Instagram
[fts_instagram instagram_id=256737344 super_gallery=yes image_size=100px icon_size=50px space_between_photos=1px hide_date_likes_comments=yes center_container=yes image_stack_animation=yes type=user]
Twitter
[fts_twitter twitter_name=elliance]
Despite all the cultural and technology changes in the past ten years, today’s enrollment marketing professionals are still largely relegated to email blasts, while the one-to-one interactions are the domain of their colleagues in recruitment. It is now time for marketing and recruitment teams that previously worked in silo — with separate revenue goals and success metrics assigned to each — to be much more closely aligned. And delivering on that promise means coordinating the technologies used by each department. Marketing teams used to be responsible for creating leads, which would then be passed along to the recruitment team for follow up. But advances in online analytics and other tools now allow marketing professionals to gain far greater insights into what prospects are doing online. Combining web analytics with landing pages, email and link tracking tools and other tools that aggregate social media activity has clarified the pattern of individual online activity. In other words, marketing professionals can clearly define … Continue reading
Posted in: Analytics and Metrics, Enrollment Marketing, Higher Ed Marketing
Leave a comment
There’s a lot you can do with Google Analytics, but a lot of it is hidden behind the scenes. Sure, the Google Analytics graphical interface allows you to setup advanced filters, track secondary dimensions, and compare date ranges. That’s all fine and dandy, but if you’re like me, you need some tighter control over how you pull your data. Enter the Google Analytics API. I’m going to show you a trick that we use here at Elliance everyday. I’m sure Google is aware that people employ this tool in this way, but it’s not openly advertised. Think of this tutorial as an early Christmas present from your friends at Elliance! The Google Analytics Query Explorer This tool was introduced for developers who are building their own custom API applications. Google wanted to provide a way for people to test out API queries through a sandbox-like page, to make it easier to debug complex API queries. But you can also use … Continue reading
Posted in: Analytics and Metrics
At Elliance we are in the process of overhauling our clients’ monthly SEO reports – an effort which involves sifting through the mountains of data we collect on a regular basis, and identifying which metrics are most interesting and most valuable to our search clients. In this process, I realized that there are really three distinct actors in any SEO campaign, identified by three sets of interconnected activities: A) Our clients’ marketing efforts B) Our own SEO efforts C) The impact of external forces It turns out that during the course of an SEO campaign, and in our SEO reports, we define success by measuring the blending of these three efforts in four different ways: A) Elliance-Client Outcomes B) Elliance-External Outcomes C) Client-External Outcomes D) Elliance-Client-External Outcomes Since each of our SEO metrics measures a portion of one of these outcomes, we can place each metric at the intersection of two or more actors’ efforts. Take a look: SEO Metrics … Continue reading
Posted in: Analytics and Metrics, Search Marketing
You’re getting sloppy, SEO people! Let’s talk fundamentals. I’m sick and tired of hearing your excuses, about how the game has changed, and you’re caught standing there flat-footed like a kid who just hit his first tee ball. Shape up! I’m busting out the playbook. The following are inexcusable excuses: 1. “Search has changed dramatically and we’re still learning how to cope.” Search algorithms change all the time, each day in fact. Some changes are minor, and some are massive. You are allowed some leeway to rethink your strategy after a major algorithm change, like the Panda updates or Penguin, when those changes require a dramatic shift in link building techniques, content optimization, social messaging activities, etc. But you must not use this as a crutch, or throw your hands up in the air and blame Google. It’s like blaming the refs, people! Adjust your game plan! 2. “Demonstrable results are hard.” If you can’t show a client actual, tangible, … Continue reading
Posted in: Analytics and Metrics, Search Marketing, Social Media
You’ve probably been through this before. The status reports you prepare (regularly or by request) are well-researched, carefully detailed… and they’re going right over the heads of less SEO-minded people at your company. Your boss, your marketing folks, your IT team: they want the highlights, and they want to know that everything is going ok (or not). But spare me the details, please, because I have another call at noon. Call it lack of time or bandwidth on their part, but in the truth is, these internal “clients” just don’t speak your language. It’s not that they aren’t interested in performance, but everybody has a full plate of his or her own. They just want to get a high level survey and move on to the next thing on their busy agenda. So let’s talk about your SEO reports. What can you do to streamline some of your more arcane data points and help surface your most valuable information? Reset … Continue reading
