Q&A: Dennis Mortensen on Yahoo Analytics
Dennis Mortensen has worked in the analytics, optimization and online marketing industry since 1996. He is an Associate Web Analytics Instructor at the University of British Columbia, the Author of data driven insights with Yahoo! Web Analytics, and a frequent speaker on the subject of analytics and online marketing.
Mortensen joined up IndexTools in 2004 and worked as COO until the company was acquired by Yahoo! Inc., in May 2008. Today he is the Director of Data Insights at Yahoo! and sits on the Board of Directors at the Web Analytics Association. He also writes the popular analytics blog, VisualRevenue.com/blog.
I caught up with Mortensen to discuss the current state of analytics, how Yahoo fits in and why people should stop comparing Yahoo's analytics product with Google's.
How to use Google Voice to increase reorders
I just received an email from nutritional supplement retailer Jigsaw Health, about a new program they offering their existing customer base.
After speaking to President and Co-Founder Patrick Sullivan Jr, I learned that 80% of their monthly revenue comes from returning customers (and they don't even offer an auto-ship program).
How? By setting up Google Voice so that repeat customers can place orders via text message. Let's take a look at how this works...
12 reasons Chrome OS will fail
Yesterday, Google held a press conference at its Mountain View headquarters to provide the world with an update on its new operating system, Chrome OS.
A lot of new details were forthcoming, which have have been well-covered by others. The questions on everyone's mind: is Chrome OS the real deal? Where does it fit in? How will it impact the OS market. My answers: it isn't, nowhere, it won't. Here are 12 reasons why Chrome OS is going to fail.
Search marketing stats round up
Here's a selection of recent social media stats, taken from a range of sources, including Econsultancy's Search Marketing Statistics document, which forms part of the Internet Statistics Compendium, and other reports...
Q&A: Gerrard Dennis of Simply Group on e-commerce
The Simply Group operates seven e-commerce sites in the UK, from SimplyScuba, to the recently relaunched SimplyBeach.
I've been talking to founder Gerrard Dennis about the challenges if running seven separate sites...
Ad wars: AT&T forced to fight Verizon on its own
When Verizon went after wireless competitor AT&T with a "There's a Map for That" commercial showing AT&T's inferior nationwide 3G coverage in the United States, AT&T was caught off guard.
Its response: file a lawsuit. The justification: AT&T believed that the map was deceptive and that consumers would not understand that its map excluded areas where 2G coverage is available.
Ignore the top of the funnel at your own risk
It's easy to see why search advertising is so popular online. Many brands focus on search because it has proven ROI — according to the IAB, 62% of all online revenue came from paid search in the first six months of this year. Meanwhile 8% of all internet users account for 85% of clicks on display advertising. Numbers like that often keep advertisers pouring money into search and holding onto dollars that might have gone toward brand advertising online.
But while search advertising may have the most proven business model in online advertising, businesses that ignore other areas and methods of increasing sales online do so at their own peril.
That was a recurring theme at Econsultancy's Masterclass in London yesterday, where Ian Dowds, vice president of Specific Media, put it like this:
"At the top of the funnel, there are a host of big brand advertisers standing like nervous tourists, dipping their toe in the online sea, debating the temperature and then turnng and running away every time the water laps above their ankles."
Salesforce.com tries to bring social networking to the workplace
Salesforce.com built a billion-dollar company by allowing companies to ditch their CRM software and bringing CRM to the cloud. Now it has its sights set on perhaps an even bigger feat: bringing social media to the enterprise.
Yesterday, the company announced that it will be launching a new service called Salesforce Chatter in 2010. Think of it as Facebook for the enterprise: a social networking service for companies with an application platform to boot.
12 ways to help your press releases get noticed
I'm not a big fan of the press release as a method of reaching out to journalists for the first time, but they remain the staple diet of most PR campaigns.
I receive a lot of press releases, some more relevant than others, but I'd be lying if I said I read them all. I don't. Many emailed press releases aren't even opened, largely because the subject line doesn't inspire me to look at them.
So what can you do to make your press release more effective? What will make writers more inclined to open and read them?
How NOT to be The Social Media Guru
It's a tough time to be a 'social media guru'. Despite the rise of social media in general, there's a lot of skepticism when it comes to high-paid consultants who claim to have mastered it. From where I sit, that skepticism only seems to grow by the day.
That skepticism is reflected well in an amusing NSFW animation called 'The Social Media Guru', which has racked up over 100,000 views on YouTube since being posted at the end of September. It portrays a 'social media guru' as a snake oil salesman who claims to be more skilled than he is and who preys on foolish small businesses.
Social media: the best and worst of 2009
Email marketing: six steps to improving customer engagement in 2010
Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
