What is Google Tag Manager?

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We’ve had a lot of clients ask exactly what is Google Tag Manager and does it have anything to do with a collection of Tag Heuer watches?. The quick answer is it is AWESOME for marketers and NO, you don’t get any jewelry out of it. Instead of telling you how to install Google Tag Manager though we’re simply going to walk through why it’s so valuable and why you should get on installing Google Tag Manager immediately!

What is Google Tag Manager?

Google Tag Manager can house nearly every tag on your website, including tracking tags for Google Analytics, Google AdWords, Microsoft Bing, DoubleClick, etc. It can also allow you to fire code on pages for various other things such as a popups, chat functionality, and more.

What Google Tag Manager is not…

Google Tag Manager does not hold any data, does not display any metrics, nor does it do analysis of any kind. And, as we mentioned earlier, it is not a way for you to manage your collection of Tag Heuer watches.

Why is Google Tag Manager Useful?

Google Tag Manager takes away a lot of the reliance on development teams for marketing needs, such as adding conversion pixels or other tracking needs. It allows a way for a marketer to quickly and easily put tags on their website without having to go through a development sprint or push cycle, as they simply add a tag into the system and click publish.

How to install Google Tag Manager

I know earlier we said we wouldn’t talk about this, but we simply want to point out how easy it is. Just like your analytics code, Google Tag Manager has a simple javascript snippet that goes on every page of your website. Once in place you use the system to define variables and triggers that fire your tags. SOME development may be needed to track Commerce or to add things into the dataLayer, but that’s more advanced and you’ll probably want help from an expert at that point anyhow (and if you do contact us!).

Google Tag Manager gives marketers more control over their website and minimizes the need for developer involvement. It’s a win-win for both sides and allows the development team to focus on other more important projects. Instantly add tags to the site and update tags at will! Google Tag Manager is an incredibly powerful tool that EVERY website should consider adding.

Hidden Pay Per Click Engagement

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Conversions are king, that’s for sure, but what about when a pay per click (PPC) keyword isn’t getting conversions? Do you pause it? Some PPC management tools out there will focus on “Costly Keywords” but don’t take into consideration other site engagement metrics. But there’s more to PPC optimization than simply pausing or adding keywords!

PPC Conversion Optimization

Again, if we have a website and we are running PPC it is all about getting visitors to convert. There are a myriad of things involved in PPC optimization, but we’ll assume for this article that your keywords and ad copy are perfect (ha!). First off, make sure you have AdWords conversion tracking in place on your conversion page (eg: Thank You, Order Confirmation, Articles…). This conversion pixel should be on the same page that triggers your Google Analytics goal (because you have goal tracking set up… right??). Once tracking, you can easily see, in both Google AdWords and Google Analytics, which keywords are driving conversions. But now lets take a look at those keywords that aren’t.

PPC Site Engagement Metrics

If some keywords are not converting it is time to determine whether or not the pause them. But don’t just pause them if they aren’t converting, make sure you are pausing them because visitors are not engaging. Now, a full ‘engagement’ is a conversion, but visitors can engage with your site in other ways. We have mentioned in this column previously the importance of what we call site engagement metrics. Our focus here is simple, did a visitor try to engage with the site at all? These metrics are simply Bounce Rate, Average Time on Site and Pages per Session. These engagement metrics help you evaluate whether a keyword is good at driving an engaged audience, but maybe there is a slight alteration to a landing page or steps that would help that audience cross the finish line.
There is so much more that goes into this analysis, but just be sure you aren’t pausing keywords simply because they haven’t generated a conversion. If they are driving an audience who is looking at pages and staying a while, then perhaps there are slight changes that can be done to that funnel as opposed to selecting all new keywords. So while conversion is king, site engagement rules the castle!

Digital Strategy on Vacation

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Bluefin Strategy came to be because of our love for fishing, well that and it was an available domain name. Never the less tomorrow Bluefin Strategy embarks on a much needed tuna fishing vacation. While our minds drift to the thoughts of fresh sashimi and tuna salad we must first make sure all our ducks are in a row on the work front. We all need time away and so here’s a quick guide to remind you of things to take care of before you power off and how marketing automation can keep your mind focused on the beach!

Pay Per Click (PPC) Automation

If you run pay per click advertising make sure that you set up any rules that you may have otherwise been doing manually. Turning off and on keywords, raising bids at certain times, and many more tasks can be automated through AdWords’ automated rules. Also, take one last look through your keywords and ads to make sure you aren’t targeting anything vague. Vacation is not the time to be testing out brand new ideas!

