vineri, 26 iunie 2015

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Tsipras Calls July 5 Referendum on Creditors’ Demands; Merkel Says No Alternative to Creditor's "Generous" Offer
BitGold Now Available in US! Why BitGold?
Greece Bank Deposits Drop to 11-Year Low; Creditors Offer 6 Month's Financing; Round One of Saga Nearly Over

Tsipras Calls July 5 Referendum on Creditors’ Demands; Merkel Says No Alternative to Creditor's "Generous" Offer

Posted: 26 Jun 2015 05:21 PM PDT

In a surprise move that's sure to deflate the nannycrat's hope of early elections that could force prime minister Alexis Tsipras out of power, Greece's Tsipras Calls July 5 Referendum on Creditors' Demands.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called a referendum on whether he should accept the latest demands of the country's creditors, the most dramatic move yet in a debt crisis that started five years ago.

Greek ministers, including the defense chief, joined the fray, urging the country of 11 million people to vote "no."

In a nationally televised address after midnight in Athens, Tsipras said the vote will take place on July 5 and excoriated a take it-or-leave it offer as a violation of European Union rules and "common decency." A Greek official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the government has no plans to impose capital controls and banks will stay open on Monday.

"After five months of tough negotiations, our partners unfortunately resorted to a proposal-ultimatum to the Greek people," Tsipras said. "I call on the Greek people to rule on the blackmailing ultimatum asking us to accept a strict and humiliating austerity without end and without prospect."

The surprise development throws into turmoil planned talks Saturday among euro-area finance ministers on their latest proposal, which would unlock 15.5 billion euros ($17.3 billion) and extend Greece's program through November, in return for a commitment to pension cuts and higher taxes that Tsipras opposes.

No Alternative Says Merkel

Amusingly, Merkel Tells Tsipras No Alternative to Creditors' Offer.

Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday pleaded with Greek premier Alexis Tsipras to accept an "extraordinarily generous offer" from international creditors, making clear there was no alternative and that she would not intervene directly to broker a compromise.

But Mr Tsipras rejected the creditors' offer, saying Greece would not be threatened with "blackmail and ultimatums".

Clear Alternative

Clearly there is an alternative, that being to tell the Troika to go to hell. Tsipras was smart putting this to a vote. July 5 is interesting in that Greece will default before the vote.

What's the ECB to do now? Shut off the ELA, or keep it going 10 more days?

Instead of discussing "Plan B" on Saturday, the eurozone ministers are faced with "Plan C" .

Meanwhile, the run on the banks continues.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

BitGold Now Available in US! Why BitGold?

Posted: 26 Jun 2015 06:33 AM PDT

BitGold USA

Effective today, BitGold Announces Platform Launch in the United States.

BitGold, a platform for savings and payments in gold, is pleased to announce the launch of the BitGold platform for residents of the US and US territories. As of today, US residents can sign up on the BitGold platform and buy, sell, or redeem gold using BitGold's Aurum payment and settlement technology. US residents will also have access to the BitGold mobile app and a prepaid card when these features launch over the coming weeks. Send and receive gold payment features are not initially available in the US.

About BitGold

BitGold's mission is to make gold accessible and useful in secure savings. The BitGold platform provides innovative solutions to the challenge of transacting with fully allocated and securely vaulted gold. BitGold accounts are free and convenient to open by anyone, anywhere* in just minutes. BitGold provides users with a secure vault account to purchase gold using a variety of electronic payment methods. All physical gold acquired through the platform is owned by the customer, stored in vaults administered by The Brink's Company, acting through Brink's Global Vault Services International, Inc. ("Brink's"), which insures gold through third party insurance providers.

First Ever Debit Card Backed by Gold in Real Time

I explain below what the buyout of GoldMoney by BitGold means, but first let's start with a look at details of the announcement of the first ever debit card backed by gold in real time.

First Transactional Gold Account – Gold can be used in payments in addition to savings.
First Gold Merchant Platform – Process Credit/Debit Cards and earn gold!
First "Real" Gold Card
BitGold is an online bank account that is backed by gold as opposed to currency
Gold can be redeemed in as little as 10 gram increments (approximately $370 at today's price)
Publicly Traded, Audited by PwC, Insured, Backed by Strong Investors

Unlike other cards that sell gold at a premium then issue a debit card, BitGold is a gold-based settlement system in real time. It is also the first gold-based card of any kind available in the US.

