"Currently, conversions in AdWords are attributed to the last ad someone clicks before making a conversion, masking the fact that many customers perform multiple searches before finally converting. AdWords Search Funnels help you see the full picture by giving you insight into the ads your customers interact with during their shopping process."
Multi touch campaign attribution explained
This is called a "multi-touch campaign attribution" in analytics land. So let's take this geeky lingo apart to see what all the buzz is about.
Most web analytics software uses common methods to assign conversions to sources like organic search keywords, banners, email campaigns or AdWords. Google analytics uses the ‘last click' method. Others use first click methods. A conversion is assigned to the source. The last click brings you to the site.
How Google Analytics report conversions with the last click count is shown in below figure: only the last search is counted as contributing to the conversion. In reality, this person visited the site 2 times before trough a banner click and another search
Research shows us that people surf the web, clicking back and forth. They leave, research, revisit and buy (or don't buy. So, in assigning the conversion to the last step is the part of the whole conversion path that people clicked.
The assist to the goal
Let's look at a team of hockey players. One player scores a goal. In the news, he gets all the credit for the goal. Yet he is playing in a team; defenders play a role in the goal as certainly does the player who assists with the goal. In team sport, it is common not only to acknowledge the players who make the goals, but also the players who assist.
On the Internet, campaign attribution acknowledges the assists to your goal conversions. Multi-touch campaign attribution tries to assign the conversions to all campaigns a user saw or clicked on their journey to fulfilling the conversion goals of your site.
Google's attribution
Although AdWords search funnel reports only work for keyword searches in AdWords, it is Google's first response to the multi-touch attribution debate that was started by banner vendors like Microsoft in 2009. Microsoft wanted to prove that the declining prices of banner views did not reflect assisted conversions. AdWords Search Funnel reports show impressions and clicks on AdWords before and on conversion. This video from Google explains how it works:
These reports help you determine if main keywords (single word keywords such as ‘mortgage' or ‘holiday') contribute to a sale by generating views and/or clicks. As we all know, keywords used in the first steps of a search have very low conversion ratios. The new AdWords Search Funnel reveals if early views and/or clicks add assistance to your conversion goal like the assist of a hockey player.
Below figure reveals a click path by the new AdWords search funnel report. This reports answers questions like "Would this person have booked the hotel as he had not seen the first Ad when searching for ‘holiday'?"
Google leaves 70% of search in the dark
It's a worthwhile first step and, although I don't mean to be too grumpy about it, the AdWords Funnel leaves organic results (and other channels) out of the equation. That is a bit odd because 80+% of a searcher's attention is spent on organic results. Whether or not your brand or product gathers some eyeballs from the searcher can have a profound impact on the funnel. So in real life the graphic shown above looks more like this:
Future of campaign attribution?
My prediction is that Google will role this out to Google Analytics and other channels like organic search as well as their own banner networks on the content network. Yet, the view will always be limited to what Google offers. Your presence in Microsoft's ad-network will not likely be shown in these reports. Therefore, you need solutions like Nedstat attribution, Omniture Sitecatalist or Coremetrics. And what about the attributions from offline channels like radio commercials and print?
The good news is tough. The AdWords Funnel could give you some new insights to make smarter decisions on what keywords to advertise. But, is this equally important for everyone? Avinash Kaushik thinks not.
Avinash Kaushik: campaign attribution not an issue for all sites
Avinash Kaushik writes in his book ‘Web analytics 2.0' about different ways to approach ‘Multi touch campaign attribution analysis'.
He first notes that it is important to look if - in your particular business case - there is a campaign attribution issue at all. To do this, look into the analytics report that shows if people convert to a lead or sale in their first session. In Google Analytics you can find the answer under ‘ecommerce'>‘visits to purchase'.
Figure 3: in this case 77% of the costumers convert in their first ever visit to the site. Campaign attribution is only an issue for the other 23% of clients. Note this is only the truth for clicks not views...
When more than 75% convert in the first visit, there are no other clicks contributing and the ‘last cookie count' is good enough. There are only assists in 25% of the cases (remember the hockey team).
SEO and conversion attribution
In SEO, it is normal to look at different types of keywords used in different phases of the decision process. Very common keywords will not convert directly but are used at the start of the decision process. More exact search phrases are more likely to convert directly.
If you are lucky enough to have high ‘Keyword Traffic Share' for a keyword like ‘holiday' or ‘holiday Florida' for your Key West hotel, then a lot more people will visit your website later in their decision process and consider a holiday in your Key West hotel .
For SEO it's always best to be present in all stages of this decision process. Use our keyword process to examine all these kinds of keywords. When we are live... ;-)
SEO Effect was present at the dutch Ecommerce fair "Webwinkel Vakdagen 2010", the primary fair for web shops in the Netherlands.
We were there in two identities: as Screenborn (with our partner Crimsonwing) and as SEO Effect. As the latter, we simulated "the smallest booth on the fair" and that attracted many visitors, even queuing up to see what all the hubbub was about!
It was a great fair with loads of people showing a genuine interests in what we had to offer.They can't wait for SEOEffect to go live (and so can't we!).
We zeroed in on developing a higher level SEO Key Performance Indicator (KPI) to give you an overview of your SEO performance in one glance. Therefore, we introduce the metric, Keyword Traffic Share.
This metric solves a lot of SEO issues:
Keyword Traffic Share represents a legal way to measure search engine visibility without scraping search engine rankings, which is illegal acoording to Google . In Keyword Traffic Share, no scraping is involved.
