clear:

“Referrer data is going away from search engines, and likely from other web sites, too. It’s somewhat amazing that we’ve had it last this long, and it will be painful to see that specific, valuable data disappear.”

Let’s say he’s right and this data disappears from search engines, what does this mean for social? Most users are searching via social already; perhaps this is an attempt by Google to gain traction in the social space as well. Although Google+ is not the most popular network in the social world, this might be the first step towards making that a reality. For now, Facebook and Twitter continue to own the social search arena. Users trust their friends’ feedback, comments and likes, which is something you don’t have in search engines. However, with Google, you do have the +1 option – but you need to be on Google+ for that function.

Your thoughts?

What do you think about what Google is doing? Are you for or against this change? Please leave any comments and suggestions below.

Call Tracking / Examples / PPC / Search Marketing — No Comments
4
Jan 11

5 Reasons Why Digital Marketing Agencies Should Use Call Tracking

Digital marketing agencies understand that technology is reshaping how companies market themselves.

They build campaigns focused on SEO, social media, online content (i.e. blogs, video, ebooks), PPC, and media/blogger relations.

As a result, digital marketing agencies are evaluated on improvements in Website visitors, leads and conversion rates — not merely ad value and media impressions as was often the case in the past.

To show their value, digital marketing agencies rely on Website analytics reporting and in many cases integrate a CRM tool — such as SugarCRM or Salesforce — to close the marketing loop and more accurately track conversions of leads to customers.

While these tools are essential for tracking new Web form leads, a 2006 comScore study commissioned by Google found that 63 percent of Website visitors completed their purchase offline. This means the source of a majority of a client’s leads may be left to question using Website analytics alone.

Additional research supports this fact: Forty-six percent of local online searchers contacted a business by telephone following their Web research (TMP Directional Marketing and comScore, summer 2009).

With so many consumers letting their fingers do the walking, digital marketing agencies must learn how to measure and analyze calls resulting from online searches.  And, as nearly all consumers (97 percent) now use online media to shop (BIA/Kelsey and ConStat Survey, February 2010), tracking phone calls resulting from marketing initiatives is more imperative than at any time in history.

The Answer: Call Tracking

Phone

Call tracking captures source data for leads that prefer to pick up a phone rather than complete a form.

By integrating phone call data with Website analytics, agencies can see how these leads are interacting with a client’s website. Following are five reasons digital agencies should integrate call tracking into their client campaigns.


1. View the Complete Marketing Picture

FunnelNot all customers like filling out forms; they often would rather speak to a company representative by phone. Others may never visit a client’s Website at all, which often is the case for leads that found the company via print advertising or Yellow Page listings.

Consequently, it is virtually impossible to track all lead activity without some sort of call tracking solution.

With a combination of Website analytics and call tracking, each and every lead can be accounted for, providing a clear picture as to what marketing initiatives are driving new, qualified leads, and which are not.

2. Better Allocate Budgets

conversion

Nowadays, digital agencies structure marketing campaigns to include keyword optimization, social media, media/blogger relations, and both online and offline advertising.

The ability to track each initiative’s effectiveness at generating quality leads is the only way to efficiently maximize the impact of a client’s marketing budget. With an accurate understanding of lead sources, agencies can encourage them to confidently shift money toward better-performing initiatives.

3. Improve Campaign Performance

Along the same lines, seeing how all leads are entering the sales funnel can help to more accurately identify under-performing elements of a campaign. For example, which is better?

Of the 100 visitors to each page:
•    Landing Page A generated 5 form completions and 10 calls
•    Landing Page B generated 10 form completions and 2 calls

Without call tracking, an agency may choose to adjust Landing Page A, when in actuality it is the better-performing page.

4. Help Clients See Value

Client retention is a big focus for all digital agencies. It is far easier, and more profitable, to retain and grow existing accounts than it is to find and nurture new prospective clients. Call tracking can ensure they are not selling themselves short by only reporting a fraction of the leads they helped generate.

5. Help Corporate Marketers Better Show Their Value

In many situations, digital agencies work closely with a client’s marketing department. Depending on the organization and its leadership, marketing is constantly struggling to justify budget requests and demonstrate ROI.

By creating a closed-loop lead tracking system that shows all leads from their first interaction to becoming a customer, it becomes much easier for marketing to show their value, as well as that of the digital agency.

In addition, there may be a slight disconnect between the sales and marketing departments. Help the sales department understand the value of marketing by continually improving the lead quality and volume. By including useful details, such as Website pages viewed, calls to action taken and level of interest, the sales team can prioritize hot leads and better customize pitches.

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For those digital marketing agencies using call tracking, what type of success have you seen? How has it helped your clients? Please share your experience in the comments below.

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

Passing Match Type Dynamically

 One of the drawbacks of passing keyword information into any third party application are the limits Google imposes on the amount of information able to be transferred. Information such as keyword, match type, campaign, and adgroup for Google Adwords automatically passes with the automatic gclid parameter, but third party applications, such as Mongoose Metrics, are unable to read the gclid parameter.  Google, Adcenter, and Yahoo Search Marketing allow you to manually tag keywords and ads so that advertisers can get such information passed into their systems. However, depending on what kind of data users want transfered, the manualy tagging of URL keywords can provew timeconsuming.

Thankfully, Google, Mircosoft Adcenter, and Yahoo Search Marketing allow advertisers to dynamically pass keyword information without manual tagging of each keyword. For Google Adwords and Microsoft Adcenter this tag is keyword={keyword} and for Yahoo it is keyword={OVKEY}.  However, these URL tags do not pass the match type of the keyword.

This can be a huge problem for advertisers that are bidding on the same keyword with different match types. Google does not pass the match type with the {keyword} tag. However, one can still dynamically pass the match type into the system by changing the setup of the URL string. One of our clients came up with a simple solution that allows them to see the match type of the keyword. We want to thank them for sharing it with us and the rest of our client base. Check it out below:

A normal URL tag reads similar to the following:

http://www.mysite.com/?mm_campaign=9999b42gg455fr3b64f67b185bbf&keyword={keyword}&utm_source=Google&utm_medium=CPC&utm_campaign=Adwords

This tag can be used to represent a broad variation of the keyword.

For phrase match the URL can be adjusted to read the following:

http://www.mysite.com/?mm_campaign=9999b42gg455fr3b64f67b185bbf&keyword=”{keyword}”&utm_source=Google&utm_medium=CPC&utm_campaign=Adwords

For exact match the URL can read:

http://www.mysite.com/?mm_campaign=9999b42gg455fr3b64f67b185bbf&keyword=[{keyword}]&utm_source=Google&utm_medium=CPC&utm_campaign=Adwords

To install the correct URL string in Google Adwords Editor users must search and replace by match type.  While this seems time consuming, proper setup only take a few minutes. Now clients can fully understand which keywords convert into phone calls.