Content Strategy, Blog Posting & Social Media Scheduling

Just because you’re on vacation doesn’t mean you can’t publish content! And no, I don’t recommend posting content after a few Alabama Slammers. Most Content Management Systems allow for future postings, so you can write the content piece before you leave and schedule it to post when you’re gone. The downside to this is that you’re posting something while you’re gone and technically “something” could be incorrect. Well, that’s why you triple-checked the content before clicking “schedule post”, right? Everything I just mentioned, do it all the same for your Social Media posts as well (NOTE: Many CMS’s automatically push new blog or page content to Social Media platforms, does yours?).

Email Marketing Scheduling

Combine the powers of automated rules and content scheduling and you have the tools available to you in most email marketing platforms. It’s time to do a double-check and make sure the messages are correct, in a particular order, and all links point to the right location. Any automated emails through forms or CRM’s should also be double-checked (eg: did you properly get submissions yesterday and today?).

Gone Fishin’

There isn’t really much to do with Display, nor do you have much need for auto reports from your analytics platform. Go enjoy your vacation and have peace of mind that you took all the strategic steps to ensure your web strategy keeps on truckin’ while you do… well, whatever it is you do on vacation!

When is an ad network’s job finished?

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When you purchase digital advertising from an ad networks, such as display or PPC, they are very happy to quickly send out an invoice. Following that they will have calls and send you data, typically in Excel or Powerpoint form, that shows how they are doing. “You’re getting a ton of impressions” or “We’re really seeing a ramp up in click throughs this month”. As an analyst I can typically always tell a good story with numbers, but is it the right story?

Take me to the finish line

It’s all about conversions! My gripe with the digital advertising industry has been that they are all too happy to leave the conversation at their data, or what they think they can control. However, what a refreshing change it would be if these firms also helped you out by guiding you to areas of optimization. Here are a couple of questions/conversations I wish I heard more from digital agencies:

  • We feel the message in your ad should have more action-oriented terms.
  • The color scheme of your ad really goes against what we have seen work in the past for other clients.
  • Your landing page messaging/design really doesn’t match the ad creative we are using.
  • If our focus is conversion we’d really recommend a larger call to action with more action terms.
  • We noticed a few steps int he process where we think people may be falling out. Are you seeing this as well?

These are just a few of the things I would have loved to have heard from agencies the last few months. But instead it was the same old stuff; here’s your data, we’re showing a lot of impressions, yay! If digital agencies were more focused on your success perhaps they should bill by the conversion, or at least part of their invoice should be success driven. So the next time you have a call with your digital agency/network ask them how they might help you to improve conversions. After all, it’s in their best interest for you to be successful, not to see you leave after 3-months!

The Social Divide

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It turns out there’s a pretty large divide between marketers and consumers… are you shocked? According to a Boston Retail Partners study retailers expected to see a 34% increase from their social media channels. However, an eMarketer study found that consumers weren’t as apt to use social media to drive their purchases via a “Buy Button”. The numbers come out like so: 17% Tumblr, 14% Instagram, 13% Pinterest, 12% Twitter, and 9% Facebook.

Social Engagement

Granted, this question was hyper-focused on social media users clicking a “Buy Button”, but it begs a larger question, should you be so buy-centric on social platforms? I’ve always been a proponent of social media to drive awareness, be it of a brand, product, service, etc. However, many many marketers hear a buzz word and immediately think it’s the next big thing. If done with a proper strategy in mind social can absolutely drive sales online, but just consider the mindsets of the social media channels. Or better yet, what is YOUR mindset when you’re on Facebook or Instagram? Are you ever in a buying mood or are you really just there for cat photos (can’t it be both?!?!)?

Is That Bad, Should I not Have Done That?

This is not a post about how social media is a bad channel, it’s about the need for a strategy and closing the divide between your business and your consumers. Make sure you understand your audience as well as their wants, needs, interests and how they utilize the web. This knowledge will help drive your marketing decisions and will drive consumers to your goal, closing the great divide!

Digital Strategy, explained to a four-year-old

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We were recently asked by a client to explain what we do as if they were a four-year-old, paying homage to Denzel Washington in “Philadelphia”. At first we laughed, as did they, but then we got to thinking that there is a lot of stuff to think about when you’re a small(er) business and it has to be difficult to sift through all the clutter. So, since we had to do it any way for our client, here is our explanation of digital strategy & marketing, to a four-year-old. Well, a four-year-old with some business acumen…

In this series:

Google Analytics Campaign Tracking Variables

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Tracking your marketing campaigns is imperative to success, mostly so you’re not spending advertising dollars on underperforming mediums. However many websites go without the use of campaign tracking variables. Now, every analytics platform has a campaign tracking component of some kind but today we will focus on the Google Analytics side of the fence, as that is the most popular.

What are campaign tracking variables?