BitGold Signup

I encourage everyone to Sign Up for a BitGold Account. I have done so myself.

Promote gold!

Transactions in gold and settlement in gold, in real time are now possible.

One Plus One Equals Three

Due to my long-standing relationship with GoldMoney, many readers have asked what the purchase of GoldMoney by BitGold means.

After careful review over the past couple weeks with both James Turk, founder of GoldMoney, and Roy Sebag, the co-founder of BitGold, I am pleased to report the news is 100% positive.

Storage fees will drop, and the idea of a debit card backed by gold is a fantastic idea for numerous reasons.

Email From James Turk

Here is an email I received from James Turk regarding the GoldMoney/BitGold relationship.

Hi Mish

Once the transaction is complete, GoldMoney will become a subsidiary of BitGold, a publicly traded company on the Toronto Stock Venture Exchange, which adds yet an additional level of oversight to GoldMoney's industry-leading governance. BitGold just completed a financing for C$18 million, which included some top name institutional investors.

After this financing, BitGold's two main owners are the shareholders of GoldMoney and Roy Sebag, whose understanding of gold is as deep as anyone I have ever met. He becomes CEO of the group, and I have no hesitation seeing the baton passed to him.

With its IT expertise, C$35 million of cash in the bank and other resources, the combined BitGold/GoldMoney has resources far beyond what GoldMoney alone was able to put together. So I really see the combined company as a true 1+1=3 situation - the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

GoldMoney will continue to operate in Jersey as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Toronto parent. It will have the same governance procedures and controls that enabled GoldMoney to build its business. So nothing really changes in that regard.

Additionally, me and two of my fellow GoldMoney directors will join the board of the parent company in Canada.

All of us in GoldMoney and Roy and his team in BitGold have the same objective - to enable digital gold currency to circulate in global online commerce as an alternative choice to national currencies. My expectation is that our combined company will take GoldMoney up to the next level.

Regards
James

Follow-Up Discussion

In a second email, James Turk introduced me to Roy Sebag and Josh Crumb, the co-founders of BitGold.

Since then, Roy and I have spoken on many occasions. Following those discussions, I echo the views expressed by James Turk.

Seldom does one plus one equal three, but that idea makes sense here. I back promotion of gold as a currency, and BitGold has the resources and institutional backing to do it properly. Attempts by others have failed or languished.

Bullion Vault Rebuttal

Some readers have asked about the Bullion Vault article Bitcoin, BitGold, GoldMoney - and BullionVault.

In the article, BullionVault makes a number of allegations that took me a while to sort out. For a rebuttal, please see Roy Sebag's Instablog, Roy Sebag And Josh Crumb View On BullionVault.

Rebuttal Highlights

BullionVault's net assets are comprised of intercompany loans (yes, there is money reported as loans moving back and forth between the company and the CEO at above market interest rates). This practice raises a fiduciary red-flag both for shareholders of the business, but also for customers because it introduces counterparty risk and undue reliance on one individual to the overall business. The balance sheet also includes a lot of outstanding short-duration lending facilities, adding more risk. In contrast, GoldMoney and BitGold are debt-free.
BullionVault is an unregulated private company that operates in the UK, outside of the protections offered by the Financial Conduct Authority to customers of financial service companies. I am personally at a loss for words as to why the FCA or the Money Service Business regulators in the UK have not approached BullionVault requiring it to register as an E-Wallet or Money Service Business given the size and amount of customer holdings. When Josh and I founded BitGold, we spent nearly a year in an open dialogue with Canadian regulators, establishing a legal framework that would allow us to offer our service before proceeding with a plan of operation.
BullionVault does not use an internationally recognized auditor and in contrast to GoldMoney, does not complete audits in accordance with ISAE standards. Its company accounts are prepared by a little known firm in Southwest England (Albert Goodman) publicly available as required under UK law, and not a voluntary disclosure purporting to offer governance. Put differently, BullionVault's financial statements add little to the governance of customer assets, and certainly cannot be compared to the quality and integrity of the audits made available by GoldMoney/BitGold.
At BitGold, Josh and I take an annual salary of $1 and have personally invested over $3 million throughout the years in building the business. We don't need an annual salary, let alone "double dip" by also lending money back to the company [as does BullionVault].
BullionVault has paid no significant dividends, while the company's CEO extracts via the company's loan arrangements favorable terms to the disadvantage of minority shareholders. Compare that to GoldMoney, which has paid out cash dividends democratically to all shareholders for several years highlighting owners income and free-cash-flow generation.
The culture we are building at BitGold/GoldMoney is one that understands gold; we are passionate about the potential gold holds for people's savings.
Our service at BitGold is significantly less expensive than BullionVault. They charge a minimum storage fee of $4 per month for gold and $8 for silver. That means if you own $1000 worth of each metal you are paying 4% and 9.6% per annum respectively just for storage! That same $1,000 worth of metal would carry no storage fees at BitGold and between 0.12%-0.39% fees through GoldMoney.
The saddest part about the negative energy that BullionVault and others have instigated is that we should all be working together, not against each other. Gold still represents a tiny fraction of global financial assets. Together, BullionVault and BitGold/GoldMoney account for less than .00001% of the world's financial assets. The market is massive and BullionVault should be focused on expanding the category as we are doing each day. BullionVault's CEO should focus on building his business and serving his customers, not attacking a new generation of entrepreneurs trying to broaden access to gold.

