Google Analytics Webinars and Education: A Must for Online Retailers Looking to Increase Sales

eTaildTail friends over at MoreVisibility are offering training on Google Analytics, which I think you all must explore to see how your website is performing. I am a big fan of analytics. It is the only way to really see how potential customers are interacting with your site and marketing campaigns.

I actually helped introduce "Chanalytics", at my company MerchantAdvantage, to assist online retailers analyze how their product data feed marketing campaigns -- using comparison shopping sites and marketplaces -- perform in conjunction with other marketing efforts.  Chanalytics compliments Google, Yahoo! or proprietary analytic packages and acts as an important "check" to other statistics you are receving on a daily basis.

I also think that these webinars (see below) are important to helping online merchants understand how people are interacting with your website in order to improve sales and then act on those findings.

You can also check out Yahoo! Analytics, as they are also free, after attending this webinar by MoreVisibility.

There is a cost for the webinars, but I think these costs may be worth it, especially if you are using Google Analytics or are considering using it.

 

The two webinars are offered at these times:

May 13 & 15 @ 1:00 pm: Launching Google Analytics & Integrating with AdWords

May 20 & 22 @ 1:00 pm: Using Google Analytics Beyond Google

<<<CLICK HERE>>> to find out more and register, if you want. I highly suggest checking it out.

-- Chip Arndt

Google Says Mobile Advertising is The Future

So what do you do when Google says that it believes mobile advertising is the future?  (see below article for reference to Google and their plans for mobile advertising)

1. Do nothing.

or

2. Take notice and prepare your online storefront for the advent of mobile shopping.

It is really that simple.

I know that Google "believing in/betting on" online mobile advertising does not immediately translate into more people shopping online, as the first large wave of mobile advertising will focus on sports events, ticket sales for various events, and brand advertising for banks and larger companies that have an established brand, but this news does bode well for the growth of all related mobile services, including mobile shopping.

My belief is that as Google, and the 20-35 year old generation, become even more reliant on the their "little mobile" devices to do everything from make phone calls, text messaging, watch video, listen to music, find directions, look at pictures, and scour the internet, so too will they become more comfortable with shopping and then buying products online.

I personally never thought I would be buying products via my cell phone just 3 years ago, but frankly, after setting up an account once with a mobile technology service, I have bought over $500 worth of gift items and sent them to friends the past two months.

It happened one day when I was reminded that I needed to be at the aiport two hours in advance of my flight to guarantee that I would make it through security and check my bags going to London.

Lo and behold, I made it through security in 30 minutes and had 1.5 hrs. to kill before my flight departed.  I thought about a friend, who did something very nice for me earlier that day, and I bought her a gourmet food item via my blackberry, then, I sent my sister some flowers to cheer her up, and, finally, I searched for the best price for a new HD TV to watch the superbowl (no I did not buy the TV, but it was fun and easy to hunt around and compare prices = comparison shopping).

The point being is that those who say that mobile shopping is not a big deal are missing the boat.  Setting up an online, mobile storefront is easy and inexpensive. It gives you reach and and in less than 3 months you can get real time results of whether it works for your company. 

So, my advice....get a mobile storefront today and get in the game...Google is!

-- Chip

PS For great mobile shopping companies to set up an account check out:

mPoria.com and  mShopper.com, MerchantAdvantage supports both with a click of a button!

From Sky News, UK <<<CLICK HERE>>> for full article

"A huge revolution in location-based advertising is soon to take place, according to the chief exec of Google.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos, Eric Schmidt said that mobile users could be affected by the soon-to-be truly mobile internet.

"It's the recreation of the Internet, it's the recreation of the PC (personal computer) story and it is before us - and it is very likely it will happen in the next year", he told assembled journalists.

At the moment, reports Reuters, analysts have been cautious about the future of mobile advertising, or advertising that targets where the phone users is, and consultancy Forrester predicting revenues of under $1 billion by 2012.

But, according to Schmidt, this is a massive underestimation.

He explained that Google wants to be a key player in this market by bidding for airwaves to launch an open US wireless network, which would see it competiting against established telecommunications players.

Analysts immediately responded by stating their concerns that Google would be over stretching itself as it would be a very expensive move tbut Schmidt dismissed this saying that location-based advertising - which could, for example, direct hungry travelers to nearby restaurants - would be "a very, very good business".

Google's Mobile Phone Challenges Wireless Carriers: Great News for Mobile Commerce Growth

"Google is coming, Google is coming!!!"

In a similar fashion that US colonists cried out loud to rally themselves to respond to the British, albeit in a manner to save themselves from tyranny, I make the similar cry to all online merchants to heed this following story on precisely how large a play Google will be making to take everything wireless to the next level, be that devices, services, and anything else related to wireless (yes, that means mobile commerce) so to enhance and build upon your online presence into the future.

