Ahhhh, the glory days of late spring are here in the Carolinas: sunny skies with longer days, bright green leaves filling the trees and warm breezes. You can feel the excitement in the air as summer is almost upon us.

In the next few weeks, kids will finish school for the summer and parents will send many of their offspring to summer camps...some will be recreational: swimming, hiking, crafting...while others will focus on skill development: soccer, basketball, cheerleading, etc.

Mom and Dad may need a little help this summer, too, if they are one of several thousand Google AdWords customers who successfully use PPC advertising and spend at least $1,000/month with Google.

If you've been using Google AdWords for any length of time, you know the fundamental Google AdWords and Internet Marketing strategies:

* Uncovering your market's hidden desires through comprehensive keyword research

* Getting Google Conversion Tracker and Google Analytics correctly configured to leverage the ultimate in free website tracking and ROI analysis

* Constantly split testing and improving Ad copy and landing page conversion

* Focusing your ad groups tightly around keywords and targeted landing pages

* Building comprehensive autoresponder sequences to increase conversion and visitor value

And every year a whole bunch of people make huge amounts of money just by doing these basic things consistently.

And these things aren't that hard...

And yet I'm guessing that you aren't doing them all. Maybe not even most... Maybe not even half...

For almost everyone, there's a GIANT GAP between knowing what to do and actually doing it. And that gap is the biggest obstacle to success in the world.

Continue reading "Weekend "summer camp" for an online Mom or Dad entrepreneur?" »

The new Google Analytics interface has so many great new features that using it is almost like a treasure hunt - you never know what you'll discover next!

Personally, my favorite new feature so far is the email functionality. I don't know about you, but I don't look into Google Analytics nearly as often as I'd really like to (let's keep that between us, though, ok?).

Apparently I'm not alone. According to a Jupiter report, "Key Performance Indicators - Using Analytics to Drive Action", a stunningly large percentage of companies don't bother to distribute analytic reports to the people within the company who can use them!

Less then 20% of the companies surveyed distribute analytics data to merchandising departments for review on a regular basis, and only 53% of marketing teams review analytics data. But surely the executives pay attention to the analytics data?

Actually, only 41% of executives review web analytics data.

And that is why the new email function is my favorite. You can use the little 'email' button found under the title of the report, and there you will find 3 tabs: Send Now, Schedule, or Add to Existing.

Continue reading "Hallelujah! The Best New Google Analytics Feature" »

Brett Crosby, Sr. Manager, Google Analytics posts on the Official Google Analytics Blog that everyone has access to the new Google Analytics.

Further, you'll be able to use the previous version of Google Analytics until July 18, 2007 (that's nearly two whole month's worth for the procrastinator deep inside!).

But why wait until July to make the switch?

Brett covers a few pointers to make the transition to the new design a little easier:

If there are specific reports in the previous version of Google Analytics that you'd like to find in the new interface, try using the Report Finder tool. If you haven't viewed the Tour, you may find it to be a helpful introduction to the new Google Analytics.

Just as Brett did, I'm going to point out a few posts on the new Google Analytics you may find helpful:

ROI Revolution's Michael Harrison covers the introduction in his post entitled "Google Analytics: Extreme Makeover Edition" and a tip on how to view entire referring URL's in the new Google Analytics.

Justin Cutroni has a over a half-dozen posts covering the new features, Avanish Kaushik's post discusses the first five things you should do the first time you log into Google Analytics V2, and Adam Ostrow gushes about the 27 features that make Google Analytics best of breed.

Continue reading "Everyone has access to the new Google Analytics now" »

Michael Mattis from the Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog just announced a very cool conversion tracking feature I'd love to see in a future edition of Google Analytics: conversion analytics designed to help track your "conversion assists".

What on earth is a "conversion assist"?

While a "conversion" occurs when someone completes an action of value on your website, such as a purchase, a lead submission or subscription transaction, a "conversion assist" occurs when a PPC keyword phrase has contributed to a conversion that was credited to the keyword phrase used by the searcher just prior to their conversion.

Here's an example to illustrate this Michael offers:

Let's say that a user came to your Sci-Fi collectibles site and bought a "tribble" plush toy. He or she might actually have been searching on "United Federation of Planets". The user might have viewed the ad with the keyword, "United Federation of Planets" first, then later viewed the ad with the keyword, "quadro-triticale" and then finally converted on the ad displaying the keyword, "tribble." The system records this trail of clicks, or "lead events," crediting both "United Federation of Planets" and "quadro-triticale" with an assist and "tribble" with the conversion. This way you'll know that your keywords are leading to conversions, even if the relationship is not a direct one.

