Bailing out GM with Google AdWords
First off, I’m not going to take sides here, I’m simply going to talk hypothetically about something I would do if I were GM. Something, quite honestly, I’m surprised that they’ve already started doing (to some extent), and that’s utilizing paid search.
It’s no secret that I’m a big proponent of paid search marketing, and maybe I’m just on too much of a kick with this lately since I started digging into the brilliant use of defensive PPC and Internet marketing by Obama’s campaign, but I think I’m onto something. One of my Facebook friends posted an item the other day titled “GM Facts and Fiction” which led to the website of the same name. The site is a GM run marketing tool which does a nice job of segmenting why you should support the bailout from a variety of perspectives - employee, retiree, dealer, concerned American, and supplier.
Further, the home page limits options to a few clear, but highly actionable paths. You either segment yourself for targeted marketing efforts, forward the site to others, watch a video, or go to a “learn more” page that further pounds home the message.
As Americans seek to learn more about the effects of these bailouts (last month Google reported over 4,000,000 searches for the term “bailout”!), this is obviously a good political tool to sway public opinion in your favor. But this is only one step. The site, like any, is useless without some marketing efforts getting people to it. A quick search for “gm bailout” showed me the following sponsored link in Google:
GM bailout Adwords Ad
Without much thought, we think, “Good move GM, way to get your message out.” But I feel this is shortsighted. First, the budget for GM has to be tight, so they should be pinching every penny on this (or at least giving the appearance that they are), so why am I seeing this ad in Michigan, where politicians and the general public are both firmly behind this cause already? Ultimately, they’re preaching to the converted…and paying for every click!
If I’m running this campaign, I would be geo-targeting the ads to constituents with representatives deemed most likely to change their position. My marketing mind says, I’d aim the campaign at areas where the representative voted in favor of the first bailout, or represents a large number of autoworkers. Making sure these people are presented with the message, and providing them tools (the site’s forwarding option) could be a very effective way to develop grassroots support for GM’s cause.
As it stands, the effort can still be effective, just not cost effective. Sadly, I’m not surprised.
Another seminar in the bag
So the 11 on 11 event at Claddagh’s went down without a hitch, and our sincere thanks to everyone who made it out. General feedback was great and we look forward to holding another one in the near future! If you’d like to keep up with upcoming events, check out the seminars page on our site, or go to our news section so you can sign up for our newsletter.
A special thanks to Claddagh’s for the hospitality and the great food. We’ll have pictures up soon and we’ll be sure to share them.
Political reputation management via paid search
I wrote an article for American Chronicle before the end of the election titled “The Politics of Paid Search - Combating the Obama and Palin Rumors“. In it, I discussed how Obama’s camp did a far better job squelching the rumors largely spread via e-mail proclaiming many unsavory “facts” about the various candidates. As I’ve continued to see interest in this topic, I decided to dive deeper and see why people have spent so much time discussing how the Internet was utilized in this campaign.
One of the most prevailing rumors spread via email was that Obama was a Muslim. As i stated in my previous article, Obama’s team had put in place a paid search marketing campaign which appeared to be broad matching searches containing “Obama”, “Barack”, and “Muslim”. In the sponsored search listings, two Obama ads ran unopposed. The first as more of a catch-all, titled “Researching Barack Obama?” and a second targeted add proclaiming simply, “Barack Obama: Not Muslim” leading to his brilliantly assembled Fight the Smears site, which provides answers countering all of the misinformation which his team constantly updated.
So how important was this site? Well, if my numbers mean anything, quite a bit. Initial keyword volume research on Google shows an average of 226,616 searches per month pertaining to Obama and the word Muslim. Considering Google accounts for about 70 percent of search traffic now, overall monthly search traffic likely eclipsed 300,000. It would appear that the word of mouth and email campaigns on that subject raised quite a bit of interest. While I am not privvy to the click throughs from the paid search campaigns, Quantcast reported monthly traffic in October to the Fight the Smears website of 747,000 visitors.
Perhaps just as telling from the Quantcast numbers is the traffic to the Fight the Smears site’s affinity for factcheck.org, a site aimed at shooting down both candidates’ loose use of facts. That site showed monthly traffic of 2.1 million visitors. What does this mean? Well, it would appear that a growing number of Americans are utilizing the Internet as a reference tool. While I’m certain it drives the candidates crazy trying to deal with unfounded attacks spreading like wildfire via email and otherwise, it must comfort them to see that people are taking it upon themselves to utilize available resources to ascertain what is fact and what is fiction.
While Obama’s team pushed the envelope to new heights in utilizing technology as a strategic and fundraising tool, it will be interesting to see how politicians leverage paid search management, and the Internet in general, as a powerful tool. With more independent organizations making information readily available to the public, it will be interesting to see if politicians are held increasingly accountable for their less than truthful rhetoric.
Meaningless web analytics reports
In the grand scheme of innovative technology, some things outlive their utility yet are grandfathered into assumed relevance almost infinitely. Web analytics, still in its formative years, has many such instances and most of them are found in the realm of reporting. By now, you probably know that “hits” are a completely useless metric, but in truth, many other mainstays of the WA vernacular bring little or nothing to the table themselves.
So as an homage to one of my favorite Mitch Hedberg jokes:
I saw a commercial on late night TV, it said,”Forget everything you know about slipcovers.” So I did. And it was a load off my mind. Then the commercial tried to sell me slipcovers, and I didn’t know what the hell they were.
Here are three relics of web analytics terminology to forget (or at least re-think):
- Exit rate. News flash, people are going to leave your site. Paying close attention to this data in and of itself is useless. If you’re your data or looking at pass through pages (step 2 of a shopping cart for example), you MAY have something. Bounce rate is a better measure, typically.
- Average time on site. Before you have a conniption, let me explain. There are sites and situations when this statistic doesn’t tell you much. First, many javascript analytics providers measure time on site by measuring the time between loading page one and page two. So, at an aggregate level, if you have 40 percent of your traffic only viewing one page (this happens a lot on blogs, in particular), your data is going to be severely skewed.
- Visitors. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…Yes, we want more traffic. But what kind of traffic? Are visitors new? Are they returning? Does an upward trend in traffic correlate to a higher conversion rate? Traffic does not always mean business, so this metric without context is meaningless.
Okay, I feel I’ve done my duty for the day. Not only that, but I got to thinking about Mitch Hedberg and I’m now in a better mood.
If anyone has any other suggestions on past their prime metrics, please share. I’m all ears.
What’s in the blender…
I know it’s been some time since my Google Analytics bit, where I promised the follow up with a review of Yahoo Web Analytics/IndexTools, and I just want everyone to know that it’s in the works! Other things that I’ll have coming down the pipeline will be some very straightforward tips for setting up your Google Analytics correctly (I’m no programmer, and you won’t need to be to use them, either).
Things have been busy here at Netvantage, lots of new opportunities and we’ve added some new customers to our ranks (welcome aboard!)
In other news, Joe’s hockey season gets under way tonight (he coaches hockey, for those that don’t know), so make sure you wish him and his team luck on their coming season.