I have been touting mobile commerce for over a year now and many, if not all my blogger colleagues, have told me I was crazy.

At the end of the day, it does not matter what they think or what I think, when a company valued at more than Lockheed Martin, IBM, and Compaq/HP combined comes to the table and claims that they are going to make a big bet on everything mobile, including mobile commerce, and do it RIGHT (which they normally do), we might all just want (and need) to listen.

So for you all of you small to mid sized online merchants, learn mobile commerce for 2008 and stay ahead of the game.

If you don't, you may just find that without a mobile presence your online presence overall will suffer from being old school, passe, and customers will pass you by because others understand how important it is to cross sell across all commerce platforms and you don't.

If you want tips on what to do for mobile commerce, please click on the left hand side of this blog the category "E-Commerce/M-Commerce Soft Tools" -- there are several postings about mobile commerce and companies as iSave.com, mPoria.com and mShopper.com, and experts that can help you better understand the space -- and/or email me at chip@eTaildTail.com -- I am here to help.

-- Chip

Complete story by Mark Walsh, Online Media Daily

FOLLOWING THE MUCH-ANTICIPATED ANNOUNCEMENT OF Google's mobile phone initiative Monday, industry analysts and executives weren't quite ready to declare the end of wireless carrier dominance of the mobile industry.

But they agreed that Google's new open mobile platform will help accelerate expansion of the mobile Internet and pose a serious challenge to carriers' "walled garden" strategy of tightly controlling content on their phone menus.

While the full implications of the deal aren't yet clear, it will make Google a powerful player in the mobile realm as well as in the PC-based Internet world, they say. "This opens the door for Google to be the network for the operating system the way Microsoft adCenter powers MSN," says Jeff Janer, former CMO of mobile ad platform Third Screen Media. "So I think the impact will be major."

Others speculated that the move could have as dramatic an effect as the launch of Apple's iPhone earlier this year, by making mobile Web browsing a user-friendly experience. And as an operating system built on open standards, Google's Android platform could unleash a wave of new mobile applications and commerce.

"This could be the development platform of the future," says Greg Sterling, founding principal at Sterling Market Intelligence and a senior analyst at Opus Research, a mobile market research firm. In addition to Google's own heft, he notes that the alliance of heavyweight industry players including T-Mobile and Motorola lends the effort increased credibility.

While its partners stand to benefit from joining with Google, wireless companies need to come up with new business models to ensure their relevance. "The carriers need to start thinking of how they should play in the value chain so that they don't get marginalized like the Internet service providers," says John Styers, president of mobile consultancy Mobilico and a former Sprint executive.

Wireless operators have long feared that by giving up too much control over their mobile decks they could become "dumb pipes," like the Internet providers that get revenue only from subscriber fees but don't get a piece of content provider's ad revenues. Such concerns have led carriers such as Verizon Wireless and AT&T not to embrace Google applications, and likely played a role in their absence from the Google-led Open Handset Alliance.

During the conference call announcing its mobile platform on Monday, Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt said he envisioned developing ad-sharing arrangements with alliance partners, although he didn't offer further details.

Opus recently released data forecasting that North American and European mobile ad revenue will surpass $5 billion in 2012--up from an estimated $106.8 million at the end of 2007, according to a new study. The North American market, primarily the United States, would account for $2.3 billion of the total.

Analysts say that Google could benefit in particular from increased local mobile search. "Google can't grow fast enough off the back of the PC-based Internet," says John Gauntt, senior wireless analyst at eMarketer. "It must extend search to new interactive platforms...and new advertisers who aren't currently online."

If Google and its mobile alliance partners are viewed as the big winners, companies that create proprietary applications for the carriers' mobile portals or handsets are viewed as among the biggest losers from the deal. These include companies such as JumpTap, Abaxia, Sky Mobile Media and Sasken. "Android increases uncertainty for these participants," wrote John Jackson, vice president of Yankee Group's Enabling Technologies group, in a research note on the Google mobile announcement.

Even so, analysts and others say Google's ambitious new mobile strategy isn't assured of success. Many questions remain about whether developers will flock to the Android platform, how consumers will respond and what types of business models will emerge. "Those of us in the business tend to forget that 85% of the population still thinks of a mobile phone as a communication device and a fashion accessory," says Styers. Mark Walsh can be reached at walsh@mediapost.com

For full story <<<CLICK HERE>>> by Mark Walsh

Google Analytics: Not The Only Helpful Analytic Service In the Marketplace...There are Others.

