I realized that this group was trying to decipher the subway map, which had been placed directly above the door.

The directive was unambiguous: DO NOT STAND IN FRONT OF DOORS. Safety and efficiency were the primary concerns. Yet the layout of the car required the users to defy the warning in order to get the information they needed to reach their destination. In addition, the map itself was squeezed into an extremely tight space. The type size was small, crowded, and set at the 45-degree angle. (It was the odd angle of the people’s heads, in fact, that clued me to why they were at the door in the first place.)

Note: necessity trumps instruction
Even dire warnings set in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS.

I speculated on the decision-making that created this potentially dangerous situation. Was there a usability professional involved? Did someone think that putting the stop names near the door would actually facilitate the process of identifying one’s stop and getting off the train?

Note: business trumps usability
I settled on another theory: misplaced priorities. From the front to the back of the car, every space at eye level was dedicated to advertising. Usability, efficiency, and safety were demoted in favor of revenue generation. I imagined the conversations that took place as the interiors of the cars were configured. I hoped that at least one usability advocate pointed out that the doorways presented riders with an impossible choice. But I knew that business concerns held sway.

Note: anxiety trumps brand
I didn’t have to ride the subway to learn this. It’s a scenario that’s common in the world of website design. The people at the door were placed in a state of anxiety: forced to ignore the warning while they struggled to locate their stop. I’m sure that they were relieved when they stepped off the subway. If they were tourists, coveted by the city, what was their impression of Boston? Will they use the subway again to explore other parts of the city? Did the advertisers get a return on their investment,  or were the riders too busy trying to navigate the system to look at the ads?

Advertising may earn short-term dollars, but usability is an investment that earns better feedback, return visitors, and true brand equity.

The good news is that tracking your goals and establishing specific funnels is relatively simple with Google Analytics (GA).  Before you begin, you must be an administrator on the account.  Once you have this access level you will need to click the “Edit” link in your profile that you would like to track.  You will then see a table for goals below the main website profile information.  On the “Goals (set 1)” line click “Add goal.”  You have the option to add up to twenty goals per profile.

You will first need to enter the goal name, which typically describes the goal in terms of the specifics that you want to occur (“user spends two minutes on site,”, for example).  You must also select one of three goal types:

URL Destination: This goal is successful when a visitor navigates to a specific URL.  An example is the thank you page URL of a contact form.

Time on Site: This goal is hit when a visitor spends a predetermined amount of time on the site.  For example, if a visitor spends over two minutes on the site the goal would be achieved.

Pages/Visit: This goal is achieved when a visitor views a predetermined number of pages per visit.  An ecommerce site might determine this goal to be hit when a visitor views at least ten pages per visit.

You can also set up values for each of your goals, if you know the value of a lead to your business. The field is optional, however, if you haven’t put a value on your goals.

If you set up a URL destination goal you will have to choose a match type based on the specifications of the URL.  Basically, this tells Google how strict a match has to be for it to count. Let’s say I want to set up a goal when visitors complete the contact us form on this URL:

http://www.abccompany.com/contact

Upon submission, visitors see a thank you page with this URL:

http://www.abccompany.com/contact-thank-you

Here is how this goal setup would look in GA (I have assigned this goal a value of $100):

A goal has now been set up for visitors who complete the contact us form. The fact that a “Head Match” is specified here simply means that if the head end of the URL matches, additional characters in the actual URL will not disqualify this encounter from being logged in the ‘goal-achieved’ total.

Let’s say you want to see if visitors are following a desired path to the goal.  You can set up funnels that will track each of your goals – “contact us,” for example.  Ultimately, the goal URL may be the thank you page, but it might be helpful to add — as a step in the funnel — the form that the user must fill out in order to get to the thank you page.

Now, in order for the contact us form’s thank you page to be counted as a conversion a visitor must first view the contact us form.  Here is how this funnel looks after data has been collected:

This funnel tells us that of the 109 visitors who reached the contact us form, 25 actually filled it out.  Thus, the conversion rate for this funnel is 22.94%.  You can also see which pages visitors who did not fill out the form landed on.  This funnel is fairly simple, but depending on the detail you’d like to see you can set up multiple step funnels and see where visitors drop off.

To view goal activity go to the main dashboard and click the “Goals” link in the left hand navigation bar.  You will see how many of your goals have been reached.  As you can see from the image below, you can also track clicks on outgoing links.

Tracking goals is a necessity because you have to determine how effective your website is.  Google Analytics goals are easy to set up and are a great way to show the success of your website.

