Category Archives: digital media

November 7, 2012 · 10:30 am

Running Full Speed In The Dark

If your business does anything in the digital space you probably have some sort of system in place to measure that digital activity.

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Having run an online commerce site I can tell you that those analytics are second only to actual sales figures in importance.  Having run and consulted on sites where content is king (as opposed to commerce!), the data helps you to understand user preferences, content gaps, and how best to engage the reader.

That’s why something I saw the other day was so disturbing to me.  The folks at DBD Media recently conducted research on Google Analytics implementation across 50 e-commerce websites and found that 80% of retailers don’t know how to use Google Analytics:

  • Only 50% of e-commerce businesses track main conversion
  • 73% of businesses are inflating traffic in their analytics reports,through self referral issues.
  • 60% of GA accounts were not correctly synced with Google AdWords, meaning Pay Per Click data is not being passed-on and is hampering accurate ROI measurements for paid search.
  • 67% of websites haven’t integrated social media tracking
  • 30% of websites have incorrect e-commerce tracking implementation.

There are more findings but for a commerce site these are the most critical ones.  I suspect that if we were to survey content sites we’d find similar issues.  Why does this happen?  According to the folks at eConsultancy:

Our recent Online Measurement and Strategy report finds that the most commonly cited barrier for company respondents was a lack of budget and resources, with 50% of respondents listing this as an issue. Following this was a lack of strategy (31%) and siloed organisation / lack of co-ordination (26%).

For supply-side respondents the most commonly cited barrier was a lack of understanding / don’t know what to measure (47% compared to only 24% for company respondents), followed by a lack of budget and resources (42%) and a lack of strategy (37%).

The first item is particularly galling.  I suspect that has to do less with an actual lack of funds that a failure to reallocate the funding from some legacy activity into analytics support.  What could be more important, especially if your entire business is online?

When you’re doing your next budget, think about what activities add revenue and profit   Maybe those need to be your top priorities as you’re allocating funds? “We did it this way last year” isn’t a system – it’s an impediment.  You with me?

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November 5, 2012 · 9:52 am

Working Backwards To The Web

When I work with clients on how they’re going to approach digital, I’ve been telling them something a bit different lately.  While I still believe that a company’s website is the primary point of contact, how that site is designed and built needs to be very different   They -and you- need to be thinking mobile first and working backwards to the web.  Sites that aren’t optimized for smartphones and tablets as a primary access channel are going to be out of date very quickly.  How do I know?  Check this out:

Underscoring the mobile migration story, IDC … issues a report … arguing that the number of people in the U.S. accessing the Internet from PC will decrease in coming years. The 240 million consumers currently using desktop and laptop PCs to go online will shrink to 225 million by 2016, they contend. In 2015, the tipping point will be reached where more people will come to the Internet through a device than through a traditional PC (emphasis added).

Think about how you use media these days.  You’re probably watching TV with a second screen somewhere nearby, and more often these days that means a tablet.  More people are likely to leave home without their wallet or keys than without their phone.  The desktop computer and even the laptop is an afterthought – something with which we do work but don’t necessarily consumer media or interact with brands.

Here’s a nagging thought to keep in mind.  Click through rates on mobile ads are awful – even worse than the pitiful rates we see on banner ads.  If it weren’t for the “fat finger” effect (people hit ads accidentally), I suspect these rates would be even worse.  How are you going to overcome that?  Have you been experimenting with mobile search and learning what makes it different from web SEM?  Maybe now is a good time to do so.  Is your site optimized for mobile access?  Maybe we should chat?

Working backwards to the web isn’t really working backwards.  It’s a forward look into the future.  Thoughts?

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November 2, 2012 · 8:38 am

Ending The Week On A Brutal Note

I’ve been informed that I was a bit brutal on the good, hard-working folks at CL&P yesterday. Maybe, but sometimes honesty is mistaken for brutality, and I try always to be honest here on the screed. If any of your relations or friends work for the power company here in Connecticut  I’m sure they’re doing the best they can.  Whomever is directing them, however, needs to think about another profession.

With that in mind, let’s turn to our Foodie Friday Fun. What else but brutal restaurant reviews?  This piece from HuffPo highlights 10 of the most scathing restaurant reviews they could find.  The piece makes a good point – brutal reviews are always more fun to read than positive ones.  As it turn out, they get wider circulation via social media too.  Having written a few bits of snark in my time, I’ll tell you they’re way more fun to write.  I mean, it takes a fair amount of effort to find a clever and accurate way to say “it sucked”.  Each of the reviews cited is fun – I particularly liked this one from Frank Bruni – and well worth a few minutes of your time.  That said, they do raise an interesting business point.

Suppose you were on the receiving end of one of these babies?  Are your listening posts set up to recognize them?  Is there someone who is designated with responding in a non-confrontational, transparent manner?  What do you do if the criticism is accurate and warranted (that gets well beyond fixing some bad reviews, I know)?  Can’t happen to you?  Check out the reviews not related to restaurants on Yelp sometime.  Google will serve up local search results with negative reviews embedded.  Private sites such as Angie’s List can kill you with you ever knowing it.  Brutal, indeed.

It used to be that a negative newspaper review was bad but not fatal.  After all, very few papers have the kind of circulation (even years ago) that could kill a business.  Word of mouth could hurt, but that took a long time, giving a restaurant ( or any other business) a margin for error.  Not any more.  Restaurants open and close in weeks – there is no time to fix it so they need to start out very good and get better, listening to the information flow all the while.  That’s brutal!

Are you listening?

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