So what is A/B testing? Simply said, A/B testing is a method which allows you to measure the effect of changes to your website on the visitors without actually making them.

Imagine as an example a web page with an article to which you make a small change – let’s say you move a picture from its current place in the right column into the center. Now comes the trick: you display the new layout version to a very small portion of your visitors. What will happen? Will visitors stay on the page for a longer or shorter time? Will a smaller or a larger percentage of readers finish reading the article?

After a few thousand views of both versions, you will be able to neatly and relatively exactly compare and determine whether the change is – or is not – an improvement. If indeed it is, you know what to do – change the picture position for everyone. If not, no problem – you can test some more.

You can test any changes this way – always on a small percentage of visitors and find out whether something works even before widely implementing it. And what is important, you are not limited to testing just one change but for example five different options. Using the same example as above, you can test positioning the photo in various places (left column, right column, top, center…) and by trial, find out where its positioning works the best.

Simply speaking, A/B testing gives you a luxury that we would probably welcome in all parts of life – the possibility of not having to make a decision every time we want to do something and then wait and worry whether we have made the right decision.

Instead, thanks to A/B testing, you have the option to choose the best solution from the multiple possibilities before making it available to all your readers.

Why should we run A/B tests?

A/B testing is one of the most practical tools for improving your website, primarily for the following reasons:

• Low cost, quick start: one of the best things about A/B testing is that, unlike using questionnaires or usability tests, you can start immediately. And if you decide to use one of the free services that are available, you won’t even incur any costs. No complicated searches for participants or long preparation times. One test idea and an observation of certain rules discussed below and you can be on your way. You don’t have to hire an expert. You can easily do it just with this article.

• The right sample: With a survey or questionnaire, you will always face questions such as “do we have the right sample of people?” or whether the group of people surveyed had been “representative”. There are no such questions in A/B testing – you know 100 percent that you have the right sample. It’s the people that come to your website, exactly those that you are improving your site for. There is no need to look for anyone elsewhere.

• Very practical: Standard questionnaire surveys often bring theoretical findings, such as people are more interested in sports news or perhaps that they would welcome more videos in articles. But what should an ideal piece of sports news look like? Where exactly should the video be in the article? A/B testing, together with usability tests, offer very practical findings, which are – as a bonus – all immediately applicable. They not only provide you with information about what to do but also how exactly to do it.

Getting started with A/B testing

So how do we do A/B testing?

1. Hypothesis. At the beginning of each test, having a “hypothesis”, i.e. a question you want answered by the test, is very important. For example – “Would visitors click more on an article if it had a larger headline?” Any new function you would like to implement on the website is also a hypothesis – e.g. will the function bring a better reaction from the visitors? You probably already have a number of ideas as to what to test. You can also find some tips below.
2. Alternate versions. The second step is the proposal of changes with which we will verify the hypothesis – let’s say the creation of alternative versions of the original website with new functionality or design. At this point, it is important not to limit yourself to just one alternative to your current site. You can come up with as many versions as you would like. This way, you can be sure that you have not missed the best solution possible. For example, if you are testing a larger headline for your article, why not include various fonts, colors and/or size? The test will let you know the best solution.
3. Test variables. Often, defining the test variables is a much underestimated step. A test variable is anything you can measure and which allows you to objectively determine which page is better. It could be the number of clicks on a certain link, the time spent on a page or even whether a visitor had completed a certain operation (confirmation of a subscription payment). People frequently measure the number of clicks, but is that always the best? Always consider carefully what to measure and test more variables. That way you can see whether your new version won’t do more harm than good (e.g. the change forces more readers to click but they leave the page immediately because they hadn’t found what they were looking for).

Which tools to use for A/B testing?

Once you have done all three things listed above, only one thing remains – deploy the test. Let’s look closely at how to do it.

Ideally, you would use one of the ready-made solutions available. There are plenty of them and some are even for free. And it is certainly simpler than having the A/B testing tool custom programmed directly for your website – a solution which is possible, but definitely not simple.

When choosing, look mainly for simple implementation (do you have a programmer at hand or will the tests be administered by someone who knows programming?). Of course, the price is also crucial. Paid tools often offer free tutorials or assistance, so free does not always equal the best.

Here is a list of some of the best known A/B testing tools:

Google Analytics is among the best known A/B testing tools. One of its main advantages when compared to competing products is the fact that it’s free. And it works in a simple way: basically, you create and add all versions of your web page to the server – if the current page is at article.php, you create article1.php, article2.php, etc.

What follows is an easy step-by-step process of implementation:

If you do not have an account in Google Analytics, create one and after registering, click “Experiments” in the “Behavior” section of your website profile. Click on “Create experiment”.

Type in the URL of the website you want to test (in our example, it’s article.php) and select the measured variable – for example average visit duration, revenue, etc. Decide the percentage of your users you want to include in the experiment – determine the number according to the number of users that usually visit your site – if you have a lot of visitors, you can test the page on 1% of your visitors. If, however, you have few visitors, you could wait for the results from a 1% sample for a long time.

Then you just add the URLs of the changed pages to be tested. The last step is to add a special JavaScript code to each one. The code will determine which page is shown to which user.

And that’s all. You can find more details on how to do A/B testing with Google Analytics here.

Optimizely.com is one of the best known paid tools for A/B testing. Other paid tools mentioned below all work in a similar way. Compared to Google Analytics, they all have one significant advantage – you do not need a programmer to run the test – it’s enough to include in the page one very simple JavaScript code. Everything else can be “clicked” and selected without needing to know the source code. It’s almost as if you were editing text in Word or some other text editor – you can play around and change the text, the font size, anything. You choose the percentage of visitors to which you’ll display the tested version and select the measured variables. The tool saves the changes and, after starting the test, it will display your altered pages to random visitors.

Other popular A/B testing tools include Unbounce.com or VisualWebsiteOptimizer.com. Choose the one that suits you best. An overview of the best known tools is here.

Understanding the results

Most of the split testing tools offer results as you go along and even calculate which version has the highest chance of winning the test. At the same time, the tool helps to determine the right sample. At this point in the process, you don’t need to do anything else.

This, however, can become a double-edged sword. Despite the simplicity of A/B testing, it can be spoiled (just like anything in life). Watch out for these common mistakes:

• One variable, one hypothesis – one of the most common mistakes in A/B testing is that we want to test too many things at the same time. An example would be two completely different article visuals (each has a completely different layout, ordering, as well as elements). Remember: one A/B test, one hypothesis you are testing, one change. This is a way to avoid potential problems of not being able to understand what actually brought the change when reading the test result. Was it the background color? Or omission of a large ad space? Always change only one thing. Then test it.