Additional Points

I am aware of two additional points not directly mentioned in Sebag's rebuttal:

Last week, the combined companies raised an additional $21 million in cash bringing their combined cash position to nearly $40 million. This is impressive given the overall state of the gold market and indicates the principals support from institutional investors.
BullionVault is unregulated and does not have an ISAE Audit by a Big Four Acounting Firm. GoldMoney is regulated by the JFSC and maintains an ISAE Audit by Delloitte.

After reading the rebuttal and talking with Roy Sebag on numerous occasions, I firmly believe it is not GoldMoney/BitGold that has issues, but rather GoldMoney/BitGold competitors.

Free Conversion!

GoldMoney now offers free conversion from any other platform such as Perth, BullionVault, even GLD. GoldMoney will pay any associated friction costs (sell-buy costs, etc.) to complete the transaction.

To discuss this offer with GoldMoney, please email Transfers @ GoldMoney.Com (removing the spaces before and after the @ symbol).

On most browsers this link will automatically open up your email client application: Email Goldmoney Regarding Transfers to GoldMoney

Gold is Money

I still view gold as money. Widespread acceptance of a BitGold card will go a long ways towards alleviating any doubts and disagreements some have over this issue.

My intent is not to use BitGold for major purposes as I believe gold is to be accumulated over time, and a core position held at all times. Yet, I do intend to use the card occasionally as I want to encourage merchants to accept the idea that gold is money. Once merchants become convinced that the price of gold has bottomed, many will choose to hold a percentage of their profits in gold.

Moreover, merchants will like the idea because BitGold does not have processing fees. It does have fees for exchange to other currencies, but those fees are lower than normal processing fees.

This is a win-win situation for all involved.

Disclosure

In the sake of full disclosure, I have a relationship with GoldMoney that continues, and a new one with BitGold.

Yet, and as I have stated on many occasions, my reputation is very important to me. I do not enter relationships easily. If I genuinely thought there were major issues with GoldMoney or BitGold, my relationship with them would be over.

Instead, I have taken the time to research this matter thoroughly, and have concluded the GoldMoney/BitGold deal is a good one for the industry, for merchants, and individuals alike.

Want to promote gold as money? Then please Sign Up for your BitGold Account today!

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Greece Bank Deposits Drop to 11-Year Low; Creditors Offer 6 Month's Financing; Round One of Saga Nearly Over

Posted: 26 Jun 2015 05:57 AM PDT

Delay Game

If anyone has blinked, it now appears to be Germany and France, rather than Greece. The latest proposal does not include any new money, but it will free up enough cash until December. The game today is to continue the talks forever, or until Greece finally says OK.

It is already a couple days past midnight, and the creditors, despite the harsh talk from Germany, seem to be the ones who really want a deal.

Financing Dangle

Please consider Merkel, Hollande Dangle Financing Before Greece's Tsipras.

The leaders of Germany and France offered to release billions in frozen aid on Friday in a last-minute push to talk Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras into contentious pension reforms in exchange for filling Athens' empty coffers until November.

The leftist premier's response, according to a Greek official, was that he could not understand why his country's creditors were seeking to impose such harsh conditions in return for money to avert imminent default and damage to the euro zone.

