The Ahain Group has researched and explored the e-commerce landscape for retailers, analysing the trends from mobile commerce to augmented reality and click & collect.

43% of Irish consumers are saying they have made an online purchase within the previous 12 months. This represents an increase from 36% in 2010. The use of e-commerce for purchases has grown from 44% in 2010 to 49% in 2011. While in the UK, online sales recorded a 17% jump from July 2011 to August 2011. For the year, that’s £6.5 billion spent online with each person spending an average of £128. Total growth in 2012 is approximately 13%.

Globally, online purchases vary by location:

- In Ireland, 34% of consumers are turning to the Internet to book holidays or business travel
- 74% of UK consumers use the Internet for household grocery shopping activity
- Online U.S. broadband users spend an average of US$12.5 on music

 

Moving on-line to ‘e-commerce’ is very attractive to the retail sector especially, allowing vendors to sell to the global market. However, setting up an e-commerce store-front requires much more than pretty web pages to greet prospective buyers.

Turning ‘lookers into bookers’ requires:

- An in-depth understanding of target customer needs
- Competitive analysis to enable formulation of a competitive advantage strategy
- Optimisation of the online store for searches
- Development of all traffic streams to entice people to the trading platform
- Research and continued optimisation of all transaction flows
- A listening post to monitor public perception, awareness and sentiment

Big name brands like Burberry, Next, Amazon and John Lewis use their status to optimum advantage in the online environment. With substantial financial budgets, these brands could dominate. However, the ease of entry, low maintenance costs and the ability to reach a wide (global) audience without huge investment, afforded by the Internet, level the playing field somewhat.

This report includes:

- Insights into how consumers shop online - what they buy, why they buy
- Four case studies on the ‘masters’ of e-commerce - Amazon, Burberry, Littlewoods Ireland and John Lewis
- Factors contributing to the creation of a successful e-commerce store
- A deep analysis with innovation examples on mobile marketing campaigns and mobile commerce

This report seeks to analyse some key insights into e-commerce practice, to provide case studies of some of the leading e-commerce websites and to uncover ways that Social Business empowers e-commerce strategies by addressing areas where retailers can evolve within the digital dynasty.

Christina Giliberti, Associate at The Ahain Group and report co-author, said “The era of digital in retail has exploded globally. Fuelled by technological advancements such as augmented reality, wireless and mobile, the direction of e-commerce is very much of the flexible, multi-platform variety. It’s an exciting time for retailers to utilise this technology and provide a customer-centric experience in-line with the trends of ‘explore, interact, socialise, blend, mobile and integrate”.

For more information, contact The Ahain Group:

Email: [email protected]

Connect:

NSC Building | Blackrock | Cork

The adoption of mobile (smartphones/tablets) has changed the face of online marketing and ecommerce (Mobile Marketing and Mobile Commerce). Some have coined the phrase ‘Digital Darwinism’ to describe the speed at which digital evolution is taking place due to this disruptive technology. Simply put, technological advancements are being engineered, tested and consumed in a shorter time-frame than ever before. The world of m-commerce, apps and location-based marketing is making light work of targeting, engaging and converting for businesses in today’s society.

[Image credit: ericsson.com]

The business case for mobile marketing and mobile commerce

• 82% have researched a product via their mobile and 67% that view a mobile-friendly site will most likely buy/use the service (Eric Daly, DMI Mobile Marketing Conference, Dublin 2013).
• The market penetration of mobile usage in Ireland is actually over 100% with 5.52 million active mobile phones at the moment and 5.9 billion mobile devices in use worldwide (DMI Mobile Marketing Conference, Dublin 2013).
• Retailers’ apps take up the most of consumers’ time at 27%, followed by online marketplace at 20%, purchase assistant at 17%, price comparison at 14%, and daily deals at 13% (AdMedia Partners via Marketing Charts, 2013).
• Of 42% of people who clicked on a mobile ad, 35% visit the advertiser’s page (Google via Mobithinking, 2013).
• 27% of companies worldwide planned to implement location-based marketing in 2013 (Comscore via Econsultancy, 2013).
• By the end of 2013, there will be more mobile devices on Earth than people (Cisco via Mashable, 2013).

