Blog #5

Reflection

The Google fundamentals and principles in this week's session provided deeper and more detailed insights on how to use Google Analytics.  The videos in this course were long and extensive in detail but certainly provided a lot of information which would have been especially useful in the GOMC. Unfortunately, for my group we are not able to explore Analytics with our client.

Otherwise, I appreciated the learning experience and hopefully I can get an opportunity to apply this knowledge in a more hands-on real world experience. All businesses need to explore Google Analytics on their websites as it such a great tool to measure performance.

Blog #4

Google Analytics.

           One of the topics covered in this week was google analytics and how it works. Google Analytics provides powerful digital analytics for anyone with a web presence, large or small. It's one of the most powerful digital analytics solutions available - and it's free for anyone to use. It uses cookies to track uses on websites. Cookies are either created by first party websites or third party websites that users visit.

First party websites create cookies on the web page a user visits whereas third party cookies originate from other websites. A user can turn off third party cookies. Google analytics uses cookies from first party websites. There are 4 types of  first party cookies; Unique visitor identifier which has a 2 year expiration unless it is turned off by the user, session identifier with a 30 minute expiration, traffic source & navigation with a 6 month expiration and the custom variable cookies with a 2 year expiration. These different types of cookies assist google analytics to access different statistics and information about the user for how many times they visit a site, the source and what activity they do, etc.

Google analytics plays a key role in identifying and providing information about visitors to websites and this in turn can be used by website owners to personalize content to these users. I understand the benefits of google analytics and the use of cookies but does anyone else feel this can be an invasion of privacy if not controlled?

Google Display Network

           This is another google advertising platform that uses text, images, interactive and video ads. These displays can be placed anywhere from websites, video channels like YouTube, to blogs. The advertiser will only pay for the advert if users click on the displayed advert. In this week’s material, we have an example of how Display network has been used to enhance the Jordan brand. Since Jordan himself has retired from the game, new fans are being reached by using google display network. W + K, NY, the agency partner for Jordan, placed ads on Jordan’s fan base sites like YouTube and sports sites. This helped to ignite conversations and spread the word about upcoming Jordan products.

Google display is useful as it offers an alternative to the short attention span customer; it is interactive and is not invasive as it comes on websites that the user is already interested in. The display content normally follow the content of the website being on, so is there any other way of knowing whether the displays are relevant to the user?

        The biggest skillset I have learned this week was the use of cookies. I now the different types and what role they play in a user’s experience while searching and how search engines can then use them to their advantage to provide relevant search results to the user. In the GOMC, it will be ideal if each group is able to explore the use of google analytics to provide feedback to our campaigns. It will be difficult to judge actual success of the campaigns if we don’t know they are being reflected on the websites.

       Personally, am learning more on ideas that I might have had about the operations of search engines. I am getting a deeper knowledge of the technical side of things. I am keen to employ this knowledge to improve our GOMC.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3oMQZkwGc9l1m2IOd_QYHNxMfiBVzn31uJOpn24inOkMm2qCLDxhOzgLDhz515dOaEdHi89o7eZRIkEgP07zTsxFXl2ToW8ZXRretr2h5VkDbUGFEwvwiC471Q_0r2mbMpWpGnBbs3ant/s1600/Jumpman-Logo.jpeg

https://www.google.com/partners/#p_content;idtf=bwYAAAAAAABvhM;

https://www.google.com/partners/#p_content;idtf=7QsAAAAAAADtiM;

Blog #3

Blog #3

Concept 1: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO refers to the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” listings on search engines. All major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing have such results, where web pages and other content such as videos or local listings are shown and ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to users. SEO will help website owner’s position their websites properly to be found at the most critical points in the buying process or when people need their sites.

Website owners need to create websites that provide seamless user experience and that communicate to the search engines what their intentions are so they can be recommended for relevant searches.

One of the new interesting trends in SEO is the personalization of searches. For example, if you search a restaurant which has various locations in the country, the search results that come up will be for the particular restaurant in your area. This will be due the previous searches that one does and the search engines will store information like location.

My concern with this technology is the extent with which search engines can store and use this information. With all the devices available today, sometimes I feel like my phone records every thing I do, where I go and soon am are going to marketed to whether I want or not. For example, the day I got a message on my Google app on my phone asking if I wanted Green bay packers’ tickets because I had searched Green bay Packers sometime ago.

