Reflection Post

Reflection:

PHEW! This week’s assignments were long! They were long but they were extremely informative. We have been talking about Google Analytics all semester but I never understood its inner workings. Although it was extremely informative I was upset that I wasn’t able to go in and actually mess around with it like we were able to do with AdWords. I feel like an expert at AdWords now because I have spent so much time clicking around. I have a family friend who is currently building a website for his business so I think once he has it up and running I am going to set up Google Analytics for him so that I can mess around with it and provide him with information/metrics about his site. Maybe he will even pay me to set up an advertising campaign for him through AdWords!

I also found the racial discrimination article extremely surprising. Number one, I had never thought of racial discrimination and how its portrayed via advertising and number two, readings those findings and the research was upsetting. To think this is happening and people don’t even know about it or realize it. Ok I am getting off my soapbox now.

BUS572-4

BUS572-4 Cookies, Topic Targeting & Google Search/Display Networks

Concept 1: Cookies

The most important concept this week for me was “cookies”.  I had always heard the term cookies when I was around some sort of technology expert but I never knew what they actually were.  Cookies are small files that store information on your hard drive about you or your computer.  They are designed to hold a small amount of data specific to a particular client and website, and can be accessed either by the web server or the client computer. This allows the server to deliver a page tailored to a particular user, or the page itself can contain some script which is aware of the data in the cookie and so is able to carry information from one visit to the website to the next.  This is important because it allows us to use Google Analytic s to analyze where a user has been, such as what sites they visit most often. This is how we can learn patterns in consumer behavior and in turn develop more effective ads to reach those consumers. My main concerns regarding cookies are centered around privacy. I’m not positive but I believe anyone who is signed into a person’s computer can view their cookies to see which sites they have visited. This will cause a lot of people to remove cookies from their internet browsing, effectively cutting off that data.

Helpful Links:

http://www.whatarecookies.com/

Concept 2: Topic Targeting

                Advertising has become more and more specific and targeted. Do you ever wonder how? The answer: Topic Targeting. Topic targeting lets you place your AdWords ads on website pages about those topics, whether it's agriculture, music, or something else entirely. This is important for advertisers as they want their products and services to get to the consumer who is most likely to purchase them. You would advertise men’s deodorant on a women’s high-end closing site. Not only does it not make sense but there are more effective places to advertise a men’s product. My biggest question regarding this concept is how advertising actually obtain the data they need to place their ads on particular websites. Obviously you would want to advertise a new pain pill on a pharmacies website, but which pharmacy? How do they decide the absolute best places to advertise when given a group of similar websites that attract the same target market?

Helpful links:

https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2497832?hl=en

https://support.google.com/partners/answer/2769377?hl=en

Skill: Google Search & Display Networks

The most important skill I learned this week when messing around with my campaign is the Google Search and Display Networks. Using GSDN your ads can be automatically matched to websites and other platforms such as mobile phone apps, when your keywords are related to the sites' content. You can also choose to target specific sites, pages about specific topics, demographic groups, and more. This skill ties together many of the concepts from this week. Utilizing these functions on AdWords can help us to run a more effective campaign versus if we didn't have the tools readily available. I think the hard part for me to wrap my head around is the difference between Search and Display and how that will affect the outcome of our ads. I plan to ask Sarah about it tonight!

Reflection:

This week was tough for me purely based on the readings. The Google video was helpful, as was the case study. However, the Ghose article threw me for a loop. These concepts aren't difficult to understand there are just a lot of them. The easier the readings are the more likely I am to understand and remember the concepts. The scholarly article made everything that much harder to distinguish for me, which isn't a problem until you go to take the quiz and you have to remember all of this information, which is impossible. I hope we stick to the book from now on.  Excited for Sarah to come tonight! 

BUS572-3

BUS572-3       Search Engine Optimization

Concept 1: Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO), also called organic or natural optimization, involves optimizing Web sites to achieve high rankings on the search engines for certain selected key phrases. SEO is broken down into 5 main parts:

1.     A search engine–friendly Web site structure

2.     A well-researched list of key phrases

3.     Content optimized to target those key phrases

4.     Link popularity

5.     Emerging trends

Search engine optimization is crucial to digital marketing because it allows you to constantly update and improve your site, driving new business. SEO will help you to figure out and improve how search engines view your site and how customers find your web site. There are, however two obstacles faced by search engines: technical problems that prevent the search engine spider from accessing content from your site and a competitive marketing environment where everyone wants to be highly ranked. This means that technical barriers must be removed and constantly monitored to ensure they do not prevent search engine spiders from accessing your site; this can be prevented by providing direct HTML links to the desired content.

