The Good. The Bad. The Google.

Image: CIO.com

In 2012, a federal regulatory agency concluded that Google abused its monopoly power in ways that harmed not only its competitors, but also Internet users like you and me (Pagliery, 2015).

You may not remember this situation in the news because it was a rather uneventful story. Why? Because Google avoided a massive antitrust battle, thanks to the Federal Trade Commission’s decision not to pursue a legal fight.

That’s right. Even after the federal regulatory agency concluded wrongdoing by Google and a two-year investigation by the FTC into the company's online monopoly power, all five FTC commissioners decided to not sue (Pagliery, 2015).

How did this happen? Why is it that even though it was concluded that Google actually posed harm “to consumers and to innovation” (Mullins, Winkler and Kendall; 2015) that they, themselves, came away relatively unharmed?

According to a CNN Money article about the Google monopoly issue, it’s because the battle would have been too great for the FTC: “In reality, the FTC likely didn't pursue a legal fight because it was going to be a tough case. After all, it had to be able to prove that Google was a monopoly power that was not only harming competition but also the public. Google was popular with the public, which could easily choose to use competitors that were just a click away like Yahoo and Bing” (Pagliery, 2015).

So here we are a couple of years later and Google has continued to grow as a monopoly. It continues collect incredible amounts of user data and toe the line on privacy concerns. BUT - and this is a big but - the company also continues to churn out innovative products and services that are truly changing our lives in meaningful ways.

Is it worth it?

Well, there’s no one-size-fits-all way to answer whether or not the positive impact Google is making on our lives with its innovative products and ideas is worth the sacrifice of privacy and control over our own data.

The fact is, privacy holds a different level of importance for each of us. For every person who isn’t sharing anything online - who is holding tight to every ounce of privacy they’re able to maintain in this digital age, there is another person who is oversharing by the minute, with selfies, photos of their kids and pets, images of the meals they’re eating, the places they’re visiting and the items they’re buying.

While there no definitive way to say that Google is or is not crossing the line, it is possible to take a closer look at what data the company is collecting and what is being done with it. Perhaps if we were all a little more educated, we could at least take more ownership over our own privacy concerns, regardless of what Google is or is not allowed to do as a business.

What Does Google Know About YOU?

According to Google, itself, Google collects the data about its users in the following ways:

• Things you do: When we use Google’s services, the company tracks what it refers to as “basic information to make these services work”, including things we search for, websites we visit, ads we engage with, our location, our devices, our IP addresses and our cookie data.
• Things that make you “you”: When we create a Google Account, the company records and stores information we provide, including name, email address and password, birthday, gender, phone number, country and billing information. This information is account related and, Google insists that it is stored securely on their servers.
• Things you create: When signed into our Google Accounts, the company stores and protects what we create while using their services so, as Google says “you will always have your information when you need it. This data can include emails sent using Gmails, contacts we add, calendar events, photos and videos we upload, and the Docs, Sheets and Slides we create on Google Drive.

(Google: Data Collection, 2015)

While the second two areas explained here don’t really surprise me, as they pertain to the information I want and expect Google to store for me, it’s the first area that makes me - and a lot of other people - a little uneasy. Google is not only watching everything I do online, it is also recording it and storing it. ...and sharing it.

Regardless of your comfort level with the company’s data collection practices, it’s important to be informed about what Google is doing with your personal information.

Again, according to Google, the company says, “By analyzing patterns across the data we collect, we give you more useful results and recommendations. And when you sign in with your Google Account, we can give you an even better experience” (Google: Data Use, 2015).

But what does that mean? Is this data actually making things better for you? Or is it all about pleasing advertisers? If you ask me, it’s actually a little of both.

What does it mean for YOU?

The data Google collects about your behavior while you use its products makes your searches more accurate, efficient and relevant. For example, if you are traveling and use Google on your smartphone to search for Starbucks. If you allow Google to see your location, it can provide Starbucks locations closest to you.

