At Razorfish Search we’re wincing in anticipation of the day Larry Page snuffs out Exact Match, a beautiful bit of engineering that delivers EXACTLY what we paid for. If yesterday’s post on the Google Blog — announcing the new default option of including misspellings and plurals with exact match — is any indication, Google is going to slide into evil with a level of transparency and a sense of history that would make an oil company blush.

The post didn’t mention that Google’s new matching is exactly the same as Yahoo’s unlamented “Match Driver,” a factor in advertisers’ preference for Google back in the days when the two companies competed in search. The post also didn’t mention the likely impetus for this change: a surprising 8% year-over-year CPC decline that put a damper on GOOG’s Q4 earnings call. Seems a few too many Google customers found out you can get more conversions for less money with a smart keyword strategy of multiple-match-type buys of the same keywords. (Razorfish didn’t see the 2011 CPC decline – presumably because our clients have been enjoying these discounts for years.)

Rolling back the glorious precision of exact match is one way to “earn” more per click. If Google were our client, though, we’d point out angering your best customers and being less than straightforward about the decision is a tough way to win Likes and Friends. Oh, right — we mean +1s. Whatever.

A few weeks ago I went to the hair salon to get my hair cut.   As my hair dresser cuts my hair, we begin talking about hobbies, friends, family and…my career.  Once he learns that I’m into “online advertising” (as I put it, to refrain from trying to explain SEM), he immediately talks to me about Twitter (in a very excited and enthusiastic manner).  For the next half hour, our conversation consists of him telling me – “Follow me on twitter!” “We should be friends!” “Can you tweet that you’re at Salon XYZ?” and “Oh yeah, don’t forget… follow me on Twitter!”  Whoa, what did I get myself into?   After I left the salon, of course I followed him on Twitter. (Hang in there, there’s a reason for this anecdote.)

A few weeks later, I read this article on Search Engine Land, and it made me think about the conversation my hairdresser and I had.  Social media has grown to become a viable tool for many small businesses.  Social  media helps businesses to create brand awareness and build brand relationships with their customers or potential customers.  My hairdresser insisted that I follow him on Twitter so that he could develop a relationship with me, by sending tweets for upcoming salon events – and also in the hopes that I would recommend his salon to my friends.

A recent report from Borrell Associates predicts that small businesses will focus more dollars on social media advertising and other promotional spending (i.e. email marketing) over paid search advertising.

Come again?  Yes, that’s right – the new study shows that social media advertising spend will surpass paid search advertising spend by 2012.   According to the study about 45 – 70% of small businesses are already using social media as a medium.   In late November, a survey from MerchantCircle discovered that 70% of small businesses use Facebook to promote their business.  The chart below illustrates the percentage of businesses that used different social platforms for their businesses in 2011.

In 2011, social media spend was just behind paid search for small businesses.  The Borrell report estimated that approximately $6.2 billion was spent on social media advertising in 2011 (overall small and large businesses) – 65% of those dollars was spent on Facebook advertising.   Small businesses accounted for $1.14 billion of social media spend.

The Borrell report goes into further detail on how small businesses measure success.   57% of small businesses said “new customers” was a key metric in measuring success, followed by “additional fans, friends, followers,” “increased visits to business social network pages”, etc.

With the ever evolving search landscape – and Google’s recent rollout of Search, plus Your World, it makes sense how social media is becoming so important to businesses as a whole.  It is becoming imperative that businesses (both small and large) begin to think about their social media strategies and the integration of social media and paid search marketing in their business initiatives.  Now that users have the ability to choose between more personalized search results rather than standard web results, it is important that businesses have a presence in social communities.

Where does your business or brand stand in social media adoption? … And speaking of social media adoption, remember to follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook!

I wish I could say told you so… Oh wait, I just did. First things first… the Internet is growing… at least in terms of traffic. However, we already know that! Last April I wrote a POV on the rise of the tablet devices and a follow-up is in order. In the world of search advertising, mobile phones and tablets continue to outpace the performance of search ads on PCs, while representing only a fraction of impressions and investment, according to Marin Software.

