Your speakers for the day will be me, at least I will be chairing and trying to set the scene. Your lead expert for the day will be Richard Gregory, chief operating officer of Latitude. I learnt more from him over one lunch than I had done in the previous 6 months. And there is the stunning mind that is Dan Lukas (nee O’Malley) of Needle Insights who will be using the crystal ball that is in-depth data analysis to deliver some thought as to the opportunities available to the legal sector in the very near future. If you would like to attend, please book via Pro Manchester but hurry, attendance is limited and it’s nearly full.

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• Al Wightman, Owner, So What Analytics @AlWightman
• Dan Croxen-John, CEO, Applied Web Analytics @dancroxenjohn
• George Ioannou, Head of Agency, Digital & Wise @georgeioannou

The future of Analytics

• In relation to accurate attribution, for on and offline activity, there are tools that will help us get there, but its just the beginning.
• Make use of the correlations between time and campaigns within Analytics reports.
• Focus on optimising and understanding business performance – this is the bit that is often missed.
• Online is the most accountable channel – but so often we don’t see results driven campaigns.
• Most analytics jobs are advertised requesting someone who can use the technology and capture data, without anything about the understanding of the data and gleening actionable insights.
• Often analysts aren’t good at explaining or demonstrating what they’ve found.
• Mentioned Richard Adams’ diagram on customer interaction at analytics.
  
• 18million people have contacted a brand using social media.
• Its important to review data on your customer service.

How do you make in-store activity trackable?

• Incentivise with foursquare
• Use ipads in store
• Vouchers

How do you measure lifetime value of a customer?

• The best tool to use for this is Excel!
• Merge the data from your various tools.
• Use data warehousing . Can now do this in ‘the cloud’.
• There’s a trade off between privacy and data collection.
• Companies are still not using propensity modelling to target people who are likely to buy, before sending their mail outs – effectively rendering it as junk mail.
• Example web analytics measurement framework from George Ioannou
  
• Web Analytics Simple Scorecard
  

The post SASCON 2012: Analytics 2.0 appeared first on PushON Ltd.

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Dom Hodgson – Hodgetastic

Laurence O’Toole – Owner, Analytics SEO

Teddie Cowell – SEO Director, NetBooster

Malcolm Maybury – Director, 360spin

Chris Johnson – Agency Product Specialist, Google

Mobile Use in Local Search

•  1 in 3 mobile searches are local (local modifier or maps query).

Las Vegas Hotels campaign given as an example:

• Desktop site geared towards out-of-towners/tourists – people who intend to visit Las Vegas.
• Mobile sites are often (or should be) geared towards local search.
• Importance of splitting your campaign between mobile and desktop.

 Google Wallet will become more important (a prediction…)

• With this you can give customers offers through your paid search
• Discounts from vouchers/offers will be discounted automatically upon buying.
• Local targeting will make up a big chunk of these sort of campaigns

Google sitelinks change dynamically dependent on location

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The post SAScon 2012: Increasing Site Engagement appeared first on PushON Ltd.

• Andy Betts, Digital & Marketing, Strategist @andybetts1
• Bas van den Beld, Search & Social Strategist & State of Search @basvandenbeld
• Martin Macdonald, SEO Strategy Director, Expedia @searchmartin
• Paddy Moogan, SEO Consultant, Distilled @paddymoogan
• Kevin Gibbons, Director of Strategy, SEOptimise @kevgibbo

Will link building die as a result of social signals in search?

• It wont die but will dwindle.
• We are ultimately a system of nodes and edges.
• Its easy to manipulate search results using links, but screwing with the social graph is much harder to do.
• If you only have social signals and no links, then it will look as unnatural as loads of links with no social.
• For one project we saw that after building up social signals, ranking result stabilised.
• It can be easy to manipulate social signals artificially because there are much more variants.
• This type of artificial ecosystem will still sit separately from the rest of the world, so it’s much harder to fake.
• Using Analytics Canvas, found a 62% increase in organic traffic for clients using social. Massive decrease for clients who don’t.
• We’re still talking about tactics rather than strategy. People forget about the audience.
• Too many people set up social accounts and don’t do anything with them.

What will be the effect of the Bing/Facebook alliance?

• It depends on how quickly they roll it out.
• Google are forcing Google Plus upon people by giving people an account when you sign up for any Google product.
• Google’s biggest mistake was not using Facebook’s data.

How do you see the future of Google plus for smaller businesses?

• If it gets more popular, then it will be important.
  Small businesses should focus more on recommendations in general.
• If most of your visits are from search traffic, then it makes more sense to have google plus integration rather than Facebook integration.
• Go where your target audience is.
• Example:
  Customised message depending on whether the tool detects if you are logged in to Facebook or Google Plus.
• Facebook like coat hangers by C&A in Brazil.
  
• Blackmilkclothing.com – tagged photos of you wearing the products will be added to the product pages.
• To display your photo here simply include this tag #auroraskyelegs in a photo comment on our Facebook fan page, a photo tweet on Twitter or as a tag on your Instagram photo.
  