As another example, because Google tracks information about our emails, it is able to provide better spam filters that keep annoying and potentially malicious emails from reaching your inbox. In fact, Google claims that thanks to their efforts in this area, less than 1% of all spam sent to Gmail actually makes it to their users’ inboxes (Google: Data Use, 2015).

Lastly, the same data that helps advertisers also helps you. When Google knows more about you, including your location, your previous searches, your demographics, the devices you use, etc., it can deliver ads that are most likely to actually be of interest to you. That means that if you’re a 25 year-old single woman living in Florida, you would be extremely unlikely to see ads for a senior citizen assisted living community in Nebraska.

So is Google a monopoly? Perhaps. Is that a bad thing? It depends on how you look at it. While bad things can certainly result from monopolies and no one wants their personal data exploited, it seems as though Google’s efforts thus far have been aimed at making the world better and more relevant.

Should Google be watched closely? I think so. But in the meantime, just be aware of how your information is being tracked and shared. Take ownership of your privacy, but also try to appreciate the quality of life that is made possible when you share a little bit of personal data.

Resources

Google. (2015). Google: Data Collection. “What data does Google collect?”. Google. Retrieved from https://privacy.google.com/data-we-collect.html

Google. (2015). Google: Data Use. “What does Google do with the data it collects?”. Google Retrieved from https://privacy.google.com/how-we-use-data.html

Mullins, B., Winkler, R., and Kendall, B. (March 19, 2015). “Inside the U.S. Antitrust Probe of Google”. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-the-u-s-antitrust-probe-of-google-1426793274  

Pagliery, J. (March 19, 2015). “Google abused its monopoly power, FTC experts found”. CNN Money. Retrieved from http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/19/technology/google-monopoly-ftc/

Google Analytics vs. HubSpot

New digital marketing capabilities are emerging every day. Marketers can now use a wide range of social media platforms, email marketing tools, digital advertising, and mobile advertising, not to mention a vast range of content options, to reach their target audiences. But the flip side of all these new ways to reach new people, engage them and convert them into leads and customers is measurement. How can you be sure your efforts are doing what they were designed to do?

Thankfully, there are also many analytics tools available, with more being introduced, updated and improved seemingly every day. Two key players in the world of web analytics are HubSpot and Google Analytics. In this post, I’ll take a look at each of these analytics options and compare their features and functionalities to you to decide which is best for your website and your business goals.

Google Analytics

Google is, of course, a massive company providing a wide range of products for consumers and businesses, alike. But one of its products, in particular, delivers exceptional value for digital marketers: Google Analytics.

Celebrating its 10-year anniversary this month, Google Analytics was launched in November, 2005 (Google Company, 2015). It offers more than 80 reports to measure and help you analyze your site's performance (Reed College of Media, 2015). Focusing on how visitors are accessing your site and what they’re doing there, along with some limited demographic information about them.

The metrics tracked and reported by Google Analytics are split into four main categories: Audience, Acquisition, Behavior and Conversions. There are also a few additional features, such as Real Time reporting, which provides a snapshot of what is happening on the website as you watch the analytics. It enables you to watch what’s happening on your site in - you guessed it - real time. Intelligence Events is another extra reporting feature, which provide automatic and custom alerts triggered by predetermined events or occurrences on the website (Google Analytics Help, 2015).

HubSpot

Launched in 2006, HubSpot introduced the world to the idea of inbound marketing. The approach moved marketers from pushing content and advertising out to their target audiences to, instead, pulling targets in toward them by publishing content that their targets would find valuable in places where they would easily access it, thus drawing them into their sites to convert and be nurtured as leads.

Like Google, HubSpot’s platform goes far beyond analytics. The web-based platform allows marketers to build websites; launch campaigns with batch and automated emails, landing pages and forms. Also with HubSpot, users can manage contacts from both Marketing and Sales perspectives with two separate, but connected platforms, including a CRM that rivals Salesforce. And, of course, HubSpot’s analytics tools are pretty spectacular, too.

