Analytics & conversion
Search Engine Land is your source for analytics & conversion news and content. You’ll find a variety of up-to-date and authoritative resources, including the latest news, tactic-rich tutorials, and the latest data to help you work smarter and make better decisions.
What you read here is written by our experienced in-house team, and subject matter experts from leading brands and agencies.
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3 signs it’s time to make the switch to account-based analytics
If someone asked how you track your marketing efforts, how would you respond? Chances are, your answer would sound like a game of martech MadLibs. You’re using Google Analytics, advertising platforms, marketing automation, your CRM and myriad other tools to track, measure and take action on your marketing data. You spend your days building marketing […]
Why aligning marketing with your customer journey matters
The session offered a sophisticated blueprint to calibrate marketing, sales and content for different personas at each stage of the buyer journey.
YouTube now counts ‘engagement’ for YouTube for action ads at 10 seconds, not 30
Google says the new attribution will better reflect the role of video in the customer journey.
How to use data to power target account selection
According to SiriusDecisions, a full 91% of B2B teams that are doing account-based marketing (ABM) see larger deal sizes from their target accounts than from non-target accounts. If that isn’t a ringing endorsement for the efficacy of ABM, then I don’t know what is. In theory, ABM is straightforward: Focus the bulk of your energy […]
Ask the SMXperts — Schema & Structured Data, JavaScript
Three #SMXperts answer questions from the Advanced Technical SEO session at SMX Advanced and share their insights on JavaScript and structured data, two topics at the forefront of website development and search engine ranking.
Why your marketing performance problem is really a measurement challenge
Figuring out how your company will grow is one of the biggest challenges facing marketers. The playbook is clear: Choose a high-value audience, execute relevant and creative campaigns, and voilà, results and growth for your brand, product or service. But setting your marketing team up for success is tougher than ever. One reason is that, […]
Is your marketing platform really intelligent?
Let’s face it, the future isn’t turning out to be what we were promised in decades past. No flying cars, and the closest thing to robot butlers are Siri and Alexa. Don’t get me wrong, they’re handy in their ways: suggesting nearby Thai food or tending to virtual shopping carts as we yell our grocery […]
All the right marketing technology for advanced TV media buying
Every marketer, regardless of discipline, has a holy grail in mind. For analysts, it may be having a holistic view of the customer journey. For creatives, it may be having the team and tools to conceptualize and generate impactful experiences. And for media buyers, it may be the ability to take a single media plan […]
RIP A/B Testing
Gather all ye family, friends, webmasters and digital marketing executives. We’ve come here to celebrate the life of the now outdated A/B Testing process, which has finally succumbed to the inefficiencies that have plagued its process. What was A/B? How many of us truly knew what A/B Testing was? Allow me to briefly introduce the […]
Marketing in a distracted, digital world
In today’s world, digital media is so pervasive that it’s no longer considered unique; it’s a way of life. Virtually everyone has a smartphone, and most individuals and households have multiple smart devices, including tablets, phones and computers. This prevalence, coupled with the rise of Big Data, digital marketing tools and social media, has given […]
LaterPay offers first paywall platform for AMP pages
The German-Swiss payment infrastructure provider allows readers to maintain a running tab of per-article charges until a threshold is met.
The evolution of phone marketing
In the beginning, there was the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. And it was not good. By 2017 standards, it was barely a phone. Virtually zero coverage, a price tag that translates to almost $10,000 of today’s dollars, and completely devoid of apps. It also had a 10-hour charge time that only translated into about a half-hour […]
Google expanding Attribution beta to hundreds more advertisers
Google's anticipated multi-channel attribution product is rolling out to more advertisers.
How to use AI for link building and improve your search rankings
As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to grow in popularity among consumers, marketers working in search engine optimization must consider how it can make their work easier and help them get better results.
Google Analytics rolling out ‘ask a question’ to get answers instantaneously
With natural language, users can quickly get data without having to dig for it from both desktop and Google Analytics' mobile apps.
PaveAI unveils AI-powered platform to turn Google Analytics into actions
Startup says this is the first Google Analytics tool that turns the data into news you can use about increasing leads or revenue.
How to solve the mystery of what your customers really want
How well do you really know your customers? If your company is like most brands, you already realize that you don’t really know them at all. In fact, a 2015 study from Aberdeen Group found that just 4 percent of organizations are fully satisfied with their ability to ensure data-driven conversations with their customers. That’s […]
How AI is disrupting major industries
Advances in artificial intelligence tend to provoke polarizing reactions for most people. One, a dystopian anxiety where humans huddle in fear of their metallic overlords. Or two, a utopian futurist society where humans are freed from mundane labor and complex challenges are solved by machines. Wherever you fall on the AI anxiety spectrum, the […]
Google Analytics is unifying user IDs from AMP & non-AMP pages
Some metrics will be effected as the change rolls out.
What is demand generation marketing?
The role of demand generation marketing is evolving along with technology, enabling B2B marketers to get better at filling the pipeline with actual opportunities versus just a bunch of leads. In one TED Talk, Malcolm Gladwell shares a story about choice, happiness and Howard Moskowitz. He talks about Howard’s role as a food scientist and […]
What is customer marketing?
