When the Cookie Crumbles, Where Does That Leave Third-Party Data?

Google will block third-party data collection in Chrome by the end of 2024. If your marketing relies on this, that means you have a year to figure out customer data practices (but you’re not alone!). 

Our research study shows that about half of marketers worry about their organization’s ability to succeed without third-party data. At the same time, nearly three in four marketers believe that company-owned data about customers and prospects is more valuable than ever. It’s clear that the road ahead is paved with first-party data. 

Most of us know we can’t rely on third-party data much longer, but analyzing first-party data to turn insights into action can be challenging. Our research suggests that marketers need more data skills to make the transition away from third-party cookies — about one in three marketers say their organizations don’t have the skills to use customer data effectively.

Now’s the time to take steps toward a first-party data future if you haven’t already because you need to be strategic about data practices and your transition plan.

Implications for Reliant Marketers

Moving from third-party (paid) data to first-party (owned) data is a smart strategy for marketing professionals. Here are five implications you’ll see when the switch happens.

1. You won’t be able to track customers across the internet. Without third-party cookies, you won’t have the same insights about your customers’ movements and behaviors, including purchasing habits, interests and demographics. Retargeting, frequency capping and attribution are all strategies that will be impacted by the change. 
2. Tech stacks will become more complex. Gathering your own data means investing in technologies, data-related tasks and skilled employees. Because there will be more data to manage, you’ll need to spend more time keeping it secure and organized and deriving actionable insights. 
3. Transparency, privacy and consent will lead to customer insights. Consumers are leading data privacy policy changes by asking for more protection and transparency. Privacy legislation is becoming more commonplace, and there’s a lot that’s outside of marketers’ control. Customers today expect a lot from companies — they want to know what you stand for and if they share your values. 
4. Data-forward companies are better positioned to sell. Companies prioritizing first-party data have a competitive advantage when it comes time to attract customers. A company that knows its customers well is a better investment. 
5. There are more opportunities for innovation. Marketers are known for being creative, and with data use evolving, it’s just one more opportunity to capitalize on your innovative mindset.

Despite the implications above, there’s still a lot we don’t know and third-party data going away. Accepting uncertainty is part of moving forward. Some marketers believe Google’s third-party cookie phase-out is driven by profits from shifting advertisers to Google’s first-party cookies options rather than a desire to preserve consumer privacy. One thing you can control? The first-party data you collect.

Transitioning From Third-Party to First-Party

Prioritizing first-party data can help companies become more resilient, agile and strategic about marketing. But you need a roadmap with small, manageable steps to get there. Start with an audit to get a holistic view of your data practices, and answer these questions: 

What customer data do you already gather? 

Over two-thirds of marketers gather basic contact information, such as name, email, phone number and address. Another one in two gathers purchase frequency, purchase history and personal information, such as interests, household income and age. We recommend you only ask your customers what you need and nothing more. For example, if somebody downloads a case study from your website, don’t ask them for their address and phone number. 

Where do you store customer data? 

Our research shows that 70% of marketers store customer data in more than one database (for example, CRM, database software and spreadsheets). Of those who use CRMs, 84% use a single CRM that manages customer data across departments. Keeping your data in one place is best because it reduces redundancies, extra costs and lessens security risks. 

While most are happy with their CRM, the training required to use the system can be frustrating because data management and analysis require skill. Although it can be daunting for your team to take this on, it doesn’t have to be. Take it slow, and start by focusing on the basics of CRM and build from there. You can expand once you become more comfortable with the process. This incremental approach will help you prevent getting overwhelmed, make sure your CRM goals are met and ensure your customers have a positive experience.

Who has access to it? 

Our research shows that about 40% of marketers analyze customer data or use it for their work. About four in five make decisions about data collection. While data can be incredibly valuable in planning marketing campaigns and initiatives, it’s important to keep access on a need-to-know basis. 

Just as every business has important assets and investments, customer data privacy is as essential to any company as money in the bank. Our customers provide us with sensitive information, trusting us not only with their data but also their loyalty. That’s why it’s so important to ensure it’s handled carefully and treat this responsibility with respect. The more people are involved, the higher the risk of an accident or leakage. Keeping customer data secure requires time and attention, but it’ll allow you to provide a higher standard of service to your customers.

How long do you keep customer data? 

Marketers, on average, keep customer data for nine months. In our experience, nine-month-old data is likely already outdated. People move, change jobs and switch their buying habits at a more common rate. 

We know keeping up with customer data can be challenging. That’s why it’s important to have universal formatting for your data that’s used company-wide. Take steps to verify new information, whether it’s by sending a verification email or using a third-party service. Keeping tabs on your data needs to be part of your regular workflow, not just something you do once or twice a year. This will help ensure any incoming data is entered and implemented correctly throughout your system. Plus, you can rest easy knowing your customer data is always up to date.

More Factors to Consider

Your marketing practices, staff and tech stack all help determine what the transition away from third-party data will look like. 

Take stock of how much your marketing initiatives rely on third-party data. Strategies like programmatic media buying; SEO and keyword research; targeting and retargeting ads; audience segmentation; and list buying rely on third-party data. If the bulk of what you do comes from data you pay for, you’re at risk. 

