Well, for a good 380ish days since those bold claims were made, my colleague Vim and I were excitedly waiting for the time that we could analyse all the data.

That time is now.

(Actually that time was over three weeks ago, but we've been busy beavering away on optimizing PPC campaigns and websites so this has been put on the back-burner). 

Google Analytics API + Geeks = Data!

In order to placate the statistically specific amongst you - allow me to first explain the stats we're about to share with you. We have a large number of Google Analytics accounts that we have access to; luckily for us, we also have a number of super-intelligent colleagues who, through the GA API and some VBA & Excel geekery, can collate those accounts to grab mobile visits for each week of 2010 and 2011. What Vim and I were left with was a large amount of data and through further crunching we narrowed down the lists of profiles to ensure that:

• all profiles used in the analysis had data for both 2010 and 2011
• profiles used in the analysis were active in every month of both years (i.e. the increases were not due to profiles only starting to collect data in March 2010 for example).

At the end of the number crunching we were left with a data set of well over 100 websites included in the analysis, predominantly from the UK, totalling over 17.6 million visits. The results were pretty impressive as you can see below; mobile visits have increased steadily over the past two years, but the recent acceleration has been even more striking.
 

From the start of 2010 to the end of 2011 there was a ten fold increase in mobile visits. TEN FOLD. Mobile visits increased 180% between Jan-Dec 2010, and 155% over the same time in 2011.The truth of the matter is people are now prepared to conduct research, read articles and make purchases on their mobile devices - and you need to ensure you are ready for it.

To our minds, the reasons for this huge increase are the sheer prevalence of smartphones and tablets in the marketplace. A couple of years ago, when there were fewer phones with full Internet browsers, there were fewer 'early adopters' of smart-phones. As second-generation smart phones, and the first iPad were released in early 2010, the increase in mobile visits started to steadily climb (although note the real spike when the iPhone 4 was first released!). As more and more handsets/tablets were released (with faster browsing and better screens), naturally price started to fall for the older models, leading to an overall increase in owners of these devices fuelling an uptake in mobile internet browsing. You can see this effect start to snowball from the middle to the end of 2011. Interestingly, an obvious spike was again noticed in 2011 around the time of the release of the iPhone 4S - a testament to Apple's unrivalled marketing and popularity.

The other striking observation from the graph above is the increase between October and Christmas in both years. Whilst 2010 saw a gentle slope in more visits, 2011 saw a 50% increase in this time alone. It would seem that there was an obvious shift towards people searching for, and buying, Christmas gifts via their mobile device, rather than more traditional mediums.

Yeah, so what?

So, 'lovely stats Vim & Olly, but what do they mean for me?', you may ask. If it wasn't strikingly clear already, then we cannot recommend it highly enough now - make sure that you have a mobile optimised site and, even better, mobile optimised marketing campaign. If you really want to make us happy, get in touch about a mobile specific PPC campaign!

If you're wondering why you might need a mobile specific website, Vim's previously covered that here. In any case, pick up your mobile, navigate to, and play around on, your site and ask yourself 'is this experience as good as it is on a desktop?' If you're in any doubt, log in to Google Analytics and check out your mobile report - if e-commerce or goal conversion rates are significantly lower on mobile, then you could probably do with some optimistation. 

There you have it - no, we didnt all throw away our desktops and glue our smartphones to our hands, but there's no denying that mobile can no longer be ignored.

Here at Periscopix Towers, we're predicting that 2012 will be the Year of Social, with more engagement and more traffic/conversions from these platforms. Check back again in a year to see if we were right. (But also check back much sooner than this, we've always got something interesting to say!)

We're always interested to know the state of client's websites so if you could spare 10 seconds to complete the poll below, that'd be swell.

Hallelujah, here's your saviour!

Look no further, with one of our favourite third-party tools that supplements your Google Analytics data; PadiTrack. Whilst Google Analytics is awesome at so many things, one thing it does not offer is retrospective data filling. So if you add a goal or funnel to your profile, it won't automatically fill in this data for you using past data - it will only start to track from the moment you set it up. (Incidentally, it's the same with filters too - if you set up an IP exclusion filter two weeks after site launch, GA won't 'take away' the visits that have come from that IP in the past, they'll just be excluded moving forwards). But now with PadiTrack you can create glorious retrospective funnels on the fly in a couple of quick, easy steps!

