Analytics and Metrics Archives

Principles of Building Digital Performance KPI Metric Dashboards for Non-profits

April 27, 2023

By Daniela Alba

Non-profit organizations rely heavily on digital performance metrics to measure the success of their online campaigns and outreach efforts. However, many non-profit organizations struggle to keep up with the disruptive impact of the data revolution and the challenges posed by fragmented customer experiences.

To combat this, building efficient digital performance KPI Metric dashboards is increasingly important to better understand your audience’s behavior and preferences, including their interests, giving habits, and financial situation.

To fully leverage the benefits of digital performance dashboards, it’s essential to have a solid understanding of the principles behind them. This blog post will explore the key principles of building digital performance KPI metric dashboards for non-profits, providing actionable tips and insights along the way.

Key Metrics and Data Points

Source: who.int

Organizations can quickly understand their constituents and monitor trends with the correct use of dashboards. One of the key benefits of dashboards is their ability to facilitate faster learning and drive impact. An effective dashboard will provide clear insights into donor behavior and needs, allowing them to make data-driven decisions and improve their overall performance.

When building a dashboard, it’s important to choose relevant KPI metrics for your audience to avoid overwhelming them with too much data. Keep in mind that the purpose of the dashboard is to quickly convey insights and drive action. To provide more context, consider contextualizing your metrics with ancillary visualizations and include external data points.

Source: datapine.com

This will help your audience better understand the metrics and their impact on the overall campaign. Summarizing financials in a clean and clear view is important to ensure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to budget vs. actuals.

The ability to filter down to specific attributes is also important to drive insights. This will allow stakeholders to hone in on specific areas of the campaign and understand what’s working and what’s not. Don’t forget about operational dashes for quality control to ensure that your campaign is running smoothly. Lastly, keep in mind that different stakeholders have different needs, so it’s important to create different dashboards for different audiences.

Create Effective Dashboards

Source: Funraise

Create effective dashboards that truly serve their purpose. First, ask yourself who the dashboard is for and what its purpose is. This will help determine the appropriate combination of charts and numbers to use. Remember to avoid burying data with too many views, as this can quickly become overwhelming. Instead, limit data in one view and ensure that it relates to the insight needed.

It’s also important to experiment, iterate, and solicit feedback when creating dashboards. This ensures that they are constantly evolving to meet the needs of the audience. Collaboration is key when creating dashboards, so don’t overestimate its importance. By working together, you can create a dashboard that truly drives impact.

Identify Your Needs

In order to create effective dashboards, it’s important to identify your needs. This includes understanding your audience and identifying the most important metrics for your organization. It’s also crucial to address gaps in data that may be needed and align visualizations with the story you want to tell. When organizing your dashboard, it’s important to make it user-friendly and decide on the appropriate number of views.

Source: WHO Financial Statements

You should consider how you want to summarize financials and the importance of operational dashes for quality control. Different dashboards may be needed for different stakeholders, so it’s important to keep that in mind as well. Experimenting, iterating, and soliciting feedback can also help improve the effectiveness of your dashboard.

Final Thoughts

Dashboards play a critical role in helping organizations make data-driven decisions and drive impact. It’s important to understand the behavior of your audience and identify the most critical metrics to include in your dashboard. By limiting data in one view and ensuring it relates to the insight needed, you can avoid burying important information and create a user-friendly experience.

Experimentation, iteration, and collaboration are key components in creating an effective dashboard. Soliciting feedback from stakeholders and testing different visualizations can lead to better insights and more impactful decisions. Additionally, aligning visualizations with the story you want to tell and organizing the dashboard in a clear and concise manner can make it more impactful.

Dashboards are essential for organizations looking to make data-driven decisions and drive impact. By following these best practices and continually refining your approach, you can create effective dashboards that provide critical insights and drive success.

How B2B Companies Can Leverage GA4

February 22, 2023

By Daniela Alba

The latest version of GA4 is scheduled to take over Universal Analytics on July 1st, 2023. In this post, we highlight some of the key differences between UA and GA4, how to prepare for GA4, and how B2B companies can leverage GA4 changes.

Key Differences Between GA4 and Universal Analytics

Google’s GA4 is a recent version of Google’s analytics platform intended to support the future of analytics reporting. The key difference is that GA4 is set to run seamlessly across various platforms and does not depend on cookies.

It gathers both website and app data and uses event-based data instead of session-based data. This offers a more inclusive and user-oriented approach to scrutinizing website performance, thus enhancing the customer experience.

It employs an event-based data model to measure website traffic and user engagement. Moreover, GA4 comes with privacy controls, advanced reporting features, and the capability to measure cross-device performance at the property level.

How to Prepare for GA4

It is highly advisable to create parallel GA4 properties alongside UA properties in order to compare data. The sooner the better. More details here: “Make the switch to Google Analytics 4”. A few tips to prepare for Google Analytics 4:

Begin building historical data on GA4 well before the deadline.
Creating GA4 properties now will allow getting ahead of any potential issues in setting up events and conversion tracking.
Understand how paid media tracking will get impacted by GA4.

How B2B Companies Can Leverage GA4

GA4 is here to change and improve the way B2B marketers measure and track performance. Here are some ways B2B companies can leverage GA4 for increased efficiency.

1. Identify Customers With Highest Lifetime Value

With advanced machine learning and predictive capabilities, GA4 provides marketers with real-time insights into user behaviors and conversions. GA4 also offers an easy way to create lookalike audiences based on high-value customers, enabling marketers to expand their reach to similar potential customers.

These features will allow businesses to streamline their data analysis and decision-making processes without the need for complex analytics models, saving time and resources.

2. Better Understanding of Complete Customer Journey

B2B Companies will be able to better understand the complete customer journey with GA4’s event-based measurement model. This model provides a holistic view of the customer lifecycle that is not limited by individual sessions or platforms.

GA4 will help easily track data across various applications and devices, providing a comprehensive and accurate understanding of how customers are interacting with your brand.

3. Data-Driven Attribution for Improved ROI:

Data-Driven Attribution is a model for distributing credit for conversions that relies on data for each conversion event. It calculates the actual contribution of each click interaction using data from your account.

This feature will help improve the return on investment (ROI) of brand’s marketing campaigns by analyzing the customer journey from the first touchpoint to the final conversion. It can also provide a more accurate and detailed picture of how different marketing activities contribute to conversions.

It can help identify which marketing channels and campaigns are most effective in driving conversions and allocate your budget accordingly. Allowing to optimize marketing efforts and achieve better results with less investment.

4. Cross-Channel Insight Integration

GA4 provides enhanced integration with diverse Google offerings such as Google Ads, Search Console, Merchant Center, Display and Video 360, BigQuery, and Search Ads 360. This integration enables you to blend web and app data, extract valuable insights, and utilize them to refine marketing campaigns.

