Archive for the ‘Miscellaneous’ Category
Posted on January 14, 2013 by Sarah Peduzzi
Another week in Google Adwords means another little jingle in the announcement corner. Often, these go unnoticed or forgotten in the day-to-day bustle of account management, but don’t forget these helpful little nuggets of wisdom. This week, I got a notification that Google consumer surveys has a new and improved look and is offering a $75 credit to boot. So what exactly is a Google Consumer Survey?
These consumer surveys are a quick one-question “poll” that can be placed on select (or opted in) publisher sites. Generally there is a piece of locked content and a visitor needs to answer the question in order to access. At $.10 a response, it’s affordable to even the smallest advertiser who is doing some serious research in products, awareness or another marketing effort. Another bonus is that publishers will actually get a chunk of change for the people who answered the polls.
So how can a PPC-er leverage this survey tool? Glad you asked. (more…)
View Comments (1 Response) | Categories: Miscellaneous, Paid Search
Posted on October 4, 2012 by Dan Wilkerson
Have you signed up for our monthly newsletter yet? No? The sign-up’s right over there, you had to have seen it. Really? Alright, well, let me make this easy for you.
What’s in it? All sorts of goodies. For starters, we pick out a selection of some of our most popular posts from the past month, usually centered around a theme – this month’s was ‘Discovery’. The posts we highlighted were my post on hashtag discovery, Brittany’s post on the changes to AdWords seller ratings, Dorcas’ post on Goal Funnels, and Reid’s post on examining the value of inbound links.
(more…)
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Posted on October 1, 2012 by Jim Gianoglio
Have you ever needed to make a tiny change to your Google Analytics tracking code, but your IT team told you it would be 6 weeks until the next code refresh? What if you could just log into a tool, make the change, and have it go live immediately – without IT involvement? Now you can.
Google announced the launch of Google Tag Manager this morning at the eMetrics conference in Boston. Google Tag Manager (GTM) is a free tool that lets you manage the marketing and measurement tags for your web site in one place. This means no more scattering scripts across your pages and waiting on IT to track them down.
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View Comments (9 Responses) | Categories: Analytics, Google Analytics, Industry News, Miscellaneous
Posted on January 30, 2012 by Reid Bandremer
Google announces that it will be passing user information across product lines to move forward master plans to create a more unified user experience. Nerdy commentary is provided.
(Their drawing, not mine.)
On Tuesday, Google announced it will be changing its current privacy policy and Terms of Service, effective March 1. Google’s made a bit of a deal out of this – you’ve probably seen the links at the middle or bottom of the Google home page or the yellow box:
(It’s nice to see Google making such a “buzz” about changes to user privacy;)
This is another notable display of transparency, what with Google announcing the changes over a month in advance and doing its best to publicize them. And let’s not forget Google’s Transparency Report, which shows figures and compliance rates on government User Data Requests and Content Removal Requests – an incredibly interesting report on international privacy, government, and freedom of speech that I could discuss for hours. But to get back to the Google’s Privacy policy and TOS, Google has clearly broken the bank on the latest computer animation technology to provide a video explaining the changes. The new policy utilizes the simplest language lawyers are capable of, and does seem more user-friendly. Clearly, Google is at least concerned with other people’s concerns with privacy, and is doing its best to pre-empt the inevitable backlash and curb mass hysteria by being clear and transparent.
VS.
But is anything really changing? At first glance, the new policy and the current main policy look very similar, albeit one uses more accessible language. The language change and additional explanations of data collection methods and geeky terminology actually helps the new policy seem a lot less creepy. The real difference is that Google will be replacing over 60 additional privacy policy statements (that huge list on the right) into a singular master Privacy Policy for (nearly) all of its products. According to Google, they aim to “create one beautifully simple, intuitive user experience across Google… In short, we can treat you as a single user across all our products.”
That’s why Google will now share user data amongst its products such as YouTube, Maps, Gmail, and even Android. That’s where the creepy factor rears it’s head again. Not every one is keen on the possibility of their e-mails, chats, video history, search history, and Maps usage to be tied together to their identity. For those concerned about their privacy, I highly recommend Google’s consumer education center on Internet privacy and security as well as Google’s center of various privacy control tools.