Be More Prominent

What is prominence? It’s anything you do to make your product or company stand out from the competition.  For example, speak to an award your product has won or a prestigious honor your company has received.  Most industries contain some sort of industry recognition, even if that means being listed as a top-10 company to work for, or being Better Business Bureau® (BBB) Accredited.  Using the latter in text ads has led my overall CTR to increase in more than one campaign.   You can also speak about your company in an elite manner:

Solve a Problem

I recently set up a campaign for a client whose product solved a specific information technology (IT) related problem.  The target audience was rather small, consisting of IT professionals who needed to solve this narrowly-defined problem.  I knew that the majority of user search queries would relate to a solution for the problem so I wrote the ads to address the issue.  I even asked an IT Director what messaging would lead him to click an ad.  Upon campaign activation, CTR bolted upward.

Use Numbers

I like numbers in a text ad because they break up the monotony of the results page.  Sure, users are going to be drawn to ads with their search queries because they will be bolded, but after this initial reaction why are they going to click your ad?  Numbers not only break up the text, but say a lot and add factual appeal.  Take a look at these ads:

The first ad tells me of a price reduction.  I immediately know that if I click this ad I will receive 25% off all red and blue widgets.  The second ad builds my trust in this company because it has been around since 1975.  I know the company must be doing something right to stay in business for so long.  Both of these ads contain my targeted keywords and a strong call to action, but they also advertise numbers that users will take note of.  Mentioning product prices in ads is good as well as long as your company has competitive prices.

It is important to test these three themes within your campaign and see what garners the highest CTR.  Depending on your industry one theme might end up working better than the others, but never lose sight of the goal: to make your PPC text ads stand out from the competition.

How do you make your ads stand out?

At this point, we know that a very attractive offer, a limited window of opportunity, and a first-come, first-served model created a concentrated and intense online queue that quickly overwhelmed the primary website as well as the backup website and phone systems.

PixelMEDIA is working with all involved parties to improve the communication and timing of these attractive offers to implement added measures that will support the peak traffic demands that are generated.

Let’s take this example.  Say I am bidding on the phrase match of the term “user interface design.”  The Search Query Performance report tells me that my ad was clicked for the longer tailed term “user interface design certificate.”  I do not see that a conversion occurred, just that the ad was clicked.  Here is what I see in GA with the override filters turned on.  Note that the term I am purchasing is listed first, followed by the actual search query in parenthesis.

I see that the user who searched for this term and clicked the ad viewed 3 pages while spending 2 minutes and 43 seconds on the site before exiting.  Exactly like any other keyword I need to determine why a conversion did not occur.  I immediately ask myself these questions about the longer tailed term:

1)      Does this keyword meet the goal(s) of my PPC campaign?

2)      Is my ad targeted enough to this keyword?

3)      Do I need to write ads that better target this keyword?

4)      Is my landing page appropriate for this keyword?

5)      Which page did the user exit from?

6)      Do I even want my ads showing up for this variation of the keyword?

7)      Do I need to add the term “certificate” as a negative keyword?

In answering these questions I need to take into account the entire process, not just pre and post-click individually.  In this case I would continue to allow my ads to show for this search phrase because the user did interact with the site.  Even though a conversion did not occur, the user found my site relevant enough to stick around.  If I just looked at the Search Query Performance report I might make “certificate” a negative keyword based on my initial impression that the term is not relevant.  However, as the override filters tell me, the term was relevant enough for the user to spend some time on the site.

With the Search Query Performance report and the override filters working in conjunction with each other I get a good sense of the entire PPC process.  The more data captured the better.

So how do you actually setup these override filters?  I present the screenshots below.  Remember that both of these filters have to be active for the process to work.

Filter #1

Filter #2

Do you use these override filters?  Or do you have before and after examples of how these filters helped you make actionable decisions?  Leave a comment and let me know.

“A conversion occurs when a click on your ad leads directly to user behavior you deem valuable.”

This user behavior may be a purchase, a whitepaper download, or a page view in an important area of your site.  As with your other marketing media, PPC is a channel that needs to be tracked.

The first task is to determine what your conversions will be.  You need to ask yourself how you will judge the success of this campaign.  You are ultimately looking to see a good ROI from this campaign, but how are you going to turn those clicks into conversions?  Types of conversions and campaign success can vary greatly between B2B sites and B2C sites.  Knowing what to track is the first step toward justifying your PPC budget to management.

Aside from proving the value of your campaign, your conversions will tell you which keywords, text ads, and ad groups are working.  You may find that one keyword is eating your budget and rarely converting, but another keyword sees better conversions at a much lower cost.  Or you may find a particular text ad’s messaging to be converting extremely well.  You have the ability to optimize your campaign around what is converting and better allocate budget.