Lots of factors are affecting this, such as the continued upgrades that telephone service providers are providing, the cost of mobile and tablet devices are going down, and the growth of mobile and tablet internet impressions and clicks. Phones and tablet devices are allowing users to do more than ever online… while on the go. According to eMarketer, tablets shipped out have nearly tripled from 2010, which confirms the usage of these devices is rising fast.

Remember, the average consumer is using multiple devices during the purchase funnel when deciding on a product or service. This division will increase and our job, as a search marketer, is to ensure that the consumer has a good experience on all devices. Also, our job will best serve client’s interests by focusing on three fronts:

1. Tablet-friendly sites: With greater usage of tablet devices, brands will have to maintain a user-friendly presence across all devices. Tablet conversion could ultimately double or triple if optimized correctly.
2. Attribution: A purchase that begins with a tablet device often ends on the desktop or at the store (depending on vertical). As search marketers, we need to keep this in mind and allocate search budgets across devices appropriately after accounting for attribution.
3. Tailor Search Campaigns: Search marketers should aim to reach the consumer across devices in a manner consistent with how these devices are used. Remember, the medium is the message.

If you want to shoot me a line, a question or send cupcakes, you can direct all these inquiries to Rebecca.Keen@razorfish.com.

There are so many Google product releases and industry news bulletins about their implications, it’s easy to miss a big one. We’re calling attention to www.focusontheuser.org, a project designed by interested Google-watchers, to highlight a monumental decision by the search giant: to overrule its ranking algorithm in promoting Google+.

The product in question – “Search Plus Your World” – was marketed as simple elevation of relevant social links in search results. The people behind focusontheuser built a widget to demonstrate that, actually, the new product cherry-picks Google’s own social results from Google’s index, no matter what the holy algorithm has deemed most relevant to the user’s query. It does indeed look very much like “Search Plus Your World” lifts Google+ results above Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn results that Google’s search algorithm correctly ranked higher.

This flies in the face of Google’s culture, core to which is the belief that optimal engineering is the optimal business plan. No wonder the decision is causing a wave of disgust in the developer community. It’s fascinating that Google has released no statement defending the decision (we requested a comment and waited 48 hours before publishing this post). Google resisted the business case for advancing its own properties via search throughout Eric Schmidt’s 10-year tenure as CEO. It seems co-founder Larry Page feels differently now that he’s the one reporting quarterly earnings. The fact that Google’s communications department doesn’t have its story straight yet suggests this huge decision wasn’t even thought through.

As newspaper circulation continues to decline, so does the reach of printed ad circulars/free standing inserts, which are important drivers of both brick and mortar and ecommerce sales. Along with challenges of decreased reach, retailers are also finding that the promotional lift of circulars is declining. According to research conducted by Nielsen, printed circulars are less effective than they were 6 years ago. In 2010, the average ROI boost of printed circulars was 20% compared to 28% in 2005. Retailers are faced with the challenge of maintaining and/or expanding the reach and efficiency of circulars in a declining print market.

In many ways, the internet has replaced the Sunday paper. According to an Audience Insight Survey released in December 2011 from interclick, two thirds of Americans are learning about in-store deals online. In addition, 42% of consumers prefer online advertising to newspapers and other sources, and those consumers who see in-store deals online are more likely to visit a brick and mortar store. This is especially true for electronics, grocery, drug, department, and clothing retailers.  Many retailers have made circulars available on their websites; however the associated user experience of these is fairly poor and very few can be viewed on tablet or mobile devices.

Google has acknowledged this challenge and recently launched a new product that offers an interactive and personalized circular experience aptly named Google Circulars. This product was launched in October 2011 with a small alpha test of US retailers including Macy’s, Best Buy, Home Depot and others. The success of the alpha has led Google to move this product into a beta release launching in Q1 2012 with an expanded set of retailers and vendors.

Google has always had an emphasized focus on the retail industry, and many of the beta opportunities they have rolled out over the past few years have been designed specifically for retail partners. They have increasingly understood the challenges retailers face in utilizing online channels to drive in store purchase. With Google Circulars, they are hoping to further bridge this gap by offering a more robust and user friendly digital circular solution.