Those born in generation Z have not been exposed to ‘dumb phones’. Many of us however will remember the days when a mobile phone was a portable phone for emergencies with a typical shrill ring (that couldn’t be set to silent or vibe) and text messaging if you were lucky. It weighed much the same as a small dog and had an obvious aerial. We had no idea then that phones would become our handheld worlds to browse the internet, share updates, star in videos, connect with businesses or allow us to make purchases.

Why choose mobile?

The benefits for users are 10-fold - lightweight, portable, ability to connect to the internet and functionability that mirrors the standard PC. Mobile gives you all-in-one connectivity, flexibility and mobility. For businesses, the benefits can be summed up in this one statistic - 67% that view a mobile-friendly site will buy/use the service (Paul Dunne, DMI Mobile Marketing Conference, Dublin 2013). In short, viewing via mobile is more likely to precede a conversion.

Mobile purchases breakdown by category, Paul Dunne, Mobile Marketing Conf, Dublin, 2013

Let’s breakdown some of the benefits for users and businesses:

• Connectivity: Wi-Fi hot-spots are helping to provide a highly connected experience for consumers and businesses. Slowly, but surely, more and more are free, although there are paid Wi-Fi hot spots. Those with internet packages (Bluetooth/WAP) on their phone can use 3G, which boasts 95% coverage within Ireland.
• Flexibility: The mobile device is more than just a way of making phone calls from any location. It facilitates a range of uses from work, consumer/business transactions, leisure, planning and communications (text/email/conference calls).
• Mobility: The standard PC is tethered by leads (and weight) and the laptop is cumbersome (although they are becoming more streamlined and light-weight). A phone or tablet is a small, portable device. It fits in your pocket or bag with ease and is light-weight enough that you hardly notice it.

A Mobile website

Why do I need a mobile website?

Almost every website can be viewed on a mobile device, however there are negatives to mobile browsing from a user perspective. If the website isn’t supported by mobiles or designed to suit a mobile device, then the website will be:

• Fragmented: images and text positioned incorrectly on the screen.
• Invisible (all or part): Flash is used, then Apple device viewers will not see the animations.
• Too small: mobile screens are small, so buttons and text need to be bigger (especially for those with big fingers!)

Designing for mobiles

When designing a mobile-friendly website, you have two main choices:

1. Responsive Design and Adaptive Design
2. Pure mobile

Responsive design

A responsive design adjusts to any width. This is a better solution, as it will ‘flex’ for all devices and is a ‘future-proof’ option that will work on future mobile and tablets. Example: Yesterdays store

Adaptive design

A website using adaptive design, adapts to device widths and viewpoints. While this approach is quicker and easier, it doesn’t account for device screen changes and so could be obsolete in a short time-frame.

Pure mobile

Pure mobile websites differ from responsive/adaptive websites, as pure mobile are honed for mobile use. True mobile websites like Daft.ie, The Open University and The Journal account for mobile devices by designing mobile websites with the following in mind:

• Compress the site navigational menu system and prioritise options. Use collapsible navigation, as opposed to full.
• Add ‘click to call’ options.
• Screen swipes.
• Insert big buttons that stand out against backgrounds and are perfect for big fingers.
• For retailers – include maps/GPS and the ability to check stock at stores.
• Auto-detection feature that sends all mobile users to the mobile site.

Websites like Mobdis and Wix mobile help website owners build their own mobile websites. Mobile applications (apps) are synonymous with mobile devices.

If you have a ‘linked’ set of devices, ie. Apple iPhone and Apple iPad, the apps can appear on both devices. Some apps however are only suitable for a smartphone or tablet. The value of apps for businesses are based on:

• Trend (apps are ‘in’).
• Public Accessibility (Their website, Apple store, Google).
• Ease of use for users and the fact that apps are added to the main screen to access them quicker.
• Dynamic applications - integration functions for a seamless user experience.
• Make instant updates in-line with technology, feedback, etc. and make changes available to users (they must update app).

There are countless apps on the market and more businesses are investing in them as they drive customers to the business.