• Attention – sample size too small. The second most common error is impatience. Frequently, one of the tested versions can have much better results very early on. Do not stop the test! Continue to the end of the test – it can often have very different results at the end than it seemed at the beginning. Contemporary A/B testing tools contain a function which automatically calculates the number of users you need to test in order to ensure the test is right. Here you can find a calculator which helps you to find out the approximate sample size even before running the test. If you are testing a large number of versions, it pays off to wait a little longer for results. Also, you may want to repeat the test one more time – test fewer versions the second time (e.g. original vs. winner and runner-up from the first test).

• Poorly chosen metrics. Even if you manage all of the above well, there is still a chance you are failing in the selection of the metrics with which you’ll be measuring the effect of your changes. Is the version that gets more clicks really better for you? Or are you more interested in whether visitors, after they click, subscribe to your publication? Number of clicks tends to be an alpha and omega for online media so pay attention to other criteria that may prove significant for you.

Testing tips

You surely have many ideas on what to test. A/B testing is practical any time you want to introduce something new and you discuss in your team how to proceed the best way. Don’t limit yourself to new functions you’d like to add to your site though. Think about things already present on your site, especially:

• Things that seem self-evident to you (if you hear someone say “people love xxx”, “the best way to do this is xxx” without having A/B test results to prove it, don’t just believe the statement – try it).

• Things on your site you think are done really well (this link has many clicks, the ad in the right corner works beautifully) – what if these things can be done even better? Don’t forget that every hundredth of a conversion counts!

• Things you think don’t matter (font color, font size, or moving an ad box 10 px more to the right). If you test a lot, you’ll find out that many of the results may not make much sense to you, yet they work. Do not rely on your rational criteria only and do not think that minute details don’t matter. They do – test everything.

Here are a few tips for tests you can run right now:

• A correct looking lead on the home page – is a smaller headline, full-width photo and no lead, or a larger headline, smaller photo and more text better? Or should it be altogether different? Come up with all different possibilities and find out what users prefer.

• Ad formats – you know that when there are too many, they don’t work; when there are only a few, conversion is higher but revenue smaller – so what is the right ratio? Try out different ad distribution on your page and select the best one.

• Homepage layout – there’s an everlasting fight within online media about the homepage. Each service, each journalist wants to see his or her article there, yet they cannot all be there. What is the right number of articles for visitors to still click? Which section is better suited for the right column and which will do better in the middle? The simplest way to find out is trying it.

• Test the wording of all buttons on your page. Compare “Enter the article discussion” to “Discuss the article now” for example. Test what works best and you may be surprised.

You can find lots of ideas and inspiration for A/B testing at www.abtests.com. It includes a number of case studies, so you can see the findings right away. Many of you may be surprised by them.

Still not enough? Suggested reading about A/B testing includes Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer. Although recommendations related to the implementation of Google Analytics experiments (the tool was formerly known as Website Optimizer) have become obsolete, the book offers hundreds of ideas and ways to improve your web site.
So what are you waiting for? Dive into A/B testing now!

It has proven to be a powerful and flexible platform for news organisations attracting major publishers including the New York Times, CNN, Forbes, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal.

WordPress has a host of features, and if a feature isn’t part of its core functionality, there are literally thousands of plug-ins that can deliver the editorial features you require. The challenge isn’t finding a plug-in or theme to suit your needs but finding the right ones amongst the thousands of choices. To help speed the search for the plug-ins you require, we’ll look at a few key ones that are frequently used by news outletswhich use WordPress.

Define your editorial needs first

When choosing a CMS, the first thing you will want to do before even thinking about which CMS to use is to outline your editorial requirements. You might be able to do everything you want, but it is important that your editorial strategy drives your technical choices rather than thinking about the technology first.

Armed with your editorial requirements, you can then look for plug-ins that deliver these features. While you can have several plug-ins, don’t get carried away. Too many plug-ins can slow down the performance of your site, and you will want to make sure that the plug-ins work well together. That’s a key thing to ask your developer or development contractor to evaluate.

Useful plug-ins for news organisations

EditFlow – WordPress began as a blogging, a personal publishing, platform, and what works for an individual or a small group focused on self-publishing doesn’t meet the needs of an editorial organisation that has a workflow and a process to ensure that what is published meets its editorial standards.

EditFlow is an excellent plug-in that adds many elements of a traditional editorial workflow to WordPress. It adds custom article statuses such as pitch, pending review and subbed that allow you to track where stories are in the editorial process. It adds editorial comments so that journalists and editors working on stories can leave feedback and questions on a story, and the system can email journalists or copy editors when the status of a story changes.

It also adds an editorial calendar to give editors the ability to plan what content is going to be published to the site and when, and also to add to your future planning. You can also see upcoming stories in a story budget view to take to planning meetings. It’s an excellent, almost essential, addition to WordPress for news organisations.

Liveblog – The liveblog format has become a popular way for news organisations to cover rolling news events live on their sites. The format is not only popular with news businesses, but is also popular with audiences. When an earthquake and tsunami devastated parts of Japan while half a world away the events of the Arab Spring were reshaping Middle Eastern governments, Al Jazeera English was at one point running four live blogs, and it accounted for a quarter of the traffic to the site. Automattic, the company behind WordPress, has developed a Liveblog plugin that delivers a lot of functionality such as the ability to easily update the article as well as auto-refresh of the article for your audience so they always have the most up-to-date content.

Co-authors plus – Another plug-in from the developers of EditFlow is Co-Authors plus. Blogging software didn’t anticipate that articles could be written by more than one person or that you might have guest contributors who aren’t on staff. Co-authors plus allows you to have multiple authors for a story and it also allows you to create guest contributors without having to create a user account for a contributor who might only write one article.

Category order – Categories can be an easy way to add site navigation to a WordPress site, but originally, categories were only ordered alphabetically on simple blogging sites. The category order plug-in allows you to easily reorder categories simply by dragging and dropping them.

Google Analytics for WordPress – Knowing your audience is key to sustaining your news organisation. It will sharpen your editorial focus and allow you to more effectively market yourself to advertisers. Google Analytics is just one tool to measure your audience and learn more about them. This plug-in allows you to easily add Google Analytics to your site.

That’s just the start. There are plugins to manage advertising, sudden bursts of traffic and the security of your site. For those of you using WordPress, what plug-ins have you found most useful? Were there any plug-ins that you used, but looking back you wish you hadn’t?