Ask yourself: What internal resources do you have, and will they be assets during the transition? 

If you have team members with data analysis skills or cybersecurity experience, you may be in a better position. Consider investing in data skills education and training for staff so they can learn new ways of understanding customers. 

Your tech stack is also an important factor when considering how well you’ll adapt to the transition. If it’s a well-oiled machine where data is organized, secure and accessible to the right people, you’ll have an easier time with the change. 

To keep your database clean and healthy, you need an accurate understanding of your data policies. Tell customers up front what data is needed and how it‘ll be used. This will help streamline the process and create a more organized database in the long run.

The Future of Marketing

Imagine a future with less generic data, more meaningful audience profiles and trust-based customer relationships. That’s what’s lying on the other side of the transition. You don’t need third-party data to provide engaging, educational or relevant customer experiences. What’s most important is to start the transition now and invest in technologies that make it easier to collect, store, analyze and use your data.

To learn more about the research study, check out our entire Executive Summary. And to explore the data yourself, check it out here.

Privacy Laws Are Affecting Third-Party Data (and Your Marketing)

Do you trust organizations with your personal data? How do you feel about them tracking your activity across the internet via third-party cookies? 

For decades, marketers have relied on the power of third-party data to gain insights into their customers. Without it, many of today’s most common marketing strategies would look completely different or even become obsolete. Some examples include:  

• Programmatic advertising
• SEO and keyword research
• Social media advertising
• Targeting and retargeting ads
• Audience building and segmentation

The shift from third-party data (purchased) to first-party data (business-owned) is happening whether you like it or not. This change comes with novel privacy and security challenges that, if not met head-on, will have dire consequences. In Q3 of 2022, approximately 15 million data records were exposed worldwide due to breaches.  

While 60 percent of global consumers think companies collecting their personal data is fine if that means there will be a better user experience, 90 percent worry their data is not secure. Consumers are right to be concerned — data breaches are common and can have serious side effects, from spam calls and texts to proactively replacing a credit or debit card. In a worst-case scenario, these breaches can lead to identity theft. 

When data breaches occur, they undermine consumer trust and confidence and can also affect business performance. For publicly traded companies, share prices fall an average of 3.5 percent after a breach, and share prices drop an average 15.6 percent three years after a breach. 

We recently conducted a research study to determine how professionals view these changes and how they currently gather and use data. In today’s post, we’ll discuss strategies for protecting yourself from liability and data storage and privacy best practices.

Adapting to New Changes on the Way

Cybersecurity issues are no longer isolated incidents. One recent study found that 53 percent of mid- to large-sized companies have experienced a security breach. Since only 19 percent of respondents said they have complete knowledge of where their data is stored, data storage contributes to security breaches. 

But a company’s size does not protect them from breaches. Small businesses are just as vulnerable as larger ones, especially ransomware and stolen credentials attacks. However, unlike their larger counterparts, it’s common for a data breach to put a small company out of business within a few months due to reputation damage, related costs afterward and diverting resources to resolve the issue. 

As data breaches have become more common and sophisticated in recent years, cybersecurity has become more than just an IT issue. One Gartner study found that 88 percent of boards view it as a business issue that many stakeholders need to address. Consumers are chiming in, too. More than 50 percent believe companies should be forced to adopt mandatory data protection controls after a data breach. 

Consumers, employees and business owners are paying more attention to data privacy and security. In 2022, 35 states and the District of Columbia introduced over 200 consumer privacy bills. And five states — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, and Utah — have enacted comprehensive consumer privacy protections that have transformed the consumer data landscape.

How Marketers Feel About Third-Party Data and Privacy Laws

One in two marketers strongly agrees that data privacy laws make it harder for them to do their jobs. At the same time, 64 percent worry about the privacy of their personal data. We can appreciate enhanced privacy and security protections for our personal data while feeling frustrated in our roles as marketers. 

Add third-party cookies going away in the next few years, and consumer data is more complicated than ever. How resilient you are depends on how your organization treats data and your plan for the future. 

After conducting the research, three distinct attitudinal segments emerged: Independent, Data-Reliant and Concerned respondents. 

If you’re like the Independent marketers from our research, you’re using very little third-party data and feel confident about the quality of your customer data and how you’re managing it. Often, these marketers work for small businesses that know their customers well. As new technology like AI and cloud-based computing becomes universal, you can adopt technology strategically while keeping data privacy best practices in mind.

Data-Reliant marketers lead with strategy and value data. They also rely on third-party data to craft personalized marketing messages to their customers. Because they use third-party data for marketing initiatives, they’re more worried about the future.  

Most marketers we surveyed were in the Concerned segment. These marketers worry about their personal data and think using third-party data is risky. They think third-party data used to target advertisements makes them look like spammers. They know third-party data is going away and believe the best lists are developed in-house. If this sounds like you, put your data practices in place now, not when cookies go away. Start gathering your data today safely and securely.

Protecting Yourself From Liability

Our research shows that 70 percent of marketers use at least two data storage solutions to house data, putting them at risk for data breaches. When your data comes from multiple sources and you store it in different databases, it makes you more vulnerable to attacks. Knowing where your data is and who has access to it at any given time is essential to keeping it safe. Fortunately, following data storage and privacy best practices can eliminate your liability burden. 