By blending web and app data, GA4 allows valuable insights into customers’ behavior, interests, preferences, and needs. These insights can help identify trends and patterns in customers’ behavior, such as how they interact with websites, which products or services they are interested in, and where they are located. This data can then be used to refine marketing campaigns and optimize online presence.

Looking Ahead of GA4

Google Analytics 4 is a powerful analytics tool that provides businesses with valuable insights about their customers. However, more than insights are needed to drive engagement and conversions. An integrated marketing strategy that incorporates these insights into various marketing channels is crucial for businesses to achieve their marketing goals.

To put these insights into action and optimize marketing ROI, B2B companies need to employ a digital marketing solution that can help them apply data-driven learnings across multiple touchpoints including programmatic advertising, social media marketing, website design, and email marketing.

How to successfully advertise without third-party data

April 29, 2022

By John Lee

An artistic representation of using first party data for audiences.

After all the talk clears and the dust settles on Apple and Google’s third-party data changes, what will become of digital marketing? Unlike some have led us to believe, this won’t be the end of digital marketing. It won’t even be the end of digital marketing as we know it. It does, however, mark the beginning of new and innovative ways to find customers who are ready to listen to, and act on, the messages we share.

Here are a few points to show how the shift in digital marketing will affect some initiatives, and make room for new ideas.

Thinking deeper about first-party data

Using first-party data is by no means a new tactic, but without the amount of third-party data we all once had access to, this first-party data should be looked at in new and more clever ways.

This may be as simple or complicated as optimizing your website to glean more information from site visitors. Do you have tracking in place to know who’s interested in your products, enabling you to better message and respond to them on other digital platforms?

These visitors are already part-way down the sales funnel, and may only need a small bump to take them all the way. While it may seem like work up front to optimize your website for a more robust tracking system, the payoff for finding stronger-interested parties can be worth it.

Creating smarter lookalike audiences

The science of data is here to stay, and the implications for what it can do are immeasurable. Algorithms are being created every day to pull in data sets and produce predictive responses to numerous questions around the world—and advertising is no different.

Like most algorithms, the more data points that can be factored in, the better the outcome. Or in advertising terms: the better the lookalike audiences that are created. In addition to strong lookalike audiences, it’s important to find the right platform for those audiences to be targeted.

For example, a lookalike audience for a healthcare company marketing to insurance providers may be useful on LinkedIn, but not as useful on Reddit. Whereas a specialty sneaker company might easily find a strong audience on Reddit, but not on LinkedIn.

Allowing ideas that might fail

Before you completely fight this idea, hear it out. In no way are we proponents of bad ideas just for the sake of trying anything. But we are proponents in making calculated risks that might just win big—and allowing trials before jumping full in.

One of the greatest things about so many forms of digital marketing is that they are easy to try, track and improve. There are countless times where simple things like A/B testing can prove helpful to finding the strongest social media ad, the better ROI for SEM, or the landing page design that produces the most leads.

With third-party, first-party or lookalike audiences, it can sometimes be the unexpected message that resonates best. Or the outside-the-box offer that adds brand loyalty from current customers—further strengthening the first-party data already accessible to a company for marketing.

How to Use Instagram Reels Analytics for Business

July 9, 2021

By Michelle Morales

A month ago Instagram introduced an improved analytics feature for both Reels and Live features. But what will it actually do to help branded content? We did a breakdown of these new features, and how Instagram is hoping they will provide insight for businesses.

First: How to Access Analytics in Instagram

Within a business account, you can easily find these new features in the “Insights” section. It will show analytics for up to 30 days across the different types of content in your account. For a specific Reel, you can click the triple dots on that Reel for insights.

Next: How to Analyze Analytics for Instagram

It’s not enough to know likes or followers if your goal is to grow your audience and increase interactions. Understanding how a platform is reaching your audience, how content is being distributed, and who is accessing it, can all lead to better future strategy with both organic and paid content. Here’s what you can now access across all content types, including Reels and Live:

Accounts reached
Reach based on followers and non-followers
Reach based on content type, also divided by followers and non-followers
Visuals of top content based on reach for each type

Taking in all of this data will help you piece together information about how your audience is interacting, when they are online, and what type of content they are interested in.

This may differ depending on the type of content you are sharing, which can be helpful to see for organizing future organic content, and making sure not to waste time on things that aren’t interesting to your viewers.

Finally: How to Use Analytics for Future Content

“Strategy is king,” is one of our favorite mottos around here, and analytics for social is no different. Consuming all the data helps create stronger strategy, and ultimately better content moving forward.

For paid media, the analytics information can be used to inform what segments to target or how to reach more viewers that may be interested in your content or services. While not every brand or company is looking for immediate response from their audience, it is helpful to know what makes someone stay and watch, or swipe away. And using this data can increase ROI for the ads you put in place.

Whether organic or paid content, analyzing data is a never-ending process that needs to be addressed on a regular basis. Interests and needs can shift and evolve just as quickly as trends and audiences change (which we all know can be very fast!).

We typically run weekly and monthly reports to make sure content matches audience interests, and tweak ads or posts as needed. This can also differ depending on how much content regularly goes out from a brand, and if there is anything notable happening that may cause larger changes in analytics. Try out a regular schedule for checking analytics, but be flexible with what works best until you settle into a routine. Analyze, adjust and enjoy how your content is resonating with others!

UX and SEO Optimization Needs for 2021

June 8, 2021

By Emily Smith

As long as people have been searching for content, websites have been optimizing to direct those searches for their benefit. Many basic aspects have remained the same in terms of best practices and strategy for search engine optimization, which has made SEO a part of almost every website. That said, shifts in content consumption and search options over time will always require updates in order to keep your targeted audience in scope.

No article can fully give every best practice, or magic secret to ranking top in every search. But keeping up to date on search trends and audience needs can not only help rank your site higher, it can also provide a better user experience for those interacting with your website. Here are three top things that can get overlooked when auditing your site’s SEO.

Optimizing for voice search

Who would have guessed 10 years ago that in 2021 we’d be asking Alexa to play Neil Diamond in our kitchen, or telling Siri to find us the best dim sum restaurant open right now? Most of us wouldn’t have guessed. Even five years ago the ability to speak to search was not used nearly as much as it is today.

Those updates in technology have changed the way we search, therefore changing the way sites need to be optimized. What we search for when we type, even where we are when we are searching by keyboard, can be decisively different from what we ask Siri to search for us.

Although not every website needs to optimize for voice search, it would do every company good to take a look at their user base. Determining the needs of your audience, and offerings of your company, voice search could affect your ranking on certain search terms.