Other resources:

• Using WordPress as a news website v2 by Einar Thorsen
• Eight More WordPress Plugins For Newsrooms by Lauren Rabaino at 10,000 Words
• WordPress.org users can now turn any post into a liveblog with Automattic’s new plugin by Harrison Weber at The Next Web
• Useful WordPress plugins for journalists and news websites by Matt C. A. Smith

Even the free tools offer a wealth of sophisticated information as is shown in the recommendation by the the not-too-biased Google Evangelist, Avinash Kaushik, who says:

Yahoo! Web Analytics and Google Analytics provide world class web analytics tools for free.

Custom reporting, advanced segmentation, advanced rich media tracking, auto-integration with search engine PPC campaigns, advanced mathematical intelligence, algorithmic data sorting options, complete ecommerce tracking, super scalable sophisticated data capture methods such as custom variables, open free and full API access to the data, loads and loads and loads of developer applications to do cool data visualizations, data transformations, external data integrations and more.

Of course, the Western web giants do not rule everywhere. In Russia, probably the most common tool is Yandex Metrica, Google’s major competitor.

Because of the technology used to obtain data, the numbers will vary from tool to tool, sometimes dramatically. For example, for one website we looked at Google Analytics showed 714,000 visits and a bounce rate of 68%, while Yandex showed 685,000 visits and a bounce rate of 20% for the same time period. This doesn’t mean that one is right and one is wrong, but it does mean that it is important to know the differences, especially as advertisers become more savvy about metrics and demand more targeted delivery of their ads.

This has two implications: first, it can be very useful to have two different tools on your site, allowing you to make comparisons; second, it can be important that one of your tools is the industry standard in your region so that advertisers can compare easily against other websites.  This often means Google Analytics, which is why we focus on it on our site, or in many Russian-speaking countries Yandex Metrica, or having both installed on your site.

Since these are two major players internationally, it can be useful to understand why you will see different metrics for the same website:

• Visits – GA may be higher than Yandex -Yandex suggests placing the tracking code inside the body of the webpage, whereas Google Analytics requires it to be placed in the website header.  This may seem minor but if someone starts loading a page, and hits the stop or back button before the code was run, they will not be counted.  If you had placed the Yandex code near the bottom of your site (something Yandex advises not to do, but is possible), it may not have had a chance to run yet, but the Google Analytics code would have already run since it is in the header – the first thing to load – thus resulting in Google Analytics counting the visit, but not Yandex.
• Total Pageviews – GA may be higher than Yandex – If someone refreshes a page within 15 seconds of their visit, Yandex will not count this as a second pageview, whereas Google Analytics will. This will not impact unique pageviews, but it will impact total pageviews.
• Bounce rate – With Google Analytics’ default setup, any visitor who only visits one page and then exits is considered to have “bounced”, even if they spent 20 minutes on that one page with no events. Yandex, on the other hand, will only count someone as “bounced” if they only visited one page and spent less than 15 seconds on that page before exiting. Yandex’s bounce rate, therefore, is a truer indicator of people who have come to your website and not found what they were looking for.
• Demographics – Unlike Google Analytics, Yandex Metrica will try to determine the age and gender of the visitors, and run reports based on these dimensions.

So as you can see, for a site with a lot of traffic you can learn very different information from Google Analytics and Yandex Metrica. It may be worth including both tools so you can get two perspectives on your users.

Controlling Your Reports

One important feature to note is that you can add an “annotation” to any line graph by double clicking on a certain date and then entering a note into the pop-up text box.  This can be very useful if multiple people are viewing this profile and you want to indicate that a significant editorial or technical event happened on a certain day that could account for significant changes in metrics.

When viewing a report in the standard table mode, you can change the column that it sorts by, by clicking on the column label. The arrow beside the metric name will indicate which variable it is sorting on.

Standard reports automatically select a primary dimension, but in some cases it is possible to change the primary dimension, and usually it is also possible to add a secondary dimension. For example, click on Demographics > Location. By default, the primary dimension of this report is Country / Territory.  Across the top you can change this to City, Continent, etc. You can also add in a secondary dimension to further break down your metrics. For example, we could choose Medium. This would result in each row representing a combination of the country and medium the visitor came from.

When viewing a report, the default view is usually a line graph or map at the top, and a table of values at the bottom. These views can also be changed.

For example, with some reports, such as New vs. Returning, you can switch the graph view to a motion bubble chart by clicking on the toggle button at the top of the graph. This could be useful if you wanted to view a graph with more than 2 variables, since you can include size of the bubble as one of the metrics.  You can also “play” the graph to see how the values change over time.

More powerful, though, is if you scroll down to the table on the top left hand side, beside the link “advanced”, you can switch the view.

If you click the second button you will see a pie chart beside the table. You can change what the pie chart shows your report relative to. In this example, it shows each Source/Medium as a percentage of the total visits, but you can change that to a percentage of the total Pageviews, Bounces, etc.

The third button shows you a performance bar chart, which simply adds a horizontal histogram to your metrics. The fourth button is very useful – it gives you a bar chart comparing each value to the site average. You can also change which metric it graphs.

The last button shows you a pivot table of the report. In the pivot view, the primary dimension will appear as row headers. You can select different columns by selecting the drop-down beside “Pivot by”. You can also select what metrics appear in the table. In this example, I’ve shown the number of visits for each Source/Medium, based on the language of the visitor:

Advanced Segments

Advanced Segments are a critical tool to be able to use Google Analytics effectively.  Often you want to observe, or compare, what specific types of users are doing on your website. At the top of a report, beneath the date selection, click the button Advanced Segments.

Here you see a list of default segments to select from. For example, we can select “Direct traffic” and “Search traffic” if we want to see how they differ in their interactions with your website. Now, any report you select will show a comparison between the behaviour of direct traffic and search traffic.

To get rid of the segmenting, simply click the x’s beside the segments at the top of your report.

Even more powerful, is the ability to create custom segments. Let’s say we want to see the behaviour of all the people that searched for some version of our website. First click the Advanced Segment button, and then click “+New Custom Segment” in the bottom right-hand corner. My website is called Ganesha’s Scarf so I want to include people who came to the site by searching “Ganesha” or “Scarf”

First create a name for the segment. Then, under the first option, make sure “Include” is selected.  Find Keyword from the Dimension dropdown, which refers to the search keyword. And then we can use “Contains” Ganesha. We could also use exact match if we wanted those that searched just for “Ganesha”.

Then, under OR, select to add another option.  Repeat the same steps as the statement, but this time use contains “Scarf”. Now we will be including anyone who’s searched anything with the word Ganesha in it, or the word Scarf.  You can test or preview the segment before you save it.

