We went to the AiMA event last night. The topic was finding the value beyond click to conversion. There were some very professional speakers and they did a wonderful job presenting the material. The first two (Yahoo Guy and Google Girl) were really good speakers talking about things that we already know and that we’re already talking to clients about.
The Yahoo Guy (Ron Belanger) got really deep into why search is so important for Brand Development, going a little more deeply into the fact that customers use search to develop their concept of what your brand means to them. He had some stats to support the fact that most internet users will go to search and taste 2-3 brands before making a purchase decision. In this context if you’re the brand leader you can continue to dominate using search and ensure that your brand is there on top of search results in the most pleasing light possible. If your brand is less recognized you can use search to develop the brand and to disrupt the brand message of the top competitor. He makes the point that people go to search to find that positive message reinforcement even for products they may have already purchased or companies they already are engaged with. The post purchase value of search marketing is very easy to underestimate.
The Google Girl (Raku Coryne) talked more about actual metrics and using Google Analytics, and did a wonderful job of explaining how to use Analytics data to develop actionable insights. She mentioned bounce rate as a key performance indicator, and described some of the ways you can use it. She also discussed the factors that make up a good metric. I think she would have done well to go more into the advantages of segmenting the data and comparing those metrics from segment to segment, but I understand that it’s not the kind of thing you can do at a conference.
There was some talk of the importance of mapping offline purchases to online initiatives and vice versa, and promise that there were ways to do this although it still seems pretty grey. Coupons and online only 1-800 #s can be used to quantify online to offline to some extent. Google Analytics can be used to demonstrate the degree of effect an offline initiative might have to online. This can be done by comparing the geographic area where the offline campaign (TV, Radio, Mailers etc.) took place to a geographic area where it didn’t, or by comparing the online traffic for the time span of the offline initiative to a time span where it was not present.
I thought that the majority of this material has been covered and discussed thoroughly for quite some time now and I kind of had the feeling that the guy from Yahoo was giving the same story he gave 5 years ago. That being said, if you were not familiar with the concepts then it would have blown your hair back so I’m sure someone got something out of it.
