You don’t want to miss out on these upcoming analytics training and networking events, which are coming to the San Francisco Bay Area in March. We have some promotional codes for you to use when you register and we encourage you to take advantage.  It will be an amazing opportunity to meet some of the greatest minds in the analytics and optimization industry, listen to success stories, share your thoughts with vendors and consultants and network with practitioners.

Technorati Tags: analtyics conferences, emetrics, GAUGE, gaugecon, Google Analytics User Conference, san francisco analytics conference

written by Team Marketing \\ tags: analtyics conferences, emetrics, GAUGE, gaugecon, Google Analytics User Conference, san francisco analytics conference

Do you know that about half of all American adults say they are somewhat likely to make a New Year’s resolution? It goes without saying that most New Year’s resolutions are easier said than done, but we amazingly commit every year to sit and write these resolutions with the hope to change ourselves to be better individuals.

It is amazing to see that every year my gym gets over packed with people whose New Year’s resolutions are to get in shape and lose weight. Unfortunately, most of these people will disappear by the end of January and we might see them back in the year after.

To avoid such quick and unhappy ending for our Web Analytics next New Year’s resolutions, I would like to share with you few tips to help you reach most of your planned goals. Yes, some of these tips are very obvious, but we can all use a reminder from time to time.

1. Set meaningful goals for what you love to do the most.

This is the first ingredient to success; you must love what you do and what you want to be. It is true that no one was born as a Web Analytics ninja, but also not everyone was born with the ability to work with data. So if you are one of those people who don’t enjoy data, then maybe it is time to use this New Year’s resolution to reevaluate your career path and consider discovering other options that you like.

Same logic should be applied to which branch of Web Analytics you want to invest in more. Choose the concentration that you really enjoy and desire to continue advancing in, not something that your employer or the industry says is good for you. If you don’t have strong internal motivation within yourself about what you are doing, you won’t be successful.

2. Take baby steps.

Last year, my wife decided to run a 10K race. She was totally out of shape and could barely run for 5 minutes straight. She divided her ultimate goal into smaller challenges, but achievable goals guided by a running program called “Couch to 5k in 9 Weeks.” In a few months she successfully participated in a number of 10K run fundraisers!

Mastering Web Analytics is no less challenging than the 10K race. Whether you are an Analytics guru or a beginner, in order to advance your knowledge and experience in Analytics, you should set realistic goals and then take small steps that are likely to be met with success.

3. Don’t keep your resolutions to yourself.

I learned this technique from the SEO guru, Matt Cutts, of Google who always shares his 30-days challenges with his social friends and blog readers.

While I didn’t talk to Matt about his motive in sharing his monthly challenges and whether the sharing is helping him in achieving these challenges. For me though, I find myself more responsible in fulfilling my personal commitments when they are made public, especially when one or two friends show interest and decide to commit to the same resolution.

I strongly believe that resolutions are best made with groups. Friends and colleagues can gently push you in the right direction when you lose direction and motivate you when you slow down. So for next year’s Analytics resolutions, if you can find a friend or a group of friends who commit to the same New Year’s resolution together, then I guarantee you a better chance of achieving your goals [as known in analytics as “higher conversion rate” and “lower bounce rate”]. You will be more accountable to each other and give a hand to each other when things gets tough.

4. Get good mentors.

It is part of the human nature to imitate those around us. So as we are working on our next year’s resolutions, we need to make sure that we surround ourselves more often with people who carry common interests and similar career objectives and who offer us sincere advice, listen to our ideas and fears, and tell us when we have gone off track.

Analytics conferences offer good opportunity to hunt for good mentors and to connect with new Analytics friends. Although these conferences are a bit expensive, many of them offer a Social Networking pass or Exhibit Hall only pass at a good discounted price, so don’t miss these opportunities. Another good social event that no Web Analyst should miss is the Web Analytics Wednesday, which take place in many cities all over the world.

5. Fine-tune your spirituality.

It is important to add a spiritual dimension to your goals. For example, if one of your goals is to get certified in Google Analytics, you may also resolve to use that knowledge to serve your community through offering free internet marketing consulting to your favorite charity organization or government/education institutions.