Now whenever you click “Advanced Segment”, on the Custom Segments side you will see the segment you just created.  Selecting this will show us whether people who are searching for our website are actually finding what they were looking for, or is their bounce rate high.

Custom Reports

Lastly, for reports, we will look at custom reports. You may often find that the standard reports are not including the metrics you are interested in. In those cases, you can easily build a custom report. Click on the Custom Report heading, and then the “+New Custom Report” button. In this example, let’s say we want to know how many unique visitors visit our website from different countries. The standard Location report gives us the number of visits, but not the number of unique visitors.

First name your report. Then name your report tab – a custom report can have multiple tabs.  Add in the metrics we would like to see in our report. In this case, we want to include “Unique visitors”. You can include multiple metrics to that particular group such as visits, pageviews, etc. We can also create a second metrics group which will appear as a toggle link on the top of our report and could contain a different set of metrics.  Lastly, select the dimension – in this case “Country”.

Once you’ve saved your custom report, it will always appear when you click the “Custom Reports” button on the menu, as well as in the sidebar when you are viewing any Custom Reports.

Enabling AdSense

AdSense is the Google Ad network that allows you to get revenue on your website by showing your users relevant ads and being paid each time they click on them. It’s important to maximize your revenue by understanding when, where, and why users click on your ads and, over time, optimize the way you display ads. The best way to do that is to incorporate your AdSense data into your Google Analytics account.

To connect your existing AdSense account to your Google Analytics, first go to the Admin panel and select the account you want to connect.

Next, click the Data Sources tab.

Click the AdSense tab and click to Link Accounts.

You will be asked which property in that account is the primary one that contains your AdSense ads. Once you select the appropriate web property, your AdSense statistics starting that day will be available in your Google Analytics reports.

In brief, you can see your AdSense report summary under the standard reports in Content > AdSense. You will also now see that in any of the standard Demographics report, there is a toggle link to see AdSense for the report. For example, if you click on Location, and then click the AdSense link at the top of your location report, you can see what country’s visitors brought you the most Ad revenue.

Enabling AdWords

AdWords is the opposite end of the ad network spectrum – it allows you to display ads on other websites which are part of the Google ad network.

To enable AdWords in your Google Analytics account, you need to first login to your Google AdWords account. Note that the Google AdWords account must be setup with the same login as your Google Analytics account.

Under “Tools and Analysis” select “Google Analytics”.

This will bring you to a list of Accounts in your Google Analytics account.  Click the Admin button in the top left corner.

Select the Account you want to link to AdWords – the one you are using AdWords to drive traffic to.

Click on the Data Sources tab. You will see the sentence: “The AdWords account for xxxxx@gmail.com (601-133-1259) will be linked to www.youraccount.com” and below that a button to “Link Accounts”.

Click Link Accounts, and make sure to select “Auto-tag my links”. Select the drop down and select which profiles you want to link AdWords to.

Then you will see all the linked profiles in the table.

In Google Analytics, you can now see several standard reports under Advertising > AdWords. You can get an in-depth analysis of what ad word campaigns are working for you by seeing not only who is clicking onto your site, but their bounce rate, the pages they visit, etc. This will help you understand whether the money you are spending is resulting in quality visitors, as opposed to just an increase in traffic. For example, if you find the bounce rate is very high, then it might mean your ad needs to be reworded, or perhaps you should be linking to a different landing page.

EXERCISES

• Compared to the average, what percentage of visits to your site were from your target region/country?
• Show a pie chart of what Medium people came to your site from who were using mobile devices.
• What are the top 5 landing pages for people that came through your site through a search, but who did not search directly for the name of your website or news organization?
• Create a custom report that shows you the number of unique visitors that visited different pages on your site.
• Create a word cloud view of search terms that people come to your site using. Now create the same word cloud, but removing the top 3 search terms.
• If you have AdWords – see what times of the day people are most likely to come to your website.
• If you have AdWords – see what the bounce rate is like for people that come to your site through your campaign, and are new visitors.
• If you have AdSense – what pages on your site resulted in the most AdSense ads viewed? The highest revenue?
• If you have AdSense – show a pie chart showing the amount of revenue that new visitors result in versus returning visitors and another for the country visitors come from.

Here we explain how Google Analytics works, how to set it up on your website and share it with your staff, what the definition of “metrics” and “dimensions” are, and where some of the most common standard reports can be found. Lastly there are some exercises so you can try what you’ve learned.

What is Google Analytics and how does it work?

In order for a website to use Google Analytics, it must carry a small piece of tracking code which runs when a person visits that site. The tracking code either creates or modifies Google Analytics cookies (a little snippet of information that a website stores in your browser to identity you), sending this cookie data to the Google Analytics server.

Two things can stop this from working properly: if first-party cookies are blocked (not third-party), or if Javascript is disabled. Some estimates say less than 5% of internet users have blocked first-party cookies.

One last note is that if the code doesn’t load in time – for example the page is loading very slowly – then it is possible the visit will not be recorded. However, Google recently changed their tracking code to an “asynchronous” code.  Amongst other advantages, this code is put in the header of a website instead of the footer, so it is more likely that the code will be run, even if there are issues with the entire page loading.

Accounts, Properties and Profiles

Before you create an account, it is useful to understand the hierarchy of Google Analytics.

An account is the topmost level of organisation for Google Analytics. It allows you to manage multiple web properties (usually a website), which can have different profiles.

The default profile should always be the entire web property (for example, the entire website or the entire domain), but you can also make other profiles which filter the data to look at a subsection of your audience, or look at specific subdomains of the website. This can be useful if your digital newsroom is separated into content silos – the editor of sports can easily see his or her web statistics separately from the editor of business.

How to create an account

1. Go to www.google.com/analytics and sign in with your Google login and password. For future purposes, it is best to use the same Google account you use for AdSense or AdWords.

2. Click the Admin button in the top left. You will see an Accounts tab. Under this tab, click “New Account”.

At a minimum, name your account and add the website that you want to track.

3. Select http or https from the dropdown.  If you aren’t sure which one to use, go to your website and see what appears at the front of the URL.  You can add more websites later.

4. Select a timezone and industry category (the industry category is for Google compare to similar industries).

5. Select “Share data with other Google products”, as this will allow you to incorporate AdWords or AdSense into your Google Analytics account.

Once you have created the account, you will be shown a tracking ID.  A tracking ID always starts with UA, followed by the account number, and then the profile ID.  So an ID UA-XXXXX-Y means that XXXXX is the overall account, and Y is this particular profile.