Examples:

• Democratic apps is a business that is based on an app product. This app is designed so that Politicians and Councillors can enter their details and the general public can use the app to contact them directly.
• Sage 50 app allows you to access your finances, produce instant quotes and even generate invoices. Both of the examples above utilise mobile by giving smartphone and tablet users access to their products on the go. Accessibility is key to a successful mobile strategy.

Mobile Commerce (M-Commerce)

Ecommerce allowed businesses to conduct instant transactions via websites and mobile commerce allows people and businesses to conduct financial transactions on mobile devices. This video by Erisson explains mobile commerce with some catchy cartoon drawing.

Mobile (M) Commerce is a growth area for businesses that sell online: ‘Amárach [predicted] that the acceleration in smartphone use [would] stimulate demand for mobile commerce in Ireland and [forecasted] that €800 million worth of transactions [would] be conducted through mobile devices in 2012.’

And in the UK, James Connelly, co-founder/Managing director of mobile agency Fetch has said ‘In the first half of 2012, mobile advertising revenues reached an all-time high – peaking at £181.5m with mobile ad spend up 132%. Mobile advertising revenues will undoubtedly continue to increase in 2013.’

As mobile adoption and ownership increases, along with the mobile ability to do almost anything with them (almost!), the opportunities are endless. Via mobile, you have a connection anytime, anywhere. Mobile commerce opens up the arena further to capitalise and profit from this connection.

Payments

One of the greatest advancements for mobile commerce is the ability to generate an instant payment. Through the use of technology and the ‘buy in’ from global payment systems like Visa, there are a number of payment technologies with products in the mobile commerce market. Mobile payment technologies:

• Realex payments remains one of the top players for online payments, allowing payments from credit cards, debit cards and even the Irish Laser card (although this is being phased out 2012/2013). Their service is in conjunction with most merchants such as Visa, MasterCard and American Express.
• Visa (in conjunction with Samsung) has enabled NFC (as opposed to chip and pin) payments on Samsung devices. These utilise a secure element chip, embedded within the devices that stores your payment account information.
• MasterCard has launched MasterPass - which is a secure digital merchant checkout service.

Mobile marketing

Mobile marketing is mobile-specific marketing which concentrates on:

• Advertising (you can create mobile-only ads on the Google search/network with Adwords and even specify the exact phone brand and model)
• Location-based / Geo-targeting
• Augumented Reality
• Mobile-focused apps like Amazon’s PriceCheck that takes account of Showrooming

Mobile advertising

Google Adwords has a multitude of ad types. One of these is mobile. The settings allow you to target specific devices ‘mobile’ / ‘tablet’ and even brands ‘Apple iPhone’ (Via Legacy Settings).

You are also able to create a Mobile app to feature on Google’s app network.

Geo-targeting and location-based marketing

Smartphone ownership is at 50% in Ireland and location-based marketing for retail stores like Subway, Brown Thomas and Walmart is an excellent way to entice shoppers to the store.

• Subway UK‘s ‘You Are Here’ campaign targets customers based on their location. Opted-in users near a Subway store were sent an MMS (multimedia messaging service) with vouchers that are scanned in-store.
• Walmart’s ‘Store Mode’ mobile app uses geolocation and geofencing technology to detect when customers are in a store. When they enter, the screen below pops up on their mobile.

Augmented reality

Augmented reality (AR) is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. Augmented Reality brings a campaign to life by allowing customers to interact with the brand. Examples:

• National Geographic brought Dinosaurs to life in an AR campaign designed to allow customers an opportunity to interact.
• Tesco’s virtual stores have been rolled out in Korea and the first virtual store in the UK has been set up at Gatwick Airport, London. The stores are a virtual representation of a store, so the food items are seen in graphical form. Customers use their smartphones to scan the QR codes associated with the items they wish to buy and the items are then paid for via an app.

Showrooming

Showrooming is the term used when a mobile user accesses an online store while in a physical store, to compare prices. They may use Amazon’s ’Pricecheck‘ app to check the price on Amazon, and all they need is a search term, an image or a scan of the barcode.