Costs

Before diving into the comparison of the features and functionalities of Google Analytics and HubSpot, one major difference should be noted. Google Analytics is free (although there are premium options available for a fee) and HubSpot comes at a price - a steep one.

HubSpot Pricing:

Image: HubSpot

HubSpot’s pricing is based on the number of contacts you have in your database. Pricing starts at $100/month for 100 contacts. A company with 15,000 contacts would pay $2,450 per month - after a $5,000 onboarding fee (HubSpot Pricing, 2015). Of course, this includes far more than analytics tools, but it’s safe to say that it’s a strategic business decision to adopt HubSpot, while Google Analytics can really be implemented and used on a whim - no strategic meetings or purchase orders required.

That said, here’s a closer look at some of the metrics and reporting features offered by Google Analytics and HubSpot.

Who

Google:

With Google’s Audience reporting, understand who is visiting your website and when. Use these reports to learn more about the individuals that are coming to your site, as well as how they are accessing it and engaging with it. Here, if you enable the collection of user demographics and interests data, you can harness the power of Google’s cookie tracking to get a better understanding of your visitors’ demographics, interests and preferences (Google Analytics Help: Audience Reports, 2015).

Also in the Audience section, you’ll find information about where your visitors are located geographically and the language they speak. You can see their behavior patterns on your site, the technology and devices they’re using to view your site, and view your users’ flow for how they typically enter, browse and exit your site.

HubSpot:

This is really where HubSpot shines. It’s hard to compete with the level of information it provides about site visitors. The magic behind HubSpot is in the contact database included within the platform. Individuals can join the database by converting through a form submission on your website or by being imported from a list. Regardless, every contact in the database must at least have an email address, as this is the unique indicator to protect the database from duplicate records (HubSpot, 2015).

Once a contact is entered into the database, HubSpot does two incredible things. First, it tracks any and all activity or engagement with your company’s online presence, including your website and your social media accounts. Second, it scours the Internet for more information about that contact, including company information, Twitter handle, gravitar and more (HubSpot Products, 2015).

If a contact is NOT in the HubSpot database and visits your website, their activity and engagement is tracked just like they are by Google Analytics. While both analytics options collect similar data about site visits and user behavior, it’s clear that HubSpot delivers a level of data that is unmatched by Google Analytics. But, as mentioned earlier, while Google Analytics is free, HubSpot comes at a hefty price.

How

Both Google Analytics and HubSpot help answer the questions, “How are different online and offline sources driving traffic to my site?” and “Which traffic sources are generating the most traffic?” (Reed College of Media, 2015).

Google:

The Acquisition section of Google Analytics allows for visibility of the channels, sites, social media platforms and search engines that are driving traffic to your site. This is also where you can see traffic generated from Google AdWords campaigns, SEO efforts and any other defined campaigns you may have going (Google Analytics Help: Acquisition Reports, 2015).

Google’s Acquisition section is also where you are able to see what keywords individuals are using in their searches when they find your site. There are limitations to this information, though. In October 2011, Google changed the way it collects and shares this data from its users to protect their privacy.

If a user is logged into a Google product, such as a Google Account, their searches are conducted over SSL (secure sockets layer) and the data relating to that search, including keywords, is hidden. While Google can still see this information, website owners cannot (Broadley, 2013).

HubSpot:

HubSpot’s reporting section includes a Sources Report, which clearly shows what visitors are coming to the website from organic search, referrals, social media, email marketing, paid search or directly by entering the URL into the browser (HubSpot Products, 2015).

HubSpot's Sources Report

Image: HubSpot

HubSpot also has a Keywords tool that allows its users to enter in keywords they wish to rank for, tie them to campaigns if they wish and then see how effective those keywords are in generating traffic to the site. Additionally, HubSpot provides insights about which competitors are ranking for those keywords, as well as advice on how to improve your own rankings for each word or phrase (HubSpot 2015).

What

What  are people doing once they arrive at your website? Where are they entering the site - or, in other words, what pages are they “landing” on? What pages are they viewing? How are they navigating through the site? What pages are they viewing most often as they exit your site?

