Taking your analytics practice to the next level

As both a Googler and ClickZ team member, I recently attended and participated in the always-inspirational ClickZ Live New York event.

Along with Katie Morse, Vice President, Social and Search at Nielsen and Pierce Crosby, business development and experienced data analyst at StockTwits, we had a panel discussion on how brands can take their analytics practice to the next level.

First, a quick description of the panel:

Data has become everyone’s domain, in all aspects of your marketing and business. Most companies do a good job at collecting and reporting data and have a basic process in place. But many are stuck as to what to do next to elevate value of data in their company.

As our conversation, and those questions the audience asked, were so good, I wanted to pull out some of the best questions and summary of answers we shared with attendees.

Pierce, Katie, and Adam presenting at ClickZ Live NYC. Photo by Search Engine Watch columnist Thom Craver (used w/permission).

1. Most companies have varying groups that need access to analytics insights. How do you efficiently get them all what they need and how do you ensure it’s most useful for them?

The answer is process. Ensure that you have the right metrics delivered to the right people at an anticipated frequency. Also ensure that you have conducted proper resource allocation in order to allow time not just to share dashboards, but flesh out insights for your teams to take action on.

If you are just delivering dashboards without context, you’re not doing your job. Actually, you’re performing the job a script can do – which isn’t a good place to be.

The more formalized you can be with your processes, the better, as this will make you incredibly efficient and free up time for the creative, valuable (and fun!) analyst projects.

2. How do you see a breakdown of time spent on analytics between data capture, reporting, and analysis? What are the best ways to help get organizations to move up the value chain?

The more time you can spend on analysis, the better. But if you’re not capturing the right data and reporting it in an articulate way, your analysis won’t be accurate or defensible. That’s why it’s important to spend time up front on ensuring your data quality is excellent and you’re effortlessly generating beautiful reports.

Need some hard numbers to serve as a guideline? Aim for 10% of time spent on data capture, 20% on reporting, and 70% on analysis and delivering insights to your team (my previous ClickZ column goes over the reporting part in more detail).

The way to get an organization to move up the value chain is easy: trend down the time you spend on capture and reporting. It’ll happen organically.

3. Can you talk about how you are using data across tactics — such as how does search inform social, email or other areas of marketing?

Data should not exist in a silo. You should be using it to inform everything you do, and you should be using it to understand your users, not simply to fill in dashboards.

For example: if you notice visitors to your ecommerce site are frequently querying a product name or type you don’t have in site search, you should share this data with your product team and persuade them to offer it. Marketing isn’t just about promoting products anymore.

Marketing now needs to be involved in the actual strategic decisions companies make, and data is how we get a seat here. Our user data should be informing what we do next, not just showing successes of our sites and apps. This all starts with breaking down silos and using insights cross functionally – beyond marketing.

4. Let’s talk about goal setting: how you can quantify success outside of just ROI? What are some other metrics that we might want to take a look at?

ROI in dollar terms is great. Everyone can understand this, especially your CFO. But generating revenue is just one outcome from your marketing and content, and just one thing to optimize.

For example, if your call center or social CRM team notices a recurring question about your company’s product they have to answer repeatedly, that’s a huge opportunity. What you need to do in this type of situation is measure what your user’s problems are and use this information to power answers in an automated / self-service fashion such as an FAQ page on your site or chatbot.

Creating this type of content in a data-driven manner can help trend down easily answered questions, freeing up your customer service team to focus on tougher problems which require a human touch and making your customers happier by simply getting the information they need immediately. That’s a win-win: and very measurable!

5. What are some actionable ways or things we could all do to become better at analyzing the “what happened” and “why” at our metrics?

This is an area of practice makes perfect. The answer is to hire skilled leaders for your team that can inspire and grow your team’s analyst skills. But personal growth helps too: so attending events like ClickZ Live, trainings and courses (such as our Analytics Academy) and reading blogs and books (like Avinash’s definitive book, Web Analytics 2.0).

Although, there is simply no substitute for hands on experience at making data-drive decisions and becoming fluent in the world of digital measurement.

Working at an agency and on hundreds of clients across industries helped me get to where I am, so that’s a path I can personally recommend. Although there’s no reason you can’t build your skills in-house too.