Optimizing for accessibility

We discussed accessible websites earlier this year, but did not touch on how they can work together with search optimization. Similar to voice search, thinking about optimizations with accessibility in mind may lead to overall improvements with your site.

Unlike voice search though, accessibility can do more for your site than improving search terms. With tens of millions of people in the United States living with a disability, keeping accessibility in mind when writing alt tags, headers and more, can vastly help not only their searchability but their experience when they make it to your site.

Optimizing for Core Web Vitals

The final pillar in our 2021 SEO update list focuses on user experience. Google is placing more importance on UX as one of the metrics for page ranking. If your site has poor Core Web Vitals according to Google’s new algorithm, your page ranking may go down.

After all, what consumer wants to be served a website only to be frustrated by something that has slow load times, isn’t mobile friendly, or has too many ads making it hard to navigate?

To optimize your site, and achieve a good Core Web Vitals score, you’ll need to address the following:

Load performance: the standard is loading within the first 2.5 seconds
Visual stability: if a page jumps around the content as it’s loading
Mobile-friendly: optimize for UX wherever they are viewing
Safe browsing: no malicious or deceptive content
HTTPS: providing a secure way to serve your page
Intrusive interstitials: incorrectly used pop-ups, especially ones that that aren’t mobile-friendly to remove

Creating a site that accounts for search engine optimization and user experience will not only increase ranking, it will improve your customer’s views about your company. Even putting aside ranking, websites need a balance of both form and function. They need to be findable, and usable. With options for different types of audiences, utilizing different types of search processes.

Offline Conversion Tracking – Data You May Be Missing

March 12, 2021

By Maggie Neiswanger

A couple of our favorite things about digital advertising are the ability to reach an intended audience more precisely, and to more accurately measure the Return On Investment (ROI) for each ad that is placed. Not only does this data help advertising be more impactful, it gives us data to better strategize future advertisements as well.

Yes, tell you something you don’t know, right? Did you know that Google offers conversion tracking for offline data too? Google Offline Conversion Tracking helps track things like offline sales, phone calls, form submissions, and downloads. And although it’s there for anyone to access, we’ve found many companies underestimate the value of tracking offline conversions.

Why Offline Conversion Tracking is Important

Without tracking offline conversions it can be hard to tell the quality and value of the leads that the ads are driving. This data can also provide better insight about the Return On Advertising Spend (ROAS) of a campaign. Analyzing where and how these conversions are happening will help to get the most out of an advertising budget, and improve a bid strategy.

For example, let’s say someone clicks on an ad that takes them to a landing page about a specific product. If they read about it, then call a sales rep and give their information, you can have the whole process tracked. It can help you know how the sales call went, and where that customer is in the funnel, and it can all lead back to data on how the original ad is working.

How to Improve Offline Conversion Tracking

Depending on the needs and intended outcomes for Google Ads, each client can have varying strategies working into their ads at any given time. Our recommendation for companies to benefit from Google Offline Conversion Tracking would be to integrate their CRM data with Google Ads. You can find out more about how to import that data here.

This process allows for data and feedback to work together, and help get the highest performance and reach out of the Google Ads that are running. But there are caveats to how this can work properly. For example, ad content from CRM data cannot imply the knowledge of personally identifiable information or sensitive information about your customers.

As with original ad strategy, knowing what to include and exclude can differ depending on your brand and targeted needs. But the more data points that can be analyzed the more improved the contact points can become, leading to increased conversions overall.

Updating Facebook Ad Performance for Apple’s New iOS

January 20, 2021

By John Lee

Apple’s upcoming advertising changes are rolling out soon, and along with that is Apple’s Private Click Measurement (PCM), giving users more options to opt out of the data-tracking methods that Facebook has been using to target audiences.

While some parts of this rollout are seen as a step in the right direction for privacy, it can mean different things for advertisers like us, and the companies that are aiming to reach the right audience with their ads. Because of these shifts, it’s important to strategize updates and changes that ensure ad dollars are still being used wisely.

Upcoming Roadblocks

Two of the biggest problems Facebook has pointed out are app-to-web conversion measurements and cross-domain measurements. For app-to-web, the problem we’ll start to see with conversions is that tracking within the app can no longer be recorded. For example, if your user clicks on a link within an app, like Instagram, it typically opens a browser window still within the app. This type of user experience can no longer be recorded on an iPhone because it is within another app.

The other experience that will no longer be tracked is for companies that have a URL redirect. If a user clicks on a link, but that link redirects to a different webpage, that will be the end of tracking.

While this may seem like only two small situations, ultimately it can become a huge issue if not addressed properly. Performance will be harder to achieve due to lack of data, current Facebook algorithms may not be as strong, leading precise targeting to become a concern.

Solutions for a Smooth Transition

Because Facebook feels these types of experiences are important to ensure users are given ads they care about, they are building their own Aggregated Event Measurement (AEM) to work within Apple’s new protocols.

Although this will allow advertisers to access user data for better targeted ads, there are limitations and updates that need to be made. Members of Flightpath’s marketing team recently participated in a Facebook webinar that outlined these new protocols:

Eight-event limitations for pixel setup
Conversion window updates
Reduction in custom audience sizes
Value optimization within Events Manager

While Facebook did not give point-by-point instructions for how to adapt to all of these changes, we are developing strategies to compensate. One thing we will be doing is making required updates in a timely manner to mitigate any foreseeable bumps in user data. As with all advertising, it’s very imperative to us that these changes are watched closely as they roll out, and that we are making swift adjustments as necessary to ensure the best ROI for all ad dollars spent.

For anyone working within Facebook’s platform, here is a quick to-do list to make sure you are on top of any pending changes with the new Apple iOS program.

Verify your domain in Facebook Business Manager
Prepare to only have 8 events per domain, prioritizing events as needed
Anticipate changes to attribution windows, and update automated rules if necessary
Identify campaign optimization strategies that may require testing (alternative audience options or bidding strategies) as needed

As we said at the start, many of these changes aren’t ideal for the ad targeting we have been able to do to this point. But with proper strategies in place, and the ability to adapt to new updates as needed, we can all continue with useful ads targeted to the right audiences.

Facebook Brand Lift Overview

October 22, 2020

By John Lee

If you advertise on Facebook, or plan to in the future, you may have considered doing a Brand Lift test to see deeper results of how that advertising is supporting your initiatives. But it’s important to note that not all brands need or have access to Brand Lift studies. Our experience working with brands who have done them has given us useful insight into how they work, and who they work best for.

