Archive for the 'Website Effectiveness' Category

How To Plan Your ‘09 Online Marketing Budget

Published
by
Eric Dudley
on September 16, 2008
in Branding, Customer Acquisition, Customer Retention, Email Marketing, Lead Generation, Media Buying, Online Marketing, Paid Search, SEO, Search Marketing, Social Media, Website Analytics and Website Effectiveness
. 3 Comments

During these tough economic times, budgeting is becoming an even more critical aspect of the planning process.  It’s easy for many companies to immediately dismiss marketing as a disposable expense, however, research shows that companies which continue to market during an economic downturn are that much farther ahead of those that don’t.

We consult with many clients regarding their annual online marketing strategies and plans.  Here are some tips to consider to get your 2009 Online Marketing budget approved.

1. Outline expected results

Your goal is to link marketing initiatives and strategies to financial outcomes, therefore you need to make sure you can effectively show how investing in online marketing will result in specific goals and objectives.

For example, your marketing initiatives may include one or more of the following:

  • Drive incremental sales. Show how your online marketing plan will directly impact sales. Your outcomes are pretty straightforward if your marketing directly generates sales. Tactics may include Paid Search, search engine optimization, online media buying, and email marketing.
  • Drive leads into the sales pipeline. Show how you will engage your online audience and generate interest and demand that results in generating a lead.  Tactics may include Paid Search, search engine optimization, online media buying, and email marketing.
  • Engage and convert more visitors.Show how you will engage more visitors and get them to respond to your offer.  Small lift in conversion rates can easily multiply sales.  Tactics may include web effectiveness and multivariate testing.
  • Interact with your audience.Show how you will engage your audience where they spend time online today.  Buzz and referrals can be powerful and result in customer evaluation and adoption.   Tactics may include web analytics, multivariate testing, and social media.
  • Building your brand. Show how exposing your brand will result in greater recognition and adoption resulting in greater engagement and ultimately sales.  Granted, this is a longer term approach that requires more buy-in.  Tactics may include paid search, online media buying, and social media.

To project your expected outcomes, quantify the results you have achieved prior and make sound assumptions. This gives more weight to your strategy, shows sound thinking, and often creates a positive collaborative dialog.

2. Educate decision makers on the dynamics of the strategy.

The next step and one of the most critical is getting buy-in and approval from the powers that be.  Educating your executives on the core strategy to the point that they are nodding their heads in agreement is important.  Identifying any threats to the strategy and plan should be highlighted, but not magnified. It is important to reinforce with the decision makers the following:

  • Integrated plan with critical mass. Show how complementary tactics yield even better results.  For example, how search marketing and online media combined yields higher returns when integrated successfully.
  • Marketing needs to be supported through the entire funnel. If there are other dependencies to driving sales, ensure that those parts of the funnel are held accountable to their target conversion rates.
  • Budgeting for analytics is critical to measuring and delivering expected outcomes. Without a unified measurement tool, showing expected outcomes will be challenging.  Ensure you have an analytics platform that captures leading KPIs along with bottom-line conversions.  For example, your web analytics platform should be able to tell you how a opt-in email marketing campaign directly impacts sales on the website.
  • A testing budget that allows for new champions to surface. We recommend setting aside around 10% of your budget if possible to test new hypothesis and in some cases emerging tactics.

If asked how to reduce the overall budget, suggest that the decision makers take more budget and wipe out the integrated approach because it may not be effective enough to make a substantial impact.

3. Build executive confidence in your online strategy with clear financial expectations and outcomes.

With an integrated, well thought-through strategy, and the measurement of analytics to determine the financial outcomes, you will build confidence in your executives and gain support to approve and execute your online marketing plan.

I welcome your comments and feedback below:

How to Select an Online Marketing Agency

Published
by
Eric Dudley
on September 12, 2008
in Online Marketing, Paid Search, SEO, Search Marketing, Social Media, Website Analytics and Website Effectiveness
. 0 Comments
How to Select an Online Marketing Agency

Jeannie Moran, eCommerce Marketing Director of AutoNation, shares how to select an online marketing agency at SES

Many marketers have struggled with this topic: How To Select an Online Marketing Agency.  I attended this session at the Search Engine Strategies conference a couple of weeks ago.  Veteran marketer Jeannie Moran, eCommerce Marketing Director, of AutoNation, shared her experience with fellow marketers.

From a marketer perspective here is what to look for when selecting an agency:

5 Fundamentals- Per Jeannie Moran, eCommerce Marketing Director, AutoNation, inc.

  1. Sign a MNDA
  2. Be aligned with vision and be able to introduce the agency to your boss
  3. Build trust and set reasonable expectations
  4. Be honest about working with multiple partners
  5. Make sure it’s worth everyone’s while

Must haves - Groundwork for Success

  1. Understand what you are buying - educate yourself
  2. Ask the right questions - be cautious about guarantees
  3. Always meet with the team that will be delivering
  4. Make sure to use compatible technology
  5. Get all promises in writing
  6. Negotiate a trial period - test pilot for 90 days minimum
  7. Uncover any hidden costs
  8. Ensure one common platform for tracking
  9. Determine if application supports foreign languages and currencies

SEO Vendor Considerations

  1. Strong keyword research strategy
  2. Strong copy writing and link building
  3. Optimization plan for organic pages
  4. Measure organic conversion and ROI
  5. Proven results

Paid Search Vendor Considerations

  1. PPC programs in Google, Yahoo and MSN
  2. Web traffic measurement tool to measure your precise return on investment
  3. A/B testing of PPC ads and landing pages to identify the most effective campaigns
  4. Account managers that are Google AdWords certified and are Yahoo Ambassadors

Social Media Vendor Considerations

  1. What channels are you currently active in for clients?
  2. Give examples of how channels might be used to bolster the overall SEM effort
  3. Proven results?