5 Innovative mobile campaigns for inspiration

1. QR codes embedded in pavements in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Scan with a mobile to read information on the city.
2. Parkbytext that allow you to text your parking place and time and pay via a card linked to your phone number.
3. Walmart ’Scan & Go’ service that lets consumers save time by scanning store items with their iPhone device and bagging straight away. Consumers can head to a self-checkout lane, transfer their basket wirelessly and complete their payment.
4. Eventbrite app that send event QR codes to your phone that can be scanned at the event.
5. Burberry Watch mobile campaign ‘The Britain’ focuses on mobile-only content. The site features a 3D watch and uses the user’s geo-location to add their local time to the dial of ‘The Britain’.

Understanding the Digital Economy

Google Adwords is one of the front-runners in online advertising, which also includes Facebook, Bing, LinkedIn and banner ads. But as every advertising platform has a specific audience and setup, understanding Adwords in greater detail, will help your business increase clicks to the website, gain visibility in searches and improve online goals.

 

The business case for using Google Adwords

• Google Adwords have 15.4% share of the online advertising market ($2.31 billion) (Marketingland)
• Around 97% of Google’s total revenue comes from Adwords advertising (Google)
• Google had over 1.2 million businesses advertising on its search network in 2012 (Wordstream)
• Ads in the top position gain 10 times as many clicks as side-position ads (Practical ecommerce)

Google PPC

The Google paid search model remains the most popular online advertising platform and it isn’t difficult to understand why. Google’s search engine dominates over 87% of online searches. Google Adwords is PPC advertising. This means that every time someone clicks on your advert, you pay. Each time a user types a search query on Google, Adword ads are listed above organic (main) searches and to the right of them. It’s an auction-style form of advertising in which you set keywords that relate to desired searches and then set a maximum bid that you are willing to pay for a click.

Objectives and marketing impact for Adwords

Now that you have identified a need for advertising online, it’s important to plan your objectives and define a purpose. What do you hope to achieve?

• Greater visibility online (branding)
• Global market penetration (same product, new market)
• More sales (general or specific)
• Brand penetration (more mentions of your business)
• Click throughs to your website or online pages
• Opportunity to promote your product, service, news or resources
• More email sign ups / Competition entries

When you know your objective/s you can plan your ad around this. If sales, then you may write about a product in a positive way or draw attention to the product features or reasons to purchase. You might mention a % off or USP.

Adword settings

To set up your Adwords account go to adwords.google.com.

If this is your first time, then you will be taken through the steps of creating your first campaign. Before the campaign is set live you will be prompted to enter a form of payment.

In campaign settings, set your ‘campaign type’:

• Search only (Google search engine only)
• Display network only (On websites which are part of the Adword display network like New York Times, Gmail, etc.) – Note: You can still select search as well as the display network
• Search + Display networks (Visible on mobile devices)
• Online video (Upload a video as an ad)

You will then select country, language and other settings like when your ads will be live and how; whether they will appear as quick as possible or whether you would prefer them to be evenly distributed throughout the day, based on your budget. The most important settings are daily budget and bidding options.

If you prefer control, then select manual. If you are happy to leave bids to Google, then let Adwords set your bids for you. Your daily budget will have an impact on your ad visibility, so calculate the amount of times your ad can be seen, based on the maximum bid per keyword. This will only be a rough guide however.

When setting up multiple ads, you will need to create them as either independent ads or ads that use the settings and budget of another. Remember – if you are sharing a daily budget, you must calculate for combined clicks (on all ads that share settings).

Adwords advanced options

If you select an ‘All features’ ad, you have additional options that include:

• Ad extensions (extra spot for location information, phone number, additional links, etc.)
• Schedule (A calendar that allows you to select days of the week and times during the day when ads are live)
• Dynamic link option

Payment options

None of your ads will be published until you have set up your payment option.

Step 1: Enter your details as requested and remember to include tax details if you’re a business.

Step 2: You have two choices for the method of payment. The first is manual payments and the second is automated payments. With manual payments, it’s up to you to top up your account to pay for ads. Automated payments mean that Google will deduct a set amount from your card when it hits a certain buffer or if 30 days have been reached.

