Google Website Optimizer Opens Up, Sheds Beta
Just one year after Google [GOOG] launched Google Website Optimizer, the free A/B split and multivariate testing platform has shed its “beta” status and gone mainstream.
Formerly available only to AdWords users, Google Website Optimizer can now be accessed by anyone with a basic Google account. Even if you only have so much as a Gmail account, you can start testing your website — for free — regardless of whether you’re running a paid search campaign. (No worries, AdWords users, Website Optimizer still works seamlessly with the rest of the Google product suite.)
Companies of all sizes are getting results with Website Optimizer. And since it runs independently of your analytics program — or in sync with it, if you have Google Analytics — there’s little room for argument between departments as to whether or not your company should be testing. You should.
To find out more about Google Website Optimizer, visit their new…
- Website - Unglued from the AdWords site, you can visit Google.com/websiteoptimizer directly.
- Blog - Subscribe to websiteoptimizer.blogspot.com for product updates, case studies and ideas worth testing.
Why is FutureNow so excited about Google Website Optimizer? A few reasons:
- Authorized Consultant - FutureNow was one of the original firms to be invited to test GWO with clients, and the case studies have been remarkable so far. Is yours next?
- Writing the book on GWO - Bryan Eisenberg & John Quarto-vonTivadar, inventors of FutureNow’s patented Persuasion Architecture® methodology, have teamed up to write Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer, in book stores this August.
- It works! - The results speak for themselves.
Of course, knowing what to test — design elements, copy, etc. — is everything. If you’d like to start testing and you’re not sure if you need to hire a firm, here are several free resources to get started with Google Website Optimizer.
Got questions about Website Optimizer or testing in general? We’d love to hear your comments.
Related Posts:
Written by:Robert Gorell
Google Reveals What People Are Buying Online
Wouldn’t it be great if we could get insights as to which products people preferred. We could get research into which products we should merchandise more prominently. Google just released a new trending tool for those of us curious what people are buying and selling online. From the official Google Checkout Blog:
Many of you are aware of Google Trends, the handy tool that enables you to track and compare what Google users are searching for. Now imagine a similar tool that can give you some insight into what people are buying and selling online. That’s exactly what we’ve built: Google Checkout Trends aggregates the sales data of Google Checkout merchants and charts it in a matter of seconds. (Of course, all the data is anonymized first.) So if you’re interested in how sales of Batman or Spider Man paraphernalia compare, or are wondering just how popular Ugg boots are these days, visit Checkout Trends for a glimpse into online shopping. Go ahead and try it out — and get creative with the searches. You may be surprised at what you find.
I was having problems this morning getting any results from my searches, even from their six suggested searches. Every time I searched, I received a message that said:
Your terms - ipod, zune do not have enough search volume to show graphs.
If you want to see what the graph of results looks like you can find people discussing it here, here, and here.
Regardless, I think once these issues are resolved, like Google Trends this will provide some interesting data. One thing to keep in mind though is that in our analysis for our 2007 Customer Experience Retail study we found only 10% of the 300+ top retailers offered Google Checkout as an option.
How meaningful will the results really be?
Have you had better luck with Google Checkout Trends? Your impressions?
Related Posts:
Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
Speaking at Google, Obama Promises Nation’s First CTO
The Google Public Policy Blog offers a recap of presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s visit to the Googleplex yesterday. According to the blog, Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt didn’t waste any time getting to the tough questions:
Barack Obama added another “first” to his already notable list yesterday: he became the first U.S. presidential candidate — and, I’m guessing, the first high-level elected official in any country — to have a ready answer to a standard Google engineering interview question. Asked by Eric Schmidt about “the most efficient way to sort a million 32-bit integers,” Sen. Obama replied that “the bubble sort would be the wrong way to go.” Though some might view this as shameless pandering to the bucket-sorting community, others will see a bold pragmatism.