This SEO KPI also looks behind the search engine Ranking by looking at the searcher's behavior: a number one position in Google is worth nothing when it's a poorly written or reading listing that generates no clicks at all. Keyword Traffic Share compares the Real Traffic of your site against the maximum possible traffic.
Additionally, Keyword Traffic Share eliminates all of the fuzzy "personal search" engine rankings that differ from the normal, regular search engine rankings. About 20% of Google searches where personal till December 4 2009. Google made all 100% of searches personal as they from that date in there post of last week "Personalised Search for everyone". In "personal searches," Google shuffles the rankings of a search result according to the searcher's previous queries.
How Keyword Traffic Share Works
This SEO Key Performance Indicator represents the approximate percentage of visits to your website over the last month in comparison to the total Maximum search volume a number one search engine listing can bring in for a particular keyword. This metric is targeted to your specified country as well as the language settings for all search engines in your country.
Example"traffic share:"
The exact keyword "car" generated 800 searches last month.
SEO Effect calculatess that a number one search engine listing for car gets 160 clicks.
Your website received 80 visits last month on the word car from organic search.
Your "traffic share" is 50% (80/160)
SEO KPI 2: Weighted Average Traffic Share
Next to traffic share down at the keyword level, SEO Effect also calculates the weighted average traffic share. This high level SEO KPI is a percentage from zero to 100%. When you have a weighted average traffic share of 100%, all of your optimized keywords have a number one position in all of the search engines in your country. More importantly, they push maximum traffic to your website. The term, "weighted average" means that keywords with a higher search volume have more weight in this KPI.
Example "weighted average traffic share:"
The exact keyword "car" has 800 searches last month.
The exact keyword "boat" has 16,000 searches last month.
SEO Effect calculates that a number one search engine listing gets 160 clicks for car and 3200 for boat.
Your website received 80 visits last month on the word car from organic search and 80 from the keyword boat.
Your search share is 50% for car and 2.5% for boat.
Your weighted average traffic share is (80+80)/(160+3200)= 4%
Combining these two KPIs provides you with a unique insight into the performance of your organic search campaign.
Lots of reasons compelled us to rebuild SEO Effect. User demand is high. We received loads of feedback from readers of my book asking for a toolset that could deal with today's SEO challenges. We were also inspired by new opportunities we saw in the new APIs from Google. And last, we wanted to capitalize on the lessons learned form the previous version of SEO Effect that now seems so "old school".
However, I was still reluctant to begin. Rebuilding an application from scratch is really a challenging task. But at the end of summer 2008, my friend, colleague at Screenborn online marketing, and business partner, Gerard Klein convinced me to redevelop SEO Effect.
We found a brilliant lead-developer who recommended the Symphony framework as our platform. Using the outstanding mockup software Balsamiq, we spent many hours discussing and designing how SEO Effect should work. We are presently in version 5 .4 of most screen mockups now.
To give you an idea: The average screen design goes through 10 revisions before committing it to the developers. So, we drafted and evaluated hundreds of mockups. Our documentation on the application's features is (unfortunately :-) 200+ pages and growing. And as for the real work, Leon wrote about 10, 000+ lines of code on top of the excellent framework.
Hans, also my friend, colleague and business partner, then wracked his brains about conceptualizing the branding and communication. This website is the first product of his thorough analysis. He is now adding the finishing touches to the design of the new SEO Effect.
Why a Rebuild?
So much has changed in the SEO world:
Universal search and search volume data are revealed down to the keyword level, leaving few present day "submit to Google" or indexation issues.
Today's development platforms allow rich user features in web applications such as tables sorting, filtering, and drag & drop.
It was clearly time to rejuvenate the old SEO Effect. All of these elements influenced our decision to start all over again on a brand new platform. That was in the midst of 2008. Today, after more than 1.5 years, 1100 developing hours, 600 Skype hours, 150 gallons of coffee (at least), uncountable chocolate bars and late-night hours later, we are very excited that SEO Effect is almost in beta!
New School SEO: SEO 2.0
We anticipated the release of the new Google Analytics API to combine search data with user behavior on your site. AdWords keyword tools also now reveal interesting data. For example: Search volume data is retrievable per month as well as for the last 12 months. Search volume is the amount of times people search for a certain keyword or Key phrase. This data provides information about the potential traffic you can generate at the keyword level.
That, along with other current changes, gave our development team of the needed inspiration to build a search engine platform for SEO 2.0. We plan to go live with a solid, goal-driven, Keyword Research tool and on-site optimization. Soon after that we will add tools for Link strategy including both "linkbegging" and"linkbaiting" tools.
All tools are integrated via a rock solid workflow and a set of collaborator tools to help you and your team track your data and successfully complete your SEO tasks.
In our next Blog post, we'll discuss two new exciting features of SEO Effect's keyword tool.
SEO Effect has a complete new design anticipating the birth of our brand new application. We are open for subscriptions to our mailing list. Since we launched last month, more than 2000 people have joined.
Wanted: Beta Testers
As part of your email subscription, we invite you to apply for a beta tester account.
Participants in the private beta test will receive a free, full-year subscription to the new SEO Effect.
"Already subscribed." and also want to test the beta?
We've received several emails from people who want to apply for the private beta but cannot due to the fact that they are "already subscribed." Although we did not foresee this happening to our subscribers we've taken steps to correct the oversight. If you are already subscribed, you'll soon receive an email with a unique Link inviting you to apply for the beta test.
Interested? Sign up to stay tuned, and possibly become a beta tester. Be among the first to see the new SEO Effect in action.
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