Measuring the effectiveness of your website is clearly critical to your marketing plan . If it is not already, website analytics should become central to your marketing evaluation and planning. Knowing where people are coming from and what they are doing while on your site are clearly important. Tracking inbound visitors and finding the specific actions these visitors take can help you make decisions on advertising partners, keyword selection and more.

The attached article on B2B Magazine illustrates how Citrix Systems was able to identify that 80% of their registrations were derived from just FOUR keywords.

“UNEXPECTED INSIGHTS
Web analytics have provided some unexpected insights. For example, using NetInsight, Citrix found sponsored links from Google and Yahoo were most effective. Four keywords drove 80% of registrations. Interestingly, those four were “software forum,” “IT conference,” “network security seminar” and “software presentation,” Zykoski said. “This is not what we would have projected, which is why analytics is such a great vehicle to show you facts about what is really happening,” she said.

The company redesigned its landing pages and minisites for Synergy to highlight those terms and optimized the sites to funnel visitors through to registration.

Web analytics showed that online ads, specifically banners on industry sites, had the highest cost per registration, Zykoski said. “In one case we spent $20,000 on a campaign and only received one registration [attributable to it],” she said. Knowing the effectiveness of different campaigns enabled Citrix to increase registrations while maintaining or even reducing its marketing spending.”

View full article: http://www.btobonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100308/FREE/303089998/1007/METRICS

Post by Property Centric.

eMarketer released an interesting finding this week about web searchers using local search on the web. According to this article, nearly 4 in 10 local searches result in an in-person visit to the business they found online. An even higher number of searchers pick up the telephone following a local search to call the business. This is a remarkable result for local businesses seeking new customers and increased business volume. Listings in local search results and directories are clearly leading web visitors into action.

See the full study here.

Post by Property Centric.

Get rid of the click as the de facto standard to measure the success of an online campaign. It’s outdated and doesn’t represent real success. So says Gian Fulgoni, chairman and co-founder of comScore, at the MediaPost OMMA Metrics & Measurement conference in San Francisco, Calif., Friday.

In the keynote, Fulgoni told attendees the Internet is far more successful in increasing sales. And it may be the most measurable medium, but not everything measurable matters.

So, what now? Fulgoni says advertisers and marketers need to forget the click, focus on the sales impact on campaigns and conduct post-buy analysis. They also need to realize that display ads help search advertising succeed and vice versa. Don’t forget the power of creative display ads. Online branding campaigns can be effective. Internet advertising has had an impact on retail that is on par with television.

Advertisers and marketers just want some type of metrics that show the online campaign reaches the demographics and promised target segments. Fulgoni says that in any new medium, it’s easy to make promises that exceed the ability of the technology. And to some degree, Internet advertising has done that. “One problem is, it’s too easy to exaggerate the promises and claims that can be delivered,” he says.

Fulgoni believes the industry has failed to eliminate the click as…(Read more)

Post by Property Centric.

Spend Local–Online - Entrepreneur.com

Reach a younger, hipper market for a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising.

Post by Greg Starr.

A new shopping behavioral trend has emerged in recent months: the info shopper. Fiscal responsibility is top of mind and whether we need or want something, we’re going to pour over the details before we spend our hard-earned cash.

Even offline purchases are scrutinized these days. People are increasingly suspect of TV ads, particularly frustrated with the lack of critical decision-making information available via the traditional format. Consumers are pursuing their curiosities online, learning a lot and gaining confidence throughout the process. 92% of respondents to a recent survey by Penn, Scoen and Berland have more confidence in the information they glean rather than in store clerks or other sources. Cars, homes, computers and medical care are top info-seeking areas, with 4 out of 5 shoppers gathering data online before buying.

As is usually the case, consumer behavior is changing more rapidly than marketers of products. People want full disclosure upfront. Dyson’s model of sharing the secret of their unique products with customers builds trust and increases loyalty.But many companies fail to divulge details that have become necessary for consumers to even consider buying their products.

The trend manifests in everything from big ticket items to daily personal care products. For instance, instead of just buying the same shampoo they’ve always purchased, people want to know whether it will work well with their hair type, color, whether the plastic is recyclable, what the ingredients are and what other shoppers think of the shampoo. Trivial information perhaps to some, but important to others who care more about value then ever before. After all, why waste money on a purchase that isn’t in the good to excellent category when better buying decisions are a few clicks away?