Obama then reaffirmed his stance on Net Neutrality, and offered the following vision for transparency between the United States government and its electorate:
I’ll put government data online in universally accessible formats. I’ll let citizens track federal grants, contracts, earmarks, and lobbyist contacts. I’ll let you participate in government forums, ask questions in real time, offer suggestions that will be reviewed before decisions are made, and let you comment on legislation before it is signed. And to ensure that every government agency is meeting 21st century standards, I’ll appoint the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer.
Is this just another campaign promise? We’d love to hear your thoughts. You can see video of Schmidt’s “fireside chat”-style job interview with Obama in its entirety at Google Public Policy Blog.
No word yet on whether Senator Obama consumed his weight in free sushi at the company’s all-you-can-eat gourmet cafeteria. But rest assured that the issue has a good chance of coming up during tonight’s televised debate among Democratic Party candidates (yes, there’s another one).
Related Posts:
- Blog Buzz: Barack Wins Yahoo Debate; Google & Facebook Worth Gazillions, Borrow from Second Life
- How Barack's Strategy Could Help You Win Customers
- Marketing Lessons from Huckabee and Obama
- Mr. Softy Goes to Washington, Picks Fight with 9 year-old
- Blog Buzz: Google's Advertising Shakeup; iPhones in Deutschland
Written by:Robert Gorell
The YouTube Effect: Copyright Law Will Eat Itself
Jeff Atwood’s “YouTube: The Big Copyright Lie” may be the most telling — and concise — article ever written about today’s online copyright law fiasco. According to Atwood, the company’s whole existence teeters a fundamental lie: that so-called “fair use” is in the eye of the beholder, and the only beholders who matter are the copyright’s owner and their attorneys (read: copyrighted material is kept live on YouTube indefinitely until either the copyright holder or their lawyers complain).
Atwood shows that YouTube’s copyright tips page, although refreshingly plain-spoken, is a bit self-righteous, considering that, as he puts it, 90% of the content on YouTube is ripped-off copyrighted material…
It’s completely glossed over on the YouTube copyright page in favor of 100% original content, but the loophole in copyright is fair use. Under the banner of fair use, you could legally upload a video without the copyright holder’s permission. Anyone who contributes anything to the web should have the four factors of fair use commited [sic] to memory by now:
- the purpose of the use
- the nature of the copyrighted work
- the relative amount of the portion used
- the market effect of the use on the copyrighted work
Atwood goes on to explain why “The typical YouTube clip does well on the last two factors of the fair use test, but utterly fails the first two.” It’s an eye-opener for anyone who creates original content.
Meanwhile, our attitudes toward the media landscape continues to shift according to generational fault lines. In AdvertisingAge, Mike Vorhaus shares some telling figures:
Americans also believe their use of online video has cannibalized TV. Overall, more than 15% of respondents say they watch TV less as a result of watching online videos. And 25% of 18- to 24-year-olds believe that online video is cannibalizing their TV viewing. In comparison, fewer than 11% of 45- to 54-year-olds report such cannibalization.
Hmm… Does it count as watching TV if you’re watching TV on YouTube?
Related Posts:
Written by:Robert Gorell
Blog Buzz: Google’s Advertising Shakeup; iPhones in Deutschland
Here’s some big news. It seems there’s this startup called “Google” that’s trying to dominate advertising. Apparently, nobody’s told them they’re just another search engine. For instance, today they launched Google Gadget Ads — basically, a micro-site’s brain in a banner ad’s body — in order to widgetize the customer experience to fit in just about any environment. Oh, and they’ve hired a top Ogilvy exec to focus on digital marketing and advertising strategies.
The gadget ads
Spelling it out for us on the Google Operating System blog, Alex Chitu insists that…
Because most of the normal gadgets can be embedded into a web page and many people already use iGoogle, the gadget ad will be a familiar presence. “Google Gadget Ads are nearly identical to Google Gadgets, except that they run as rich media ads on the Google content network. By adding a small bit of code called a click URL to your Google Gadget, the gadget becomes a Google Gadget Ad, capable of running as an ad on thousands of content network sites. Otherwise, the two can be identical in their basic construction and content.” This way, Google also solved the problem of monetizing iGoogle in a clever way: users will voluntary add gadget ads to the homepage and interact with them. The ads won’t be perceived as annoying because you chose to include them in your homepage.