Brand Lift Basics

The point of a Facebook Brand Lift test is to use polling, aimed randomly at Facebook users who have seen your ads, to learn more about ad recall and effectiveness. It can be done for one specific campaign, or across a breadth of advertising within specific dates. The test will run within the dates of the campaign, or after it has completed, but not both.

After determining the audience group, Facebook will randomly create test and control groups, polling them with quick surveys asking questions ad and brand recall.

Who They’re Useful For

Brand Lifts are useful for companies planning to run one campaign for a single brand or product. If you have multiple offerings or products within your company, and advertising is mixed or crosses products, this type of study may not produce clear enough data to make it useful.

Another thing that is required for these tests to work is that creative and budget remain the same throughout the campaign. Again, switching things or testing messages on a campaign can be valuable for other results, but would not yield the data that a Brand Lift is meant for.

Facebook has also set company requirements for a Brand Lift test. One is that in order to run this free test you need to already be working with an Account Representative, and possibly meet certain budget requirements for the advertising you are testing. If you’re not sure if you qualify for a Brand Lift test, we can let you know!

Outcomes to Expect

A well-planned Brand Lift test will be able to help you understand if your advertising is memorable, how aware it has made people of your brand or product, and if potential customers are considering purchasing what you offer.

The results can be very effective in planning future ads and messaging strategies to best reach future customers, grow an audience or increase sales.

Consumers vs. Marketers & Native Mobile Advertising

June 14, 2016

By Cavol Forbes

Not shockingly, the average person looks at their phone 200 times a day. But only 10% of that time is spent browsing the web; The rest of the time is spent using native apps. Unlike like traditional cookie-based tracking typical in PPC advertising, the insights gathered on users via native apps has virtually no bounds. On an aggregate level, marketers can collect data on age, gender and behavior such as where you ordered dinner or where you went to happy hour etc. All this data, but what are they doing with it? The more marketers know about their users, the more they can tailor advertisements and that’s exactly what they want. Creep factor aside, some would say this works in the user’s interest because marketers are more likely to present ads you’re actually interested in seeing. However, most users only see ads as an annoyance they instinctively “skip” or ignore. And with ad blocking software becoming more ubiquitous in web browsers (80% of Americans will be using some kind of ad blocker by 2017), that makes tracking in native apps the most logical path. Not to mention, some estimate that up to 1/3 of PPC traffic is fraudulent (that translates to $7.2B in 2016). That doesn’t make it easy to place the right ad in front of the right person at the right time. Brands and marketers still need to be smart and careful about how they position themselves in a market where consumers are becoming increasingly concerned with privacy and jaded with the typical banner ad or “pre-roll” video.

I attended a meet-up during Internet week hosted by Jun Group, presented by their CEO Mitchell Reichgut titled “Don’t Call it a Phone – How to Advertise on Smartphones and Tablets in the Age of Applications.” Here are key insights on how to stay ahead of the herd and adjust your digital marketing strategy to meet this ever changing market:

No interruptions: That means absolutely no auto-play ads (that you can’t skip) and no pop-ups – ever.
Consider context: How and where users see your content is just as important as the content itself. Opt for custom placement (visible, relevant but not in the way) and tailor content specifically to the website or app’s audience. Yes, this will require development of more versions of ads but it’s worth it in the long run.
Know where your ads are: Many advertisers buy placement but don’t really know exactly what websites or apps will display them and what placement they’ll receive.
Look at media differently: it doesn’t always have to be banner ads or pre-roll videos. Many marketers have had success with value exchange programs within games. For example, a user might be asked to watch a 30 second video (between levels) in exchange for bonus points or a gameplay advantage. However, be careful that the games demographics align with your intended audience, which can be tricky to figure out.

Above all, measurement is the most important component of a successful ad campaign. Some of the above tactics may actually result in seemingly less impressive metrics but If you’re still measuring the success of your campaigns on impressions and clicks alone, don’t forget there’s a good chance much of that data is fraudulent.

How to Rank Better in Google & Bing

March 14, 2013

By flightpath

I’ve been to presentations in the past featuring Danny Sullivan (Search Engine Land), Matt Cutts (Google) and Duane Forrester (Bing). Collectively, these three will make for an entertaining and informative session, and their open Q&A on How To Rank Better on Google and Bing at SXSW was no exception. Nothing groundbreaking was covered, but still […]

I’ve been to presentations in the past featuring Danny Sullivan (Search Engine Land), Matt Cutts (Google) and Duane Forrester (Bing). Collectively, these three will make for an entertaining and informative session, and their open Q&A on How To Rank Better on Google and Bing at SXSW was no exception. Nothing groundbreaking was covered, but still fun and interesting nonetheless, and did include some important reminders. Continue reading “How to Rank Better in Google & Bing”

Facebook Ads CPC vs CPM vs Promoted Stories – What’s a Social Media Marketer to do?

December 10, 2012

By flightpath

It was common knowledge among social media folks that CPC ads were a much better value for marketers. You expected to pay a cost of .35 to nearly a dollar a click depending on your targeted audience (like Manhattan moms who are very pricey to target). An average Facebook ad CTR of .05% seemed to be the industry benchmark for judging the success of an ad. But, that has changed.

CPC, CPM, Promoted Stories, Promoted Posts – there are a lot of options facing social media marketers interested in advertising on Facebook. It used to be that there were only two choices for advertising on Facebook CPC (cost per click) or CPM (cost per impressions).

For years, if you chose CPM your ad would be relegated to a lowly position on the bottom right hand of the user’s newsfeed and gain very few clicks. CPC ads outperformed CPM ads in all tests that we ran here at the agency as well.

But, that has changed.

While Facebook has talked a lot about the value of their new Promoted Stories ads and Promoted Posts, they also quietly chose a new favorite child in the CPC vs CPM debate. We noticed this at Flightpath when CPC ads that have been performing for years suddenly stopped being even displayed and our testing of CPM ads started showing amazing results.

We switched clients over to CPM ads and saw our average Facebook ads CTR jump from an average range of .05% to .20% jump to a range of .50% – .80%. Then we added in Sponsored Stories, to run simultaneously with the CPM ads, and the average CTR jumped even higher to a range of .80% to 1.2%.

At the same time, we are seeing the average CPC fall from that .35 – $1 range down to a bargain basement .06 – .15 CPC. So, for the same Facebook ad spend our clients are getting about 6 times the likes they were getting earlier this year. This is really helping to rapidly grow page likes without having to dramatically up Facebook ad spend.

Why are ads suddenly cheaper and performing better?

So, this is why we think this dramatic uptick in Facebook ad performance is happening: remember months ago when advertisers like GM pulled their Facebook ad spend because they didn’t feel they were getting much of a return and remember when Facebook’s stock came out of the gate to dismal results?

