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eMetrics - Navigating a University Website

By Simon Heseltine

Surely the smartest people on the planet can know where to click? Vicky Brock of Highland Business Research aims to answer that question, providing she doesn't succumb to the arctic temperatures in the room.  She's starting the session off by threatening the audience with calisthenics in order to ward off the prospect of frostbite (did I mention that it's cold in here?).

The presentation is based on a case study of one of her clients - Durham University, one of the top UK, and top European universities.  The tale starts with the university cutting the marketing budget...

eMetrics: Actionable Social Media Metrics

By Li Evans

During the first day of sessions at the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in Washington DC, the day's been split into 4 different tracks.  I decided to just plunk myself down into all the social media sessions for the day.  You'll see a mix of reviews on the session highlights both here and on Key Relevance's blog, SEMClubhouse, so make sure to keep an eye on that blog for other sessions.

Participation is Key with Social Media

In the session Actionable Social Media Metrics, Jason Burby and Ryan Turner of Zaaz, got right to the heart of what social media is and what actionable social media metrics means.  When we talk about social media, what we really mean is PARTICIPATION.  Participation in a social environment really happens because its true collaboration.  When you invite your customers to participate online it becomes interactive participation and co-production, Ryan explained to the audience.

However, social media is not limited to just the web, it's on the cell phone.  The web is a platform for social interaction, we are only starting to see the beginning. 

eMetrics - The View from the CMO's office

By Simon Heseltine

Having just arrived at the eMetrics conference in DC, I've gone straight into this session presented by Liz Miller of the CMO Council, (well, ok, I did take advantage of the free pretzels and drinks on offer in the press room first, but it was on the way there).  This session is all about the evolution of the role of the CMO, and contains data from several CMO Council studies.

So the first thing to do is to introduce the CMO Council.  It currently has over 3500 members in 57 countries, with control over $100 billion of annual marketing spend.  They all work together to find out what's going on in the marketing world, helping to identify those areas upon which CMO's should focus their efforts.

emetrics: Social Network Analysis Session Highlights

By Li Evans

Fred Turling, SHS Viveon AG presented one of the first session of the morning here at the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit.  Fred's topic was on Social Network Analysis, which starts off the Social Media Metrics track here at the conference in Washington DC.

Social Network Analysis (SNA) can become a pretty deep subject.  Looking at the value of participants in social networks such as networks is becoming a pretty hot topic.  It's no longer about which community can best benefit from the relationship building in a social network, but honing in on which community members are the most valuable to build the relationships with.

Fred went on to describe that there are three main approaches to analyzing social networks: 

1. Web Analytics - metrics & analytics of  reach, interest, conversion funnel;
2. Business Intelligence (community platforms)  user generated content, user characters detailing daily usage patterns;
3. Social Network Analytic & Data Mining - focusing in on social patterns, etc.

Looking at the background of where Social Networks come from, it's not new at all.  The term social network was introduced in 1954 by JA BArnes and refers to a social struture, in which individuals are connected to each other via relationships.  That can take on a variety of meanings from written letters, to post it notes and now even to emails and IM's.  In the contet of current media networks 4 distinct types can be identified:

1. Communication - directly targeted communication (email, im, chat, sms), discussion oriented (message boards, blogs)
2. Contact Management (social software - facebook, linked in)
3. Interaction - nline games (world of warcraft), commercial or service auctions (ebay)
4. Collaboration - collaborative indexing (digg, delicious, flickr), Wikis (Wikipedia)

eMetrics: A Morning in Google Analytics University

By Li Evans

eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit - Day 1

This week SearchMarketingGurus is at eMetrics for a 2nd year.  This year, myself (Li Evans of Key Relevance) and Simon Heseltine will be bringing you all the great highlights of the sessions here at eMetrics being held at the Hilton High Mark here in Alexandria.  I'm actually excited to be here after all of the great things that Mike Grehan & Bryan Eisenberg have told me about this event.

This morning I arrived bright and early, set on finally sitting in on a Google University class.  It's running all day, and I'm stepping in for certain segments of it, while attending to normal "work" things. 