 My Questions/Concerns:

1.     Are the search spiders only able to follow HTML? Or do they follow words and key phrases as well?

Concept 2: Keywords

Probably the most important aspect of our GOMC project is developing a list of potential keywords. Keywords are a word or words used by a searcher on a search engine. In other words, they are the words or phrases we type into the search bar in order to locate the content we are searching for. For example, if I am looking to search prices on couches, I might type “couches Pittsburgh” into the search bar, or “couches cheap”. It all depends on what type of information the user is looking to find and what words they associate with that information. Keywords are an important part of online marketing and search advertising because they are what will bring customers to your site. Careful research into keywords and search psychology is needed to achieve a successful keyword bank. Online marketers and advertisers must consider 4 things when developing a keyword list:

1.     Search volume

2.     Competition

3.     Propensity to convert

4.     Value per conversion

Here is where I see a potential problem when we are developing our own keyword lists for the GOMC. Many of our client’s competitors may be using the same key words. I would be interested to know how we can avoid that, or tactics used by search advertisers to get around that or use t to our advantage.

Skill: Utilizing Data Services

·       Google AdWords

·       Google AdSense

·       Google Analytics

·       Google Web Site Optimizer

·       Google Checkout

·       Google Toolbar

Search Engine data services are tools used my marketers, webmasters, etc. to collect data on the user. These tools can help gather data on clicks, impressions, time spent on a site, number of times a person views a site, how they get there, etc. These services, in my opinion are the most important skill I’ve learned this week. Without these services you will not be able to determine why users are not going to your site, or how to increase traffic to your site. Without them we would have no way of knowing even the simplest things such as how many user viewed the site. Data is absolutely necessary to improve the efficiency of our ad campaigns.  The problem for us as search advertisers in this class is being able to use them accurately and in a timely fashion to be able to implement changes to our campaigns. I am worried that I am spending too much time on keyword development and not enough on learning how to use Analytics.

What I Have Learned:

This past week I have learned a lot about AdWords. I have been in there constantly messing around, learning the controls and researching different functions. However, all of our campaigns are paused and I am not sure how everything is going to work once the campaigns actually begin. Has anyone done any research on this? I was going to look up some YouTube videos to see if there are any examples of what a running campaign will look like. I am also still confused on how to actually write keyword analysis. I’m hoping more research on that ill help. For the next two weeks I hope to learn more about our campaigns and maybe see some examples or more information about how all of this actually works. I am also looking forward to the group presentations as I think they provide a lot of good, condensed information that is oftentimes easier to understand than reading the literature.

Helpful Links:

http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/us/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35291?hl=en

BUS572-2

         BUS572-2       Web Analytic's and Conversion Optimization

Funnel Analysis explained:

http://webanalyticssimplified.blogspot.com/2010/04/funnel-analysis-for-online-business.html

Concept 1: Funnel Analysis

One of the most important concepts in eMarketing is understanding the goal of your website and how consumers/users will achieve that goal, as well as what process they will use. This is commonly referred to as funnel analysis, which is a defined path that visitors should take to reach the final objective. An example would be as follows:

                Event 1: Consumer does a search for shoes

                Event 2: consumer checks prices of different shoes

                Event 3: consumer chooses a shoe and proceeds to check out

                Event 4: enter personal/payment details and confirm order

                Creating and analyzing a funnel analysis will help you measure the success of the Web site or campaign and are crucial to maintaining focus within online activities. Understanding the goal of your website and how reaching those goals are separated into actions will help you to minimize problems in the conversion process.

                Although it is helpful to plan out a funnel analysis it is also helpful acknowledge that not all consumers are going to use your website in the way you intended. Although you as a nosiness owner or website developer may think your website/products are clearly defined and easy to access, a consumer might not think so. It is important to explore all aspects of how a website may be used.