To learn more about the changing face of digital marketing, come to our two-day Shift London event in May.

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Do 50% of adults really not recognise ads in search results?

Around half of adults are unable to recognise ads in Google’s search results, according to a survey. 

This surprising statistic comes from Ofcom’s Adults’ media use and attitudes report, released this month.

While I’ve seen studies suggesting that many people don’t know the difference between paid and organic ads, that 50% could look at a set of results like those below and still not spot them seems bizarre.

The stats

For Ofcom’s study, ‘adults who use search engines’ were shown a picture of the SERPs for ‘walking boots’.

This is what the SERP looks like now, but the study was carried out in 2015, so the shopping results were not there at that time. As the study says:

“Their attention was drawn to the first three results at the top of the list, which were distinguished by an orange box with the word ‘Ad’ written in it. They were then prompted with three options and asked whether any of these applied to these first three results.”

The 1,328 survey respondents were allowed to select more than one answer so, for example, some may have said that the ads were both paid links and the best results.

Understanding of paid-for results returned by Google searches, among adults who use search engine websites or apps:

To clarify the results, 60% identified them as paid links, while 49% identified them only as paid ads, i.e. they selected only the correct answer.

Ofcom also split the results out between newer and more established internet users. Newer users in this case are defined as those who first went online less than five years ago. There were 160 newer users surveyed, and 1,113 older users.

These are the response to the same question as before, just split by old and new:

In a nutshell: newer users were less likely to identify that the results with the yellow ad label were indeed paid results. 34% of newer and 51% of established users gave only the correct answer.

I asked Andrew Girdwood, Head of Media Technology at Cello Signal about the findings. He was pretty surprised: 

“I’ve closely followed the evolution of disclosure in search engine ads over the years. At one point the lines were blurred – Yahoo’s paid inclusion, for example, traded your money with for some sort of organic search position. Those days, in Europe and America, are long gone. Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic watch closely.

The ad badge updates to Google’s paid search should have made it crystal clear the listing has been paid for. We’re talking about a bright yellow “Ad” label beside the result. How can you miss it? Searching for competitive keyword? Google returns a whole column of Ad, Ad, Ad and Ad mentions. It leaps off the badge to me.

It is just short of mind boggling that 50% of searchers in the UK can’t see the Ad disclosure. When Steve Krug published “Don’t Make Me Think” in 2000 to offer advice on web usability I wonder if he had imaged an audience that was both digitally savvy and web-blind as this.”

Other studies into PPC ads

I’ve looked at this issues before. In 2014, I reported on stats from UX firm Bunnyfoot, which found that 36% didn’t know that PPC ads were indeed ads (a previous study from the same firm produced a figure of 41%).

This was a relatively small sample – 103 people took UX tests with eye-tracking technology and were asked afterwards if they saw any ads.

With the help of Dan Barker, I carried out further tests on this using two separate polls of more than 2,000 UK internet users in total. We asked:

1. Are people aware of the existence of ads on Google Search?
2. Do they believe they click Google ads? And, if so, how frequently?

The results were very different to Ofcom’s, with just around 10% not seeing ads in Google results.

However, the very presence of the word ‘ad’ in the question perhaps implied to respondents that there are ads on Google, and gave them a clue about the answer.

There was another study by Varn earlier this year which produced a similar answer to that from Ofcom.

This time, 1,010 Uk internet users were asked the following question. 50.6% couldn’t identify ads:

It is tricky to devise the perfect test for this issue. If you ask users questions, there is the obvious temptation for them to second-guess the answer and say what they think is the right answer, rather than just answering honestly.

The Ofcom test, showing users the results and asking the question seems sound enough to me. Also, that several different studies have found a reasonably high percentage of people not recognising ads, so I can only conclude that there’s something in this.

Why can’t people see the ads?

This is the big question. As someone who has worked in digital for more than 10 years, it’s hard to imagine.

After all, there’s a pretty clear yellow ad label next to the results. You can hardly accuse Google of not disclosing the nature of the link.

However, Google has taken steps which some would interpret as reducing the visibility of ads. Remember, Google has an interest in increasing the number of clicks on its ads.

For example, PPC ads used to be shaded until a couple of years ago, though there were no ad labels.

