FutureNow's GrokDotCom / Marketing Optimization Blog » Webinar

Meet Us At These Upcoming Conferences?

Bryan Eisenberg — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:52:43 +0000

We’re packing the bags and creating new presentations. We’ll be at at several conferences in the near future and hope to meet you at one of them.

It’s a good thing there are two of us because on June 8th-9th you can meet me at Search Engine Strategies in Toronto and on June 9th, you can meet Jeffrey at the Yale Club in New York City, where he will be the keynote speaker at the OMMA Metrics and Measurement conference.

I’m already be meeting Dan – one of our OnTarget clients in Toronto, and even if you aren’t a client yet or you aren’t attending the conference, let me know because I would still enjoy meeting you. Feel free to call me directly at 718-560-3306.

On June 30th, we can meet virtually as I present “Landing Page Testing, Persuasion, and Conversion Essential” hosted by MarketMotive and Search Engine Strategies. Registration isn’t open yet, but you can keep an eye on it here.

We are also planning a free webinar in June for those of you who have had your travel and training budgets cut. We’re debating between a seveal topics, but would rather have some direction from you as to what you would like us to cover. What can we help you with?

Free Webinar: Post-Click Marketing: Maximizing Conversions Once Visitors Arrive

Bryan Eisenberg — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 13:43:58 +0000

No one but search engines and media properties make money from people clicking on ads. If you rely on sales of products or services, the revenue is a consequence of being seen as relevant to your visitors’ needs. After that click you must also instill trust, persuade visitors that you solve their problem, and that it’s simple to buy from you. The original conversion guru, New York Times bestselling author and ClickZ columnist, Bryan Eisenberg, will be presenting proven ideas on what to provide visitors after they click through. Bryan will explain how to transform your visitor’s journey from first click all the way to the completion of your website’s forms (both retail and lead gen) to maximize conversions. You’ll learn the magic three questions that have made companies like Dell, Overstock, HP, 1-800 Flowers, Acceller, Shoeline, and CafePress millions of dollars. This fast-paced presentation will provide you with a to-do list to take back to the office to boost your marketing efforts.

Join me and ClickZ’s Executive Editor Anna Maria Virzi on Wednesday, March 18, 2009 at 1:00 PM EST/10:00 AM PST.

Please register early.

Free Pre-recorded High Resolution PPC Webinar

Bryan Eisenberg — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 11:20:09 +0000

Last week, I had the pleasure to record this webinar with my good friend Craig Danuloff, CEO of ClickEquations. Some of you may remember Craig from the webinar we did a couple of months ago on Google’s Quality Score: Exposing the Secret Factor to PPC Success. I asked Craig to explain to us the details behind his much anticipated e-book on maximizing Pay Per Click marketing, and he was kind enough to take the time out of his schedule.

We were originally only going to have this private webinar available for OnTarget clients only, but I convinced Craig to let me share it with everyone. Thank you Craig.

High Resolution PPC Webinar Description:

A few years ago, managing paid search campaigns was simple. All you had to do was pick the right keywords and set reasonable bids. Those days are long gone.

Today paid search management is complicated. Competition is tough, prices are high, the rules and algorithms keep changing, and you have to contend with issues like quality score, impression share and revenue allocation.

So what’s the best way to build and manage paid search campaigns in 2009? How should you spend your time and your money to get the best return-on-investment?

In this webinar, Craig Danuloff introduces High Resolution PPC – a new framework for understanding and managing PPC campaigns.

High Resolution PPC starts with the assumption that we haven’t had a clear enough picture of how paid search really works. Or exercised control with fine enough precision.
It’s based on the idea we’re no longer willing to take actions, configure settings, and set options without knowing the specific implications and possible interactions.
And it presumes that we need meaningful and informative performance measures on an ongoing basis in order to intelligently and consistently make changes to improve our results.

High Resolution PPC breaks the process down into three clear steps – target, value, satisfy – and provides a step-by-step approach to building and optimizing campaigns. You’ll learn how to use your time more efficiently, avoid costly mistakes, drive past your competitors, and increase top and bottom line revenues.

Join us for this informative webinar, and learn a new approach to delivering great PPC results.

TheGrok’s Not-To-Miss Links for the Week 2/8/09

Bryan Eisenberg — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 16:22:02 +0000

The spending level for Valentine’s Day gifts this year will be slightly lower than last year – $140 to be spent by men (versus $166 in 2008), and $75 (versus $90) to be spent by women, according to the BrandKeys Valentine’s Day Index, writes RetailerDaily.

Mature consumers prefer single-image advertisements over ads with multi-image collages by a margin of 66% to 34%, and also gravitate to images that show products and lifestyles, according to a recent image-preference survey by Creating Results according to their “Photo Finish” study of more than 400 Americans age 40+, reports MarketingCharts. This is something to consider as you work on “hero” shots for your website as well.