Facebook had to devise a plan to get advertisers excited about spending on the platform so investors would be consider buying Facebook stock. Lowering the cost of ads and rolling out Promoted Stories (which not all Facebook users like, but they seem to click on them anyway) is a great way to get advertisers excited and spending.

If you are still running Facebook CPC ads for your clients, set up a separate CPM campaign with Promoted Stories pronto for testing. The results will blow you away.

5 Reasons to Try YouTube Ads & Setup Tips

August 20, 2012

By flightpath

In online advertising, Google search, Facebook and Twitter get most of the press, but if you’re a brand with quality videos that you don’t think are getting the views they deserve, YouTube ads are a viable option.

While everyone who posts a video to YouTube holds out hope that their video will go viral, the truth is, the odds are slim of that ever happening. (Unless you specialize in Cute Cat Videos. Then, you’re basically guaranteed 18 bazillion views. That’s a scientific fact.)

The same is true for brands with video content (in a post earlier this summer, we documented the failed Men in Black III YouTube channel). Sometimes, you need to get out there and push. In online advertising, Google search, Facebook and Twitter get most of the press, but if you’re a brand with quality videos that you don’t think are getting the views they deserve, YouTube ads are a viable option. Here are five reasons why, along with some tips on how to optimize your ads.

Reason #1: Setup Is Easy
YouTube is owned by Google, and setting up a YouTube ad campaign is very similar to setting up an AdWords campaign. In fact, YouTube ads have been incorporated into AdWords, and that’s where you’ll create your campaign. The first thing you want to do, if possible, is link your YouTube account with your AdWords account. This gives you more robust analytics for your YouTube ads right in your AdWords dashboard. You can run ads without linking the accounts, but you’d be missing out on lots of data, and since you run the ads through AdWords, you might as well link them. Here’s how.

Click on the “New campaign” box in the Campaign section of AdWords, as seen below, and then select “Online Video”:

You’ll be taken to the “Create new video campaign” screen, but don’t fill it out yet. First, on the left hand “Shared library” menu, click on “Linked YouTube Accounts”:

Next, click on the blue “Link YouTube account” box in the window that pops up.

Even if your YouTube account has a different login and password from your AdWords account, they can be linked. Once this is done and the accounts are connected, you’re ready to set up a campaign.

Go back to the main setup for a Video Campaign:

Here you can name your campaign (we suggest going with something more descriptive than “Campaign #1,” because if you run more than one campaign over time, it’ll get confusing), set your daily budget and choose locations. You’ll also get to select a video from your just-linked YouTube account to use in your ads. Next, you can set your max CPV (cost per view), groups you want to target (say you have a comedy short you want to promote, you can target “Humor” and then the “Spoofs and Satire” categories in YouTube), and include any keywords you want your ad to show for.

And then you’re ready to make an actual ad. In the “Ads” tab on your dashboard, click on the “New Video Ad” box. You’ll first have to choose a video you want to advertise:

Once that’s done, it’s time to write your ad. This is done exactly as you would with an AdWords ad. Write a Headline, two Description lines, a Display URL and a Destination URL (you can have the ad take the viewer to the video’s YouTube page or to your YouTube channel). You’ll get to pick a still from your video to act as the ad’s image, and can preview it in real-time.

Reason #2: They’re Not Crazy Expensive
In the world of pay-per-click advertising, a campaign can get expensive as keywords become more competitive. It can obviously be worth it, and sometimes it’s a necessity – but average cost-per-clicks (or CPVs, in this case) are relatively low with YouTube ads, meaning you can drive visits to your videos for less money on a per-click basis. And if you have quality video content that can spread the word about your brand or services, YouTube ads can be one of the more cost-effective ways to spread your message.

Reason #3: Free Link To Your Website
You know those pop-up ads that overlay a video you’re watching? They’re actually free to the owner of the video and video advertiser. The call-to-action overlay, as Google calls it, takes you to an external site, and features a headline and short copy. So while someone is watching your video, you can get an ad pointing to your website at no charge. It’s a real, quantifiable bonus to running a YouTube ad campaign. (Note: Call-to-action overlays are only available if you’ve linked your YouTube and AdWords accounts.)

After you’ve created your ad, click on “Videos” in your dashboard:

You’ll see all your videos related to that campaign. In the first column, called “Video,” you’ll see this underneath the link and description of the video:

Click on the plus sign, and you can create (and later edit or delete) your free call-to-action overlay, which will appear when your video is played. You write it the same way you would an AdWords or YouTube ad, with a Headline, Description, Display URL and Destination URL:

Click-through-rates for these aren’t huge. But to get a free ad and link to your site in such a visible place is a real added value.

Reason #4: Have It Your Way
YouTube offers four different Ad Formats: In-search (your ad appears above YouTube search results), In-slate (users have the option of choosing your ad and watching some of your video, amongst others, before viewing their video), In-display (your ad appears as a suggestion to the right of a YouTube video) and In-stream (your ad shows as a preview before another video). When choosing a format, you’ll get to preview what each will look like in action:

You can choose one or all of the options, and experiment as you wish. It’s a great way to cast as wide or small a net as you want with your ads, and see which format works best for your content and target audience.

Reason #5: They Work
While there are no guarantees of success in online anything, there are enough options within YouTube’s advertising mechanism that you can really make them work for you and drive views of your videos. The real question is, is it worth it to your business to pay for video views? The answer will be different for everyone. But if you do have video content that you want people to see, that will make a difference for your business, then YouTube ads are a great tool to make it happen.

Pinterest Analytics Tools Comparison – PinReach vs Pinerly

June 29, 2012

By flightpath

We took a look at 2 of the most popular Pinterest analytics tools available, Pinerly and PinReach and put them head to head to find out which offered the best Pinterest account analytics tools for brands. So you can know if your content is reaching an audience and also gather the stats you need to report back about your Pinterest campaign to your client.

Pinerly

Pinerly is a complete Pinterest account management platform. In our opinion, this is the best Pinterest analytics tool for marketers. It offers lots of great stats (or Pinalytics) on your Pinterest account including number of repins and likes on individual pins.

On the downside, in order for pins to be tracked by Pinerly each pin must each be created through Pinerly. This means that pins show the URL of origin as Pinerly.com, instead of your brand’s URL. The good news is that any clicks of your pins are still directed to the URL of your choice.

Perhaps once Pinerly is out of beta, there will be a white label option as part of a premium package for brands (not anything we saw on Pinerly just guessing they are going to have a monetization strategy unlike Pinterest). It would also be great if brands could promote pins by paying to be featured in Pinerly’s suggested pins. However, there are currently no opportunities for brands to pay to promote content to other Pinerly users.