There it is, folks…

I think I’m ready for a good start! Good luck in your resolutions and feel free to share them with us if you think that will help in implementing them

Technorati Tags: goals, new year's resoultions, web analytics

written by Allaedin Ezzedin \\ tags: goals, new year's resoultions, web analytics

Imagine you’re a used car salesman.  I know, you’re disgusted and feel like taking a shower now, but humor me.   A customer who has been searching for a Toyota Camry comes to your car lot because he saw your flashing sign for just that – a great deal on a Toyota Camry.   You tell him, “Sure!” and point him in the direction of the entire car lot.  “Find it yourself!”  Do you think you’ll close that sale?

How about imagine he walks through the lot with your Toyota deal in his mind, but you have salesmen calling him over trying to sell him BMW’s, Honda’s, KIA’s, etc.  Not only is your customer now annoyed that you made him search for the deal himself, you’re team is bugging him with promotions he’s really not thinking about or interested in.

Let’s say after that, your now annoyed customer sees a car lot next door, and ALL they sell are low priced Camry’s.  Who’s going to get that sale?

This is how you should be thinking about your site and competitors.    In particular, basic web usability theory says the internet make things so easy and convenient for us, that it’s trained us to be…well…lazy.  If you don’t make things as easy as possible for your visitors, your competitor will, and there is no penalty or price for your visitor pressing the “back” button and then clicking on your competitor.

10 Tips for Building Effective Landing Pages

The beauty of the internet now is that you can create targeted custom landing pages focused on closing one product or service without any distractions.  Landing pages are focused, eliminating confusion, putting your prospects into a “track” that hopefully will result in a lead or close.

In this post, I’d like to talk list some best practices on how to do that right.

1 ) Simplicity = Clarity.  This is a key point that not only web design and other media is based on in general,  but most of the landing page best-practices are based on this.   There is definitely a balance that needs to happen – all important information needs to be included – however, it’s important that information is succinct and that also there is no other fluff on the page that will distract the visitor from closing.  Hubspot (a great authority on internet marketing) calls this the “blink-test” – meaning it should be clear on the page (any web subpage) what the page is about within the first 5 seconds (before you blink).  How do you do this?  With clear headings, images, calls-to-actions and reducing all other distractions.

2 ) Maintain the Scent.  In many cases, your paid ads/email ads will be targeted and a landing page will be best to serve them, since the landing page can be focused specifically on what your ad/mail is talking about.  Like our Camry analogy, there’s nothing more annoying than coming to a page that says “Free Kindle!” but then all it says (and in fact is yelling), “Here’s a bunch of information that has nothing to do with that.”

3 ) Headline.  In many cases, this is the first thing a visitor will see.  Make sure it maintains the scent of your ad if it’s from paid traffic.    Also, make sure it conveys what the page is about, whether it’s the name of your product, why they should purchase it, a promo you are offering, etc.   Again, internet surfers like to think as little as possible, if they scan your headings and don’t find what they’re looking for, there’s no penalty for them bouncing.

4 ) Salespoints.  Sounds obvious, but too many times we’ve come to a page and they dance around the main reasons why we should buy their product or contact them.  Understand your prospects, what they are looking for, what possible hesitations may stop them from taking advantage of your product/services.  Outline that then make sure it’s all included in your landing page.  Only thing to keep in mind is when you put them there, you don’t want to write a novel as to why visitors should buy.   Minimal, succinct words and phrases that best convey your ideas.

5 ) Clear Calls-To-Action.  Another one that sounds obvious.  Your design should clearly distinguish it’s call(s)-to-action.  It’s image should contrast (a bright button on a muted surface) or the link should be bright and big.  If there is only one clear button, and that’s the only place they can go, it increases their chances of them going there.   Also, minimize your calls-to-action and keep them above-the-fold (meaning it shouldn’t be at the bottom of the page where visitors have to scroll down to find it).  If your conversion element or call-to-action is a form, make sure it’s nice and big, stands out, and is above the fold.

6 ) No Escapes.    I want them to look at the rest of my site!  I want them to see what other services I provide!  I want them to see my Facebook page!  By them leaving this page that nurtures the lead, you are significantly risking them losing the sale.  Remove all escape elements from the page – no navigation, no social networks, no other offers.  In the case where they may want more information on your company, you may provide one hidden escape to again minimize the chance of them getting distracted an you losing the lead (maybe link your logo to your homepage), but make sure to open this page in another tab/window so the original offer/landing page is not lost.  If you want them to see your certifications, high-profile clients you’ve served, etc – include that in the actual landing page design and layout.

