Top 5 Features of Google Analytics Content Experiments (vs. Website Optimizer)

For about 5 years now, marketing professionals have been using Google’s Website Optimizer to run A/B tests and Multivariate tests on webpages. Google recently announced that Website Optimizer will be replaced with Content Experiments. Content Experiments offers similar functionality as Website Optimizer with a few limitations; however, I’ll highlight the top features that I think Content Experiments offers. Here are my top 5 features for Content Experiments when compared to Web Site Optimizer:

1. Experiment Integration within Google Analytics

Content Experiment’s integration within Google Analytics is much improved compared to Web Site Optimizer. Web Site Optimizer did not integrate with Google Analytics, which limited a user’s ability to obtain additional information about the test variations for each experiment such as time on site, bounce rate, or the possibility of segmentation.

2. Simplified Workflow with the Set-up Wizard

The simplistic workflow to implement an experiment is streamlined as well. The process went from 5 basic steps to 4 basic steps. The set-up wizard for the experiment clearly identifies where you are within the set-up process and the next steps. In addition, there are icons to help you throughout the process to understand what you’re doing.

3. Visuals of the Experiments within the Console

The simple workflow is enhanced with visuals of the experiment variations, which was not part of Web Site Optimizer. Within the console of Google Analytics Content Experiments, you can see exactly what your original design vs. the variation(s) will look like prior to launching the experiments.

4. Better, More Simplified Reporting

In my opinion, the reporting in Content Experiments is much better than before. Content Experiments provides high-level experiment detail at a glance (visits, days of data, status of the experiment, and percentage of included visitors). The conversion data is also much improved by providing separate columns for visits, conversions, conversion rates, and basic green & red arrows to compare the variation(s) to the original page. Finally, the look of the reports is now more consistent with the newer Google Analytics interface.

5. Rewrite the Variation URLs to the Original within GA Content Reports

By selecting to rewrite the URL variations, you can consolidate all of the traffic to your original and variation pages. These URLs will appear under the original page within your Content Reports. This ability makes the Content Reports easier to read and streamlines the analysis of the experiment’s impact on page metrics in addition to its data. This provides increased functionality with custom reporting and experiment segmentation.

What’s the BIG Deal with Content Experiments?

The simplified shift from Web Optimizer to Content Experiments will save companies and marketers’ time, money, and allow them to easily create testing experiments. Ideally, Content Experiments will reduce the amount of time to create experiments and simplify their data, making them easier to understand as well as more actionable. With more actionable information, companies and marketers should be able to improve their users’ online experience and generate higher conversions.

Get off the excuse bandwagon! Start experimenting for better lead generation and online sales, what are you waiting for? Leave your feedback on Content Experiments in the Comments section below!

A/B Testing (Split Testing) to Convert More Online Customers

What is A/B testing (split testing)?

A/B testing, or split testing, is a marketing testing method by which one baseline control sample is compared to a variety of single-variable test samples in order to improve response or conversion rates. An example would be to test two different subject lines of an email campaign. A/B testing has been implemented for direct mail and within the interactive space to test tactics such as banner ads, emails, landing pages, or even entire websites to improve performance. You can also extend A/B testing to PPC advertising copy, alternative keywords, or PPC keyword match types.

How can my business or marketing department apply A/B testing?

You should always be testing ways to improve the sales process to reduce your cost per acquisition and to improve your customers’ experiences. I would recommend that you start with the “low hanging fruit” that could have the greatest impact on revenue or the customer experience. For example, an A/B test could be a simple as testing the color of the calls-to-action to improve the click-through-rate.

A/B testing can be applied to marketing tactics to improve sales or lead generation at a lower cost. In general, it’s easier to implement A/B testing with digital advertising because of the ability to make changes quickly and optimize the process. The findings from digital advertising can also be carried over to traditional advertising.

A/B Testing Best Practices

If you’re new to A/B/ split testing, here are a few best practices:

Define your goals. Clearly state what you hope to accomplish.

Determine how you plan to accomplish your goals. Keep it Simple!

What are you testing & why?

What is the variation you are testing (color, position, ad copy, etc.)?

Define the control and your variation for testing.

What are your expected results & reasoning?

