jondyer.net » Web Analytics

An invitation to social sites to integrate with Google Analytics

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 22:28:40 +0000

Every day, millions of people share and engage with content online. But most sharing doesn’t happen on the site where it was published, it happens throughout the social web. Marketers and publishers are looking for a comprehensive view of all interactions with their content – on and off their site – and so we’re working hard to make this happen.

To enable our customers to discover who’s sharing, voting and bookmarking their content on the social web, cross-network measurement needs to become easier. So today we’re inviting social networks and platforms to integrate their activity streams with Google Analytics. Through these integrations, marketers and publishers will be able to discover off-site engagement, optimize their engagement within each social community, and measure the impact of each social channel and its associated digital investment.

Any network can integrate their streams – like +1, votes, and comments – into the Google Analytics social reports, which will be fully available next year to the many marketers, publishers, and websites that are using Google Analytics for free.

To make integration easy for social networks and platforms we’ve created a social data hub – it’s based on widely deployed, open web standards such as ActivityStreams and PubsubHubbub. A number of partners are already working with us to improve measurement of social actions – including Delicious, Digg, Diigo, Gigya, LiveFyre, ReadItLater, Reddit, TypePad, Vkontakte, and of course, Google+, Blogger and Google Groups.

We’ll have more to share next year, so keep reading the blog or follow us on twitter @googleanalytics for updates. If you’re a social network or platform interested to learn about integrating with Google Analytics you can visit our developer site where you’ll find more information.

Phil Mui, Group Product Manager & Ilya Grigorik, Engineering Manager, Google Analytics

PRESS RELEASE: Visual Revenue’s Platform helps NewsOK edit their Homepage in real-time

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 04:50:58 +0000

I am extremely pleased to announce that NewsOK have agreed to partner with us and utilize the VR Platform for NewsOK.com! This is the official Press Release we sent out this morning:

Visual Revenue, Inc., the leading provider of online publisher tools for real-time homepage editing, today announced the addition of NewsOK to its portfolio of online news publishers.

The real-time recommendation capabilities of Visual Revenue’s Decision Support Platform are helping NewsOK determine what content should be placed where on the Homepage (and Section Front pages) of NewsOK.com and for how long. The platform takes a host of signals into consideration when providing content placement recommendations; from Editorial Instructions set by NewsOK, to how they value an item of content, how it’s performing given it’s current exposure, semantic analysis and a plethora of other signals.

“NewsOK is using Visual Revenue for recommendations for our lead stories on several pages throughout the site” said Alan Herzberger, Digital Managing Editor for NewsOK. “Our editors have found the tool to be a welcome complement to our news judgment, allowing for predictive analysis to be mixed in with the knowledge we already have about our audience’s interests and trends. In short, Visual Revenue’s recommendations serve as another set of analytical eyes on our deep content for every minute of the day.”

“We’re extremely excited to partner with NewsOK” said Charlie Holbech, VP Operations and Co-Founder of Visual Revenue, Inc. “Their progressive online approach coupled with our platform will help them increase front page performance and drive downstream content engagement – or put another way, provide their audience with the best possible reader experience each and every time they visit NewsOK.com.”

About Visual Revenue
Visual Revenue Inc. provides a predictive analytics solution that helps online media organizations set a better front page. Headquartered in New York, Visual Revenue is helping media organizations across the globe better place their current content throughout their online publication. Visual Revenue’s Front Page Decision Platform currently provides more than 45 online publishers with real-time recommendations. These include Forbes.com, NYDailyNews.com, Telegraaf.nl and OneIndia.in.

Visual Revenue was founded by former IndexTools (now Yahoo! Web Analytics) COO Dennis R. Mortensen and officially launched in January 2011. The founding team are industry veterans from the web analytics, big data and predictive modeling world.

For more details on Visual Revenue, Inc. visit the corporate website at visualrevenue.com or call +1 (212) 506-6700 or email hello@visualrevenue.com.

3 last-minute Analytics tips for the holiday season

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 02:25:08 +0000

If you’re a marketing professional, you’ve probably spent months preparing your holiday campaigns. But have you focused so much on great creative that you’ve neglected your measurement plan? Don’t despair: there’s still time to make the most of your holiday marketing and measurement. Here’s some food for thought to help you make sure your Analytics is adding value this season and setting you up for success next year.

1. Stuffing your stockings: all the best treats for your marketing funnel

Online shoppers are increasingly taking a considered, comparative approach to making purchases. Consumers are now consulting an average of 10.7 sources when making a buying decision – double the rate of 2010. That means that all steps of the marketing funnel are more important than ever. So make sure to take all the steps to conversion into account when measuring your campaigns this season.

