Tuesday, June 11, 2013

REPOST: New Google Tool Helps Businesses Deliver Better Online Ads


How will "The Customer Journey to Online Purchase" - a new tool launched by Google - help online businesses? Read about it from this Entrepreneur.com article.

When customers visit your website with the intention of making a purchase, do you always know how they arrived there? Were they directed to your site from a display advertisement on another site? Did they click on a link emailed to them by a friend? Did they find your product or service through an online search? And which is most effective for driving sales online?

These are questions Google is trying to answer with a new tool called "The Customer Journey to Online Purchase," which allows users to explore typical online buying behavior and see how different marketing interactions impact online sales -- from the first time customers interact with your marketing to the moment they buy something. Released today, the tool draws on data collected from more than 36,000 Google Analytics business clients.

Image Source: Entrepreneur.com

For instance, customers typically click on display ads early in the online purchasing process, but in industries such as travel and auto, customers tend to click on display ads closer to their purchasing decision, according to Google. "The data shows that every industry is different," Google said in an announcement. "The path to purchase for hotel rooms in Japan is not necessarily the same as the path for an online supermarket in Canada."

The idea, Google says, is to help marketers design advertising campaigns that deliver the right message at the right moment. Business owners can use The Customer Journey to Online Purchase tool to look at typical purchasing trends in their industry, and then reference their own Google Analytics data to determine how and where different marketing channels influence customers to make purchases so they can adjust their budgets and programs accordingly.

The Customer Journey to Online Purchase tool is free to use and is available starting today.

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Wednesday, June 5, 2013

New Google+ update: Focusing on people instead of tools

Image Source: knowem.com


2011 was the year Google decided to unleash its take on social networking, seeking to overthrow Facebook as the largest social networking platform. Known as Google Plus, G+, or Google+, the site has recently overthrown Twitter as the world’s second largest social networking platform, with over 343 million active users worldwide, which amounts to around 25 percent of global Internet users.


Global Web Index Social Platform Active Usage Dec. 2012
Image Source: searchenginejournal.com


Its recent update pushes a modern design, support for multiple devices, and a lot more. One reason why Google+ used a minimalistic approach, as opposed to what Facebook did with its user interface, is that it believes that technology is at its best when it gets out of the way, leaving tools, charts, complicated menus and options in the background, and letting users just focus on having fun, all while creating unique content that is fresh and exciting. Another problem that the update seems to fix is the need for a robust universal communication platform that will work across all devices and operating systems, mobile included. Google Hangouts combines the ease of universal messaging via the Web, photo sharing, and video calling in one sleek, modern package. SMS messaging is currently not supported, although that functionality will be added in future updates to the platform. The update also gives the power of Google to photos uploaded to the social networking site, giving people less time to worry about how their photos look and more time to make memories.


Image Source: andykdocs.de


One thing is for sure: With the new Google+ update, it is clear that Google isn’t content with its social media platform staying second to Facebook; it wants to be number one.

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