Forget Big Brother, Google is Watching

(McCarty, 2012)


Google offers a variety of free services, from its top-ranked search portal and analytics product to its popular email service, Gmail. All of these services are free. However, does all of this free stuff indeed come at a price? Yes, we pay for these services with information. Google uses the information, we may even perhaps unknowingly provide about ourselves, for advertising purposes. 

Even though the company started in search, much of the company’s profits today come from advertising. Google doesn’t collect this information with the intent to act maliciously. How does this work? Let’s assume you’re in the market for a new car. You search for new cars via Google and suddenly you’re bombarded with ads from local car dealerships in your browser (Smith, 2014). 

PRIVACY AND SECURITY

How much does Google know about you? Should you be concerned? The fact of the matter is there’s not much about your online activity that is out of Google’s hands. It’s scary, but Google collects a lot of information about you. It can mine your emails, track your browsing history, obtain your WiFi passwords, and more. Even private browsing modes, like Google Chrome’s incognito mode, don’t completely protect you. The profile Google builds from this information through complex algorithms and databases contains information like your IP address, monitor resolution, etc. It doesn’t contain your name or address; however Google still puts together a unique profile of your activities and preferences that it uses to display relevant car ads (Smith, 2014). 

Google privacy policy states that it won’t sell personal data and will employ security to keep user information sage. Furthermore, Google claims by understanding your preferences it can ensure it gives you the best search results. Additionally, by analyzing the search logs of millions of users in aggregate, it can continually improve search algorithms, develop new features, etc. But, what exactly is Google doing with all of the data it collects? Here are some things you should know.

Google combines personal information.
Google combines your personal information between all your Google services. It does this to make it easier for you to share things with people you know.

Google integrates accounts.
For instance, if another user already has your email, Google may show them your publicly visible Google Profile information, such as your name and photo.

Google tailors ads.
Google uses information to target applicable ads to you. Take the previous example of searching for a car and being served local car dealership ads. Google's video on privacy principals describes just how Google does tailor ads to its users. 

These tailored ads don’t appear to be worrisome. According to Adweek, people like targeted ads. In fact, nearly 70% like at least some tailored Internet ads. Even though consumers may be worried about Internet privacy, targeted advertising is the least of their privacy woes. A study conducted by the Digital Advertising Alliance found that only four percent of those surveyed were concerned about behavioral advertising (Bachman, 2013).

Google aggregates large quantities of data.
Google also aggregates non-personally identifiable information publicly and shares it with its partners (i.e., advertisers). So, while Google doesn’t share your personal data with any third parties, it does share massive quantities of anonymized data with them. By sharing this data with its partners, they can analyze larger trends and make their products more effective.

Google stores information indefinitely.
When you use any Google service, your information may be collected and stored in server logs (Erickson, 2012).

GOOGLE SECURITY AND PRIVACY TOOLS

Google does, however, provide a variety of tools to help keep your information private and secure.

Two-Step Verification
Google encourages users to enable two-step verification requiring you to provide your phone number as well. Therefore, if someone steals or guesses your password, the potential attacker still can’t access your account because they don’t have your phone number.

Chrome Incognito Mode
If you use incognito mode in Chrome, the pages you visit and files you download aren’t recorded in Chrome’s history. However, as mentioned previously, this mode doesn’t entirely protect you.

Google+ Circles
By setting up circles in Google+ you can share content with only a certain group(s) of people.

Unlisted/Private Videos on YouTube
If you just want to share a video with a small group of friends or keep it to yourself you can edit the privacy setting when uploading the video.

ETHICS

Does Google always act ethically? Based on the examples that follow, the answer is no.

Safari
In 2012, The Wall Street Journal reported Google was bypassing the security settings on Apple devices using the Safari browser. As a result, millions of Safari users were tracked for months without them even knowing about it. The Federal Trade Commission fined Google $22.5 million for violating previous privacy agreements.