This Google Analytics session is being presented by Justin Cutroni of EpikOne and really opened my eyes on some major things I'm missing out on.  I love data, and you don't realize just how much data there is afforded to you by Google Analytics until you sit down with someone who can show you everything.  I'm a big fan of Avinash Kaushik (like no one didn't know that already) and have read his book, but still, there's something about sitting and having someone present it too you in this type of fashion that opens your eyes even more.

Here are some of my quick take aways:

SES: Measuring Success in a 2.0 World

By MarySue Eckstrom

Measuring Success in a 2.0 world

The focus of this session was knowing whether or not you have been successful with search engines and your website in general. By knowing that there are many both classic and cutting-edge techniques to measure success,what statistics you should really care about,ways to be more strategically focused,and how to drive increased revenue for your business.

The panel consisted of:

Moderator
* Richard Zwicky, Founder & CEO, Enquisite
Speakers
* Jim Sterne, Target Marketing & Chairman, Web Analytics Association
* Matthew Bailey, President, SiteLogic
* Avinash Kaushik, Author,Blogger, Analytics Evangelist, Google
* Marshall Sponder, Senior Web Analyst, Monster.com

Avinash Kaushik was the first speaker and he talked about Why is "2.0" such a challenge?

    *Content  -------- *Creation

    *Content  -------- *Distribution

    *Content --------- *Consumption

New ideas for New world

    * Use many different tools

    * Unique measures

    * Unique data collection

Don't need to rely on fake page views

A Quote from Avinash that I think will forever stick in my head "Get On Board or Get Run Over!"

Jim Sterne is the next speaker and he starts out by saying "Data,Data everywhere and not a thought to think"

Web metrics grows up

    *reporting

    *analysis

    *dynamic

    *hearts

    *benchmarking

    *promotions

    *minds

Search metrics grows up

    *ranking

    *analysis

    *traffic

    *dynamic bidding

    *predictive bidding

Tough times call for tough measures

Rank, traffi,c pageviews, loyalty, sales, profits.

The question to ask is which Keywords are getting me to the profits?

Matthew Bailey was up next to speak and he gave us "Analytics According to Captain Kirk"

Get away from creating charts and graphs

There are three C's of Analytics

    *Context

    *Comparison

    *Contrast

Tell the story of what is going on

Ask questions

Then do something

Basically what he was telling us is not to wait for someone to tell you what to do, ask what they want done and then go and do something about it!

He left us with a quote by Neil Postman about asking questions  "Question-asking is the most significant tool human beings have."

I think that pretty much sums it up!

The final speaker of this session was Marshall Sponder  he talked about how he had gotten into the industry.

{note from Li:  This was Mary Sue's first real crack at posting this all on her own, reporting back what she got from this panel at SES As a total newbie to search, so these are the things a new person at SES is taking away.  I hope you all can enjoy the session from her perspective!]

Don't Miss "Measuring Success in a 2.0 World" at SES San Jose

By Alex Cohen

by Alex Cohen, Digital Alex

Could your site perform better?  Don't your want your marketing tactics to be more measurable?  Where's the next frontier in search marketing measurement--and how do you beat your competition to it?

Chances are you answered "Yes!" to one of the above.  If so, then don't miss Jim Sterne and a stellar panel of experts for "Measuring Success in a 2.0 World" at Search Engine Strategies in San Jose (Day 2, 8/19, 11:00).

I caught up with Jim to pick his brain about his panel, his issues with the blogosphere and why having a 2 pizza rule is the secret to business success.

Alex Cohen:  Jim, what's new and exciting and different that people can expect to hear about at your session?

Jim Sterne: Video analytics - and how does that drive traffic. Not just how many people saw it and how viral it got, but where did people drop off in the middle of that video and how many people hit rewind.

Multiply that out for its virality and how well does that drive traffic? How well does people blogging about your viral thing drive search traffic? That's the holistic search ecosystem. It's how well you optimize what people say about you out there, so people will want to click through from the blog and impact your branding.

Alex Cohen: The description of your session promises that attendees will learn the the cutting edge techniques to measure success.  Where is the edge of web analytics today?

Jim Sterne: Social. How do you determine whether being talked about is improving your traffic or ranking? How do you measure the impact of social on your search efforts?

