Archive for September, 2008

Advanced AdWords Tip: Getting Hourly Conversion Data in Google Analytics

September 11th, 2008 by admin

by Steve LaLonde – PPC Manager at DragonSearch 

I love Google Analytics.  It’s free – and everybody loves free stuff – but more importantly, it’s very powerful.  In fact, Google Analytics is a perfectly suitable analytics platform for probably 98% of websites.  It’s an arguably enterprise-class web analytics solution.  But Google Analytics is not perfect.  In fact, it’s missing a few key features.

#1 on my list of things Google Analytics is sorely lacking: Hourly Conversion Data for AdWords Traffic.  

rates 

 Having hourly conversion data for AdWords traffic in Google Analytics would be so great! After all, your web visitors behave very differently throughout the 24hr day. Wouldn’t it be nice to know when your site converts paid traffic most effectively?  For sites running Pay per Click advertising this data is very important, as it could – and should – inform your day parting schedules.  Problem is, when you look at AdWords traffic in Analytics, you can’t see hourly conversion data.  

Fortunately there’s a way to (kind of) see this AdWords hourly conversion data.  All you have to do is install another duplicate website profile, and apply a filter to the new profile.  In effect, you’ll be creating a new ‘duplicate’ analytics profile which tracks only AdWords visitors — giving you an easy way to see hourly conversion rates for AdWords visitors. 

To create the duplicate profile, go to Analytics settings –>  ”add website profile” –>  ”add profile for an existing domain” .  Then enter the following filter settings, and click “Save Changes”. 

 

*NOTE: Don’t forget to recreate your goals in this newly created profile!!! Just pull the goal URLs from your original site profile, and re-setup the goals in this new profile.   

 What you’ve created is a duplicate profile for your website, which will only show AdWords traffic.  This way, you’ll be able to look at Hourly Conversion Rates and Totals for AdWords – only traffic.  You won’t be able to get very granular – like down to the keyword or ad group level – but you’ll see obvious AdWords trends across the 24 hour time frame.  This can point out obvious times which your site converts PPC traffic at its best.  Use this data to inform your day parting schedules in AdWords, and watch conversion rates (hopefully) improve!  

 analytics goals tab

I hope you’re able to employ this little trick to isolate hourly conversion data for your AdWords campaigns.  

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Posted in PPC Management Related, Pay-per-click | 9 Comments »

Mistakes in PPC Ads Can Make Your Brand Look Bad

September 8th, 2008 by admin

 

by Steve LaLonde – PPC Manager at DragonSearch

 Everybody makes mistakes.  Mistakes, to some extent, are perfectly normal, and even expected.  But there are certain types of mistakes just one person can make, which can shed a negative light, or generate negative impressions (get it, impressions) for an entire brand or organization. 

Mistakes in PPC ad texts are one such example.  A typo here, a grammatical error there, no biggie, right?  Well, I’m not so sure. 

 

This is the real life PPC ad which gave me the idea for this blog post: 

 funny ford ppc ad

 

Not to pick on Ford in particular, but they’re not exactly renowned for quality right now as it is. Ironically, they’re copywriters or PPC managers aren’t too reliable either.  This broken down PPC ad doesn’t exactly roll of the tongue.  I wonder how many thousand impressions this ad generated?  I wonder if it’s still being displayed?!  *This is a real ad I spotted in Google SERPS several weeks ago. 

I hope this post serves as a friendly reminder to apply a bit of quality control to your PPC efforts, especially when it comes to your PPC ad text!  

Posted in PPC Management Related, Pay-per-click | No Comments »

Are You Tracking Site Search with Google Analytics?

September 8th, 2008 by admin

by Steve LaLonde – PPC Manager at DragonSearch          

By now you’re already aware that Google Analytics is an extremely powerful web analytics platform. Today, I’d like to point out one of its more under-utilized features; site search tracking, and why you should definitely be using it.  

analytics site search  

So Google Analytics gives us the option of tracking site search.  In other words, you can track the search queries users type into your websites search box (provided your website has a search box).   Best of all, site search tracking is usually pretty easy to setup.  If your site has a search function, you’ll certainly want to enable the site search tracking function in Analytics. 

But why track site search -?  you may ask.  Well, the answer is simple!  In essense, by using your site search, your visitors are telling you, in their own words, exactly what they’re looking for, after they reach your site!   This info is literally priceless to PPC folks, Website Optimizing folks, and pretty much everyone else who has a vested interest in a particular site.  

Imagine all that you’ll learn about your site visitors and their intentions, by tracking and analyzing this data.   

So how do you set it up?  We’ve provided the basic steps here.  For more detailed info, you should visit this very comprehensive blog post on site search. 

 

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Basic Instructions:

1). First, you’ll need determine whether or not your site has a search function.  If you see a search box on your website, move on to step two.  :)

2). Next, you’ll want to login to your GA profiles’ settings, and click “Do track Site Search”.  Finally, you’ll need to enter a category parameter in the blank field. These are the letters that designate an internal query category.  You may be able to find these by searching for something on your site, and analyzing the URL this search returns.  

3). You’ll then have the option of stripping out these category parameters.   

4). Click ‘Save Changes’ and you’re all set.  

 

You should start seeing some site search data in GA, under the Content Tab in your analytics profile!   

Let the mining of precious data begin!   

 

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Posted in PPC Management Related, Pay-per-click | No Comments »

Google Pushing Chrome, Yahoo! Pushing Firefox, IE Doing Nothing

September 5th, 2008 by admin

by Steve LaLonde – PPC Manager at DragonSearch 

 

You’ve read all about Google Chrome; Googles new web browser which totally came out of nowhere and shook up the web earlier this week.   Chrome is Googles’ first attempt at a OS  browser, and it’s certainly got people talking, thinking and even conspiricy-theorizing.  

What’s interesting though, comes from a search engine you may have forgot about during all this Chrome hoopla.  Yup, I’m talking about Yahoo!  

If you visit Yahoo!, you may notice something interesting at the top of the homepage.   An attractive download link, suggesting you download a brand new browser: “Yahoo! recommends upgrading to the NEW safer, faster Firefox 3 – FREE >> Download Now”  

Over at Google, there’s a similar link for Chrome. “New! Download Chrome – the new browser from Google.” 

 So what we have is the two search engines with the biggest market shares, suggesting users download new browsers, which aren’t IE.  Google pushing Chrome.  Yahoo! pushing Firefox 3.  MSN, well, not doing a whole lot of anything.   

 With the recent Google – Yahoo! deal, I can’t help but conspiricy-theorize a bit myself.  If more Yahoo! folks download FF 3, and Google users download Chrome, more of the searching whole, will eventually migrate away from Internet Explorer; and be served even more Google ads, even if through the Yahoo!-branded, and now partially Google backended Yahoo!.

Interesting stuff to say the least.   

 

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Posted in Search Marketing Industry, Social Networking Media | No Comments »



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