I am often told it is taboo to not support Google across the the board in all that they do -- and frankly it is hard not to like everything that Google does, as their products and services are excellent.  But.....call me a maverik, I guess, or maybe I am just an entrepreneur's entreprenuer, who loves to help other small businesses and we all love choice.  Well at least some of us do. :-)

Today, I read over at Internet Retailer (CLICK HERE to read full article) about one such small business that seems to be making headway in helping small to mid-sized bsuiness with general onsite performance analytics. Basically, they are competeing against Google analytics in their own way and seem to have found their niche.

I won't edit the article and just let you read it for yourself to draw your own conclusions.

If you want my opinion, I am all for analytics and I am all for choice, even though Google Analytics is generally very good = the free market can be wonderful.  It seems that you can try out www.StatCounter.com for little money and the best part about these type of companies...if it isn't working for you then stop using them...but for my money, why not try them out, especially if they are affordable and have the same functionality...uh oh....I hear Google calling me now....gotta run. -- Ed

From Internet Retailer
September 5, 2007

"Angie Lynch, a former schoolteacher who started her web site Goodforthekids.com a year ago to sell baby and children’s products, is using www.StatCounter.com  to track where visitors come from, what terms they type into search engines and what pages they visit.

That data helped her decide to discontinue advertising on a site that delivered her only five visitors in a month, for instance. She also watches for signs that several visitors are coming from a particular site in a short period, to learn what’s bringing them to her online store. “If it’s from a message board I can post to it, saying I’m the owner of that site and here’s a coupon code,” Lynch says.

Lynch prefers StatCounter to the free Google Analytics program because StatCounter does not put a visible counter on her site. “I don’t want people to be able to compare me to other sites,” she says. “If another site is more popular, they might decide to order from the more popular site.” The site attracted nearly 9,000 unique visitors in August, she says.

Lynch started with StatCounter’s free service, which provides lifetime summary data and a more detailed look at the last 500 page views, but then upgraded to get detailed data on more site visits. For $9 per month, StatCounter provides data on the past 1,500 page views, and prices go up to $29 per month for tracking the last 25,000 page views. Ireland-based StatCounter also earns revenue by placing ads on the user log-in page.

Another small online retailer, Fleur de Lis Fashions.com, is using the free StatCounter service. Rene Fletcher, president of sales and marketing for the New Orleans-based firm that sells apparel, accessories and other items with the fleur de lis that has come to symbolize the hurricane-ravaged city, says StatCounter has provided data showing that the two-month-old site is showing up more in search engines. With more visitors coming to the site through natural search, Fletcher says she has been able to cut back on pay-per-click advertising and focus more on marketing offline, such as with brochures and postcards.

In business since 1999, www.StatCounter.com says it tracks 2.1 million web sites for 1.5 million customers and a total of 9 billion page loads per month."

HELPFUL TIPS FOR THE DAY:

1. Building a web storefront without knowing who is interacting with it, where they are interacting with it on your site, and where they are "finding" your site via adwords, keywords, startegic partner links, blog entries, and other areas where you might be marketing your site is not wise.  Always have some way to track how, when, and where people in the marketplace are interacting with your site.

2. Small to mid-sized businesses MUST use analytics to access all of the hard work you have done building and marketing your websiteand AND there are affordable solutions from which to choose. 

3. Marketing anything and anywhere without "constant" feedback analysis on how your marketing is performing is wasting money.

eBay Eyes Social Networking with “eBay To Go”

Here is an announcement that may help eBay Stores, ProStores Web Stores, and others who sell on eBay. 

We have heard a lot about what ebay will do next to help boost sales for their sellers and I think this is a good step in that direction. -- Ed

"CEO Meg Whitman admitted this week that eBay Inc. hasn’t kept up with changes in e-commerce and plans a big push into social networking with “eBay To Go”–a service that lets registered users place eBay.com content in online social networks and blogs.

“EBay To Go is exactly the kind of product we think demonstrates the innovation we’re putting against our goals of reengaging our users and making the auction experience fun,” Whitman said in a conference call with analysts this week. With large numbers of consumers using social networking sites and blogs, she added, eBay wants to make it easy for them to take content from eBay, including product listings and other material, and place it on MySpace.com, personal blogs and other sites to generate more traffic back to eBay.com.

EBay is beginning to test eBay To Go, which users can try out at ToGo.eBay.com. Within about two minutes, eBay To Go users can create a widget with Flash technology to drop content into other web sites, a spokesman says.

Whitman says eBay To Go will coincide with other improvements to eBay.com this year intended to make the site easier for users to shop and add their own content. “We’ll see more changes over the next several months than have taken place over the last several years,” Whitman said in the conference call. "