Paul from WiseGrass attended our Wizard of Web class a while ago. I just came across this great Google Maps Mashup on his website. He showcases his wonderful lawn care work by letting people know where his showcase lawns are.

There are plent of businesses that could leverage something like this. Could yours?

The Google Website Optimizer team launches an official GWO YouTube channel. You’ll find several videos there including several from our Always Be Testing webinar series.

If you missed last week’s webinar I did for the Web Analytics Association with Akin Arikan and Josh Manion you can see the recorded version now. It’s titled Testing, Testing, Testing. Anybody Can Test. So Why Don’t You? Registration is required.

Thanks for all your support. This is the second year in a row that we have won a SEMMY award. Our article Three Reasons Your Visitors Don’t Convert to Leads took the award in the Design & Usability category. Congratulations to all the other winners and runners-up. There are some great articles there.

A Sterne Look at 2009

John Quarto-vonTivadar — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 21:26:59 +0000

We’re pleased to replay Jim Sterne’s recent webinar with us, “Turn Web Analytics into 2009 Revenue”.

Come watch the Chairman of the Web Analytics Association talk with our own Bryan Eisenberg (himself Chairman Emeritus of the WAA) about proactively using Analytics Data to drive continuous Testing and generating actual dollars, a concept even more important this year than last.

Click the above image to watch.

By the way, we received a number of inquiries from folks who saw the video already asking, “what software is being used in the screenshots?” That’s our OnTarget™ software, and you can learn more about it in a separate post we did a few days ago: “Please Keep Our Message OnTarget“

Too Much Data Vs. Actionable Insight

Jeff Sexton — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 09:46:04 +0000

“There’s no reason to become alarmed, and we hope you’ll enjoy the rest of your flight. By the way, is there anyone on board who knows how to fly a plane?”

- Elaine in the movie Airplane

Does looking at an instrumentation panel like this (picture on the left) create feelings of information overload? It does for most non-pilots I know.

Pilots on the other hand, quickly identify the primary flight gauges and navigation equipment. They know what’s immediately important for flying the plane, and can scan across multiple gauges (rather than fixating on one or two of them) to develop a “big picture” of what the plane is actually doing.

Even more importantly, when they make a control input (like adding power), they know where to look to verify its intended effect (e.g., altimeter and airspeed).

Web Optimization is a lot like that.

Emotionally, many business owners experience that exact sense of information overload when looking at traditional Web Analytics. No one has taught them how to assemble a composite picture of visitor behavior – what measurements to look for first, what to look at in combination, and how to verify that website changes worked as expected.

Flying blind becomes the inevitable result.

Yet rather than looking for a pilot or investing in flying lessons, many business owners buy into optimization efforts based on sophisticated data gathering capabilities and overly complex testing methodologies.

Why would they do that when they need more actionable insight and situational awareness, and not more gauges to look at?

Because flight instructors are in short supply. And because this kind of sense making, as a so-called “soft skill,” has always been a more difficult sell than hard-core data collection and taguchi testing.

But those interesting in learning to fly their web optimization efforts have a viable option: Follow Bryan Eisenberg’s free Webinars and get free flight lessons each month.

On January 15th, Bryan and Jim Sterne (considered the godfather of web analytics) will cover specific techniques to get a composite picture of visitor flow and the importance of looking at analytics through the lens of visitor intent. Consider it a first, free flight lesson that can be followed up with Bryan’s recorded Webinars.

And for those that want more, I’d invite you to check out FutureNow’s OnTarget product as an affordable way to hire an “on demand” flight instructor for your web optimization efforts.

Follow-up: Google Quality Score Webinar

Bryan Eisenberg — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 16:32:59 +0000

Craig Danuloff, President of ClickEquations did a fabulous job exposing how to leverage Google Quality Score to improve pay per click success during our webinar yesterday. In case you missed the webinar you can see the replay. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to get to all the questions so Craig and I will take turns answering them on our respective blogs. Enjoy part 1 of Craig’s responses on the ClickEquations blog. Then enjoy some additional questions and answers are below:

Q: How many keywords would you suggest for starting a campaign?
A: We haven’t tested this specifically, but starting with thousands if you can avoid it is not a good idea. There are two dynamics – first you want to build up some good history with reasonable to good Quality Score, so from that perspective, going pretty slow and being highly focused and patient is best idea. On the other hand, what matters most is good relevance between all the components which will ultimately generate good QS. So if you have to build a large campaign, ideally you get some base built and then at some point you have to grow it, realize that there’s going to be a chasm to cross while you establish yourself – which may mean some high minimums and poor positions – and just fight through it. Google isn’t incentivized to put you in a downward spiral if your quality is good – recent success will trump history – so when you ‘get it right’ the QS and fate of the campaign will turn.