With Multi-Channel Funnels reports in the new version of Google Analytics, you can see not just the last click prior to conversion, but also how earlier interactions influenced the purchase decision. For instance, your customer may have clicked on an organic search link immediately prior to purchasing, but in the weeks before to the purchase, he clicked on a display ad, followed links from a post on a social network, and later visited your site directly. With Multi-Channel Funnels, you can see these earlier assists and take this influence into account when optimizing campaigns throughout the holiday season. You’ll also have a rich set of data to plan next year’s campaigns, as you can plan around those channels that drive awareness and consideration earlier in the purchase process.

2. Jingle bells, mobile’s ringing

It’s hard to overstate the enormity of the mobile opportunity this holiday season as consumers turn to smartphones and tablets for both product research and purchases. Mobile searches have grown dramatically in the last two years, and it’s predicted that 44% of searches for last-minute gifts and store locator terms will be from mobile devices.

Providing a great mobile experience is now expected, or you will lose customers. With mobile reporting in Google Analytics, you can see how users are able (or not able) to make purchase decisions. You can segment visitors based on criteria like device types and operating systems. For instance, you can compare if there are different conversion rate for iOS and Android, and make adjustments accordingly. Google offers resources to help you make your site mobile-ready, so you can take action if you find roadblocks. Finally, when measuring your marketing channels, make sure to take mobile ads into account. You can get deeper insights by segmenting out mobile advertising using the recently updated AdWords reports in Google Analytics.

3. Follow Santa’s sleigh in real time

You may have time-sensitive marketing events planned this quarter – whether it’s a daily deal marketing program, viral content that suddenly takes off, or even press coverage. Data that arrives days or even hours later is too late to make decisions during the fast-paced holiday season. With Real-Time reporting in Google Analytics, you can see the impact of these events within seconds. This can be particularly useful for social media efforts. If you post a tweet linking to your site, for example, you can see the immediate visits resulting from the post, and engage in the conversation with your customers. You can also use Real-Time to monitor the immediate impact of email offers and other campaigns that offer customers deals to purchase quickly.

So, grab those reindeer reins and have a great holiday season with Google Analytics. Best wishes for very merry marketing measurement!

Posted by Bill Kee, Google Analytics team

Visual Revenue shortlisted for the Econsultancy Innovation Awards 2012

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 14:52:08 +0000

It’s been an extremely busy 2011 for the Visual Revenue team, the Platform has developed at a rate of knots, we’ve – signed dozens of customers, have dozens more evaluating the platform, expanded the team (and continue to do so!), won the CNNMoney Startup Event and have now been shortlisted for the Econsultancy Innovation Awards 2012!

More than 450 companies entered and were whittled down to 150 in 19 categories. We fall into the ‘Innovation in Publishing, Media and Entertainment’ category and are up against the following prestigious companies:

Are we happy – you bet

YouTube TrueView Video Ads: Only Pay For Interested Viewers

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 22:37:17 +0000

YouTube has launched a new ad format out of beta: TrueView Video Ads. The basic concept is that the user has a choice whether or not to continue watching the ad. The advertisers only pays when the user watches at least 30 seconds of the ad (or to completion, whichever comes first).

This new format is referred to as a TrueView in-stream ad. Long-form YouTube videos are eligible for the TrueView in-slate ad format. With in-slate, the user is given a choice to either watch a longer commercial video ad before the primary video begins, or see regular commercial breaks during the video.

According to Google’s onesheet on TrueView (pdf), in-stream ad viewers choose to watch an ad 15-45% of the time. Some advertisers have seen 3-4x higher CTR’s with TrueView than with other video ad formats.

YouTube Promoted Video Ads are being renamed “TrueView in-search” and “TrueView in-display” depending on where they show.

Such a shift in video ad delivery is sure to start affecting how video ads are composed. Advertisers need to front-end-load the “interesting” parts to entice the viewer to watch. Also, given that you only pay when someone chooses to watch the video, the proportion viewers from your ideal target audience will be higher.

Fend Off AdWords Trademark Infringement with Google’s Help

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 22:37:11 +0000

Name-brand keywords are some of the best performing you can find. In competitive markets, searching for trademarked terms usually reveals a dogfight, with the rightful owner at the top of the pile. Although bidding on competitors’ trademarked terms will often lead to poor quality scores (and thus a large bid surcharge), those low quality scores can be offset by the high conversion rate of these ready-to-buy visitors.

This situation is common because Google’s US trademark policy only applies to trademarks in ad copy; it doesn’t prohibit bidding on trademarked terms. While Burger King wouldn’t appreciate a McDonald’s representative standing outside their establishment holding the sign “Come to McDonald’s Instead”, there’s no trademark law against this, trespassing notwithstanding.

What companies can’t do is misrepresent themselves. It would be a trademark violation for McDonald’s to put a Burger King sign outside their own establishment. Are competitors using your trademarked terms in their ads? Google can help you – but you must take the initiative.