Ambient and Transparent

Integrating lead information from one system such as Google Adwords into a CRM like Salesforce is definitely not a new topic, especially since the Salesforce-Google Adwords integration has been announced for a while now.

I want to highlight the steps required for a seamless integration, as well as a few additional pro-active steps you want to take to keep your Google Analytics data clean. The same concept would apply to other analytics tools you might be running. As Avinash always reminds us, data accuracy is always one of the biggest challenges in web analytics.

Here are my steps:

1. Create Adwords and Salesforce accounts.
2. Link Google AdWords with Salesforce.
3. Exclude SalesForce parameters from Google Analytics.
4. Set up AdWords lead tracking.
5. View report.

1) Create Adwords and Salesforce accounts

You need to have a Google AdWords account and a Salesforce account before you can integrate them.

• Create an AdWords account
• Create a SalesForce account

2) Link Google AdWords with Salesforce

• In Salesforce, click the Google AdWords Setup tab.

• Enter your AdWords customer ID and login e-mail.

3) Exclude SalesForce Parameters from Google Analytics

When Salesforce performs its integration with AdWords, it appends parameters (_kk and _kt) to all destination URLs in your AdWords account. We suggest that you strip these query parameters out of URL to insure no duplicate entries in your Top Content report.

To strip the query parameters, please follow these steps:

• Login to your Google Analytics account
• Go to “Profile Settings” and then click “Edit”
• Exclude the following query parameters: _kk and _kt

*A note for AdWords managers. Keep in mind that when Salesforce appends the destination URLs with its _kk parameters, this is actually “editing” your AdWords ads and the stats associated with these ads will now reset, according to how Google AdWords works.

4) Set up AdWords Lead Tracking

1. Back in SalesForce, click on the Google AdWords Setup tab.
2. Click on the “Set up Lead Tracking” button.

i – Create a Web-to-Lead Form

• Click on the “Create Web-to-Lead Form” button

• Add the form to your page

<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-type" CONTENT="text/html;
charset=UTF-8">
.
.
.
<form action="https://www.salesforce.com/servlet/servlet.WebToLead?
encoding=UTF-8" method="POST">

<input type=hidden name="oid" value="xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx">

<input type=hidden name="retURL"
value="http://www.mysite.com/thankyou.html">

<label for="first_name">First Name</label><input id="first_name"
maxlength="40" name="first_name" size="20" type="text" /><br>

<label for="last_name">Last Name</label><input id="last_name"
maxlength="80" name="last_name" size="20" type="text" /><br>

<label for="email">Email</label><input id="email" maxlength="80"
name="email" size="20" type="text" /><br>

<input type="submit" name="submit">
</form>

ii – Add the Salesforce Tracking Code to the Website

Add the following tracking code to every page of your site right before the </BODY> tag

<!-- Begin Salesforce Tracking Code -->
<SCRIPT type="text/javascript" src="https://lct.salesforce.com/sfga.js">
</SCRIPT>
<SCRIPT type="text/javascript">__sfga();</SCRIPT>
<!-- End Salesforce Tracking Code -->

iii – Test Your SalesForce installation

By clicking the “Test your Setup” you will be able to test the installation of the codes in step i and ii

5) View report

This report gives an overview of the leads submitted to SalesForce from your website

For more detailed information, click on each lead and learn more about the lead source

written by Allaedin Ezzedin \\ tags: actionable insight, conversion, custom reporting, google adwords, google analytics, integrated marketing, marketing strategy, pay per click, qualitative analysis, salesforce, search engine marketing, tips for internet consultants, web analytics

You are working on your site’s SEO by publishing press releases and you wish to track traffic to your site from those press releases.  You are not adding source campaign parameters (and therefore no campaign parameters at all) to your links because you are not sure which sites will pick up your press release.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

In Google Analytics, you noticed that links from press releases are tracked as:

• Source = cnn.com, bbc.co.uk, or domain.com
• Medium = referral
• Campaign = (not set)

I am sure you are not satisfied with this basic level of tracking because it does not tell you much, especially if you wish to track across different campaigns and mediums.

The following example makes more sense and will help you evaluate and analyze your campaigns.

• Source = cnn.com
• Medium = press_release
• Campaign = hurricane_katrina

To overcome this challenge of tagging links from unknown sources, I came up with the following trick.

Algorithm:

• Add a parameter on all links to your site that are in the press release. (example: http://www.mysite.com/myfile.html#id=1)
• On the target page (http://www.mysite.com/myfile.html), check the value of the “id” parameter.
• If the “id” parameter equals “1″, replace the parameter in the URL with the following utm parameters (utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign) before the call to pageTracker.
• If the “id” parameter does not equal 1, call the pageTracker function normally.

View the entire code segment.