1. Data is only as good as the person who enters it. Make sure you have clear guidelines when you ask a customer to enter their data into a form or when you do data entry for your business. 
2. Data can be stored for as long as the consumer allows it. While you might want to keep everything you’ve collected, data can go bad (like milk). When thinking about storing your data, consider giving your customers the ability to request their data be deleted from your database and identifying your business data retention plan.
3. Data should be cleaned constantly. That might seem daunting, but if you are using it on a consistent basis, you want to make sure it’s kept in order. Reflect this in your data retention plan and communicate it to your whole team.
4. Store your data securely. If it’s in an excel file, password protect it. If it’s through a CRM, make sure you know the user policies so you give the right permissions to the right people. If possible, make sure to require two-factor authentication for all users.

As Data Privacy Changes, Change With It

Most marketers know how to duck, bob, and weave when industry changes are out of their control. But we’re all facing dramatic changes in third-party data privacy, security and liability that require a different kind of agility. The more prepared and strategic you are, the easier it is to do your job effectively and efficiently.

Talk with other business owners on how they’re using data. Don’t work through this alone. Use your network to find out how others are dealing with the upcoming changes.

To learn more about the research study, check out our entire Executive Summary. And to explore the data yourself, check it out here.

When Will Your Consumer Data Expire?

These days, following best practices for consumer data is like chasing a moving target. With data privacy laws constantly evolving and consumer data platforms setting individual data retention policies, it’s not easy to know when to use your data. 

Google Analytics, the gold standard for gathering consumer data from websites, has a data retention policy that outlines how long consumer data will be kept before it’s wiped from servers:  

While the retention period and user-activity reset controls cover event and user-level data stored by Google Analytics, certain user-keyed data (such as age, gender, interests) is by default deleted by Google Analytics after six months of inactivity for a given user for a Universal Analytics property or after two months for a Google Analytics 4 property.

The takeaway? The clock is ticking on using your consumer data. 

Even if these changes aren’t taking place, how would you use the information you’ve collected? If you know a customer visited your website twice six months ago and converted once, for example, is that still meaningful information?

We recently conducted a research study to determine how professionals view these changes and how they currently gather and use data. Not only do marketers need to know about platforms’ data retention policies, but they also need to know if and when data is useful for their marketing and sales initiatives. Consumer data is powerful when it’s used right, and timing is everything.

We’ve already shared why our research suggests first-party data is the future and how you can upgrade your tech stack. In today’s blog, we’ll help you get the most out of your consumer data before it’s no longer useful (or disappears from your Google Analytics account).

Marketers Weigh in on Expiration Dates

Our research shows the average marketer believes consumer data is good for nine months. Nearly one in five say six months is when this data expires, and one in three marketers keep data from 1-3 years before they think it needs a refresh. 

If you’re in the group that thinks you can use consumer data for 1-3 years, it’s important to consider your sales cycle. Sales cycles can take weeks to a year or more depending on the industry, product, service and audience. Real-time, responsive data is essential to understanding what’s happening at every stage of the cycle and making informed decisions. Having a strategic mindset is key, especially with your consumer data. 

Consider the average length of a marketing campaign. How effective can your marketing be if you use data from nine months ago to inform your campaign strategy?

Challenges arise and become harder to overcome without data that integrates into your sales and marketing initiatives. If this sounds familiar, know you’re not alone.  

About one in three marketers face data-related challenges, including having the skills necessary to use data effectively and working with multiple siloed data sources. Fortunately, solving data challenges can be simple if you know where to gather data, what to gather, and when to use data.

When to Refresh Consumer Data

Knowing how long your data is good for all depends on your data source. 

Social media can be a great source of first-party data for marketers transitioning away from paid third-party options. Shares, likes and comments can give you deep insights into your audience, but refreshing social media data every nine months isn’t useful because it’s one of the fastest-moving data targets. Instead, aim to refresh your data every 30-60 days. By engaging your audience with whitepapers and contests, you can entice them to fill out a form so you can collect contact details. 

Email is another source of reliable data that you should utilize during the transition away from third-party data. Knowing open rates, click-through rates, unsubscribe rates, and other email engagement data points can help you understand your audience better. We recommend hitting your list once a month. 

Additionally, make sure you are segmenting your list as well. If you have inactive contacts, move them to a re-engagement campaign. If they aren’t engaged, they could be hurting your overall deliverability.

Pulling data from your website is a must to understand consumers’ journeys in a post-third-party data world. A CDP platform allows you to store information such as names, addresses and demographics, plus behavioral data like purchase history and unique page visits — all of which can inform sales and marketing strategies. Once your tech stack is working seamlessly, revisit this data at least every quarter (if not more).

You can utilize many different consumer data sources, but the data retention strategy varies. Use consumer engagement frequency to gauge how often you should look at the data yourself. For example, most customers use social media daily but may only visit your website once or twice a month.

Best Practices for Using and Storing Consumer Data

It’s often a challenge to make meaning of all this data and synthesize it into one hub. Our research shows that to help, about two in three marketers use a CRM, database software or spreadsheets to store and organize customer data. 