The positive for consumers is that sharing of data really should result in some really cool functionality enhancements. Overall, Google is getting to know you better, and this should result in more relevant search results and recomendations and better predictive features for autcorrect, voice recognition, and the like. According to Google, they “can provide reminders that you’re going to be late for a meeting based on your location, your calendar and an understanding of what the traffic is like that day. Or ensure that our spelling suggestions, even for your friends’ names, are accurate because you’ve typed them before.” Not too shabby.
But the bottom line is… well, the bottom line. A better user experience naturally equates to greater market share. Perhaps more important is that all of this data will drastically improve Google’s ability to serve relevant ads. And more relevant ads means more ad clicks. And we know what that mean$.
As an Internet marketer, I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you I was absolutely fascinated by the unprecedented ability to combine, with anonymity, consumer behavior data such as video viewing tendencies, search history, common topics of discussion (in email and chat), engagement levels for various subject matters (via email and site bounce rate, time on site, video viewing time, etc.), and geo-location. Serving a man an ad for a flower store using a picture of orchids located on the way to his dates’ house right after his calendar reminds him of his date might be weird, but it’s still hella intriguing to this nerd.
As an SEO, I can’t help but notice there will be more data than ever to assist advertisers, but SEOs, webmasters, and others dependent on Google Analytics are not provided with such luxuries. In fact, the move to pass more data across Google properties works best if more folks are logged in – and you can bet Google will continue to encourage sign-ups and logged in usage. Thus, we can continue to see keyword referral data for organic visits become less useful as (not provided) numbers continue their ascent. Perhaps the (not provided) move really was to make web marketers more relient on AdWords. I tend to see it more as a PR move – a symbolic gesture to watchdogs and concerned consumers that Google really cares about privacy – so that Google might get less flack as it changes privacy policies in order to synergize its empire of advertising real estate. It might be a meaningless gesture since users identities have always been seperate from their keyword data, but PR does stand for perception of reality, right?
Speaking of PR, it will certainly be interesting to see how all this privacy stuff plays out in the public arena. What are your sentiments, readers?
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Posted on February 2, 2011 by John Henson
Many of our older posts include example JavaScript snippets, but usually (since they are “older” posts, after all) they don’t include the Asynchronous version. We’ve been asked to update one of these posts, so we have.
The post “Pittfalls of Tracking to Multiple Accounts in GA” has been updated to have some Async examples.
Let us know what other posts you’d like to see updated.
-LunaMetrics
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Posted on January 4, 2011 by Robbin Steif
Every year, I write one post that is basically the same (sorry, Mr. Duplicate Content.) What’s the deal on website copyrights, and should you change yours when the calendar year changes?
I wrote the first version of this in 2007, and you can read the original here. The short version is that a copyright range, such as 2001-2011, indicates that the body of work had some changes made on one date, some on another, and some in between. If I were a lawyer, I would argue that almost all sites (except the ones that never get changed, and we all know sites like that) should have a copyright range.
As a non-lawyer, I know that some visitors look at the copyright to see if the company is still in business, and to see how much attention they pay to their site. I sure do that, and I have watched user testers do it and comment on it.
So this is a good week to think about your copyright. Your next opportunity will be when we move our clocks to Daylight Savings Time. No wait, that’s when you are supposed to check your fire alarm. …
Robbin
ps I sent a note to our webmaster while I was writing this, telling him that I couldn’t publish it until he updated the LunaMetrics copyright. When he wrote me back, he told me that not only had he updated it, but that it was now programmed to automatically update each year.
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Posted on September 7, 2010 by Christina Keffer
Taking this break from your regularly programmed schedule to introduce the Fish, LunaMetrics’ newest employee. The Fish, who is paid in food and taps on the glass of his aquarium, is our office morale booster.
I can personally speak to his efficacy. Ever since he took his place upon my desk my morale has been boosted by at least 15%. Not that it was ever that low to begin with. Productivity on the other hand…
(tap tap…hello Fish)
Anyway! Due to my complete inability to find suitable names for things such as blog posts, children and, yes, fish, I’m relinquishing the dubious pleasure of naming our office fish to you, our loyal readers. And in true web marketing fashion, I’m having our fish-naming process take the form of a contest.