How do you get this sweet, sweet data?

All you need to do is sign-up to PadiTrack and authenticate your Google Analytics account with them, and you're free to start bathing in funnels! Simply enter the funnel steps involved in your process and you've got yourself a gem of a report. Below, you can see a pretty important funnel process(!) that I've looked at for our site using PadiTrack. I wanted to see how many of our visitors landed on our Homepage then navigated to the Team page then viewed Niyi's page, my page and Orly's page.

You'll see that you get a funnel conversion rate but along with that you can also apply advanced and default segments to your funnel data to get an even more useful report. For example, we'd recommend segmenting to look at how new visitors are going through your funnel process; after all, returning visitors know the drill and can largely look after themselves - it is with new visitors that you tend to notice any issues.

If all of that wasn't enough: it's completely free!

Happy Analysing!

So what are you waiting for? If you've got a checkout process or application form that you want to analyse, head over to PadiTrack and check out how your funnels performed across 2011.

Everything looks good, and you've got a healthy funnel conversion rate? Perfect, relax and pat yourself on the back!

Got a major sticking point or a disappointing funnel conversion rate? Give us a call, there's nothing we enjoy more than digging into the stats to understand and solve the problem.

Top vs. Side was introduced in July 2011.  In November Google changed the name to Top vs. Other to reflect changes to the locations where ads can be displayed.

However many people aren’t making the most use of this metric, so here are a few tips for what to do with the data.

First some definitions:

'Top' refers to the ads that appear above the search results.  In the example below this is shaded yellow. Typically up to three ads are shown in the top position.

'Other' is made up of side ads and ads that appear elsewhere.  So far we have observed ads displayed at the bottom of search results.

Top vs. Other is very useful in identifying how your ads perform in the top banner positions in comparison to the other positions down the side or at the bottom of the search results.

Where to find it?

You can access Top vs. Other data from within Segments (found underneath the tabs when any one of Campaigns, Ad Groups, Ads or Keywords tab is selected).

You can then see the key metrics split between Top and Other ad positions for Google Search and Search Partners.

So how should you use this data?

You can start with some basic optimisation by comparing data for 'top' and 'other' ad positions. If you are receiving healthy click though rates in the 'other' position then you may want to target an ad position down the side or at the bottom which will cost you less and may deliver better quality traffic.

In general, you are more likely to find that your clickthrough rates and conversions are higher when your ads are displayed in the banner positions.

As long as you have conducted a fair test where your ads are displayed equally in the 'top' and 'other' positions then you should know which positions work best for you and  target these going forward.

If you have an ecommerce site and are able to measure the value of your conversions then you can use the conversion value figure in the 'top' and 'other' data to target specific areas for optimisation to help you achieve your targets.

Remember you can see the top vs. other data at the keyword level and ad level.  You may be able to use this data to make decisions on whether you need a separate ad group for a keyword or theme of keywords with its own specific ad so that you meet your goals more effectively.

The Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance is on the horizon once more and it’s important to know the ins and outs of what’s actually going to happen. Firstly it’s not a merger – the 2 companies are not joining forces in all respects – it’s an agreement between the 2 search divisions of each respective company.

The alliance has been running for a while now in North America and a few hiccups initially stalled the process in the UK and Europe. With these now set to be resolved it’s looking likely that Q2 (2012) is a good date to look out for.

The deal has been struck for 10 years and the official line is as below:  

“The Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance combines the complementary strengths of Yahoo! and Microsoft to create a competitive choice in search with the scale to fuel sustained development. Both companies aim to ultimately enable searchers to find relevant results faster, and provide more value for advertisers and better results for web publishers.”

Essentially the Yahoo! advertiser interface (Panama) will become defunct, to be replaced by Microsoft’s adCenter platform. The two sites will still operate as individual search engines, only the technology powering both in terms of results will be Microsoft’s (Bing).

Each company will still generate its own content on each site and still develop tools and experiences to try and attract users in their own way (a little bit like having a Sony laptop and a Dell laptop – they both look and feel different on the outside – however both are powered by an Intel chip).

