Internet Marketing Blog

Twitter goes Hollywood

By Find2k | May 26, 2009

Twitter Goes Hollywood?

The web is abuzz today with talk of a “Twitter TV show.” I’m even getting folks asking me if they can audition. Indeed, there are a lot of interesting developments happening in the television space—MTV, G4, CNN, E! and various independent production companies are all leveraging Twitter for fun new projects. There are probably a bunch we don’t even know about yet.

Is There An Official Twitter Show?

There is no official Twitter TV show—although if there were it would be fun to cast! In dealing with networks and production companies we sometimes have simple agreements. Regarding the Reveille and Brillstein project reported today, we have a lightweight, non-exclusive, agreement with the producers which helps them move forward more freely.

Our Openness Is Extensive

Twitter is very open. As a result, thousands of different applications, web sites, and mobile interfaces have been created by developers. These different approaches add variety and relevance to Twitter and in general make the ecosystem more interesting. However, Twitter’s openness is not limited to the web or even to mobile phones.

During the 2008 presidential elections, Hack The Debate showed us how Twitter could make television interactive and possibly even have a democratizing effect on the medium. The power of Twitter was harnessed to create new, compelling, and engaging programming. CNN was an early innovator with Twitter too. Our openness made it all possible.

Twitter’s open approach might have the power to transform television—the dominant communications receiver worldwide. We’re very excited to see where these experiments take us.

Google AdWords account with customizable columns

By Find2k | May 14, 2009

Google AdWords New interfaces on Thursdays… Well that might sound interesting to most of you as Google AdWords yet again have come up with quite a nice stuff to play around.

Read about this update here:

Today on New Interface Thursdays we’ll be taking a look at customizable columns. Customizable columns are one of the ways that new AdWords interface helps you manage your campaigns more effectively. With customizable columns, you can select which metrics are most important to your business, and then quickly view those metrics in your campaigns.

To get started, click on the Filter and views button in your account and select Customize columns.

From there you’ll see a variety of columns that you can add or remove from your account.

On the left hand side you’ll see that the metrics are broken into two groups: Performance and Conv., which is short for Conversions. Keep in mind that you’ll only see conversion columns if you’ve enabled AdWords Conversion Tracking in your AdWords account. You can select all the columns in a category by checking the box next to the category name.

While on the topic of conversion columns, let’s go over the new conversion metrics. Last month, we announced an update to how AdWords reports conversions. Now, you can choose to see columns for many-per-click, 1-per-click conversions, or both. To get a better understanding of the new metrics you can read this article.

Getting back to the Customized Columns panel, let’s take a look at the right side of the box, the Preview section. You’ll notice some columns are gray and others are green. The gray columns are fixed, so they’re always shown. The green columns are metrics you’ve selected to be shown. You can rearrange the order of these metrics by clicking and dragging them. This is great for setting up a side-by-side comparison for metrics like average cost-per-click and average position, for example.

One last thing to keep in mind is that columns vary across the different tabs in AdWords, depending on the metrics presented within each tab. For instance, you’ll find a Quality Score column in the Keywords tab, but not in the Campaigns tab.

That’s it for customizable columns. We hope you’ll give this feature a try so that you can tailor your account and see only the information you want.

Useful KPI in Web Analytics - Avinash Kaushik

By Find2k | May 12, 2009

A very important aspect of evaluating and improving search engine optimization and search marketing techniques is to understand the “Key Performance Indicators”.

Avinash Kaushik, co-founder of MarketMotive, Analytics Evangelist for Google.com, and writes a blog Occam’s Razor.

Here are some notes from his recent interview at the Emetrics Marketing Optmization Summit in San Jose, CA.

Useful Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Small Businesses - Avinash Kaushik (9:47)
Dr. Ralph F. Wilson Web Marketing Today - May 19, 2009

In his video interview, Analytics expert Avinash Kaushik outlines various types of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for small businesses — especially looking at where people come from, what content is being consumed, and measuring outcomes.

Avinash says:

Ask: (1) Where do people come from, looking at percent of visits across all traffic sources, with bounce rate.

Ask: (2) What content is being consumed, looking at the top ten entry pages, most viewed pages, and product pages.

Finally, (3) measure outcomes that are important to your business.

Outcomes are variations on (a) increased revenue, (b) reduced cost, or (c) increased customer satisfaction and retention.

Article content sites will learn from looking at visitor loyalty and visitor recency.

Get some more here: Wilson Web

Topics: Search Marketing | No Comments »

Internet Marketing - Ecommerce Tracking

By Find2k | May 8, 2009

An essential part of Internet marketing is to track the performance of your website and analyze. We can track static and dynamic sites but what about an eccomerce site, can we track it. Well yes we can and I think still this tracking part is unclear to a lot many of the website analysts/owners.