The creditors laid out terms in a document that went to Greece on Thursday and was seen by Reuters on Friday. It said Greece could have 15.5 billion euros in EU and IMF funding in four installments to see it through to the end of November, including 1.8 billion euros by Tuesday as soon as the Athens parliament approved the plan.

The total is slightly more than Greece needs to service its debts over the next six months but contains no new money.

"PLAN B"

If Greece refuses, the ministers will move on to discussing a "Plan B" on preparing to limit the damage from a Greek default to Greek banks and other euro zone countries and markets, the official said.

However, Merkel and Hollande have refused to talk publicly about a "Plan B", saying their efforts are focused on getting an agreement to keep Greece in the euro zone.

Greece Says No

The Financial Times reports Greece Refuses to Abandon Tax and Pension Plans

Greece is refusing to abandon its tax and pension plans despite the strong objections of its creditors to the proposals, in a sign of the gulf remaining between the two sides on the terms of a bailout deal.

According to its latest counterproposals to its creditors, Athens is sticking to its demand for a one-off 12 per cent tax on all corporate profits above €500,000 and a rise in employee pension contributions. Bailout monitors believe the plans would crimp economic growth and in their own final offer earlier insisted on alternative savings measures.

The stark differences in the two proposals come amid mounting evidence that several European leaders are preparing for the prospect that no deal will be reached at a make-or-break meeting of eurozone finance ministers on Saturday.

According to EU officials, Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, told his fellow leaders at an EU summit on Thursday night that they may need to reconvene to discuss Greece — not to negotiate, he said, but to deal with the fallout from a Greek default.

Deposits Drop to Eleven-Year Low

Bloomberg reports Greek Bank Deposits Fall to Eleven-Year Low.

Official data from the Bank of Greece today showed deposits fell €3.8 billion to €129.9 billion at the end of last month, marking a 21 percent plunge since November. That was just before then-Prime Minister Antonis Samaras brought forward a vote for a new president that led to his government's downfall.

With Greece's continued presence in the euro hanging in the balance, and the threat of capital controls looming if Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras fails to reach a bailout deal with creditors, the outflow has continued in June.

Greek Bank Deposits

That's capital flight in a simple picture. It will continue as long as the ECB provides Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA).

I suspect ELA ends tomorrow or Monday.

Round One of Saga Nearly Over

Default is just round one. In spite of the Troika threatening to expel Greece from the eurozone and EU, the "damage control" operation starts as soon as default occurs.

Neither side wants Grexit, so expect prolonged wrangling as to how to make that happen.

Of course, Greece could just say to hell with it all right now, and be done with it. I actually suspect something in the middle.

The key to how this plays out following default is Russia. Greece holds a big trump card. It can end sanctions on Russia as soon as December.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Damn Cool Pics

This Sport Takes Violence To A Whole New Level

Posted: 25 Jun 2015 09:09 PM PDT

Every year players gather in the city if Florence, Italy to play a game of Calcio Storico also known as 'historic football.' The game consists of teams made up of 27 players where each player on the field can use any means necessary to remove the ball from their opponents grasp.

This Is What The Cast Of Forrest Gump Looks Like 21 Years Later

Posted: 25 Jun 2015 08:57 PM PDT

It's been 21 years since the release of "Forrest Gump" and this is what the cast looks like now compared to how they looked in 1994.

Tom Hanks

Robin Wright

Gary Sinise

Mykelti Williamson

Sally Field

Michael Conner Humphrey

Hanna R. Hall

Haley Joel Osment (Forrest Jr.)

How Google May Use Searcher, Usage, & Clickstream Behavior to Impact Rankings - Whiteboard Friday - Moz Blog

How Google May Use Searcher, Usage, & Clickstream Behavior to Impact Rankings - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by randfish

A recent patent from Google suggests a new kind of influence in the rankings that has immense implications for marketers. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand discusses what it says, what that means, and adds a twist of his own to get us thinking about where Google might be heading.

For reference, here's a still of this week's whiteboard. Click on it to open a high resolution image in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week let's chat about some things that Google is learning about web searchers and web surfers that may be impacting the rankings.

I was pretty psyched to see a patent a few weeks ago that had been granted actually to Google, so filed a while before that. That patent came from Navneet Panda who, as many in the SEO space may remember, is also the engineer for whom Panda, the Panda Update from Google, is named after. Bill Slawski did a great analysis of the patent on his website, and you can check that out, along with some of the other patent diagrams themselves. Patents can be a little confusing and weird, especially the language, but this one had some surprising clarity to it and some potentially obvious applications for web marketers too.