Marketing Pilgrim shows a great example of an Intel ad, with this bit of commentary from Andy Beal:
Is it any surprise that Google is keen to monetize widgets? There’s more than enough widgets being pumped out onto the web, with comScore reporting their popularity growth. And there are also plenty of evidence that advertising in widgets works–companies like LinkShare, PopShops, and ShareASale are already in the space.
So, if you’re already sick of seeing gadgets/widgets all over the web, prepare yourself. Now that advertisers have a solid advertising platform to monetize them, you can expect to see a whole lot more.
The big hire
AdvertisingAge reports that Andy Berndt has joined Google.
[…] Berndt, co-president of Ogilvy & Mather’s New York office, has left his post at the agency to go to Google, where hewill helm a new global unit dedicated to collaborating with marketers, agencies and entertainment companies.
[…] There has been much speculation over the past year whether Google would try to get into the agency business. The new global unit isn’t being called an agency, but any unit offering creative consultation and account services could be considered one. Interestingly, Google had been trying to lure more creative talent to the company over the past year, according to ad industry executives familiar with the search giant.
Microsoft, meanwhile, recently bought its way into the agency business with its $6 billion purchase of aQuantive, parent company to agency Avenue A/Razorfish. When asked whether it would shed the agency after the purchase, Microsoft was adamant that it liked the business.
Commenting on the story, John Battelle insists “Google is setting itself up as a full service advertising company. And that means client services and creative innovation.”
The 411
Not to be outdone by itself for the second day in a row, Google has also begun promoting itself offline. With billboards. Search Engine Land has the scoop, with pictures of the distinctly non-interactive ads for the free 800-GOOG-411 service.
iPhones… for Steve Jobs… and Germany…
BusinessWeek tells us that Germans can now overpay for an iPhone. They’re 399 Euro (that’s $557 for you American refund snobs). They’re available via T-Mobile. If you’re in Berlin, that’s all you really need to know.
[Tired of reading other blogs? Catch Blog Buzz weekdays on WebmasterRadio.fm — or subscribe via iTunes. Bryan Eisenberg & Robert Gorell host the podcast, featuring a rundown of the day’s top stories from The Grok’s Buzz Bin.]
Related Posts:
Written by:The Grok
Blog Buzz: Google, Yahoo, I.B.M. Threaten Microsoft Office; MC Hammer Goes 2.0
“A great battle in the sea of Ones and Zeros
will present itself unto the Weblings;
the keepers of gates replaced by wanderers of Gooland
and evil itself shall require the correct URL.” –Grokstradamus, Quatrain 2.0
Today, the Internet’s true owners Google announced the release of a presentation feature for Google Docs, its answer to the Microsoft Office suite. In other words, Google now has PowerPoint — only it’s hosted online and, theoretically, more secure.
What might come of Google’s online presentation software? Here are a few predictions:
- Last April, Google bought Marritech, a cross-platform video conferencing company (see also WebEx, GoToMeeting). There’s likely a bigger offering on the way.
- Imagine hosting a live meeting, directly from the document, allowing others on your team to edit the presentation in real time. (Yes, that could be a good thing.)
- Picture, if you will, hosting a free webinar; free to your audience because it’s paid for by Google ads on the side of your screen.
- If it’s a paid event, your Google Docs seminar could give your audience the option to pay via Google Checkout with a single click. No hassle.
Still, not everybody’s excited about this initial release. ZDNet’s Garret Rogers thinks Google shouldn’t have bothered launching it.
Where do I start? Well, first off, there is no support for exporting a document to Powerpoint or as .odp (the open document format for presentations). I guess this isn’t truly a complimentary service to other office suites anymore like they have repeated over and over. Uploading Powerpoint presentations is basically useless too — it butchered the one I tested with.
Most companies have their own Powerpoint template they use to make sure presentations all have the same look and feel. And with that said — don’t bother trying to use it. There is no way to create your own template or upload one that already exists. If you have images that make up your template, you can add them to each slide but they have to be less than 2MB otherwise you will be out of luck. Oh, by the way, your presentation can’t exceed 10MB either.