Google Circulars presents an exciting new opportunity to utilize digital circulars in a highly customized and targeted way. The breadth of data that Google has access to use in serving personalized circulars is unprecedented and this new ad format has shown early success. As with any new marketing opportunities, there are risks involved in being an early adopter. The lack of proven success, as well as the potential resources required to run such a program, are very real barriers. In addition, the monthly minimum media spend would result in incremental cost or reduced spend in existing tactics. Success of this initiative is ultimately dependent on consumer adoption and engagement. While it’s too early to say whether or not Google Circulars will be a success, this product offering does attempt to fill a growing need of offer communication between retailers and consumers.

To read the full Razorfish Health POV on Google Circulars, click here.

There’s been a lot of speculation about the future of Google+ since it launched last June. Recently, we heard about their strong December showing with a hefty increase in sign ups, but the jury is still out on whether this offering will end as a flop or resounding success.

After going public in September, the nascent social network now has around 50 million active users. Some estimates put the number over 60 million, with still others going as high as 150 million. The approach so far has been to emphasize the use of Circles which allows users to easily control what they share with members of their network. This, along with Hangouts, has formed their core value proposition thus far. While it may not be destined to overtake Facebook as the king of the social world, it may be able to carve out its own niche and help Google stay relevant in an increasingly “social” world. One can only imagine how targeted Google could make its ads once it pulls in a user’s Google+ info.

Either it will be a huge success or it’ll suffer the fate of Buzz and countless other failed pet projects the internet giant has launched in the past. The new network certainly has several things going for it, so this could be a case where the final ruling lies somewhere in the middle.

Brands Can Augment Paid Search and SEO Efforts

With the introduction of Google+ pages for businesses, one trend we have noticed is that Google+ pages are enjoying increased visibility within organic search results. As reported by multiple sources, many top brands now have Google + pages which now appear in organic results, taking up a decent amount of real estate to boot. This could serve as a clear sign to businesses that setting up a Google+ page is akin to an investment in SEO, allowing them greater presence on and potential dominance of the search results page.

Integration with Android Devices

The latest generation of Android smartphones are now optimized for Google+, allowing the social network to grow along with the Android platform. The Android OS already owns about half of the US smartphone market. As adoption grows, Google+ will come along for the ride, enjoying the benefits of Android’s success. With the activation of every new Android device, Google+ will be given the opportunity to increase its ranks.

Google’s Acquisition of 200+ IBM Patents

Google’s recent move to purchase patents from IBM was undoubtedly an effort to bolster its defenses against litigation of the intellectual property variety threatening Android. Yet, there were some curious patents in its latest haul that could hint at new products/innovations. Perhaps the most interesting was a patent detailing the analysis of user-generated content to ascertain potential interests and preferences. The system would use semantic cues from user posts to identify individuals who may be interested in particular topics without having to rely on self-reported interests. This would allow Google+ to connect its users with other individuals who may share their interests based on their behavior within the Google+ community and would also allow for even more relevant search results.

Since we all know Google is in the business of providing results that are as relevant as possible (read: those most likely to be clicked), this validates the purchase of these patents. Also, the benefit to advertisers cannot be ignored, as this could serve as an invaluable tool allowing for more precise targeting of potential customers.

If Google+ is to survive, it will need to distinguish itself. Given their preeminence in search, the continued growth of the Android platform, and any potential innovations they may have planned (whether related to newly acquired patents or not), Google may carve out a truly unique identity for its little social network that could. They will need to continue highlighting the benefits of Google+ and how it differs from its competitors, so that users are motivated enough to try yet another social network. The road ahead will be a long one, but if they arrive at their desired destination, it will be well worth the effort.

Following the 2010 acquisition of travel software company ITA Software, Google has been actively rolling out ‘experiments’ in the travel space such as Google Flight Search and Hotel Finder which are an attempt at providing “travel tools that provide faster, more flexible, and more useful results to online travel searches.”