B2B marketers are focusing more and more on making sure their customers are successful after they’ve signed the contract and started using your product or service. This renewed attention helps in a couple of ways. First, successful customers are happy customers, and they are more likely to renew with you. The second reason is that […]
Machine learning is marketing’s future
When you hear “artificial intelligence” or “machine learning,” what comes to mind? A complicated technology that demands deep domain experience or a degree to use? This was once the way technology worked; only a select few had access. But innovation has a funny way of changing things. What might seem out of reach today can […]
How to use Google Tag Manager to show your clients results
Columnist Sherry Bonelli provides an overview of Google Tag Manager, including how get started with it.
5 A/B testing resolutions you should embrace in 2017
A year’s beginning is the most ambitious of times for teams and businesses — lots of reflection, planning, strategizing, revamping approaches, right? To get you off to a good start, we have listed five A/B testing resolutions that should take in 2017. A/B testing is a relatively young practice, yet it only takes a Simple […]
Allstate: Offline call data improved SEM performance and the customer experience
Company generated an increase in quality calls and lowered customer acquisition costs.
How to download all of your landing pages from Google Search Console via Analytics Edge — and I mean ALL of them!
Google Search Console provides a wealth of data on landing pages, but unfortunately, that data is limited. Columnist Glenn Gabe shares his method for getting around the 1,000-URL limit using an Excel plugin called Analytics Edge.
Domain Level Metrics’ dashboard aggregates metrics from Moz, SpyFu, SEMRush & others
The new product, free during its beta phase, displays everything from the tools’ APIs.
SMX Advanced recap: Lies, Damn Lies, and Search Marketing Statistics
Are your marketing tests giving you valid results? Columnist Mark Traphagen summarizes insights from a presentation by Vistaprint's Adria Kyne at SMX Advanced.
Marketing Analysis: Unlocking The Power Of Descriptive Statistics For SEM & Beyond
Columnist David Fothergill provides a handy primer on statistical principles that can help make your sense of and glean insights from your marketing data.
The Power & Importance Of A Search History Analysis For SEO Recovery
When working with a new client who's experienced a significant traffic loss, it's easy to jump right into an audit. But columnist Glenn Gabe believes you should dig into the search history of the domain first.
How To Find Queries Per URL Using The Search Analytics Report In Google Search Console (GSC)
Looking to discover which keywords are driving organic traffic to specific pages on your website? Columnist Glenn Gabe shows how to do just that with Google Search Console.
How To Find Google Featured Snippets Using SEMrush And Google Search Console (GSC)
If you're a large publisher, you may be wondering if -- and how -- featured snippets are affecting your organic search traffic. Columnist Glenn Gabe explains his process for identifying and measuring the impact of these direct answers in search results.
Google Analytics Rolling Out “Trash Can” Feature To Help Users Recover Deleted Data
New feature will save views, properties and accounts for 35 days after they have been deleted.
Google Analytics Rolls Out New Tag Manager Tools
Google analytics launched a new set of tools for Tag Manager users, including new APIs, third-party templates and a refreshed user interface. According to Google, the new Tag Manager API lets users customize their infrastructure and better manage bulk user access. [blockquote cite=”Google Analytics Blog”]From creating and managing users to previewing and publishing containers and […]
Google Analytics Begins To Roll Out New Benchmark Reports
Google Analytics announced today its new benchmark reports will be rolling out over the next few weeks, allowing users to compare their results to industry standard acquisition and engagement metrics. According to the announcement, users can select reports from among 1,600 industry categories, 1,250 markets and seven size-buckets, with metrics by channel, location, or device […]
Russian Search Engine Yandex Now 100% “Not Provided,” Blocks Referrer Data
Yandex announced (in Russian) today that they have now went 100% secure, encrypting all search queries, resulting in a huge jump in the [not provided] count. This was first reported by Anna Oshkalo who shared a screen shot of her analytics detailed the bulk of her Yandex keyword data now shows [not set] or [not […]
Google Analytics Adds “Smart Lists” To Automate Remarketing List Optimization
Earlier this week, the Google Analytics team announced the release of Smart Lists, a new remarketing list type that automates list creation and management in Google Analytics. Smart Lists are primarily powered by all that anonymized conversion data that comes from the millions of Google Analytics-enabled sites opted-in to share data with the company. Smart […]
Official: Google Brings “Not Provided” To Ads, Will Withhold Search Query Data From Paid Clicks
As suspected, Google is moving to secure search for clicks on paid search ads. In an announcement posted by Paul Feng, Product Management Director, AdWords on the Ads Developer Blog, the company states, “Today, we are extending our efforts to keep search secure by removing the query from the referrer on ad clicks originating from […]
Marin: If Google Applies “Not Provided” To PPC, Paid Search Management Platforms Will Still Work
Yesterday, we reported that it seems likely Google will soon stop passing search query data on paid search clicks, as it already has for clicks on organic search results. With the news came questions — among them whether paid search management platforms such as Marin, Acquisio and Kenshoo would be done in by such a […]
Report: Google To Block Paid Search Keyword Data With Not Provided; Like Organic “Not Provided”
There are reports we are receiving from a few sources, including AJ Ghergich who posted it on his blog, that Google will soon stop passing keyword data to analytics software, even for AdWords advertisers. We expected changes to not provided in the near future, and based on these reports, the likelihood of advertisers being stripped […]