[…] Oh, and bulleted points are sometimes nice to do one at a time — but you can’t do that either. You have to create a copy of the previous slide and add an extra point to emulate click events — who has time to do that?
Some powerful points, indeed. And that’s not all that’s happening on the office software front. Last night, Yahoo! acquired Zimbra for $350 million in cash. TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington insists:
This was a very, very smart acquisition. In one quick move Yahoo is now in the race with Google for the next generation online/offline office suite. I would not be surprised to see them pick up Zoho next. That is, if they really want to dominate own this space and be a credible threat to Google Docs.
Oh, but there’s more… The New York Times reports that I.B.M. has teamed up with OpenOffice to offer an enhanced version of the the open-source office suite. Between Yahoo, Google, and — yikes — I.B.M., Microsoft must be a bit rattled today.
Google overload…
Meanwhile, Google’s going full-speed ahead. Last night, they even launched AdSense for mobile. According to Google’s Inside AdSense blog, “If you have a website optimized for mobile browsers, or are interested in creating one, you can start monetizing your mobile site by accessing a growing number of our mobile advertisers.”
Is that all? Only two new product launches from Google in a single day? How ’bout three?
Read/WriteWeb’s Marshall Kilpatrick reports that Google Reader has left the lab — it’s no longer in beta — and has added 9 new languages: “French, Italian, German, Spanish, English (UK), Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), Japanese, and Korean.”
New York Times sets content free
Making a bit of its own news, NYTimes.com will do away with TimesSelect, the premium subscription service that granted access to its editorial columns and featured content. According to the Times:
…the project had met expectations, drawing 227,000 paying subscribers — out of 787,000 over all — and generating about $10 million a year in revenue.
“But our projections for growth on that paid subscriber base were low, compared to the growth of online advertising,” said Vivian L. Schiller, senior vice president and general manager of the site…
“Hammer Time” 2.0?
Who could possibly forget everyone’s favorite 5-hit-wonder dance-rap phenomenon, MC Hammer? Well, after going bankrupt and becoming a preacher immediately after his career tanked in the 90’s, it seems someone was listening. Hammer’s reinvented himself once again… as a tech entrepreneur?
Don Dodge tells us of his pal Hammer’s epic journey from parachute-pants-to-rags-to-angel-money with his new venture, DanceJam:
DanceJam hasn’t launched yet, but Hammer gave me a demo of the site. DanceJam can best be described as YouTube mashed up with American Idol. Users can contribute their own dance videos to the site for others to see and vote on. The DanceJam people set up “Dance Offs” where they put two dance videos up against each other and have the user community vote for a winner. After several rounds of voting they declare a champion.
[Sick of reading? Catch Blog Buzz weekdays on WebmasterRadio.fm — or subscribe via iTunes. Bryan Eisenberg & Robert Gorell host the podcast, featuring a rundown of the day’s top stories from The Grok’s Interactive Marketing Buzz.]
Related Posts:
Written by:Robert Gorell
Grokcast: New Features on Google Website Optimizer
In this edition of Grokcast, Google project manager Tom Leung is back* to tell us about some very cool new features and improvements to Google Website Optimizer, which announced its first major update today.
Tom speaks with GrokDotCom managing editor Robert Gorell about:
- Success stories from companies of all sizes who’ve realized they can now improve their websites by testing (and for free!)
- Creative ways to use Google Website Optimizer to boost Conversion Rates and improve the visitor experience
- New features such as A/B testing, which allows you to set up a test in minutes
- What you can do to get results like Future Now client JigsawHealth.com, who nearly doubled their Conversion Rate(!) With some changes to the homepage, they went from selling to a tenth of their visitors to converting a fifth of all visitors.
- Why everyone should be testing; it’s free, it’s simple and, best of all, you can do it!
Click here to listen to Tom Leung and Robert Gorell
(To download the interview, right-click here and “save as”.)
If you’re discovering Google Website Optimizer for the first time, or would like some advice on what to test, check out our 7 Free Resources to Get Started.