Recently, Google has experimented with green ad labels. The reason is unclear, but it could be a way to help the ad label blend in with the URL text. Or it could simply be one of a series of experiments to find the best performing format.

I suspect this is a similar thing to banner blindness, in which people have just become immune to, or have learned to ignore the elements on the page that don’t interest them.

Indeed, plenty of eye-tracking studies have shown that users will simply not look at certain elements on a page. Could it be that users are looking at the top results and simply not seeing (or processing) the ‘ad’ label?

Whatever the reason, and whatever the exact proportion of search users who don’t recognise ads in Google, it seems clear that there is an issue here.

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99 SEO Nuggets from Today’s BrightonSEO Conference

BrightonSEO is a one-day search marketing conference that brings together some of the world’s leading digital marketers. Receptional’s Managing Director, Justin Deaville, was there and he picked up 99 scorching hot tips and suggestions for improving your SEO. Future-Proof SEO SEO SUX: How and Why UX Must Be Front and Centre to […]

The post 99 SEO Nuggets from Today’s BrightonSEO Conference appeared first on Receptional.com.

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7 Tips to Promote Your Content and Brand on Social Media

Social media, by now everyone knows how important it is, right? Simply by doing a quick Google search you can find hundreds of pages about how you can use social media correctly, or find suggestions on the best way to use your social media accounts. Personally, I love social media. […]

The post 7 Tips to Promote Your Content and Brand on Social Media appeared first on Receptional.com.

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Twitter introduces better targeting with its new Ad Groups tool

Twitter Ads have introduced a new Ad Groups feature in an attempt to improve advertising for big brands using customisation and segmentation.

Following Facebook’s path in trying to present a competitive advertising platform, Twitter is hoping to attract advertisers aiming for large-scale campaigns.

According to Twitter:

“Ad groups introduce a new level in our campaign hierarchy: one campaign can have many ad groups, and an ad group can have many targeting criteria and creatives. This level of granular control helps advertisers improve how they measure results, set promotion schedules, test different audiences, and identify which Tweets work best.”

This way it’s hoping to encourage more brands to join Twitter’s advertising options, as a way to reach a wider audience, increase leads, website traffic, or app downloads, while building, testing, optimising, and measuring all their different campaigns.

Image source: Twitter

This seems important for Twitter’s business future, as despite the slightly depressing facts we examined recently, it still tries to survive in the competitive world of social media, especially in its business aspect.

Different targeting criteria

Twitter offers many different criteria for targeting a specific audience and this may help advertisers measure (and improve) the effectiveness of their ads.

The segmentation of the audience may be performed in various ways, and the most popular options of targeting are:

Geo-location targeting

Big international brands may create many different campaigns worldwide and geo-location targeting – either by country, state, or code – allows them to focus on each sub-group of people with the right message.

Image source: Twitter

Gender Targeting

Not every campaign is suitable both for men and women and that’s why gender targeting ensures that advertisers receive the desired engagement from every campaign.

Image source: Twitter Flight School

Device targeting

A new app wanting to reach an extended audience cannot create an ad focusing both on iOS and Android users by providing the same link, which means that device targeting can significantly increase the effectiveness of the campaign.

Language Targeting

Geo-location targeting is not the same with language targeting, but both of them can become very useful when narrowing down the audience for an international campaign. Would you like to see an ad in a language that you don’t understand?

Image source: Twitter Flight School

Follower targeting

This targeting option is very useful for brands that try to focus on specific people and follow the ones that are similar to their target audience. As who we follow may indicate our preferences, this may be considered a fast way to spot the people that are more relevant for each campaign.

Interest category targeting

The users’ segmentation depending on their interests is very popular, as it provides brands a good understanding of what people like in order to deliver the most relevant campaigns to them.

For example, Domino’s targeted people interested in soccer, pop and comedy, proving that sometimes you need a broader perspective to spot your most relevant audience.

Image source: Twitter Flight School

Keyword targeting

A brand trying to increase engagement or jump in a trending conversation can significantly benefit from targeting by keywords, as this is a great opportunity to increase its reach.

This may be very useful in big real-time events, especially when combined with television targeting.

Television Targeting

Twitter users love using the platform when watching their favourite shows and this can turn out into a very effective segmentation when creating a campaign that is relevant to a popular TV show or even a TV network.