Concept 2: Bid Simulator

Bid simulator is one of the bidding tools in Adwords used to estimate the success of a particular campaign. It estimates clicks, cost and impressions that Ads would have achieved in the past 7 days with a different keyword Max CPC bids. It simulates your past auctions using different bids on Google and search network. It also provides transparency into Adwords since setting up the initial bid can be done on estimates and there is no way of knowing where that bid stands.

The bid simulator is very useful in giving you estimates on your bid and the bids of competitors and provides information on where your bid would have been if you had used a different Max CPC.

Skill set

The most important I have learnt this session is the Keyword Planner. This is the first week that we started using the keyword planner and discovering all the different aspects that we use it to enhance our GOMC experience. It has so far been a challenge but definitely a learning experience. We are going to delve into using some of the bidding tools to improve upon our Adwords campaign.

Personally and the ASTD group, we are having challenges with the technical aspects of the GOMC challenge. The theory makes a lot of sense but it’s using the Adwords site that is offering challenges. It would be more helpful to get more hands on training.

Stokes, R. (2011). emarketing: The essential guide to digital marketing. (V 1.0 ed.). Quirk Education. Retrieved from http://catalog.flatworldknowledge.com/bookhub/reader/19

Blog#2

Log-file analysis and Page tagging

These are two main technology approaches used today to collect web analytics data. Log-file analysis software reads the records, called log-files on the web server, which records all clicks that take place on the server. The software interprets data about clicks to determine whether a click on a link led to an action say submitting a form on a website.

Page tagging on the other hand sends information to a third-party server where statistics can be generated. The browser executes code that communicates with the tracking software creating page tags. Page tagging helps to track behaviors of visitors, where they are coming from, which sites do they visit, etc.

Web analytics is crucial in understanding web users, their habits and it helps engine searches to customize searches to a particular visitor and track their actions after each click thereby enhancing the use of digital marketing.

One possible shortfall with page tagging is that firewalls can restrict tags. Log filling faces a problem with proxy/ caching inaccuracies, if a page is cache, no record is logged on your web server. So both tracking systems face some challenges in their accuracy.

A/B Split testing

This is another form of analyzing data. It measures one variable at a time to determine its effect on an outcome. For example, using two email subject lines for the same email to see which one produces a better outcome. This is another useful test especially in the google Adword campaigns. Data is always useless it can be tested. Here one is able to maximize the full potential of an advertisement campaign something which cannot be done say using a billboard campaign.

A/B split testing can be tedious because you have to test one variable at a time and if you have numerous campaigns to run this can be time consuming and expensive.

This session has exposed me to more detail about the use of Adwords in digital marketing and all the different tactics used in web analytics.

I am learning that this is no simple feat and that a lot of work is put into what I have always taken for granted while using search engines. I am hoping to grasp all these tools and hopefully employ them in our marketing campaign.

http://www.emarketingandcommerce.com/article/advantages-and-disadvantages-ab-split-testing-landing-pages/1#

http://marianina.com/blog/2007/11/21/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-page-tagging-and-log-files-for-web-analysts/

Blog#1

Search engine marketing

Search engine marketing is online internet marketing that relates to the use of searching within a search engine. It is made up of two parts, Search engine optimization (SEO) and Pay per click (PPC) advertising.  SEO is the practice that aims to improve a web site's ranking in the search engine for specific keywords. For example, if one searches for shoes in a search engine, a certain listing of websites with that word will show up and that listing result depends on how much those websites pay google to advertise for that specific keyword.

PPC on the other hand is advertising on search engines where the advertiser pays only for each click on their advertisement. So, for example, Zappos will pay google a certain amount of money when someone clicks on their website if say they were searching for shoes.

These two concepts are important to the advertiser as choices or platforms to maximize benefits from advertising. They provide quantifiable means with which the advertiser can use to determine the effectiveness of their advertising campaign.

One of the issues or concerns with this form of advertising can be with certain keywords. If a small startup say in the business of selling shoes will not have resources to afford the cost of advertising using words like shoes because the bigger companies will drive up the cost of these words.

PPC can be misleading at times. The advertiser will pay for the clicks but sometimes those clicks might lead to sales. A lot of people might click on the advertisement, go to the website and maybe just “window-shop”

The main skillset that I acquired through this session is the full understanding of online advertising, the concepts behind it and how advertisers can use it to maximize their advertising budgets also some challenges that exist with it.

My main take away is that am excited to be exposed with this new trend of marketing and I want to learn more about it so I can fully understand how businesses can take full advantage of it. There are definitely challenges with using these tools especially for your everyday person and eager to learn ways to overcome this problem.

http://searchengineland.com/guide/what-is-sem