Concept 2: Content Characterization

                Content characterization help characterize how visitors move through your Web site. For example, content characterization can tell you how visitors react to your content. Content characterization includes;

1.       Page exit ratio: Number of exits from a page divided by total number of page views of that page.

2.       Single-page visits: Visits that consist of one page

3.       Bounces (single page-view visits): Visits consisting of a single page view

4.       Bounce rate:  Single page-view visits divided by entry pages

http://catalog.flatworldknowledge.com/bookhub/reader/19?cid=#fwk-105454-ch14_s03

This is the one of the most important metrics to measure because it allows you to see if visitors left your web-site after viewing it or view another page on your web-site. If you are getting a large number of visitors who go to your site but then leave, then you can begin to troubleshoot as to why that is. Maybe your site isn’t visually attractive or they typed in a certain set of keywords hoping your site would match, but it didn’t.  I am interested to see the AdWords content characterization tool and what metrics it allows you to see.

Skill: A/B Split Testing

                “A/B split testing” measures one variable at a time to determine its effect on an outcome. An example of an A/B split test would be creating two different advertisement headings and seeing which one proves superior. This type of testing is useful because results can be interpreted to see if there is a statistically significant difference between the variables being tested. This is crucial during our campaigns because it will allow us to see which campaign is more successful and if we have to drop or change our strategy. The challenges to this method is the timing required to get accurate results. You will have to allow your campaigns to run for a specific amount for time before being able to test. For this project which is very short in duration it might not be an effective test to use.

http://www.emailloop.net/resourcecenter/ab-split-basics.html

BUS572-1

     eMarketing via Search Engines & Pay-Per-Click Advertising

                                

Definitions of eMarketing vs. Internet vs. Digital marketing:

http://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/online-marketing-mix/definitions-of-emarketing-vs-internet-vs-digital-marketing/

Concept 1: Predictive Modeling                

                  Predictive modeling involves creating a model to predict a partial outcome using information that is gathered from the internet. For example, a model to determine the likelihood that an email is SPAM based on previous tracked or measured information gathered from the user. All of a user’s actions can be tracked, measured and stored; this helps marketing professionals analyze problems within their marketing strategy. With the internet becoming more and more connected, people are able to share their thoughts, feelings and ideas on blogs and focus groups. When businesses are able to access that information it provides them with free market research to help them implement new strategies or tweak ones that are already in place.

Concept 2: Search Engines

                  Search engines are web-based programs that index the web and allow people to find what they are looking for”. A popular example of a search engine is Google. Search engines are extremely important because they organize billions of pages of data located on the web so that it is not only easily accessible but also easy to look for. Without search engines and ability to index information, search for information and pull the most relevant data it would be impossible to the use the internet let alone market a product, service or business. Consumers use search engines to locate products and services. Without a way to organize data and how we search for it, consumers would never utilize the web for shopping, research, etc. thus there wouldn’t be a need for eMarketing. Knowing the importance of search engines prompts the following questions for me:

                  1) Why don’t we have a larger quantity of search engines?

2) Why is google so popular?

Below is a link to a list of the Top 15 search engines. This was eye-opening for me as I only recognized 5 of them.

http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/search-engines

Skill: Keywords

While reading, speaking to the client and learning about the project the most important skill I have come across is the ability to understand and formulate keywords. A keyword is a word or words used by a search engine. An example of a key word is “Chatham” or “universities Pittsburgh MBA”. Keywords are what a search uses to know “where to go” to find information. To me this is crucial for a busy to be easily found by people searching the internet. By creating relevant and unique keywords you will increase the visibility of the clients business on the “search results” page, hopefully resulting in more “clicks” and, in turn, more business for the client. Knowing this, I am concerned about this part of the project. No matter how unique or obvious we think our keywords are they are going up against hundreds or thousands of other businesses with the same key words. It will be interesting to learn strategies for coming up with key words.

Personal Journey Reflection:

                  So far we have only had 1 class meeting but we have already met with our client in their space and gotten some preliminary information out of the way. Although the readings helped me understand terminology, I still feel somewhat confused by the GOMC project. I think this is because we don’t have a website or a specific location to go to and observe what we will actually be doing. I also I think I was so overwhelmed by all of the things we had to set up, add and apply for that I lost a lot of information about Google. I understand that we are using AdWords to help market the websites. But until I actually go in and mess around with AdWords I think I am going to feel confused. I am hoping in the next class session to get a better understanding and more detailed information about the project.