What we like:

Scheduling coming soon- a huge bonus for marketers since Pinterest activity peeks during off hours.
Analytics good enough to report back to a client with
Looking for feedback from users

What we don’t like:

Pinerly.com shown as pin URL
No brand promotion opportunities
No comment tracker
Still in beta- though you can request an invite here

PinReach

Billed as a tool for understanding and measuring the impact of your Pinterest account, PinReach is a lot like Klout for Pinterest. Users are assigned PinReach scores based upon the amount of engagement (repins, likes and comments) their Pinterest content receives.

Scores range from 0-90+. According to PinReach, most accounts fall into the 30-39 score range, and there are no PinReach users who have scored above an 89 (Etsy must not have checked their score yet). Certain types of interactions have more influence on a PinReach score. While you get points for filling your boards with pins, you get more when others repin, like or comment on your content.

One stat that PinReach provides that Pinerly does not is the amount of comments received. While the metrics available through PinReach are mostly identical to those available through Pinerly, that’s ok because PinReach has a different goal- it was designed to be less of a dashboard and more of a high level look at the influencers and top images on Pinterest.

What we like:

PinReach is very straight forward and user friendly.
Looking at trending pins can be great inspiration for creating your own.
Much like a Klout score, a PinReach score is a fun way to gamify Pinterest. If you are aiming to brag at BlogHer, having a high PinReach score is just the ticket.

What we don’t like:

No brand promotion opportunities
From a social media marketer’s point of view, the PinReach score, is not necessary. (You know what we mean if you have ever watched a client’s eyes glaze over while explaining a Klout score).
Not the in-depth analytics you need for reporting purposes.

What Pinterest analytics tools are you using? Leave a comment and let us know.

4 Google Analytics Updates You Should Know

May 2, 2012

By flightpath

As most of us in this industry know, Google is always changing and tinkering with its products, from Gmail to Google+, and, often times, the company doesn’t even bother to tell us when changes have been made. (The nerve of some mega-powerful corporations!) As a digital marketing manager, a large chunk of my time is […]

As a digital marketing manager, a large chunk of my time is centered on navigating and understanding Google Analytics, discovering insights and unearthing important data. Lately, several major changes have popped up in Analytics, which may impact the way we use it, as well as the information within. Here are four changes you should know about.

To read the rest of this post, please head over to iMedia Connection.

The Redesign of Google from the Mouths of Those Who Led it

March 12, 2012

By flightpath

Prior to the summer of 2011, no one would have accused Google web products of having the most pleasing visual interface. We attended a deeply insightful SXSW session on their historic redesign. This is what we learned.

Prior to the summer of 2011, no one would have accused Google web products of having the cleanest or most pleasing visual interface. Several of us from Flightpath listened to a deeply insightful SXSW session about the historic summer 2011 redesign that affected nearly all of Google’s web products. We heard insight directly from the design leads from Search, Mail, Maps, and so on.

Here are the insights and takeaways that we found the most fascinating:

For the very first time anywhere, Google presented comps to the public of an ill-fated, unknown major redesign from 2007

The 2011 redesign effort was jumpstarted by a simple IM early that year from Larry Page to the Creative Labs group in New York City, asking them to take stab at redesigning all of Google

That request netted a fast design effort, where the designers in New York were left on their own to develop a “concept car” of a unified visual language for all of Google’s web products

Interestingly enough, the ultimate finished redesign looked very similar to this very first “concept car”

In contrast to the 2007 redesign effort, where the deliverable was a long presentation with exposition and process explanation, the initial first creative in 2011 consisted solely of 10-12 “before and after comps” on 11×17 color printouts. The lesson here is not that every design presentation can solely be done through large printouts, but that you have to recognize and think through how best to present to a given stakeholder. In this case, large printouts laid out on a table worked better when presenting to the top Google troika of Eric Schmitt, Larry Page and Sergey Brin

In April 2011, Larry Page gave the go-ahead for the redesign with a ridiculous goal of end-of-summer launch. So audacious was the goal that the project was likened internally to the “moonshot” in the sixties, and the project was given the code name “Kennedy”

The project was given #1 priority and trumped all new feature development across all affected products

Dropping support for older browsers was critical in successfully launching the redesign on time

While many design standards such as use of a consistent grid system were codified, elements like fonts have yet to be standardized for various reasons (latency of web fonts, unsupported foreign character sets, etc.)

An HTML/CSS Prototype was critical to collaborate with development. In fact, code would be culled from these prototypes to create an online, living style guide through which internal development teams could see interfaces and steal/grab CSS code. The individual product teams would in turn contribute additional elements back to this style guide

Through the help of this style guide, teams were able to give even internal tools the redesign treatment as well

It should come to no surprise to anyone that Google likes data. But interestingly, they started much of the testing of the redesign with more qualitative tests. 80 trusted internal Google participants would be surveyed after seeing each comp for 10 seconds

Of course there was also plenty of quantitative research, much based around using, not shockingly, search data. The well-documented “test for the right blue link color” typified this

The redesigned Gmail was tested by way of “dog-fooding”: A forced launch for all company employees. The backlash was considerable, especially to the increased line spacing implemented, and was coined “Gmailageddon.” The Google design team chose to be patient and acknowledge that much of initial resistance to the new design was due “change aversion”. Over time, users eventually found more favor with the new design, though some design concessions were made regarding line spacing by way of introducing a line-spacing setting option

Given that the new design language made its mass introduction with the Google+ launch in June 2011, many mistakenly attribute the redesign as originating from the Google+ product. In fact, by April 2011, Google+ was nearly complete with an entirely different visual design and the Google+ team had to scramble to successfully integrate the new redesign language in time for their launch

It was not too long ago when the feeling about Google web products was that they work great, but look like sh!t. Both as a Google user (and who isn’t one?) and a designer, I am both appreciative and impressed by how the Google design team has elevated design to the forefront of Google web products.

How Google+ is Being Integrated With AdWords & Other Google Products

March 8, 2012

By flightpath

With Google+, Google’s fledgling social network, one thing is clear: The search giant is determined to make it a success, incorporating Google+ into many of its other products and services that impact brands. Whether this is a tactic to force Google+ adoption or a way to improve its other products is debatable, but ultimately, Google+ is becoming a part of several core Google services, and agencies must take note.

Google AdWords

When starting a campaign in AdWords, advertisers now have Google+ integration as an option.If you opt in to associating your ads with your Google+ page, any +1 click attributed to the ad will also count towards your Google+ brand page. As Google pushes Google+ to play more of a role in search, this could be a beneficial feature on both an SEM and SEO level. In the past, paid search and organic search were neatly separated; now, the line is blurring.