Google’s latest experiment builds on the Hotel Finder tool and is known as a Google Hotel Comparison ad. Given the ad’s prominence within the premium ad space and the potential impact on Hotel advertisers, the Razorfish search team has pulled together a brief POV that should provide some deeper details on what a Hotel Comparison ad is as well as potential implications on the Hotel Industry.

Background

• Google Hotel Finder, the destination of Hotel Comparison ads is designed to maximize the travel consumers experience from discovery to booking
• Google Hotel Finder launched July 2011, an online hotel tool that lets users add Hotels to a short list, isolate desired neighborhoods, select travel dates, view user ratings & reviews, price compare and book through Hotel Price Ads (via reseller or suppliers)
• Hotel Comparison Ads were first introduced Fall 2011 and were eligible on <5% of queries-recently scaling to an unknown number of queries on Google.com

What is Google Hotel Comparison Ad?

• A “house ad” placement that does not participate in the auction, serves in “Top Promotional” spot above the white line within sponsored listings and drives to Hotel Finder

• Does not impact other ads ranking on the page
• Does not impact the number of eligible ads that can appear on the page ensuring all impressions and positions are available to advertisers
• Does occupy the most desirable real-estate within paid results indirectly impacting the value of the available positions (e.g. pushing down the paid listings)
• Hotel Comparison ad is only eligible for hotel-related queries, appears to be serving on unbranded and US only at this time

Implications:

• Google has no immediate plans to iterate to a reseller or supplier ad opportunity at this time

• Geared towards driving traffic to Hotel Finder and ultimately Hotel Price Ads
• With user traction Google has opportunity to emerge as one-stop research and booking platform
• Organic property link is displayed within Hotel Price Ads at point of the Booking, additional paid link opportunity exists through participation in Hotel Price Ads via API integration
• Pushes down paid real-estate available to advertisers through the auction

Additional Reading:

• http://searchengineland.com/google-tests-hotel-finder-as-comparison-ad-104661
• http://www.seroundtable.com/google-hotel-ads-14458.html

We would love to hear your thoughts on the potential impact of Google’s new experiment or even discover how this experiment has impacted your campaigns. Feel free to continue the conversation in the comments below, on Facebook or on Twitter @searchshots.

Background:

Google has been getting personal with search results since 2009 customizing and suggesting results based on your web history.

Now Google is getting personal with marketers – stripping the search keyword from the Google organic referred traffic for signed-in Google account users. There is no impact to paid search as this time. Google will continue to provide insight to queries generating traffic via paid search allowing advertisers to optimize to relevant behavior. Google describes this latest announcement as an enhancement to protect privacy of users.

Situation:

On Tuesday October 18, 2011, Google announced on their blog that users logged into Google would see their organic queries default to HTTPS (Secure HTTP) https://www.google.com instead of HTTP.

This change will reduce visibility into why visitors are coming to web properties for signed-in Google searchers. In other words we won’t be able to determine the type of keyword used to arrive to the site from Google organic search. We also won’t be able to track the content viewed or actions taken from that particular organic keyword visit.

This referring information will be missing from all the solutions that track usage on web sites, including Google analytics and all the web analytics vendors (Omniture, Webtrends, Coremetrics). However, according to Google, we will still be able to get to some of this in depth keyword information in Google Webmaster Tools.

Immediate Impact:

At this time it is estimated that this change is currently impacting just fewer than 10% of the referrals originating from Google.

Here is why:

• Queries are only encrypted and noted as “not provided” when users are signed-in to Google accounts and perform a search on Google.com (not a partner site or Google toolbar)
• Google has not fully enabled this change to all Google signed-in users

Why this Will Likely Change:

The adoption of the new social network Google+ (see appendix) got off to a quick start, reaching more than ten million users in its first few weeks of field trial. However, Google+ has struggled to reach the “mainstream” audience and is currently only 10% of Facebook’s audience reach. Google+ also has .01% the level of engagement with the total online population compared to Facebook.

The Google+ adoption rate is a key consideration, as users flock to the network it is likely more users will remain “signed-in” to Google accounts throughout the day. The continued growth of Gmail, YouTube and other “sign-in” Google properties will also continue to influence the number of signed-in users in the future as well.

