Web Design And Marketing

I have a new Internet marketing client who is pretty Internet savvy. He knows business, and has a very good grasp of the Internet. He runs a consumer e-ccommerce site in a niche market. He is running an Adwords campaign, and has a decent conversion rate. In a nutshell, he has got it together. So I was surprised to hear that he wasn’t using any type of web metrics / analytics.

This leads me to wonder how many folks out there are running Pay Per click campaigns, but don’t track the full cycle. If my new intelligent, Internet savvy client isn’t, then how many others aren’t? This means going beyond ” I am spending $X a day, and making $y in a day sales”. This is a good start, but not enough to optimize your true revenue potential.

Web metrics / analytics are important. And having the right features in an analytics package is even more important. Right now, I can’t find one package that meets all of my needs, so I end up using 2 together. I use Google analytics and Statcounter. Both are free, and I find quite powerful when used together. Google analytics is the main bread and butter. It allows me to quickly identify trends and patterns in visits, conversions, keywords by referral source and more. Statcounter is a simple package, but offers the one thing Google analytics cannot, individual visitor path information. I find that this is such a valuable feature, I can’t live with out. Both of these packages are free. So there isn’t any excuse to not use them.

Anyway, let’s get to my point. Get a good analytics package or combination set up and running. Why? Because then you can tell, not only which keywords in Adwords bring you traffic, but which ones result in sales. Then you can see if there is a particular time of day that results in more sales. Is there a keyword that has a higher ROI? If you can answer all of these questions, not only will it help you refine your Adwords campaign to increase sales, but it will end up increasing your overall ROI. You will be spending money where you will get the best bang for the buck, instead of casting a wide net.

Imagine knowing that increasing your bid on a particular word between 12 and 2 pm will result in 10% more sales. This kind of information is powerful, and can help you make key decisions that will increase revenue.

Filed by admin at 8:43 am under Search Engine Marketing
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When you are king of the hill, you have a lot of lawsuits, and Google is no exception. I wonder how successful they are at finding attorneys that are legally and Internet savvy. Either way, Google’s AdWords program is being challenged in court because advertisers can purchase keywords and phrases that are trademarked. For example, Mazda can purchase the keyword Pontiac, and run Mazda text ads whenever someone searches for Pontiac. This was actually done in 2006 during Pontiacs “Google Pontiac” TV commercial campaign.

Needless to say, marketers who invest heavily in branding and their trademarks are not happy about this. Plus, due to US trademark law; companies must defend their trademarks in order to protect them (Bayer lost its right to Asprin because it was found to not have protected the trademark). So the question becomes, how will companies protect their brands and trademarks in this type of situation. Brandweek reports that both Geico and Louis Vuitton have sued Google over this issue. The premise is that Google is selling trademarks that they do not own. However Google is taking the position that the trademarks are not displayed and therefore infringement does not occur.

Come November, Google will have to stand trial in a California court over this very issue. American Blind & Wallpaper factory has alleged that Google sold their brand names to its competitors. If the results determine that Google’s actions cause consumers confusion or infringe on trademarks, it could lead to a ban on trademark sales in AdWords.

Filed by admin at 4:37 pm under Search Engine Marketing
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Well, it is about time! It looks like people are actually starting to focus on conversion optimization. Google has announced a beta tool that will help webmasters and Internet marketers focus on converting visitors to sales. I have not seen the tool yet (you have to sign up and then wait). However, I encourage all of our readers to sign up right away, as they may end up having a cut off limit (remember the Analytics waiting line?)

Get your Adwords account number and sign up here: http://services.google.com/websiteoptimizer/

Filed by admin at 9:19 am under Conversion Rates
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