Google Organic Search

Google+ pages are slowly being included in organic search results in a special sidebar. Below is a screenshot of a Search Engine Results Page (SERP) I received after searching for “music.”

This is valuable space dedicated solely to Google+ pages – having your page show up in these results could be a huge driver of traffic. Moreover, note the link at the bottom, which tells you how to get your page to appear there. It takes you here:

Again, just as Google is enticing AdWords advertisers to use Google+, they’re doing so with brands here, banking that the extra visibility in search results will encourage adoption and usage. If it sticks, it could be a huge change to how we approach search.

Google Latitude

I know what you’re thinking: What the hell is Google Latitude? (That was the question I most received after inviting friends to join the service.) For those who don’t know – of which I suspect there are many – Latitude is Google’s Foursquare-esque app: go somewhere, check in. Recently, it was linked exclusively to Google+. This popped up on my Google+ profile, after a check-in at a local restaurant:For Android users, a recent update to Google Latitude has added leaderboards, awarding users points for check-ins, with promised Google+ integration in the near future. What implications might this new game element on Latitude have on search, or the Google+ pages of places users are checking into?

Integration doesn’t end here, of course. We’ve seen Google+ functionality pop-up in Gmail, Google Maps and more. The lesson: while most of the industry has watched Google+ from a distance, excited by the high early adoption numbers but dismayed by the lack of usage, it may turn out to be an essential marketing tool. As Google continues to integrate Google+ across its product line – especially organic and paid search – it would be unwise to ignore the social network.

Google Plus: Potential Impact on SEO, Social Media Marketing, and More

July 8, 2011

By flightpath

As a marketer who works on behalf of a variety of brands, I am both scared and very intrigued by the introduction of Google Plus. GOOGLE PLUS & SEARCH The potential that Google Plus has, if it truly uses the power already built by Google, is tremendous, and brands may not have the luxury to […]

As a marketer who works on behalf of a variety of brands, I am both scared and very intrigued by the introduction of Google Plus.

GOOGLE PLUS & SEARCH

The potential that Google Plus has, if it truly uses the power already built by Google, is tremendous, and brands may not have the luxury to wait around and decide to get involved. And not just because of its potential as a social media tool that can unseat Facebook, but because of its potential to impact search engine rankings in unexpected ways.

Imagine for a moment that you work for Brand X who has a solid presence on Facebook, a decent following on Twitter, but their strongest asset has been their optimization strategy for search engines. This strategy has resulted in Brand X being the top brand for heavy utilized keywords and has helped increase the traffic ten times over in the past year. Brand X feels like they have a good thing going, and when you ask to get involved in Google Plus, they tell you not to bother. You then notice your rankings start to drop and you are being pushed out of the top pages by your competitors. Upon further research, you discover that Company Y decided to get involved in Plus and Google announces that activity in the social network is now factored into their search engine results algorithm. Company Y jumps ahead because they decided to use Plus and now you have to try to get Brand X involved just to stay competitive.

This is a very scary scenario but one that I could see playing out if Google wanted it to. Brands would almost be forced to get involved or risk losing everything their SEO initiatives achieved. Right now, however, there is no way for brands to get involved as it is only open to individual users, but according to Google, brand pages will be available by the end of the year and they are already starting to accept applications for a special beta test.

GOOGLE PLUS & SOCIAL MARKETING

No one knows exactly what Google Plus brand pages will look like or the functionality that they will have. When the product finally rolls out, it could be a big shock and something we have never seen before, or it could be something very similar to the way a Facebook page looks now.

One of the very intriguing things from a marketing perspective would be the targeting capabilities of messaging using the fundamental building block of Plus called Circles. Google said they found one of the major problems with the social landscape today is that one thing is shared with everyone instead of being able to pick and choose. “Not all relationships are created equal,” says the Official Google Blog. “So in life we share one thing with college buddies, another with parents, and almost nothing with our boss. The problem is that today’s online services turn friendship into fast food—wrapping everyone in “friend” paper—and sharing really suffers.” Circles solves this problem by bringing the activity of only sharing certain information with certain people to software.

As a marketer, being able to pick and choose certain subsets of consumers to target a specific message is something that is lacking in the current options, but is a feature with a lot of potential. While Facebook does allow you to target through their ad platform, you cannot target updates or status messages to a specific group. Imagine if you could send coupon and discount messages for kids clothing only to your consumers who you knew had kids. This would avoid a lot of irrelevant messages going to your community and would allow a complete personalization of content.

Still, Facebook has a mechanism available to businesses to help them increase awareness and make their presence known through the use of Facebook ads. Although Google Plus has a lot of potential in this area by connecting with their Ad Words program, the two are currently separate.

Over the next several months, as Google fine tunes the program through feedback and starts to drop hints about the business pages, a clearer picture will certainly emerge on the power that Plus has. If you are a brand though, be ready, because this might be one network you can’t afford to be left behind on.

If you were lucky enough to receive an invitation to Google Plus and have had a chance to try it out and experiment with it, we would love to know your thoughts in the comment field!

Is the Salesforce Acquisition of Radian6 Significant?

March 30, 2011

By flightpath

The acquisition of radian6 by Salesforce represents a possible significant shift in both the social media monitoring and customer relationship management industries. Time will tell how this merger will actually play out but the potential is there to deepen the connection and help foster a direct correlation between activity in social media and business ROI.

According to Mashable and the official release itself, the enterprise leading customer relationship management company Salesforce has agreed to acquire a leading social media monitoring platform in radian6. The deal is all but complete and should be finalized by July according to the article. The big question now is what does it mean for an industry who is still relatively young and with new players producing new platforms every day.

Salesforce sees it as a large move for them, which is pretty obvious by the amount of money they put up in their bid, a total of $326 million in stocks and cash was the reported agreement. “With Radian6, salesforce.com is gaining the technology and market leader in social media monitoring,” said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, salesforce.com in the official release announcing the acquisition. “We see this as a huge opportunity. Not only will this acquisition accelerate our growth, it will extend the value of all of our offerings.”

So with this move does Salesforce automatically become the industry leader now and in which industry are we referring to?

In the CRM industry, they have been one of if not the leader for some time now. The dashboard is great for sales forces and keeping track of prospects and current client projects and has served as an excellent lead generation tool. However, it is my personal opinion that the monitoring portion has been less than impressive up to this point.

Radian6 on the other hand, is clearly one of the leaders in this space with over half of the fortune 500 companies as their clients. Their unique technology that allows them to monitor conversations across the span of the social space including Facebook, Twitter, blogs and more allows companies to not only see what is happening in real-time but to also receive analysis and insights and engage directly from within the platform.

