Google Partner Gallery and a Closer Look at AdStage

There are many reasons why Google is the largest search engine, not only do they offer a powerful way to search the web for what you need often with fun doodles for holidays and special occasions, but the company also provides tools for all of us to use to help make our online businesses stronger, better optimized, and more successful.

I recently learned about the Google Partner Gallery, a spot formerly called the Google Application Gallery. This space offers services and applications from Google Analytics Certified Partners or experts who can help with things like website testing, conversion optimization, and analytics. All the partners go through a vetting process to become a partner verified by Google (DiSilvestro, 2014). You can find the gallery here: https://www.google.com/analytics/partners/search/all

Services in the gallery range from Campaign Optimization, Custom Development, and Ecommerce to Tech Support and Training. Google makes it easy to find services near you by including a mapping feature; this is useful if you want to have local Google-certified firms to work with face-to-face.

As for applications, there are nearly 400 available for business solutions like:

• ·         Business Intelligence
• ·         Campaign Management
• ·         Content Management
• ·         Email Marketing
• ·         Mobile Reporting 
• ·         Phone Call Tracking
• ·         Search Marketing
• ·         Site Audit
• ·         Social Analytics
• ·         Surveys 
• ·         URL Building

Options are free and paid and Google lets you filter for both (Google Analytics, 2014).

In browsing the many apps that are offered in Google’s Partner Gallery, it is amazing to see how many tools are available that could work well for a small business, empower a blog writer to achieve better results, or enhance a marketing program. Since I currently work in a very small marketing department, I am always on the hunt for something that can help make my job easier and also make our marketing budget more powerful.

A Closer Look: AdStage

While I am tempted by the survey tools being offered, if I had to choose just one app that I really feel could help enhance my personal business marketing efforts, I would go with AdStage.

AdStage was started in San Francisco in 2012 and the company describes itself as “a self-serve cross-network online advertising platform with full management and analytics for campaigns across search, social and mobile ad networks like Google AdWords, Bing, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter Ads (Fung, 2015).”

From the company’s website you can determine that the idea for their project came from frustration with the time and effort needed to monitor ad campaigns across many platforms with no real solution for checks and balances between them. Anyone who has ever attempted this while also trying to manage the other non-digital parts of a marketing job know that you often fall into set it and forget it mode, never really taking the time to check back in on your work or making adjustments as needed. AdStage seems to provide a practical and helpful solution for this issue, giving the user the tools to manage campaigns much more effectively.

In looking more closely at what AdStage offers, they can be broken down into three main categories; creation, automation, and reporting.

Create

The first thing that AdStage allows you to do is create digital ads across many platforms with ease. They offer a seamless integration between the popular online advertising outlets, including Google, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The company is also able to pinpoint the most popular ad platform for each outlet.

The tool allows you to test headlines, images, and more and closely analyze how each is working to weed out what isn’t performing and continue strengthening ads to find what works best for your audience.

Automate

One great feature of AdStage is the ability to set performance indicators for your online advertising. For instance you can pause an ad or increase spending on a campaign automatically by completing performance guidelines for your ads. You can set the app to discontinue an ad after a certain number of days without engagement and conversely you can also make the call that if a campaign is performing well you can raise the dollars you are spending. All is preset, which makes ad management extremely simple for a small marketing department.

AdStage also lets you set alerts for campaigns to get notifications when your performance goals are being missed or exceeded.

Another great feature is the ability to manage the schedule of online campaigns. Sites like Facebook give you the opportunity to turn off your ads, but who remembers to do it? With AdStage you can decide to turn off ads over the weekend, overnight, or whenever you think you won’t be getting prime viewership.

Report

To me, the reporting aspect of AdStage is really impressive. You’ve got ads out there in the universe, but what exactly are they doing and how do they compare with one another? Are there holes in your coverage? Are some avenues simply not working or costing you way too much per impression? What platforms are working best for your goals?

As you can see on the chart above, AdStage lets you organize and compare your campaigns across multiple platforms. You can see your clicks, impressions, spending, conversion rate, and more and easily take note of how the outlets stack up to one another.