Measure & Analyze the results through the sales or conversion process.

How do you apply A/B Testing to Internet Marketing Strategy?

You can leverage A/B testing based on geography, psychographics, customer lifecycles, etc. You want to develop realistic goals based on your target audiences. At first, I would recommend being targeted with your approach and limiting the test to a single market. It’s important to identify the greatest impact on the conversion process or sales process by modifying the internet marketing strategy slightly. Be sure to focus on all the results from the beginning of the process to completion and to communicate the results. Think about the effect the testing will have on saving time, money, and creating efficiencies.

Conclusion

If you haven’t started A/B testing, you’re wasting time, money, and missing opportunities. As marketers, we should always be testing to maximize performance and to reduce costs. Testing goes beyond just a subject line or ad copy. It requires focus, consistency, and planning. In addition, you must think about usability, branding, layouts, the purchase process, etc. There are numerous tools such as Web Optimizer, Visual Website Optimizer, or Test &Target to get started.

The Need for Digital Marketing Education

In the recent blog “8 Predictions for SEO in 2012”, Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz predicted the rise of a serious certification program. I believe that there is a real need for our industry to identify and support a serious certification program; however, I have not seen any organization dedicated enough to establish themselves as an industry leader. Institutions of higher education need to start preparing their students for the “real world”. In my opinion, colleges and universities are doing a poor job of identifying opportunities to integrate traditional marketing knowledge and skills with today’s internet marketing environment.

There are several organizations that offer certification programs, but I am not sure that they can keep up with the changes or obtain a consensus between fact and fiction. Case in point: Several members of our team at DaBrian Marketing Group have taken courses provided by SEMPO Institute, but we have not been notified of what the latest updates were to the course information. As of February 21, the SEMPO Institute closed up shop for their certification program.

The colleges and universities need to introduce their students to internet marketing as a whole. Within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, you will have a difficult time identifying colleges or universities that offer an internet marketing course as part of the undergraduate marketing curriculum. This extends to web design and development area of study, as graduates often lack basic SEO knowledge.

There is a serious need for education within our industry from the university level as well as alternative methods. Even as an adjunct professor, I don’t expect a student to be an SEO expert, but I would expect them to know the marketing fundamentals for an online marketing campaign. At the same time, internet marketing is not just SEO, PPC, and Social Media. We need to align the traditional concepts to internet marketing beyond business or marketing. These concepts should be accessible to IT graduates as well. Internet Marketing is not just for marketing people anymore, but it’s now IT, Public Relations and Math. We need to start demonstrating the crossover of these disciplines within our industry. It starts with us and we need to reinforce the need for education in internet marketing and encourage the progress of certification programs.

Let us know what you think!

Forget to Measure the Impact of your Web Design or Website?

Where’s the accountability on the part of web design companies and traditional agencies? For the most part, they both position themselves as being able to design the website or execute on the marketing after the launch. Most internet marketing companies generally focus on everything related to internet marketing or online promotions. Don’t get me wrong, many of the traditional agencies do very good work. The challenge is that our clients rarely hold the web design or advertising agency accountable for the performance of the website. In this day and age, the website is a critical element of both traditional and internet marketing promotions because customers and prospects review the website for information.

For web design projects, most clients have specific goals and objectives that they would like to accomplish with the launch or redesign of a website. The design of the website should focus on achieving the client’s goals and objectives; however, the majority of the web designers or traditional agencies ride off into the sunset with the client’s money and on to the next project without evaluating whether or not they helped to achieve their end goals. This is an injustice to the client and any other projects that involves promoting the website!

We wouldn’t know about your clients, but we can tell you that our clients want value and for us, as their internet marketing company, to demonstrate return-on-investment. We would have to say that as a business owner, we agree with the need to show value and ROI. But, where’s the value and ROI of the non-functional and that “Web -2.0 thing” your agency or web designer calls a website? We have worked with, for, and partnered with numerous “BIG Name” agencies in the Philadelphia and Cleveland area, but we’ve yet to see or hear of any agency coming back for an end of year evaluation to measure the success of the web design project.