Strategy

• The best practices for optimizing your site – on-page, backlinks, social, internal linking – are unchanged

Measurement

• To quantify impact, Razorfish recommends benchmarking “not provided” visitors as % of total visits referred by Google Organic to gauge scale of signed–in users

• Available Through Omniture

What performance indicators/views are at risk for secure search signed in Google traffic?

• organic keyword performance (traffic, ROI, bounce rate, engagement, page views etc.)
• landing page keyword targeting and benchmarking growth
• paid/organic keyword click/revenue share
• competitive footprint

Technology

• Ensure Webmaster Tools Account with Google is verified

• Webmaster Tools account will provide top organic queries
• Available referring queries will exclude site interaction such as page views and on-site activities (bookings, conversions, leads, etc.)

Conclusion:

While the immediate impact is limited to less than 10% of traffic this has the potential to scale with stickiness of Google products requiring sign-in such as Gmail and Google+. With scale, blocking this data from site analytics reporting also impacts ad networks that rely on this data to monetize content based on search/user on-site behavior.

An important next step is benchmarking impact and creating proxies for potential loss of insight over time.

Typically Google does not release a lot of details around these types of changes. Razorfish plans to trend data over the next few weeks and develop a formal Point Of View detailing impact.

Download the Google Secure Search POV.

About Google+

In July, Google launched Google+, a new social network poised to offer a more custom experience compared to social network giant Facebook. Google+ is seamlessly integrated with all Google products (Gmail, Google.com, Maps, etc) and virtually any experience you have on the web. With the Google+ Button (similar to the Facebook “Like”), you signal to Google what you are interested in. When this is combined with what you are searching for and the sites you visited, Google has the capacity to aggregate these data points to create an experience just for you. This personalized experience is well positioned to be monetized via “interest based” advertising categories. For more information on Google+, download the Razorfish Google+ POV.

Background

The Google Display Network (GDN, formerly referred to as the Google Content Network) has an extremely large inventory pool of sites across the internet. GDN was initially launched on October 23, 2000, and in more than a decade has grown to one of the largest online advertising properties in the world.  It is estimated that this network reaches 89% of the internet in the U.S., with over 1 million publishers and 211 million unique users per week (comScore Networks machine-based panel). Paid search and display media ads can be served across this network, and audiences can be targeted in several different ways. Ads are served alongside content specified by the advertiser. This brief will take a deep dive into the targeting capabilities of the GDN, and the benefits of the GDN for a paid search advertiser.

GDN and Digital Advertising

Paid search advertising and display media advertising both have the opportunity to advertise within the GDN. The main difference between these two mediums is cost structure. Display media is usually bought on a cost-per-thousand (CPM) basis, meaning the advertiser pays each time 1,000 impressions are served. Thus, each advertiser’s display media impression must be a valuable placement.

Paid search advertising is usually purchased on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis. This means that the advertiser only pays when their ad is clicked on. With this cost structure, there is more flexibility in what sites these ads are placed. If the site is not compatible with the ad, then the ad will not get served and no cost is incurred. Paid search advertising using the GDN is an excellent way for an advertiser to reach a greater audience and still maintain efficiencies.

While targeting is critical for both types of digital advertising to reach the right audience at the right time, the implications of highly specific targeting are usually more essential for display media to ensure that impressions are not lost on an extraneous audience. However, all targeting options in the GDN are available for purchase on a CPM or CPC basis for both text and display ads, depending on the advertiser’s goals.

Types of GDN Targeting

Contextual Targeting - selecting specific keywords and/or topics where the advertiser would like an ad to appear. Contextual targeting is done on the page level, not the site level for maximum relevancy.

Keyword Contextual Targeting – advertisers select certain keywords that are relevant to them, and bid to appear alongside this content. This ad may appear on any site across the GDN where there are those keywords on the page. The scale of this method of advertising could be very large, depending on the keywords that are being targeted. It is usually recommended to layer this type of targeting with another method to increase relevancy and minimize waste.