Nielsen Netratings, Comscore, Buzzmetrics and Island Data are all trying to lay claim to the industry.  [Some vendors are] looking at textual analysis: mentioned this many times, this many positive and negative

There are pockets of people doing great things, but in bad companies. Individual companies are giving it lip service. No one has mastered it. 

Alex Cohen: In addition to attending your "Measuring Success in a 2.0 World" session, how does a business get started in measuring the impact of social media on their business?

Jim Sterne: The 101 is all about the absolute basics. What are your business goals? Start there before you bother to talk about social media. If you start with a technology, you will always fail.

How are we going to use this? It's social media, it's a public discussion. My PR people should know what's going on out there... but they don't.

Go back to the beginnings of where your traffic is coming from and what they do. If they're coming from YouTube and Blogs - it's time to wake up and smell the traffic.

If visitors from video promotion on social media sites just come to my site, look at 3 things and leave, then it's not worth spending my money there.

Start by being aware of where your most valuable traffic is coming from. Where is the most profitable business coming from? Look at AOV, order size, etc.

Alex Cohen: Who are the thought leaders and notable bloggers in measuring social media?

Jim Sterne - It depends on the question.  Charlene Li can help you measure the value of a blog.  When I want to know "What is the impact of customer attitude?", I turn to the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA).

The favorite subject of the blogosphere is the blogosphere.  A few people are talking very loudly to each other in a corner.  The application of those thoughts to business is where it gets rockier.  Every 3rd blog I read about social media has a nugget.

I demure on questions about the best tools and point people to Forrester, Gartner, and Jupiter.

Alex Cohen: What are your thoughts on the future of paid search analytics?

Jim Sterne: It's impossible to predict.  There are enough people out there who don't know why it can't be done and are willing to invest.  More money is going to be chasing [measuring paid search].  More money will move from television. 

The bigger tools will get more sophisticated.  Corporate America won't become more sophisticated at using the tools.There's still a huge amount to learn even on the tools that we have. 

More and more people will use the low end and free tools poorly. Well, what are you doing with it? We produce reports? We're distributing them. We don't know how there being used.

The adoption curve is being layered side by side with the "take advantage of" curve, the competitive advantage curve. 

It's corporate culture. It's creating data driven organizations. It's believing in the numbers rather than the good feel. It's asking the older people to leave the room for some minutes to let us actually get some work done.

As more money falls into the online people and we can show results, the more we'll change culture. The individual can help change by showing the little wins. Finding the people who are clued in at the organization to be their ambassadors. "Wow, that's really interesting." now we have a convert who can be an ambassador for data.

It's not one tool or one report, except that how it happens. You should A report to SOME person and then they become an enthusiast. Showing how what you're pointing at in the report to business goals. You don't say "isn't it interesting that... "because we spent an extra $20K on this project, we got a 50% boost in profitability"

The problem is all predicated on the fact that organizations are too big. There is a perfect sized organization. If you're too small, you don't have enough resources. When you're too big, you're spending too much time communicating to each other that you're spending time in meetings and deleting email. Theres' this magic size company that has just enough resources, consistent vision and can really get things done.

[Amazon has a rule that] if a project gets too big that it takes more than 2 pizzas to feed them lunch, you have to break it up into smaller units.

Division of labor is often killer for issues. YOU ALL have to see the big picture. You ALL have to pull in the same direction. The best way to affect that is to impact the compensation of people. If you tie that monetary motivation to business goals directly, that gets people to focus.

Alex Cohen: In your own words, why is your session so important to SES attendees?

Jim Sterne: How to do search marketing is terrific. What matters is "Can you measure the results? Do you know what your success is?" It's great that you've learned how to do whatever, but it's how well you do something. If you don't know how to measure it, you can't improve.

Jim Sterne helped found the Web Analytics Association and produce eMetrics, the premier marketing optimization and web analytics conference.  Jim will be speaking with a panel of web measurement experts at Search Engine Strategies San Jose at the session "Measuring Success in a 2.0 World".  You can follow more of Jim's thoughts by reading the eMetrics blog and subscribing to Sterne Measures.

