Fanatically Digital

Author: steve

  • UTM Tracking for Your Google Analytics

    Okay, starting with a couple of assumptions.

    1. You care about knowing where your website traffic is coming from and finding better places from which to get it.
    2. You have, or are willing to get, Google Analytics (GA) setup on your site.

    If you are putting links in social media or paid advertising, you should be tagging everyone of them to understand where your best traffic is coming from. Setting up social postings? Tag them. Adding UTM parameter values lets you see what content is driving engagement.

    Most companies that use the UTM parameters do so with paid media, but neglect tagging social messaging and email. I’d even recommend applying the tags to links from your social profiles.

    So, what is the UTM code and where does it goes? The parameters and values are appended to your landing page urls.

    http://shop.volcom.com/Boardshorts/mens-boardshorts.html?utm_campaign=boardshorts_b&utm_medium=email&utm_source=members&utm_content=bs2_copy2

    You have to add the “?”, then add the parameters=value with an ampersand between them.

    Below is an example of how a campaign may be structured.

    utm_campaign utm_medium utm_source utm_content term
    boardshorts_a ppc google textad1 term1
    boardshorts_a ppc yahoo textady1 term1
    boardshorts_b display_premium espn bs1_480x55
    boardshorts_b display_dsp dataxu bs1_480x55
    boardshorts_b display_dsp adroll bs2_480x55
    boardshorts_b email members bs2_copy1
    boardshorts_b email members bs2_copy2

     

    In Google Analytics you can view performance on any of these parameters (called dimensions in GA). You can compare different campaigns, sources, ads, etc for goals or engagement. If you have eCommerce set up, you can track the revenue as well.

    Google Analytics selection options for UTM

     

    Once you are in the habit of adding UTMs to your destination urls, you will start to see a wealth of information that you can use to direct your resources and focus.

    https://fd.idatatools.com/analytics/

  • Microsoft’s LinkedIn View Through Conversion Tracking

    View through conversions have been around for quite some time. The simple premise is that a media channel tracks when a person sees your ad or content and then, some time later, when they go to your site and convert, the tracking tag on your site sends data back to the media channel indicating that a conversion took place. The channel then shows that the user saw the content and later converted, even if they did not click.

    LinkedIn is now launching this metric. As a channel where people do a lot of research, read articles and general share information, knowing if someone saw your ad, or content and then ended up converting, this can be valuable. In B2B, direct conversions are not always the norm, and attribution can be a real challenge for advertisers with less resources. The view through metrics help provide a bit more insight.

  • Ad Blockers Put On Notice by Facebook

    Facebook announced that it will implement ad serving in such a way that ad blockers can’t prevent the advertisements from showing.

    [ad blocking]…reduces the funding needed to support the journalism and other free services that we enjoy on the web. Facebook is one of those free services, and ads support our mission of giving people the power to share and making the world more open and connected. Rather than paying ad blocking companies to unblock the ads we show — as some of these companies have invited us to do in the past — we’re putting control in people’s hands with our updated ad preferences and our other advertising controls.

    -Andrew Bosworth, VP of ads and business platform at Facebook

    There are things that the ad blocking software companies do that people either want to ignore (don’t care), or just don’t know about, that are not in the best interest of a free internet.

    First, “free” is a misnomer. It cost money to run Facebook, or any other website / application. The ads pay for the operation and a profit for the company. Seeing the ads is our price of admission. By blocking the ads, revenue is taken from the companies that invested in the websites we use everyday. Taken to the extreme, either the sites degrade their service or stop operating. If we want the service, we should pay for it. The ad blocking companies are trying to disrupt a model that is at the very heart of our ability to use the internet. Like them or hate them, without ads, there is no financial support for the internet.

    Second, some of the less reputable ad blocking companies allow publishers / advertisers to circumvent ad blocking by paying them a fee. However you cut it, the ethics of this model are dubious at best. The motive is not a “better user experience”, it’s extorting the publisher.

    There is a choice. When publishers implement advertising in such a way that the “cost” to view the content is too high, leave. It is a difficult equation for publishers, engaged users vs per page-view ad revenue. If they don’t get the balance right, content consumption dries up, as does ad revenue. Consumers can vote with their attention and publishers will listen or fade away.

  • Why can’t I find new customers? Wrong question.

    Not too long ago the paradigm shifted. With few media choices for consumers and large budgets for advertisers, brands would focus on targeting the customer. Consumers watched one of the major television stations, you just needed to look at Nielsen to know which shows. It seemed like every household received the major newspaper in town (or one of the few). The idea of targeting a prospective customer kind of made sense back then.