You can also set up reporting to be delivered as you want it, a great feature to take advantage of if you need reports for monthly meetings or even if you want figures sent directly to clients or other members of your team (AdStage).

Is AdStage for You?

Reviewers of AdStage note that it has helped them to save time in social campaign management and money by keeping underperforming campaigns limited and helping to increase dollars in areas where conversions are proving to be much higher.

“AdStage Automate automatically pauses our poor performing ads and dayparts our campaigns during peak hours. We’ve saved thousands of dollars from wasted impressions, which ultimately lowered our costs per conversions.” –Jeremy Bromwell, Zenefits (AdStage)

Another advantage that AdStage has is that it is ideal for the small business because it is easy to use and allows even the least tech-savvy users to make it work for them. “Approaching the market from the bottom up will allow us to design experiences that make sense and work for the respective advertisers. We don’t plan to force-feed the market with tools that require training and account managers to use (Rampton, 2013).”

Pricing for AdStage starts at $159 per month for their Starter package, this allows for monitoring three platforms and allows ad spending up to $10,000 per month. Standard bumps up to $239 a month for five sites and $50,000 in monthly spending and Professional is $399 per month with 10 accounts and unlimited spending limits (AdStage).

$120,000 a year in online ad spending may be out of the realm for many small businesses, so AdStage may not be something that a truly small, small business could or should consider. However, if your ad spending online is creeping up and campaigns feel out of control or like they could use some fine-tuning, the yearly cost of a basic AdStage package might be beneficial for companies who need to hone their messaging and make the most of their ad dollars. Plus, the yearly cost of AdStage is way less than a social media manager’s salary, so making room in the budget may be a possibility!

References:

AdStage. (n.d.). All-in-One Advertising Platform. Retrieved February 21, 2016, from AdStage: https://www.adstage.io/

DiSilvestro, A. (2014, August 4). Google Analytics Partner Gallery: What's New? Retrieved February 21, 2016, from SemRush Blog: https://www.semrush.com/blog/google-analytics-partner-gallery-whats-new/

Fung, J. (2015, June 1). AdStage Connects Advertising and Tracking by Introducing Support for Google Analytics. Retrieved February 21, 2016, from Yahoo: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/adstage-connects-advertising-tracking-introducing-191500603.html

Google Analytics. (2014, June 24). Introducing the new Google Analytics Partner Gallery. Retrieved February 21, 2016, from Google Analytics Blog: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2014/06/introducing-new-google-analytics.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=julyadvanced&utm_content=en_us

Rampton, J. (2013, June 21). AdStage Launches New Cross-Network Ad Platform Tools. Retrieved February 21, 2016, from Search Engine Journal: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/adstage-launches-new-cross-network-ad-platform-tools/65109/

Barnes & Noble Uses Big Data to Make Their Online Business Better

Barnes and Noble has been a notable name in bookselling since the 1970’s, when its founder Leonard Riggio grew his student book exchange program into a thriving New York City business. By taking over a failing Manhattan bookstore and trade name, “The World’s Largest Bookstore,” Barnes and Noble was born, featuring 150,000 textbook and trade titles.

Over the years Barnes and Noble continued to grow in size and scope, acquiring smaller book store chains and adding more products, including music, movies, gifts, toys, and café services.

BarnesandNoble.com was launched in May 1997, continuing the company’s success with direct to consumer selling that started with catalog sales in the 1970s.

”Today, the BN.com website serves as the company’s largest store, enabling customers to order any book any time from anywhere.  Customers also have access through BN.com to millions of used and out-of-print book titles from a network of authorized book dealers, as well as a vast selection of music CDs, DVDs, gift product, and toys and games (Barnes and Noble, Inc., 2016).”

With the growth of ecommerce, many brick and mortar retailers have been forced to downsize over the last few years, this includes Barnes and Noble who has been impacted by the selling-power of Amazon and other online retailers. The company continues to close stores across the country (Leiberman & Frohlich, 2015), but as of January 2016 operates 640 shops in 50 states (Barnes and Noble, Inc., 2016).

Publishing Plays Catch Up

The publishing industry has long relied on sales data and reviews as assessments for the overall success and failure of their products. While the rest of the entertainment industry relies on tests and focus groups to analyze consumer patterns and make educated guesses on what the next big thing will be, book publishers and sellers have often been left in the dark.