Street View
After being sued by 38 states, Google admitted in 2013 its cars mounted with cameras were not just taking pictures for Google’s Street View. In fact, Google was also collecting data from computers inside homes/buildings at the same time. The New York Times reported the data collected by Google included information such as passwords and emails.

Gmail
Last October a federal judge refused to dismiss a class-action lawsuit because the judge felt Google violated federal wiretap laws. The lawsuit was filed by Google users who objected to the company’s practice of analyzing the content it collected and then selling the byproducts to advertisers. (Rosenfeld, 2014).

Policy Rewrite
Most recently, the BBC reported that Google agreed to rewrite its privacy policy after receiving pressure from UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The ICO found that Google’s privacy policy was too vague when describing how it uses the personal data it gathers. Google will make it easier for users to find out how their data is collected and what it is used for (BBC, 2015).

In conclusion, consumers should be somewhat concerned about the information Google collects and act responsibly online at all times. You shouldn’t do anything in cyberspace you wouldn’t want people to know about. Particularly in this Web 2.0 world that we live in, we have come to expect that behavioral targeting takes place and may even welcome it. We also understand social networks are not private affairs. We know companies like Google use the data we provide them and for the most part are okay with this – especially if we’re getting free services in return.

REFERENCES

Bachman, K. Poll: Targeted advertising is not the bogeyman [updated]. Retrieved from http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/poll-targeted-advertising-not-bogeyman-updated-148649

BBC. (2015, January 30). Google agrees privacy policy changes with data watchdog. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31059874

McCarty, S. (2012, March 1). Google is watching you & tracking you. Retrieved from http://smbizsol.com/2012/03/google-is-watching-you-tracking-you.html

Erickson, C. (2012, March 1). Google privacy: 5 things the tech giant does with your data. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2012/03/01/google-privacy-data-policy

Rosenfeld, S. (2014, February 5). 4 ways Google is destroying privacy and collecting your data. Retrieved from http://www.salon.com/2014/02/05/4_ways_google_is_destroying_privacy_and_collecting_your_data_partner

Smith, M. (2014, June 17). How much does Google really know about you? Retrieved from http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-much-google-know-about-you

Google Analytics vs. Omniture (Adobe Analytics)

Google Analytics is the most used web analytics package. Leveraging Google Analytics may have possible disadvantages, because it may not meet the needs of your brand’s digital strategy. Omniture, now part of Adobe Marketing Cloud, offers advanced capabilities; however, they do come with a hefty price tag (Adobe Systems Incorporated, n.d.; Five Rivers Interactive Media, n.d.).

In order to determine which analytics program is better suited for your brand, you should first know the key business decision drivers and define what is required out of an analytics program. If a company needs customization and features, has a lot of resources to work with the analytics program, and doesn’t care about cost, Adobe Analytics would be the appropriate choice. Conversely, if you don’t require such things, Google Analytics may be the perfect size application to get the job done.

COST

Cost is one of the main things you should consider when choosing an analytics platform. The price of Google Analytics is its strongest benefit – it’s FREE! Whereas, pricing for Adobe Marketing Cloud’s Adobe Analytics isn’t even listed on its website. You have to contact Adobe to find out pricing – online or by phone – and they’ll provide you a custom quote (Five Rivers Interactive Media, n.d.).

IMPLEMENTATION

Google Analytics is easy to implement compared to Adobe Analytics. Implementing Adobe Analytics requires more in-depth development work as it can be customized to track your specific metrics (Ingle, 2013). Therefore, Adobe Analytics not only takes longer to implement, but has higher implementation costs. If you require such detailed reporting, the upfront work and monetary set-up costs associated with Adobe Analytics can be worth it.

NEEDS

Another area to look at when determining which analytic solution is right for you is how big your website is and what it’s going to be doing. If you have a small operation that needs high-level reporting, Google Analytics can meet your needs. However, if you’re selling hundreds of products and need to track hundreds of conversion goals, Adobe can keep track of them all (Five Rivers Interactive Media, n.d.).