    For most companies, that’s no longer true. Today, customers find you… the real you.

    They research online, read articles, ask friends and family, look at reviews. With the exception of references, people generally use search engines to uncover the information they are looking for. Companies need to create a presence online that is both useful to the customer and understandable by the search engines. This takes the form of websites, social media, community activity, forum participation and content creation and sharing. When people research their next purchase, you have to be where they can find you.

    Business buyers and consumers, the saying goes, are in control. They decide what they will read, what they will trust and what they will share. Businesses that try to craft a message are finding themselves in tough times. Though perhaps overused, this is why the term “Authentic” has become so prevalent. Brands that look at this as just another marketing tactic, trying too hard to craft a message, fail to recognize the paradigm shift that has given control to the consumers.

    To help consumers find your company, engage.

    Create robust social profiles on those platforms that people interested in your product or service are likely to use.

    Share broadly about your product or service category. Be helpful beyond the scope of your own company. Give them something they want to read, hear or watch.

    Participate in forums as individuals who are part of a company, not just a company.

    All content and communications must be driven by the core values or principles of the company.

    Companies must decide what they stand for. Not some cliche, but what is important to those “in control”, and guide their companies accordingly. This is the core of being authentic. When mistakes happen, and the company makes corrections, the main driver comes from the core values of the company, not the fear of market repercussions. As consumers research, they will come across information (flattering and otherwise) about your company; stick to the core values and the balance will be in your favor.

  • Changes With Google and Bing Search

    There have been a lot of changes in search this year and some big changes in store. You have likely seen many of these, but since they tend to come out in a fairly ad hoc fashion, I am bringing together some of the bigger changes.

    Bing and Yahoo! are breaking up their deal. While there is a lot of behind the scenes organizational stuff, for advertisers it means that Bing is no longer the exclusive provider of search ads on Yahoo!. However for the short term, Bing continues to provide most of the ads we see there.

    Bing is now the provider of search ads on the AOL network, once served by Google. This should give Bing another small boost.

    The bottom line is that if you have the resources and are not already doing so, you should explore Bing. I’ve seen it do really well on some programs vs Google, on par for others and not so well on a few. But, worth exploring.

    Google… Lots of stuff here.

    The Ads on the right rail are gone. We’ve seen some minor price pressure for the top of page positions. It hasn’t been too bad so far though. A little more explanation and early on impressions of this change here (https://fd.idatatools.com/blog/2016/02/big-changes-coming-to-google-paid-search-results/)

    Google Local / Map advertising has moved out of Search Partner status. This means advertisers can opt out of the Search Partners (Google.com only) and still show up on the maps as long as they have location extensions.

    Google up and coming
    Google is changing the text ad format. Currently there are 25 characters for the headline and 35 each for the two description lines. Pretty soon we will have 30 characters for the headline and a single block of 80 characters for the copy/ description. This means more copy rewriting ahead. Also, the display URL will be automatically pulled from the final URL, but we’ll be able to append sub paths.

    Device bidding is coming back. For those who have been in the game a bit, you remember being able to create campaigns specifically for certain devices (mobile vs desktop). Google did away with that and incorporated bid adjustments instead. In the near future, we’ll be able to create device specific bids again. This will help for some programs that see very different behavior between devices.

    While the above is not exhaustive, it does touch on some of the main changes so far this year. If you have any questions about it or other areas of digital marketing, please drop me a line…happy to talk.

  • Content marketing has made SEO link building harder

    Yes good content should generate links back to your website and improve SEO perfomance. The challenge is in helping people differentiate between content marketing strategy and SEO link building tactics, and their respective control.

    Content marketing starts with a broader marketing objective, using distributed content to help achieve goals, and in some cases linking back to the website is not even part of the implementation. Our focus is on the marketing, with branding, customer development and relationship nurturing as integral components of the campaigns. Content, well controlled and distributed, is king, this is a strategy.

    For SEO link building, there is very little, if any direct control of the general content. Yes, you can have some influence with provided content, but the final call is the publisher’s (the more control to exert, the closer you push link building toward content marketing.) This can lead to some odd pairing of relevant content for SEO that does not necessarily play into the brand’s narrative. And this is where folks can get uncomfortable.

    Here are some elements of SEO link building that marketers should become comfortable with:

    First, the final call is the publishers. You can negotiate to a certain point, but publishers have their own brand and narrative to follow. If they give into the whims of every link partner, the site will lose continuity and eventually lose audience.

