Preconceptions and the best data commentary

Hans Rosling, he’s a genius.

The way he breaks the data down into smaller chunks to completely change the story here is amazing.

This is data visualization at it’s best, and guess who’s bought the software he used to create these charts?

If you’re thinking the charts look a bit like the new motion charts in Google Analytics, it’s no coincidence.

Since Google bought Trendalizer, they don’t seem to have launched it to the full depth demonstrated above, but they are making steps to use it for a number of uses.  For example – you can use the public data available for US unemployment rates, and drill down to the states you are interested in.  You can also use motion charts within Google Analytics, and you can apply visualisations to your own data using the Google Visualization API.

Posted: August 25th, 2009 under Web Analytics - No Comments.

Analytics / AdWords Goal & Transaction Integration

It’s been a long time coming, but Google have now stepped a little further towards integrating the stats from Google Analytics into Google AdWords.

We’ve been able to see how much we spend on PPC, and what campaigns, ad groups, and keywords provide traffic which converts for a while now.  This is great, but it would be so much easier if you could amend your campaigns based on this information straight away, rather than switching between two interfaces.

I can’t have been the only one thinking this, because, from today, users are invited to link thier conversion information from Google Analytics to Google AdWords so that they can see their pre-defined goals and e-commerce data within AdWords.  As it takes 24 hours to update, I have not yet had the pleasure of seeing how the data is represented, but I’m looking forward to tomorrow to see how user friendly this new feature is.

I’m also looking forward to seeing how it works with Conversion Optimizer.

For more info on this, check out the Google AdWords blog.

Posted: July 2nd, 2009 under Paid search marketing, Web Analytics - No Comments.

Big Chip Award Winners

Last week, the company I work for, PushON won the Big Chip Award for ‘Best Use of Search’ – the event is the most prestigious digital award ceremony in the North West, and is judged by experts within the industry.  The category we entered, ‘Best Use of Search’ encompasses both Pay Per Click and Organic Search Engine Marketing.

It was for a project very close to my heart – The Little Greene Paint Company.  I’ve worked on this account from the beginning, and we’ve worked closely with their web development team to implement changes which give them the best possible chance to rank in search engines, and also convert the traffic they receive into sales.

I’m happy to say, that since we entered the competition – a number of significant further improvements have been made – for example, the launch of The Little Greene Blog, improvements to their paint finish listings, and a development which is soon to launch – a tagging system for paint colours which helps people find related paint colours, types of colours or styles (helping users find what they want both from search engines & when they are on the site).

I feel that this year, we got the groundwork right, and I’m looking forward to the progress over the next year, where we can work on some exciting and engaging projects which will help push the brand forward online.

Posted: July 2nd, 2009 under Online Marketing, Paid search marketing, Search Engine Optimization - No Comments.

Google AdWords Desktop Tool Bug

Is it just me?

It may be, but there was a bug in the latest install of my Google AdWords editor (version 7.5.1).

The problem was that every menu option had an ampersand preceding, so I was presented with the following menu:

&File |  &Edit |  &Data | &Account | &Tools | &Help

And nothing I clicked on did anything.

After restarting, reinstalling, still no joy, I then un-installed and downloaded & installed the latest version of the US Google AdWords Editor, and that did the trick.

So maybe it’s just me, or maybe it’s the British (GB) version of AdWords Editor, but if you have the same problem, now you know how to get around it.

Posted: June 3rd, 2009 under Digital Media - No Comments.

Marketing With Video

At PushON we have worked on a whole range of different video projects and recently won the contract to help K3 promote their brand new video series. This exciting opportunity has given us the chance to play with some excellent new tools and engage with a vast array of different audiences. The projects scope is essentially what has excited us most. The company markets worldwide so we are not confined to UK audiences and so far we have been able to build up quite a following.

I think its exciting to see companies especially in markets which often limit advertising to the ‘tried & tested’ attempting new and innovative marketing strategies. The aim here for example is to build the K3 brand online and promote the company as a fun, innovative and exciting company. The series has also been created in such a way that it can appeal to a large general audience although we are targeting IT managers, manufacturers and people involved with IT.

It will be interesting to see how the series continues to grow and it has also been nominated for an award at this years Big Chips. All very exciting.

Posted: May 14th, 2009 under Online Marketing, Viral Marketing - No Comments. Tags: video

Microsoft adCenter Analytics Closes

Not long after adCenter Analytics beta launched some new featured for Excel 2007, Microsoft have decided to close their Web analytics program.
They offer a list of alternatives (which incidentally includes Google and Yahoo!).
There was a strange sentence in the blog post which announced the discontinuation of the product:

“despite the end of life plan, the beta was very much a success”

Weird… they successfully determined that the project was not commercially viable… not sure I would phrase it as a success.
However, if you don’t test anything that has a potential for failure, then you limit your growth.

Posted: March 16th, 2009 under Web Analytics - No Comments.