7 ) Reduce Distractions.  Aside from actual link “escapes”, design can get in the way too.  Too many images, background patterns, textures, rotating information, etc – can distract a visitor from your main “track”.  You may need to include some of these things, but minimize it.  Simple backgrounds, simple images, simple colors.   You can still be simple and be aesthetically chic.

8 ) Credibility Badges.  Any certifications, testimonials, client logos, authority certifications of your business will help legitimize you and could refute apprehension by your visitors to convert on your landing page.  The nice thing is now that your landing page is simple, it has space for this information.

9 ) Test! In design, it’s always important to understand – best practices are just that – “best practices”.  They are not written in stone and may not always apply, or a tweak to them may further optimize them.   It’s great to have hypotheses of how your visitors will act on the page based on their marketing personas and to also follow best practices – this is a great starting point.  However, you wont truly know how your page will perform until it goes live, and you wont know if it’s doing the best it can do till you test different strategies, layouts, designs. You can have different landing pages under different campaigns to test, conduct user-testing, or you can try A/B testing services such as the Google Website Optimizer.

10 ) Thank You Page UPSELL!  This is something everyone neglects (even until recently, so did we!) .  You just closed a lead!  You can place a plain thank you message, or further your business by putting a promotion on the thank you page, upsell other products you have, or even better, add a social “share” link so that your happy lead can share this info with their friends.  Word-of-mouth sales close significantly greater than cold leads.

written by Farid Alhadi

For the last couple weeks, I’ve been attending the Facebook Marketing Bootcamp and summarizing their webinars.  As I’ve said before, if you’re just getting into Facebook and Social Marketing or need an in-depth refresher – there is some great information in these webinars. While we usually look to “industry experts” for tips, the benefit of this is not only do they give best practices on how to effectively market your business using Facebook pages and their Ads platform, but since they are the creators, they can answer any basic questions people have about the interface itself.   If you’re interested, the webinar videos are on demand here!

This particular webinar was similar to the last webinar, but gave a little more detail on optimizing your Facebook Ad campaigns using their insights and reports features.

Here are some summary notes:

1) Optimizing the Creative of your ad

• Try to think about what engages your target audience.
• Adding questions is usually engaging – “Are you up for it?”  “Want the best football boots?”
• Keep the body copy of your ad as concise as possible, but try to include as many key selling points as you can.   The more fluff or words you use, the less space you’ll have for key selling points..
• Urgency often increases click-through -”Offer ends…”
• Offers/Discounts help -  “Free” “Promotional”
• Image – Logos don’t really work unless it’s a well known brand.  Use really attractive images.

2) Target and Segment Campaigns Clearly

• Your ads are broken down into campaigns.  Make sure to set up campaigns and set them up correctly – segment them by gender, age, geography, etc.  Ex.  Female, UK, 13-30 yrs old.
• They suggested a maximum of 3 -4 ads per campaign – it makes it easier to dissect data
• Make sure your landing page or custom Facebook landing tabs have relevant info. As they say “maintains the scent”.  If you say there’s a free download, that landing page/tab better clearly deliver.

3) Utilize reports

• Facebook ads interface is able to generate detailed reports.
• Every few days, look at all creative and see what works.  From there, PAUSE ads that arent working.  That way, they dont compete with each other – only the best one is running.
• Look at frequency and reach of the ad.
• Launch new campaigns after people have seen the ads a couple times.  Refresh the creative so ads look fresh and people aren’t seeing the same ole ads.

Evaluating Performance

Facebook Ads General Dashboard

You can view the:

• Size of your target audience or “Reach” – unique users that have seen your ads.
• Social Reach – The beauty of this is many people will see that their friends that like an ad.  This carries a rapport or “word of mouth” value.
• Look over past couple days, note if you see peaks (Ex. maybe they are clicking more on the weekends, so you want to focus ads at that time).
• You can break it down by ads.  Monitor the Click-Through-Rate, Cost-Per-Click, etc.

Responder Demographics Report

Seeing the demographics can be valuable insight, because then you can further segments to further optimize then refocus your budget.   Ex. This age group might be working better or this Gender, so you can tailor some ads to those specific demographics.

