Avinash Kaushik - world leader in web business optimisation
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Internet marketing blog & E-marketing blog
Up one levelMy Internet marketing blog covers the latest E-marketing developments from strategy to tactics. Blog postings are in different site category sections relevant for the chapters of my Internet marketing book and other books. You can get an RSS feed for all blog posts from the top of this page, or if you prefer a more granular feed on Email, SEO or PPC developments use the links to the right.
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Avinash Kaushik - world leader in web business optimisation
Avinash Kaushik is well known to web analytics aficionados as Google's analytics evangelist, for his book "Web Analytics An Hour a Day" and his Occam's Razor Blog, but I think his insights can help anyone involved aiming to improve their results from their web business - hence this post 'web business optimisation'. So I was delighted that he agreed to this interview for "E-marketing Essentials". In a wide-ranging interview we cover everything from trends in analytics to practical tips to measure and improve online customer engagement and retention.
Blogging research - social media research and statistics
This research on blogging and other social media from Universal McCann, Comscore, Microsoft and other providers has statistics on amount of blogging worldwide and in Europe - also covers social media. These figures can help justify business case investment in Web 2.0 approaches. Updated April 2008.
UK Internet Advertising Expenditure Statistics 2008 report
The latest annual statistics on the UK Internet Advertising expenditure for full year 2007 were was published in April 2008. You can use this research on online advertising to benchmark your investment in online media with other organisations in the UK. Also find out the online advertising tactics which are most commonly used, but beware the methodology.
How important is Universal Search within Google
The implications of the inclusion of Universal search within Google search results is an important issue for search marketers. This data from Comscore shows that already Universal Search is surprisingly important.
Category 5 Alert for all UK companies using Google Adwords
My Category 5 reference is the Hurricane scale which officially runs up to 5... In a major policy change affecting brand name bidding, from 5th May Google will permit brand names to be used as triggering keywords. Use of trademarked terms in Ad text (creative) will not be permitted. Read on for the implications for advertisers.
Google Marketing - April 2008 innovations
If you are based in the UK or Ireland, make sure you know about the category 5 alert all paid search marketers are talking about. Also check the figures that show how important Universal search has become. There is also a nice enhancement to Google Analytics this month that everyone will want to use. Added keyword search tutorial tips. Added Google User experience details
Google keyword analysis tutorial
This tutorial is designed for those new to search engine marketing. It explains how to use the Google AdWords Keyword Tool and Traffic Estimator to identify keyphrases to target for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or keywords to include within an account for Pay Per Click marketing. Updated April 2008 to include new Google tips on using keyword tool for PPC.
Mobile marketing campaigns case study
Two mobile marketing case studies courtesy of the IDM. There is increased in interest in mobile marketing / m-commerce from attendees on my "Running Effective E-marketing campaigns course" and each mobile case study has specific mobile response rates results which show that consumers are increasingly responsive to mobile for trusted brands.
Analysis tools for assessing backlinks - tutorial
Success in SEO depends on creating content which is valuable to site visitors so that they will link to it or bookmark it. This tutorial introduces 3 tools for finding backlinks pointing from other sites to your sites. You can repeat this analysis for competitor sites and then identify similar sites you can ask to link to you.
Example Facebook applications / apps for marketing
This UK agency has good examples of Facebook apps used for marketing.
Apple case study / Apple business strategy
The Apple case study was published on April 2008. It focuses on how how Apple innovate and differentiate their business through the control of Steve Jobs. It doesn't cover online marketing approaches.
Internet Marketing strategy presentation
This Internet marketing strategy presentation for the IDM Digital Marketing Diploma covers a high-level view of situation analysis, goal setting and strategy development. It is based around Chapters 2, 3 and 4 of my Internet Marketing Strategy, Development and Practice Book.
ASUS EEE PC UK Stock Checker / Availability checker / In stock EEE PC 701 & EEE PC 900
The ASUS EEE PC is a newly launched low-cost notebook / laptop great for Wi-fi access to the web for working around the house or on the move.
New Google Analytics Graphing Options: By Week and By Month
Not earth-shattering, but this gives a much better way to visualise and improve time-series trends.
E-marketing training links and tools
These are resources to help marketers who have attended my E-marketing courses including the CIM courses on "Running Effective E-marketing Campaigns", "E-mail Marketing", "Improving Your Results from Digital Marketing" and equivalent 1 or 2 day courses run inside a company
E-consultancy - free reports
E-consultancy - Recommended & Latest Free Reports. My guide to best E-consultancy reports and different types of Econsultancy content.
Marketing using Google - March 2008 innovations
For me, these were the most significant changes for marketing with Google in March 2008. One is the benchmarking feature in Google analytics and the three others relate to Google Adwords advertising
Impact of image blocking on Email response rates
A great, simple case study that shows the importance of thinking about how your creative renders without images (the majority of readers to today block images). This retail study shows that including text in Email templates can have a dramatic impact.
Explanation and definition of Google Adwords quality score
Developing a detailed understanding of Google’s quality score is essential to improving performance of your paid search campaigns in Google Adwords. This is how I introduce it in the E-consultancy PPC guide and on my training courses. In March 2008, Google incorporated page download performance to its quality score. Read about this at the end of the article
Site benchmarking with Google Analytics
Google launched it's benchmarking feature in March 2008. It enables you to compare a subset of your data with other sites showing trends in volume and site engagement.
