Google Analytics--New and Improved!

Wow. I hate to seem like such a slavish admirer of Google, but they just do great work. Google Analytics has just been given a major redesign/upgrade, and it is smoking! Much easier to read and interpret, it is even more focused on the needs of marketers and business owners. Is it as powerful as Omniture or HBX? No, but it's far easier for the average person to get actionable data from than either of those applications. Did I mention it's free?

If you've been wasting time pulling data out of the old version of GA to present it to a business owner or client in more "user-friendly" form, stop. Remind them how to sign into their GA account and have them take the tour, and then let them use it themselves. It's so intuitive and non-threatening, anybody can use it. Use that time you now spend moving numbers around in Excel to make some more money.

How Can I Tell Which Change Was an Improvement?

If your conversion rate has been falling, and new keywords and creative aren't moving the needle, you probably need to improve your landing pages. Landing pages are the pages your prospects land on when they click on one of your ads online.

Unfortunately, most people don't put much effort into landing page optimization. One of the reasons is that without the right tools, doing meaningful A/B comparisons between 2 versions of a page has been impossible for all but the biggest companies.

For those willing to spend a bit of time at it, Google has now put a real-time testing tool into our hands, free of charge. It's called Google Optimizer, and you should give it a try.

A colleague sent me a great article this morning, and it raises some very interesting possibilities. I struggle to help smaller etailers understand the difficulty of establishing a meaningful presence in organic (free) search engine results on Google, Yahoo, MSN and the like. You can do everything right with your site and still not make much headway because of the importance that search engines place on inbound links from "authority" sites. In other words, if you don't have popular, quality information sites linking to your site, customers won't find you in search engine results pages (SERPs).

It's very difficult for a small to medium size business to get inbound links from legitimate authority sites.

Here's what Jason Prescott says in Is Google Killing SEO?

Paid search listings could become more relevant than organic listings because of the emphasis on inbound links in search algorithms

He goes on to say:

Google's paid search algorithm acts almost like a rating system. Google will discover the most popular sites based on user preferences, allowing it to serve highly relevant results based on paid search landing pages. As a result, search engines will likely start serving more sponsored links, and the organic links will start to fade away.

Does this mean even small businesses must run large paid search campaigns with thousands of keywords to get found online? Not yet. The answer for many businesses may be to find a quality vertical search site for their industry. If your customer base is in a tight enough niche, this may be the best way to get quality traffic. If the vertical search site is also rich in quality information related to your business, then guess what--you've found the ultimate authority site to boost your organic search rankings.

Google PPA and the End of Affiliates

The industry is abuzz with Google's 3/20 announcement of the limited launch of its "Pay Per Action" ads and what impact it will have. They allow the advertiser to designate any action as the conversion event they are willing to pay for.

In theory, instead of paying for $20,000 for hundreds of thousands of clicks every month, an advertiser would only pay for the clicks that resulted in a sale. If you're thinking that means you'll be able to get the same sales and only spend $1,000 with Google next month, think again.

It's still going to be an auction marketplace, and the cost per action will be a function of what the major players feel a conversion is worth to them. So instead of paying 50 cents for a click, you may be paying $50 for a sale. Or $500. If your bid is too low, your ad simply won't appear.

PPA ads will only be available in Google's AdSense network, not in search engine results pages. Here are some of the most likely impacts:

• Affiliate marketing companies like Commission Junction are going to get hit hard, because this puts them in direct competition with Google.
• Publishers will have to choose to place these ads, which shift some financial risk away from advertisers to publishers. This means that advertiser demand will drive adoption.
• Google will continue its Borg-like advance towards eventual global advertising domination.

On the whole, this is good news for everyone who benefits from transparency in the advertising transaction. Traditional agencies and publishers focused on flat rate or CPM advertising will need to wrap their brains around this soon. Ignorant advertisers may mean bliss for now, but it won't last. If those advertisers figure it out without help from their agency or media companies, guess where they'll go with their advertising dollars?

Why Are You Redesigning Your Site?

Most etailers begin thinking about a redesign when sales flatten and they run out of things they feel they can change on their site to boost conversion. The first thing most will think about is how they will update their site's appearance with a slicker, more professional look. Some get seduced by sexy Flash elements that move and make cool sounds as you mouse over them. Will making your site sexy increase conversions? Not likely.

The sexiness priority usually means that an owner's ego getting in the way of his or her good business sense. Let me say this again: Your website belongs to your customers, not you. It HAS to be about them, giving them what THEY, not you, deem most important.

Unfortunately, those pesky customers seem to want difficult things, like detailed, complete and well-written descriptions, or great photography. It's a lot easier to write a check for that cool Flash navigation.

I was thinking about the topic of best practices for writing online this morning (yes, I AM a geek), and decided to go look at what noted usability guru Jakob Nielsen had to say on the subject. Lo and behold, there is a column that is stunningly relevant to me and many etailers right now, titled "10 High-Profit Redesign Priorities". Jakob often says unpopular things, but the truth of his research has stood the test of time. Read this column.

Is Your Site Killing In-Store Sales?

Here's something to give multichannel (web/online) merchants pause:

Year-over-year there's been nearly a 50% increase in consumers who report that a frustrating online experience would make them less likely to shop at that retailer's physical store.

The source for this is The 2006 Holiday Shopping: Online Customer Experience Survey, conducted by a company called Allurent. The survey also uncovered some wished-for site features:

1. The ability to click on an item to create a popup window with more details about the product including price, size, colors, inventory availability, etc. (74%)
2. The ability to click on an item and add it to your cart without leaving the page you're on (70%)
3. The ability to "feel" merchandise through better imagery, more product descriptions and details (68%)
4. The ability to enter all data related to your purchase on one page, rather than go through several checkout pages (64%)
5. The ability to mix/match product images on one page to determine whether they look good together (47%)

Looks like pretty basic stuff. Get it right, or frustrated shoppers may decide not to shop at your webstore or your physical store.

Stop Advertising, Start Marketing

It's pretty common for retailers to think of advertising as "everything we do to get customers in the door". So, newspaper FSIs, direct mail, radio ads, paid search marketing, banner ads on websites, it's all "ADV", right?

Yes, but you need to expand your view of ways to get people in the door. Why? People ignore traditional advertising. Companies spend millions trying to create an impact with advertising (during the Super Bowl, for example), and what's the result? All too often, you remember the ad but not the advertiser. You might as well light your next TV ad by burning stacks of hundred dollar bills.

Even small companies now have the tools available to them to make an impact using new media, to generate awareness and the "viral" effect that happens when consumers pass your message along to other consumers. The most visible medium for this is video, posted somewhere like YouTube, but it could be a podcast, a blog, or a microsite. You can do it without a fancy ad agency or a 7-figure marketing budget.

Don't believe me? OK, take a look at this. Yes, it's hilarious, but you'll remember the store's USP and location after watching it.