Tag Archives: Digital marketing

November 14, 2012 · 9:58 am

(Not Provided)

We’re going to get a little esoteric today, and while the specific subject matter discussion may be unfamiliar the overall topic is one that concerns almost every business.

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You might have heard something a year ago about the folks at Google restricting the availability of some information in analytics reporting. This information has to do with the specific search terms people use when coming to your web site if they are users who are signed into a Google account when they perform the search. What that means is if I’m logged into Gmail and jump into another tab to search for something, the sites I visit as a result of that search don’t see the term I used to get there. Instead, (not provided) shows up in the analytics report, and it’s not just in Google Analytics. Any analytics system sees that same (not provided) in lieu of the search term.

When Google made this change, they estimated that it would affect a small (under 20%) portion of the visits to most sites.  However, a year later a study by Optify shows that 64% of companies analyzed in the study see between 30% and 50% of their traffic from Google as “(not provided),” and 81% see more than 30%.  As someone who is constantly working with clients using this data, it’s gone from a nuisance to a real problem. Discoverability – getting found –  is a constant battle, and every piece of information that helps us to understand how our content/products are found is important.  That’s why this affects every business that’s on the web.

Of course, if you’re willing to use Google’s paid search program – AdWords – you can get the data.  Why that mitigates the privacy concerns Google claimed were causing them to hide the information in the first place is beyond me.  I’m sure if most users understood what information Google is capturing on their web habits (unless you’ve turned off their ability to do so) they’d be far less concerned about Google telling site owners how we came to be there and a lot more concerned about how Google is using the dozens of cookies they drop on our machines.

I like Google and use a lot of their services both free and paid.  I use an Android-powered phone.  I’m concerned, however, that just as they’ve done with Wave, Buzz, Google Video and others they’ve made a strategic error here.  As in those cases, I’m hoping they re-think it.  In the interim, they’re damaging the ability the rest of us have to make a better, more usable web.

Thoughts?

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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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Image via CrunchBase

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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October 23, 2012 · 9:34 am

When Is A Medium Not A Medium?

An interesting piece of research from the folks at Borrell Associates this morning that concerns how small and medium businesses are using digital channels.  Given that nearly every local business seems to have a website, I wasn’t surprised to read that over half of SMB online marketing dollars are spent supporting what the survey calls “web presence.”  This is their site design and maintenance, hosting, as well as their social media management.  What I hadn’t thought about was the study’s conclusions as summed up in this post:

Digital advertising is yielding the spotlight to digital services. The emerging lesson, concludes the study, is that the Internet is actually not much of an advertising medium after all.

That was an “ah-ha!” moment for me.  Then again, I can’t remember the last time I clicked on a web banner and unless I’m searching with an intent to buy immediately (as opposed to just conducting research), I generally ignore the PPC ads that seem to surround everything.  As it turns out the average U.S. small/medium business spends $17,000 on online services, compared with $6,800 on online advertising, hence the conclusion about it not being a medium.  Then again, there is a big division even within this group since those with fewer than 50 employees will spend less than $500 a year, while a mid-size business with more than 50 employees will spend an average of $63,000.  The little guys spend a higher percentage of their budgets on web hosting and their site (make sense since this is the one indispensable element in my opinion) as well as email and SEO (getting found is always important!).  Once the budgets grow the companies can afford to branch out into other areas (blog management, analytics, etc.).

The report concludes by noting that, as the web becomes more of a basic marketing tool for business, the importance of online support services will grow as well. The midsize and larger companies are likely to internalize services that they once contracted out. Those larger companies will either assign SEO and social media management tasks to existing staff, or hire fulltime experts in digital marketing

I’ve seen that occur with some companies for which I’ve worked.  Here on the screed we probably don’t think about the interwebs as a service-driven space and probably spend too much time on it as a medium   I’m going to rethink that based on this study since many of the folks who contact me fit the small and medium business category.  What do you think?

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