While on the other hand, internet marketing companies, such as ours, are continuously forced to show value and ROI for our search engine marketing and search engine optimization, as well as provide monthly reports. It’s a good thing that demonstrating value and showing ROI through web analytics is part of our culture! The question is when will demonstrating value and showing ROI be part of the web design evaluation process for ad agencies or our clients? We have worked with clients and prospects with long-term MSAs (master services agreements), over $250,000 web design projects, and no web design metrics whatsoever, are you serious? With the advances in website design technology, there is always something that the agency or web designer could be doing cheaply, quickly, and effectively to show value or help clients to achieve ROI. Instead, they’re the first one yelling “show me the money” for the next project that they won’t measure or the client won’t require them to measure. It’s time to stop wasting money on high priced unmeasured web design and marketing initiatives.

Conclusion

Let’s be clear; we have an appreciation for the services that web designers and advertising agencies provide. We just don’t believe that an agency or designer wants to tell the client that they made a little mistake with your $250,000 web design project, and by today’s standards that their website is inadequate! So, how do we change that? Here are my top 5 ideas:

1. Get the metrics for the web design project in writing and as part of the Statement of Work.
2. Schedule a date and time to evaluate whether or not the web design/agency delivered on the goals and objectives.
3. Identify any variables that would have hindered them from accomplishing their goals and objectives that were out of their control.
4. Hold your web design or ad agency accountable!
5. Get feedback from your IT team, SEO consultants, and/or internet marketing company. They can usually see technical, search, and performance issues that would impact the ROI of their initiatives.

We will continue to work with prospects and clients to identify proven web designers and ad agencies. In addition, we’re going to continue to educate our clients and the public, measure results, identify website issues, and turn the heat up on over-priced and ineffective website design projects, that prevent our prospects or our clients from achieving a greater impact through internet marketing.

Back to the Basics with Testing for Internet Marketers

It seems like business owners have forgotten the fundamentals of marketing and that it includes testing. “Almost any question can be answered cheaply, quickly, and finally by a test campaign, said Claude Hopkins the author of Scientific Advertising (1923). Although the book is dated, scientific advertising is critical to SEO, Pay per Click, Website Design, and Email Marketing. It is not just important to determine what works but also learning what doesn’t work to helped the business get to the point of generating leads and converting them into sales. In today’s environment, web analytics and conversion optimization are linked to scientific advertising or marketing. Continue to test your landing pages, ad copy, and call to action.

For more information, read “Always Be Testing” for tips, guidance, and tools.

Web Analytics an Integrated Service

According to the US Web Analytics Forecast, 73% of businesses are currently using or piloting Web Analytics technologies. Not all businesses are effectively utilizing the information and employing actionable feedback. The data has and will continue to be the commodity. Web analytics is just the tool that has the potential to improve marketing effectiveness, elevate customer satisfaction and identify new revenue opportunities. The fact is that businesses either fail to recognize the ROI or do not apply the data.

DaBrian Marketing Group has identified 4 elements that organizations must have to successfully leverage web analytics: money (investment), human resources, communication, and action. For the most part, businesses can implement Google Analytics so the cost of the investment has been minimized. The biggest issue is human resources that require analyzing the data and translating the information into business action. It requires a will, desire, and talent to understand the business, web analytics, and the variable that can impact measurement or analysis. Communication is critical because the business must effectively communicate to understand the value of web analytics as well as recognize the impact that the information has on marketing effectiveness, customer satisfaction, and revenue growth in order to fund the department or web analytics technology. This will also help to get people to act on the information and deliver it in order to see results.

As technology improves there will be increase in complex marketing challenges. Many marketers struggle to uncover the insight within their web analytics and to keep up with new measurement issues. The existing expertise will continue to be needed by web analytics agencies and the importance of integration will more to the forefront.

Google Analytics Flash Tracking Tip

We recently received questions regarding how to track flash banner advertising with Google Analytics from one of our current clients. The process uses the Google Analytics Component for Flash.

For instructions on how to download and install this feature, refer to the link below:

http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/flashTrackingSetupFlash.html#getComponent

We highly recommend that you create a duplicate profile, filter the profile to track only these pageviews related to the specific banner, and use the URL builder to track the clicks for the banner ads.

You can also test landing pages by implementing Google Webiste Optimizer.

Check Out Web Analytics TV for more information!