Tracking conversions is easy in Google AdWords, MSN adCenter, and Yahoo Search Marketing.  All of these services provide codes that let you know when a conversion goal has been attained.  Usually these codes go on the thank you or postback page.  An example is when a user purchases an item and gets to the confirmation page.  This page would have the conversion code and when hit would show in your campaign’s interface.  I like to add conversion codes to all postback pages in order to track each specific conversion.  Some of these conversions will rarely be hit because your ads’ messaging is pointing elsewhere (i.e: sending a user off to a webinar landing page), but the codes are in place so you will know if they are hit.   If you are not using these codes make sure you are tracking your PPC campaign conversions in some way, such as setting up goal tracking in your analytics program.

So what can you track?  The short answer is whatever you want, but here are some common sources for conversions.

Purchases

When a user clicks your ad and makes a purchase on your site this is a conversion!  In fact, this type of conversion is probably the easiest to track spend wise.  Say you spend $500 and garner 30 conversions.  Since you are tracking these conversions you know that the campaign’s revenue is $2,000.  Using the ROI formula (revenue – costs/ costs), you have an ROI of 300% with a profit of $1,500 (not bad at all).

Filling out a form

Many B2B companies sell services or expensive products that cannot be bought through the site.  For example, few people would buy a $60,000 piece of software without first having extensive communication with a sales representative.  Therefore, companies must find a way to start the dialogue with potential clients.  Companies will often tailor ads around collateral such as whitepapers, webinars, or demos.  The landing page might then have a short description further explaining the download with a registration form.  If you fill out this form you receive the download.  In turn the company gets your contact information and has an in to get in touch with you.  When this form has been submitted the conversion has been recorded.

View of a key page

With Google Analytics Event Tracking you can now track even more of the actions your users take on your site.  For example, you can track your whitepaper downloads or webinar views without forcing your visitors to fill out a form. Though you are not receiving users’ contact information you know that they are viewing the materials you want them to see.

For a more in-depth list of PPC campaign conversions check out Megan Leap’s 10 Types of Landing Page Goals for PPC Campaigns.

Your PPC campaign cannot be done in a vacuum.  Conversions have to be tracked in order to measure the success of the campaign and make informed decisions based on data, not conjecture.

Improvement 1: Better segmentation within the Search Partners Network

Whenever you set up a new Search Network campaign, by default you “opt in” to the Search Partners Network.  This means that your ads have the ability to show on Google’s partner sites such as Amazon and AOL.  Within the subset of the Partners network your ads will still show alongside or above the search results—as would a regular search in Google.

Unlike a Content Network campaign where you can exclude your ads from showing on certain sites, you cannot exclude your ads form showing on individual Search Partner sites. In fact, until October 2008, you could not separate metrics from the Search Partner Network in the Adwords interface.  Even then you could not view stats from individual sites.  Luckily, there is a filter in Google Analytics you can use.  You either opt into the Search Partner Network or you do not, there is no in between.

By not being able to exclude sites you cannot capitalize on what is working.  You may have a site that is bringing in conversions, but another one that is eating your budget.  You have to determine if the benefit of opting into the Search Partner Network is worth the cost that the ineffective site is incurring.

Improvement 2: More granular conversion tracking

Within the AdWords interface you are able to see conversion metrics by 1-per-click and many-per-click.  In other words, you can see if a keyword accounted for one conversion per a click or if the user converted more than once per that one click. For example, a user may click an ad and just download a whitepaper accounting for one conversion per that one click. Another user might click an ad and download a whitepaper, but also fill out the contact us form for two conversions per that one click.  Many-per-click conversions were introduced in April 2009 and are a great feature.

You are able to segment 1-per-click and many-per-click conversions by keyword, text ad, ad group, and campaign, but you cannot decipher by type of conversion.  When you click on the conversions option under the reporting tab you see a screen that breaks out conversions by type of lead (ex: purchase, webinar download, contact us form submission, etc.).  The issue is that you can only view the lead breakdown by many-per-click conversions.  I often want to break down the leads by 1-per-click conversions, but cannot.  I use analytics and review the leads, but this extra layer of tracking in AdWords would be much appreciated.