Topic Contextual Targeting – advertisers select certain topics that are relevant to them, and bid for their ad to appear on pages of these sites.  This ad may appear on sites across the GDN that are categorized under that topic. This method is very broad-reaching as well, and is usually recommended in combination with another targeting method for an advertiser interested in reaching a specific audience.

Placement Targeting – advertisers select certain sites and/or sections of sites that are relevant to them, and bid for their ad to appear on pages of these sites. These sites can be selected by the advertiser using Google Tools such as Ad Planner, which uses Nielson data to index sites in the GDN based on:

• Demographics (Household Income, Age, Gender, Education)
• Online Activity (Other Sites Your Audience Visits, Keywords Your Audience Searches For)
• Interest Categories (i.e. Cooking & Recipes, Women’s Interests, Weddings)

In practice, Razorfish usually finds this method to be the most successful approach to the GDN, because sites/sections that index highly against a target market can be cherry-picked for extremely relevant targeting.

Behavior Targeting – Advertisers select certain topics that are relevant to them, and bid for their ad to appear across the GDN to users who match those interests. This method can be used to reach a large audience as well as a more targeted, niche audience. A user’s interests are either declared interests (through the Ad Preferences Manager), or are inferred based on their browsing behavior, specifically their recent and frequent site visits. This method of targeting is usually used for broad-reaching awareness campaigns or advertisers that seek site visitors that abandoned part of an intent funnel.

Inferred Demographic Targeting – advertisers bid on an audience where Google has inferred their demographic based on their GDN history. A user’s demographic is determined by a number of sources, including user registration data, 3^rd Party data and site composition. The registration data that is used in Inferred Demographic Targeting may come from YouTube registration, or other undisclosed sites in the GDN that capture registration information. Specific targeting sources cannot be cherry-picked, and Google takes all into account when inferring a demographic. The composition index of a site determines the inferred demographic. For example, if a person visits a fashion site, and then visits a parenting site, then Google may infer the demographic as a Female 25-54. If an advertiser uses Inferred Demographic Targeting for this target, then Google will serve an ad in the GDN network to that person. Google is constantly improving the dataset used to determine user Demographics and will incorporate new data sources as they become available. Additionally, this feature is currently in Beta and advertisers must request to be whitelisted by Google to participate.

This newer method of targeting may have benefits for an advertiser that has an extremely specific audience they wish to target, and should be tested alongside other GDN methods. However, because demo-inferred targeting is still in beta and takes very little user self-identification into account, it should not be used exclusively as a preferred GDN targeting method without the support of testing and analysis alongside the other methods.

Below is an example of how an advertiser can use a Google tool, Ad Preferences Manager, to target select audiences.

Remarketing – advertisers bid on an audience that visited their site (or a site which will allow them to implement a pixel) and their ad is displayed across the GDN. This method is often used for CRM marketing, or if the visitor was in the middle of a conversion funnel and then left. In the example given below, Special K can remarket those that visited the Special K Challenge Registration page but did not fulfill registration.

Hybrid GDN Targeting - GDN Targeting products can be combined together to reach a very specific, desired audience. As targeting layers increase, an advertiser will be reaching a more specific audience and a smaller percentage of the total population.

GDN Benefits for Paid Search

With the targeting capabilities and mass reach of GDN, there is a greater opportunity to expand paid search marketing campaigns. Expanding an advertiser’s paid search marketing presence will lead to impactful benefits such as:

1. Efficiencies – It has been established with prior campaign history that paid search is one of the most efficient means of advertising. However, paid search on sponsored search (i.e. Google.com) can sometimes be expensive if an advertiser is bidding on keywords where there are many other competitors, which may increase CPC and overall cost significantly. Including GDN and network targeting can be essential for an advertiser with many competitors who is concerned with efficiencies such as CPC and CPA (cost-per-action).

2. Reach – there are a finite number of searches for a set of keywords, and search trends must increase if an advertiser wants to expand their paid search marketing efforts. GDN offers an opportunity to expand reach beyond basic sponsored search results.

3. Relevancies – GDN is an opportunity for an advertiser to appear alongside relevant content or a target audience efficiently.