Well then here it is a detailed, stepwise explanation from Google Analytics blog on Google analytics eccomerce tracking.

Here are few snippets from the blog post:

How to Use Ecommerce Tracking in Google Analytics
Last year, Justin Cutroni of EpikOne published a four-part tutorial on how to use Ecommerce Tracking in Google Analytics. We’ve seen a lot of interest in this topic, so we thought we’d republish the first part of the series here on the Analytics blog.

Ecommerce Tracking Part 1: How it Works
This post is the first in a series of e-commerce transaction tracking with Google Analytics. Why is e-commerce tracking important? Well, transaction data is a vital piece of information when analyzing online business performance.

Sure, it’s great to measure things like conversion rate, but revenue is much more tangible to many business owners. Having the e-commerce data in your web analytics application makes it easier to perform analysis. Do you need to set up e-commerce tracking? No, but it sure helps.

The Big Pictures
E-commerce tracking is based on the same principal as standard pageview tracking. JavaScript code sends the data to a Google Analytic servers by requesting an invisible gif file. The big difference is that e-commerce data is sent rather than pageview data.

But how does Google Analytics get the e-commerce data? That’s the tricky part. You, the site owner, must create some type of code that inserts the transaction data into the GA JavaScript. Sounds tricky, huh? Well, its not that bad.

Step by Step: How it Works
Let’s break it down and walk through what actually happens.

The visitor submits their transaction to your server.
Your server receives the transaction data and processes the transaction. This may include a number of steps at the server level, such as sending a confirmation email, checking a credit card number, etc.
After processing the transaction the server prepares to send the receipt page back to the visitor. While preparing the receipt page your server must extract some the transaction data and insert it into the Google Analytics JavaScript. This is the code that you must create.
The receipt page is sent to the visitor’s browser.
While the receipt page renders in the visitor’s browser the e-commerce data is sent to Google Analytics via special GA JavaScript.
Here’s a basic diagram of the process. Again, the biggest challenge during implementation is adding code to your web server that inserts the transaction data, in the appropriate format, into the receipt page. I’ll cover the setup in part 2 of this series.

Read more about it here: Google Analytics Blog

Topics: Google, Internet Marketing | No Comments »

Upcoming Google webinars

By Find2k | May 7, 2009

There are two upcoming Google events: Online Google webinars that you may find useful

1. Analytics Webinar with Avinash Kaushik

In today’s tough economic climate, it’s increasingly important for marketers to utilize resources effectively – in particular, media dollars – in order to maximize ROI. But often times, marketers overlook what’s immediately achievable.

Please join us on Tuesday, May 12th at 10:00am PST when Analytics Evangelist, Avinash Kaushik, leads a discussion on the “Top 5 Things Marketers Can Do Now.” This webinar is relevant to all marketers, especially advertisers looking to refine their campaigns.

You’ll learn how to immediately implement Avinash’s tips for using data-driven insights to guide your marketing message and media strategies. And you’ll walk away knowing how to improve marketing efficiency, drive insights into consumer behavior, and generate greater returns on your marketing investments.

2. Google and Compete present: Travel Shopping for Summer 2009

With travel’s busiest season right around the corner, understanding consumers’ attitudes about traveling this summer and their planning process is more important than ever. Using an in-depth survey of traveler perspectives and a detailed online behavioral analysis, Google and Compete have partnered to create a new study exploring how consumers are shopping for summer travel.

Join us on Tuesday, May 19th at 10:00am PST to find out answers to these and other important questions:

Are consumers planning to travel this summer, and how do their plans differ this year in comparison to last year?
How has the volume of travel research and booking activity changed?
What types of destinations and promotions do consumers find appealing, and how can travel sellers take advantage of this?

Topics: Google, Internet Marketing, Search Marketing | No Comments »

Google jump-starting 3D Web with O3D

By Find2k | April 22, 2009

A new update all again from our very own search giant Google. Now Google tries jump-starting 3D Web with O3D.

Google plans to release software called O3D on Tuesday to bring accelerated 3D graphics to browsers, a significant effort but not the only one to try to endow Web applications with some of the computing muscle that PC programs can use.

O3D is a browser plug-in for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome that works on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, but Google hopes eventually the technology will be build directly into browsers. It provides an interface that lets developers’ Web-based JavaScript programs tap directly into a computer’s graphics chip, technology that could mean better games and other applications.