Let us explore the code, section by section:

var parameter = get_parameter('id');

function get_parameter(name)
{
name = name.replace(/[\[]/,"\\\[").replace(/[\]]/,"\\\]");
var regexS = "[\\?&#]"+name+"=([^&#]*)";
var regex = new RegExp(regexS);
var results = regex.exec(window.location.href);

if( results == null )
  return "";
else
  return results[1];
}

This portion of the code will return the value of the “id” parameter from the URL and assign it to the “parameter” variable.

if (parameter == '1')
{
window.location.hash = "utm_source="+srcPage+"
&utm_medium=press_release&utm_campaign=hurricane_katrina";
}

If the page url contains the “id” parameter and its value is 1, then the url will be updated with the utm parameters.

Link URL
http://www.mysite.com/myfile.html#id=1

New URL
http://www.mysite.com/myfile.html#utm_source=www.cnn.com&utm_medium=press_release&utm_campaign=hurricane_katrina

* Notice that we did not use window.location.href function because this function will re load the page with the new URL, which is not what we want to happen. We just want to update the URL, without affecting the visitor experience, in order for the Google Analytics tracking code to attribute the visit in a certain way.

How to get the value of the utm_source (referral site)?

var srcPage = getDomain (document.referrer);

function getDomain (thestring)
{
var urlpattern = new RegExp("(http|ftp|https)://(.*?)/.*$");
var parsedurl = thestring.match(urlpattern);
return parsedurl[2];
}

This portion of the code is responsible of assigning the URL of the referral site to the variable scrPage. The “getDomain” function parses only the domain name (www.domain.com) out of the long url string (http://www.doman.com/file.html?parameter=abc)

The last piece of code that needs to be added is the setAllowAnchor command, which allows the # sign to be used as a query string delimiter instead of the question mark (?).

We used # in the press release link instead of ? for SEO reasons, but you could use ? in the original link and still use the above method.

pageTracker._setAllowAnchor(true);

Alright, now it is time to use our friend Advanced Segments to track our press release visitors, measure their engagement, and analyze their behavior.

Now we can really analyze!

written by Allaedin Ezzedin \\ tags: actionable insight, google analytics, integrated marketing, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, tips for internet consultants, web analytics

Questions I always hear with regards to SEO and marketing optimization:

• How does Google Analytics improve my search engine optimization (SEO)?
• How can I get more out of my SEO?
• What is the real effect of ranking on search engines for my business?

I am hoping the case study below will shed some light on these questions. If you apply a similar analysis you can help your customer, manager, or whoever is delaying your SEO effort. But instead of answering “the importance of ranking” question, maybe something more quantifiable and measurable might get your decision makers’ attention! How about “how does ranking on a specific keyword, or lack thereof, impact the bottom line?” Answering such questions will help us make the most of our marketing spend during these tough economic times and help us do a more effective job in marketing and campaign optimization.

I’ll use real time data and analysis but won’t mention the name of the website for privacy reasons. Here are the details:

• Website type: eCommerce
• The website used to rank near the top of Google on two competitive keywords until August 2008.
• Historically, these two keywords have driven traffic to the site. For a specific time period, these two keywords drove 5,684 visits and led to 46 conversions for a 0.81% conversion rate.

If you have your Google Analytics eCommerce features properly configured and working, the above data is easily accessible under the Traffic Sources -> Search Engines -> Non-paid report. The inline filter was used to get data for just these two keywords.

• We then start examining the time period when the ranking for these two keywords took a big hit.
• Next, using the date comparison function in Google Analytics, we compared the traffic generated by these two keywords for this year with poor ranking versus last year with better ranking. Here is the result:

The table on the left is for one of their keywords and the table on the right is for the other. As you can see, a significant drop in visits in 2008, 4471 to be exact. So the negative impact of the drop in SEO ranking was less opportunities to make sales on their primary keywords!

• The 4471 visits might be a small percentage of the overall website traffic but when you put a dollar sign next to it, we typically react to it more quickly. Take the 4471 visits and multiply it by your average conversion rate for these keywords, which is 0.81%, and then multiply by the average order value, which is $846.
• 4471 x 0.0081 = 36 lost sales
• 36 x $846 = $30,456 of lost revenue!

Now one can argue that this number is not accurate because of many factors BUT the findings are very actionable! If I were to present this analysis to my boss or client, I would add 2-3 other scenarios:

• Scenario 1, with a higher conversion rate of 1.62% after improving the design and usability of the site, the lost revenue would be $60,852. (ouch!)
• Scenario 2, with a lower average order value and the existing conversion rate of 0.81%, our lost revenue would have been $15,228.
• You could create a table to show the range. The main point is that there was between $15K and $60K of lost revenue. In tough economic times, wouldn’t you rather have that revenue?

Depending on your company size, marketing budget, and other factors, the $30K might be a significant number or it might be a rounding error. But at the end of the day, $30K of lost revenue is $30K of lost revenue, especially in times like these where cutting cost and marketing optimization is more important than ever. By doing similar analysis, you can find other lost sales opportunities, monetize them, and get some corrective actions underway.

I think you can take this analysis to a business owner or marketing manager, and I am pretty sure they would get the SEO effort prioritized.

written by Feras Alhlou \\ tags: actionable insight, conversion, google analytics, integrated marketing, marketing strategy, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, tips for internet consultants, web analytics

Your website isn’t just a luxury anymore.  Save this data and improve your ROI!
Learn industry best practices for Google Analytics implementation and cutting edge techniques for marketing optimization!