Google:

All of these questions and more can be answered with the reports available in the Behavior section of Google Analytics. This section is where you can see which of your pages are generating the most traffic, what information visitors seem to be gravitating to and what they’re searching for on your site.

Google Analytics Behavior Overview

Image: Google Analytics Client Example

Also in this section, you can get an idea for the speed of your site, or how fast (or slow) your pages may be loading. This is important, as it can impact your users’ experience, as well as your search rankings (Google Analytics Help: Behavior Reporting, 2015).

HubSpot:

While Google’s reporting is, in my opinion, clearer and easier to navigate, Hubspot does also answer these important questions about visitor behavior. In HubSpot’s newly updated Website and Blog sections, users can see which pages are generating the most traffic and what pages visitors are using to enter into the site.

HubSpot has a feature called “Events” where users can set up actions or behaviors to be tracked on the site (HubSpot Products, 2015). This is really helpful and interesting data, however, you have to know what you’re looking for before you can begin collecting and analyzing the information. In contrast, Google also allows for similar events as defined by the user, but also just automatically provides more information in this area.

HubSpot doesn’t provide nearly as much information about the paths users take as they navigate through the site, how long they stay or what pages they use to exit. This is important information, of course, but it is best collected and reported by Google Analytics.

Conversions

Conversions are critically important metrics for any marketer to measure. They help reveal what efforts are working - not just to generate visits and pageviews, but to increase valuable actions taken site visitors. These include form submissions, email subscriptions, downloads and more.

Google Analytics:

Data about conversions are available through Google Analytics, however, they require a bit of work to set up because Google Analytics needs to know what your goals are before it can begin to tell you which visitors are reaching them. It’s worth the effort, though, as once this section is set up, the insights you can get in return are pretty rewarding.

Reports available in the Conversions section of Google Analytics include goals, events, conversions or actions on your site in a given timeframe. All of these reports require some information about what you hope to track, but once you set it up, Google Analytics will help you see the conversion progress you’re making toward reaching your goals (Google Analytics Help: Conversion Reports, 2015).

Here, if your site has eCommerce, you can see how it’s performing on your site as far as traffic, conversions and attribution, which is obviously quite important if you have an online store (Google Analytics Help: Conversion Reports, 2015).

HubSpot:

This is another area where HubSpot really delivers extreme value. Because it is a full-fledged inbound marketing platform, you use it to actually create the conversion opportunities, such as forms, CTAs (calls-to-action), landing pages and thank you pages, and workflows. For this reason, HubSpot already knows about each conversion opportunity you’ve created so it tracks and reports data about each one - automatically (HubSpot Products, 2015).

For even greater clarity, users can group together elements of a campaign using the Campaigns tool and see how the entire campaign is performing. This includes traffic to landing pages and site pages related to the campaign, related blog posts, social media activity, CTAs, keywords, workflows, emails and more.

Which Wins?

In summary, it’s hard to beat HubSpot when it comes to full-funnel analytics. HubSpot delivers the ability to track marketing efforts at every stage of the process: click by click. It even provides an exceptional amount of information about site visitors and provides a database and CRM to improve alignment between Sales and Marketing.

In contrast, HubSpot is expensive. In fact, many businesses simply can’t afford it. Thankfully, Google Analytics is also an exceptional tool that marketers can use for free. It provides an exceptional level of information about site visitors, their on-site behavior and the performance of your website. It’s a quality platform that keeps getting better. And you can’t beat the price tag!

So if you can afford it, I highly recommend HubSpot. And actually, I think you should use both HubSpot AND Google Analytics. But if you just don’t have the budget, dive into Google Analytics and max out its functionalities to get the most out of your website.