Deciphering searcher intent

So, in this case, Googlebot here -- I've anthropomorphized him, my Googlebot there, nicely -- is thinking about the queries that are being performed in Google search engine and basically saying, "Huh, if I see lots of people searching for things like 'find email address,' 'email address tool,' 'email finder,' and then I also see a lot of search queries similar to those but with an additional branded element, like 'VoilaNorbert email tool' or 'Norbert email finder' or 'how to find email Norbert,' or even things like 'email site:voilanorbert.com,'" Googlebot might actually say, "Hmm, lots of searchers who look for these kinds of queries seem to be also looking for this particular brand."

You can imagine this in tons and tons of ways. Lots of people searching for restaurants also search for Yelp. Lots of people searching for hotels also add in queries like "Trip Advisor." Lots of people searching for homes to buy also add in Zillow. These brands that essentially get known and combined and perform very well in these non-branded searches, one of the ways that Google might be thinking about that is because they see a lot of branded search that includes the unbranded words around that site.

Google's site quality patent

In Panda's site quality patent -- and Navneet Panda wasn't the only author on this patent, but one of the ones we recognize -- what's described is essentially that this algorithm, well not algorithm, very simplistic equation. I'm sure much more than simplistic than what Google's actually using if they are actually using this. Remember, when it comes to patents, they usually way oversimplify that type of stuff because they don't want to get exactly what they're doing out there in the public. But they have this equation that looks like this: Number of unique searchers for the brand or keyword X -- so essentially, this is kind of a searches, searchers. They're trying to identify only unique quantities of people doing it, looking at things like IP address and device and location and all of that to try and identify just the unique people who are performing this -- divided by the number of unique searches for the non-branded version.

So branded divided by non-branded equals some sort of site quality score for keyword X. If a lot more people are performing a search for "Trip Advisor + California vacations" than are performing searches for just "California vacations," then the site quality score for Trip Advisor when it comes to the keyword "California vacations" might be quite high.

You can imagine that if we take another brand -- let's say a brand that folks are less familiar with, WhereToGoInTheWorld.com -- and there's very, very few searches for that brand plus "California vacations," and there's lots of searches for the unbranded version, the site quality score for WhereToGoInTheWorld.com is going to be much lower. I don't even think that's a real website, but regardless.

Rand's theory

Now, I want to add one more wrinkle on to this. I think one of the things that struck me as being almost obvious but not literally mentioned in this specific patent was my theory that this also applies to clickstream data. You can see this happening obviously already in personalization, personalized search, but I think it might be happening in non-personalized search as well, and that is essentially through Android and through Chrome, which I've drawn these lovely logos just for you. Google knows basically where everyone goes on the web and what everyone does on the web. They see this performance.

So they can look and see the clickstream for a lot of people's process is a searcher goes and searches for "find email address tool," and then they find this resource from Distilled and Distilled mentions Rob Ousbey's account -- I think it was from Rob Ousbey that that original resource came out -- and they follow him and then they follow me and they see that I tweeted about VoilaNorbert. Voila, they make it to VoilaNorbert.com's website, where their search ends. They're no longer looking for this information. They've now found a source that sort of answers their desire, their intent. Google might go, "Huh, you know, why not just rank this? Why rank this one when we could just put this there? Because this seems to be the thing that is answering the searcher's problem. It's taking care of their issue."

So what does this mean for us?

This is tough for marketers. I think both of these, the query formatting and the potential clickstream uses, suggest a world in which building up your brand association and building up the stream of traffic to your website that's solving a problem not just for searchers, but for potential searchers and people with that issue, whether they search or not, is part of SEO. I think that's going to mean that things like branding and things like attracting traffic from other sources, from social, from email, from content, from direct, from offline, and word-of-mouth, that all of those things are going to become part of the SEO equation. If we don't do those things well, in the long term, we might do great SEO, kind of classic, old-school keywords and links and crawl and rankings SEO and miss out on this important piece that's on the rise.

I'm looking forward to some great comments and your theories as well. We'll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

How to Rid Your Website of Six Common Google Analytics Headaches

Posted by amandaecking

This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Moz, Inc.

I've been in and out of Google Analytics (GA) for the past five or so years agency-side. I've seen three different code libraries, dozens of new different features and reports roll out, IP addresses stop being reported, and keywords not-so-subtly phased out of the free platform.