So there will be elements of how both companies work together and also areas that they both compete – once again the official line on this is as follows:

How Yahoo! and Microsoft will work together:

• Search ad inventory from Yahoo!, Microsoft and their respective partners will be combined into a new unified search marketplace.
• Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10-year license to certain Yahoo! search technologies.
• Microsoft will manage the technology platforms that deliver the algorithmic (powered by Bing) and paid (powered by adCenter) search results.
• Full implementation of the terms of the search alliance is expected to occur within 24 months following regulatory clearance.
• Yahoo!’s Sales team will exclusively support high volume advertisers, SEO and SEM agencies, and resellers and their clients, and Microsoft will support self-service advertisers. In addition, Microsoft adCenter will be the platform for all search campaigns.

How Yahoo! and Microsoft will compete:

• The Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance does not include each company's display advertising, web properties and products, email, instant messaging, or any other aspect of the companies' businesses.
• Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force.
• Yahoo! and Microsoft will innovate their own consumer search experiences to compete for search users and search queries.
• Yahoo! and Microsoft will service their respective publishers, also known as affiliate search partners.
• Yahoo! will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships.

So to summarise this is just for search – it’s just the technology that’s changing that powers the search results.

Advantages: With one of the platforms disappearing – you now only have two logins to worry about rather than 3 which will save you some time. This also only means one point of contact which will be the Yahoo! team. One buy will mean greater market share - added to this the algorithm of adCenter favours traffic that converts as opposed to Yahoo! which favours relevance which should mean advertisers see greater returns

Disadvantages: You will no longer be able to split out results from both engines. The Search Alliance means that by buying, you appear on both and can’t just appear on one or the other, so for smaller advertisers this may now be a more expensive proposition. The flip side to this of course is that the crossover of traffic is likely to be quite high so that in reality there may not be that much more difference.

In terms of transition, Yahoo! and Microsoft are currently working hard behind the scenes to make this process as smooth as possible. Both engines will give plenty of warning and make recommendations to agencies as to next steps. There is still value to be had with your individual accounts right up until transition - however if you aren’t working with either engine it’s important to speak to us to talk about this as a potential option.

For any further information – please speak to your Account manager at Periscopix or head here

Understanding how Google handles punctuation is crucial, especially if you're running international PPC campaigns. In some languages, such as French and Spanish, the use of special characters, symbols and accent marks can make a big difference in terms of impressions, Quality Scores and conversion rates.
 

Can keywords contain punctuation?

1) Ignored symbols. AdWords ignores most of the punctuation, and keywords containing dashes and periods are treated as identical. Therefore the "space" will serve for both terms, with and without the dashes/periods. Learn more.

2) Valid symbols. These are accent marks and ampersands. Café and cafe for example are considered as different keywords and will trigger the ads separately.

3) Invalid symbols. Keywords that contain the following symbols won't be accepted and may cause an error message: ! = ? @ % ^ *; ~ `, \ (){} <> |
 

How does Google handle the apostrophe?

Google insist that punctuation including apostrophes are treated the same as spaces, but we have performed detailed tests with the following results.

CTR - Keywords with an apostrophe have an average CTR three times higher than those with a space.
Quality Score - Keywords with an apostrophe have higher Quality Scores (6-7+) than those with a space (4-6).
Duplicates - A couple of keywords are flagged as duplicate keywords. But the vast majority of them behave as distinctive keywords, with unique Quality Scores, competitive landscapes and ad rankings.

It will be interesting to analyse the keywords trends and performances on a longer time range. But for now, it seems that the apostrophe is no longer automatically stripped out as it is with other punctuation. The apostrophes do matter in AdWords keywords and can have an effect on impressions, CPCs and conversion rates.
 

How can I improve my campaign performance?

• Play it safe and be detail-minded. Submit the keywords in all variations, with/without the apostrophe, and bid on these variations separately, especially when using the exact or phrase match targeting options.

• The apostrophes should be included for any plural variations, whether or not these are followed by the letter "s", say "Tom s widgets", "Tom's widgets" and "Toms widgets".

• The same applies to keywords that are used in the middle of a word or as part of a name.