[*In case you missed Tom’s first Grokcast appearance — and would like a general introduction to GWO — don’t forget to listen to the podcast or read the transcript of Bryan Eisenberg’s interview.]
Related Posts:
Written by:The Grok
“Viewer-Friendly” YouTube Ads — Says Who?
There’s been quite a stir since YouTube announced it would show banner ads in its videos. (If you didn’t catch this morning’s Times article, it’s worth reading.) The ads are essentially opaque banners at the bottom of the videos that appear 15-seconds in. For now, the ads will only appear on affiliate sections such as NBC’s YouTube channel and the other thousand or so like it.
Google calls the ads not just “engaging” but “viewer-friendly” — which, in PR-speak, roughly translates to, “Well, they’re not as annoying as they could be.”
Of course, in-video banners aren’t a new concept; VideoEgg has been doing it for awhile now. Yes, this approach is less annoying than “preroll” or “midroll” ads that interrupt the experience — and “postroll” ads are just silly, unless the idea is to push people away from the site altogether. Besides, YouTube had to do something, right? How long could they go before denying affiliates — and themselves — ad revenue beyond traditional banner ads?
But can anything that interrupts a 2-minute video really be considered “viewer-friendly”? Rough Type’s Nick Carr sums it up perfectly:
[…] That’s like saying that being hit on the head once with a hammer is a pleasant experience because it’s not as bad as being hit on the head twice with a hammer.I liked the reaction of the first viewer to leave a comment on the YouTube blog: “yuck.” If you’re going to stick ads on the videos, go ahead and stick ads on the videos. But, please, don’t tell us you’re doing it on our behalf. We’re not idiots.
Over at Publishing 2.0, meanwhile, Scott Karp hammers on the need for relevance with in-video ads.
Not being interruptive is the very LEAST that online advertising needs to do in order to thrive — what it really needs to do is be RELEVANT.
The beauty of search advertising is that the format and the relevancy of the ad are PERFECTLY aligned with that of the “editorial” content, through the miracle of search keywords.
That will surely be the case in some instances of InVideo ads, but in many if not most instances, the ads will have nothing to do with the editorial content — and the relevancy to any individual viewer, unlike keyword targeted search ads, will be hit or miss.
And there’s a BIG problem with low relevancy — advertisers only pay if someone views the ads.
Still, in the Times article, VideoEgg’s chief marketing officer, Troy Young, claims that “Viewers click on them at a rate roughly five times higher than banner ads.”
Then what?
Once again, the conversation about online ad placement centers around a lesser-of-evils argument. That’s no surprise. The old media concept of relevance remains tied to demographics rather than customer motivations; a far better anchor. Create a clickable, holographic video widget that transmits banner ads across continents and click-through rates remain meaningless if the ads inspire fatigue instead of action.
UPDATE: Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire says YouTube overlay ads don’t work.
Related Posts:
Written by:Robert Gorell
Five Reasons Why Google Checkout Converts Better
We can all learn a thing or five from Google Checkout. The official Google Checkout site has testimonials stating that customers who go through Google Checkout are 24% to 40% more likely to convert than those who go through a websites traditional checkout.
What’s Google doing that makes more people convert in their checkout than sites with only in-house checkout? Here’s a list of five features that are aiding its success and can be integrated into all checkouts.
1. They stripped unnecessary steps from the checkout process, making it very easy for the customer: there are no additional steps to sign up; the customer simply enters his information and they have an account; there’s only one field for an address displayed in their form; following the form is a button to open another section of the form to enter a different shipping address only if necessary. There are also no optional fields in their forms; no fax numbers, no entering in your email address twice. They don’t worry about where you heard about the site. Just the bare minimum of what is needed to allow the customer to pay for the product and get it shipped.
2. Its only two pages and very fast! Customers barely have to time to second-guess their purchase.
3. Google gives assurances near each Call to Action, telling the customer what to expect in their checkout, and delivers. On the first page of checkout it says, “You can still make changes to your order on the next page.” They do something similar on the first page in the product review. By telling the customer that their shipping and tax will be calculated on the next page.
