In the dark old days, if you wanted to find out what people were into, their likes, interests, desires and hobbies, you had to do some quantitative surveying or qualitative focus groups.
With the advent of YouTube, lots of this data is revealed by analysing what people watch, like and share.
YouTube have now opened this up to anyone with the launch of YouTube Trends.
Over the last few years Google has made great efforts to expand the range of targeting options advertisers have when using the Google Display Network.
*the original keyword based targeting: where Google matches your ads to web pages that contain a blend of keywords within your campaign.
*Site targeting: allowing advertisers to specify the URLs they want their campaign to run on
*Remarketing: reaching those people who have been on an advertiser’s website in the last 30 days
*Interest based targeting: reaching users whose surfing behaviour has indicated to Google that they’re interested in particular subjects
And of course there used to be category targeting, where Google grouped together lots of websites into category (business, sport, football etc.) and advertisers could target the whole lot.
Category targeting was retired, as it often spread campaigns too wide and delivered poor ROI. But now it’s back, renamed as ‘Topics’.
These days social media buttons like the Facebook ‘Like’, Tweet, Stumbleupon and now Google +1 adorn almost every web page, shopping item, and web content.
All these buttons allow users to share content to others in their social circle, or highlight that they recommend others to read the content.
So how do you measure the benefit of these social media buttons? How can you put a value on these social media actions?
Well the good news is that as with our previous post about Reporting the effect of +1 in Google Webmaster Tools, Google have now made it possible to see how users share your content using new reports in Google Analytics.
It may have come late to the party, but the Google +1 button is the social media plug-in that may well have the biggest impact on your website.
The Google +1 buttons allow users to recommend your website or content to other both inside and outside their social circle. Those recommendations are displayed on the all-important Google Search Engine Results pages.
And the good news is that Google have rolled out +1 metrics reports in Google Webmaster Tools that show you how the +1 button affects the traffic coming to your pages:
For the last 2 years or so it’s been possible to anonymously share your Google Analytics data in order to benchmark your visitor data with others in your industry.
This is a useful way of working out whether you’re doing OK, and what areas need to be improved.
Google have for the first time aggregated all that data to provide ‘general’ site stats for all those running Google Analytics. And it makes for pretty interesting reading
The date range of comparison for from November 1st 2010 to February 1st 2011. Comparison is done with data from November 1st 2009 – February 1st 2010. Absolute metrics such as total number visits, pageviews, or conversions for all opted-in websites are not reported.
This Wednesday 29th June and Thursday 30th June Barracuda Digital will be exhibiting at the Online Marketing Show 2011.
Run by the team behind New Media Age and Marketing Week, the event showcases innovations to transform your online performance.
Come and visit us on stand B420 to get a copy of our SEO, PPC, Mobile and Social Media Mixtapes!
Mobile search is exploding. Whether comparing prices or researching a product: 79% of smartphone users do so to help with shopping. And 74% have actually made a purchase from their phone.
We’ve written elsewhere about the different ways in which you can use AdWords to take advantage in this surge of mobile traffic. This post brings together those ideas to describe mobile best practice when it comes to search.