Resources

Baum, D. (August 8, 2012). “The King of Marketing Analytics: Google or HubSpot?”. IMPACT Blog. Retrieved from http://www.impactbnd.com/blog/the-king-of-marketing-analytics-google-or-hubspot

Broadley, C. (February 5, 2013). “How to Unlock Your ‘Not Provided’ Keywords in Google Analytics”. KISSMetrics. Retrieved from https://blog.kissmetrics.com/unlock-keyword-not-provided/

Google Analytics Help (2015). “Audience Reports”. Google Analytics Help Center. Retrieved from https://support.google.com/analytics/topic/1007027?hl=en&ref_topic=3544907

Google Analytics Help (2015). “Acquisition Reports”. Google Analytics Help Center. Retrieved from https://support.google.com/analytics/topic/3125765?hl=en&ref_topic=3544907

Google Analytics Help (2015). “Behavior Reports”. Google Analytics Help Center. Retrieved from https://support.google.com/analytics/topic/1120718?hl=en&ref_topic=3544907

Google Analytics Help (2015). “Conversion Reports”. Google Analytics Help Center. Retrieved from https://support.google.com/analytics/topic/1631741?hl=en&ref_topic=3544907

Google Company. (2015). "Our history in depth". Google. Retrieved from https://www.google.com/about/company/history/

HubSpot. (2015). “Our Story”. HubSpot. Retrieved from http://www.hubspot.com/internet-marketing-company

HubSpot Pricing. (2015). “HubSpot Pricing”. HubSpot. Retrieved from http://www.hubspot.com/pricing/marketing

HubSpot Products. (2015) “HubSpot Product Analytics”. HubSpot. Retrieved from http://www.hubspot.com/products/analytics

Reed College of Media. (2015) “Week 5 Lesson: Google Analytics”. West Virginia University. Retrieved from https://ecampus.wvu.edu/webapps/blackboard/execute/displayLearningUnit?course_id=_51583_1&content_id=_2558935_1&framesetWrapped=true   

4 Steps to Selecting the Best Social Media Platforms

 

Image: Ingenious eBrain Solutions

The most effective social media marketers understand that social media is a critical component of any marketing strategy. They also understand that the world of social media is rapidly changing and will continue to do so as long as it’s around - which is going to be a while.

While social media used to mean Facebook and LinkedIn, it soon also grew to include Twitter and Google+. And now, the options continue to grow with Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, Dribbble, Periscope, YouTube, Vine, Meerkat, Blab, Snapchat each taking their place in social media marketplace. What’s more, new platforms are added faster than any marketer could hope to keep up.

The result? A lot of overwhelmed marketers who don’t feel they’re being as effective as they should be when it comes to their social media strategies. In fact, according to the Content Marketing Institute, while 93% of B2B content marketers engage in social media marketing, only 38% of them rate their social efforts as effective (Content Marketing Institute, 2014).

What’s a marketer to do?

First and foremost, focus. It’s not practical to think that you can - or even should - have a presence on every new social media platform that pops up. You must choose which platforms are best for your business. But how?

Here are four steps every marketer should take to evaluate social platforms and determine whether or not they’re right for you company.

Step 1: Know Your Business Goals

Regardless of what kind of business you are, you probably know the importance of beginning with a clear understanding of your business goals before you dive into any strategy, right?. Your social media strategy is no exception.

It’s vital that your social media strategy aligns with and works toward meeting your business goals and objectives. After all, what good are “Likes” on Facebook if they don’t contribute to your company’s bottom line?

Once you have clearly defined business goals, ask yourself which social platform will be most effective in helping you to reach them. As an article in Entrepreneur suggests, “Focus on only one or two of the sites you determine match your needs and really make them work” (Sharp, 2009).

So as an example, if your business goal is growing your subscription list so that you have a community of individuals to market to on a more personal level, Facebook would be a great option because people can opt-in right from the platform. In contrast, many other platforms do not offer this functionality so while they might deliver retweets, upvotes or comments, they won’t directly help you meet your business goal of growing your subscriber list like Facebook can.

Step 2: Know Yourself

Next, take a little time to reflect on your business. Take a good look at who you are as a business and as a brand and what resources you have to leverage in your social media efforts.