Campaign Tracking Variables in Google Analytics allow you to track any inbound link to your website with specific variables that give you insight into how visitors who clicked it behaved on your site. These variables allow you to put each visit into a particular bucket and then even group them so you can tell if one particular group of ads performed better or if a particular website you’re advertising on performed worse. Below we will outline each variable available to you:

Campaign

This is the overarching umbrella of your group of ads. Is it a “Fall Sale”? Perhaps it is simply “Widget Awareness”. Or maybe it’s just a “General Branding” campaign. You have full control over what to name these, but be sure that you use the same name for ALL ads within the group.

Source

This describes where the ad or link is placed. “Facebook”, “Twitter”, “News Sentinel Daily”? Where does the ad or link actually exist where the visitors can click on it? Now, this is straight forward for the examples I mentioned previously, but what about an Ad Network or an Email? Typically I will use the name of the Network or the Email Provider as I may change Networks or Providers down the line and this distinction helps me see who may have done better.

Medium

This is all about the type of ad or link you are using. Is it a banner, ppc, text link, email? This one should be very broad and contain a large portion of your ads. For instance, I wouldn’t recommend using “banner” and then “flash banner”. We’ll talk about how to distinguish between ads in the “Content” section below.

Content

This is where you can really go crazy. I typically use the “Content” field to describe the actual ad. Is it a “728×90-Blue” banner ad? Is it the “header-logo” in an email? Speaking of emails, maybe you need to denote multiple emails within one campaign, so maybe you expand on the previous example by saying “header-logo-sign-up-email”. These can be whatever you want them to be, but they should speak to what exactly the ad is all about.

Term

Typically you will never use this field unless you are doing PPC on a non-Google property OR if you’re using a shady third-party who won’t give you the keywords they are using to run your PPC campaign (fire them immediately if this is the case). However, if you do need to use this field, it is specifically for defining the keywords of a pay per click ad campaign.

Campaign Tracking Variables in action

Create a tracking url

The easiest thing I can tell you is to simply visit Google’s URL Builder. However, I use a spreadsheet that automatically calculates the tracking url based on some formulas. This spreadsheet is great when I’m doing more than one link. Plus, it allows me to keep track of every link I use.

Naming your variables

Naming each variable the same thing is absolutely imperative. Even something as simple as “email” vs. “e-mail” will show up as separate line items. So in order to keep track of them I typically create a simple spreadsheet to ensure I use the same naming conventions.

Viewing campaign reports

Each of the sections above represent individual reports (eg: There’s a “Campaign” report, “Medium” report, etc), however you may also combine them together. For instance, How did all the “Mediums” within one particular “Campaign” perform? Or which “Sources” drove the worst conversion for particular ad “Content”?

Campaign Tracking Variable Planning

In addition to the spreadsheet I mentioned above you should first sit down and think through all of your marketing means and ensure you have a plan for how to track them all. That plan should then be put into your spreadsheet and never change the course from your naming conventions. You can’t change anything once it’s in Google, so this planning is incredibly important, as is ensuring you use the same naming conventions.

At the end of the day you should have this mantra… if I can control the link there should always be campaign tracking variables on it! If not, you’ll be blindly throwing darts at the wall!

It’s getting a little personal

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Personalization is one of many new buzzwords making the digital marketing rounds these days, but in fact it’s not really new at all. The concept has always been there, the platforms have always existed, but perhaps the reason for the buzz is the fact that ‘more’ platforms now exist? Regardless, the same issues exist today as they have for many years and why many sites haven’t implemented any personalization features.

Personalization is difficult

Well, yes, implementing personalization on your site can seem daunting. First you have to either learn about your content management system’s capabilities or install plugins or software that require even more education. But that’s the easy part, the next step is actually coming up with the strategy. This is where I have seen about 98% of all personalization discussions end. Why? Because this takes a lot of time, conceptualization and [fingers crossed] a large whiteboard. You need to get in a room and think through the possibilities. A few questions right off the bat: How will you personalize? Who will get personalized content? What messages make the most sense?

How will you personalize?

The how is more about the content and less about the software/platform. You may want to simply show a banner ad to the visitor, or maybe a large text box at the top of the page, or perhaps a completely dynamic content block within the page copy. All of these are options, but the question is, which one will work best? Strategizing will help, but either trial and error or, better yet, AB testing are really the best ways to find out.

Who will get personalized content?

When you personalize it’s not an all or nothing kind of thing. You can target iPhone users or residents of New York. That doesn’t mean those that don’t fall into those groups have to get something too. This also helps in your testing of personalized content, as maybe you test a message to the eastern United State and leave the standard copy to the Western US. The basic question is, will a visitor falling into ‘this’ group be more apt to engage if you display them a personalized message versus standard copy?

What messages make the most sense?