Step 3: Enter your credit card/debit card details.

Writing Adwords ads (copy)

The copy within your ad needs to be:

• Relevant to your audience
• Clear and concise
• Optimised in relation to your keywords AND the landing page it is linking to
• Enticing enough for viewers to click on

Ad writing is usually the downfall of many ad campaigns as it must be written with a multi-purpose.

The ad also has defined character limits for the title, two lines of main copy and link.

• The title is set to 25 characters
• The next two lines are 35 characters each.
• The fourth line is reserved for the URL of your landing page (web address)

The URL that is visible is restricted to a certain length, so if your landing page URL is too long, you will need to shorten the visible URL (but still set the correct one as the actual URL).

Check Google’s Adword policy when creating ads as they can be disapproved.

Keyword selection

The way Google Adwords work is to align your Ad with specific searches. In short, you add the keywords that you wish your ad to appear for and Google will assess ‘relevancy’* to determine your positioning (page and order on page) of your published ad.

*Relevancy is determined by many factors, not just the relevancy of keywords chosen.

Contrary to popular belief, less – when it comes to keywords – is better. Select few keywords and use these terms to guide your advert writing. That means that your keywords should feature in your ad copy. As part of the keyword selection process, research keywords that are high search, yet as low competition-wise as possible. This will give your advert the best possible chance of being shown against your selected keyword searches.

To assess keyword suitability, use the Google keyword tool. From the main menu in Google Adwords, select ‘Tools and Analysis’ - > ‘Keywords Tool’. Simply type in a list of keywords OR use the landing page URL (address). Filter options like location, devices and ideas, then click ‘Search’.

The results are shown below, although it’s much easier to extract the data (in full) and assess/sort. You can also instantly select keywords and add them to your campaigns and view the traffic estimator (Menu above searches). Look for terms that are high search, yet not overly competitive. Use keyword strings like ‘Online Marketing Consultancy Dublin’ and be as specific as you can.

When adding keywords, you have three ‘match’ options:

• Broad match i.e., Online Marketing Consultancy (match any term, in any order)
• Phrase match i.e., “Online Marketing Consultancy” (match the sequence ‘online marketing / marketing consultancy’)
• Exact match i.e., [Online Marketing Consultancy] (match the sequence exactly, in this order)

Settings bids (Cost)

Google Adwords are PPC (Pay Per Click) ads, which means that when a viewer clicks on your ad, you are charged. The amount charged is based on a variety of factors:

• How competitive the selected keywords are
• Your maximum bid
• Balance at the time (Tip: Top up before your balance drops to 50% of your total campaign term budget)

Ad performance

To guarantee outstanding ad performance you will need to optimise:

• The advert text
• The landing page (that the ad is linked to)
• Check what the suggested bids are and either equal or increase yours
• Choose only keywords that are relevant for your ad AND landing page

Checking ads

Google Adwords has in-build tools to help you check and optimise your ads.

- Keywords (Mouse over each keyword and it will open this window to tell you if your ads are showing and what you can do to improve the quality score and visibility).

Statistics

Within your Adwords campaign, you have your statistics graph. Keep an eye on trending patterns – when clicks peaked and dipped and analyse what may have happened for this result to occur. Use the filters for deeper analysis and to segment data groups.

Adwords ROI

• Leads: Chevrolet increased leads by 350% by combining tradional media with Google Adwords
• Traffic: Cisco achieved 0.5% website traffic referral via a dedicated Mobile Adwords campaign and all ads were translated for various geo-locations
• Revenue: Revenue driven by paid search on Black Friday rose by 31% as advertisers invested 21% more in search ads
• Aquisition cost: Google Adwords reduced the client aquisition cost by 91% for AccuraCast
• Media Spend: Media spend dropped by 17% for Rocky Mountaineer

We hope that this information will help with your business and it’s use of Google Adwords. What are your experiences of using Adwords? Do you use objectives to drive Adwords activities?