For example, here are some questions you might ask:

• Is your business B2B (business-to-business) or B2C (business-to-consumer)?
• Does your company produce a lot of content?
• What types of content do you produce? Text, video, photography, etc?
• Would images of your products or services be popular on social media?
• Does your company have a lot of direct communication with customers?
• How much can your business put toward its social strategy? How many staff members, hours, and dollars can you put toward social marketing?

All of these questions help determine which social media platforms will be most effective for your business, as well as how many platforms you should commit to and how you should approach them to achieve the greatest levels of success.

For example, if your company has never made a video before, it’s probably pretty clear that launching a social strategy with video-based platforms like Vine or YouTube wouldn’t be the best idea. Likewise, because LinkedIn is more of a B2B platform, if your company sells heavily discounted designer clothes, LinkedIn might not be the most fruitful option for you.

Step 3: Know Your Community

It’s helpful to keep up with what your industry peers are doing. Where are your competitors finding success on social media? Where do your customers seem to be most active?

This doesn’t automatically mean that because your competitors are active on Instagram that you should be, too. Just like the fact that they are cutting half their sales force or opening an office in London doesn’t mean you should automatically follow suit. It is simply good to know where your competitors are finding success so you can dig a little deeper and begin to understand how and why this is the case.

(Content Marketing Institute, 2014)

Step 4: Consider the Content and the Desired Conversation

It’s not enough to simply post content. Regardless of whether your content consists of eBooks, videos, memes, white papers, images, infographics or simply really great social commentary, if you want to drive real success, that content must also be part of a bigger conversation.

As an article in Social Media Today put it, “Content without conversation is just broadcasting, or just advertising. It goes to the listener/reader/viewer/visitor… and stops there. If the sender is lucky, it may lodge as a piece of information in the receiver’s consciousness, and they may act on it someday. If the sender is luckier, or perhaps more engaging, it may be something that the receiver wants to talk about.  And then the message gets a whole new burst of energy.  The energy behind the message is what gives it meaning, and a life of its own” (Novak, 2010).

You see, the conversation you hope to begin with your content should be a part of your social strategy, as well. Do you want that conversation to be between you and your customers or among consumers? Do you hope the conversation is about the content, the greater topic at hand or your specific brand? Would conversations you begin be light and humorous, serious and driven, perhaps even controversial? Do you want your conversations to be accessible long after they’ve ended or is it preferable that they exist only in real time?

Taking these thoughts into consideration is important because every social platform will open a different dialogue. Different conversations are started on each platform because of the people who spend time there, the way content is presented and the ability people have to express themselves.

So, for example, if you hope to start lengthy conversations where people share testimonials about your product and engage with you in meaningful ways and you hope that these interactions will be accessible to other potential customers weeks, months, even years later, then Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat probably aren’t your best bet. In contrast, YouTube, Facebook or LinkedIn might be a better fit.

Regardless of what platforms you choose to leverage, be sure you have the bandwidth to commit to them in a way that will not only reach your target audience, but also engage them and inspire them to take action that will help you reach your business goals.

Resources

Sharp, J. (December 21, 2009). “Focus Your Social Media Strategy”. Entrepreneur. Retrieved from http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/204466

Content Marketing Institute. (2014). “B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends 2014”. Content Marketing Institute. Retrieved from http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/B2B_Research_2014_CMI.pdf

Lake, C. (October 30, 2009). “35 social media kpis to help measure engagement”. Econsultancy Blog. Retrieved from http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/4887-35-social-media-kpis-to-help-measure-engagement

Novak, C. (July 27, 2010). “Why conversation, not content, is king”. SocialMediaToday.com. Retrieved from http://socialmediatoday.com/wordspring/152636/why-conversation-not-content-king

Reed College of Media. (2015) “Week 3 Lesson: Social Media Analytics & Advertising Channels”. West Virginia University. Retrieved from https://ecampus.wvu.edu/webapps/blackboard/execute/displayLearningUnit?course_id=_51583_1&content_id=_2558935_1&framesetWrapped=true