Q: Where do you find Impression Precentage?
A: I think you mean Impression Share, which is under the Reports Tab in Adwords as an optional field in the Campaign Report. (Or get it right in the campaign reports in ClickEquations!)

Q: What advice to you have for niche keywords that get low CTR?
A: Since keywords should only be triggered by relevant searches, the niche nature of a topic shouldn’t necessarily lower click-through-rates. The first thing to do is make sure you have picked good keywords and aren’t over-using Broad Match (see Match Type Keyword Trap for some ideas on this.) But ultimately all QS measures are relative, so if your CTRs are reasonable for your keywords, you shouldn’t be penalized.

Q: Is Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI) relevant anymore?
A: DKI is effective in some cases, but it hasn’t proven to be universally effective in our tests. And as mentioned it doesn’t give Quality Score a boost. Use it if it works (meaning test test test)

Q: Instead of deleting a keyword, should you put it in a different ad-group with a lower bid?
A: Certainly moving low CTR keywords into ’special’ AdGroups is a good idea (but like other points here don’t go overboard). The bid it should get then depends on how the CTR varies at different positions, whether you can craft a text-ad that increases its CTR, and your own profitability. I don’t think there is a QS-based answer to that.

Q: Is there a book you’d recommend to better understand Quality Score.
A: There’s one in progress on Craig’s hard drive, but you can’t get it yet.

Q: How does Google rate a company that uses different product specific URLs?
A: I assume the question is about using different domains within a single account. I’d assume the domain doesn’t matter, that the URL and page are measured on their own merits for each ad/keyword.

Q: Our Google Rep told us that moving keywords between Ad-Groups erases quality score. Were they lying?
A: Maybe they had not yet completed their full Google training. Kidding but honestly there is a lot of facts for anyone to know. But Google has publicly written (on the Adwords Blog or in help files I believe) that QS is retained by KW ID and especially KW-AD ID combos, even if moved within a single account. The same is true for target URL. Anytime one of these is used anywhere in an account its historical CTR is known.

Q: You mention geographical performance as a Quality Score Factor. Please elaborate.
A: Google looks at the performance of you KW/AD combo within the geography of the searcher to influence QS. So if your ads get good CTR in New York City, for example, you’ll get a higher Quality Score when people search from NYC, than those who search from LA. It’s your own personal red states / blue states for QS. Would be cool if they drew us a color coded map.

Q: I’m seeing visitors come several times in the same session (via my web analytics) does this negatively effect Quality Score?
A: I can’t see why it would.

Thank you Craig for taking the time for the webinar and for answering all these questions. Do you have more questions? Leave them in the comments. If your research contradicts what we have found, then please comment as well.

When Consumer Confidence is Low…

Howard Kaplan — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 05:03:59 +0000

Guess what becomes more important? Yup, conversion.

As online marketers are forced to reign in their spending (along with just about everyone else today), many may be tempted to cut their optimization budgets. After all, optimizing a website is w_o_r_k. It’s far easier to simply buy more traffic, when you need to generate greater profits.

That strategy even works too, on a short enough time horizon, although admittedly more so in bull markets than bear ones. But in recessionary times (or those dangerously close to it like, say, now) those who have become addicted to Google’s PPC fix find themselves up a certain creek, and lacking an effective paddle.

I made the case last month while talking to a group of Direct Marketers at the DMA, that increasing traffic is like a one night stand, where as conversion improvements are a long lasting love affair. When you increase conversion, the impact is permanent, and as you generate more traffic to your website, with your newly effective funnel, you generate exponentially more revenue than before. Far more so than simply incrementally increasing traffic.

While we’re talking about traffic… you know what happens to traffic when consumer confidence is low? It drops.

Sorry for the Debbie Downer post, but it’s not all bad news! Increasing conversion may be work, but it’s not hard to figure out. In fact, 3 simple questions are all you need to help you improve your website performance:

Who is your audience?
What action do you want them to take? (i.e. – what is conversion on your site?)
What information do they need to feel comfortable and confident taking the action? (i.e. – what’s their motivation for doing what you want them to?!)

If that sounds hard, give us a call and we’ll show you it doesn’t have to be. Want a sneak peak into how? Well since you asked, Bryan would be happy to show you, along with the fine folks at Sitebrand. Enjoy!

Webinar: Your Website and First Time Visitors…Friend or Foe?