6. To access the code you will need to put add to your website, scroll down to “Website tracking” and select “What are you tracking?”.

7. Select the website you are tracking. You will then be given the tracking code to put on your website.

How to give other people access to your account

You probably have other people in your organization that you want to be able to access the analytics.  It is important that they do not create a new Google Analytics account on their own Google account, instead you should give them rights to view the account you just created. The reason for this is that since cookies are based on a user visiting a website, it can confuse things if multiple accounts are trying to update a user’s cookies. The data will likely be incorrect.

1. Make sure that you are administering your account, not your property or profile, then click on the Admin button in the top right.

2. Underneath the menu, click either on “Account List” or the name of the account that you see directly after “Account List”.

3. Once you are in the account admin screen, click the Users tab.

4. Click the button to add a new user. You can give them user rights, or admin rights. You can also select just specific profiles in the account for the user to be able to see.

Metrics and Dimensions

Google Analytics splits its data into “metrics” and “dimensions”.  Simply put, metrics are anything that gives you numbers, and dimensions are ways in which you can categorize those numbers. For example, number of visitors is a number, so it’s a metric, but the way you want to view those numbers – by day, by month, by country, by device – those are dimensions.

Common Metrics

• Visits (Sessions) – The number of times that anyone visited your website. One thing to note is that a visit is considered over if someone leaves your website, closes their browser, is inactive on your site for over 30 minutes (the 30 minutes varies by analytics tool and can be customized), or when it hits midnight in your timezone. This means that if someone is interacting with your site and they go get lunch for over 30 minutes, when they come back and start interacting again it will count as 2 visits.  For more detailed information – http://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2731565
• % of new visits (or returning visits) – When a user visits your website, Google Analytics will see if they already have a cookie for this site, indicating that the user is a return visitor. This means that a visitor may also be considered new if the user has cleared their cookies, or if the cookie has expired (after two years for Google Analytics)
• Average visit duration – Adds together the length of time of every session and divides it by the total number of sessions. Google calculates “length of time” by calculating the time between when a user came to your site, and the last thing the user does on your site.  Unfortunately, leaving your site is not something that Google can get a timestamp for – it does not count as an event on your site. Therefore, the length of time the user spends on the last page before exiting is usually not included in the Average visit duration calculation. Also a user that only visits one page, does nothing, and then exists will have a length of time of zero even if they spent 15 minutes reading that one page. Therefore, the average visit duration will always be an underestimation. It is worth noting that not all Analytics tools work this way and that there are ways, through coding, to change this functionality. However, since Google Analytics is one industry standard, it is perfectly acceptable to use this value for time on page or average visit duration.
• Bounce Rate – The number of users who only visit one page and leave. Sometimes the bounce rate is a good indication of whether or not the “right” people are visiting your website and whether or not it’s easy for them to find what they need. However, if you have a blog for example, you would expect a high bounce rate since all the articles are on the homepage anyway. Even if someone spends 5 minutes reading your blog, they will still be considered a bounced user unless they click on a page or have an event.
• Pages/visit (or average page depth) – This is the average number of pages that are viewed in a session.  Repeat visits to the same page during a session will be counted as separate page visits.
• Pageviews – This is the total number of pages that were seen. Repeat visits to the same page are counted as separate page views.
• Unique pageviews – This is the number of unique pages viewed, aggregated by all the visitors.  If you see the number of unique pageviews for a specific page, it would count the number of sessions during which that page was viewed at least one time. The total number of unique pageviews tells you how many pages people visited, but not including their repeat visits to the same page during the same session.
• Unique visitors / Visitors – The number of different users, or at least different cookies, that visit your website. Of course, if a user comes from a new browser, different computer or device, they will be counted more than once. Also, when people clear cookies and appear as new visitors, they will be counted more than once. Since people often clear cookies manually, the industry standard for reporting unique visitors to your site is to report by month, and not any longer like by year, where many users may be counted more than once.

Common Dimensions

• Visitor Type – New or returning
• Medium – The way someone came to your website. (none) refers to a direct visit where someone typed the URL in or used a bookmark; organic refers to a search engine; and referral is if they clicked on a link other than a search engine or campaign.  Also, for campaigns, Medium could be a custom parameter or ppc if it is an AdWords campaign using autotagging.
• Source – This is the more specific source of the referral to your website. It is most often the domain or URL where they clicked the link to your site. It can also be a campaign custom parameter, or Google if they came from AdWords with autotagging.  Again, if the visitor just came directly it will say (direct).
• Continent, subContinent, Country, Region, Metro, City – Google Analytics will try to source the location of the visitor based on the IP address.  If it cannot determine the location it will use (not set). Unfortunately in some regions of the world this can happen quite frequently – in fact the majority of users may be from not set.

Standard Reports

Reports are where Metrics meet Dimensions.  For example, you might want to look at the behaviour of new vs returning (dimension) visitors. You could compare the number of visitors (metric) who are new and the number who are returning, or the number of unique pageviews (metric) for new visitors compared to those for returning visitors.  Perhaps you want to see the bounce rate (metric) for the visitors from your country vs from other countries (dimensions).

In the standard reporting view, which is one of the buttons in the main menu, there are some useful reports that you can pull up from the sidebar:

• Location, under Audience > Demographics
• Mobile, under Audience > Mobile > Overview
• Sources, under Traffic Sources
• Search terms, under Traffic Sources > Sources > Search > Organic
• Social Network overview under Traffic Sources > Social > Sources
• Pages visited under Content > Site Content > All Pages
• AdWord Campaigns under Advertising > AdWords > Campaigns (note this must be enabled)
• AdSense Overview under Content > AdSense > Overview (note this must be enabled)

For every report in Google Analytics, you can set the date frame and the range.  To set the date frame select the arrow in the top left-hand corner beside the current date frame and choose a start and end date.

You should immediately see your graph change dates. By default, you will notice that the analytics graph reports on the metric by day. You can change this at the top of your graph by toggling the day, month, or year buttons.

You can also compare to a previous date range by clicking “Compare to” when you select your start and end dates.

EXERCISES

• How many unique visitors did you have yesterday, last week, three months ago for the month?
• How many visits in the last week were from mobile devices? What were the top three mobile devices used?
• What are the top three countries, based on number of visits, to your site?
• For the people that are from your country, what is the bounce rate?
• How many visits to your site were from referrals?  What were the top three domains that they were referred from?
• Compare the sources of visits to your site between this month, and last month. Is there a significant difference? Why do you think that is?
• Compare the number of visits in general between the last week of this month, and the last week of last month. If there is a difference, then why?
• What were the top five pages visited in the past week? Does that surprise you? If so, how could you use that information to change your editorial flow for next week?