Facebook Page Insights

• Facebook pages themselves (vs. ads) have great insights built in.
• You can see if your friends are fans or if non friends are fans of your page
• You can monitor your Total Reach.
• A new insight added are “People talking about you.”  Basically, this is the # of people who have liked your page, liked a post, posted on your page, shared a link about your brand, etc.  It’s a good indicator of how engaging and popular your page is.  While you may have x amount of followers, if no one is talking about your page, what’s the point?!
• By viewing these insights you can optimize your page posting strategy!
• See when people are responding best and post at that time
• Gain insights at what types of posts people are responding to and increase those types of posts.

Questions from the Audience

How does system decides how much my ads costs?

This is based on CPC (cost-per-click) or CPM (cost-per-1000 impressions).   When a user visits an ad page, an auction takes place with the ads.   It takes into account:

• Your bid, so to better your chances, bid slightly above the range.  This is not how much you necessarily will pay, but it’s the max and allows you to compete.
• Historical performance of your ad – how well was your ad doing?  CTR, etc.
• How are users interacting with your ad?  Are they liking them, or hiding them?

Do you have details on optimizing my Facebook page?

• Figure out when you are going to post.  Best thing is to have a strategy – preferably a post calendar (to avoid spamming).
• Post engaging items – photos, videos.
• Insights – use it to figure out how many people are engaging and what posts.

Can you give further details on “# talking about this” stat on FB pages?

Anyone who commented on your page, tags your page in comments, likes your posts, etc.  It gives you a picture of how many people are interacting with your page (more importantly, engaging).

How often do you suggest we refresh creative?

No hard rule about it.  Monitor your ads for a couple days so you can see how its performing.  Then you can determine if you want to optimize them – generally 7-10 days.  You’ll see impressions declining, reach will decline – so that’s when you refresh.

When should I use “likes and interest” targeting vs “broad” targeting?

Depends on your target.  If you want all sports, say you have a sports store, then you use broad.  If you want something accurate, like people playing golf – then you use precise interest targeting.

Do you find differences between ads that lead to Facebook or external websites?

Depends, but Facebook objects tend to do better because they allow for social targeting.

Can you explain “Social Reach”?

Your ad reaching friends of friends and shows that their friends like your ad.  This is better, as it builds rapport if “friends” like a brand.

How often should I review reports?

Everyday.  Check where your impressions are going.  For example, if you see some demographics are getting an ad, you may do another ad to focus on another segment of age.

Sponsored Stories vs. Ads?

Ad you control the text and creative.  Sponsored stories – something that is within the newsfeed and you can promote that.  Say if someone likes the page, or a post on your page that had a great response.  Gives posts a boost.

Ads performance has declined, what should I do?

Figure out which ads have declined and do your best to figure out why.  Then refresh creative.    But it will be normal to see that after awhile, an ad will naturally will become stale and decline.

Is it a good idea to target an ad to only your fans?

It is, you can get them to interact more with your page and posts.  You are generating virality.  Keep in mind only 5-20% of your fans will see a post.  Whereas an ad targeted to them, 100% will see it.

written by Farid Alhadi

Today we announced our fifth strategic agreement with Google, enhancing E-Nor’s enterprise service offerings to include Google Analytics Premium. This is exciting news we wanted to share with you.

Google Analytics Premium, a paid analytics offering, contains more processing power, advanced analysis tools, and dedicated support. This new offering is a welcome addition to the already awesome features available in the Google Analytics Standard Edition – awesome just got super awesome!

Both Premium and Standard Editions of Google Analytics will receive many great feature enhancements going forward, with many coming out in the near future. E-Nor can help determine which edition is right for you and how to implement the best option for your organization.

We have supported many of Silicon Valley’s Fortune 500 companies realize tangible business results by leveraging E-Nor’s Digital Marketing Optimization Framework to drive analytics strategic planning, solution integration, advanced analytics implementations, and knowledge transfer. We look forward to working with you!

Join us for a Google Analytics Premium Webinar to learn more:

When:
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM PST

Visit Google Analytics Premium or call E-Nor at 1.866.638.7367.

Technorati Tags: google analytics, Google Analytics Premium, web analytics

written by Charles Farina \\ tags: google analytics, Google Analytics Premium, web analytics