• If you're running a campaign on Bing, submit all variations as well. Otherwise, your ad won't show for searches with an apostrophe.

• If you're running a campaign on Yahoo, the primary keyword will be matched to common misspellings, plural forms and multiple variations.

• Identify any duplicate keywords and keep the ones with the highest Quality Scores and conversion rates, once you've got enough data to support your decision. This will make the overall campaign more effective, affordable and manageable.

That's my final word on punctuation...for now!

Read the rest of the article at SearchEngineWatch.

New Look Home Page

The home page has now become even more personalised and pulls in data feeds from all the channels you subscribe to so you can keep up to speed with their new content.

You can see the new format below:

From your personalised home page you can now
• Connect to Facebook to pull in videos shared via your friends
• See videos shared by your circles on Google+
• See trending videos
• See suggested channels

Channel Updates

As an advertiser you’ll need to activate your new channel settings. You can do this by logging into your account and clicking on the button that looks like this: 

Doing this will make several changes to your brand channel, the first being layout.
The old layout can be seen below:
 

This is the new layout:

You can flick between the new and old design for the next 3 months.

The main benefits are:
• Your feed now becomes the focal point of your channel. Any content that you share, likes dislikes, playlists etc. will be featured here. This will then be posted on your subscribers home pages.
• You can now have a link to your website as seen on the right hand side in the screen shot above

You can see full details of the changes in this Google video.
 

What Does This Mean For Advertisers?

After accepting to change your channel to the new format you'll need to make one more change. 

If you have an enhanced YouTube channel with a clickable banner at the top of the page you'll need to re upload this image once you change to the new settings.  If you don't do this your channel banner will be missing.

This is done very simply by uploading the file again when given the option to upload a background image.  If it says a background has already been uploaded but you're not seeing your image then delete this background and upload the image file again.  An example of the settings for an enhanced channel is shown below.  You'll also need to change the size of your background area from 0 (which is set as default) to anything up to 150 depending on the height of your image.

It is worth mentioning at this stage that this blog does not contain an exhaustive list of all the reports that can be used to do this analysis nor is it an attempt to oversimplify the scrutiny required to make informed commercial decisions.

Please note you can click to enlarge any image in this blog.

Step 1: Create A Custom Segment For Your Campaign(s)

Before you start looking into Google Analytics it can be useful to set up an advanced segment at the outset so that you exclude all irrelevant data that may skew your averages later on in the process. Here is what you need to do:

• Click on advanced segment drop down and then click on +New Custom Segment at the bottom right (not illustrated in the image below).
• Apply the following filters – include, campaign, exactly matching, name of the campaign.
• Repeat if you have more than 1 campaign but ensure you select the ‘or statement’.
• Save Segment

Once you have saved the segment it will automatically apply but you can ensure that this is the case by clicking on the advanced segment and ensuring that your new custom segment is ticked and all other segments (custom or advanced) are un-ticked.

Step 2: High Level Analysis

It’s important to gauge performance at high level to begin with; this allows you to identify any problem areas straight away before you begin to dwell deeper. Here is what you need to do:

• Select advertising report and click on campaigns.
• Select the time range you want to view.
• Ensure you have selected campaigns as the viewing option.

How to analyse this data?

• You should start by looking at the explorer tab at the top which provides you with aggregated data for all of your display campaigns.
• You can compare metrics such as visits, Pages/Visit, Average Time on Site & Bounce Rate with the overall site averages (not visible whilst custom segment is applied) which can give you an insight into the quality of traffic generated by your display campaigns.
• You can also see a breakdown of campaigns below the graph and observe how each campaign is performing against the other(s); this will allow you to easily spot campaigns that may not be performing very well and need further attention.
• You can also look at your site engagement metrics at ad group level by selecting ad group as your viewing option, if you have categorised your products/services at ad group level then you can easily identify how each product/service is performing against the other.

Step 3: Ad Analysis

You may be running ads for several products split into different ad groups or you may only be advertising just one service using different ad formats, whatever the structure, you want to know how people are interacting with your site once they click on a certain type of ad. Here is what you need to do:

• Within the advertising report, click on campaigns.
• You will see all your campaigns listed under the graph, select the one you want to investigate.
• Select the ad content as the viewing option.