Well-informed decisions are now a right, not a luxury. That’s why aggregator and search sites will become more valuable, as they mash-up content from reviews,  manufacturers and press, giving buyers more of an unbiased story from which they can draw their own conclusions.

Post by Jennifer Gosse.

SEOptimise’s blog, “Five online marketing New Year’s resolutions” provides 5 healthy reminders for your 2009 resolutions, especially if you’re still not optimizing your online marketing potential via search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO).

Resolutions include: set a budget, start a blog, focus on your audience, seek experts (especially wnen you don’t exactly know what to do or where to start), and be personable (build relationships, don’t toot your brand’s horn).

Don’t let fear of failure or of the unknown daunt your marketing resolutions. Sure, there are significant changes in the economy, consumer behavior and online marketing techniques. While our realities are undergoing constant evolution, there are certain SEO truisms that still reign supreme, such as: lots of relevant, keyword-rich content, great inbound links and proper site architecture and formatting.

Focus on the basics, put forth a plan and just take the first steps. A little action, even if imperfect, is better than procrastinating for a better quarter, bigger budgets, or more stable economy. Go forth and resolve to better position your site in 2009!

Post by David Gosse.

SearchIgnite reports a 33% increase in retailer’s ad spending over last year illustrates that retailers are likely pouring more dollars into search campaigns which can be monitored and tweaked in real-time.

Roger Barnette, president of SearchIgnite notes: “Advertisers are shifting more dollars to paid search and digital media. Retailers want media they can buy on a performance bases to track and measure.”

Despite a decline in overall consumer spending, people are steadily purchasing goods over the Internet. Observationally, retailers are offering more incentives earlier in the season than is typical,  likely incentivizing consumers to go ahead and make necessary and discretionary purchases.

Post by David Gosse.

Online advertising data offers some light in the current economic do. Third quarter figures reveal an 11 percent increase over 2007, coming in at $5.9 billion, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). The first nine months of revenues set a new record, climbing 14% over the same period last year. This data not only shows that Internet advertising has continuing to grow as predicted, it reveals that its becoming a haven for ad dollars in the downturn. Continually hailed as the most cost-effective and measurable method of reach customers, online shines while other ad outlets fade.

Post by David Gosse.

Movers in the rental realm are getting slammed with higher moving costs in 2008 and being advised to shop around and negotiate for extras. As much as apartment dwellers are encouraged to take advantage of move-in specials and amenities in rental communities, they are also pushing for incentives with professional movers, truck rentals and storage facilities, to name a few. It can be worthwhile to look past the big brands and consider some local alternatives. On the East Coast for example, Safeguard Self Storage boasts impressive package deals, modern facilities and high-end security to protect your belongings. Smaller brands like this accommodate local movers and those from afar, but sometimes you have to do an extra layer of digging to discover them. Niche local search engines like WeAreNetwork are a great way to find these gems of local establishments, because their content is more specific to a metro and its neighborhoods, rather than being more franchise and national based as the major engines typically are.

Post by Stephanie Santoro.

With today in increasingly sketchy economic times, how could companies not be more likely to seek out better values in their marketing efforts? I might sound overly optimistic (to the point of possibly being laughed off the internet), but I am excited that marketers are going to have to get more resourceful and creative. Since marketing budgets in companies everywhere are plunging, it’s likely that business owners and executives will begin employing less expensive and more free methods for keeping their name on the map.

Small business owners can start by increasing their visibility with the free search listing tools available at Google’s Local Business Center and Yahoo’s Add a Business page. By ensuring their information is visible and fresh, they become more accessible, therefore increasing their rank and visibility in search results with every curious click. And how could any local business go wrong by making sure they appear in various local engines such as WeAreNetwork where you can add a free listing at any of their U.S. and Canadian city sites? TrueLocal offers a similar service.

While niche search companies are typically confident in their specialty and highly value their own services over others, they still know they are fresh on the scene and might have the flexibility to cut you better deals to join your campaign.

Post by Stephanie Santoro.