Dark Social – the unknown attribution

The term ‘dark social’ is doing the rounds in Silicon Valley. It’s not as sinister as the literal meaning suggests. We’ve all heard of ‘first click’ & ‘last click’ attribution and now there’s “self reported attribution” which is basically asking folks to count inbound leads / demo requests, etc about on which social channel they saw (Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc) or heard (Podcast, talking to a friend / colleague) about your business. So, we’re back to unbranded / branded awareness questions …. It’s a good graph below atleast to make you think. Note the graph is based on n=128 self reported high intention leads.

The shortcoming of XML Schema for Search Engine Optimization

In short, there is no reporting or way to measure the impact / improvement a website has when we instrument Schema Mark Up. The promise of deeper Google indexation of content on webpages is something clients take our word for. The tag is served by Google Tag Manager so we just assume it helps with SEO indexation. But does it?

Here’s some more information about it https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/structured-data/intro-structured-data as well.

evertrue-schama

Probably the most logical schema is theLocalBusiness Main location & LocalBusiness Per location Pages as this can be used to help store locations get better indexed in local results on Google, Bing, etc.

E-Commerce Conversion Metrics Can Confuse Novices

Increasingly, as businesses sell more online, financial folks have to understand Google Analytics E-Commerce Conversion data. It can be confusing to those who are not familiar with it.

The most common e-commerce conversion rate is 1% – 2% that we see across the board for online retailers.

The 1.61% e-commerce conversion rate for this online retailer in the Full Year End 2022 shows the % of of visitors who come to the website and buy online. It is best to compare time series and we often show the previous financial year as a comparison. In the below Google Analytics chart, you can see this online retailer e-commerce conversion rate is up 23% overall with it being up 65% for Google paid search which shows the focus on buying / targeting relevant keywords.

It is important to break out the e-commerce conversion rate by source / medium. Direct Traffic e-commerce conversion rates should be higher than paid and organic if the brand is strong. There is usually a higher buying intent of folks coming directly to a website than through Google Ads paid media or Google organic search queries.

conversions-google-analytics

The other big factor that should be considered when analyzing e-commerce conversion rates is the price of the good. Higher order value products often have lower e-commerce conversion rates.

As shown in  below, this large online retailer with an average order value of $130 has a 1.27% e-commerce conversion rate That is a lower than the above online retailer who has an average order value is $780.

conversions-google-analytics1
When comparing e-commerce conversion rates to others, it depends and varies widely by industry, type of product / price, etc. I’ve included a table below which shows conversion rates by product type.
conversion-rates-by-product-type

If you are looking to improve e-commerce conversion rates, a redesign of the shopping cart pages to  reduced bounce rate and increase transactions is a good place to start.

Online Dating: A Proxy for Mass Shift in Online Behaviour

If there’s one data point to take to your next dinner party, coffee meet up or side talk at a business meeting, it’s this one. One observation that caught my eye was that is this graph also telling us that more people are less likely to socialize in groups and visit bars and spend more time online? Either way, the most primeval instincts is now online. That is, finding a partner. This was first released in 2019 at https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1908630116.

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The Inconvenient OnDemand & Micromobility Economy

In 2007, I posted this pic of Al Gore and me at Paragon restaurant on 2nd Street & Townsend in San Francisco. A few weeks back I was enjoying a coffee with friends before the San Francisco Giants ballgame when I noticed this tow truck removing the Revel scooter from 2nd Street.. It’s a local rule to clear traffic around the ballpark on game days for obvious reasons.

Having had my car towed from the Sansome Street in the city years ago, I know the $350++ fine awaits as per SFMTA. What is interesting is that the on demand economy sometimes doesn’t interact with the offline economy. I’ve seen Lime Bikes in trees and one in a creek in Menlo Park!

Some more work to do for the engineers at these companies …

towaway

Google Reviews Update

Google Reviews matter to retailers and service providers from plumbers, restaurants and realtors. In a rare insight into how reviews are analyzed, Google has release the below video.

It all seems intuitive and logical. At a practical level having dozens of clients that we manage Google My Business Pages for, we note there is a no exact correlation between the number of reviews and rankings of companies in Google results pages, both on Google Search and Google Maps Pack.

While most of the time businesses with higher Google scores (gold stars) rank higher, it’s not an absolute guarantee. Some simple tips before your business reports asks Google to review / delete a review can be found here.

Most importantly Google wont take sides on facts as they can’t verify the incident so the best advice is to provide a measured, well balanced and non emotional response to a bad review.

Forever Young Warnie

I know Kenna, Sean (Garida), Paul & Daz Moon, Hilly, me and the boys at South Melbourne CC will always remember our glorious teenage cricket games on matting wickets against Warnie and the East Sandy lads. Heart goes out to Gaz Edwards who was part of the group staying at the Samujan resort in Koh Samui. Gaz (then at 888 Poker) invited me to the HardRock Cafe in Las Vegas about 10 years ago. I flew down from San Francisco for the night.Gaz, Warnie, Jeff Fenech and I enjoyed a good night. It was part of the World Series of Poker tourney and 888 sponsored Shane. Forever young Warnie. RIP mate.

shane-warne

 

Google “auto apply recommendations” Warning

Warning. Do not accept Google’s “auto apply recommendations”. Advertisers will receive emails from Google with subject lines “For your approval | Turn on auto apply recommendations to help improve marketing objectives”. Copy of email below in Screenshot #1.

Here’s why. Google will auto populate audiences and then they are attached to advertising campaigns “automatically”. Most advertisers don’t know they are giving Google approval for new keywords to be automatically assigned to Ad Campaigns and new audiences (often which are not relevant) to be attached to existing campaigns. See Screenshot #2.

Be diligent and do not allow Google to automatically apply recommendations to your advertising account. Would you let an algorithm invest your own money? No. So be sure to keep manually setting audiences, locations, bid prices and choose keywords to bid on.

The old saying “Keep your hands on the wheel and eyes on the road” applies!

Screenshot #1

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Screenshot #2

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Google Data Studio Provides Insight into 100+ Retail Stores

Google Data Studio is a powerful tool and connecting multiple Google Analytics accounts to aggregate data is one way to create insights. Our team is constantly completing data projects using Google Data Studio to improve insights for our clients.

In addition to being listed on FirstNational.com.au, each First National Member office operates their own individual local .com.au website. SearchForecast aggregated data from 100+ Google Analytics accounts of FNRE member local URLs into a customized Google Data Studio dashboard. Now, it is possible to show aggregate analytics, benchmark various locations (Australia Vs New Zealand) and compate real estate offices by state or individual suburbs and regions.

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Cellars.com.au Scores “Game Changer” Accolade in SEMRush Growth Quadrant

Last year SearchForecast built a 2 sided marketplace platform for Australian website Cellars.com.au which you can read about here. We are excited to announce SEMRush recently included Cellars.com.au as a ‘Game Changer’ in their Competitive Quadrant. A “Game Changer” is defined by SEMRush as an “emerging website with a high growth potential.” In less than 18 months, 400+ wineries are now drop-shipping over 3,500 wine on their platform. 100% of the traffic is organic courtesy of our search engine optimization techniques.

Growth Quadrant (October 2021, AU, cellars.com.au)