The Seminar presented the following topics:

• “Online Advertising Market Overview”.  An overview of the dynamics of the Russian and Ukrainian online advertising market including market size and growth. The training focused on presenting the standards for online display advertising as well as an overview of standard pricing models.  A short discussion of ad serving systems was also included.
• “Sales Teams Organization and Motivation”.  A discussion of different approaches to sales organization and motivation as well as a discussion of integrated, independent, and hybrid online sales teams.
• “Advertising Networks”.  Training provided an overview of the structure of advertising networks as well as a discussion of the pros and cons of participating in advertising networks like Yandex Direct and Google AdSense.
• “Measuring Success – Google Analytics”.  An overview of the fundamentals of using Google Analytics to measure traffic growth and understand basic audience demographics and behavior.
• “Online Classifieds – Local Opportunities”.  Online classifieds often represent the largest category of traditional local media advertising and are often the first category to move online.  The training focused on the elements of the online classified market and techniques of managing the transition from print to online classifieds.

The goal of the seminar was to provide a common base of knowledge about the opportunities in online advertising both display and classifieds.  The seminar also encouraged discussion among participants about the pros and cons of different online advertising techniques and the potential impact on the traditional advertising business.

Location: Moscow, Russia

Dates: 27 – 28 September 2012

Attending:  Russian and Ukrainian Media Advertising Sales and Marketing Executives

Understanding advertisers, ad auctions and types of ads

First, it is important to understand how an ad gets selected for display on your website and how much the advertiser will pay.  Usually this is done through the real-time ad auction, which automatically matches advertisers who have signed up to place their ads with Google AdWords with websites looking to host advertisements through Google AdSense.  The ad auction consists of a pool of relevant ads that are bidding for your space, and based on their bid and their likely performance one ad will win.

To determine who wins the auction, Google assigns a quality score for each ad based on a few factors including the ad’s past performance. Google creates an AdRank which takes into account the quality score and the maximum CPC (cost per click) that the ad is willing to pay.  The advertiser with the highest AdRank wins that spot on your site, but what they pay is based on their quality score, and the AdRank of the other bidders.  This rate, which is not necessarily their maximum bid, is therefore heavily impacted by the amount of bidders in the auction pool.

Watch this 5-minute video for all you need to know about Ad Auctions (and remember that in YouTube you can always click the CC button to close caption into another language).

Advertisers who are part of AdWords also choose one of three types of ways that they want to target their ads:

• Contextual targeting is when the advertisement’s keywords (entered by the advertiser) are matched against words used on the webpage.
• Placement targeting (or managed placements) is when the advertiser hand-picks websites they want to advertise on.
• Interest-based advertising is when ads are shown to specific audiences based on the advertiser choosing from 1,600 interest categories, and matching them to a specific audience based on a combination of your website’s keywords and the users’ cookies (small files that contain information on other sites they tend to visit, demographic information they may have entered on other websites or social networks, etc.)

Measuring performance

To get an overview of how well your ads are performing, click on the Performance Reports tab in your AdSense interface. Here you can see your estimated earnings, page views, clicks, PCR (page-clickthrough-rate), CPC (cost-per-click), and page RPM (average amount of money made per 1,000 pageviews) for any date range you choose.

You can also compare two date ranges. This can be useful if you made a change to your ads or site layout and want to see how that might have impacted the performance of your ads.

One thing to note is that currently all the AdSense reports are based on the United States Pacific Time (PT) time zone and a day is considered to start at 12:00 am PT and end at 11:59 pm PT. There is no option as of yet to change this.

Measuring performance: Reports

Under the Performance Report tab, the left sidebar provides you with a variety of report types.

• Ad units – displays performance reports based on an ad unit (an individual or a set of ads displayed based on the results of one piece of AdSense code repeated in different spaces on your website).
• Ad sizes – displays performance reports based on the different ad sizes you have used on your site.
• Ad types – displays performance reports based on the different types of ads ultimately displayed, including images, text, rich media, flash, etc.  This is especially useful if you have allowed all ad types, and want to see if some do better than others.
• Targeting types – displays performance reports based on contextual targeting, placement targeting, and interest-based advertising.
• Bid types – displays performance reports based on ads that are paid by CPC (cost per click) or by CPM (cost per thousand impressions).

To makes sense of the reports, you’ll want to familiarise yourself with common digital advertising terms such as ad click-through-rate, matched revenue per thousand impressions (matched RPM) and revenue per thousand impressions (RPM). Google has a comprehensive glossary for the terms that are used in its AdSense reports. In addition to the glossary, Google also has this 2-minute video that provides a step-by-step explanation of how to use advanced reports.

Custom channels

A custom channel is a group of ad units defined by you for reporting purposes.  For example, you might create one custom channel for your homepage, and one for a section front and another for a layout that you are trying out at the top of a page.

When creating a custom channel, you can also check the option for “Show this custom channel to advertisers as a targetable ad placement”.  This important option allows you to optimize placement targeted ads by creating a channel which groups ad placements by topic, ad format, or location on a page – all important distinctions for advertisers looking to buy a specific location or reach a particular audience.  Once you check this option, you will be asked for more information:

• Ads appear on: Note where ads in this placement appear on your site – on the homepage, or on other types of pages.
• Ad location: Select the location on the page where ads in this placement appear. For example, you might make a placement featuring ads in the top right of your pages.
• Description: This is what an advertiser will probably use to decide whether to place the ad or not so be very specific.  Even go so far as to suggest an audience type who will likely view these ads.
• Site language: The primary language of your site content.

URL channels

These are custom channels for reporting on your ads based on the directory structure of your site. By entering a top-level domain name or main web address of your site, you can track all the pages on that domain, or you can enter a partial URL, which would allow you to track ad performance on a particular section on your site.

Google Analytics

If you are using Google Analytics for your website, you can also link your AdSense data with your Google Analytics account, which will give you even more information about who is clicking on your ads. For example, you can see the geographic region where they’re coming from, what referring site sent them to your site, and how long they stay on your page before clicking an ad.

To see your AdSense data, either click on the Content section in the Google Analytics navigation sidebar for your AdSense reports, or click the AdSense Revenue tab for a breakdown of your traffic by AdSense impressions, clicks and revenue in many other reports.

Google has a tutorial on how to link your AdSense and Analytics accounts.

