You can imagine what a spreadsheet listing all of the counties in the country and their associated metrics would look like. What a beast. Much better to show this overlaid on a map, don’t you think? Well, I searched for months to find a good, easy and cheap solution for rendering data on a map, and surprisingly came up with few options. There are sophisticated applications/services out there that can do this and more, but these were generally built for companies in logistics related industries and don’t offer the functionally needed by a marketer. What’s more, they are not cheap.

One option I have been using for 10 years now is Microsoft’s MapPoint. Now don’t misunderstand me, this is far from an ideal solution. It is clunky, limited in its options and definitely a canned product Microsoft just threw out there with little support. That said, it costs less than $300 and is very simple to use. I generally describe it as a map that allows you to import a spreadsheet. And as long as your spreadsheet has at least one column with a standard geographic metric in it, you can plot it. It is great for plotting store locations, DMAs where advertising was purchased, zip codes that convert most…or all three on the same map. Now that’s a visual!

Map of retail locations and surrounding, segmented zip codes within 20 miles

There is one quirk that I researched for weeks. It drove me crazy. There is no intuitive way to render the value of what you are plotting as the label. In other words, if a particular county produced 500 sales in a given month, you want the county name and the number “500” overlaid on the map. Let me save you hours of aggravation and tell you the workaround. Territories. When importing your spreadsheet, use the Importing Territories Wizard and assign the heading Territory to the column you want to serve as your label – “Sales” in this example.

Otherwise, the tool is a great bang for your buck. I use it all the time, and the maps it creates never cease to impress.

I have been joking for years now that my wife still doesn’t know what I do. Whenever a co-worker, friend or neighbor asks, she struggles to answer. Of course it doesn’t help that she is in one of those easy to describe professions – she is an architect. People instantly know what she does.

Well now I think us analytics folks have a phrase that might work. It’s not perfect, and sounds a bit academic, but I am very tempted the next time I find myself at a dinner party to respond “Data Scientist”. At least I won’t get those odd stares…or maybe I will but because of the bean dip I just spilled on my tie.

Unfortunately, I have never seen an implementation where this report has worked properly. Even if you are careful enough to ensure that no two links on a page share the same exact path (which I almost always find), you will still likely have inaccurate reports. This is due to the technology of these web analytics applications.

But there is another option. Third party services are able to provide this insight, and can do it in more depth. Two top vendors are CrazyEgg and ClickTale. Like your web analytics applications, they simply require you to drop a little javascript on your pages, and they will provide site overlay, heatmaps and more. Great eye candy for executives and data geeks alike.

ClickTale mouse move heatmap

CrazyEgg confetti heatmap

For specific help getting started, see my post on Google Optimizer.

In this situation, I always focus on two key points:  1) if testing discipline is not practiced, the test could be wasted, and 2) prioritize what you want to learn.  On the first point, I am speaking of ensuring you achieve a valid test result.  If you cut up the test into too many different cells, you may end up with Parameter A yielding 31 conversions, Parameter B showing 28 and Parameter C netting 35.  So after weeks (or months) of planning, execution and budget outlay, we can’t say whether the differences in performance are true or simply due to normal statistical variability.

Easy for me to say, you may be thinking.  Actually, it’s easy for you to do.  All that is necessary is doing some simple math to estimate what your results will be.  Look at previous campaigns to get a ballpark for response rates, click-through-rates, conversion rates and the like.  Then, do your simple math:

Circulation (or Impressions)  X  Response Rate  =  Total Responses

Next,

Total Responses  X  Conversion Rate  =  Conversions

Look at this figure for your different test cells.  Be sure that you can get to a count of at least 150.  The best way is to actually back into a statistically significant result, but in lieu of that at least ensure that you have this many conversions.  That will often lead you to a readable sample size and result.

Ok, so we have whittled down the number of test cells through the exercise above.  Now, how do we choose which parameters to test?  That is the tough part.  Still, as you might expect, it’s about prioritization.  I suggest you start with the boldest thing you are testing.  A good example of this is a new set of media or a new list.  Once you have validated the first priority, then move to the next.  Yes, this will take some time and in today’s world, everyone wants answers now.  But the risk is trying to do too much in each test and not learning anything.  I’ve seen this play out more times that I can count.

The fact is, there are many types of media out there – the most expensive of which is guaranteed on a particular network and time.   Let’s just do the math, comparing two different media buys:



As is shown here, a much stronger ROI can be achieved on significantly weaker performance, as long as the media cost is low.  This is not a fictitious example, but a real life case of two specific media buys.  Now, your business might be very different.  You may not have a one step sale, but are instead capturing leads that you hope to convert at a later date.  Or you may have a much higher average order size.  But in the end, the concept holds.  Even though it may be counter-intuitive at first, when you can buy media at a fraction of the cost, it may not matter whether it hits your target demo all the time.  The math of remnant media is very compelling.

TV advertising is usually thought as the antithesis of this.  People are often unaware of your product or brand when they see the commercial, and its cost is substantially higher than that of a Search ad.  So companies often find it hard to justify spending on TV.  But if you have felt this, let me point out one important – and often overlooked – effect of TV…

TV advertising raises awareness of your product and brand. Just to be clear, I do not mean this in a fluffy brand awareness sense, but in a direct response sense.  Let me explain.  Say you are maxing out on your “branded” search campaign.  This is likely your best performing ad group.  As in all advertising mediums, you can’t buy any more inventory than is available.  However, in Search, it is possible to create inventory! How?  You guessed it – TV.  When a spot airs, you drive people to the web to learn more about your product, and they will do it using your brand name.  So although TV can be expensive, one of it’s benefits is that it creates media in what is likely your cheapest and most efficient channel – Search.

The main functionality of Google Instant is to offer refreshed search results as the searcher types each successive character.  In other words, you will get results before you are finished typing your query in.  In some instances, Google will locate what the searcher is looking for faster, but in others, the searcher will get diverted from their search with something else tangential or perhaps even unrelated.  Regardless, my sense is fewer long tail queries will be executed.

This is bad news for small businesses.  Anyone who has logged into AdWords and executed a campaign, is aware of how expensive clicks are these days.  Established companies and brands, having history and resources, tend to dominate category head terms.  Thus, newcomers can often only effectively compete in the realm of long tail terms.  That has been a fine strategy, as the searchers locating those sites found a product or service that was much more aligned with their specific needs than what a category head term would deliver.  And with the significantly lower cost, small businesses can afford them.  Sure, impression volume is dramatically lower, but a smaller operation wouldn’t need the same volume to stay afloat.  Unfortunately, if Google Instant does to search what some predict, it will further hamper small businesses from getting noticed and send more volume to the established companies and products.

Large companies will not remain unaffected by Google Instant either.  New search strategies around concepts like the order of search terms in a phrase or partial keyword bidding could require them to optimize their campaigns all over again for this new landscape.  As well, some key metrics will now be skewed.  Impression volume will rise as in-process searches register views, and this will by definition affect KPIs like click-through-rate (CTR).

So Google Instant has kicked off an adjustment period where businesses must re-evaluate their search strategies and experiment with approaches.  If it is adopted widely, there could be significant work ahead for all of us.  Now, it’s not necessarily a bad thing to occasionally have a shakeup that requires the players to prove their worth, but I do worry that this will disproportionately hurt small businesses.

Good or bad – only time will tell. But this is definitely a fundamental change to search, and will affect what people ultimately locate and click on. And that will pose new challenges to businesses trying to identify and attract potential customers. I will explore Google Instant more soon, but will leave you with one parting thought: Google makes its billions by getting searchers to click. Efficient businesses don’t want every click.