• There was an error on the page where Paddy was demonstrating this, wearing the leggings. Shame.
• For retailers like Currys, having an iPad next to product with reviews might be a good way to increase in-store conversions.

Should we move away from obvious SEO guest blogs?

• Problems happen when different parties manage different things.
• If its easy to spot as a post written for SEO purposes, then its been done badly.
• It should look more natural/credible.

Will agencies manipulate social sharing?

• Yes. Marketers will always try to encourage people to share the message.
• There will be tools available in the future that will replicate the ‘natural’ shape of social ecosystems.
• They will be available within 6 months.

What are we actually doing?  What do we call ourselves?

• Inbound marketing. Everyone seems to hate this term.
• Seo? Online marketing? Holistic marketing? Digital marketing?
• Owned media, earned and paid media?
• We’re doing Marketing. Everyone seems happy with this definition!

What do you think the biggest threat to the industry is?

• Everything changes anyway, tactics generally have a limited lifespan.
• What works now wont work in 12 months time.
• You have to be able to adapt to what works.
• Now we have tools to find out what people are doing, we have much more information available.
• It’s more of an opportunity than a risk.

How will it work for people who aren’t yet on social sites – e.g. My 2 year old.

• There are social networks for 4 year olds – Moshi monsters has the highest average visit count.
  
• You will never be able to fake a natural social profile.
• Ralf disagrees – it’s easy to get real people to connect with a bot without them realising it.
• There are tools that can locate people around you, male or female with single status on their Facebook profile.
• Kids often don’t understand how dangerous it can be to publish their data.

The post SASCON 2012 : Understanding the Role of Social in Search appeared first on PushON Ltd.

• Kristal Ireland, Propoganda Agency
• Philip Coen, Social Media Ventures
• Robin Wilson, McCann
• Simon Alexander, Carat
• Andrew Grill, Kred
• Danielle Fudge, Forward

What are the key metrics for social platforms?

• For Twitter, the effectiveness of linguistics used, interactions, and retweets
• What people take from tweets
• Most important thing is determining how to analyse metrics in a business sense; pick out your objectives early
• ‘Outreach’ is the likelihood of people engaging with your social media account
• Develop a model in which the metrics you are collecting bear relevance to traditional marketing metrics
• Traditional marketing models cannot simply be discarded now social is here. Also helps bridge gap between agencies and clients
• Social platforms are disruptive to marketing as they give users a voice which people do listen to

Discussion arose as to last year’s Yeo Valley advert, shown during the X Factor and made using all of the company’s ad budget. It told a story and got people talking. This was called “smart marketing” Andrew Grill from Kred, although it was debated as to whether every firm should use it as an example.

The ‘Like’

Philip Coen cited research which found that people ‘Liked’ brands that they had already bought from, rather than had intentions to buy from for the first time. This developed into an aside on Google Instant and how that whole process essentially tracks users journeys and intent from the moment the first key is pushed on the keyboard.

Sentiment

Sentiment is really hard to develop in social, the panel agreed. However, they also agreed that the vast variables involved mean it isn’t the ‘be all end all’.  Danielle Fudge says her company has a set system of positive and negative words for use with each client i.e. a youth company would use ‘sick’ in a positive way, while a health company would use it negatively.

 Key strategies and tools for identifying and user social influencers

Andrew Grill brings up bloggers and their importance, adding that it is a very good idea for people to know their social tools very well before taking stock from their results. He also said that big companies are now looking for “unsigned bloggers”.

Notes:

• Danielle Fudge: “People see social media as a free area – ‘Why should we spend any money on it?’”
• A good reporting method is simply sticking tweets into a Word Cloud and seeing what comes out. This will be what is being spoken about
• Robin Wilson recommended putting analytics in context showing, for example, ‘TV advert was shown here’. Mentioned importance of overlaying information
• Coen: “B2B can be more successful than B2C using social media.”

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Bas van den Beld, Search & Social Strategist & State of Search @basvandenbeld

We want what other people have.

• E.g. Keeping up with the Jonses (recommends the film)
  

Its hard to resist peer pressure

• E.g. The Jagger train from the first last night of SASCon.

We can’t resist our kids

• E.g supermarket gave away personal football cards with childs’ photo.
• Music in store targeted pregnant mums to calm unborn babies, resulting in less temper tantrums in store after the child is born.
• Kids music played encouraging kids to ask for candy (Amazing little dance By Bas Van Den Beld)

History

• There’s normally a different story and outcome depending on who tells it. E.g. Dunkirk/Zeitgeist
• Ultimate in social – Jesus :started with 12 followers… One of the disciples un-followed him… you know the rest…

Human beings need to connect with others.

Google

• Eric Schmidt (Google) – keep an eye on him, everything he says publicly preceeds a big change.
  Famously said recently “We know where you are, we know what you like”
• Google is using connections, account data and social signals.
• Social signals include:
• Your identity and profile
• Your friends and contacts
• What you do
• Google maps
• You can perform a search on your desktop, move to your car, open Google navigation, and the address you just searched on your desktop is available immediately (if you’re logged in).
• Google knows who you are connected to though your social graph.
• Google knows that we trust the people we know, which is why they’re building social recommendations into the search results.
• Click through rates have increased greatly for results with social recommendation.
• They’re adding the ‘thank you’ button for shared content to encourage people to use Google Plus.

