Google announced an interesting new opt-out feature for Google Analytics today. From their blog:
Over the past year, we have been exploring ways to offer users more choice on how their data is collected by Google Analytics. We concluded that the best approach would be to develop a global browser based plug-in to allow users to opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics.
At HubSpot, we often get asked whether someone should use Google Analytics. My typical response, when asked, is to say, "Why not? It's free, and it measures different data and presents data differently than HubSpot's marketing analytics." That has developed into the standard answer at HubSpot as we've trained more of our consultants and salespeople. As a result, many of our customers use our analytics tools and Google Analytics side by side. In fact, here's a case study a partner just published that shows data from both tools.
But, I'm left perplexed regarding the purpose of this new opt-out feature. For marketers, web site analytics is a key tool to help determine ROI of marketing activities and expenditures and help improve conversion paths on a site. It's a key pillar of the inbound marketing methodology that enables businesses to convert visitors into lead and leads into sales. And the data that is important is the aggregate number of visitors and users on a site. The aggregate numbers and trends are what a marketer cares about. But, what happens if a decent percentage of visitors opt out of being tracked?
- Leads and sales can't be tied back to marketing activities such as SEO, PPC, email marketing, social media, press releases, etc.
- Visitor, page view counts, etc. become inaccurate.
Furthermore, individual user's personal data is not needed in order to draw marketing conclusions, and Google doesn't actually collect personally identifiiable information through Google Analytics. They actually don't allow you to do it either. From their terms of use:
7. PRIVACY . You will not (and will not allow any third party to) use the Service to track or collect personally identifiable information of Internet users, nor will You (or will You allow any third party to) associate any data gathered from Your website(s) (or such third parties' website(s)) with any personally identifying information from any source as part of Your use (or such third parties' use) of the Service. You will have and abide by an appropriate privacy policy and will comply with all applicable laws relating to the collection of information from visitors to Your websites. You must post a privacy policy and that policy must provide notice of your use of a cookie that collects anonymous traffic data.
If I were completely reliant on Google Analytics right now for my business, I'd be questioning who really owns my analytics data? Google? Me? Or my site visitors?
While I generally applaud Google's significant efforts to help us little people maintain some vestige of privacy as we share more and more data with the borg, knowingly or not, I don't understand the point of this move. Is this a trade-off that needs to made?
It's an interesting issue. I feel like I'm questioning God when I question Google. I'm not sure I have the right answer, either. But, Google's move perplexes me, from the perspective of a marketer, especially. What do you think?
Updated 10:08 AM - The Onion has a hilarious take on this one.
Google Opt Out Feature Lets Users Protect Privacy By Moving To Remote Village (Found via bengriffithsme)
Update 10:20 AM - Patricio Robles from econsultancy says:
Needless to say, publishers using Google Analytics will probably not be thrilled at the prospect that certain data won't be collected from a potentially larger number of users. After all, when it comes to web analytics, more is better for most publishers.
Update 10:23 AM - Frederic Lardinois from ReadWriteWeb says:
If opting out of Google Analytics becomes a widespread phenomenon, this could have wide-reaching consequences for site owners. After all, having detailed analytics about your visitors allows site owners and publishers to tweak their marketing efforts.
Update 10:25 AM - Matt McGee from Searchengineland gets a comment from Google:
Webmasters may be concerned about losing the integrity of their Google Analytics data because it won't be tracking as many web visitors...
...Asked about the impact on web site owners, Google Analytics Group Product Manager Amy Chang sounded unconcerned. "Analytics reports will continue to provide advertisers with robust and valuable data to help improve their websites and advertising campaigns," she said via email.
Seems like a non-answer.
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Everybody knows -- or should know -- that blog content is critical to successful online marketing in today's world.
Less talked about (but perhaps even more important) is offer content.
As a marketer, offers are your lead generation ammunition. They're information and resources your site visitors want to consume and are willing to give you their contact information in exchange for. Offers are simply the best ways to generate leads from your website.
