Tag Archive for 'conversions'

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:

Search Marketing Benchmark Guide for 2009

Published
by
Kyle Bumgardner
on September 16, 2008
in Online Marketing and Search Marketing
. 0 Comments

MarketingSherpa’s Search Marketing Benchmark Guide for 2009 has been released, which provides an interesting collection of data that can be used a reference when determining what role Search Marketing needs to play in an organization.

To organize the 300+ charts and survey results, The Guide covers 5 major areas outlined below:

  1. Budgeting and Search
  2. Tactics of Search
  3. Search Providers Explored
  4. Measuring and Testing
  5. Search Benchmarks

Useful takeaways from the guide:

  1. Budgeting for Search requires strategic planning
  2. Search Advertising affects Your Brand ( Favorably)
  3. More marketers have adopted analytics (Google Analytics leads the way

Survey Results to consider for 2009:

  1. Conversion and ROI rank as the top two most under-used metrics for Search Marketing
  2. Search is a medium that affects the perception of your Brand
  3. The majority of marketers “under-budget” for Search and fail to realize their goals

Read and download the full Executive Summary here

 

SES - Social Media Analysis and Tracking

Published
by
Tom Dressler
on August 20, 2008
in Social Media
. 1 Comment

Social Search can be used to drive traffic, conversions, and increase ROI by monitoring conversations happening in cyberspace, often in real time. By using buzz-monitoring tools such as Buzzlogic, search professionals can be very effective in finding influencers within online conversations and reaching out to them. As one example of a few that will be presented, learn how Military.com leverages social media and buzz-monitoring tools, together with a solid understanding of business goals, to increase profitability.

Moderator:
Speakers:
Two top level ideas on how to measure Social Media.
  1. Look at your referrer logs and breakout Conversational Media
  2. Look into data or let Google do it via site trends
Idea: Have CMO’s work closely with Web Analyst
Read: Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide
Notes from Rob Key, CEO, Converseon:
  • One of the challenges is what do we do with the data once we have it. Rob indicates that 5 of the top 10 sites online today are Social Media sites. The question is, what are the people talking about and where are the talking about it?
  • He is outlining “How to Design a Social Media Strategy”
    1. Step 1 is to Listen - What is the external tone
    2. Mining the Universe - First Know What You Want To Know
      1. What is the Volume of Conversation?
      2. Who are the Influentials? - You should only be contributing 10% of the time overall
      3. Report on Voices
      4. Report on Relationship Topics
      5. Report on Competitors/Features
      6. Report by Cloud Tags
    3. How to use the data?
      1. An Extension of Customer Service ( Rob sites a BusinessWeek article) & Reputation Mgmt.
      2. Search Results - Engagment Strategy
      3. Listen, Plan, Engage (Graco Case Study is being sited)
    4. Where does this all go?
      1. Trending - We have ___% of positive sentiment and are mapping this conversation trend over time
      2. Social Media Monitoring and Analysis will Flatten
      3. Have a Grand Unified Vision - Sales, Brand Tracking, Conversion Analytics, Traffic & Conversation Monitoring.

Notes from Todd & Breanna who have prepared a case study on Military.com:

  • Site Focus: Connecting Military Population with appropriate communities
  • Goals: Increase awareness and drive traffic
  • Fact: Social Media visitors do convert higher than baseline visitors
  • DoD Buzz
    • Strategy: Isolate the influencers and reach passionate readers of military defense news and information
    • Goal: Increase product awareness to the (new) influencers and their audiences
    • Engaged BuzzLogic
      1. Uncover Conversations utilizing keyword data and break into categories - then cross reference to social media outlets
      2. There was a set of blogs that were very rigorus on topical point
      3. Rank the influencal site based on content
      4. Identify the influencer networks of ad placement - influencer to influencer connection
    • Campaign Overview
      • Create compelling, informative and clear call to action
      • Ran on a cross section of 250 blogs including influencers
      • Results:
        • 86% Higher CTR than historical average
        • Social Media Users Took Action - 5.3% lift in conversion rate overall (RSS feeds and Email Subscriptions)
        • 60% higher new visitors than the site average
        • the SM ads performed an avg. of 6.25% better than the site historical average.
    • Key Observations/Learnings
      • Active conversations about specific topics attract passionate audiences.
      • Social search is different than web search it’s gets you closer to keyword search intent
      • Influencer’s and their network increase ad performance
      • Conversation’s offer a new window on consumer psychology
    • Social Media ia about selecting trust sources and trusting in what they say.
Notes from Edmund:
  • What to track
    • Analyze page views over time - since many forums are optimized for search, engagement is highly visible…forever: SEO continues to offer new visitors over time
    • Track links posted and clicks received by the site (Using match back through Omniture data)
    • Calculation of a Social Media CPM is possible
  • Categorize and analyze discussion topics