Facebook campaign for Obermuden

• We need to have the right mindset and do the right type of marketing.
• Obermuden tourist board said that if you like thier page, they’ll print your picture out and put your photo on their bulliten board in the village.
• Their Facebook followers increased massively.
• Tourism increased.

Trust

• People wont trust you if you say you’re good, they will trust you if people say you’re good ( particularly someone they trust).
• Target people with trust. Stop sellong, start sharing. Be personal.
• Target those who will tell your story in a personal way.
• Give them stuff, make them laugh.

What would you choose, search or social?

• It’s the same thing.

The post SASCON 2012 : The Psychology in Search and Social appeared first on PushON Ltd.

Stephen James Lock, SEO Product Manager, Analytics SEO

Laurent Boninfante, MD, Acquisio

Matt Roberts, VP Product Development, Linkdex

Our takeaway points from the session can be found below:-

• Recommended tools include Linkdex, Athena, Buzzstream, SEOMoz, Majestic SEO toolsets etc. These are for analysing profiles etc. Look at new features such as citations in Majestic SEO.
• Checkout BloomReach to learn more about semantics and content development. Read the post on how it works and think about how you can disrupt others campaigns with these.
• Retargeting will become a key part of a search marketing strategy. See Danny Roche’s slides for more information on this. While display advertising has been seen as a bit outdated the approach has vastly improved due to more transparency and better platforms. This makes it a much more attractive proposition to people and should be a viable option for many campaigns. (Laurent)
• If you are doing search retargeting you will want to look at the entire conversion funnel. You need to make sure it tracks the whole way through. You should have this set for any campaign.
• Schema.org is becoming increasingly important and people should be using it (Stephen)
• SPDY & Ajax can help speed up your website/server responses
• AuthorCrawler is another tool to look at. Lets you analyse authorships and can be used for link building

The post SASCON 2012: Cutting Edge Search Technology appeared first on PushON Ltd.

• Peter Cobley, Commercial Director, hômejames @Cobblers
• Rob Weatherhead, Head of Digital Operations, Mediacom @RobWeatherhead
• Darren Herbert, Head of Conversion, Latitude @Herbie_365
• Ade Allenby, Online Marketing Manager, TalkTalk Business @ady_a
• Kevin Cunningham, Client Services Director, Carat @kevcunn

Intro by Peter Cobley

•  Lots of people fall into the ROBO cycle (researching online buying offline).

Presentation by Rob Weatherhead

• There are now 1.2 billion mobile subscribers
• You must be mobile ready to future proof your business.
• Search is still a key part of reaching users.
• Right place, right time, right message,  right device.
• People use different devices and are in a different state of mind at different points in the day. Make sure you keep this in mind when scheduling your messages.
• Direct response action ‘opening hours’ have been extended.
• Most people aren’t mobile  when they’re using a mobile device, the are likely to be on the couch in front of the T.V. Its important to target your message, and encourage people to look you up in the web.
• Reach people at every stage using multplatform channels – from exploration, excavation to
• Search runs across every stage of the process.

Presentation by Kevin Cunningham

• “Having a campaign based on sales is not doing your campaign justice”
• To really understand multiplatform marketing, you need to understand all the influences.
• Track offline.
• Set campaign objectives within the limitations that you are operating in.
• Invest in measurement personnel, processes and systems

Presentation by Darren Herbert (in a transparant t-shirt)

• Conversion attribution is limited, and retargetting isn’t accurate when people are using the Internet on multiple devices (e.g.  Work P.C., home P.C., mobile, PS3).
• Other limits, JavaScript or cookies blocked.
• New solution : ‘fingerprinting’ (e.g. By Bluecava/AdTruth)
• You can then retarget user groups with more effective adverts.
• Completely circumvents the EU cookie directive because it profiles by device rather than by user.
• Other solutions – unified logins (e.g. Google and Facebook).

Presentation by Ade Allenby from Talk Talk

• Tablets are geared towards content consumption rather than content creation.
• But there’s likely to be a change; more businesses are introducing them into the workplace.
• Different devices are used for different ourchase types and actions.
• Smartphone purchases tend to be used more for emergency purchases – click to call is used more.
• Desktop or tablet users are often researching an ‘issue’.
• Divide media messages by device types.
• Police the brand space manually using different devices (e.g. If using affiliates)

Questions to the Panel

Q. Why aren’t people talking about Connected T.V.?

A. Limited penetration at the moment, and more prevalent in the U.S.  But it will be a key part of the mix, and we need to learn more about it.

Q. Would you change your message to target ‘slouchers’ rather than purchasers after a certain time?

A. Cater for both and test. Depends on keyword analysis/customer profile. Brand terms are different again.

Q. Tracking for the different devices.

A. Econometrics is ideal, but make sure you’re using analysing the data and that its implemented correctly.

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