Implications of Google’s secondary search (search within site) box
From March 2008, Google incorporated a secondary search box beneath the listing for some brands within it’s natural listings which, if used invokes a "search within site search". These are the implications for search marketers.
Online Net Promoter Score Advocacy
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a measure of advocacy widely referenced in the US, but doesn't seem to be mentioned so often in Europe. Here, I reference the main sources of information and give some practical tips as to how you can boost your NPS online.
SEO for Wikipedia & online PR implications
With Wikipedia dominant in the Google Search Engine Results Pages, it is important for SEO, but it requires careful treatment. This post explains some approaches and shows how to find the number of visits in wikipedia for different terms
Web analytics best practices
We have all seen the dramatic improvement in the capabilities of web analytics tools over the last few years, but how should organisations configure their web analytics tools and processes to drive the best insights? In this E-marketing Essentials interview I talk to Gary Angel, a web analytics consultant with extensive experience of web analytics implementation best practice for many organisations.
Improving website design using multivariate testing methodology
Explains how to devise a multivariate testing methodolology to improve site design. Gives examples and a case study and highlights multi-variate testing tools.
Main SEO Ranking Factors Reference
Published by SEOMoz in April, 2007. If you didn't catch it at the time it is a great top-level reference of the relative importance of SEO factors:
Customer service email response times
I have reported on the woeful customer service email response statistics in previous reports. This 2008 report on response times suggests the situation may be getting worse. How do your response times compare?
Influence of customer reviews & ratings on conversion rate
This is a summary of data from Bazaar Voice showing how great the influence of customer reviews / ratings on conversion rate by Brett Hurt.
Leading and lagging performance indicators for Ecommerce
Do you use leading performance indicators when trying to improve performance of your online marketing? You should! Here are some examples of leading and lagging indicators.
McKinsey 7S applied to Digital Channels
The McKinsey 7S framework can usefully be applied to audit Internet marketing capabilities and set strategic priorities.
Options for measuring online customer engagement
The blogs have been buzzing with approaches to measure customer engagement which analyst Forrester has heralded as "Marketing's New Key Metric", given the rapidly increasing online media fragment caused, in part by social media. This post gives a summary of two great approaches to measuring customer engagement, plus it gives my take.
Email marketing benchmarking report
This email marketing benchmarketing report reviews different aspects of creative best practice for email marketing templates.
Structured techniques to increase conversion rates
The latest Marketing Experiments report on increasing conversion rates covers 3 areas of conversion rate optimization, this is my synopsis / commentary. Also see under 2, great paper by Ron Kohavi describing experiences in site optimisation at Amazon and Microsoft. Also explains explains how a structured approach to testing can help you listen to your online customers and avoid your site improvements being controlled by the Highest Paid Person's opinion (HiPPO).
Digital marketing trends 2008
A round-up of some of the main digital marketing trends predicted for 2008 with my commentary.
Journal of Computer Mediated Communications - Free Internet marketing communications journal
JCMC is a free online peer-reviewed journal describing developments in interactive communications. It moved to a new home in January 2008.
Most popular Web 2.0 methods for engagement
An interesting evaluation of the most effective web site functionality rated by effectiveness, actual use and planned usage. Suggests factors used to develop business case.
Competitor trademarks used in Google AdWords
Brand abuse or hijacking where a competitor advertises using a brand name, trademark or company name on Google AdWords or the other Pay Per Click search networks is a common concern voiced by marketers who either see their competitors seeking to divert brand traffic to their site, or they want to know whether they can do it...
Example of URL components
What’s in a URL? A great example of URL is provided by Google engineer Matt Cutts. He gives this example of URL elements and parameters.
McKinsey 7S strategy model
The McKinsey 7S framework summarised by Waterman et al. (1980) was developed by McKinsey consultants in the 1980s and it is often referenced when referring to managing change and strategy development in a business.
Strategic agility - relevance to Internet marketing strategy
An excellent video introduction to the principles of strategic agility from Professor Donald N. Sull who is an Associate Professor of Management Practice on the Strategy and International Management faculty at the London Business School. I have added a commentary and related this to Internet marketing strategy.
Case study - Kaspersky anti-virus company
Case study highlight developments in the AV market well.
Alibaba case study - E-commerce marketplace in China
Alibaba.com is one of the leading B2B e-commerce companies in China. It provides a marketplace connecting small and medium-sized buyers and suppliers from China and around the world.
Most popular / most bookmarked
These are the articles which have been bookmarked most by users of the site.
Business-to-business (B2B) E-business statistics – Europe
The Europa site has the best range of B2B Internet usage statistics showing variations in adoption and Internet usage and ICT use across the European Union.
Global / worldwide Internet statistics sources 2008
This post highlights the main sources which compile Global or Worldwide Internet statistics from a range of reports. These cover Internet adoption and usage statistics plus specific activities such as search engine usage and the most popular sites in different countries.
Internet dependance
The dependance on the Internet was indicated in January 2008 when millions of people in the Middle East and Egypt were unable to gain access when an undersea cable was cut.
Conversion rates - online retail
This is my compilation of the latest conversion rates for different types of merchants for online retail and e-commerce sites in the US and UK.
B2B Publisher Email contact strategy case study example
A summary of the frequency, message development through subject lines and creative in an event-triggered automated B2B campaign over a 3 month period.