Posted in: Analytics and Metrics, Search Marketing
At Elliance, we are extremely proud of the work we do on behalf of our search clients on a daily basis. We help improve their rankings, visibility, and brand awareness through a customized variety of search marketing services. But, it’s sometimes very difficult to value that visibility we’re providing, both for our clients and for our own internal marketing efforts. Even at its most basic level, valuation of search has been lacking. Most conversion reports of the past attributed new prospects or customers to either the first or last touch point. However, we’ve learned over the years that as searchers progress through the decision funnel, they tend to move from more general, non-branded terms like “digital marketing agency” to branded phrases like “Elliance Pittsburgh.” It’s unlikely someone would search on a very general term, navigate to our website, and immediately convert. Similarly, we’ve seen that once a brand or website is found in search results and becomes a part of … Continue reading
Posted in: Analytics and Metrics, Search Marketing
By now, you’ve realized you need a mobile presence. Or maybe you already have one, or are trying to figure out whether it’s really working for you. Is it time for phase two? Your current state aside, chances are you’ve got mobile on the mind. But how do you know what your visitors want? It’s not rocket science. In fact, you have a lot of data and insights stockpiled already. Over the next few weeks, I’ll share some details with you about how to conduct your own DIY user research to better plan for your next mobile venture. This week, we’ll start by using website analytics. After that, we’ll explore interviews and surveys…you know, talking to real people. Why use analytics? Almost everyone has Google Analytics or some other web analytics package installed. Even if you haven’t been actively using it, the tool has. It’s been busy collecting valuable usage data. There are a few benefits to using web analytics … Continue reading
Posted in: Analytics and Metrics, mobile, user experience
Data is cheap. Just log into Google Analytics and see for yourself. Awaiting you are mountains of free data points about your website’s visitors, sessions, referrals and keywords, organized neatly into tables and sortable by hour back into the dark recesses of web history. Mountains of data. All at your fingertips. All free. But you know what isn’t cheap? Analysis. Google rolled out a new version of Google Analytics last year, which it claimed is easier to use, with a sleeker interface and faster reporting. After months of beta testing, the results are in: people hate it. Cross-referencing of data from multiple reports is no longer readily available. Data that used to be divisible by visitor or by keyword is now lumped together in inseparable totals. Adding insult to injury, reports can no longer be exported to PDF. Analytics gurus are clamoring for features that are no longer available, but despite the outcry, Google will soon be enforcing this new … Continue reading
Posted in: Analytics and Metrics
In today’s revolutionary new marketing landscape, consumers have become more confident, capable and impatient. They know what they want, based on the fabulous wealth of data in search, and the trusted reviews of their peers in social networks. Even while traditional marketing continues to over-saturate every aspect of their lives, consumers are increasingly enlightened to aggressive modern marketing tactics: they know when a Facebook campaign reeks of shameless self-promotion, or when promotional Tweets sound like spam. As social media adoption reaches a level previously inconceivable – and growing still – it seems as if marketing power has finally returned to the people. As Chief Marketing Officers struggle to shift gears, stubborn or inflexible brands are the ones likely to be left behind. According to a recent study by IBM, the four biggest challenges facing CMOs today are an enormous increase of data, the growing importance of social media, ever-expanding channels and devices, and shifts in consumer demographics. A cynical brand … Continue reading
Recent discussions with VP’s of marketing reveal an interesting transition underway. Most of them are comfortable with visibility (brand) metrics, a legacy from the billboard and banner days, yet they aspire to live in the emerging world of conversion (transactional) metrics. The problem is that tools for conversion metrics haven’t really matured. At Elliance we are developing our own toolkit for measuring conversions and looking at the world from conversion-point backwards.
Posted in: Analytics and Metrics