Key Takeaways

  1. Educate
  2. Invest
  3. Agree and document billing model
  4. Start small and scale
  5. Monitor, measure, optimize

There are key advantages of one vendor for both SEO and SEM

Using a holistic strategy and partner will allow you to:

  • Identify opportunities that can improve performance
  • Optimize across all search channels
  • Combine campaign metrics and reporting

Outcome:  Increased ROI and Cost Savings

At WebsiteBiz, we offer both Paid Search, SEO, and Social Media capabilities.  Our clients tell us the integrated approach yields higher returns along with cost savings and who wouldn’t want this? J

SES Update - Pay Per Conversation

Published
by
Tom Dressler
on August 18, 2008
in Website Analytics and Website Effectiveness
. 0 Comments

We are learning about how marketers are becoming successful in their SEM efforts. PPC can no longer stand for “Pay Per Click” — it must stand for “Pay Per Conversation.” Many marketers agree that the current state of the economy is having an impact on their marketing plans. That’s why every dollar and click matters. Every click is a potential customer trying to engage you; will you continue the dialog or have them bounce off your landing page just moments after they arrive? What you want to do is engage and persuade your visitors to keep taking the next click, all the way through the purchase funnel. To achieve that, you must demonstrate the value of your products and services in all your marketing, especially when sales are decreasing. You do that by planning content to improve relevance and test continuously until you have the best conversation. This session is showing us how to identify missed conversations and what you can do to improve them and your PPC ROI.

Introduction by:
Speakers:
Bryan is opening the discussion about conversation marketing versus click or visitor marketing. Most marketers are not budgeting for the tactics that can make the difference such as multi-variant testing.
Why are conversations failing?
1. Lack of Trust. 2. Establishing Relevance. Google uses this concept in presenting their search results. On average, when visitors come to a site 10% bounce off the site right away, 55% bounce in 2 clicks  and an additional 15% drop off by the third click. This is way too high and needs to be addressed. Users will click endlessly if they are finding what they are looking for; either content or links. Bryan is relating this concept to the analogy of a “broken scent”. When a dog is tracking something down it sniffs for the next clue. Two thirds of all visitors are bouncing off your site…so how do we rethink  this path of conversion?
What do we do?
Optimization needs to be thought of from a goal conversion perspective. Now Brett is going to talk about Google Analytics and the founder of Urchin is going to show us the “lost” opportunities analysis in Google Analytics. Both speakers agree that we should always be testing.  
Focus on high traffic areas of your website with the biggest potential for revenue; look at the landing pages, leaky funnels, site overlay, and internal site search pages. How do I know if it’s the site vs. the ad that needs adjustment? Brett is relating website traffic to auto traffic patterns and flow.
Looking at reports in the analytics products can seem intimidating at first…recommendation is just go to the area that makes the most sense first. The first thing we are looking at is traffic ad bounce rate. Bounce rate is defined as those who leave fairly quickly. The first area he is focusing on is the landing page section. How can we increase page views and minimize bounce rate? Once inside Google Analytics, looking at the views tab on the far right, review bounce rate graph and focus on the red indicators. Next is the funnel report. Traffic going down the center achieve the goal. Looking at the exits will focus you on the “leaky funnel”. Look at this with the site overlay feature and some actionable info is very apparent. Internal site search is another way to see what users are looking for. This really shows us ways to test content. Where do they start and where do they end?  Do we need to add pages to help or make the path smoother?
How do we know if it’s the ad or the page?
Look at the landing page optimization panel to study a particular page. look at the non paid bounce rate vs. paid bounce rate. Check the “scent”.. is this page delivering? If paid traffic converts more than the site average, chances are the ads are working well. One way to get started in testing is to start small, for example, working towards ‘contact us’ paths.
Now the panel will take questions and answers. Bryan will be giving away his book “a/b testing - Always Be Testing“. Also chheck out www.ConversionUniversity.com for more information.
How Testing Works?
Basic plan is to take the traffic coming into your site and split it down different testing paths. Minor code adjustments are needed to use the Google Optimizer tool. Most marketers need think of what the intent is of the keyword used by the visitor. Someone can use the same keyword but have two different intentions. The keyword might be good and the experience once on the site could be bad. Bryan is showing us how personality types look at web sites very differently.
There are four major categories, methodical, competitive, spontaneous and humanistic. Looking at Overstock.com, 98% of the traffic bounced.  For Spontaneous people it worked; Humanistic did not have any content (reviews); Methodicals did not relate and Competitives wanted to use search. They found adding an  image that talked to the other personas increased revenue by 70,000 a day. Wow…it would be nice to have a site that has that big of an opportunity.
What can we do to build trust?
Showing service levels agreements around contact forms. Have policies displayed as well. Keeping checkout processes to a minimum (2-4 steps). Bryan is showing us many examples and he is a very fast talker.
Q&A
  • Definition of absolute unique visitor - assigned as a cookie created
  • Definition of unique visitor - cookie already assigned and identified
  • Google Analytics good for eCommerce analysis but Google Optimizer slows down the site - Check your tags
  • Recommendations from Brett include testing extreme vs. similar scenarios
  • What percentage of your budget should be used for Multi-Variant testing (MVT) - 5-10%
  • Do certain personalities use paid vs natural search - Yes but not really

