From left to right: Mark Curtis, Denis Coombes, Meredith Smith, Michael Harrison, Shawn Purtell, Justin D'Angelo. Sitting: Page Christenbury, Kathy Scott

Here's hoping that you're having as much fun as we are this Halloween. We held our first annual company-wide costume contest, and here are the results:

• Scariest: Meredith, as a witch (though Mark's Clay Aiken came very close)
• Most Original: Denis, as a World Cup-winning Springbok
• Best Overall: Kathy, as a barmaid

Check out all of the photos!

The weeks between Halloween & Thanksgiving fly by so start preparing your paid search campaigns now to maximize on the biggest retail season of the year. According to comScore last year during the Holiday season consumers spent $24.4 billion online! That number alone should motivate you.

During October and early November you should flesh out holiday keywords and ad creative and load them into your Google AdWords account. This will give your ads time to gain history, and since part of your quality score is based on history, this is a must. It will also give you time to sort out any disapproved keywords or ad text.

Also, in December keep a close eye on your bids and positioning. Obviously competition will be higher than normal, so you will need to be more aggressive. Google is expecting ad approval delays on the following dates in November: 1,5,6,7,8,9 & in December: 17,18,19,20,21.

It is important to ensure your ads are showing up through all stages of the buying cycle. Google suggests that you target general holiday gift terms to reach potential customers early in the buying cycle. But this can be a challenge! How do advertisers with niche products make money off of general terms? Qualify, qualify, qualify. Use your ad text to weed out people who wouldn't be interested in your product, and get your potential customers to click! For example, let's say your company sells leather laptop cases and you wanted to target the keyword "gifts for dad."

Continue reading "Holiday PPC Preparation: You should have started yesterday!" »

So, a few months back I posted on how to view the exact AdWords search queries your visitors use to reach your site (a feature that is, so far, unsupported out of the box with Google Analytics). My method involved grabbing that keyword phrase and storing it within Google Analytics' User Defined field. In the article, I said:

"There are lots of great applications for the User Defined variable... If you can get by without using it, you can then save the User Defined field for something else that might prove more powerful. Like tracking search terms. :)"

I'll be the first to admit that this statement is a little wishy-washy. What are these great applications? Why save it for tracking exact search queries? What precisely does the User Defined variable do?

In a nutshell, you use the User Defined variable to perform custom segmentation on your visitors. Google Analytics already provides a number of built-in segmentation features. It's so intuitive, most users probably aren't even aware that what they're doing is segmentation. From your Traffic Sources report, you see a specific group of visitors that came in from a specific source, and you click the hyperlink. Now, you're looking solely at the data for that source. Congratulations! You've sliced and diced your data down to a very specific segment of traffic.

So, you can segment your traffic by visitor type (new or returning), by source (where, how, why they came to your site), by organic search queries, by browsers or screen resolutions or Internet speed... but what if you want to get a little more specific?

Continue reading "Custom Segmentation: It Slices, It Dices (Your Data)" »

If you're serious about making your Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC) campaigns really shine, then don't waste time or money attending generic, dime-a-dozen "online marketing" conferences.

Here's why: Most conferences offer a more general online marketing theme all bundled into one "jack of all trades" conference, with a few general PPC tracks if you're lucky. "Okay, PPC people, go into that room over there. We'll see you again in about an hour for an ice cream break." Sound familiar?

It's great that many marketing conferences offer break-outs or alternate tracks for PPC. Really. But it's almost always to cater to general marketing professionals who either want to know what PPC is or are still deciding whether to use it in their marketing mix.

So hold on, what about the PPC gurus who sit at their desk polishing PPC accounts all day? What if I don't give a rat's behind about SEO or affiliate programs? I don't know about you, but I'm tired of sitting through "Intro to Adwords" and "definition of CTR" slides for 3 hours. Especially after slapping down $1,000 to attend. My order: Less milk & honey, more steak & potatoes...with A1 sauce.

That's why I'm so pumped about the upcoming PPC Summit in San Francisco (Thursday & Friday November 15-16). No matter what hour of the day, no matter which room I wander into, it's PPC-focused and designed for enlightening the PPC die hards. This is the ONLY conference that can boast that.

Continue reading "PPC Summit: The One & Only PPC-Only Conference" »

PC World talked with Google Analytics senior manager Brett Crosby about the recent Urchin Version 6.0 product release including pricing, product packaging and upgrade info.

Here's an excerpt from the full article:

Google will also change how the product is packaged. Previously, Urchin consisted of a core piece costing US$895 and optional modules, including one that cost almost $4,000. The new version integrates all pieces in one product that will sell for $2,995.

"We wanted to simplify the licensing model," said Bretty Crosby, Google Analytics senior manager. Plus, it represents a savings for those who would have spent more than $3,000 on the core software and modules, he said.

Companies use Web analytics software to track, measure and analyze their Web sites' traffic. This information can help a company decide how to modify its site's layout to increase sales, as well as evaluate the effectiveness of online advertising campaigns.

Continue reading "PC World Article: Urchin Analytics Software Pricing/Upgrades" »

Do you know HTML, JavaScript, and one or more scripting languages and want to become a web analytics guru?

We're busting at the seams and ready to add another driven, technically savvy team-player (with a bachelors degree) who has a strong desire to become a web analytics guru to our growing Raleigh, NC company. If your skill set includes expertise with HTML, JavaScript, and one or more scripting languages, and you possess the intellectual aptitude to learn the necessary skills to become a web analytics expert (training provided), keep reading!