Improvement 3: Target Ad Sitelinks at an ad group level

I previously wrote about my affinity for Ad Sitelinks. Though I still value this feature I believe it would be better utilized at an ad group level instead of campaign. As currently constituted, sitelinks can only be added at the campaign level. Let’s say I have a golf-themed campaign consisting of three ad groups:

Men’s Golf Shoes
Women’s Golf Shoes
Kid’s Golf Shoes

If a user searches for men’s golf shoes I want these additional links to show up:

Premium Men’s Golf Shoes
Men’s Golf Shoes for Under $100
Black Men’s Golf Shoes
White Men’s Golf Shoes

However, because I can only target these sitelinks at the campaign level, the link for “Premium Men’s Golf Shoes” has the potential to show up for a search for women’s golf shoes.  In this case the link does not relate to the user’s search and I have lessened my chance for a click. By allowing sitelinks at the ad group level you can target your ads that much better.

Improvement 4: Make session-based broad match optional

Google explains the keyword match type, session-based broad, like this:

“When determining which ads to show on a Google search result page, the AdWords system evaluates some of the user’s previous queries during their search session as well as the current search query. If the system detects a relationship, it will show ads related to these other queries, too.”

*Full Google explanation can be found here

In theory, session-based broad match sounds like a good system, but it is essentially taking control out of the advertiser’s hands.  Google is using its best judgment to show additional ads, not yours.  This may lead to less targeted ads for user queries. Currently, you cannot turn off session-based broad match.  You can run search query reports and add negative keywords to combat this match type, but the feature is always on.  For further reading, John A. Lee does an excellent job of explaining session-based broach match and its ramifications.

Conclusion

My hopes are that improvements are made to these features in order to better target ads and utilize budget.  In the end the more effective the advertising platform the better Google is as a paid search engine.

Are there features that you believe can be improved?  I encourage you to share your thoughts.

So what should be on your mood boards? Anything that g­­ets your creative point across. This can include colors, typography, imagery, illustrations, white space (or lack thereof), and messaging. If you are working with a content strategist or copywriter, we highly suggest adding taglines, slogans, brand attributes (adjectives), or a vision statement. This helps the client to not only visualize the proposed style, but to see how the verbiage can support the overall experience.  Sometimes we even take it a step further and add atmospherics that engage other senses as well, like smell, touch and hearing . By introducing more tactile elements like texture, music or scent, you can envelope the participants in a full sensory experience.

Mood boards can be extremely helpful when you’re searching for an overall tone or visual language, but they can also expedite the approval of a creative direction before heading into interface design. In the past, we have noticed that separating initial creative ideas from the mechanics of the site allows the client to make clear and concise design decisions without impacting time or budget.

There are a few things to keep in mind when creating mood boards.

• Choose an orientation that best fits the subject matter.
• Take into account the audience and how you’ll be presenting to them. Your mood boards can be digital or printed (or both) depending on whether your meeting is virtual or in person.
• Try and create boards that use similar elements. For instance, if one board includes brand attributes and color swatches, be sure that the other options do as well. This creates points of comparison that can aid in decision making. It’s always easier to compare apples to apples.
• And finally, have fun. Creating mood boards is not a rigidly define activity.  Use whatever pieces you can to express your vision, whether it is cutting and pasting magazine bits to Gatorboard or adding minute details and a custom polish to every serif.

Mood board examples:

Scalability takes many forms – for example, the ability to easily add new hardware or bandwidth to handle increases in usage – but as it pertains e-commerce, the area that needs the most scalability is the catalog: the product data, the categorization, and the vast amounts of meta-data that typically accompany them. Both the database and the code need to be designed in such a way that a site can launch with a blue one-size-fits-all baseball cap; the following day add a t-shirt with three sizes and six colors; and three weeks later add a mountaineering package that includes a shell of any available size and color, ski pants of any size and color, and a head lamp.

If the site had been designed to handle only the baseball cap, the seller wouldn’t have been able to start selling those t-shirts without major system rework – and every new product type and customization option would require even more.  By spending the extra time and effort to design a robust database and site architecture, the seller can effortlessly add new product types and avoid the delay and expense of modifying an existing system.

Product variations are only the tip of the iceberg. If the site will eventually support international ordering, there are postal codes, taxes, and translations/localization to consider. There may be multiple shipping handlers (e.g. UPS, FedEx, USPS) and payment processors (e.g. PayPal, Authorize.Net). The areas of scalability within an e-commerce site area are endless, and the more features a seller would like to scale, the more time they’ll invest on requirements gathering, planning, design, and development.  If the seller really is only going to sell t-shirts and use PayPal as their payment processor, then designing a more robust system would be overkill. However, any seller who is already selling a wide variety of products, is planning to expand their product line, or is struggling with the limits of their existing system should seriously consider the extra time and expenditure required to create a scalable system.