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What is it about web analytics that that intrigues and yet scares companies at the same time? Everyone want to understand analytics, yet once one starts digging in, it can get complicated. In Identify, Analyze, Act: SEM by the Numbers, they gave tips on what you should be looking at and what you should be paying attention to.

Here are a few of the tips & thoughts that were shared:

Craig Danuloff

• Invisibility; what can’t we see?
• Every search is a question, every ad is an answer. Keywords simply connectors.
• ROAS is a ‘feel good’ metric. don’t take it seriously.
• Deception - Can you trust what you see?
• Accuracy - What’s the margin of error. Is there statistical significance?
• Banish brand terms as they throw everything off.
• Unlimited power from huge data volumes. Lots of campaigns lots of data and a fluid business environment.
• A change is not a test. Test design, test tracking, scoring test results.
• Apply math and statistics.
• Make a record of changes made to the site.

Brian Cosgrove

• Implementation - Everyone needs to ensure analytics are configured correctly.
• Filtering - Filter out internal traffic or those that come to the site as part of their job.
• Process should be: report, analyze, optimize, measure, repeat.
• How many pages are actually landing pages, how many are not getting visitors?
• Connect landing pages and keywords as a search engine doesn’t always drive traffic to what you think is the best page.

Heather Dougherty

• Use competitive intelligence to identify and analyze sem opportunities.
• Identify trends and seasonality.
• Analyze competitors strategy.
• Act upon opportunities.
• Get the calendar ready and stay ahead of seasonal trends.
• Understand paid vs organic search in specific industry.
• Look at competitors. Paid vs organic. Click thoroughs.
• What is the user intent? Example: Purchase an item or news/research.
• Can use analytics for reputation management.

Michael Stebbins

• What’s in your data? Most analytics have bounce rates, average time, page views, but does yours have conversion rate and cost of revenue per visit?
• The Grim Reaper: Find which 10% of ads are not performing and kill them.
• Find ads with high cost, bad ROI, low engagement, low conversion and those will help find the 10%
• They can either be cut or replaced.
• Don’t keep them hoping they’ll get better.
• Free Research Tool: Microsoft’s Commercial Intent
• Free Research Tool: Google Adwords Keyword too. With this you can even check age range and sex to help target your ad content
• Free Research Tool: Google Ad Planner

Brett Crosby

• Came from Urchin and helped grow Google Analytics
• Wanted to make it easier for non-geeks to dive in and explore. Aka: The shallow end.
• Always setup goals and funnels.
• Customize dashboard for your needs.
• Customize email reports for different rolls in the company.
• Setup goal value. This will help you see values per keyword
• If you can hook up to eCommerce data, it’s even better

The session had great speakers from the technical side of things to the beginner side of analytics. It was a lot of information in a short time, but still very good overall.

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