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| Google Analytics explained - interview with Brian Clifton | ||||
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In this issue: 1. Google Analytics explained - interview with Brian Clifton 2. The Watercooler... this week's blog stories 3. UPDATE: Internet Statistics Compendium (August 2006) 4. NEW! Email Marketing Platforms Buyer's Guide 2006 5. JOBS: Lots of internet and e-commerce jobs to check out... 6. Top forum post: Good project management software? 7. Top forum post: A/B Split Testing - Validity |
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| 1. Google Analytics explained - interview with Brian Clifton | ||||
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Brian Clifton is European Head of Web Analytics at Google. He is responsible for driving adoption of web analytics throughout the EMEA region, as well as building, training and managing Google's pan-European team. He helps implement analytics for some of the largest global websites. Brian previously worked as founding director and CEO of Omega Digital Media. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There was a rampage after Google launched Google Analytics, forcing you to stop accepting new registrations. Where are you at with clearing the backlog? Our backlog is now cleared and anyone is welcome to sign up. It is true that the adoption rate of Google Analytics during the initial launch far exceeded our expectations and predictions. This was great news for the GA team because it showed us how much our partners valued the service and realised its potential when integrated with Search Engine Marketing. Restricting the new user signup rate by using an invitation model was not ideal but it was important for us to ensure existing clients received the best possible service before additional ones came on board. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So how do people sign-up? When will the doors open again? The doors are open so please sign up! For AdWords advertisers they can simply click on the analytics tab within their account area. For non-advertisers, simply go to: http://www.google.com/analytics/sign_up.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why did you launch Google Analytics as a free service? It’s simple - because it helps our advertisers improve their AdWords advertising, which is also good for users. By providing these tools at no cost, we ensure that our advertisers will have a better understanding of the return on investment of their AdWords campaigns. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Are there any plans to charge for it? When you consider why we made it free in the first place, which is to give advertisers a better understanding of the ROI of their AdWords and to provide a great user experience, you understand that it simply would not make sense to charge for it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Presumably this is something of a loss leader for AdWords, while focusing minds on ROI / landing pages? We start from the position of, what’s best for our users. If this helps improve people's AdWords campaigns, then that is good news for everyone. Again, when you consider why we made it free in the first place, we believe GA adds real value to our service and the number of adoptions we have had across all industries and all company sizes is testament to this. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Of course it also gives Google even more data. Some people are starting to worry that Google might know too much about conversion rates and so on, and that it could filter through to AdWords pricing. What do you say to that? As you know, Google takes user privacy extremely seriously and it's worth setting out how we approach the issue. At Google we build privacy protections into our products from the ground up, and none of our products use any personal data unless that use is fully disclosed in a privacy policy. We always ask people to actively opt-in to services that use sensitive data, we allow people to use most of our services anonymously, and we even tell them how they can disable our cookies that they have been sent. Moreover, we think it’s important to be clear about what our position is, so we write our privacy policies in clear, simple language so that users can easily understand them – they are not the usual legal jargon. What’s also important to realise is that our auction model prevents us from interfering with the pricing of your ads — the bottom line is that we will never artificially adjust bid prices. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some folks in the analytics sector reckon your free tool will raise awareness in analytics, making the market bigger. Others fear that you’ll put them out of business. What’s your view? We genuinely believe that healthy competition is good for innovation - and, most importantly, good for users . Regardless of vendor, marketers are now asking for analytics to be an integral part of their Search Engine Marketing strategy from the get go. Web analytics is more important than ever before, which is good for the industry, and in fact has also benefited our competition – "a rising tide floats all boats". It’s also worth adding that for almost all technology products, the wide variety of customers’ needs cannot be met by a single vendor. We feel that this is true for the web analytics space as well and that there will be sufficient customer demand to support many web analytics vendors. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like other sectors, web analytics has suffered from price commoditisation in recent years, and now generates much of its profit via the consultancy work that can follow on from a successful installation. Will we see in-house or third party Google Analytics consultants anytime soon? We provide full global technical support that is currently available in 16 languages without charge. In addition we have an extensive list of support resources (see below). An important part of our offering is the use of independent Channel Partners known as Google Analytics Authorised Consultants (GAAC). These are experts in their field with a proven track record in analytics that have received specialist product training from Google and offer professional services on a fee basis. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What kind of product support do you offer? As well as what I've just mentioned, we also recommend the following resources: - Google Analytics Help Center: http://www.google.com/support/analytics You can also contact one of our partners for assistance with your Google Analytics queries. These partners deliver a number of professional services such as installation support, training, and custom configuration. For a complete list of our worldwide partners, please go to: http://www.google.com/analytics/support_partner_provided.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How can AdWords advertisers use Analytics to look out for click fraud? We take the issue of click fraud very seriously. Just this week we announced a new AdWords feature designed to allow advertisers to see the amount of invalid click activity in their campaigns. The metrics of “invalid clicks” and “invalid clicks rate” will show an estimate of virtually all the invalid clicks affecting an account. We think this transparency is an important part of our relationship with advertisers. Remember, when we determine that clicks are invalid, you are not charged for them, and they do not affect your other campaign statistics. Of course with GA provided for free, the client is now also empowered to ensure transparency and accountability for all online marketing activity. More on this can be found here: http://adwords.blogspot.com/2006/03/about-invalid-clicks.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Other than providing the tool, is there scope for Google to help educate marketers about the benefits of analysing data? We are always keen to do what we can to work with marketers to make tools useful to them – that’s why we value feedback from our users. We will continue to develop innovative ways to help people and we’re currently working on adding a GA course in addition to the regular Google University series that runs at conferences and exhibitions, such as Search Engine Strategies. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How much focus is there on Google Analytics within Google? Where does it sit within the organisation? Measuring success is a key part of search engine marketing and search in general. Google Analytics is integral to this process and therefore to Google as a whole. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Apart from monitoring AdWords campaigns, what else would Google like to see people doing with Google Analytics? As Google Analytics is free to all users, our goal is for web site owners to optimise their content for a better user experience and therefore better conversions. Of course from our business perspective, better optimised web sites are better for advertisers, for users and for Google. Ultimately, GA is there to help advertisers and users find the right information for them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Are there 5 or 10 benchmarks that every organisation should monitor? The first thing to remember about Google Analytics is that it is a tool – not a means to an end. GA presents data in an easy to read format - it cannot tell you what to do with that data. It’s also important for organisations to invest time in the analysis of these reports to get an increase in ROI - and that means hiring or training staff. As a rule of thumb strategists say that whatever you invest in your data collection/reporting tool, invest 10x as much in your staff to interpret it. That’s difficult to calculate when the tool is free (!) but I think you get the message. In terms of benchmarks, it’s important that any organisation spends time planning its KPIs – Key Performance Indicators. GA gives you the data from which KPIs are built. So for example, saying ‘we had 10,000 visitors this week’ is a piece of data. A KPI based on this could be ‘our visitor numbers are up 10% month on month’ – that’s an indicator saying things are looking good. KPIs are ratios that allow you to take action; building these specific to your organisation is the job of a good analyst. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brian was interviewed by Chris Lake (chris@e-consultancy.com). |
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| 2. The Watercooler... this week's blog stories | ||||
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Online card payments rise in UK
Contact the blog team at blog@e-consultancy.com |
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| 3. UPDATE: Internet Statistics Compendium (August 2006) | ||||
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The August update is now complete - 155 pages, 240 sources, probably the most comprehensive internet stats report available today. What's new? Sections updated: blogging, search, online communities, online retail and e-commerce, email, rich media, silver surfers, video sharing and music piracy.
View White Paper / Report » |
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| 4. NEW! Email Marketing Platforms Buyer's Guide 2006 | ||||
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Our latest Email Marketing Buyer’s Guide is essential reading for companies that send out (or are planning to send out) regular emails, whether for transactional purposes or to help boost acquisition, retention or brand loyalty. 23 companies profiled. 40 pages of market research. A real timesaver.
View White Paper / Report » |
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| 6. Top forum post: Good project management software? | ||||
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"I work for a small web development company (3 team members) and we are looking to implement project management software. Can anyone give recommendations? I have been looking around at the various options and I am quite overwhelmed at the moment." Can you help?
View Forum Message » |
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| 7. Top forum post: A/B Split Testing - Validity | ||||
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"In a practical world of revenue targets, it can be difficult to always slow down long enough to stop and test and then carefully analyze your results. Understanding the validity of your data can help you to quickly make decisions and truly understand what a test is telling you..."
View Forum Message » |
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Subscribers can get access to all of our research and reports. Everything we publish is aimed at helping you build a better internet business. It's that simple. And it ain't expensive - subscribers get full access from just £149 per year. |
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