The people who respond to your offers might not always realize it, but by providing that informational resource, they have turned themselves into leads for you and your sales team to follow up.
So, what makes a good offer? How do you go about creating these resources? Perhaps a better question is, "Who is your target?" One of the real truths about Web site visitors is that a huge majority of them are simply looking for information. People who find your site organically have likely visited some other site before they even got to yours, so creating offers that will educate and nurture the top of your funnel is your number 1 priority.
Great, so you've got some people in your funnel.
Now what?
The next step can be extremely automated, and it's a step where your offers can do a lot of the work for you. If you've got a lead that converts through a top-of-the-funnel offer, you should consider giving yourself the ability to put more middle-of-the-funnel offers in front of them by simply sending them some email.
We call this lead nurturing, and it's been proven to work wonders for many companies in terms of automating an effective marketing tactic. The goal of these lead nurturing campaigns should be to get other offers in front of your leads with the hope that they'll re-visit your site and convert on a lower funnel offer.
So, with two lead-conversion events under their belts and without having to use any actual manpower, your sales team is going to forget they ever had to make a cold call.
In essence, you've won. Your leads will be better educated and versed in your product offerings and will be more likely to use your solution to solve their problem.
Photo Credit: mira66
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In Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, our hero, driving a massive steamroller at a snail's pace, bears down on a security guard, about 20 yards away. Despite ample time to move out of harm's way, the guard stays put, eventually flattened like the proverbial pancake.
This is not unlike the scenario playing out between large marketing agencies and their outmoded, outbound marketing methods, and smaller agencies embracing inbound marketing. Big agencies see inbound marketing coming, but remain flatfooted.
The Internet disproportionately benefits small businesses, and that includes small agencies, too. With inbound marketing, smaller agencies aren't one giant sloth of a steamroller, but a fleet of quick-moving little ones.
This disruption boils down to business-model alignment, or rather misalignment, from recent shifts in marketing. Most large, traditional agencies excel at outbound marketing and their business model is aligned for that. They need a large, fixed staff and they charge accordingly.
But what happens when this comparative advantage is no longer advantageous? When what agencies do best (outbound marketing) is no longer best for clients? Smaller agencies aren't wedded to old marketing methods They have no stake in preserving them. In fact, just the opposite since the new world order benefits them in several ways.
1. Today's marketing is about content, not distribution. You don't need big budgets for TV/radio/print ads. You don't need PR agencies' access to gatekeepers. Where distribution is a polo game for the elite, content is a scrappy, pickup game anyone can play. The challenge now is breaking through the cacophony of content online... but that just requires brains, not budget.
2. Marketing tools are freely available. No need for expensive monitoring tools only big agencies can afford when there's a myriad of inexpensive ones (e.g. HubSpot, Radian6, Cision). To create content, you don't need professional equipment or staffing. HubSpot's latest marketing video was born from a great idea, one hour of scriptwriting, and two hours of shooting using a $100 camcorder.
3. You can be a virtual, full-service agency. Inbound marketing doesn't require a huge, integrated staff. We built the HubSpot Marketing Services Marketplace as an eBay for marketing services (open to both HubSpot and non-HubSpot customers). It turns out that marketing agencies also use it to find collaborators for projects. One agency may be great at graphic design, offering call to action buttons or landing page design services, but collaborates with freelancers to provide clients with blog writing services or social media marketing services. Flexible staffing in the virtual agency model makes them more nimble, specialized yet general, and thus able to charge more competitive rates.
4. You can afford -- and win with -- guerilla tactics. Most big firms won't change their practices quickly, even if they see the steamroller (or in this case, many tiny steamrollers) coming. Smaller firms, unencumbered by a broken business model, have little to lose trying new things. Think outside-the-box to take capture business from traditional firms. Contemplate la carte jobs, which often lead to ongoing business. Embrace performance measurements (such as the ones on our Marketplace directories) and consider performance-based pricing from the resultant traffic, leads, or customers from your services.