Bryan Eisenberg to Launch His New Google Book at SES San Jose

By Li Evans

While at SES Toronto Beau and I did a bunch of interviews with folks, I'll be posting links to those later today.  The one interview that has me really excited about attending and speaking at SES San Jose this year was the interview I did with Future Now's Bryan Eisenberg.

Bryan's the co-author of "Waiting For Your Cat to Bark" and also "Call To Action" with his brother Jeff.  I loved Waiting for Your Cat To Bark, it was really one of those books I started to read and couldn't put down until I finished it.  If you haven't read either one of these books, put them on your list and read them, because they give invaluable insight into online marketing and what you are doing with your website.

Bryan was the 2nd day keynote at SES Toronto.  His keynote was just as lively and informative as Frederick Marckini's on the first day.  This was Bryan's first time as a keynote at an SES Conference, and from my perspective, he should do more!

Right after the keynote, I got the opportunity to interview Bryan and ask him about his keynote.  Bryan also gave me some other news.  His new book "Always Be Testing:  The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer", will be launching the week that SES San Jose takes place.  So that means, if you are planning, or hadn't made up your mind yet, or need one more reason to go, Bryan's book is a big reason to go to SES San Jose.  Bryan even says he'll sign some books.

Bryan discusses what his new book is all about in our interview, so see for yourself, maybe all of us should start thinking about PPC and SEO in the ways that Bryan suggests.

Full Video Transcript: Bryan Eisenberg's Interview

What is Your Blog Conversion Rate?

By Alex Cohen

Hi, this is Alex Cohen from Digital Alex.  Following up on Li's post about conversion rate, I have a question for the bloggers out there:  What is your blog conversion rate?

There are plenty of conversion activities you could track, but the two that stand out to me are:

1. Subscriptions
2. Comments

The simplest way to monitor your conversions is with an on-click event.  It's a bit of code you add to the button or link you want to track.

For example, I have 4 conversion events tagged on my site:

1. Subscriptions from the big RSS buttons
2. Subscriptions from the little reader specific chiclets
3. Clicks on the Submit button for email newsletters
4. Sign ups from my "What Would Seth Godin Do?" plugin message (this display a special message for new visitors).

All I did was adjust the code on the link itself.  For example, here's how the on-click event looks for the Add To Google chiclet:

<a href="http://fusion.google.com/add?feedurl=http://feeds.feedburner.com/DigitalAlex" onClick="javascript:urchinTracker('/goal/chiclets');">
<img src="http://www.alexlcohen.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/google-chiclet.gif">
</a>

This essentially creates a fake page view whenever someone clicks on that link.  Notice how I named it "/goal/chiclets", so that it's easy to read and remember.

Next, I setup a goal to track each on-click event

1. Log into Google Analytics
2. Click "Analytics Settings"
3. Create a new goal under "Conversion Goals and Funnels"
4. The Match Type is "Head Match"
5. Enter the URL, e.g. http://www.alexlcohen.com/goal/chiclets
6. Give it a name
7. Save the changes
8. Wait

Then, go to Traffic Sources > All Traffic Sources.  Click on the conversion tab and, voila:

Your goals are now columns and you can see how different traffic converts!

For more about on-click tagging in Google Analytics, read this.  This is a pretty standard web analytics procedure, so ask your vendor how to do it.

Of course there are plenty of other events that you can tag and other important metrics (like repeat visitation).  Naturally, many of your "conversions" occur outside of the blog--emails from readers, job offers, invitations to speak (I'm still waiting :-)). 

How do you define and measure your blog's success? 

For Search Marketing Gurus, Alex Cohen of Digital Alex.

PS: Props to Hamlet, whose post taught me this method.

Online Marketing Tips Video: Conversion Types - Engagement, Lead Generation, User Signups, & Contributions

By Li Evans

This week's Tuesdays' Tips in Online Marketing Video is the 2nd in the 2 part series (Conversion Types, Part 1) focusing on discussing the different types of conversion types that you can track and measure the success of your online marketing efforts.  Whether its offline driving online traffic, viral campaigns, word of mouth marketing efforts or even PPC or SEO, these are types of conversions worth paying attention to, if you want to gauge and monitor the success or failure of your efforts.

Full video transcript after the jump....