Google analytics currently imposes limits on the number of profiles (50) and the number of characters used in a report filter (256). But it was refreshing to find no limit to the number of statements in an advanced segment or to the number of characters in the regular expression field within a statement.

Nice move Google! Segmentation rocks!

In my testing, patience ran out at 45 statements which tested as accurate.

I used a 10,297 character regular expression* in one of the statements and it tested out just fine.

Have you gone higher than that?

* I'll… Continue reading

We often talk about the Dream Team of Market Motive, and indeed they are. Here's a "way back" trip to my former dream team. Bryan of ZURB interaction designers just posted some images that remind me of the privilege I had to work with a highly creative and fun team at ClickTracks - back in the day.

Blue guy represented a web visitor in an analytics world, but grew to represent reports, products and promotions over time. We went a little overboard trying to come up with… Continue reading

Here's a simple tool that I use in my email deliverability arsenal that helps eliminate spam words in my outbound messages. The script measures the likelihood that an email will fall into a recipient's "junk mail" folder in Outlook 2003. Outlook 2003 uses a word weighting system and this measurement does not guarantee delivery into other mail clients. However, the spam words indicated by Outlook 2003 are used in other inbox protection systems and we have found this tool to be very useful to help us clean up copy and increase the chance for delivery into all inboxes. Paste your email subject… Continue reading

From John Buckman, via Dave McClure (two people who know vastly more about startups than I do), let me recommend a pithy view of starting a company. Pretty much how ClickTracks got started:

http://www.slideshare.net/johnbuckman/employees-suck-presentation?type=powerpoint

If one of Google's most significant challenges is to clear the cesspool of content spam, the temptation to use analytics data must be stronger than ever.

There is already evidence that Google is factoring in domain age and the presence of legitimacy indicators on site pages. There's even talk of giving more credibility to well branded sites or certain types of sites. But one of the more significant factors mentioned in one of Google's patents is "time spent on the document".

Longer time on the… Continue reading

Yahoo! Web Analytics has started a staged roll out giving access to some Yahoo! Store owners, Yahoo! Developers and Yahoo! Head Advertisers.

According to an earlier post from Dennis Mortensen,

"Yahoo! currently intends to provide the IndexTools Web Analytics service FREE of charge to clients and partners who accept the standard Yahoo! agreement."

This is great news for Yahoo-ites since the power of the underlying Index Tools came closer to true segmentation as any tool out there (save for my faithful ClickTracks).

Congratulations to Dennis and the Yahoo! gang for… Continue reading

I just taught email marketing and Universal Search techniques at a small business marketing conference.

A well intended friend asked me why I "wasted time speaking at a small business marketing conference." He went on to suggest that I only target major conferences that attract 'bigger' clients.

At the conference, I was joined by some excellent speakers who also regularly serve large clients. But I suspect that's not why they were there. It's certainly not why I was there.

In online marketing, small businesses run circles around corporate America. Unburdened by red tape, they test, fail, innovate, fail, try one more time and succeed. It's inspiring. It's educational. And it's really fun.

In the email marketing session, at least 80% of the Continue reading

We wrapped up another SES conference by dragging everyone down to my house in Santa Cruz and feeding them pizza, pulled pork and wine. I did some of the cooking myself as you can see, and we also had help from a Santa Cruz Catering company named Life Style Culinary, who I rate very highly. Seems like people had fun, which is all that matters.

 

More pictures (taken by my friend Brad Haakenson) Continue reading

Sure, we teach search marketing online, but I assert that Search Engine Strategies is a must-attend conference for any internet marketer who can travel to the event.

We'll be making some announcements at the conference and all active faculty and associates are presenting . Come by the booth and say hello to Market Motive founders and faculty.

Dream Team member Todd Malicoat and others are hosting a special party on Monday night where all proceeds go to charity. Some of the biggest names in search will be present and there'll be… Continue reading

Trust seals such as the ubiquitous Better Business Bureau or the online equivalents such as Hacker Safe are designed to put the consumer at ease when doing business with a stranger. A website displaying Hacker Safe should yield better conversion rates since the consumer has confidence their credit card data cannot be stolen by hackers.

In line with the recent focus on teaching best practices for testing, we recommended to a Market Motive subscriber that instead of assuming Hacker Safe improves conversion rates they actually test it. Subscribing to Hacker Safe is not cheap and it must be justified through ROI.… Continue reading