As a Google Analytics Authorized Consulting partner (check out our website), ROI Revolution is experiencing rapid growth. Further, we are often privy to cutting-edge developments in the ever-changing Internet landscape. When you join the ROI Revolution team, you'll have the opportunity to help us help our clients achieve ROI-driven marketing results, learn about ground-breaking announcements before the news goes public, and meet industry leaders and Google insiders.

ROI Revolution is a rapidly-growing company composed of a tightly-knit 13 person (and growing!) team and an innovative work environment. Enjoy complimentary company lunch on Fridays, a very casual dress-code, and a break room stocked with free snacks, sodas, and other goodies. Work with friendly, fun, yet passionate/focused colleagues.

As an Analytics Technical Engineer, you will be responsible for providing our clients with superior technical assistance for Google Analytics and Urchin software including troubleshooting application configurations and performing detailed site analysis on website traffic and e-marketing activities.

Learn about what you need to apply for this position here

I recently attended the PPC Summit in Los Angeles where I interacted with online marketers from around the country. To my surprise, many of the presenters at the conference referenced MSN adCenter Labs. This is Microsoft's website for testing new prototypes of tools they are currently developing.

After returning from the conference, I decided to check it out for myself. Below is an overview of the tools I found most useful for optimizing your paid search campaigns:

Continue reading "MSN AdCenter Labs - What a Surprise!" »

Today at the eMetrics Summit in Washington, D.C. new Google Analytics features were announced, plus an updated version of Urchin software.

The super-cool new Google Analytics features that were announced all deal with allowing people to be better able to act on their Google Analytics report information, which is fantastic. I mean, that's the core reason why anybody has an analytics in the first place - to help them make improvements.

Site Search
Users can enable the new site search feature to identify keywords, categories, products, and trends across time and user segments.

The reason this is so cool is that is gives very down-to-earth, practical insight into your website visitors. What are they looking for, and did they find it? Why can't most people find this particular product?

The new site search feature aggregates data about how searches affect site usage, e-commerce activity, and conversion rates by tracking internal search patterns. The potential of this new tool is almost scary! Search patterns tell you what people are looking for, what they are interested in, and what they need right now.

In fact, Avinash Kaushik wrote a blog article titled "Kick Butt With Internal Site Search Analytics" (what a great title!) that talks about how cool site search data is and all the wonderful things that can be learned from it.

The word is that this feature will soon be available worldwide, and it works with Google Custom Search, GSA (Google Search Appliance), Google Mini and a ton of other non-Google site search products.

Event Tracking

Event tracking, which launches in a limited beta at the eMetrics Summit, enables Google Analytics users to measure visitor engagement with a site's interactive elements, such as Ajax, Javascript, Flash movies, page gadgets, downloads and other multimedia Web 2.0 experiences.

This new event tracking feature is going to be so handy, in so many different ways! I can't wait to hear some of the inventive ways people come up with to use this.

Google Analytics users who are attending the eMetrics Summit can sign up for event tracking at the Google Analytics booth (those lucky dogs!).

New Languages
Google Analytics has added six new languages, bringing the total number of supported languages to 25. The new languages are Czech, Hungarian, Portuguese (Portugal), Thai, Filipino, and Indonesian.

The much-anticipated new version of Urchin software is in limited beta worldwide. Rejoice!

This Urchin version is an update to Urchin 5 software, and you can request a free 90-day trial of the beta version of Urchin Software by contacting us.

Even before Urchin 6 was announced, people have been speculating about what the pricing would be.

Well, it has been announced that Urchin Software will be available for a discounted price to users of Urchin 5, and will include many improvements including tools to assist in migrating configurations and data from previous versions of Urchin.

Once the new software is out of beta, it will be available for purchase on the ROI Revolution website.

We can't wait to jump in to the Urchin 6 beta ourselves, and once we have had a chance to really dig in and experience all the wonderful improvements and progress we'll post an update.

Request your free 90-day trial of the Urchin 6 Software beta today.

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From left to right: Shawn Purtell, Meredith Smith (back), Erin Skinner, Mark Curtis, Page Christenbury, Michael Harrison, Timothy Seward, Katherine Anderson

I recently returned from a trip to the famous Googleplex for the GAAC (Google Analytics Authorized Consultants) conference. Besides the conference itself, the best part about Google (other than the food!) was experiencing the sense of community on the Google campus.

As I walked around the campus, I was greeted with smiles from resident Googlers buzzing all around. It was clear that I was a newbie to the campus by my orange name tag and by my obvious look of confusion, and everyone around me noticed me and took the time to welcome me.

I was given a tour by a Googler named Laura, who all the other Googlers called a "Noogler" because she had just started - a recent Princeton graduate.

In the lobby where they gave me my name tag and where we started our tour, there was a screen with live searches that appeared on it from all over the world in different languages. Laura said that they "tried" to filter out some of the searches, but some of them were pretty random and slightly inappropriate. It was actually entertaining to see that some people really haven't yet learned how to best search on the internet.

As Laura led my team on our tour, dozens and dozens of Googlers passed by on beach cruiser style bicycles with kid-like orange flags on poles rising out of them. She told us that you can just pick up a bike and ride it wherever you want on the Google campus and just drop it off wherever. My teammate Mark took her up on this opportunity as you can see in the picture.

Continuing on our tour, we saw that Google basically offered everything you could ever dream of in a work environment. Jars full of candy. Refrigerators full of free drinks. A massage room. An herb garden. A gym. A Laundromat. A swim station. Even a volleyball court. Oh yes, and how could I forget, the endless cafeterias.

Continue reading "ROI Revolution's PPC Team Tackles Analytics at the Googleplex" »