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Web Conversions – New Google Analytics Tracking
Event Tracking as a Goal in the New Version of Google Analytics
Previously, there were three options for goals in Google Analytics: a pageview, the time a visitor spent on the site, and the number of pages a visitor viewed. With the new version of Google Analytics, you can now track events as web conversions or “Goals”. This opens up your goal tracking to many more possibilities. Here are a few:
- Watch a video
- Listen to a recording
- Share content via social media
- Download a PDF
- Comment on a blog post
- Rate a product
- Track links to another website
- Fill out a form
- Interact with an application
What is the benefit of this?
For PPC campaigns in Adwords, these new event goals can be imported as conversions in AdWords. Now you can see which campaigns and keywords are engaging your audience and refine it down to the ad group level for your search engine marketing campaigns. Previously, to track a form submission as a goal, the form would need a unique “thank you” page. Now, we can track the click of the submit button as an event goal even if there is not a unique thank you page URL.
For search engine optimization clients, this goal tracking provides even more insight into how users are interacting with your site and increasing the view into engagement for the site variables (downloads, video views, etc). For example, you can track when a visitor views a video, and you can specify the amount of time that a person needs to watch the video in order for it to count as a goal completion.
On the social media side, you will be able to determine how users are interacting with your via social media networks. Learn how often they are sharing your content and which pages are most relevant to social media users.
Setting up the Goal
There are four event components that can be set up as a goal condition: a category, action, label, and value. At least one of these components must be defined but you have the option of defining all four. Think about all of the event goals you would like to set up before starting. It’ll make it easier to organize your goals into categories, actions, and/or labels that make sense and are consistent across your site. Then, choose a goal value, either the value you assigned to the event when you set it up or set a constant value.
Keep in mind that setting up events as goals requires you to add code to the website element you want to track. So, either you or an IT person will need access to edit the website code in order to benefit from the new event goal tracking.
Comment: Feel free to share your thoughts.
Category: Google, Online Marketing, Online PR, Search Engine Marketing, SEO, Social Media
Need a Boost in Sales? Don’t Waste Your Time. Get a Big Win, Fast!
When managing any online marketing campaign, especially a pay per click marketing campaign, there are hundreds of different things you can do to boost results. Yet, at any given time your pay per click management efforts can get a huge boost simply by focusing on conversion.
Do you want a 100% to 500% boost in sales almost overnight?
Then make the most of your existing traffic by improving your landing page with better content, layout and calls to action.
Do you want to 100% to 500% increase in sales on your ecommerce website?
Then test your website to decrease your shopping cart abandonment rates and the % of visitors that add something to your cart.
Consistently focusing on the landing page conversion rate is the biggest and fastest impact thing you can do to improve your sales. Plus, as the pay per click space gets more and more competitive it is your best bet for long-term success. Over and over again we see advertisers who obsess over their Adwords account and ignore the fact that their pages just aren’t delivering. Your competitors will optimize for conversion and as a result they will be able to afford to pay more per click. Don’t get left in the dust.
To learn more about how Fathom can help increase the conversion potential of your marketing strategy, request a free site evaluation today!
Comment: Feel free to share your thoughts.
Category: Conversion Optimization, Email Marketing, Predictive Analytics
Fathom Nominates Cleveland as Kickoff City for SEOmoz Family MozCation
Industry powerhouse SEOmoz is rolling out a 3-stop “Family MozCation” this year, and we’ve just nominated Cleveland for the first stop (June 29). If our fair city is chosen, we look forward to meeting our online marketing brothers and sisters from the Pacific Northwest right here in the heartland.
SEOmoz will choose the best submission based on creativity and amount of retweets. We here at Fathom created a video that explains why the SEOmoz robot might choose Cleveland as the kickoff city. This exclusive, one-hour prime-time national broadcast reveals what the world has waited for: “Decision 2011: MozCation in Cleveland.”
Fellow Clevelanders (or others who are just sympathetic), if you like our video, we ask you to please retweet.
Local digital marketers, you, too, can share in the party with SEOmoz and other area agencies on June 29th if Cleveland gets chosen. It just may take an entire city to make our shared dreams come true. Do it for the chance to meet the Wizard of Moz himself, Rand Fishkin. Or just to spite LeBron. Either way, be a witness to the video and retweet it today!
BBC Critiques YouTube: Professionalism on the Rise with Internet Videos
A recent BBC online article reported on the changes that are slowly transforming YouTube and the YouTube viewing experience.
Chief among the evolutionary details is that YouTube is presenting more and more “professionally produced content” on the video portal, which seems to suggest that production values once-heralded as “low-fi” and “Indie” are slowly becoming more polished. This may be attributed to the growing sophistication of YouTube amateur content creators and better technology tools for filming and editing.
It also suggests that more and more companies, agencies and organizations are using YouTube to spread their messages online and to take the industry-leading website seriousy as an advertising channel.
Lastly, YouTube is working harder to cultivate their content providers so that they produce original and fresh material that brings viewers back again and again, like a television program would do. YouTube clearly recognizes the value of quality production values, despite its ‘broadcast yourself’ slogan.
Fathom also recognizes excellence in production values, and the huge opportunity YouTube offers freely to its content providers. We develop branding, product & service videos for our clients and then distribute them on YouTube for the whole world to see – through our Internet video production & marketing services that feature remarkably affordable pricing and great visual aesthetics. Contact us today to learn more about what we can do for you via Internet video marketing, and read the entire BBC article on YouTube here.
Social Media For The Good Of The People
I sometimes hear people say that they are afraid to use social media. There are too many bad things that can happen. Their house will get robbed when that person just waiting on Facebook to rob them, sees that they have checked in at a local restaurant. (If you have your Facebook privacy settings configured correctly, the only people who are going to see your check-ins are people that you have allowed access to your profile and I sure hope they aren’t going to rob you!)
Still other people are afraid to post pictures of their kids or grandkids because that creep lurking on social networks will want to kidnap them. And of course don’t ever pay for anything online because you wouldn’t want to have your credit card number out there. Instead, be safe. Order by phone and give all of it, including your security code, to a total stranger located who knows where.
I tell these people it is like a hammer. Sure you COULD hurt someone with it, but when it is used in the way it was designed, there is no better tool for the job. That is why I was so pleased when I saw a story about a woman who found a kidney donor for her dying mother via social media! Now that is using a great tool exactly as it was designed.
So if you are one of those folks a little leery of using social networks, my advice is “do your homework first.” Find out which networks would most easily and efficiently fit into your lifestyle and connect you with friends and family in ways that are useful to you. And read the help files and make sure you are following the steps to secure your information according to that network’s best practices. You never know when you might need some special help for you or a loved one, and it just might come from a Facebook friend or a Twitter follower!