Multivariate Testing Accelerates and Drives Improved Conversion Rates

Published
by
Eric Dudley
on August 11, 2008
in Customer Acquisition, Lead Generation, Online Marketing, SEO, Search Marketing, Website Analytics and Website Effectiveness
. 3 Comments

As online marketers we have many levers to optimize.  As we strive to attract qualified visitors we also realize a targeted visitor is only as good as the experience they encounter when they arrive.   It is our opportunity to deliver an exceptional experience and great offer that they choose to act and achieve a desired outcome.

Testing landing pages is a great way to determine what message, experience, and offer our audience best responds.  It’s about “lift” and “improved conversion rates”. By thoroughly testing and optimizing landing pages, marketers have realized exponential returns. 

While an effective, but less sophisticated model of testing, A/B testing tests a single site element against a single control version. For example, two landing pages each with a different headline and hero image.

Quickbooks Multivariate Test

Quickbooks Multivariate Test

Multivariate testing takes A/B testing to another level by testing multiple elements at the same time. It not only shows you which combination of elements generates more leads, but shows which individual elements generates more conversions, whether it be a call to action, a button, an offer, or even a hero image. Multivariate testing allows you to identify the specific aspects of your campaign elements that have the greatest influence on site visitors.

By using multivariate testing, you will be able to ascertain which elements of your Paid Search landing page yields the highest number of site visitors to perform a desired action such as requesting information or making a purchase.

While many of the champion combinations may seem intuitive, many will also surprise you.

Using multivariate testing accelerates a marketers ability to yield the best results when comparing to A/B testing.  As an example, with one of our clients, we were able to produce a lift of over 11% using multivariate testing in a short period of time.  If you are interested in learning more about multivariate testing we would recommend these:

  • Google Optimizer is a free multivariate testing platform but has many limitations.
  • Omniture recently purchased Offermatica and have re-branded it: Test & Target.  It’s a much more sophisticated platform for multivariate testing and one we have evaluated and adopted.

What would a 11% or even 1% lift of visitor conversions do for your bottom-line?   In many cases, make it a no brainer decision.  I welcome your feedback and comments.

Search Engine Strategies Day 1 - What To Do?

Published
by
Tom Dressler
on August 7, 2008
in Branding, Customer Acquisition, Customer Retention, Lead Generation, Online Marketing, Paid Search, SEO, Search Marketing, Social Media, Website Analytics and Website Effectiveness
. 3 Comments

Search Engine Strategies San Jose 2008We are getting ready to head out to San Jose for the 2008 Search Engine Strategies Conference, Aug. 18-22. For the first time we will be blogging LIVE providing great information on the latest in Search Engine Marketing. Please join us here at MarketerInsight to learn what’s going on at Google, Yahoo and MSN Live Search.

Below is a overview of what’s going on. Please let me know on what topics are of interest to you. I have some ideas but would like confirmation. So here it goes…

Search Engine Strategies offers 5 different tracks on the first day of the conference, they are:

  1. World View
  2. Search 2.5
  3. Search Industry Track
  4. What’s Next?
  5. ClickZ Track

The first session I’m planning to attend falls under the What’s Next track, called More Customers, Fewer Costs - Why Marketing to the ‘Long Tail’ Makes Sense.  This session “will address how marketers utilize the long tail of the Internet and search engine marketing to identify and reach consumers who are interested in what a company has to offer, but don’t fit the traditional definition of the demographic audience.”

The next session on my personal agenda is Pay Per Conversion, which is under the Search Industry Track.  This session will center around how to improve content to increase conversion rates.

The Keynote Panel follows with a conversation about How Search Fits Into Digital Advertising.

After lunch, I will be attending the Storyteller Marketing session.  This session will teach how to communicate by telling a story and how the storytelling method delivers a memorable message which will hopefully lead to positive results.

The final panel of the day is a Keynote Presentation by Lee Siegel, author of “Against the Machine.“ I’m looking forward to receiving a copy of the book and letting you know what it’s all about.

Finally, the day ends with a VIP dinner hosted by Omniture’s Chris Zaharias.  The dinner is sure to be an exciting end to an exciting day.  I plan on posting updates while I’m attending the different sessions to keep you current on what we’re learning.

Coming up Day 2 of 4.