If you have 100 to 200 contacts, doing this manually might be time-consuming, but it’s also low-cost. On the other hand, a high quantity of data leaves room for human error, which could make the data unusable. When you have more contacts, you may consider a service like Zapier or all-in-one solutions like HubSpot to sync data back and forth. This also takes out the risk of human error.

Mastering First-Party Data

Transitioning from dependence on third-party data to creating your own first-party data takes time. Be patient with this process, and remember that taking small steps over time is better than doing nothing or trying one giant leap when it’s too late. 

As we’ve mentioned before, it’s common for marketers to lack data skills or have knowledge gaps. Consider hiring a data specialist to make the transition easier and keep your marketing and sales departments agile during changing times. 

 To learn more about the research study, check out our entire Executive Summary. And to explore the data yourself, check it out here.

 

Change Is on the Horizon

Marketing as we know it is in the midst of massive change. Legislation like the General Data Protection Regulation in Europe and California Consumer Privacy Act have put consumer privacy directly into the general conversation. But there’s a bigger change looming on the horizon — the so-called death of the third-party cookie. And marketers are worried. Recent research found that 69% of marketers believe the end of the third-party cookie will be a bigger deal than privacy legislation. And 96% of marketers say first-party data will be vital for moving forward — and we agree!

We recently conducted a research study to find out how professionals view these changes and how they currently gather and use data. In today’s blog, we’ll talk about what these changes mean for marketers, the future of targeted ads, and how to kick-start the process of making your consumer relationship management (CRM) work for you.

Changing Times, Changing Targeted Ads

As access to third-party data continues to change, marketing will have to change with it. Learning about consumers, targeted ads, and measuring performance will be much more difficult without the third-party cookie. So let’s look at how marketing’s role will change.

Identifying prospects: You’ll no longer be able to identify prospects by devices or user profiles. Instead, you’ll need to identify individuals and gather information about them with explicit consent and through first-party data.

Engaging prospects: When a prospect visits a website and clicks on a product, third-party cookies will no longer be able to track that prospect to another website and show an ad for that product or a related one. As a result, you will need to gather your own data from your website, customer surveys, and email lists, which you can then use to plan ad campaigns.

Closing sales: Recent research shows that 80% of consumers are more likely to buy from a brand that offers a personalized experience. Third-party cookies have limitations with customer insights. Close sales by using first-party data to understand your customers on a deeper level.

Cost per ad: Some marketing experts predict that the return on investment (ROI) from ad spend will drop 30% once third-party cookies go away.

All this amounts to a lot of pressure on business marketers to get it right.

Different Organizations, Different Ways to Measuring Success

Our research found that organizations measure marketing success in various ways.

• 56% of marketers are evaluated by their marketing activities’ ROI
• 45% by the cost per acquisition
• 45% by the conversion rate of leads
• 35% by the conversion rate of activities

Today, the success of paid media depends on the third-party cookie. As we mentioned in our previous blog, tracking click-to-purchase rates through third-party cookie-targeted ads will no longer be possible. As a result, marketers need to rethink KPIs — specifically, how they measure them.

Instead of tracking conversions from retargeting ads, marketers can ensure they’re using Google Analytics to track their website data and train staff to monitor, analyze, and make recommendations based on those results.

Soon, acquiring customers through Facebook targeted ads will be a thing of the past. Marketers need to adjust their customer acquisition funnels and be change leaders in their organizations to stay agile. It all starts with upgrading your data stack. The steps to measure customer acquisition will also change. Consider nurturing customers through engaging content like organic social posts or blogs.

How to Use Your CRM (and Use it Well)

There are many options for managing first-party data, including Excel spreadsheets, database software, and dedicated CRM software. Our research shows that many marketers use all of the above methods, but CRMs lead the way with 68% of respondents saying that’s what their organizations use. Additionally, 72% say they use a CRM often to do their jobs. However, many respondents say their CRM isn’t as effective as it could be. Check out these insights:

• 50% say data input takes too much time and effort
• 42% need more training to get the most out of their CRM
• 33% would get more out of their CRM if they had on-staff experts

Although it seems daunting, investing the time and training into these areas is worth the payoff. If you are starting out with little to no data, spend the time mapping out a plan. Ask yourself questions like: What data do you want? How is it going to be formatted? Where is it going to be stored? What other departments need it?

If you have a good amount of data, start off with an audit to see what you have, where it’s being used, and where it’s being stored. Then make a plan on how your company should use that data and the changes that need to be made to get there.

The takeaway here is that your CRM needs to do the heavy lifting for your organization. It should pull data from all departments, not just sales and marketing. Human resources, operations, finance, IT, and additional departments also have a stake in the game.

How Attitudinal Segments Collect Data

After conducting the research, three distinct attitudinal segments emerged: Independent, Data-Reliant and Concerned respondents.

Independent respondents aren’t too worried about new policy legislation because their organization doesn’t use much third-party data. They already have systems to gather first-party data — like a CRM — and know how to use it.

Data-Reliant respondents believe data is the key to effective marketing and helps marketers weather change and take advantage of opportunities. Despite thinking it’s perfectly ethical to use third-party data, this group worries about their organization’s chance of success if it goes away.

Concerned respondents think it’s risky to use third-party data and believe the best prospect lists are developed in-house. They’re also concerned about the privacy of their data.