Understanding the Digital Economy

Google Analytics is one of the best metric monitoring tools on the market. It’s free to use, can be customised to suit your business needs and- if used correctly- can guide all of your digital decisions. Read this ultimate guide and learn how to customise your Google Analytics account and how to use the options to gleam powerful insights.

The business case for Google Analytics

As businesses pay closer attention to their online presence and the role digital plays in profitability, it stands to reason that the ultimate questions requiring answers for businesses are:

• Can online sales/objectives be measured?
• Can we effectively assess our website and social media channels?
• Can we monitor the effect of digital campaigns and use them as critical feedback for future campaigns?
• Can we attribute ‘goals’ to specific campaigns, channels or actions online?

The answer to all of the questions is yes, then Google Analytics is the perfect tool for online performance measurement and for analysing trends. Why?

• As a Google product, it’s publicly available and free to use
• Google Analytics is suitable for varying levels, which means that from an entry-level proficiency level to an advanced analytical marketer or developer, it’s suitable
• With only minor custom settings, you can maximise the usefulness of analytics to track goals, monitor social media streams and pull in data from digital campaigns like emails.

Core settings

After creating an account and adding the GA code to your website pages (make sure you select the correct code) – options are:

• A single domain
• Multi-domain
• Track Adwords
• Track campaigns from non-Google products

The following are settings you can customise which align with the analytical reports and can be accessed anytime via ‘Admin’ and clicking on the website profile.

 

Profile settings tab

Time-zone – Set your time-zone to match. This is useful for assessing real-time visits and ensuring your reports are accurate.

E-commerce site

If you are tracking e-commerce statistics then you make sure you tick the box here.

Currency

If you have an e-commerce website (online store), set your currency to match your country.

Site search

Google Analytics automatically records website visits from search engines like Google and Yahoo. In order to record searches visitors make within your website (via a search facility), you will need to set up ‘Site Search’.

To enable Site Search:

1. Tick the box and a second box will appear.
2. In this box you will need to insert code which corresponds to a search query.

The best (and easiest) way to fill this in is to ask the website developer.

Assets tab

Advanced segments

Google Analytics is made up of a selection of reports with total metrics relating to particular streams. If you would like to create your own segments to Analyse and break apart these streams, then Advanced segments is the way to do that. You can select segments like Adwords traffic that leads to a conversion or traffic from a particular directory like ‘City Local’ only.

Annotations

When running online and offline campaigns or making changes to your website or social accounts, a useful way to assign recognition for a peak (high point) or trough (low point) in traffic is to annotate your graph and highlight any notable activities. Activities could be an email send, optimisation on the booking flow (booking steps), changes to your LinkedIn profile or company page, a campaign launch.

Schedule emails

Within ‘Standard Reporting’ at the top of each report, you have an option to send that particular report as an email. This saves time on logging in and means that multiple people or perhaps just management, can receive reports of interest. This section allows you to edit your scheduled emails.

Filter out staff clicks

The most important reason for using Google Analytics is that it tracks your website activity and shows you what visitors are doing - when, where and how. What you don’t need is your internal ‘testing’ or ‘checking’ website visits interfering and skewing your data. This will only inflate your metrics and provide an inaccurate set of reports.

To filter out staff clicks, you have two options – ‘Filter IP addresses’ or Filter out a Domain’. One option will usually be better than the other, and your IT staff will be able to provide advice here.

Set up goals

Never set up Analytics without setting up your goals!

Goals are your way of monitoring online objectives like:

• Number of people who contacted you via a contact form
• Number of sales made on the website / Number of sales of a category IE Women’s shoes
• Number of applications or sign ups
• Amount of people who entered a competition
• Amount of people who spent over five minutes viewing web pages
• Number people who looked at more than three pages on the website
• Number people who watched an ‘event’ like a video
• Amount of people who downloaded a PDF, white paper, report or similar

Goals can be generic or targeted. They can be set for particular time-frames to assess ad hoc projects or used to assess trends over time.

To set up a goal:

1. Click on the Admin button (top right),
2. The name of the website,
3. Then the goals tab.

Click ‘+ Goal’ :

• URL Destination (Exact match, head match or regular expression)
• Visit Duration
• Page/Visit
• Event

These may be tricky to create accurately, so always work with your website developer to set up correctly. Also remember that your goals are actions.