How to analyse this data & what to look out for?

• You can analyse the different ads in this report and find out which ads (or ad sizes) are bringing the majority of the traffic and which lead to higher bounce rate.
• Let’s assume that all of your ads contained different promotional messages but took users to the same landing page, you can use this data to understand which ads are likely to lead to higher average time on site, lower bounce rate & more goal completion.
• You can also apply the messaging of your best performing ads to the ones that are not performing so well to find out if it improves your key metrics.
• It’s important to note that goal completion should carry most weight in your decision making process, although, in the absence of this data you can use other site engagement metrics.

Step 4: Landing Page Analysis

This is arguably the most important element of your Display campaign analysis. It is vital that you look at landing pages that receive paid traffic in order to identify hidden gems and problem pages. Here is what you need to do:

• Within the advertising section of the left hand side navigation menu, click on Destination URLs.
• Select Destination URLs as the viewing option.

How to analyse this data & what to look out for?

• Sort by visits and look into your site’s engagement metrics (Pages/Visit, Avg. Time on Site, Bounce Rate).
• Identify which landing pages bring in high volume of traffic but have high bounce rate, look at the these landing pages and investigate how users behave they reach this page through other sources.
• If any page is showing high bounce rate from all sources then it may not be the best page for paid traffic, switch to another landing page or consider optimising.
• Sort by average time on site, look for pages that have very low or very high average time on any particular landing page.
• Identify why people may be spending too long or short on a given page. Its often the case that there is either too much or too little content, Ensure that you provide a consistent structure & prominent call to action to allow a user to progress to the next action you want them to complete.

Step 5: Navigation Analysis

It can be very useful to look into the navigation summary of the landing pages in order to understand how people are navigating to the desired or set goal(s). This can also help you understand where your traffic may be exiting the site and allow you to optimise accordingly. Here is what you need to do:

• Go to the content report and select pages.
• Make sure you’re viewing option is set to ‘pages’.
• Click on the destination URL you want to see the navigation summary of.
• Click navigation summary at the top (next to the explorer tab).

How to analyse this data & what tolok out for?

• Look at the navigation summary of your most visited pages, identify how many pages it takes users before they reach the desired or set goal(s).
• Investigate whether the number of pages visited before goal completion is what you expect, i.e. identify wastage.
• Identify where users are exiting the site - improve the content of that page & sign-post users to pages you want them to click through to.
• Investigate why people are clicking through to a certain page, this will give you an insight into the type of content they are looking for and user’s intent.
• For example: If a lot of your users navigate to delivery information page from the product pages then you may want to provide delivery info on the product page in order to minimise distraction.

Step 6: Placement Analysis

You may be receiving hundreds of clicks from a site but it’s the quality of the traffic that matters. You want to identify which sites are sending quality leads and which ones are just adding to your costs. Here is what you need to do:

• Go to advertising report and select placements.
• Click on placement domain as the viewing option.

How to analyse this data & what to look out for?

• Sort by visits, find out which web sites are bringing you the majority of the traffic. Are the listed sites what you expected to see? Are they relevant?
• Look at the bounce rate of the sites that are bringing you the traffic. Is it too high? If so then the users of the site may not be the right audience for you. If there are no conversions and people aren’t engaging with the site then consider excluding this placement.
• Take some time to get to know the sites that are bringing you traffic, investigate URIs and look for hidden gems – these are pages that are bringing conversions and/or users that engage with your site.
• One particular domain may be bringing conversions but at a high cost/conversion, look for URLs that generate a lot of clicks & not conversions, consider excluding these URLs (not be confused with domain) this will reduce your cost/conversion.

Summary

Click & conversion data from Google AdWords is useful, however, that only presents one part of the puzzle, to get the full picture it’s important to investigate what the paid traffic is doing on your site.

You can use most of the Google Analytics reports to identify trends & investigate key metrics; however, particular attention should be paid to ads, landing pages, user navigation and placements.

You can get some quick wins by sorting the data by visits and ensuring that the element you are investigating (ad, landing pages or placements) is performing at its optimum. If not you should investigate further and identify what changes may be required to rectify the problems.

