A common question asked by marketers today – Why is there a big difference between Adwords conversion revenue and Google Analytics Paid Search conversion revenue?

Below are a few reasons why there will be a difference.

Google Adwords:
Google Adwords has a cookie expiration of 30 days.
Google Adwords matches conversions to clicks.
Google Adwords campaign attribution cannot be overwritten by other traffic sources.

Google Analytics:
Google Analytics, by default, has a campaign cookie expiration of 6 months.
Google Analytics matches conversions to visits.
Google Analytics campaign attribution is overwritten by the most recent campaign visit (by default), excl. direct traffic.

Scenario:
A visitor clicks on a Google Paid Search text ad on 19 July and does not make a purchase. The same visitor, using the same PC and browser returns to the website 2 days later by typing the website address in their browser and makes a purchase.

Outcome:
Google Adwords: Records the conversion at click-date, 19 July.
Google Analytics: Records the conversion in the visit which resulted in the transaction, 21 July.
* Even if Google Adwords is linked to Google Analytics, Google Analytics will assign the conversion to the date of the transaction (the visit in which the purchase occurred), not the original date the ad was clicked.

Scenario:
A visitor clicks on a Google Paid Search text ad on 15 June and does not make a purchase. The same visitor, using the same PC and browser returns to the website 35 days later by typing the website address in their browser and makes a purchase.

Outcome:
Google Adwords: Does not record the conversion, as the conversion occurred after the cookie expired.
Google Analytics: Records the conversion in the visit which resulted in the transaction, 19 July. (35 days after 15 June)

Notes: Adwords has a cookie expiration of 30 days. Google Analytics, by default, has a campaign cookie expiration of 6 months. This can be amended, using the _setCampaignCookieTimeout() method. More information relating to changing the length of the cookie here: http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/gaJS/gaJSApiCampaignTracking.html#_gat.GA_Tracker_._setCampaignCookieTimeout

Scenario:
A visitor clicks on a Google Paid Search text ad on 19 July and does not make a purchase. The same visitor, using the same PC and browser returns to the website 2 days later, after clicking on an email, which is tagged with _utm tags.
(Utm Tags: http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55518)

Outcome:
Google Adwords: Records the transaction on 19 July (date of click), as the conversion occurred during the 30 day cookie period.
Google Analytics: Records the transaction, but it is not attributed to Adwords. By default, the most recent campaign (email campaign) receives credit for the conversion, although this can be amended.

Understanding the differences between Google Adwords and Google Analytics will help you understand why each platform is reporting different revenue.

Jack works for a digital marketing agency and Jill is an online marketing manager at a reputable multi-channel brand, located in South Africa. Jill’s CEO has decided they need to go with Jack’s digital agency – so they need to meet!

After a fabulous welcoming and lovely chatter, they enter the work part of the meeting … “Well I guess we better speak about the digital strategy going forward.” Jill, “Yes, this is very exciting. Our new website is launching in about two weeks.”

Jack has numerous questions in his mind. “I wonder how Jill’s business or web development partner decided on how their new website will function; I wonder what results are expected.”

Jack asks Jill, “Okay, I’ve got a few questions – What is the goal of your website? What results are you expecting?” Jill thinks to herself, ‘The goal of the website, that’s quite a question, erm, for people to purchase items?”

Jill replies, “To get sales. That’s what we need! We are not sure what to expect, but we look forward to seeing what happens. Our improved website is going live in two weeks, so now we need more sales. I know about SEO and PPC, let’s do it. Oh, we are also going to need banners! We are going to send out emails to our existing users, and later this year we are going to launch a mobile friendly version of our website, I heard that mobile is so important. We probably need to get more social too.”

I’d like to stop the above conversation and highlight a few points.
Is it an odd question to request what the goals and objectives of the website are, especially in the case where there is one main conversion goal – users purchasing from the website. Clearly, a strategy is required. But how often are strategies implemented?

What has happened to defining business and website goals, where the website goals is aligned with the business goals? I’m not saying everything needs to be strictly scientifically calculated, I’m saying that there needs to be a web analytics strategy. Proper planning will help define the way forward and create the ability to evaluate whether a campaign initiative successfully contributed to the business and website goals. Too often I find that, due to a lack of planning, the digital aspect of a business goes around in circles.

Web Analytics is the answer.