Analytics has been a focus of mine for the past year or so—mainly, making sure clients get their data right. Right now, our new focus is closed loop tracking, but that's a topic for another day. If you're using Google Analytics, and only Google Analytics for the majority of your website stats, or it's your primary vehicle for analysis, you need to make sure it's accurate.

Not having data pulling in or reporting properly is like building a house on a shaky foundation: It doesn't end well. Usually there are tears.

For some reason, a lot of people, including many of my clients, assume everything is tracking properly in Google Analytics... because Google. But it's not Google who sets up your analytics. People do that. And people are prone to make mistakes.

I'm going to go through six scenarios where issues are commonly encountered with Google Analytics.

I'll outline the remedy for each issue, and in the process, show you how to move forward with a diagnosis or resolution.

1. Self-referrals

This is probably one of the areas we're all familiar with. If you're seeing a lot of traffic from your own domain, there's likely a problem somewhere—or you need to extend the default session length in Google Analytics. (For example, if you have a lot of long videos or music clips and don't use event tracking; a website like TEDx or SoundCloud would be a good equivalent.)

Typically one of the first things I'll do to help diagnose the problem is include an advanced filter to show the full referrer string. You do this by creating a filter, as shown below:

Filter Type: Custom filter > Advanced Field A: Hostname Extract A: (.*) Field B: Request URI Extract B: (.*) Output To: Request URI Constructor: $A1$B1

You'll then start seeing the subdomains pulling in. Experience has shown me that if you have a separate subdomain hosted in another location (say, if you work with a separate company and they host and run your mobile site or your shopping cart), it gets treated by Google Analytics as a separate domain. Thus, you 'll need to implement cross domain tracking. This way, you can narrow down whether or not it's one particular subdomain that's creating the self-referrals.

In this example below, we can see all the revenue is being reported to the booking engine (which ended up being cross domain issues) and their own site is the fourth largest traffic source:

I'll also a good idea to check the browser and device reports to start narrowing down whether the issue is specific to a particular element. If it's not, keep digging. Look at pages pulling the self-referrals and go through the code with a fine-tooth comb, drilling down as much as you can.

2. Unusually low bounce rate

If you have a crazy-low bounce rate, it could be too good to be true. Unfortunately. An unusually low bounce rate could (and probably does) mean that at least on some pages of your website have the same Google Analytics tracking code installed twice.

Take a look at your source code, or use Google Tag Assistant (though it does have known bugs) to see if you've got GA tracking code installed twice.

While I tell clients having Google Analytics installed on the same page can lead to double the pageviews, I've not actually encountered that—I usually just say it to scare them into removing the duplicate implementation more quickly. Don't tell on me.

3. Iframes anywhere

I've heard directly from Google engineers and Google Analytics evangelists that Google Analytics does not play well with iframes, and that it will never will play nice with this dinosaur technology.

If you track the iframe, you inflate your pageviews, plus you still aren't tracking everything with 100% clarity.

If you don't track across iframes, you lose the source/medium attribution and everything becomes a self-referral.

Damned if you do; damned if you don't.

My advice: Stop using iframes. They're Netscape-era technology anyway, with rainbow marquees and Comic Sans on top. Interestingly, and unfortunately, a number of booking engines (for hotels) and third-party carts (for ecommerce) still use iframes.

If you have any clients in those verticals, or if you're in the vertical yourself, check with your provider to see if they use iframes. Or you can check for yourself, by right-clicking as close as you can to the actual booking element:

There is no neat and tidy way to address iframes with Google Analytics, and usually iframes are not the only complicated element of setup you'll encounter. I spent eight months dealing with a website on a subfolder, which used iframes and had a cross domain booking system, and the best visibility I was able to get was about 80% on a good day.

Typically, I'd approach diagnosing iframes (if, for some reason, I had absolutely no access to viewing a website or talking to the techs) similarly to diagnosing self-referrals, as self-referrals are one of the biggest symptoms of iframe use.

4. Massive traffic jumps

Massive jumps in traffic don't typically just happen. (Unless, maybe, you're Geraldine.) There's always an explanation—a new campaign launched, you just turned on paid ads for the first time, you're using content amplification platforms, you're getting a ton of referrals from that recent press in The New York Times. And if you think it just happened, it's probably a technical glitch.

