When I was 19, before I left for college I worked at the Jolly Rancher factory in Wheat Ridge, Colorado (before it was closed down and shipped off to Canada) to save money for school. Like most recent high school graduates I wasn’t too motivated to do much and thought the $11.95 an hour sounded […]
The Growing Problem With Advertising Agencies
There are many people who blame doctor’s fee-for-service compensation models as one of the reasons of increasing health care costs; costs which are pushing the country towards bankruptcy. The problem is that doctors are incentivized to do more than is actually needed, since the more care they provide, the more money they get. In addition, […]
Making Search Funnel Reports Actionable
I’ve been messing around with the new Search Funnel Reports in AdWords trying to figure out how to use the data that it provides. Here are a few conclusions that I’ve come to that I think are actionable. Path Analysis Under Top Paths in the left hand column, drill down to “keyword path (clicks)†under […]
The Old Spice Videos & Rocket Ship Marketing
I dig the 100+ Old Spice Man videos made by marketing agency Wieden + Kennedy, targeted towards individual social media people. They fit pretty close to what I imagine that future of advertising online will be like – I wrote about it previously in my post Rocket Ship Marketing. You can read that post for […]
SEO Dashboard In Excel
I made a dashboard for tracking SEO in excel. The link to download it is at the bottom if you’re interested in playing around with it. I tried to make something that not only shows what the current state is at-a-glance, but also allows for discovering insights for diving deeper. There’s also a little section […]
Using Goal Compleation In Advanced Segments
I really like using goals as advanced segments to find out what is working on the site. Say your Goal #1 is a lead generation goal to get email sign-ups from people who want you to contact them later for more information. Set up an advanced segment for Goal1 Completions and then add it, and […]
Web Analytics Framework Example
Inspired by Avinash’s last post on ensuring a clear line of site with web metrics, I took a stab at creating a web analytics framework for a medium sized eCommerce site. This theoretical site is using the following marketing channels: paid search (brand and non-brand keywords), comparison shopping engines, affiliates, email, display advertising and social media […]
SEO Keyword Competition Tool In Excel
Here’s a little SEO tool built in Excel for getting an idea of how difficult a keyword will be to rank well in Google. It comes with a couple big caveats** but I think the overall idea works. Here’s how to use it: 1. Put your keyword choices in column A. 2. Use Google’s keyword […]
Earning And Cultivating Attention On Top Of A Movement
The best marketing tactics I know of are 1. earning attention instead of buying it and 2. making stuff for your fans rather than finding fans for your stuff. Those tactics work even better when built on top of a movement. When the attention being earned is from people who identify themselves as part of that […]
What I Would Do If I Was In A Band And Wanted To Make Money
I love music. I was in a short lived band once and still have: being in a touring band at the top of my do-before-I-die lists. I saw this info graphic that shows how little musicians earn online and then I read this article about how last week had the fewest number of albums sold […]