Our summary of the implications
Importance: [rating=5] (if you’re a large company who can afford the new system)
Recommended link: Google Announcement - 29/09/2011
What you need to know about Google Analytics Premium and implications for the free version
1. The new system is available now following a private beta in UK, US and Canada.
2. It will cost $150,000 per year according to this post although Google have said “contact us for pricing”.
3. The free version will continue to be available to all users with all the current features including the new Multichannel funnels and Real-time reporting, the latter also announced at the same time.
4. Google Analytics Premium provides these 3 large company features demanded by companies according to Brian Clifton’s introduction to the premium service on Econsultancy
Data ownership clarification
Long data retention time
A formal SLA agreement
It will also…
New email delivery survey shows surprisingly poor inbox delivery
Importance: [rating=3]
Recommended link: Return Path H1 2011 worldwide Email delivery review, Sept 2011
Although the delivery rate provided by email marketing tools is the percentage of emails that didn’t bounce.
According to Tim Watson If you are emailing at least weekly to each email address on your customer base and you have good list hygiene practices in place then your delivery rate should be over 98%, that is less than 2% of emails sent are bounced.
But, and it’s a big but, delivery rate isn’t the same as inbox delivery and this survey shows how real inbox delivery is much lower – around 81% on average – this is really “money you’re leaving on the table”, so it shows why email delivery is worth taking seriously.
The recent survey shows that just over 3/4 emails get through to…
Useful infographic from Marketing Sherpa to promote their forthcoming B2B Marketing Summit. Marketing Sherpa have a lot of data and significant expertise around integrated marketing in the B2B space. Their graphic focusses on key insights on a 5 stage marketing conversion funnel. Here's 3 take-aways that stand out to me:
Based on Sherpa's survey data, the average percentage of leads that buy is 20% - though remember Eloqua's research that 80% of your leads simply buy from someone else! Their lead nurturing presentation on SlideShare is worth a look
One third of B2B businesses have not identified their sales funnel, ouch. Have you!?
Brand reputation and awareness remain relatively low in the minds of B2B marketers when compared to focussing on lead generation or conversion, yet surely that should be hand-in-hand? Maybe building your B2B brand in the thought leadership space (for your market) represents a big opportunity to pull in…
Before we get to the infographic, I recommend checking out the SearchEngineJournal blog post which originally shared this infographic in contains much more information than the graphic displays, you can check out the post here.
When it comes to auditing SEO this infographic helps remind us of how complex the SEO channel can be, but at the same time it can be actioned as a list of things to do.
When proactively trying to grow your reach through SEO I think it is much easier to simplify the channel. I am surprised tools such as Google Webmaster tools, Xenu / Screaming frog didn't appear more as ways to easily complete / check significant parts of the audit but other than that, this is a well written guide you should definitely checkout.
…
Check your live preview image and messaging against competitors
Importance: [rating=3]
Recommended link: Blazen Web Marketing Analysis
On 22/09 Google announced the new version of its Instant Previews feature, which Mark Reynolds of Blazen explained when he spotted Google’s testing of the feature.
The new Google Instant Previews can be accessed from Google’s organic results and in the PPC adverts at the top, as well as in the Site Links. Mark’s video shows how it works.
[No audio]
Marketing implications of Google’s update
Google’s announcement clearly shows that this innovation is to make searching quicker (and to reduce load on it’s server?) through encouraging more use of this feature:
(more…)…
A real-world example of what works for LinkedIn Advertising
What did we do?
I recently launched a B2B social media campaign on LinkedIn and since I noticed there were relatively few live examples, I thought I would share what we found worked or not to help others who are wondering “is it worth it?” and “how do i do it?”.
The background to the campaign was that we had launched a new service for recruitment professionals and we wanted to build brand awareness to associate ourselves with the service and get signups to the service. You will have noticed I can’t be too specific about the service for confidentiality reasons, but I can be more open about how we optimised the ads which I’ll share at the end of the post.
How did we do it?
We were featuring four different products on our website. These were built as Landing Pages with…
Why communications need to change even more to truly engage online audiences
In this post I'm going to take a look at what makes social media different from the media choices that have come before. Only through understanding the differences between social media and more traditional media can we really take advantage of its benefits.
I'm aware that for a lot of readers, I am about to teach my grandmother to suck eggs, I wanted in this series on social media to take it one step at a time, so these ideas follow on from my first post, how to convince your boss about social media. In this post I'll summarise the changes in communications which I think we all need to think through to be more successful in our online marketing.
With the rise of web 2.0 we have effectively entered a new era of media use. Gone is…
Is social sign-on in the plans for your site?
Like everyone else, we’re planning upgrades to our site and have been thinking how to increase interactions with our readers. Social sign-on is one approach of how to do this, so I've written up my thoughts and interested in how you see it. Is it only a win-win through increase participation and conversion rates or could there be privacy concerns for customers?
What is social sign-on?
Social sign-on/login is an approach we’re seeing on more and more sites now, although it's not written about so much. You’ve almost seen this on sites like Mashable or TechCrunch which enable commenting through logging in / authentication through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or OpenID.
When I’ve looked into this to see whether there is wider adoption on sites other than blogs/online publishers like retail or travel transactional sites. I’d assumed this is because of security concerns, but I’ve changed…
Google Wallet launches
Importance (for retailers in the long-term): [rating=5]
Recommended link: Google Wallet launch announcement
If you’re a retailer and have heard about the recent launch of Google Wallet, this is a short update on its relevance as we see it and the bigger picture about NFC and contactless payment that we have been hearing a lot about in 2011.
Well if you’re based in the UK, Europe, in fact anywhere out of the US, Google Wallet is not relevant at all right now.
(more…)…
As you know, Facebook isn’t just a website, it’s a environment its 400 million active users use everyday. Thanks to the widgets developed through its API, its influence extends much wider than Facebook to the many sites which conversations are shared on. For many, going online means going on Facebook.
So when Facebook briefs journalists to promise that “I have seen what Facebook is launching on Thursday, and it’s going to change the world of social media”, we have to take notice and ask - does this make a difference?
Well, I’ve watched the announcement by Mark Zuckerberg and read the analysis. Does it really change the world for most marketers? I’d have to say “No”. Yes, it offers a much richer way for users to share profile information, but the same underlying features of status updates, business Facebook pages and advertising remain…