Typically action-based messages ‘tend’ to do the best, but it really depends on the audience. For instance, content sites may display soccer-related content for anyone viewing a Women’s World Cup page or perhaps a visitor from Florida gets a text box saying there’s a 50% chance of rain today. Commerce and Lead-gen sites may push visitors towards an action based on navigation behavior. “Only 10 left in stock” to a visitor who looked at blue widgets or “Contact us today and save 10%” to a visitor looking for rental properties.

Personalization Strategy

It all boils down to having a strategy. Think through the questions above and how you’ll implement the messaging. Personalization is an incredibly powerful tool, as eMarketer notes “Nearly three-quarters cited increased visitor engagement as a main benefit from real-time personalization.”

What should I AB Test?

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Having trouble deciding what to AB test?

Here is a fun list of potential things you can test on your website:

Commerce Sites:

  • Add to Cart button text/color
  • ANY page within the payment process (look for form requirements or distractions)
  • Product listing page layout and filter options
  • Product page layout
  • Image(s)
  • Text length
  • Reviews

Lead-gen Sites:

  • Form requirements (eg: do you have to require certain fields)
  • Form titles
  • Field order
  • Steps vs. No Steps

Content Sites:

  • Search results or article list page layout
  • Article page layout
  • Related links
  • Comments section
  • Lots of images vs. none
  • Amount of content OR section headings

There are virtually hundreds of things you could test on your website without needing to involve a designer nor a developer. By focusing on little things you can keep costs low, or even non-existent. All you need is a testing platform and you could even use the free service from Google Analytics called ‘Experiments’. Just start testing! Once you’ll start you’ll be amazed at how even the smallest variations can have huge impact to your conversion!

Oooh look, a squirrel!

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In today’s world of flashy advertising, new fangled gadgets and the seemingly limitless capabilities of the internet it is easy for us to be overwhelmed.

I’m no scientist, but as I type this Pandora plays in the background, my iPhone is at the ready to my right and I am typing this on screen number one of my two-screen setup. All of this… wait, a biker just went by on the street outside my window… where was I?

The point here is FOCUS. Although you probably need it personally, I’m not necessarily talking about personal focus. Keeping your digital strategy focused is nearly an impossible task these days. With so many new technologies, tracking and targeting tools it is no wonder marketers get so overwhelmed day in and day out. So how do we get back on track? Lets ‘focus’ on that…

New isn’t always better

If you don’t know how to drive stick shift why in the world would you ‘upgrade’ your car to a manual Ferrari? This happens all the time in the business world though. Too many companies abandon their digital strategy because a new shiny object comes out promising to pinpoint audience segments with a message specifically for them and ultimately get them to buy more. Now, this strategy works when you’re ready, but not if you don’t know how to drive stick.

Stick to the basics…

Ya, ya, the basics are boring. I get it. However, typically the sports team that wins their championship tends to focus on the fundamentals, or basics (unless you’re the New England Patriots I guess). This should apply to your digital strategy. Can your analytics track the entire visitor experience? Do your inbound marketing tactics drive visitors to the right landing pages? Are the calls to action on your site clear and noticeable? These are all digital strategy fundamentals and too many companies do not exhaust their options here before moving onto the next big thing.

It’s not working…

Brand loyalty isn’t what it used to be these days. Music tastes change by the hour. And there seems to be a new diet every second. My point is that we are always quick to jump to the next thing as opposed to seeing if what we currently have could actually work for us. Are you utilizing your tracking tools to their fullest potential? Are you driving visitors to the right landing pages? Are you taking advantage of all the segmentation features in your content management system? The next new thing won’t solve the issues of you not using your tools to their fullest. It’s sort of like a power saw because you can’t use a measuring tape when using your hand saw. Your cuts will still be way off with or without the power.

What can you do?

There are some simple questions to ask yourself before going out and spending money on that latest new technology:

  • Inbound Marketing
    • Have you exhausted your potential keyword opportunities and do you have content for them all?
    • Are you out of AB testing options for your Display, Email and PPC mediums?
    • Are you unable to target audiences any more granular than what your existing tools allow? Google has MANY targeting options…
  • Conversion Optimization
    • Have you conducted AB testing on all your landing pages through your existing testing tools?
    • Have you polled your website visitors through a usability test to see what they think you should do?
  • Website Analytics
    • Do you have more than just the basic tracking code implemented on your site?
    • Have you created Advanced Segments for several different factors including particular audiences?
    • Are you taking actions based on reviewing your analytics reports?

At the end of the day there are some really great tools out there that can absolutely help your business succeed online. However, make sure you’re utilizing them to take you to the next level, not to simply stay where you’re at. Remember that any new tool requires implementation and strategy time that adds to the overall cost. Instead of looking at the next shiny thing why not try and take full advantage of what you already have? The power is there, it is installed, but perhaps just needs a little TLC. It all starts with a strategy though… a failure to plan is a plan to fail (or in this case spend money on tools you don’t need).