This has started to change over the last few years as more companies are embracing big data and advanced technologies that allow book sellers to hone in on the wants and needs of their market (Alter, 2012).

Consolidation of Data Helps B&N with Analysis

Until about 2010, Barnes and Noble was one of the companies missing out on big data analysis by housing their data across nine different Oracle data warehouses, splitting their retail store data from their college bookstore data and their ecommerce data and so on. By deciding to consolidate this data the company has been able to truly use shopper analytics to their full potential, finally being able to see how their users interact across all the channels they offer.

“Barnes & Noble gets better understanding of customer reading interests, as well as insight into the dynamics among e-reading, online activity, use of in-store cafes, and store purchases (Information Week Features, 2010).”

Using Analytics to Stay Afloat

Despite experiencing a business backslide with the advent of Amazon, Barnes and Noble is working hard to keep their head above water in the industry. One of the ways they are doing this is with an advanced analytics system to monitor their ecommerce business.

Barnes and Noble uses a big data analytics system from the company Aster Data called Teradata Aster MapReduce Platform, “which delivers new analytic applications with high-performance and pre-packed pattern, path and graph SQL MapReduce analytic modules.”

This platform helps the company determine which titles are performing the best after they are launched on the site and in turn provide authors with different options on how they want to promote their books with the company (Lora, 2011).  

This system also lets B&N test how different presentations on their site fare in helping users navigate content and find the search results they are looking for, the company tests author layouts, chapter snippets, and book reviews in this capacity (Gill).

New Technology Equals New Insight

As e-readers grow in popularity, Barnes and Noble has also been able to gain insight into their customers reading behaviors, something that was completely impossible with traditional books once they left the store or were shipped to a reader’s home. These devices, like B&N’s Nook, offer insight into how fast books are being consumed, what passages are being highlighted, how readers interact with the book, and what behavior takes place once the title is finished. For instance what do they purchase next, what does their search behavior look like after the last page, and more.

This advanced insight can be passed along to publishers and authors to allow for greater success for all parties involved down the line. Barnes and Noble has also used the data to alter content that it offers on its Nook devices. For instance, Nook data determined that nonfiction titles often don’t hold a reader’s attention straight through like a novel does. To help readers combat their fatigue and still gain information on a subject they are interested in the company began offering “Nook Snaps,” which are shorter articles and insights into topics in the nonfiction category including weight loss, religion, and politics.

This ability to peek in on a reader’s process may also change up how titles are offered on e-readers, perhaps with the addition of video snippets in areas where the reader often slows down. The hope is also to learn how to make better books, for instance determining the right length for a chapter, the right number of books in a series, or allow for tests of books, titles, and concepts before deciding to fully publish works (Alter, 2012).

Putting Analytics into Practice for B&N

In visiting Barnes and Noble’s homepage I am immediately met with a topic that could likely be analyzed to the extreme. There’s a new Harry Potter book due out this summer and no doubt people who have read the series are psyched.

Just measuring the number of clicks this ad receives could help the company determine how popular it will be. However, if the company wanted to create an analytics goal for the book, they could set it to have users preorder the book; adding the new title to the cart and completing the transaction process, triggering the Order Complete page to appear. They could analyze the different ways consumers get to this step by testing the book in different spots on the homepage, by featuring previous books in the series from time to time over the next few months, and by using various social sites and online ads to show off the availability of the new item.

B&N could use these analytics to keep the publisher and author in the loop on potential success, too. What kind of advertising will they need to do for the release? What kind of author tour should they be prepared for? What press needs to be set up for J.K. Rowling? Where is the title predicted to sell the best and which cities will need added support?

Barnes and Noble also has the additional ability to study the previous habits of the preordering Harry Potter fans to better get an idea of what shoppers will do when this book comes out. Are they more likely to buy e-books or print editions or one of each? Do they venture to the store for their initial purchase? Should local stores anticipate this influx with events centered on the book or even café treats that callback to the story?