    Second, a variety of content and sites is a good thing. While all must be relevant to your respective pages, the internet is a tapestry of interests and points of view. Tying into this helps strengthen your pages inbound linking. Remember that this in someone else’s voice connecting to your brand, it is not your brand.

    Third, some sites look cheap, but this should not preclude them from consideration. As long as the site is not being dinged by Google and the content is relevant, don’t sweat the aesthetics.

    Keeping a focus on link building’s purpose, to show Google that other sites “like” you, understand that this is a popularity contest. While having some high profile, great looking sites should be part of your program, the vast majority of votes will come from sites that are average or below. They still count.

  • Adobe’s Best of the Best – less engagement is good

    As designers and marketers, the best thing we can do for our website users is help them get off our sites a fast as possible.

    Take a look at Adobe’s study and a few things stand out:

    Traffic from smartphones is growing year over year (no surprise)
    For some industries desktops remain dominant
    Users are visiting less and spending less time when the do

    This last one is a key metric, and though counter to conventional wisdom, it is going in the right direction.

    For some time companies have looked at engagement metrics the wrong way. The perspective has been ego driven. Two components have been number of visits and amount of time on site. But, unless you are a media and entertainment company (or social), users don’t usually want to be on your site any longer than necessary, nor do the want to have to come back.

    Users want to do just a couple of things. One, find information or two, address an issue. In the ideal user experience, they come to your site, see exactly what they need and leave.

    If they come directly to the site, the home page should be designed in such a way that people can get to the key area quickly and easily. If they use a search engine to get to your site, your pages should be optimized so that they land on the most relevant content to their search. If you do your job right and improve content and navigation, users should actually spend less time, view fewer pages and conclude their activity faster. Making this happen requires resources, including your time and attention.

    Take a look at the Adobe report and you will see that the Top 20 sites in each category generally have much better performance metrics than the average. Average time spent is declining. To me, this indicates better UX and content planning is being optimized to user experiences. We need to consider KPIs based on what users are trying to do on the site. This may mean less time and fewer pages consumed.

  • AMP – Accelerated Mobile Pages

    The Problem AMP and FIA Fix

    Behind the scenes a browser sorts through a whole bunch of code that tells it how to present the content. This code is an agreed upon standard. Unfortunately, it is not really designed for easy mobile access to information such as news stories or blog articles.

    Standard html and the associated scripts, styles and other bits of code take a lot to process. We don’t notice it too much on desktops and laptops because our computers have become extremely powerful and can easily handle all that code and present the web pages to the users.

    The complexity allows web developers to create very elaborate websites with a great deal of functionality. But when we are simply looking for information, all this elaborate foundation just gets in the way. This is particularly true on mobile devices that are not powerful enough nor do they have the screen real estate needed to process and present the pages well. Responsive design only addresses part of the problem, arranging elements or hiding them for mobile presentation- but they are still there taking bandwidth and time. Often mobile users will simply back out of the page rather than wait for it to load.

    The AMP and FIA solution(s)

    The answer to this issue is to streamline the content and the code that is used to present the content, and eliminate the unnecessary functionality.

    AMP – Accelerated Mobile Pages – is the Open Source project (backed by Google) designed to help companies make their website content more accessible for mobile devices.

    Facebook’s approach to this is Facebook Instant Articles which does the same thing, but for now is focused on the Facebook ecosystem.

    The focus is on the unique article content. By using the amp method, you process and display just the information unique to that article and do so in a simplified way. Below is the regular page next to the amp version of one of our posts..

    page without am coding

    page with amp coding

    Using this method lets the content be streamlined for faster processing and makes it easier for the information to be cached on the different servers. This has two great benefits. When the content is indexed it is stored on the servers (in this case Google, but any server can do this because it is an open source effort) so the server does not have to always come back to the site every time a person wants to see the information. The trip to get the information is shorter. Secondly, the format is something that mobile devices can process very quickly, eliminating a great deal of the wait time.

    AMP and SEO

    Duplicate Content?
    If executed properly, this is not an issue. On the amp page, standard canonical ref will tell the engines the original page sources (standard practice).

    <link rel=”canonical” href=”https://fd.idatatools.com/blog/2016/02/google-compare-shutting-down/” />

    While the original page provides a reference to the amp page so the indexing site can pick up the mobile friendly (amp) version.