SPEED

You also need to assess how fast your business moves. Are you running A/B split testing or optimizing your shopping cart and need real-time data?  If you do require real-time tracking, Adobe Analytics is the solution for you. Adobe Analytics provides data in real-time, enabling a user to check the effectiveness of a campaign or piece of content almost immediately after it launches. With Google Analytics there is a 24-hour lapse in data (Five Rivers Interactive Media, n.d.).

TRAFFIC

Another area to look at when considering the appropriate analytics software package is how many visitors your site gets in a month. Google caps the visits/visitors tracked at 10 million page views per month. Adobe Marketing Cloud, on the other hand, does not cap visits/visitors. Tracking all of those visits/visitors will cost you though (Demers, 2013).

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

If you need help, you’re pretty much on your own if you’re using Google Analytics; there is no dedicated support staff. However, there is an official Google Analytics Forum and Help Center you can tap into if you have questions. Additionally, there is a three-week Digital Analytics Fundamentals course that teaches the principles of digital analytics and how these principles can be used to enhance business performance. Furthermore, there is a Google Analytics Academy which offers in-depth training (Chianis, 2013). This may be okay if you’re in charge of a small website. If you’re managing a large and highly-complex website, on the other hand, you’ll likely find the 24/7 support offered by Adobe to be critical. Training on Adobe Analytics is an additional fee, but Adobe also offers a variety of support materials for free online as well (Chianis, 2013).

TESTING TOOLS

With Google Analytics you can do A/B and multivariate testing. You can also perform A/B and multivariate testing with Adobe Marketing Cloud. However, in order to have this functionality you need to not only purchase Adobe Marketing Cloud’s Adobe Analytics, but Adobe Target as well (Adobe Systems Incorporated, n.d.).

SECURITY

Do you care who owns the data? When it comes to security, if you use Google Analytics, Google owns the data. On the other hand, if you use Adobe the data belongs to you (Five Rivers Interactive Media, n.d.).

METRICS

Google Analytics offers many metrics such as transactions with a minimum purchase amount (Google, n.d.). Compared to Adobe Analytics, Google Analytics metrics reporting capability is limited. However, Adobe Analytics offers over 100 metrics (Five Rivers Interactive Media, n.d.).

GOAL TRACKING

With Google Analytics you are limited to 20 goals per reporting view. To track more than 20 goals, you’ll need to create an additional view for that account (Google, n.d.). Adobe Marketing Cloud, on the other hand, lets you track hundreds of goals (Five Rivers Interactive Media, n.d.).

CUSTOM VARIABLES

Both analytics programs allow you to set custom variables. However, Google only allows five custom variables per page. Adobe allows for significantly more variables to be set. Even though both allow you to expire a variable at a specific time, Adobe allows you to stack variables on top of each other, giving you the ability to identify a sequence of events (Chianis, 2013).

SEGMENTATION

The ability to segment visitors is available in Google Analytics, but again, Google Analytics is limited when compared to the competition. Adobe has a lot of options to segment your audience (Five Rivers Interactive Media, n.d.).

ADWORDS INTEGRATION

If you are running an AdWords campaign(s), you are not alone. In fact, more than a million businesses run such PPC ads. If you are one of these businesses, Google Analytics can import your AdWords data seamlessly very quickly and easily. Once you link Google Analytics and AdWords, you will be able to:

• “Import Google Analytics goals and transactions into AdWords as conversions;
• View Google Analytics site engagement data in AdWords;
• Create remarketing lists in Analytics to use in AdWords for targeting specific audiences; and,
• Automatically view your AdWords click and cost data alongside your Analytics site engagement data” (Google, n.d.).

