By Nick Johnson - May 28th, 2010

Hello again. Sorry about the delay. I've been busy, honest - running this and then preparing for this - which has rather taken on a life of it's own recently. We've got about 130 attendees so far, ...

Hello again. Sorry about the delay. I've been busy, honest - running this and then preparing for this - which has rather taken on a life of it's own recently. We've got about 130 attendees so far, 70% corporates, and it's going well. Can't wait!

Anyway, to business.

WEEK ONE - 19/04 - 25/04

  • 31% of our traffic from referring sites
  • 23% direct
  • 6% search engines
  • 40% 'other' (the mystery of what 'other' represents is conclusively shattered in a few weeks time...)

Top 5 Traffic sources

  1. Direct traffic (23%)
  2. Google Ads (21%)
  3. Paid Eshot (11%)
  4. Paid newsletter (7%) - both are decent in terms of ROI for those wanting benchmarks on paid lists
  5. Organic Search (5.5%)

Top 5 Social Media Sources

  1. Rohit Bhargava's blog entry on the Summit - 1.3%
  2. LinkedIn Event Listing - 0.9%
  3. Document Sharing Sites - 0.5%
  4. Facebook - 0.4%

All Social Media traffic amounts to a paltry 4% of total traffic

Interesting Points

  • Keep an eye on Google Ads - they're CONSISTENTLY in the top 2/3 of my traffic sources, pitching in with 20% + of all traffic. They're definitely worth the money.
  • I got 4% of traffic from social media sources - which seems low - but with zero social media activity, so actually a nice little bump. Living on past activities...

WEEK TWO: 26/04 - 02/05

  • 33% of our traffic from referring sites
  • 19% direct
  • 7% search engines
  • 41% 'other' (mystery revealed shortly..)

Top 5 Traffic sources

  1. Google Ads (23%)
  2. Direct Traffic (19%)
  3. Communicator (our email server - which I think should be lumped with direct, really, so I'll do a top 6) (9%)
  4. Organic Search (6%)
  5. Media Partner Newsletter Listing (5%)
  6. Paid Eshot (4.5%) Not a good return

Top 5 Social Media Sources

  1. LinkedIn Group Discussion (more below) (4%)
  2. LinkedIn Events Listing (0.9%)
  3. RB's blog (0.8%)
  4. Other blogs (1.7%)
  5. Document Sharing Sites (1.28%)

All Social Media traffic amounts to a rather impressive 9.88% of traffic - making it third highest source of traffic this week

Interesting Points

  • The boost in social media traffic is largely down to the 4% from LinkedIn Group discussion - basically, I started a discussion in 15 or so 'social media' focused LinkedIn groups, broadly around the topic of the conference. Linked to the conference homepage almost as an afterthought. Got as much traffic from this one tactic as all social media sources last week combined.

WEEK THREE - 03/05 - 09/05

  • 36% of our traffic from referring sites
  • 20% direct
  • 14% search engines (I don't know why - absolute numbers aren't radically down or anything)
  • 30% 'other'

Top 5 Traffic sources

  1. Google Ads (24%)
  2. Direct traffic (20%)
  3. Organic Search (13.4%)
  4. Communicator (discussed above) (9%)
  5. Banner ads on a partner website (3%) Banner ads rarely make it this high - reason why is below
  6. Partner newsletter listing (3%)

Top 5 Social Media Sources

  1. Rohit Bhargava's blog entry on the Summit - 1%
  2. LinkedIn combined - 3.1%
  3. Document Sharing Sites - 0.8%
  4. Twitter (long time no see because of no activity from me) - 0.8%
  5. Facebook - 0.25%

All Social Media traffic amounts to 6.45% of total traffic

Interesting Points

  • This week was when I was running the first conference I mention above. I had VERY little time to do any marketing, which explains why consistent plodders like banner ads have shot up the rankings, in relative terms
  • However, 6.45% of all traffic coming from social media is not as high as I thought it would be, considering scarcity of other marketing. This seems to show quite how important it is to constantly be engaging with social media - disproving (?) my assumption above..

WEEK FOUR- 10/05 - 16/05

  • 33% of our traffic from referring sites
  • 21% direct
  • 14% search engines (again, weirdly high)
  • 32% 'other'

Top 5 Traffic sources

  1. Google Ads (24%)
  2. Direct traffic (21%)
  3. Organic Search (13%)
  4. Partner newsletter (4%)
  5. Paid eshot (4%)

Top 5 Social Media Sources

  1. Rohit Bhargava's blog entry on the Summit - 2% (remarkable how this keeps  plugging away and driving traffic, weeks after it was posted)
  2. LinkedIn combined - 2%
  3. Twitter - 1.4%
  4. Document Sharing Sites - 0.72%
  5. Other Blogs - 0.35%

Social Media traffic amounts to 6.47% of total traffic (pretty much same as last week)

Interesting Points

  • The absolute number of visitors to the site shot up this week. Interestingly, Google Ad absolute numbers ALSO shot up. I would have thought the % coming from Google Ads would have dropped - apparently not. Strange.
  • Google Ads are great - 24% this week.

WEEK FIVE - 17/05 - 23/05

  • 20% of our traffic from referring sites
  • 15% direct
  • 7% search engines (again, weirdly high)
  • 58% 'other' (ENORMOUS - and will be revealed why veeeery shortly)

Top 5 Traffic sources

  1. Paid and tracked eshot (26%)
  2. LinkedIn Message (17%)
  3. Direct traffic (15%)
  4. Google Ads (13%)
  5. Organic (7%)

Top 5 Social Media Sources

  1. LinkedIn InMail - 17%
  2. Other LinkedIn Activity - 2%
  3. Blogs - 1.1%
  4. Document Sharing Sites  - 0.86%
  5. Twitter - 0.36%

Social Media traffic amounts to 21.32% of total traffic (IF you can class 'LinkedIn InMail' as social media - more below). OR 4.32% if we don't.

Interesting Points

  • SO. "Other" as a traffic source in Google Analytics has been frustrating me for months. In a previous post I did discuss what other people feel it categorises. But now, considering the top two traffic sources I had were both tracked using Google's URL builder, I can fairly confidently say that 'Other' refers to people clicking on tracked links. Boom.
  • InMail - I basically sent out a relatively salesy message about the conference to a group of people using LinkedIn's InMail system. So it was using a social network, but it was effectively email marketing. Just to clarify.
  • The absolute number of people driven to our site from LinkedIn's OTHER activity actually jumped quite considerably. This seems to imply that if people receive a message via LinkedIn InMail, they are more likely to look around LinkedIn for further info on the event (maybe to verify what they've heard?) before taking the plunge and leaving the network to visit an external site..

So, that's it for now. My girlfriend's going to kill me because I'm now late getting out of work, so I'm off. Hope this is of use. Look forward to hearing your comments/marketing suggestions/ideally not abuse.

Have a good weekend!

Nick

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