Both Data-Reliant and Concerned respondents are more likely than Independent marketers to purchase data from other companies about their customers. Data-Reliant are more likely than Concerned marketers to say their organizations collect basic information about their customers.

You can collect a lot of customer data, including call notes, in-person visits to brick-and-mortar locations, and social media engagement. Unfortunately, less than half of respondents say their organizations collect any of the above data. 68% say their organizations collect basic customer information like names and emails. Although this will only get you so far, all marketers need to increase their data collection in order to succeed in the future. And they need to know how to use it.

Most of our respondents use data to identify customers for sales and marketing purposes. Those tasks will be more successful if they have high quality, relevant data.

Data will go bad and will be entered incorrectly. Human error is real. First-party data is reliant on human interaction at some point. Since you can’t monitor everything, set aside time to go through your data. Consider investing in services like Melissa.com or Kickbox to help verify customer data and keep it current.

Encourage your entire organization to think about what customer data would be valuable to them, and start gathering it. Consider the following buckets:

• Identifying information: name, email address, mailing address
• Demographic information: education level, gender, marital status, home ownership status
• Quantitative data: purchase history, website visits, social media engagement
• Qualitative data: information gathered from surveys or interviews, such as customer satisfaction, customer feedback and reasons for purchasing

Lead With First-Party Data

Even though third-party cookies will be on Google Chrome until 2024, start preparing for the change now by putting a better data management process together.

Start by making sure that all data is filled out correctly and in the right format. Bad data can be just as bad as having no data. For example, if you send an email to a user and personalize it with the wrong name, it’s less likely to be opened or it can be deleted altogether. This can cause you to miss the sale and even the customer. Next, connect as many of your systems together as you can, and audit and verify your data at least twice a year.

By using a company-wide CRM or implementing a customer data platform (CDP) that fits your industry, you can break those silos and start working together. This takes all data in, matches it with the appropriate user and then sends it to the different platforms. CDPs are also bidirectional, so if something changes in one place, it will change everywhere else.

To learn more about the research study, check out our entire executive summary. And to explore the data yourself, check it out here. 

How many times did you open a web browser and use a search engine this week? If you are like most, quite a few times! We all use search engines countless times a day!  Whether you are looking for a phone number, a location, online shopping, or to see if your favorite celebrity is still alive and how old they indeed are!  In fact, 93% of all internet activity begins on a search engine.[1] Search engines filter the infinite amount of data throughout the world wide web and deliver relevant and valuable results.  These search engine results are then delivered to the exact individual searching based on the question, or phrase asked, past search history, location, and a host of other factors. This is great for finding what you’re looking for quickly, but what does this mean for your business?

We’ve all heard the terms – PPC, SEO, SEM, SERP – but what do all those letters stand for? And why, as a business owner, should you care? This may seem as complicated as learning a new language, but it is as simple to understand as it is crucial to your business, so let’s begin with some basic terminology.

SERP – Search Engine Results Page.  These are the online pages of results when you enter a word or phrase into search engines like Google or Bing. These platforms deliver information in an order that best fits the query.

SEM – Search Engine Marketing.  SEM utilizes search engine platforms, either through paid or organic efforts, to appear higher in search engine results and thus drive traffic to your website.  Both will require an investment -either time or money. But we also know that when you apply both, the results for your organization are exponentially better. The closer your website is to the top, the higher your company’s visibility, products, or services to interested individuals, increasing the likelihood of a web visit, phone call, lead, or sale.  Bringing your ranking up also gives you the ability to “push” competitors onto deeper pages.

PPC- Pay Per Click.  This is precisely what it sounds like.  This is the paid form of search engine marketing. It allows advertisers to bid for ad placement in a search engine’s sponsored links when someone searches on a keyword that is related to their business offering.

A lot goes into building a winning PPC campaign: researching and selecting the right keywords, organizing those keywords into well-organized campaigns and ad groups, and setting up PPC landing pages optimized for conversions. Search engines reward advertisers who can create relevant, intelligently targeted pay-per-click campaigns by charging them less for ad clicks. If your ads and landing pages are helpful and satisfying to users, Google charges you less per click, leading to higher profits for your business. So if you want to start using PPC, it’s essential to learn how to do it right.[2]

SEO – Search Engine Optimization. This is the organic approach to improving and, essentially, optimizing your search engine ranking.  This is by no means “free advertising.”  Optimizing your website is a long-term commitment.  Your content must contain the keywords and phrases your customers are searching for online.  This includes everything from your product and service descriptions to blogs and links.  SEO involves correlating your content to your target audience’s needs.

Search engine marketing is one of the lowest cost investments for lead generation. According to Google, 76% of people who use their smartphone to perform a search for something nearby will also visit a business within one day. (28%of those searches for something nearby result in a purchase.) If your business is at the top of those results or even on the first page, there is a likely chance you’re getting those customers.  If your business is a few pages in, you may need to improve your SEO.

If your business needs any assistance in improving your search rankings, optimizing your website for search, or putting a pay-per-click ad campaign together, we are here to help you or answer any questions you may have. Our team of dedicated digital marketing specialists is creative problem solvers who are eager to help you grow your business!