I've seen everything from inflated pageviews result from including tracking on iframes and unnecessary implementation of virtual pageviews, to not realizing the tracking code was installed on other microsites for the same property. Oops.

Usually I've seen this happen when the tracking code was somewhere it shouldn't be, so if you're investigating a situation of this nature, first confirm the Google Analytics code is only in the places it needs to be.Tools like Google Tag Assistant and Screaming Frog can be your BFFs in helping you figure this out.

Also, I suggest bribing the IT department with sugar (or booze) to see if they've changed anything lately.

5. Cross-domain tracking

I wish cross-domain tracking with Google Analytics out of the box didn't require any additional setup. But it does.

If you don't have it set up properly, things break down quickly, and can be quite difficult to untangle.

The older the GA library you're using, the harder it is. The easiest setup, by far, is Google Tag Manager with Universal Analytics. Hard-coded universal analytics is a bit more difficult because you have to implement autoLink manually and decorate forms, if you're using them (and you probably are). Beyond that, rather than try and deal with it, I say update your Google Analytics code. Then we can talk.

Where I've seen the most murkiness with tracking is when parts of cross domain tracking are implemented, but not all. For some reason, if allowLinker isn't included, or you forget to decorate all the forms, the cookies aren't passed between domains.

The absolute first place I would start with this would be confirming the cookies are all passing properly at all the right points, forms, links, and smoke signals. I'll usually use a combination of the Real Time report in Google Analytics, Google Tag Assistant, and GA debug to start testing this. Any debug tool you use will mean you're playing in the console, so get friendly with it.

6. Internal use of UTM strings

I've saved the best for last. Internal use of campaign tagging. We may think, oh, I use Google to tag my campaigns externally, and we've got this new promotion on site which we're using a banner ad for. That's a campaign. Why don't I tag it with a UTM string?

Step away from the keyboard now. Please.

When you tag internal links with UTM strings, you override the original source/medium. So that visitor who came in through your paid ad and then who clicks on the campaign banner has now been manually tagged. You lose the ability to track that they came through on the ad the moment they click on the tagged internal link. Their source and medium is now your internal campaign, not that paid ad you're spending gobs of money on and have to justify to your manager. See the problem?

I've seen at least three pretty spectacular instances of this in the past year, and a number of smaller instances of it. Annie Cushing also talks about the evils of internal UTM tags and the odd prevalence of it. (Oh, and if you haven't explored her blog, and the amazing spreadsheets she shares, please do.)

One clothing company I worked with tagged all of their homepage offers with UTM strings, which resulted in the loss of visibility for one-third of their audience: One million visits over the course of a year, and $2.1 million in lost revenue.

Let me say that again. One million visits, and $2.1 million. That couldn't be attributed to an external source/campaign/spend.

Another client I audited included campaign tagging on nearly every navigational element on their website. It still gives me nightmares.

If you want to see if you have any internal UTM strings, head straight to the Campaigns report in Acquisition in Google Analytics, and look for anything like "home" or "navigation" or any language you may use internally to refer to your website structure.

And if you want to see how users are moving through your website, go to the Flow reports. Or if you really, really, really want to know how many people click on that sidebar link, use event tracking. But please, for the love of all things holy (and to keep us analytics lovers from throwing our computers across the room), stop using UTM tagging on your internal links.

Now breathe and smile

Odds are, your Google Analytics setup is fine. If you are seeing any of these issues, though, you have somewhere to start in diagnosing and addressing the data.

We've looked at six of the most common points of friction I've encountered with Google Analytics and how to start investigating them: self-referrals, bounce rate, iframes, traffic jumps, cross domain tracking and internal campaign tagging.

What common data integrity issues have you encountered with Google Analytics? What are your favorite tools to investigate?

You are subscribed to the Moz Blog newsletter sent from 1100 Second Avenue, Seattle, WA 98101 United States
To stop receiving those e-mails, you can unsubscribe now.

Newsletter powered by FeedPress

Community tips: How to turn customers into brand advocates

Posted: 25 Jun 2015 06:19 AM PDT

Today's digital opportunities provide brands with many occasions to connect with their core consumers in meaningful ways. But in order for this to work, brands themselves have to foster advocacy and make it a prominent part of their marketing strategies. In the age of consumer control and peer-to-peer influence, it's not a secret that brand ambassadors are amongst the most powerful partners you could wish to have on your side. Yet as many reports suggest, brands are largely failing at driving advocacy through social media.