HISTORICAL DATA

How long do you need/want to keep your data? Google Analytics keeps data up to 25 months. Whereas, Adobe Analytics will keep all of your data – as long as you’re a customer (Chianis, 2013). According to Kaushik, keeping a lot of historical data around is overrated for the fact that your visitors, computations, website, etc. change too much (2008). However, Kaushik does say aggregate data on a critical few metrics should be kept as well as “some revenue stats just to prove you’re worth it” (2008).

As you can see, these two analytic programs have pros and cons. The first step in choosing which one is right for you is to define your digital strategy. Determining the key business decision drivers and defining what is required out of an analytics program will help you select the right-sized analytics tool.

References

Adobe Systems Incorporated. (n.d.). Adobe Marketing Cloud. Retrieved from http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/solutions/digital-marketing/pdfs/marketing-cloud-solution-overview-ue.pdf

Adobe Systems Incorporated. (n.d.). Omniture. Retrieved from http://www.adobe.com/solutions/digital-marketing/omniture.html

Chianis, A. (2013, October 11). Google Analytics vs. Adobe SiteCatalyst – which data analysis platform is better for business? Retrieved from

Demers, T. (2013, May 10). Guide to analytics software platforms: 25 analytics tools compared. Retrieved from http://searchengineland.com/web-analytics-software-comparison-identifying-the-right-web-analytics-tools-for-your-business-149373

Five Rivers Interactive Media. (n.d.). Google Analytics vs. Omniture. Retrieved from http://www.fiveriversinteractive.com/pdfs/GAvsOMNITURE.pdf

Google. (n.d.). About goals. Retrieved from https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1012040?hl=en

Google. (n.d.). Link Google Analytics and AdWords. Retrieved from https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/1704341?hl=en

Google. (n.d.). Set up, edit, and share goals. Retrieved from https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1032415?hl=en

Ingle, S. (2013, May 15). What’s the difference? Comparing Google Analytics and Adobe SiteCatalyst. Retrieved from http://www.paceco.com/google-analytics-adobe-sitecatalyst-comparison

Kaushik, A. (2008, January 22). History is overrated. Retrieved from http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/history-is-overrated

Choosing Social Media Platforms & Allocating Resources

A company should not adopt just one social media platform as its main/primary channel. Likewise, just because it’s the latest/greatest social craze, doesn’t mean a social media platform is worth a company’s valuable time and resources. Social media needs to be a part of the IMC campaign – not just an afterthought. When it comes to determining which social media platforms to use and how to allocate resources, digital marketers should not go with their gut. Instead, they should develop a social media strategy to ensure its efforts are strategically aligned to help meet company goals and objectives by using the appropriate social media platforms and allocating resources appropriately.

IDENTIFYING SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS 

When it comes to identifying the appropriate social media platforms for your IMC campaign there are several things you must consider.

Identify the business goals.

Digital marketers need to look at the company’s overall needs and determine how to use social media to help attain them (Daoud, 2014). For example, is the company looking to increase sales, retain loyal customers, etc.? Econsultancy’s Chris Lake (2009) says that a widescreen approach to social media measurement looks at goals like the aforementioned ones – sales, loyalty, etc. After all, zeroing in on details may be a waste of time due to problems that can occur such as attrition (Lake, 2009). 

Looking at the big picture, however, is not going to be enough for the C-suite. They are going to want proof that social media (or social optimization) is working. Lake (2009) says social optimization is all about driving engagement and interaction, but not to fret, because there are many things that can be measured.

Set marketing objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs)/metrics. 

According to Lake, the objective of any social media strategy is “to provide the right tools, so people can engage with your brand/people/products/services onsite and offsite (2009). You want people to:

• Make noise; 
• Store and share things; 
• Love your website; 
• Visit more frequently; 
• Refer your company to their friends; 
• Buy into your brand; and, 
• Buy your products. 

Engaged customers are more likely to perform these actions, and to measure engagement you’ll need to provide people with the tools to measure KPIs/metrics around your objectives (Lake, 2009). There are a number of social interaction KPIs/metrics you can put in place around downloads, ratings, email subscriptions, etc. See a complete list of Lake’s KPIs/metrics.

