There are so many ways to answer this question. I've been trying to answer this question for at least a year, in terms of how we position our agency services and capabilities -- and I think I have the answer. But first, lets discuss why it's so difficult to consistently and concisely define SEO/Social kinship and fit it neatly into a box. There are many reasons -- a few of of them include: 1. Subjective...
Read more »
ZAAZ has three submissions in the SXSW PanelPicker. We guarantee education, entertainment and surprises. Voting ends August 27th! Look at our ideas, ask us questions, vote for us, and let's take 6th street by storm! Rich Devine "Mobilizing Performance From Search" By 2012, 20 percent of all search queries will come from a mobile device. While there is growing focus on creating mobile site experiences and applications, not enough businesses focus on their mobile search...
Read more »
The Wall Street Journal has an amazing interactive piece entitled "What They Know" that focuses on the data that is collected and used for tracking and reporting by 50 of the most visited sites on the Web. Play around with it for a while- you get a sense of the massive amounts of data that popular sites such as ebay and CNN.com collect about you behind the scenes and how that data might impact your...
Read more »
Facebook is pushing the mocial envelope these days. At the MobileBeat 2010 conference in SF earlier this week, Facebook announced that it will be extending its Open Graph platform to mobile, moving away from an individual mobile app strategy and moving into a let's-allow-facebook-to-be-connected-into-everything strategy. What does this mean? App makers will now be able to connect into the Facebook platform and incorporate data into their own apps, leveraging information such as friend recommendations. It's...
Read more »
Online reputation management has become an increasingly hot topic as mass adoption of social media progresses. There are no shortages of issues or drama that overtakes blog posts, trending topics and social commentary, the new reality is that no brand – whether consumer or personal – is exempt. I know I am stating the obvious here, but it’s for this reason that engaging in social media is tenuous for companies and individuals, since there is...
Read more »
Recently I went to get a sandwich and had an experience which my friend and colleague Kat Tillman said- “hey that would be a great blog post.” So, alas this social media strategist is finally walking the walk and posting to the ZAAZ blog. Ok, so here’s the deal – I ordered my sandwich on a super handy kiosk and even paid with the handy-dandy swiper dealy. Then, decided after a couple minutes of standing...
Read more »
At last week's 20th annual Computers, Freedom & Privacy (CFP) summit in San Jose, participants and practitioners debated and proposed a Social Network Users' Bill of Rights, designed to represent the denizens of the social ecosystem out there (in here?). Facebook, Google Whatever, Twitter, this is mostly about you guys. You can tell that these principles weren't written by politicians or (exclusively) lawyers, since they are clear, intelligible, and brief enough to be included in...
Read more »
What can your website activity tell you about your brick and mortar sales? Ever wondered when your website metrics go up, if it means you’ll actually sell more products offline? While ecommerce activity continues to grow in all categories, for many companies the majority of online shopping activity still results in a purchase being made through an offline (brick and mortar) retailer. As part of our Monetization Modeling practice we analyze this relationship so that...
Read more »
If you are a search marketer, and you haven’t been locked in your basement playing Dungeons & Dragons while your ranking reports run, you’ve probably heard -- and either shrugged or freaked out – about Google’s announced launch of 'encrypted search'. In a nut-shell, this secure version (https) of Google is supposed to allow users to freely search without fear of their search behavior being ‘observed’. Google’s own Search-Spam-Czar (not an official Obama administration post),...
Read more »
Recently, the conversation of matching paid search clicks (from Google or Dart) to paid search site side reporting (Omniture or WebTrends) came back on the radar. I have had this same conversation many times in the past and have given many good reasons, but the truth of the matter is that the two sets of numbers will never match and we as a collective group should stop trying to get them to match. The two...
Read more »
I'm just back from the eMetrics conference in San Jose and, as usual, my head has been filled with new ideas, possibilities, and exciting directions for the Web analytics industry. There were some great sessions on digital measurement, but the one that caught my eye was the Omniture presentation highlighting its Facebook advertising integration capabilities. Facebook has dominated headlines recently, getting attention for both positive and negative opinion on their recent announcements. The web analytics...
Read more »
Apple's iP ad has only been on the market for two months, but already it is changing how we engage with content. The iPad is poised to change the landscape of magazine publishing—both in how readers consume their favorite editorial content, and in how magazines, struggling with the decline of print readership and advertising, can grow their revenue streams in new and immersive ways. After Steve Jobs announced the coming of the iPad in January...
Read more »
Silly Google. Their new search results look remarkably similar in functionality to what Microsoft rolled out with Bing. At the time Google said they're just fine standing pat. Now they're saying that they've always been adjusting the presentation, usability, and functionality of their results. Come on Google, it's okay to admit that Microsoft did something well -- and now you're making an effort to follow suit. http://ow.ly/1HW56
Read more »
Despite my best efforts, graduate school taught me all about financial ratios. Financial ratios are key indicators of a firm's overall financial health and performance. Drawn from financial statements, our nerdy finance friends polish their thick glasses, find two numbers from a financial statement and divide one number by another to arrive at a simple ratio. They look at liquidity ratios, asset turnover ratios, profitability ratios, dividend ratios, etc. Similarly, many of us use analytics...
Read more »
Ask a room full of digital marketers what “Monetization” means and you’ll get a lot of responses. For some, it’s a reporting metric; for others, it means better merchandising and high conversion rates; for still others, it’s figuring out how to make any money at all from a website (Twitter anyone?). At ZAAZ, we have our own take on monetization – one we think is critical for all digital marketers: Monetization modeling is the analysis...
Read more »
