Google Analytics

Since the launch of iPhone a few years ago everyone was expecting the “mobile revolution” where thousand of sales will be generated every day from mobile. I personally don’t believe we are there yet but we are getting closer. The search volumes on Google mobile are raising and users feel more comfortable surfing the net on a 3G connection or WiFi.

A few weeks ago we did a Google Analytics consultancy for a client and realised that actually they generated 225 transactions in 30 days from mobile. A great number if you consider that the website doesn’t have a mobile version and it’s very difficult for the visitor to navigate through the existing menu.

When we look closely to the actual devices we can see that iPhone and iPad are top of the list. As iPad offers the same experience to the user as a normal laptop or PC the conversion rate is higher. iPhone is still on the top of the list with the most visits and transactions but lower conversion rate. Android/Blackberry and iPod touch have a very low conversion rate.

Overall mobile will eventually become an important channel (not as important as some people predict) and if we add iPad under that channel we will definitely see an increase in visits and sales. It’s important to try and test your site in the devices and if possible correct any issues. Similarly to the web user experience is very important for mobile users too. The trend is here and we have noticed that all our clients have seen an increase in traffic from mobile.

Make sure that you check the your analytics regularly for the number of visitors from mobile devices. For Google Analytics users click  Visitors>Mobile>Mobile Devices.

Last month Google announced an enhanced integration of Google Adwords reports inside of Google Analytics. This included access to 3 new reports and the ability to segment by 10 new dimensions. The new reports include: Day Parts Report, Destination URLs Report, and Placements Report. You can find the new Adwords reports in Google Analytics under Traffic Sources> Google Adwords.

and the new dimensions:

There is was a lot of talk about Google’s View Through conversions.  View-through conversion reporting measures the number of conversions that occurred within 30 days of your display ad appearing for which there was no ad click generated. (It is only available on Google content network.)

A lot of advertisers and agencies started reporting on those metrics but the obvious question was how accurate this data was? Adwords announced yesterday that now you can actually “de-dupe” view through from normal conversions and also now you can extend the conversion window from the standard 30 days.

If you want to “de-dupe” the conversions go to Reporting>Conversions>Click on the action name>then Settings and choose Enable as shown below.

What you will notice is that the number of conversions over the next few days will down but it will not affect the past data. What we recommend is that if you are using any Re-marketing campaigns then do not activate this option. By keeping the  View Through conversion option it will enable you to see how the re-marketing campaigns are performing.

Google Merchant Center—URL Verification

In March, Google announced that all merchants sending product offer information into Google Merchant Center must verify ownership of their domain by May 18 or risk having product data removed from Google Product Search. The whole process takes less than two minutes and you need to do it in order to keep your product listings on Google Merchant Center live.

Ad Sitelinks where first mentioned by Google Adwords back in November 2009. So far not many advertisers take full advantage of ad sitelinks for their brand terms.

Ad Sitelinks are designed to trigger in situations where an ad provides the “best answer” for a search query, and Ad Sitelinks are most likely to trigger on unique brand terms. In addition, Ad Sitelinks are more likely to appear on top-ranked ads with high quality scores; however, they may not always be shown for every top-ranked ad.

Sitelinks could help advertisers to “push” competitors brand bidding down on search results and gain more real estate on the search results. With Ad Sitelinks, you can point to specific information on your site such as special deals, holiday or event-related promotions, and store locators.

The example above from Lufthansa shows how well the Ad site links could be used. The first link directs to the iPhone app, the next two to special offers for certain countries (I presume the top destinations from the UK) and the fourth one all special fairs to Europe.As a result we now have one ad that offers four different destinations to the user. We have been running Ad Site links for all our clients and the result are very encouraging.

How to set up Ad Site links?

Ad sitelinks are not available to all advertisers, if you run a Brand campaign with a strong CTR and high Quality Score you should be able to see the option under Campaigns > Settings > Ad Extensions. You have the option to choose up to 10 additional links but only 4 will appear on the search results.

How to track Ad Site links on Google Analytics?

Something that a lot of advertisers forget is to track the site link individually and measure their performance on Google Analytics.  To track each sitelink separately you will want to append an identifiying query parameter to the destination URL of the clients sitelink.

Current Landing Page URL:

http://www.example.com/gifts

The query parameter sitelink should be fairly self explanatory. Giving each URL a number that corresponds to its position is just 1 possibility.

You could also use:

http://www.example.com/gifts?sitelink=top10

http://www.example.com/gifts?sitelink=kids

http://www.example.com/gifts?sitelink=parents

As any other adcopy its important to monitor the performance of each site link and if necessary change or add additional options. So far we have seen some great results by giving the user more options and allowing them to find what they want faster.