4. A brief synopsis of the company’s return policy on the second page with a link to read the entire policy.
5. Google shows customers which products they’re ordering before they’re required to enter any credit card information.
There are many more reasons to the success of Google Checkout. There is also room for improvement. For instance:
- What is Google going to do with my credit card information? There is not a clear explanation of this and digging through a legal contract is never fun.
- Some sites have not properly implemented Google Checkout and leave out options that customers may value. CDUniverse.com doesn’t allow the selection of any gift options before entering Google Checkout or during, but they have it on their own checkout.
- They could display the return policies in a more noticeable area than the very bottom of the last page.
- Some questions are unanswered regarding how Google Checkout works, such as, Do you need a Gmail account?
- There isn’t clear information about when the customer will receive the item at their house.
Do you have any experience with Google Checkout? Have you noticed any impact on your conversion rate in checkout with Google Checkout as opposed to your sites checkout? Any other observations or concerns? Google Checkout looks like it’s set to take the lead as the main third party provider for customers and merchants beating out Yahoo and PayPal’s combined effort (which Marketing Pilgrim likes to call “Payhoo”).
Related Posts:
Written by:Ronald Patiro
Google Can Win While Cities Drop the Ball on Wi-Fi
Should “free” wireless internet be paid for by cities? Google doesn’t think so, which is why the company may be America’s only hope at “free” bandwidth.
But that depends on what your definition of the word “free” is. If city governments pay, taxpayers flip the bill. If Google picks up the tab, “free” means ad-supported. Any way you slice it, innovation isn’t free, and Wi-Fi doesn’t mean what it used to. That seems to be why Google recently announced its Wi-Max ambitions and plan for creating a free wireless mobile network.
We’ve seen this before. Back in 2005, Google claimed it would give free Wi-Fi to San Francisco residents, which it hasn’t — yet. Meanwhile, several U.S. city governments, moving at a snail’s pace, have been talking about “municipal Wi-Fi” for years. Very few have made it happen, and the ones that have are regretting it to various degrees.
As it turns out, what’s good for Spokane, WA, may not be work for Philadelphia, PA.
BusinessWeek’s Olga Kharif reports on “Why Wi-Fi Networks are Floundering“:
While 415 U.S. cities and counties are now building or planning to build municipal Wi-Fi networks, “deployments are slowing down slightly,” says Esme Vos, founder of consultancy MuniWireless.com. Vos’s tally still marks a nearly 70% jump from mid-2006, when there were 247 muni Wi-Fi projects on tap, but that’s down from the torrid pace of a year earlier, when deployment plans doubled.
Perhaps the clearest hint of trouble ahead is that some of the companies partnering with cities on these projects, including EarthLink (ELNK) and AT&T (T), are having second thoughts about remaining in the municipal Wi-Fi business.
In San Francisco, recent developments have left many observers scratching their heads over whether that city’s Wi-Fi project, announced more than a year ago, will ever get off the ground. In July, the president of the city’s Board of Supervisors revealed that he was seeking to change the terms of the preliminary contracts awarded to EarthLink and Google (GOOG)
Could it be? Is Google the “deadbeat dad” of free wireless internet service?
I wouldn’t count on it. Creating a Wi-Fi grid for a city as hilly and tech-obsessed as San Francisco is way more complicated than partnering with Sprint to retrofit its existing cell phone towers with longer-range Wi-Max equipment. (In the past, they’ve explored other alternatives 
)
Google is playing it smart by stalling on free Wi-Fi. Perhaps they spoke too soon, but they’re planning their business model from every angle before giving it away for free in the form of Wi-Max.
Maybe the cities should have done the same. Being an early adopter is great, so long as you’re not stuck with outdated technology to support the huddled masses and their $1,000+ laptops.
UPDATE — GigaOm reports that a company called Meraki will give San Francisco free Wi-Fi. It would seem they’ve beat Google to the punch if not for the fact that Google & Sequoia Capital funded Meraki earlier this year.
Related Posts:
Written by:Robert Gorell