Web Analytics, which includes the full digital spectrum, allows on-going digital strategy. Web Analytics encompasses Measuring Marketing Campaigns, Site Optimisation and embeds the culture of real integrated measurement and online strategy.

Web Analytics involves agreeing on the goals of the website and deciding how and where these goals will be measured. It may even involve integrating CRM with the data. It’s not only about quantitative data. The qualitative side is just as important when trying to understand why something is successful, or not. It involves explicitly defining website indicators will be used to evaluate each goal. It is easy to see what happens, but being able to tell why a campaign is performing the way it is, is important. Web Analytics involves how the goals of each marketing channel differ and how and where they will be measured.

This will lead to what changes need to take place with marketing campaigns, site optimisation and possibly even operational changes within your organisation, especially in the case where the conversion goes beyond website interaction.

Perhaps email marketing, a retention channel, needs to be increased or improved. Perhaps a portion of Social Media budget should be allocated elsewhere, yet still within the Social Media budget. Perhaps Display advertising should be more targeted and have its’ own micro-site or landing page. Perhaps Paid Search budget should be increased, or is over spending.

I believe it is up to the digital marketers in South Africa to ensure that online maturity continues to grow in leaps and bounds.

Disclaimer: These thoughts are my own and yes there is so much more to web analytics! So few have a solid digital measurement and optimisation strategy.
Thanks to this random website (http://www.carlscorner.us.com/) that gave me a ridiculous picture of jack and jill.

I attended Cape Town’s first Web Analytics Wednesday. It was good to see 50+ people come together to discuss Web Analytics and Digital Marketing. Hoping that there will be many more Web Analytics Wednesdays in Cape Town

My Notes on the #gthink webinar Hosted by Avinash on 19 May.

Well, I attended think marketing with Google webinar …

Here is my summary
Even although there is so much we can measure in digital marketing. Outcomes are core and this is the focus of the webinar!

There are 3 buckets of evolution

1. Toddler phase. Ok we get the CPA.
2. Rocking teen phase. Grow up and measure a bit more on the ads you see in the space!
3. Ninja phase. End by talking about the adult stage, Crème de la crème and amazing measurement!

*Move beyond only cost and focus on outcomes!

Credit to Avinash for the below image.

Credit to Avinash

Toddler Phase:

1. The Funnel Analysis in Google Analytics shows a lot of awesome analysis. You can see assisted conversions! Number of Impressions leading up to conversion!
2. Mobile Ads – You can even track number of missed calls!

Rockin teen phase:

1. Enter Revenue metrics and Average Order Size! Not only purely CPA.
2. Begin to focus on Costs of Goods sold and Net Profit! Measure this!

Ninja phase:

1. What do adults do in digital marketing (Ninja’s)
2. You need to know the Economic value!
3. What about the 98% of people that did not convert? Is what we should obsess about!
4. What is the business impact on the other visitors (Non Converting) Micro Conversions?
5. An example of measuring micro conversions:
   1. Track Newsletter sign-ups – That’s a conversion right there!
   2. Request a catalogue! There’s another one.
   3. What about an Application download?
6. These are all micro conversions and give the user value! They should be measured.
7. Reports also look much sexier . You are measuring a lot more of the audience of that visit your website.
8. You can Segment and Hyper focus this!
9. Social, Search, Display Email –segment these in the Micro and Macro conversions!
10. So don’t only focus on e-commerce outcomes only.
11. Look at business value by looking at more than just cost and revenue, but also Macro and Micro conversions – The Economic value!

I decided to put together a few slides on web analytics …

Here is a simple Google Analytics checklist to help you to ensure you are using all features.
Please let me know what features might be missing, or any comments you may have. Thank you