Example: Your contact submission must be the page that appears AFTER it is submitted and not the actual contact page.

Add tracking code to digital campaigns

If your marketing activity consists of various digital campaigns like emails, banners and advertising, then Google Analytics has a feature which you will find handy.

You can add custom campaign parameters (extra code) that will track campaigns so that you can monitor the effect of external campaigns within your website traffic reports. This provides a more holistic view, plus gives you greater monitoring power and a way attributing goals/sales/objectives.

As opposed to just a ‘referral’ or even an ‘email referral’, custom campaign parameters can highlight the actual email creative or particular banner. If you send five emails and three are under-performing, you can assess the two that performed well and use this information to produce more effective email campaigns.

To set your parameters, enter them in the custom URL builder

Our example: http://www.ahaingroup.com/? utm_source=boards&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=social&utm_campaign=social%2Bis%2Beverywhere

 

Link to Adwords

By default Google Analytics groups all searches into ‘Google’, ‘MSN’ etc. When you run Adword campaigns, these are classed as search traffic.

By linking your Adwords and Analytics accounts, you can segment Adwords campaign data. This will:

• Separate your search (organic) traffic and your paid (CPC) traffic
• Merging data will give you access to a dedicated section just for Adwords (Advertising)
• Data is split so that you can drill-down into each campaign and assess – that’s campaigns, keywords, ad positions and day parts which tell you how many clicks there were every hour of the day
• Day parts – track clicks by hour of the day (this will be correct IF you selected your country in the main settings when you first created the account).

Include social media analytics

You can include social media activity by adding your social media accounts. By default, if you have a Google+ account, this will automatically record data.

You can also monitor on-site engagement by using ‘social plugins’. This will tell you what buttons they click on and what content they like and share.

Monitoring social activity adds an extra layer to your reports and when combined with goals, allows to attribute conversions to particular social platforms, discussions and updates.

Google analytics top tips

1. Take the time to set your account settings up correctly and activate features which enhance your reports like site search
2. Use filters to remove your internal clicks, so that data is genuine
3. Learn how to set up additional analytical tasks like campaign parameters and linking Adwords data
4. Integrate social and your analytical reports will provide a powerful picture of your digital marketing activity
5. Set up custom dashboards and schedule emails to save on time

Understanding the Digital Economy

Ref: Google Analytics

A new Ahain Group Report just released uncovers potential benefits that could accrue to the Higher Education sector in Ireland from deployment of appropriate Social Business strategies.

An Education Ireland 2009/10 report showed that enrolling an International Student in Ireland generates, on average, over €16k a year in fees and living expenses. The Ahain Group Report contains an analysis of deployment techniques of social business strategies which have proven to be very successful for international student recruitment by a number of North American Colleges. It offers recommendations on how deployment of similar strategies could benefit the Irish Higher Education sector.

“The Report highlights the speed at which change is taking place in the International Student Recruitment Sector due to use of cleverly-deployed social campaigns on platforms such as Facebook and YouTube. Traditional recruitment methods are already outdated, being replaced by the Social Business Model (SBM) which offers low cost, high value targeted methods of attracting International Students” explains John Twohig, Managing Partner at The Ahain Group.

The Report also highlights the fact that, increasing the current (26,000+) number of International students already attending courses in Ireland would assist Irish colleges. It would also lead to job creation, both inside and outside the Higher Education sector, as the Students contribute additional fees and living expenses whilst studying. “The fact is that the Institutions are suffering large cuts in their budgets from Government so increasing International Student Recruitment would bring much needed revenues to assist in protecting the quality of education given by our Institutions” Twohig added.

Enterprise Ireland’s Lucia Reynolds, Brand Manager of Education Ireland, says “This report contains the information needed by the Irish Institutions, to understand the changing International Student Recruitment Model and we are delighted to circulate this report to all our Education Partners.”

For more information, contact The Ahain Group:

Email: [email protected]

Connect:

Unit B1 | Fota Point Enterprise Park | Carrigtwohill | Cork