Resources:

[1] https://www.webfx.com/internet-marketing/seo-statistics.html

[2] https://www.wordstream.com/ppc

Financial Services Client Case Study

At the time KeyMedia Solutions began working with the client, a local financial lender, they were running all of their online campaigns in-house. As a local financial lender, the main objective was to increase the number of loan applications through their website.

Challenges

Google AdWords was the only source of referrals (Advertising efforts) for their services.

Goals

Increase the number of loan applications through their website by improving their overall CTR (Click Through Rate), which was already strong at 6.06%

Optimizations

In order to achieve our goal of increasing the client’s CTR, we began by deleting low quality, irrelevant keywords and adding negative keywords. We then began to examine the client’s Google Analytics data to improve the number of conversions they were seeing through their site. We did this by running extensive keywords research and developing a new landing page for the client.

Additional implemented optimizations included:

• • • • • Creation of Mobile ads
        • Including ads with dynamic keyword insertions
        • Dayparting
        • Variation of matching types
        • Including Site-Link extensions and phone extensions
        • Geotargeting and testing of different markets.

Campaign Results

After all of the changes were implemented in the ad campaign and on the website, we were able track and report dramatic improvements across multiple key data points for the client.

We were able to improve the client’s CRT from 6.06% to 7.03% over the course of a few months. With our optimizations to the CTR and landing page, we were able to increase the amount of loan applications through their website from 48 to 166 conversions per month – all with the same budget.

                                                        Campaign Overview

DATA	Client	KeyMedia Solutions	Difference
CTR	4.52%	6.33%	40.04%
CPC	$3.75	2.76%	-26.40%
Cost Per Conversion	$37.21	$8.51	-77.13%
Conversion Rate	8.10%	32.49%	301.11%
Total Monthly Conversions	48	166	315.00%

 

 

The point of a business website is to provide online conversions. The point of digital campaigns is to help drive those online conversions. It’s valuable information to understand which digital campaigns are driving the most conversions. For that reason, in my third portion of the Google Analytics series, I’m covering what UTM Parameters are, why they’re important, how to use them, and how to understand the data within Analytics.

If you’d like to have a refresher on Analytics basics, check out Part 1 of my series. To understand how to review visitor activity when they arrive to your site, check out Part 2 of the series.

What are UTM Parameters?

UTM Parameters are tags manually add to the URL. These tags are meant to help specify information about where the traffic came from before landing on your site.

Why are UTM Parameters important?

It’s important to understand where your site traffic is coming from. Knowing which sources are driving the most relevant traffic to your site will help you to decide where to shift your marketing dollars.

Analytics will automatically sort traffic by channels as well as labeled with a source and medium. This is helpful to an extent. For marketers, we want to see which specific campaigns are driving the most relevant traffic to the site. But if you have multiple Facebook campaigns running, that traffic will all fall under the source ‘Facebook’ and medium ‘CPC,’ which is not helpful in finding which specific campaigns are driving more qualified traffic to your site.

We can work around this by simply tagging the URL with UTM parameters. Once someone clicks on the tagged URL those UTM parameters are sent to Google Analytics and will ultimately help organize traffic.

My personal favorite tool for custom URL building is none other than Google Analytics Campaign URL Builder.

How to label UTM Parameters

That all sounds pretty simple until you actually go to label your tags. To provide guidance, I’ve listed out below how I prefer to label:

• Campaign Source (required): For this field I typically label it with the platform. (ex: Facebook, Google, Email)
• Campaign Medium (required): For this field I typically label it with the specific type of content. (ex: CPC, Text, Carousel)
• Campaign Term: This field is typically used to label the paid keyword. If this is a Search campaign and you are using Google Adwords and have your account and Analytics account linked as well as have the auto-tagging feature turned on, you can skip this field.
• Campaign Content: This field is helpful for additional details. I prefer to use this field to help decipher between tests. (ex: Red_Ads)
• Campaign Name: For this field I typically label with as much detail in order to help decipher between my campaigns. (ex: Spring_Campaign, 2017_Campaign, A/B_Test_Content2)

Bonus Tips:

• Spacing within the tags will show up in Analytics as “%20” since spaces actually aren’t allowed in URLs.
• Be consistent with labeling tags so organization within Analytics is easier to understand.
• The tags are case sensitive so remember to use a consistent casing format or else Analytics will sort those URLs separately.

How to analyze the data in Analytics

Now that you’ve implemented UTM parameters within your URLs, you can analyze campaign traffic performance within Analytics. Under the ‘Acquisition’ section in Analytics, there will be the Source/Medium section.

Once here, utilizes the ‘Secondary dimension’ drop down to filter between Campaign as well.  This is one place you can refer to in order to review traffic performs.

Now that you have the tools and tips to properly build custom URLs for your digital campaigns you can begin to dive into the data!

With the uptick of options to sell your products online, it can be difficult to know how to go about it. According the U.S. Census Bureau, in Q3 of 2016 alone, Ecommerce retail grew 15.6%, a trend we’re seeing year over year.

Let’s say you want to list your new kayak and make it easily found when people search online. Then, after someone views the kayak, we can serve them ads as they travel to different sites around the web. This is where Google Merchant Center can make your life easier. With Google Merchant you’re able to upload the product data for people to find your in-store and online inventory. You can then run shopping ad campaigns around those products.