Google isn’t the only one to aspire to 3D Web. In the 1990s, a technology called Virtual Reality Markup Language (VRML) bubbled up but never caught on. Today’s Internet, is a different beast, not least because major powers such as Google, Yahoo, and even Microsoft are advancing the frontiers of what can be done with a Web-based application.

“The time is right for 3D content to move onto the Web”, said Henry Bridge, associate product manager.

MSN New Zealand Hacked

By Find2k | April 21, 2009

On 21st April 2009, Microsoft got a little pie on its face when msn.co.nz, the New Zealand version of its MSN homepage, was infiltrated by hackers.

A group redirected the news portal to an image of the company’s ex-CEO sporting pie on his face. The image was shot in 1998, after a French anarchist hurled a pastry at the then-Microsoft head.

Also included on the redirected site, “Microsoft New Zealand Hacked by Peace Crew” and includes the words: “STOP THE WAR ISRAEL.”

MSN’s business manager issued the following statement:

The cause of this discrepancy has been identified and we are currently working with our Microsoft technology and security teams in the US to resolve the matter as quickly as possible today. We apologise [sic] for any inconvenience this may have caused.

The Peace Crew activists have also hacked a number of other sites, including The BBC.

Microsoft New Email+IM

By Find2k | April 21, 2009

Microsoft adds Web-based IM to Hotmail - Well is it something real new to the Email + IM user…. I don’t think so….

Following the lead of Yahoo and Google, Microsoft has begun adding the ability to hold instant-messaging conversations to its Web site.

The company already has added the feature for users in France, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, and the U.K., and has begun gradually adding to user accounts in Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United States, the company said in a blog post Monday.

The feature is available through Hotmail and also through the people page that lists a Windows Live user’s contacts.

I prefer instant-messaging software that runs naively on my PC, chiefly because of its faster, easier interface. But Web-based IM can be useful for the same reasons as Web-based e-mail: you can use it from any machine, including your friend’s, that one at the airport kiosk or cybercafe, the locked-down machine at work, or your brand-new system that you haven’t configured yet but need to use immediately. Also, if you’re the type to store your IM chats, it’s nicer to store them centrally in the cloud.

Now if only Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, and Google would get together so I don’t have multiple, incompatible instant-messaging networks, then I’d be even happier.

Sitelinks in One line

By Find2k | April 16, 2009

Hey have you heard that…

Now a user can actually see beyond the sitelinks after the 1st position owner in search results…

You may be familiar with sitelinks, the links that show up underneath the first search result and which lead to specific pages deeper within the site. Sitelinks enable users to jump directly to important parts of a site, which is often useful for large, complex websites. Sitelinks have the additional advantage of giving users an overview of a website’s content by highlighting some of the popular parts of the site.

Read more here: Google Webmaster Central Blog

Topics: Google, Internet Marketing, Search Marketing | No Comments »

Rich Media and Videos Ad Builder

By Find2k | April 2, 2009

Google AdWords talks about their all new Rich Media and Video templates in display ad builder.

Read some lines from the Google AdWords blog:

These templates allow you to add more functionality to your ads, enabling users to interact with your ads before they click through. Here’s what you can do with these new templates:

Show off multiple products and services: If you’re providing many products and services, the new templates allow you to display multiple products within your ad. This feature can also benefit advertisers looking to brand by allowing them to tell a sequential story within the ad, such as “Explore, Buy, Save,” where you could have an image representing each concept.
Use multiple destination URLs: If you’re displaying multiple products within your ad, the new templates allow you to assign a different destination URL to each featured product, rather than directing users who click to a single, generic page that may be less targeted. This can help improve conversion rates, making your marketing more cost-efficient. Note that all the top-level domains of each destination URL within an ad must match.
Track interactions: Like with all our display ad templates, you’ll automatically see a reporting column,”Mouseover rate,” which shows the percentage of impressions where a user moused over your ad for one or more consecutive seconds. In addition, some rich media and video templates will track unique interactions, like the play rate for video ads; these will be displayed in a new “Interaction Rate” column. The actual interaction being tracked will vary based on the template you’ve chosen.

Use video: If you have video ad files, you can upload them to our new Click to Play video template, which allows you to choose starting and ending images, pick a display URL color, and run your ads across the Google Content Network.
Get creative: Last week, we announced new coupon templates, which allow you to set discounts and change prices within your ad. You can use these templates in the same way, offering multiple discounted products and allowing users to choose those that most interest them. Along with each image in your ad, you can include an accompanying description line that you can use to provide coupon codes, prices, and product information. This is just one of many ways to think and market “outside the box” with these rich media and video templates.

Recent Posts

Archives

Topics

Meta

Subscribe to this Blog

About Us

Search

Helpful Websites

Find2k Network