Once you know what you want to measure, you can choose the appropriate analytics and tracking tools you’ll need. Analytics software, such as Google Analytics, is not designed to track social media data. However, installing social media metrics plugins or using a free tool like Tweetstats can address your analytics software for social media (WVU, 2015).

Identify Ideal customers.

Knowing your target audience’s age, income, interests, etc., makes it easier to target them on social media. In fact, engagement is usually low if a company doesn’t have an accurate profile of its ideal customer (Daoud, 2014). For example, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center, if you’re targeting Latino women younger than 30, you’ll want to include Instagram in your social media strategy. See the chart below for more demographic information on the different social networking sites (Duggan & Brenner, 2013).


(Duggan & Brenner, 2013) 

Research the competition.

When developing a social media marketing strategy, you should research what social media platforms your competition is using. This will provide insight on what’s working so that you can include the tactic in your IMC campaign. When analyzing your competition there are a few questions to answer.

1. How many fans/followers do they have?
2. What is their posting frequency?
3. What type of content are they posting (i.e., promos)?
4. What time of day are they posting (Daoud, 2014)?

Choose channels and tactics.

As soon as a new social media platform is released, many companies just go ahead and create an account without researching if it’s the right place to reach its target audience. You can use your buyer persona to determine the platforms that work best for your company (Daoud, 2014). If you know your target audience spends 30% of its time online on Facebook and 10% on Twitter, you not only know what your primary and secondary social networks are, but you know running a Facebook ad is a better strategy than eating up time composing tweets.

Create a content strategy.

A sound content strategy focuses on three areas: type of content, time of posting, and frequency of posting. 

Type of Content – The content you’re posting depends on the social platform you’re publishing to. What form should the content take – video, text only, etc.? If your target audience hangs out on Tumblr, for instance, posting great multimedia content is key. Content also has to match the tone of the social platform (educational or entertaining, funny or serious, etc.). 

Time of Post – Each audience is unique; so, you need to figure out the best time to post content. For example, a B2B company might determine the best time to post content is during business hours – not during week nights and on the weekends.

Frequency of Post – It is also important to strike the appropriate balance of number of posts. Too few posts means you’re not engaging enough with your audience. On the other hand, too many posts and the number of unlikes and unfollows could increase (Daoud, 2014). 

ALLOCATIONG RESOURCES

In order to effectively budget for social media marketing you’ll need to look at the tactics you’re using to achieve the company’s goals and objectives. First you should make a list of the tools you’ll need for your social media marketing efforts – CRM, social listening software, etc. Then you’ll need to determine approximately how much it will cost for all the advertising you’ll be implementing, including the services you’ll outsource (i.e., graphic design). Ultimately, you would want to establish your strategy first and then determine the budget that is needed to support your strategy. However, many times the budget is determined first and then tactics are selected that fit the budget (Daoud, 2014). 

A social media strategy shouldn’t be written in stone. As data is analyzed through the year you may realize some tactics are delivering results while other aren’t working as well as you thought they would. As insights are gained through analytics, adjustment should be made quickly to the strategy (Daoud, 2014). 

REFERENCES

Daoud, H. (2014, July 16). 8 essential elements of a social media marketing strategy. Retrieved from http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/essential-elements-social-media-marketing-strategy/

Duggan, M. & Brenner, J. (2013, February 14). The demographics of social media users – 2012. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/02/14/the-demographics-of-social-media-users-2012/

Lake, C. (2009, October 30). 35 social media KPIs to help measure engagement [Blog]. Retrieved from https://econsultancy.com/blog/4887-35-social-media-kpis-to-help-measure-engagement/

WVU. (2015). Lesson 3: Social media analytics & advertising channels. Retrieved from https://ecampus.wvu.edu/webapps/blackboard/execute/displayLearningUnit?course_id=_29082_1&content_id=_1454155_1&framesetWrapped=true