In today’s blog, we’ll go through the opportunities you have with the Google Merchant Center and an overview of setting up your account.

What is Google Merchant Center?

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The Google Merchant Center is a tool businesses can use to setup and sale their products online or showcase their in-store inventory. Once we setup your account, you not only show up in Google shopping results, we’re also able to deliver tailored ads to people that have directly shown interest in your products.

Setting Up Your Account

Now we’ll walk through how to setup an account and upload your inventory.

In order to use Google Merchant Center you must first sign up for an account with Google. If you already have an account with Google (like Gmail), visit

merchants.google.com and sign in to get started.

When you create your Merchant Center account, you’ll be prompted to complete the following:

1. Configure your account and select a location
2. Agree to the Terms of Service

Business Information

Google uses the business information you submit to display to users who view your products online. This information includes:

• Business display name
• Website
• Business address
• Primary contact
• Technical contact (optional)
• Customer service contact (optional)

Product Data

Now that your account is setup, you’re ready to create and upload your product information. The data feed is a list of your products that defines them in unique ways within a text (.txt) or XML (.xml) document. This document is then uploaded into your account.

Before you upload any new feeds, it must be registered. To start, go to “Products” in your Merchant Center account and select “Feeds” from the page menu. Click the plus button to get started. Provide the requested information in the Register a new feed section to continue:

In the “Register a new feed” section, you’ll need to specify several pieces of information about your feed in order to register it:

• Mode
• Type
• Target country
• Content language
• Currency
• Feed name
• Input method
• File name
• Advanced Settings → Enable this feed for
• Fetch Schedule and Fetch Settings

When you’re done specifying your feed settings, click “Save”. Your feed is now listed in the Feeds page.

Once your feed is created and registered, you’re now able to upload your data.

*The above information was provided by Google.

Now What

Now that your account is setup and your produces loaded, you’re ready to start your ad campaigns. Below is an overview of the different ways you can expand your shopping reach.

• Shopping Campaigns: Similar the Search Engine Marketing, Shopping Campaigns use keywords as the targeting option to serve your products when people are actively looking for them. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad and you can display special offers, reviews, or ratings to spark interest.
• Dynamic Remarketing: After someone engages with your product, we don’t want to loose them, that’s where Dynamic Remarketing ads come in. After someone leaves your site, we’re able to serve them ads with the products they interacted with custom messaging to jog their memories.
• Local Inventory Ads: With local inventory ads, you’re able to promote in-store products with up-to-date pricing and availability while encouraging shoppers to come directly to your store.

Work with a Google Certified Partner to help maximize your results and focus on filling your new orders.

In our experience, it’s very common to find spam in Google Analytics accounts. As a matter of fact, we frequently bring this subject up with our clients when we’re performing an audit.

Most of the time, spam doesn’t present a major issue for a company and can be resolved by configuring views and filters in your account. The problems that spammers cause however, cause many of the people we work with to question  how spam is getting into their accounts.

Because of this we’ve found ourselves answering the questions, how and why do spammers even bother putting forth the effort?

Here’s at least a couple of examples of how/why a spammer may target you or you may have simply been randomly impacted. In our experience, it’s typically the latter.

How: Bot Referral Spam

Bot spam typically comes from a list of well known offenders. You may have seen referral URLs ending in .xyz or including “all-share-buttons”. These are most likely Bot SPAM. These are visits to your website from a system that is using algorithms to randomly target websites.

How: Ghost Referral Spam

The most recent instance of spam that we’ve addressed that would only impact your analytics data was the secret.google.com exploit. In exploits like this, the spammer is using the Google Analytics Measurement Protocol to create fake visits to you. These visits look like they’re coming from any site that they want, but they’re not. These visits never actually reach your website. There are also varieties of this type of spam that target language settings instead of referral URLs.

Why

These exploits prey on curiosity. The spammer is hoping that you see a referral page title of something like “Secret.ɢoogle.com You are invited! Enter only with this ticket URL. Copy it. Vote for Trump!” and that you’ll click the link to visit their page. The goal could simply be additional page views for their website, or something more sinister.

The folks at thenextweb.com have found themselves involved in such a plot. A spammer has actually posed as their website to make it appear that they’re sending referral traffic to sites across the web — and they’ve written about the experience here: A Russian Trump Fan is Celebrating by Hacking Google Analytics

What to Do

In most cases, spam is more of a nuisance than an issue for most businesses; however, when working with a Digital Marketing Agency it’s important to work with and optimize campaigns based on data you trust. In those cases, removing spam is a top priority.

If you’re noticing spam in your Google Analytics account and need assistance, we’d be happy to chat. Drop us a line.

Google Analytics is a powerful tool that jams a lot of website data into one place. It’s an amazing resource to help you understand how your website and marketing campaigns are performing. But a lot of businesses don’t take full advantage of this free service. They don’t know how to determine which pieces of information are critical to the success of their business.

One major benefit in utilizing Analytics is to track how visitors are interacting with your site. But if you’re not sure what data to look for or how to set up your analytics, then you might be missing out on very important information.