Of course for a company as large as B&N the potential ways to use analytics to better the business are endless. They can not only watch the way sales are made, but they can also make decisions for future product purchases and conception based off this data. B&N owns a publishing house, so studies could impact the books they choose to put into the pipeline for the future. As noted they can also use analytics to control the content they are putting on their e-readers and create new content based on habits of current readers. Marketing and advertising can also be made or altered based on results gained from the way shoppers are using the website, interacting with emails, ads and other content.

By having a fully fleshed out system for monitoring the way shoppers are using all of Barnes and Noble’s sources the company can ultimately lead itself to a smarter business model and make decisions that help it stay alive in a world where Amazon dominates the market.

References:

Alter, A. (2012, July 19). Your E-Book Is Reading You. Retrieved February 14, 2016, from The Wall Street Journal: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304870304577490950051438304

Barnes and Noble, Inc. (2016). Our Company. Retrieved February 14, 2016, from Barnes and Noble, Inc.: http://www.barnesandnobleinc.com/our_company/our_company.html

Gill, G. (n.d.). Top Ten Companies that use Google Analytics. Retrieved February 14, 2016, from Gill Solutions: http://www.gillsolutions.com/top-ten-companies-that-use-google-analytics/

Information Week Features. (2010, August 5). The Big Data Era: How Data Strategy Will Change. Retrieved February 14, 2016, from Information Week: http://www.informationweek.com/software/information-management/the-big-data-era-how-data-strategy-will-change/d/d-id/1091416?

Leiberman, M., & Frohlich, T. C. (2015, March 14). Retailers closing the most stores. Retrieved February 14, 2016, from USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2015/03/14/247-wall-st-retailers-closing-most-stores/70222386/

Lora, F. D. (2011, November 14). Data Analytics Extends Barnes & Noble Insights. Retrieved February 14, 2016, from Retail Touchpoints: http://www.retailtouchpoints.com/in-store-insights/1183-data-analytics-extends-barnes-a-noble-insights-

Clicky Web Analytics v. Google Analytics: Should You Give Another Analytics Tool a Try?

When you look closely at Google Analytics you realize just how much there is to know about the customers visiting your website. Seeing the data is exciting and it spurs ideas on how it can be put to use in practical ways to both make your website better and also find ways to draw more people to your page.

In the beginning stages of analyzing GA though, one thing becomes quickly evident; there’s quite a bit of lag time (usually about a day) in the results that you are receiving. Google Analytics has a lot of great features; however not being able to see up to the minute results could be problematic, especially for people who are watching each engagement closely and looking to make comparisons and updates on the spot.

One analytics tool that looks to compete with Google by offering results in real time is Clicky. Visiting clicky.com, their real time power is touted at the very top of the page as their number one reason why you’ll love their product. They are clearly aiming for GA as they manage to get a dig in on them as they highlight this feature. “Everything in Clicky is up-to-the-minute real time. Not just a few things (*cough* Google Analytics). Everything (Clicky Web Analytics).”

                                  

So, Clicky is great for real time data, but how does it compare to GA in other areas? Let’s take a look.

Pricing

Both GA and Clicky offer free versions of their product. While the free version of GA is perfect for most basic users, some question if it will remain free forever as Google has started charging for other products that were once provided for free, for instance Google Apps. There is a Premium Google Analytics package available for $150,000 a year (yes, really). This is clearly priced out of the realm of reality for many small businesses or bloggers and the features offered would likely be too much for them anyway. Google Analytics Premium offers “direct support, account management, hands-on implementation assistance, greater data processing/limits capacities, and more (Matteson, 2013).”

Clicky offers different pricing plans and offers both monthly and yearly subscriptions. Their “Pro” plan costs $9.99 a month or $79.99 a year and allows you to manage up to ten websites with 30,000 daily page views. They also offer a $14.99 and $19.99 plan that provide some additional features. Plans can be customized based on the number of websites being managed and the number of views you’re getting (Lewis, 2013).

Features

Individual User Information

One exciting feature that Clicky offers that many users might find valuable is the ability to view in-depth info on everyone who visits a site, including “IP addresses, Internet service provider (ISP), location, operating system, Web browser, referrer, visit length, sessions and actions during a specific visit, and more. Users can also associate individual visitors with usernames and email addresses, view complete individual visitor histories and track when a website was down and for which visitor (Angeles, 2014).”