Michael notes that the system will show up to 30 lead events per conversion over a 45 day period provided the user has cookies enabled.

You can get more help with the new Yahoo! conversion-only analytics option here.

Sponsored Link: Unlock the power of the new Google Analytics interface with our newly updated Online Google Analytics Training Course. The six part Google Analytics training event (featuring six weekly sessions taught live, two jammed packed workbooks, voice Q&A and real time chat) begins at 1:30 pm on Thursday August 9, 2007. Register today.

I'll be speaking about how to leverage the new Google Analytics in Chicago this Tuesday at Mary O'Brian's upcoming PPC Summit, a two day "how to" workshop designed to help folks better manage their PPC campaigns.

A PPC-only conference is long overdue.

From the PPC Summit conference description:

PPC Summits are designed as How To workshops that teach you how to better manage your PPC campaigns. The focus is solidly on advertiser education: how to spend less money, more effectively, with better results.

In these interactive, two day summits, you will be introduced to strategies and skills that are the foundation of successful pay per click marketing.

PPC Summits are designed to help you and the people at your firm become the savvy search engine advertisers you know you must be in order to maximize your pay per click opportunities, out perform your competitors, and build your business.

Mary O'Brian, the producer of the new conferences, has enjoyed a long career in the business of paid search with her work initially at Overture (later becoming Yahoo! Search Marketing) heading the training & organizational development team, then becoming Senior Director of Sales for Overture Services, next co-founding TelicMedia, and then obtaining the contract from Yahoo! to teach the one day Yahoo! Advertiser Workshops across the country.

Future locations include New York (June 21-22, 2007), London (July 10-11, 2007), Los Angeles (Sept 24-25, 2007), and San Francisco (Nov 15-16, 2007).

Yes, Google Analytics has been redesigned. Please do not panic.

As several folks noticed last week, Google has redesigned Google Analytics. Log into your account and you'll be met by an announcement:

Over the next several weeks, we will be migrating all existing Analytics accounts to the new Google Analytics interface. You will be notified by email once your account has been migrated. For an entire month you will be able to access both the original interface and the new interface. During the migration, you should experience no interruption in service and you’ll be able to see all of your data regardless of which interface you use. For a sneak peek at the new Google Analytics, take a look at the following resources.

Change can be a tough thing to come to terms with. Some people might wonder why Google is changing everything just as they've started to get used to it.

We loved the old interface, too. Don't get me wrong. It's kind of like those ridiculous makeover shows on TV. Sure, you love your mom before she gets her wardrobe rebooted, but no one's complaining when she comes back minus the muumuu.

Let me assure you, this redesign is a very good thing. We've been using the new interface for over two months now, and it's made day-to-day analysis a breeze. I've had lots of time working with both, and the new one is superior in almost every way.

Continue reading "Google Analytics: Extreme Makeover Edition" »

Jesper Rønn-Jensen, a usability specialist who writes for one of the best blogs on UI and web standards, takes a look at the new Google Analytics interface. Jesper's still a little concerned about the number of clicks it takes to show you referring URLs down to the referral path.

We've had the chance to work with the new interface for a couple of month and I have to assure Jesper and others that it is now a bit easier to find this information. Now, on the new Referring Site report, instead of clicking on the now-missing Analysis Options icon (the little purple guy over to the left of each line item) and choosing Content from the dropdown, you just click on the referring site. This immediately shows you all referral paths from that specific domain. Very handy, in my opinion.

Check out some screenshots after the jump.

Continue reading "View Entire Referring URL in Google Analytics" »

One of the great things about Google Analytics is the ability to view overall trends for your website. You can, for example, see how well all visitors who come from AdWords are reaching one of your goals. You can see how valuable the average visit from an email campaign is to your ecommerce business. You can see total transactions and revenue, and see what percentage of transactions are coming from a specific marketing source.

But what if you want to see where a specific transaction came from? What if you get a very large order and you want to see what the marketing source for that specific order is? Well, now you can, with a set of three custom filters that work together.

Here are the details:

Continue reading "Matching Specific Transactions to Specific Keywords" »