4. Testing - GDN is a way test sites and targets with minimal cost commitment (budgets can be set as low as $1 a day for only one day)

5. Turn-Key Implementation – ads are the same format as traditional paid search ads (130 characters) and can be created quicker than other advertising creative.

Google has officially announced Google Analytics Premium! Google’s first enterprise analytics product will be available directly from Google and many Google Analytics Premium Certified Resellers. They apply a more simplified pricing approach compared to the confusing contract pricing which is based on server calls and options that the rest of the enterprise industry has established. The especially interesting thing is this flat fee could result in saving money for larger clients switching from Omniture or Webtrends; however, this could also end up being more expensive for medium-sized clients looking to move to Google Analytics Premium. Regardless, it’s important to weigh the Pros and Cons of each product’s features and perform an analysis of whether the investment is worth the price tag. Here are the key features of your Premium investment:

In addition to requiring no code change to upgrade from Standard to Premium, one great aspect of Google Analytics Premium is that the interface look and feel hasn’t changed at all. The only change is the addition of the Unsampled Report export button:

Attribution Modeling (PREMIUM ONLY): Advanced analysis, simplified

Although it’s limited to only Google Analytics Premium customers, this advanced analysis tool provides powerful multi-channel attribution that actually seems easy to use! If your client is a DART For Advertisers customer then this tool will prove even more powerful since media impressions can be weighted in the model as well. There are several different types of attribution models that a user can select or compare based on their needs. Here are the ones that were presented:

• Last Interaction (only the last touchpoint matters)
• Linear (every touchpoint gets equal credit)
• First Click (only the first touchpoint matters)
• Time Decay (more recent touchpoints get more credit)
• U Curve (value early and recent touchpoints)
• Engagement-based (value the touchpoints based on the amount of time on site they drove)
• Custom (you name it, you got it)

This powerful feature may truly put Attribution Modeling on the map, in terms of digital analytics, in the same way that Google Analytics initially put Bounce Rate on the map. Unfortunately, only Premium customers will get to feel the power. The interface looks relatively simple, but will require a truly analytical eye to glean actionable takeaways. One note worth mentioning is that Google demands that privacy policies be updated to include mention that attribution modeling is taking place, yet no PII is being collected.

Google Analytics Right Now: Real-time site-side reporting

Google has a completely new product feature that nobody else in the enterprise site-side analytics space has created: real-time reporting. According to Google and tests we’ve performed, this new report set has a delay of only 1-2 seconds between the tag being called and the report populating. When you view the reports, you can see a live stream of statistics and learn exactly how your website is being used at that very moment. Google has actually decreased the session timeout to just 5 minutes for Right Now. These new reports provide the following report data:

• Medium / Source
• Geo-Location (IP-Based)
• Pages
• Pageviews
• Visitors
• New vs. Returning %

Right Now seems to be one of those features that sounds (and looks) really cool, but probably won’t get used every day. While chatting with colleagues at Razorfish, it sounds like the best use for this data could be during events: new site launches, campaign launches, marketing events, and social media events.

If you’d like to gain early access to Google Analytics Real Time, you can sign up here: https://services.google.com/fb/forms/realtimeanalytics/

In Conclusion: A lot to get excited about

These great features are certainly worth getting excited about! Now that Google Analytics Premium has been officially announced, it will be very interesting to see how the enterprise analytics landscape changes.

What are some reasons clients will prefer to stick with Omniture or Webtrends?

• Improved Pathing Capabilities
• Visitor-based Segmentation Capabilities
• External Data Sources
• Site Optimization and Display Ad Targeting Integration
• Social Data Integration
• Search Management Integration
• Genesis Integration
• Classification Systems
• Familiarity with the System
• Built-in Hierarchy Tracking
• Built-in Video Tracking
• XML Data Insertion API
• Export Capabilities to PDF, HTML Email, Scheduled Reports, and Alerts
• Improved Shopping Cart Tracking
• Option to keep data in-house (Webtrends OnPremise)

Webtrends has already released their opinion on Google Analytics Premium: http://blogs.webtrends.com/blog/2011/09/30/why-enterprise-marketers-should-be-wary-of-google-analytics/