We've had raging debates here as to whether PR is dead, Madison Avenue's future, how the marketing services industry is broken Parts I and II, and how we can help transform the marketing services industry. Not all agencies are in denial, but watch out for smaller, nimbler agencies already pouncing on the opportunities created by this market disruption.
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For those of you still hesitant to launch your brand's involvement in social media, here's another wake-up call: A new study released by Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research Technologies surveyed over 1,500 people to reveal that people are more likely to purchase and recommend products/services from brands they follow in social media.
Specifically ...
- People are 67% more likely to purchase products from brands they follow on Twitter.
- People are 51% more likely to purchase products from brands they follow on Facebook.
- 60% of people are more likely to recommend a brand once they become a fan of it on Facebook.
- 79% of people are more likely to recommend a brand once they become a follower of it on Twitter.
If this doesn't convince all the social media skeptics out there to sign up for Twitter and Facebook accounts, I don't know what will.
While these statistics alone are impressive, perhaps the most important takeaway from the study's results is the motivating factor behind people's social media engagement with brands. You guessed it: offers. While some indicated they followed a brand just for the sake of showing support, most people are in it for the goods. They want something in return, such as a discount, new information or remarkable content.
The study proves a valuable point: it's not enough just to be there in social media. Rather, you need to be engaging your followers and fans with valuable content and marketing offers in order to be successful in keeping them -- many of which are potential customers -- engaged with and excited about your brand. Followers desire a brand presence that is worthy of their support and appreciation. In exchange for their support, you need to give them something in return.
Our suggestions? It's simple, really.
- Sign up for Facebook and Twitter if you haven't already.
- Start creating interesting content, whether in the form of blog articles, webinars, videos, etc.
- Share this content with your social media followers. (We think you'll find that you'll be rewarded with more followers, more leads, and ultimately, more sales!)
Successful online relationships are just like successful offline relationships. You wouldn't expect to develop a mutually beneficial relationship by always taking and never giving something back, would you?
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Many marketers have a love/hate relationship with Facebook's Pages platform. Pages are Facebook's way of giving businesses and organizations public profiles, allowing them the opportunity to communicate with customers and prospects within Facebook. Tuesday, Facebook snuck out a new weekly email summary feature to users who manage Facebook pages.
With this new feature, if a person manages a Facebook business page, they will receive an email once a week from Facebook that provides the number of fans added in the past week as well as the total fan count; posts, comments and likes for the week and the previous week; and total visits to the page for the week and the previous week. This feature wasn't formally announced by Facebook and has some users on Twitter pleasantly surprised:
Taking Facebook Analytics to the Next Level
While the new email notifications are a good start for Facebook, there is much more they should be doing. For many businesses, weekly isn't enough. The social web has become a real-time environment where daily and instant updates have replaced weekly emails. In addition to only being once-a-week, the emails themselves could use some work. Take a look at the email digest we got here at HubSpot:
That is an ugly email, right? I am not suggesting they have a full-blown HTML template, but take a look at those links. Those are some of the longest links in an email I have ever seen. Likely, when those emails get forwarded to other team members, the links will break, leading to many frustrated people. Facebook could have easily used their URL shortener to solve this problem.
Additionally, data is only as good as the way it's displayed. Users should be able to click on a link for each stat represented in the report, sending them to a dashboard in Facebook that provides information for that specific statistic. One link at the bottom of the email to the general analytics dashboard is not a practical solution for busy marketers and business owners. This point brings up a bigger issue with Facebook.
For a company that has an abundance of data and information, they share little of it with the business users of their site. The analytical data for page admins is minimal.
They're missing a huge opportunity. I'm suggesting that Facebook should give business owners more data, but I am not suggesting they have to do it for free. Sure, it would be nice if they offered better, free analytics, but they could also generate revenue by charging business owners a monthly fee to access a more robust set of tools to analyze behavior and engagement surrounding the pages they manage.
What do you think about these new e-mails? Would you pay Facebook for better analytics and data related to your organization's page?
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