So how will these technologies converge? Will this be a magical pill connecting our social activities directly with our sale activities to really finally be able to see the true ROI of our efforts? The answer is that time will be the determining factor because it remains to be seen exactly how Salesforce will utilize this powerful new technology. The release does provide some hints as it is mentioned that the current internal social network known as “Chatter” will now be filled with what is happening in the social web in real time. This could be more cumbersome than helpful however as the volume of conversation could be overwhelming for companies to deal with.

The bottom line is that the possibility is there to make this a seamless integration and help solve the disconnect problem that plagues some brands with their social media efforts. On the other hand the technology could become cumbersome for people like me to use and take away from the true joy of using these mediums to interact.

One thing is certain. The next couple of months will be very interesting and could determine the future of both these industries and how this all will play out. As for agencies and brands, keep engaging your customers through social media with whatever platforms you are using, but keep an eye on this merger as it could potentially alter the landscape permanently.

A Klout Score Alone is Not a Sign of Influence

March 15, 2011

By flightpath

Two panels during the South by Southwest Conference (SXSW) that I attended were focused on the topic of influence. “The Ultimate Influencer Throwdown” and “Influencers are taking over the world.” Both were full of great points and one theme that came up over and over again was relevance. Now when I say relevance, I am […]

Now when I say relevance, I am referring to topical relevance. One of the panelist I actually think said it best when she said, “Understanding the realm of influence is just as important as the influence itself.” In other words, it is great that you can get a big celebrity to mention or tweet about your brand but if the brand does not have influence over your end customer what does it matter.

This is especially true because when it comes to online communities, for the most part they are built up around niche topics. So one individual could have an incredible amount of power when it comes to that specific topic but when it comes to something else they are virtually invisible.

To date, this has been of the biggest complaints about the use of a Klout score. A Klout score for those who may not be familiar with the term is a score from 0-100 that supposedly measures your Twitter influence. It looks at a variety of factors but the bottom-line measurement is how likely your content that you put out will be acted on. This could be through a re-tweet or a mention or a copy and paste of a particular link that you posted. The Klout looks at all of these.

Joe Fernandez, The CEO of Klout, who was on the “Influencers are taking over the world,” panel spoke on the subject of topical relevance and promised that Klout would be rolling out a number of new features that makes the Klout score more relevant. “Big Celebrities tweeting about products is nice,” Fernandez said, “but that’s not what gets me excited about our product. What gets me excited is the fact that the top influencer on Twitter for a major brand like BMW could be a 15 year old boy who loves the cars and is always writing on them. That is the true power of Klout.”

For now though what can you do when trying to find influencers? Follow some of these tips.

Look at who is already mentioning your brand or industry
Find out who they are connected to and have influence over
Use the Klout score and other quantitative factors to identify influencers
Score this group of influencers based on relevance and topics

So what is the large takeaway is that there is no one-size fits all solution. Each agency or brand needs to develop their own internal ranking system based on what is most important to them. After all, If Charlie Sheen tweets about your brand you may get the mentions and impressions but does that mean it will get you any conversions. I think in this case the answer would be no and that you would be #notwinning.

Keep reading the Flightpath Blog for Part 2 of our photo report, as well as more reactions and insights from our team. For a look back at what we found interesting search #AustinSix on Twitter.

Conversion Rate Optimization: Performance Comes Down to Testing!

March 2, 2011

By flightpath

As a gear-head and big fan of motorsports, I’m psyched about the upcoming Formula 1 season. For those that don’t know, F1 is the pinnacle of auto racing, involving crazy amounts of money, resources and technology that is unmatched by any other form of racing. The level of engineering employed in creating these one-of-a-kind cars is amazing, with each team developing a brand new car every year. Top teams such as Ferrari, Mclaren, Red Bull and Mercedes spend hundreds of millions of dollars each season trying to win the drivers and constructors championships. The first race is a few weeks away and takes place in Australia (it should have been sooner in Bahrain, but with recent protests the race was suspended. sigh).

But before these cars can race, they must test. Testing sessions have been underway since early February. Here is where teams put their cars on track for the first time, testing new parts and different setups, and experiencing for the first time just how they stack up against the competition. Teams watch each other closely and size each other up, even monitoring engine notes to see if they’re running at maximum or just sandbagging. F1 is a sport where every tenth of a second counts. Imagine that your car is half a second slower per lap than your rivals. Doesn’t sound like much, but at the end of a 60 lap race, you’re 30 seconds behind and your car looks like a bus. Not something a title sponsor wants to see after pouring millions into your team.

This same principle can be applied to websites and campaigns. A/B testing and multivariate testing is nothing new, and this post is not intended to insult anyone’s intelligence, but many sites out there overlook ongoing conversion rate optimization following a new launch or redesign. Success can be quantified after a little more thought is put into visitor interaction and proper goals are defined; not just looking at visits and page views, but measurable conversions. As Avinash Kaushik, Analytics Evangelist for Google, says, “Not using goals is a crime against humanity.” With goals properly defined, tools ranging from the free Google Website Optimizer to the more expensive Omniture Test&Target are great for running tests and experiments to improve conversion funnels. This not only helps improve content relevance but also affects the bottom-line.

At the Internet Retailer Web Design & Usability Conference held in Orlando in mid-February, top online retailers such as Home Depot, L.L.Bean and Home Shopping Network were there to share their insights. Presentation after presentation, there was the same reoccurring message: test and test some more. A company like Home Depot, who has 25% of online market share, can’t afford to let things slide. They generated $68 billion in retail sales the fiscal year ending in January. If their web sales account for around 7% of that total, a small 0.1% conversion improvement can make a huge difference. In this case that tenth is worth $4.76 million. Sure, just following best practices could likely yield great results in a purely theoretical world, but every company is different and so are their customers.

Currently Viewing Posts in Analytics and Metrics

Key Metrics and Data Points

Create Effective Dashboards

Identify Your Needs

Final Thoughts

Key Differences Between GA4 and Universal Analytics

How to Prepare for GA4

How B2B Companies Can Leverage GA4

1. Identify Customers With Highest Lifetime Value

2. Better Understanding of Complete Customer Journey

3. Data-Driven Attribution for Improved ROI:

4. Cross-Channel Insight Integration

Looking Ahead of GA4

Thinking deeper about first-party data

Creating smarter lookalike audiences

Allowing ideas that might fail

First: How to Access Analytics in Instagram

Next: How to Analyze Analytics for Instagram

Finally: How to Use Analytics for Future Content

Optimizing for voice search

Optimizing for accessibility

Optimizing for Core Web Vitals

Why Offline Conversion Tracking is Important

How to Improve Offline Conversion Tracking

Upcoming Roadblocks

Solutions for a Smooth Transition

Brand Lift Basics

Who They’re Useful For

Outcomes to Expect