SES - Identify, Analyze, Act: Search Engine Marketing by the Numbers

Published
by
Tom Dressler
on August 19, 2008
in Website Analytics
. 1 Comment

Many companies find it difficult to use web analytics for more than reporting and ad-hoc investigations. By defining requirements, roles, tasks, and benchmarks, an efficient process replaces one-off requests. This session covers practical work flows that you can quickly implement to see improved, consistent returns from your data. This sets a platform for experience-based learning that helps a company to set standards, anticipate a build-cycle or campaign refresh, and prioritize search marketing efforts.

Moderator:
Speakers:
Notes from Brian Cosgrove:
  • One SEO implementation idea is to categorize areas of your website pages to analyze by sectional intent
  • Filtering is also a great way to look through statistics
  • Requests today are almost all data-driven. How do we make sure the data is relevant? Web analysts are good at what they do…let them do it. Analyst insights are funneled throughout organizations and various roles. The key role that seems to be missing in the operations/project manager. This person is key in allowing the time and place to install process. Here is an example of a process: 4 weeks of analysis > 2 weeks in business requirements > then the project manager takes over > analyst waits for the data usually focusing on other projects.
  • Specific Reports
    • How many pages on my site are paid landing pages?
    • Make sure your SEO pages are also effective in conversion
    • Create user bench marks
  • Install platforms correctly to ensure great data
  • Identify actions you can take
  • Coordinate resources
  • Separate analytics cycles
Notes from Heather Doughertyof HitWise:
  • She indicates that she will be focusing on some of HitWise’s new tools
  • Her first point is to stay ahead of trends
  • Understanding reliance on paid vs. organic search within specific industries
  • Also understanding the same for any competitor websites
  • Determine which search engines are sending traffic to competitors
  • Measure the impact of brand awareness upon competitors organic traffic
  • Compare where people are searching to where they are clicking
  • Improve keyword list
  • Identify who is doing well in sponsored listings and learn from their copy
  • Learn from the best optimizers (or partners)
  • Determine user intent - purchase or news?
  • Integrate search findings across your organization

Notes from Michael Stebbins

  • What’s in your data - Make sure you are collecting the right data - look at the trends
    • Bounce Rate
    • Average Time
    • Page Views
    • Conversion Ratio
    • Cost of Visitor
    • Revenue per Visitor
  • What is your process - The Grim Reaper
    • Tactical Question: Which 10% are my ads not performing
    • Possible Answers: High cost, bad roi, low engagement, low conversion
    • If yes, then discontinue
      • pull data - look at ROI or ROAS
      • look at the highest cost campaign - start at the bottom
      • check sample size
      • and review the data points above
      • review and create action plan
  • Look at www.customerintent.com
  • Tools
    1. Check commercial intent tool: adCenter labs by Microsoft
    2. Google adWords keyword tool
    3. Back to Adcenter to look at demographic and seasonal data - Messaging (See Persuasion Architecture from Bryan Eisenberg)
    4. Look at Google Ad Planner tool
    5. Create 3 copies of ads to rotate evenly - 1 copy of the challenger
Notes from Brett Crosby
  • 4 years ago today Google approached Urchin at the Google Dance about acquiring them
  • Check the book “a/b Always Be Testing”
  • What is the history of Web Analytics
    • Today analytics is in the forefront of business thought leadership wanting their own report.

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