Pulling Levers Blog
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Broken Landing Pages Cost You Money with Adwords
Posted by Joe Brodecki on April 11, 2008 within Google Adwords, Search Engine Marketing. | No Comments
When you first launch a campaign in Adwords, there is a process (automated) whereby Google checks to make sure the destination URL of each ad/keyword is a functioning page (i.e. no 404 or download). Once this occurs, the ads run and you start raking in the cash.
What we have found is that if that page eventually breaks (and they do, many times when adding additional tracking parameters), Google will not necessarily be aware that the ad is going to a non-functioning page. So, your campaign may be driving costly clicks to pages that don’t exist or call your 404 page (another reason to customize that 404). This can be a major issue with online retailers who have thousands of products and are leveraging product pages as landing pages. A product is no longer listed or pulled due to lack of inventory and, without the proper notification to marketing, clicks come…budget spent…un-smiley faces.
Google Analytics changes time on site calculation
Posted by Joe Brodecki on August 6, 2007 within Google Analytics. | No Comments
UPDATE 9/12/2007 – Google has reversed its counting methodology for time on site.
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We attended the GA Conversion Universiy last week and it was discussed why Google Analytics time on site numbers have jumped.
Google’s explanation is that Google Analytics is no longer counting visitors who bounce in their TOS calculation. They weren’t sure when the change took effect (they thought end of July). The Google folks agreed it should have been announced.