Once you have dealt with all major issues, you should then focus on identifying smaller (low impact) issues; this will allow you to run your campaign at its optimum.

Finally, you should never lose sight of the fact that this is a dynamic environment and what’s optimum today may not be tomorrow so do regular checks and react swiftly to any changes in order to stay ahead of competition.

With this new innovation though, Google appears one step closer to keyword less Dynamic Ads.

So what are Product Listing ads?

Product listing ads are rich media ads that allow advertisers to present an image, product price, a promotional message & supplier’s name within Google’s search advertising platform.

The ads are positioned on the side of the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) and from what we have seen; occupy a maximum of first three positions although two is more common.

Here is an example:

-------------------------------------------- Further Update - 23/11/2011 -----------------------------------------

We have noticed today that Google is trialling product listing ads in the banner.

What are the benefits?

The biggest benefit is that these ads are likely to stand out as they include key information - product picture, price, benefit & supplier name which are often the determining factors in purchase process. The other benefit is that your ads will occupy more space on the SERP therefore you are likely to receive more click traffic.

Adding this form of advertising to your account will not mean that your PPC text ads will cease to show; neither do we recommend that you rely solely on product listings ads. The new ad format should instead be used as an add-on to stand out from competition and occupy more space on SERP in order to increase click traffic.

Google also claims that these ads are likely to achieve higher CTR, on the contrary, our tests (across different industries) have shown that CTR for product listing ads are around 1.60%.

It’s still early days and as Google refines its algorithms & advertisers refine their strategies the CTR is likely to increase.

What do I need to do to set-it up?

Before you start thinking about the set up, you need to ensure that you have Google Merchant Centre; if you don’t then you can’t set up Product Listing ads.

This feature is still in limited release, however; to find out if your account is eligible, go to the ad extension tab and look for ‘Auto Targets’ option. If this option is available then select it and link it up to your Google Merchant Centre by clicking on ‘add product target’.

At this stage, you can either choose to target all products or a group of products as shown below.
 

Adding all products will result in your product listing ads triggering against all eligible search queries.

Use the ‘add a group of products’ option if you only want to advertise certain product categories or you wish to include a different promotional message for different categories.

For example: let’s assume you are an online DIY store but you only want to advertise ‘gardening equipment’, in this case, instead of targeting all products on your site you can only target gardening equipment.

To take it a step further, let’s assume that you are offering 20% discount on pneumatic drills & free delivery on gardening equipment then you may want to use this option to include separate promotional messages for different category in the ads tab.

At the moment you can auto target a maximum of 3 product categories per ad group which should be ample although Google may allow advertisers to add more categories once this feature is fully released.

It’s important to note that in order to auto target by product category, you need to ensure that your merchant centre feed is set up correctly, for more details click here.

Our Verdict

The new feature is a step in the right direction as it presents ads in rich media format which will stand out and capture the users (with the right messages) early on thus increasing the chances of conversion.

This new feature also gives us a sneak preview of what the ‘keyword-less, Dynamic Ads may look like or at least the mechanism of how these ads may be rendered on SERP.

If you are an online retailer then I would strongly advise that you set-up an account on the Google Merchant Centre as soon as possible to stay ahead of competition, here is a link to get started.
 

From advertisers’ point of view, social is great but we like to see hard facts, put another way - performance metrics, and Google doesn’t disappoint.

Google +1 Data in AdWords

The data is available in the segments drop down. You can see this data at campaign and ad group level.

Types of Merics

Google has spilt the +1 data into two different metrics – Person & Basic. Here is what it means -

Personal

You will see data against the ‘personal’ metric if the users see other people recommending the ad within their Google plus social circle.

Basic

You will see data against the ‘basic’ metric if the users see recommendations from other people but none belong to their Google plus social circle.

Want to stand out? – Add Plus 1 to your web site

Although the data has just started flowing in so we can’t draw robust conclusions, early indications are that CTR is higher in instances where a personal recommendation is shown with the ad.

If you or your client’s business hasn’t already set up +1 on their web site then you may be missing out, I would recommend that you set-up +1 integration as soon as possible using this link.

Here is a Google webinar on implementation of +1