Natalie Hart — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 15:31:13 +0000

Converting first time visitors are a must if you want to succeed in uncertain economy. They’re also often times pretty expensive to convert into sales. Join FutureNow’s co-founder and best selling author, Bryan Eisenberg as he teams up with the Sitebrand team to help you tackle the issue head on…

Most of the time, first time visitors are the largest underperforming segment of your traffic, representing on average 60 to 80 percent of all visitors, with a conversion rate significantly lower than site average. Judging by typical traffic generation spends, they’re also the most expensive type of visitor on your site. So making your site the first time visitor friend versus foe needs to be a top priority. To learn some key steps to better converting first time visitors, join special guest Bryan Eisenberg, from FutureNow and Sitebrand’s Carolyn Gardner on Thursday, October 30 2pm EST, as they share ideas around the importance and impact of:

Using data to build an understanding and framework for first-time visitors, aka personas.
Building the messaging required to grow the engagement and the sales of first-time visitor segments / personas.
Mapping the real estate on your site toward your messaging.
Launching your cycle, watching results, and planning for re-optimization.

Landing Page Optimization: Layout and Design Elements – Webinar Recording

Bryan Eisenberg — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 12:17:07 +0000

If you missed our Landing Page Optimization webinar on September 29th with Google’s Tom Leung now is your chance to catch the replay. Not only did we cover some layout and design tests you could try to boost your conversion rates but also covered how you could perform them using Google Website Optimizer’s advanced testing features like split path tests, multi-page tests, linger or time spent tests and take any action tests. There was some wonderful Q & A at the end as well.

View FutureNow’s webinar on layout and design elements to improve your landing pages.

OnClick: The Online Marketing Virtual Conference Mashup

Bryan Eisenberg — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:44:09 +0000

With the cost of travel going up and budgets getting squeezed we know not everyone has the opportunity to attend all the great conferences we have the honor to be invited to attend and present at. That’s why we put together a full day online curriculum for you to take advantage of.

9:00 am – 9:20 am

Seth Godin on how to get your ideas to spread:

FutureNow's GrokDotCom / Marketing Optimization Blog » Webinar

Meet Us At These Upcoming Conferences?

Free Webinar: Post-Click Marketing: Maximizing Conversions Once Visitors Arrive

Free Pre-recorded High Resolution PPC Webinar

High Resolution PPC Webinar Description:

TheGrok’s Not-To-Miss Links for the Week 2/8/09

A Sterne Look at 2009

Too Much Data Vs. Actionable Insight

Follow-up: Google Quality Score Webinar

When Consumer Confidence is Low…

Webinar: Your Website and First Time Visitors…Friend or Foe?

Landing Page Optimization: Layout and Design Elements – Webinar Recording

OnClick: The Online Marketing Virtual Conference Mashup

Today at 2pm EST: Free Webinar on Landing Page Optimization

Landing Page Optimization: Layout and Design Elements – Always Be Testing Webinar

Google Website Optimizer: Free Resources To Jump Start Your Testing

How to Get Started and On Your Way to Becoming an Expert with Google Website Optimizer – Free Resources

1. Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer

2. FREE *3rd Party* WordPress Plug-in For Google Website Optimizer

3. Getting Started with Multivariate testing?

4. A/B Split Testing on Lower-Traffic Sites

FREE Webinars About Google Website Optimizer

5. Landing Page Optimization: Headlines & Calls to Action

6. Landing Page Optimization: Confidence and Trust Building Elements

7. I Know I Should Be Always Be Testing But…

8. Phone Webinar – Website Optimizer: What Should I Test?

9. Podcast: Bryan Eisenberg Interviews Avinash Kaushik

10. Podcast: Bryan Eisenberg Interviews Bernardo de Albergaria

11. Podcast of Interview of Tom Leung, Business Product Manager of Google Website Optimizer

12. 64 Tips for Getting Started with Google Website Optimizer

13. Subscribe to the Conversion Rate Marketing Blog – GrokDotCom

14. Subscribe to the Official Google Website Optimizer Blog

15. Google Website Optimizer website

16. What is Continuous Improvement?

Always Be Testing Webinar: August 27th Recording

Why You Can’t Copy From Amazon

ElasticPath Webinar: I Know I Should Be A/B Testing But…

Always Be Testing Webinar This Wednesday: Final Reminder

In Case You Missed SES Last Week…

Always Be Testing Unleashed

2 Webinars to Improve Your Conversion Rates

Which Do You Prefer?

Free Webinar: FutureNow and Google Present “Always Be Testing”

Google Website Optimizer Webinar: What Should I Test?

“What Should I Test?” Free Google + Future Now Webinar

Webinar: Getting Results with Google Website Optimizer

Free Webinar Replay: 7 Ways to Boost Your Holiday Conversion Rate

2. FREE 3rd Party WordPress Plug-in For Google Website Optimizer