    <link rel=”amphtml” href=”https://fd.idatatools.com/blog/2016/02/google-compare-shutting-down/amp/” />

    As Google pushes further down the mobile friendly path, more weight will be placed on content that delivers quickly and easily to mobile devices. For those companies that rely on their blog and news content to attract more people, this will have a significant impact. AMP was initiated in October of 2015 and you can see in GWT / Search Console what pages on the site are being ‘flagged’ for not being AMP friendly. While we have not yet seen a degradation in the results directly tied to this, it is just a matter of time.

    At the moment the SEO landscape does not have a lot of competition with AMP pages. That will change and when it does, the search engines will have a choice between your content and content that is “AMPlified”. Guess who wins.

  • Google Compare Shutting Down

    Google will close down its lead gen platform, Google Compare, by the end of March. Compare was, as the name infers, a way for shoppers to compare pricing and get quotes for services focused primarily in finance and insurance. After a 12 month run, Google sent an email to the partners letting them know that the lead gen platform was being eliminated.

    Optimizing for clicks is one thing. Optimizing for conversions at various target CPAs, for different brands and products is a whole different game. Getting someone to click on the ad is just the beginning of the challenge.

    When I was at Leapfrog Online we managed and optimized these programs for financial services, automotive and telecom all the way through the pipeline to the sale. Supplying leads is one thing (we generated our own), but managing them through to process, to optimize what works and either fix or trash what doesn’t is not just an algorithm. It’s about people and it is hard.

    The lead gen space is tricky. It requires constant attention. The companies getting the leads need quality, at an affordable price, consistently. But, it doesn’t stop there. At different points, the companies will have an initiative and need more volume and are willing to pay for it, but only for certain segments and only if the volume actual goes over a minimum amount. There is a constant dialogue about the quality of the leads, placement of the client, and requests for more information; constant hand holding.

    I am guessing that this side of the equation is not what Google was counting on. It requires resources well beyond media optimization. It requires a lot resources to manage the customers.

    It may be that Google’s target margins for their operating units are just too high for the lead gen space. Perhaps good quality leads were coming from Google Compare. Whether Google was good at it or not, there is a lead gen community both breathing a sigh of relief and muttering “I told you it wasn’t that easy.”

  • Big changes coming to Google paid search results

    Fewer Ads to Show on Google Search Results Page – No Right Sidebar

    Google will remove the right sidebar ads from desktop search results, globally. There is an exception for product listing ads only.

    In some cases Google may add a fourth ad to the top results if it is a localized (inferred or explicit) commercial query.

    The change in Google search results is big, no two ways about it.

    Google shows for ads on top of serpsGoogle showing PLAs

    The impact on cost per click and click through rates will be seen quickly, as will impressions.

    If you are a position 3 or higher player in adwords, then expect an upward cost pressure. Those who are normally on the right side of the first page will have to make a decision, drop to virtually no impressions or start bidding up the landscape to try to make it to the top three positions. It is one thing to accept lower CTRs while on the right sidebar. Its another to get virtually nothing.

    For those who played the right sidebar, they are coming to a crossroads. To continue to be in Adwords with any real volume of clicks, they will have to pay more, perhaps much more. If they are not willing to do that, then one has to question if being in the game at all is worth it. The time it takes to manage a program well has a cost on top of the media spend. Is there enough volume at the bottom of page one, or pages two+ to justify the time? Something to seriously consider.

    For those who stay in the game, what is the best next step?
    Most companies have a limited budget. With the increase in CPC, this will get tapped out more quickly. Within any program there is an “averaging” that happens. Some clicks are more valuable, others less so, but to get the volume, the managers accept the range and average to the target. PPC manager will have to tighten up and shift to the higher end of that range. This could be more narrowly defining the keywords, dayparting, geography or ad copy. If you are not familiar with the top performing segments of your program, do the analysis asap. You have decisions to make.

    Revisit the landing pages.
    If you can’t decrease the cost of the click, you need to make the click more valuable. Too many programs become complacent with landing pages. It takes a lot to do it well, so there is an aversion at times to putting in the effort. Use this as an opportunity to refocus on conversion rate optimization. Make each click worth more to your program.

    Impact on SEO?
    There is also an argument to be made that this move puts an emphasis on organic search results. As users have fewer paid options to click on, will they take the organic into higher consideration? This is something to be watched very carefully. Know where your page one keywords are landing people on your site and monitor them carefully. Really optimize the description tags and titles for ctr. You have an opportunity here, take it.

    Google’s decision to change paid search results is going to have a broad impact and be a real pain for some programs. Look at it as an opportunity to focus and leverage more of what works, weed out the borderline stuff and increase the value of each click.