For example, Ireland found the best way to promote its tourism with the help of Game of Thrones.

Image source: Twitter Flight School

Tailored Audiences

Tailored audiences allow Twitter advertisers to follow the users that have already shown interest to the brand, or in a specific category, outside Twitter, trying to enhance the brand’s impression to them and turn them into loyal customers.

Behaviors and partner audience targeting

Twitter may be useful even when blending offline and online audiences, as even the in-store shopping behaviors can be analysed and help advertisers find the right audience for their campaigns.

Better targeting, improved measurement

The improvement in targeting with the numerous cases of segmentation can increase the effectiveness of many Twitter ads and we’re curious to see the results for the social network in the future.

Image: Twitter ads

Will the enhanced features of Twitter ads refresh its business perspective? Will brands trust Twitter more now to experiment with its advertising options?

Yes, ad groups may not be enough on their own, but at least they are more than welcome for anyone considering advertising on Twitter.

Image source: Twitter Flight School

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Paid search rules for ROI on mobile: report

Lead generation and direct online sales represent the two most important objectives for mobile marketers and paid search is the key mobile channel for achieving these objectives.

This is according to our new ClickZ Intelligence report on the State of Mobile Advertising 2016, produced in partnership with Search Optics and based on a global survey of more than 400 marketers and digital professionals.

At least half of the respondents cited lead generation and direct online sales as their main aims when running mobile paid search (70%), social (50%) and display advertising (54%) campaigns.

Paid search came out as the top mobile channel which marketers relied on to meet lead gen and sales objectives partly because paid search is easier to measure compared with other mobile ad formats.

Paid social can be similarly easy to measure effectively. However consumers often have a lower purchase intent when using social media than when searching, so the objectives for this channel lean more towards branding and traffic.

Some marketers believe that ROI in mobile advertising is lukewarm or unclear, especially when compared with more tried and trusted desktop media approaches.

Overall, mobile advertising was described by fewer than a quarter (23%) of respondents as delivering ‘excellent’ or ‘good’ ROI, while a similar proportion deemed it poor (20%).

Questions around both ROI and ROI visibility are raised markedly around display and social advertising channels for mobile.

Only 15% of marketers deemed mobile display advertising as providing ‘excellent’ or ‘good’ ROI, and only 23% said the same for social. Compared to search, which 32% viewed as positive.

The greater confidence in mobile paid search ROI is also evident when looking at both client and agency side marketers. Marketers on both sides consider search a safer bet when it comes to ROI, with 31% and 35% of respondents respectively rating this channel either ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ in terms of ROI.

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Five of the most interesting SEM news stories of the week

In this week’s round up we have penalties for bloggers, Google indexing image alt tags and the most expensive AdWords keywords. 

Google begins testing green ‘ad’ labels

A few people starting spotting green ‘ad’ labels on Google paid ads from yesterday.

It initially seemed to be a UK test, but I’ve since seen examples from around Europe, the US and Australia so it seems Google is testing this widely.

The question is why, and it’s not hard to guess that making them seem more like organic results is a possible explanation.

Testing whether Google will rank keywords in image alt tags

An interesting test conducted by Dawn Anderson, which she writes about on SEM Post.

Dawn explains the test in detail, but it shows that Googlebot will read and index keywords in the image alt tag.

The most expensive PPC keywords in the UK

With help from SEMRush, Chris Lake looked into the most expensive PPC keywords on Google UK.

The most expensive was £148…

Mobile advertising stats

This week we released our State of Mobile Advertising 2016 report, produced in association with Search Optics.

It contains plenty of useful insights on mobile advertising from clients and agencies.

For example, Paid search is found to be the leading mobile channel for ROI, though measurement and attribution issues are holding advertisers back.

Google punishes bloggers for linking to reviewed products

After last month’s advice to bloggers reviewing products they’ve received free of charge to nofollow any links to product pages, we’ve had a spate of manual actions.

Bloggers reviewing products have reported receiving notices like the one above when logging into Search Console, and Google’s John Mueller has confirmed that these are linked to Google’s earlier advice.

Whether the action are justified or not is another matter, as we have no idea how Google can tell if links are due to freebies or not. However, bloggers now need to be careful when reviewing and linking.

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