Save the date and join us in our upcoming Google Analytics implementation and marketing optimization workshop. The training workshop will be held at the Westin, San Francisco Airport, from 9:00 to 4:30 and we will provide lunch.

We have some amazing feedback from our last workshop in the Bay Area (see testimonials at the end of the post) and we are doubling the dose this time around! Yes, two days of nothing than Google Analytics, from the ground up, from basics to advanced topics, including all the new and cool features recently announced by Google.

What are we planing to cover?  Day 1 is dedicated to implementation and setup, ensuring you have GA properly installed, filters, profiles, overview on reporting, the new user interface, and more.  In Day 2, not only we will cover more advanced implementation techniques such as advanced filters, event tracking, and custom segments, but we will also dive into marketing optimization, measuring and ROI, KPIs, dashboards, and much more. Please preview the detailed agenda.

Day 2 builds on the topics discussed on the first day so we recommend you attend both days to maximize your learning. If you have attended our previous Google Analytics workshop then you are ready for day 2 of this upcoming training.

You will have ample time to speak with our Google Analytics specialists and log into your account to show us issues that we can troubleshoot for you.  We will cover case studies in real time.

As an added incentive, register before Dec. 3 and receive a free copy of Web Analytics – An Hour a Day.

Again, visit our site for more information and click here to register. We have a limited capacity so reserve your seat today!

Testimonials

Hello Feras,

I wanted to thank you for yesterday’s workshop.  I found it to be immensely valuable.  I’m sorry I did not have a chance to thank you in person, but I had to leave early to catch a train back to San Francisco. Thanks again.  Please keep me posted about the advanced training. Also, a colleague of mine may be interested in attending the intro class.

L. G., Internet Communications Coordinator

---

Hello Feras and Team E-Nor,

I just wanted to say thank you for the most excellent and helpful seminar on Google Analytics. I learned many useful tips and tricks that I would probably never have learned otherwise w/o digging deep into some forum or random blog posting. Please do keep me in the loop for future seminars, I’ll be first in line.

E. N., Online Marketing Specialist

---

Hi,

I want to tell you that I very much enjoyed the class and that I felt you did an excellent job.  I am less interested in the specifics of how to implement Google Analytics and more interested in what I must look for.  I want to tell you if I ever have the right client, I would recommend your firm and hope that is the case.  It was excellent all the way around and I look forward to reading the book and all the rich wealth of materials you provided.  Thank you sincerely.

R. S., Marketing Consultant

---

E-Nor team,

Very good, lots of good information that I didn’t know, even though I’ve been using GA for 1-1/2 years.

T. P.,  SEM Specialist

written by Feras Alhlou \\ tags: google analytics, integrated marketing, marketing strategy, tips for internet consultants, training, web analytics, workshop

On June 14, I attended a networking event hosted by OPEN Silicon Valley. It was an all day event with an impressive list of keynote speakers and entrepreneurs, including Howard Dean (DNC Chair), Mike Mortiz from Sequoia Capital, (the VC firm that funded Google and many other big name internet brands today), Steve Westly, and many others.

I took some random notes of tips and proven practices form those that are more experienced and those with a track record of success and accomplishments. I took my notes on my Blackberry.  From the looks of some people, I felt like my teenage daughter at the dinner table when we ask her to stop text messaging .

The notes are not very structured but I hope you find them useful as I did and pick one or two golden nuggets that would help you grow at the personal and professional level.

• Mike Moritz said when they look for start-ups and entrepreneurs, they are inclined to invest in companies that require “small” funding initially. Also companies that are about to catch a huge tail wind. They also look for companies that can have a healthy margin, so they can turn cash-flow positive quickly and reinvest in growing the company. He also looks for entrepreneurs that are big on the mission, and want to do great things for their customers.
• There was a discussion about investing in a company where the founders/key players are “young”. One of the characteristics of being young is that you are single-focused on your start-up. Mike Mortiz did acknowledge that fact, but also said they invested in companies (e.g. eHarmony) where the founder was a grandfather, but he still had the fervor and passion to accomplish his goals.

What is Success?

• A panel of successful entrepreneurs addressed this topic. The answers varied: “Having a lot of fun and make some money along the way, and also make a dent”. Others said “Success is about positive relationships”. One speaker said a key element to their success was by “always having a mentor in my life”.

Making it big without VC funding, possible?

• A session was dedicated to this topic. 5 very successful founders of now-established businesses spoke. They echoed the same themes we hear all the time. You have be optimistic and realistic. You have to work hard, long hours.. One panelist said that since he was 16 he has been waking up at 4:30am and working 14 hours/day. He does his spiritual routine, swims 40 laps, then off to the challenges. He is now in his mid 50’s and reaping the benefits of his hard work. Others attributed their success to how they built their companies around taking care of the customer, about strong relationships they have had with their customers for year after year.

I always enjoy attending such events and mingling with bright minds; you share what you know and most importantly learn from others!

written by Feras Alhlou \\ tags: integrated marketing, marketing strategy, tips for internet consultants