This graphic shows some of the detail that Clicky can offer about users, including their specific actions while on the site.

(Clicky)

Google Analytics does not provide IP addresses for users. In fact, Google for good or for bad, depending on which side of the fence you’re on, prohibits tracking personally identifiable information and users must agree to this caveat in the terms of service. Google’s data is aggregated, so it provides general info about users; however it is not as specific as Clicky (Iron Paper, 2010).

Heat Maps

In the “Pro Plus” and “Pro Platinum” versions of Clicky they offer heat-mapping views of pages to show what users are up to when they are on a site. The heat maps can show where a page is getting the most clicks, which can be extremely beneficial for a site owner who is looking to hone in on website functionality and usability. The heat mapping can be customized based on goals and visitor sessions and like the other Clicky analytics they can be viewed in real time (Angeles, 2014).

(Clicky.Blog, 2012)

Alerts

Clicky also gives users the ability to set up alerts based on information that they don’t want to miss out on. For example if you want to know when new users visit your blog you can receive and email or have an alert pop up on your computer (Angeles, 2014).

Usability

One thing that comes up over and over again in favor of adding Clicky to your analytics arsenal is how user-friendly it is. The dashboard for the site is very straightforward and it was mentioned that Clicky requires less setup and fewer clicks than GA to get the info you really want to see. Here is their standard dashboard when you open up the site:

One great feature that speaks to the ease of use for Clicky is the ability to add the analytics tool right to the page you are measuring. The Clicky button is only visible to you and allows you to see heat map features and change date range right from your blog or website rather than having to navigate to a new window. And remember because Clicky is showing real time results you can use that button to see what is happening on your page right now. For instance if you’re running an digital ad campaign it will show you the number of people currently on your site, where they were sent from, the search terms they used to find you, and exactly what they did on your site once they arrived.

 (Taplin)

There are quite possibly pages to be written about Clicky’s interface and the insights it can offer to users and this post is just some of the highlights that were noted over and over again in reviews as bring standouts for the product. In visiting a number of different articles about the Clicky, one thing has been came out in the end for most was that they planned to continue using it.  

While Google Analytics is the go to for many because it’s free, users have liked adding another layer to their analytics insight with Clicky. Its ease of use and ability to analyze visits a little more deeply, compounded with the current stats that are available make the tool valuable for those who are investing time, money, and energy into making their sites great.

If you have more questions about how Clicky compares to GA, check out Clicky’s checklist here.

References:

Angeles, S. (2014, March 19). 3 Google Analytics alternatives (and why you should use them). Retrieved February 7, 2016, from Business News Daily: http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6090-google-analytics-alternatives.html

Clicky. (n.d.). Detailed Information. Retrieved February 7, 2016, from Clicky Web Analytics: https://con.tent.network/media/screenshots/visitor.gif

Clicky Web Analytics. (n.d.). Real Time Web Analytics. Retrieved February 7, 2016, from Clicky Web Analytics: https://clicky.com/66453167

Clicky.Blog. (2012, October 14). Heatmaps! Retrieved February 7, 2016, from Clicky Blog: https://clicky.com/blog/304/heatmaps

Iron Paper. (2010, June 29). Does Google Analytics Track Users By IP Addresses? Retrieved February 7, 2016, from Iron Paper: http://www.ironpaper.com/webintel/articles/does-google-analytics-track-users-by-ip-addresses/#.VrduhxgrLDc

Lewis. (2013). The complete guide and review of Clicky web analytics. Retrieved February 7, 2016, from Cloud Income: http://www.cloudincome.com/complete-guide-clicky-analytics/

Matteson, S. (2013, January 22). Five things you should know about Google Analytics. Retrieved February 7, 2016, from Tech Republic: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/google-in-the-enterprise/five-things-you-should-know-about-google-analytics/

Taplin, R. (n.d.). A Review of Clicky Analytics (and Why it Beats Google). Retrieved February 7, 2016, from Blog Tyrant: http://www.blogtyrant.com/a-review-of-clicky-analytics-and-why-it-beats-google/