Optimising your ad performance

Linking AdSense to Google Analytics is just one way to measure the performance of your ads so that you evolve your strategy to get the highest possible returns from your ads. You’ll want to interpret your data and make small, informed changes to improve your advertising strategy. There are several different ways to optimise the performance of your ad network advertising. According to Google:

• Wider ad sizes tend to perform the best because of how much easier they are to read. AdSense suggests a few sizes that work best when you create your ad unit, but it is important to keep in mind your own website’s layout.
• Customise the colours of text, links and the ad background to integrate better with your site.
• In general, ads located above the scroll tend to perform better than those that require users to scroll to see.
• Ads placed near navigational aids and other engaging content also perform well due to high visibility.

Google has a number of suggestions for the best layouts to drive ad performance.

Limiting ads through blocking

Of course, the best way to optimize the amount of money you get for ads is to allow as many advertisers as possible to enter the ad auction, simply and easily.  However, you could have ads placed on your site that are offensive or ads for your competitors that you would want to block from advertising on your page. To block or limit ads, you can click the Allow & Block Ads tab to include specific URLs, topics, sensitive categories, or even specific ad networks.

You also do have the option, on your settings page, to hold all ads for a 24-hour review period before they show up on your site.  However, the default is to run ads immediately which will maximize your potential revenue by opening up the competition to more ads.

Other Google ad services

Connect with high-quality advertisers

The Google Affiliate Network is a free service to connect accepted publishers to high-quality advertisers, currently supporting websites from 80 countries.  It allows for a more flexible pricing scheme, determined between you and the affiliate.  But it also requires more pro-activity to keep up your relationship with the affiliate advertisers. See the publisher optimisation checklist for an overview of how to stay on top of things.
Learn more about the Affiliate Network.

Keeping up-to-date information in DoubleClick Ad Planner

The DoubleClick Ad Planner is a free service that allows advertisers to quickly find websites that match their target audience.  So it is important to make sure that your website information is complete and up-to-date so the right advertisers will find you.  In your DoubleClick Ad Planner publisher profile, you can include a 250 character description of your site, the URL of a page on your site that describes how to advertise with you, up to five categories reflecting the content of your site, the different advertising types, formats and sizes that your site supports and whether you would like to share your Google Analytics data with DoubleClick Ad Planner.

The first step to create your profile is to claim your website in the Ad Planner.  See instructions for how to claim your site.

Find more information on DoubleClick Ad Planner.

Test different designs and pages

This new service allows you to do some advanced A/B testing on your website. You can create up to five different versions of a webpage and when someone visits the site, they will be shown one of these options.  Then you can report on these different webpage options against your Google Analytic goals to understand how different layouts impact your click-through rate (see future issues of the Digital Briefing for more about Google Analytics and goals).  Learn more about the Google Content Experiment, or get an overview on how to setup a content experiment.

Special service for small business

DoubleClick for Small Businesses is free service (if you serve less than 90 million monthly ad impressions, not including AdSense ads) provides you with several features to take greater advantage of your AdSense account.  If you are at a point where you have begun to receive requests from advertisers, or you manage multiple ad networks, or you just need greater control over your ad delivery, the service will help you to do all of that.  For example, you can limit the amount of times a user sees the same ad within a given period, or enable real-time competition between Google AdSense, Affiliates and third party ad-networks, or you can create mobile-specific targeting options.  See a full list of features.

Other AdSense products

• Link Units: display a short list of related topics that the user clicks on to get even more targeted ads.  This is a smaller display and can be useful in spots where an ad unit wouldn’t fit into the layout.
• AdSense for search: Create a Google search on your site and if a user clicks on one of the ads in the search result you will earn revenue.  The search can be just for your site, for a collection of sites, or for the whole web.  You can also prioritise or restrict the search to a section of your webpage.
• AdSense for mobile content: Google ads on your mobile webpages
• AdSense for feeds: Google ads in your feeds
• AdSense for video: InVideo overlay and text overlay ads for your video content
• AdSense for games: advertising specifically for games played within the browser
• AdSense for domains: links, search results, advertisements and other content for your unused domains
• AdMob: Google ads for your mobile applications

To get a more in-depth view of AdSense, you can go through the thorough online lessons at the AdSense Academy.

Warning: How not to increase revenue

AdSense has fairly strict policies against certain practices that would encourage fake click-throughs.  A big one is masking ads – you cannot make it difficult to distinguish ads from your content.  You also cannot use any language to encourage people to click on the ads, or place misleading labels above ad units such as “Favourite Sites” or “Today’s Top Offers”.  Google advises to avoid partnering with untrusted or low-quality ad networks, search engines or directory sites in an effort to increase traffic. Lastly, there is a strict rule against clicking on your own ads – even if you’re interested in an ad or looking for its destination URL. Instead of clicking on the ad on your site, Google advises you to use a search engine to find the URL for that company.

Digital media: Easier to launch, harder to sustain

Digital media present opportunities and challenges that are unique when compared to print, radio and television. Development costs can be dramatically lower, and that is a great opportunity to save crucial resources for those things that will set your product apart from the competition and build loyalty from your audience.

But low development costs also mean that the barrier to entry is much lower than print and broadcast media. As we see in our case study with Indian news newcomer Firstpost, this can lead to a crowded, cluttered market. And looking back at an example in the inaugural Digital Briefing, successful products like daily deals/Groupon-style products can quickly face crushing competition.

Digital costs can be lower but proven, high-return digital revenue models are still evolving even in more mature markets. Digital returns can provide high margins, up to 50%, but only if costs are kept in check. The pro-am model, which is built on a mix of content from professional journalists on your staff and amateurs often from your audience, is one model delivering those kind of returns. The bottom line is that you’ll need to be just as creative in developing revenue streams as you are in developing your editorial voice and brand.

Start small and evolve

Firstpost executive news producer Durga Raghunath has a key lesson for developing your digital product: start small and grow in stages. Firstpost took full advantage of the lower costs of digital development. For example, they kept development costs low by using the free, open-source content-management system WordPress for the site.

Their editorial strategy of curation, social media, “breaking views”, smart analysis and comment, is a lighter, lower cost editorial strategy than starting with a large newsroom focused on original reporting. Raghunath advises not to staff for your end goal, nor start with a massive editorial team you might not be able to sustain immediately at launch. Firstpost, for example, has started with a relatively small editorial team and has added stringers and contributors as the site has grown.

One example of how Firstpost is using engagement to build audience relatively inexpensively is Firstpost debates. These unique head-to-head debates tap into the desire of citizens of the world’s largest democracy to have their say, and the audience has responded with thousands of Firstpost readers voting in each debate.