My blog today is the second in a series of blogs about Google Analytics. If you haven’t had a chance to read Google Analytics Basics Part 1, you can find it here.

In the first post, I covered a lot of basic information, such as how to set up an Analytics account and what type of information is included in the free service. In this second edition, we will be going a little more in-depth and cover the topic of analyzing visitor activity on your site.

 

Analytics is a valuable tool to discover the quality of traffic that’s coming from specific sources, especially traffic that’s coming to the site from your digital campaigns. In this post, I’ll provide you with some of the data that, as a Digital Specialist, I analyze on a regular basis for our clients and their campaigns to help see if we’re receiving the best results. I’ve also provided an example situation where each element of this data comes in handy.

What are my visitors doing?

The majority of the data in Analytics are insights into how visitors are interacting with your site and its content. It’s important to monitor this data in order to answer a lot of questions like Who is my audience? Where are they coming from? And what are they doing once they’re on my site?

Under the “Acquisition” tab, there’s a “Source/Medium” outbreak. This is probably one of the most important pieces of data in Analytics for a Digital Specialist.

This section provides the information of how many sessions certain sources are driving and the quality of those sources. Analyzing the quality of traffic each source is driving to the site can be valuable. This information directs you for digital marketing opportunities or shows insights into traffic from current campaigns.

Example:

Your business is running a Display campaign but you see that the majority of the traffic coming from this campaign is immediately bouncing from your site. You might want to re-evaluate the audience you’re targeting with this Display campaign because it might be irrelevant traffic you’re directing to your site.

Another section that’s a go-to for Digital Specialists like myself is the Behavior Flow chart. This is located in the “Behavior” section.

This chart categorizes how the majority of traffic on your site is navigating through different pages and maybe eventually even converting. It also provides insight into where traffic might be leaving or exiting your site more than normal.

Example:

You’re reviewing your site’s Behavior Flow chart and notice a large amount of drop off on your email newsletter signup page after a site redesign. This is unusual because, before the redesign, the site was receiving a 70% signup rate when visitors landed on this page.

After investigating the situation, you realize that the newsletter form to signup is below the fold when visitors arrive on both the desktop and mobile page. After updating the page layout so the form is above the fold, drop off rates decreased and signup conversions went back up to normal.

What information are my visitors looking for?

Site Search is powerful when analyzing how visitors are navigating your site. Once this tool is set up on your website, you can enable tracking within Analytics to better understand what information visitors are looking for or what information they’re having trouble finding.

If you have Site Search within your site, it’s pretty easy to turn on the reporting within Analytics for it. It must be turned on for each individual View level within an Analytics account. Here’s a list of steps to activate Site Search:

1. Under Site Search Settings, set Site Search Tracking to ON.
2. In the Query Parameter field, you will need to define the word or words that determine an internal query parameter.
3. Select whether or not you use categories, such as drop-down menus to refine a site search.
   • If you do not, then you’re finished and can hit “Save Changes.”
   • If you do use categories:
     • In the Category Parameter field, enter the letters that designate an internal query category such as “dog.”
     • Click “Apply.”

Once Site Search is set up and enabled, you can find reporting for this information under the “Behavior” section in the left-hand column.

Example:

Within the top tool bar on your site, there’s a clearly labeled “Contact Us” subpage. But after reviewing your Site Search information you notice there are a lot of people searching for an email address. You then investigate your site content’s page report and see that there isn’t a lot of sessions on the “Contact Us” page.

To find out why this is occurring, you could test out different locations of your subpages menu or have contact information right on the home page or at the bottom of every page.

Are my visitors converting?

It’s not only the pageviews and duration you need to track.

One of the most important things to do once you have an Analytics account is to set up goals. This is to help you be able to track how many visitors are completing actions on your site; be that landing on the contact page, signing up for a newsletter, purchasing an item, etc.

Goals also help determine if there are any “roadblocks” that are stopping your visitors from converting.

Under the Admin tab in the top toolbar, you’ll find the Account, Property, and View sections. Within the View section, there is “Goals.” To be courteous of the length of this post, today we’ll only go over a URL Destination Goal. But keep an eye out for a guide on how to set up different types of goals in future posts.

A URL Destination Goal is triggered when someone lands on that specific URL on your page, such as a thank you page, confirmation page, or a PDF. Here’s a list of steps to set up a goal:

1. Hit the red +Goal button to create a new goal.
2. In Step 1: Goal Setup, choose “Custom.”
3. In Step 2: Goal Description
   1. Name the goal.
   2. Choose “Destination.”
4. In Step 3: Goal Details in the destination box, put the landing page that you would like to track.

Example:

You have a big seminar coming up next month and a majority of your event registrations come from your website. In regard to the registrations, you’d like to know if more people signup on the home page or on the blog subpages.

To determine this, you could set up two goals – one for the “Thank You” page after signing up on the home page of your site and one goal for the “Thank You” page after signing up on a blog subpage.

Now that you have the basics down from edition 1 and some powerful analyzing tips from this edition, you’re on your way to becoming an Analytics superhero!

Make sure you keep your eyes open for my next edition of the Google Analytics series where I’ll cover:

• Custom URL Tracking
• Goal Tracking Data
• Button Goal Tracking