1. List all URLs / Sub-domains that require tracking.
2. List who requires access to profiles and their access permission. (Standard/Administrator)
3. Look at the website – Ask yourself:
   1. What is the purpose of this website?
   2. Identify Micro conversions / goals. (Track as much as possible)
   3. Which metrics are going to be important? Which metrics will help me identify where I can improve my website?
4. Decide the naming conversion for campaign tagging. (Non Adwords campaigns)
1. Use standard naming conventions.
5. Setup:
1. Ensure an unfiltered raw profile exists.
2. Setup asynchronous version of Google Analytics code to be included on all pages.
• Ensure the correct code is used for sub domains (SetDomainName, SetAllowLinker etc.)
3. Setup Site Search. [include category parameter, if possible]
4. Setup Goals.
• Give the goals a value.
• Setup a Goal funnel.
5. Setup E-commerce tracking for purchased items.
6. Do reports need to be scheduled? Setup report schedules.
7. Do events need to be tracked? Track email links / Video buttons.
8. Setup events/Virtual Page views if applicable. E.g Ajax sites
9. Implement filters on profiles. (Except on the raw profile) e.g. exclude company IP.
10. Link Adwords to Analytics.
• Enable Auto tagging.
11. Setup custom alerts to be notified if abnormal activity occurs. [Intelligence]
12. Implement Custom variables. (If applicable) e.g. member status.
13. Advanced Segments: Once you have enough click-stream data, apply Advanced Segments to help understand your data better.
6. Test:
   1. Purchase more than 1 item to ensure E-commerce code renders correct.
   • Ensure the transaction appears within Google Analytics. (You may have to wait 24 hours)
   2. Check that the new Asynchronous code is on all pages. (Keep a close eye on the profile ID within the code)

A Thought – If your website is not easy to navigate and visitors cannot do what they want to do, then your site is like a maze. Not good.

I often perform test transactions on websites and sometimes (fortunately not all the time); I need to look where to go/click next, to make a purchase. These websites are basically sending their visitors (potential customers!) through a maze and many will give up. You need to make it very simple for users to perform the actions you want them to perform. Send them along a straight line, clearly marked.

1. Do not hide the checkout button.
2. Do not have abnormal surprises during checkout. [Unless you are a professional testing some serious strategies, usually to existing customers though)]
3. Less fields are better.
4. Validation handling is critical. Do not put error messages where users cannot see them, leaving them to wonder what was wrong. I have come across this.
5. If you have to use a captcha – please do not use one like Google uses. Not a fan of theirs
6. Is your checkout on https? – Or are you announcing over a loud speaker that users need to walk through a river with crocodiles?

Remember, a successful purchase is not over till the payment has been processed. In fact, until the order has been delivered on time. (but that’s another topic)

Anyway, here is a maze Flash game that I sourced, to include in this post. Have fun!

Yesterday, I started reading Web Analytics 2.0 written by Avinash. The content in this book is outstanding. It has already started opening by eyes and is beginning to mould the way I think about web analytics.

One thing that I found quite funny in the early stages of the book (reason for this blog post) was the reference to Hippos and Customers. I thought I had to blog about this! and upload a picture of a hippo
I guess it was funny as I have experienced it often … Hippo – the Highest Paid Persons Opinion…counts the most, but it could be ruining your site/conversion rate completely!

Well, I’m really looking forward to finishing your book, Avinash. Love it!

Happy Holidays everyone! Big challenges in 2011!

Too often, I find that bounce rate is incorrectly understood. Comments like, “Look, the bounce rate is so high, it must be a bad website”, or even worse “The traffic you are sending to this website is not targeted”. Yes, both is possible, but I always recommend digging deeper with the information that is available to you. Take a closer look.

One of the reasons for this post is that I came across a lead generation website the other day, which uses AJAX to “thank” the user when a successful lead is submitted. This means that the page does not reload and the URL remains the same. Therefore, visitors that are completing the form (the ultimate goal!) are contributing to a higher bounce rate – this is obviously not ideal and would affect your bounce rate metric. Any interpretations you have made on the bounce rate are therefore wrong? Yes.

To fix this, you can use Google Analytics “fake page views” or event tracking or custom variables to capture the lead submission/conv. All credit to http://www.twitter.com/avinash Credit to Avinash for explaining the solution in one sentence. He is good!

I confess, I have a lot to learn with Bounce Rate and gaining a deeper understanding on this metric. My current rule of thumb, is to always ask “Why / Where” are visitors bouncing and always check your web analytics setup to ensure it’s gathering the correct data.

I work quite a bit with Google Analytics and have recently come across two “keywords” that are generated by Google Analytics, that are not actually keywords.
{ysmkey} is a keyword that is created by Google Analytics for a Yahoo Paid campaign, where it was unable to get the actual keyword that was clicked on that attributed the site visit.

The Other keyword that I came across is “boomuserlist”. keywords that start with boomuserlist are visits that belong to a Remarketing campaign within Google Adwords. As keywords do not need to be specified when creating a Remarketing campaign in Google Adwords, Google Analytics attributes all visits/revenue to “boomuserlist”, which I think has to do with the list/audience to which the visitors belong to, as defined in Google Adwords.