Invest in what makes you distinctive

Firstpost’s focus on “breaking views”, curation, social media and participation sets the site apart from India’s well-served breaking news market. As Raghunath said, broadcasters and newspapers already have their own news websites in India, and Firstpost is part of the Web18 network, the digital division of Indian media group Network18, which includes MoneyControl, India’s leading business news site as well as many other general and specialty news websites. Web18 didn’t need – and the Indian market doesn’t provide – much opportunity for another breaking news site.

Raghunath makes a key point that in a crowded market you have to stand out and that means investing in things that are important to your audience and that are different from the basic features your competition offers. Editorial strategy is the leading way to set your digital product apart. Firstpost chose to supplement their distinctive editorial strategy with other elements to highlight their uniqueness, both in their approach to content as well as business and revenue creation.

• Design. FirstPost developed a distinctive design that emphasized clean and easy organization, a dramatic change from the densely organised look of most Indian news sites.
• Voice. It is key to develop a voice, a distinctive editorial style for your product. Knowing the voice of your product will also help guide key editorial hiring decisions. Firstpost focused not only on sharp analysis that engages readers, the core of their breaking views strategy, but also on developing an editorial voice focused on engagement and discussion to attract India’s social media-obsessed audiences.
• Mobile. Recognising that Indian news audiences are increasingly interacting with news sites through mobile devices, FirstPost elevated the role of mobile in their strategy by launching a fast, light mobile site and mobile apps for key platforms including Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android.
• Brand. Design and voice all help to develop a sense of brand, and developing a media brand will not only help you stand out from competitors and build audience, but also attract advertisers. About half of Firstpost’s advertising comes from ‘brand advertising’, advertisers who want to be associated with the site’s “smart and sticky” brand.

Launch strong

To cut through the clutter, your product needs a strong launch.  This is the first step in successfully building the brand of your product and launching your marketing efforts. It positions your product in the marketplace and also starts to make the case to advertisers why they should want to advertise with your product.

Firstpost chose to launch just ahead of the Indian elections, which gave it a strong event to kick off their coverage and establish their voice. They also had a strong launch campaign, including television advertising, that stressed how the site would be focused on social media, engagement and participation.

This was key in distinguishing Firstpost from other sites and also setting out how its approach to journalism would be different, uniquely digital and boldly social. Make sure that your launch clearly communicates your editorial identity.

Be creative in building revenue

Developing your digital revenue foundations will require the same kind of creative thinking to stand out from other online news sites.  One of the opportunities of digital media is that digital revenue models are still evolving, which leaves a lot of room for the creative combination of marketing and advertising to build revenue.

Firstpost built on their social media and “breaking views” focus to seek out advertising opportunities that are as unique as their editorial proposition. Firstpost has used Twitter as an important channel to build their audience and promote their approach to news coverage. Their advertising and marketing team have worked with their editorial team to create an equally innovative approach to include advertisers’ sponsored messages in their Twitter streams.  Their innovation is to use the hashtag #advertiserlove to communicate transparently to audiences that these are commercial rather than editorial messages, while still providing advertisers access to Firstpost’s large and engaged Twitter audience.

They are also exploring sponsored content, and to maintain editorial integrity even as they seek commercial opportunities, they have developed rigorous editorial guidelines for this development.

Measure and evolve

Raghunath spoke repeatedly of the importance of evolving their content and revenue strategies. It’s one of the key messages that we want to communicate with the Knowledge Bridge that with digital you must constantly measure, optimise and evolve.

Knowledge Bridge will dive deeply into measuring and analysing content and advertising in upcoming issues.  In short though, the first step is to measure the basic response using Google Analytics.  As sites grow in reach and complexity even measurement strategies will evolve to include multiple different measurement tools.  Firstpost, for example, with its emphasis on social media, measures performance with a mix of web analytics using tools like Google Analytics and comScore, and supplements with Facebook Insights to  measure social media performance.

The advice is to measure audience behaviour with these tools and test different editorial and engagement strategies. Many successful sites, such as Huffington Post which was one source of inspiration for Firstpost’s model, have started using A/B testing, measuring either different strategies or even the performance of content such as headlines to learn which work best.

The key to overall success will be how effectively you measure and evolve your editorial and commercial strategy. Revenue may be a challenge in developing digital media products, but you also have unique opportunities to measure and optimise. The digital media products that are succeeding are the ones that are establishing products with strong, unique editorial voices and creative, constantly evolving revenue streams.

The business seminar focused specifically on the unique aspects of building an online outlet for a radio station or network. The training included:

• “Developing a Strategic Plan”. A framework for building a strategic plan for an online media business. Special emphasis was given to presenting different models for an audio-driven online site.
• “Building Audience”. A broad overview of the techniques needed to build an online audience including streaming audio directories, iTunes submission, search engine optimization, and social media marketing.
• “Revenue Opportunities”. A discussion of different revenue opportunities including donation campaigns and fund drives, advertising including Google Adsense, and content sales and syndication.
• “Measurement”. A hands-on demonstration of the fundamentals of Google Analytics.

The goal of the seminar was to provide radio stations, radio producers, and radio networks with the foundation to develop sustainable online web sites for their radio operations.

Location: Siem Reap, Cambodia

Dates: 2 -3 May 2012

Attending:  Affiliate Members of the Asia Calling Network, representing radio broadcasters and online media from Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, Pakistan, Nepal, and Afghanistan.

The seminar presented the following topics:

• “Trends in Online Business Development”. An overview of new international online media developments with a focus on online products and services, which specifically deliver local audiences and markets. In particular, the seminar looked at specialized directories, local aggregation and specialized social media developments as opportunities for new online product development.
• “Search Engine Optimization”. An overview of the fundamentals of SEO for both Google and Yandex.
• “Social Media Marketing”. An overview of the fundamentals of leading social media platforms Twitter and Facebook including step-by-step instructions around how to establish a social media profile, how to post to the profile and a discussion of the benefits of social media to traffic growth.
• “Measuring Success – Google Analytics”. An overview of the fundamentals of using Google Analytics to measure traffic growth and understand basic audience demographics and behavior.
• “Planning & Financing Your Business”. A discussion of the key inputs to a business plan including estimating audience, revenue and expenses.

The goal of the seminar was to provide senior executives and media managers with the fundamentals to understand the opportunities available and the techniques required to capture the local online media opportunity.

Location: Moscow, Russia
Dates: 19-20 March 2012
Attending: Russian and Ukrainian media executives