To help you grow a healthy environment on social media we are starting with letter A for 'ADVOCACY', which is part of our 'A to Z of social media: a guide to success'. If your aim is to become a great brand and produce a unique experience for your audience, keep reading as in this post we're going to share with you some advice, tactics, and suggestions on how to build an advocacy program.

Why are advocates valuable to your business?

Advocates, often mistaken for loyal customers, don't just consistently keep buying from you, they take a much more personal approach to your brand with authentic enthusiasm and endorsement. They champion your brand, making others pay more attention and trust.

7 surprising insights about brand advocates from Deloitte, Forrester, Zuberance:

– 92% of consumers trust brand advocates
– Customers referred by other customers have a 37% higher retention rate
– Brand advocates are 5X more valuable than average customers
– They spend at least 2X as much as average customers
– Brand advocates spend 3X as much as average customers over the lifetime of their relationship with a company or brand
– Every time they advocate for a product or service, they reach 150 people using social media

As you can see from the this data, advocacy is a very powerful asset which is helping companies, big and small.

Yet it's also important to point out that great online engagement doesn't just happen, brands have to work on it by supporting their efforts with an active plan to focus on identifying, engaging and retaining those visible and hidden advocates amongst their audience.

As this diagram presents, an advocacy system is built upon trust, authenticity and the effort of creating a positive experience. A brand's culture, it's heritage, and personalisation, are amongst other ingredients which can lead to success.

Let's have a look at some tactics to spur brand advocacy and inspire your next steps in applying it:

1. Share advocates' content with a wider audience & acknowledge their efforts

Advocates' endorsements deserve recognition, how simple is that! Yet often these acts of kindness are being forgotten. Start with something simple:

● Like/Favourite their updates
● Retweet/Share their comments
● Turn their photos into photo collages
● Use the Flipagram app to create short photo movies

Take this example from Taco Bell, who rewarded its top Twitter advocates with personalised handwritten notes and a custom ring. This small gesture not only created lots of buzz on social media, but also provided the brand with engaging user-generated content.

TIP: When collaborating with brand ambassadors keep in mind the high value of content co-creation. Offer them tools to enhance their creativity and allow them to create branded content on their own.

2. Offer something special

Paying attention to your advocates' activities will provide you with some ideas of how to show your appreciation for their work. You can start by giving them special access to VIP promotions, information, or events.

These tactics will allow your brand ambassadors to increase and share their excitement while expanding brand loyalty for your organisation.

TIP: If you are creating hashtags for specific events or campaigns make sure to track and record them in order to evaluate performance and pursue in the future the formats which resonated the best with your audience.

3. Inspire conversation and engagement with content

Building a brand advocacy program can provide you with an opportunity to examine your messages and the content you're producing. Put aside the concept of using your blog, YouTube videos or social media just for selling your products. Instead, concentrate on providing useful information, tips and solutions to build further advocacy.

For retailer Mr Porter, the blog is a place where people can find inspiration about style, history and fashion curiosities. To add extra weight to each article, the brand is using the correct tone of voice and copywriting style, as well as exquisite photography and illustration which are crucial elements of any good piece of content.

TIP: Produce content that other people can believe in by aligning it with causes, emotions and lifestyle.

4. Focus on your fans' emotions and their stories

Use social media to explore your advocates' passions and turn their visual storytelling into a much bigger campaign. People who build your brand create stories which are much more powerful, believable and portray your philosophy more effectively.

TIP: Display your advocates' uniqueness and artistic skills by inviting them into a brand-consumer collaboration while challenging them to try something new.

When building an advocacy ecosystem you must remember that it can only work when it's real and authentic. To make it work try to avoid the following tactics:

● Avoid paying or incentivizing advocates, instead acknowledge their efforts
● Don't view advocate marketing as short-term promotion, to make it work apply a systematic approach
● Don't just do it alone – invest in experts' help who understand this relatively new marketing approach and who are able to select the best tactics to fit your business.

I hope this post has inspired your thoughts as I would love to hear what tactics you are planning to apply to grow your brand's advocacy. In my next blog post I will be reviewing the meaning behind the letter 'B' and explaining how social media should never be 'owned' just by one person but should reflect the character of the whole brand.

The post Community tips: How to turn customers into brand advocates appeared first on White.net.