In order to win the privilege of naming this beautiful betta, you must
1. Like our Facebook page
2. Type the proposed name on the Wall
3. Sit back and fidget with the suspense of waiting to see if your name gets chosen.
Is this a shameless plug for our new awesome Facebook page? Maybe.
Will it be worthwhile to participate anyway? Definitely.
See, by liking our Facebook page, you’ll become privy to Fan-only tips and tricks and videos that will be posted on that newly-renovated icon of Facebook awesomeness designed and implemented by our own Jim Gianoglio. So even if we don’t use your fish name, you still win.
Thanks for helping me name him! He thanks you too!
View Comments (6 Responses) | Categories: Miscellaneous
Posted on May 20, 2010 by Robbin Steif
Last year, when I started working on an eBook for Google Analytics and Regular Expressions, one of my acquaintances wrote, “That’s so 2008.” (And just think, now it is 2010.)
So I put it all on the shelf for a while, until Nick M and Avinash did this video and addressed RegEx (Regular Expressions) again. Hmm, I thought. Well, I use them all the time. And people write me with their RegEx and say, “Please help me troubleshoot them” all the time. And then I saw a plea for help on a bulletin board. And finally, when Nick and Avinash did that Nick-and-Avinash show referenced above, I thought, time to finish this ebook.
So here is my guide to Regular Expressions (including the cartoon characters) . You can download it, or read it in html.
I know that there is one design error, but I don’t want to fix it yet again until a lot of you RegEx fans get a chance to read and comment.
All thoughts are welcome. And remember what David Meerman Scott says: On the Internet, you are what you publish.
Robbin
View Comments (8 Responses) | Categories: Analytics, Google Analytics, Miscellaneous
Posted on January 7, 2010 by Jim Gianoglio
Did you know you can make a coupon for your business through your Google Local Business Center? Not many people are aware of that, because the coupons have been nearly invisible to searchers since they were introduced back in August of 2006. Until now.
I present to you, Exhibit A:
I found this coupon in the wild while doing a search for “wedding photography Pittsburgh“. If you scroll over the coupon, it expands to show you more detail:
This little addition could have tremendous impact for local businesses. Just look how much the listing with the coupon stands out; the bright yellow definitely catches your eye. Of course, it’s only a matter of time until everyone jumps on this bandwagon, so it remains to be seen how Google will show the coupons when every listing has them. I can’t imagine them showing the same yellow coupon next to each listing – that would be cluttered and hard on the eyes.
Here are a couple more searches that I found interesting:
This is a search for “hotels Pittsburgh“. Notice how the listing in the top right stands out? It’s ranking at the #9 position (letter I), and it would be interesting to know if it would rank at all on the first page without the coupon.
Hey Pittsburgh attorneys, how would you like to get a few more phone calls from your Google Maps listing?:
That’s right, not a single coupon… yet.
Here’s another one, this Pittsburgh plumber has the idea:
All those dots, and he’s the only one with a bright yellow coupon.
And finally, a bit of a surprise. Usually locksmiths are all over this kind of thing, but that doesn’t seem to be the case (at least not in Pittsburgh – I’m busy right now doing a much more thorough search of cities and categories).
How long do you think it will take until more businesses start utilizing these coupons?
View Comments (10 Responses) | Categories: Miscellaneous
Posted on January 4, 2010 by Robbin Steif
Whether this is a new decade or not, there is no question that it is a new year. Enter website copyright issues. So we have again my annual copyright post.
You can go here to read the original article, but in short: “…the year corresponds to the date of creation of the material. Copyright law doesn’t have much to say about exactly how the date works. A range usually represents the idea that some material was created on X date, some on Y date, and some on dates in between. A single date is supposed to represent the idea that all of the material was created on that date.” Remember, we aren’t lawyers.
So there you have some of the legal issues, but you know, there are other issues, too. One of the things we learned this year (and always suspected) is that some people really do look at the copyright range to see how long you have been in business. Bet you never thought your copyright was part of your conversion strategy, eh?
Robbin
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