This post was written by Avinash Kaushik, Google Digital Marketing Evangelist, and cross-posted from his Occam's Razor blog. 

Just when you thought you were finally getting more comfortable with website analytics and the metrics you report, here comes the massive explosion of mobile data!

At one level it is the normal impressions and clicks data, but on another level we are getting new data and metrics we normally don't use. We are going to have fun doing cool stuff, learning new things.

I have been spending some time with the Mobile Ads team at Google to try and understand what is innovative about mobile (oh my god so much!) and what implications are on measurement (loads!).

In this blog post I want to talk about just one specific ad unit, the Search / Display click-to-call ad, and how it is cool, useful, and immensely measureable in sexy ways.

Couple of quick caveats:

1. Click-to-Call ads are available in 223 countries, but Call Metrics (more on this below) is still in limited release, in the US only, so some of you might not have access to it. This will change over time.

2. Some of the screens and setup stuff might change as the product evolves, from what you see below. It should only get better.

3. My blog has a very finite width. so in many places I've cropped the reports to make them more clear for you. Please don't worry if when you use the tool you don't see exactly what you see below. On any tab in AdWords just click on the button called Columns and then click on Customize Columns. You can now add and remove metrics and prettify things!

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This post has been cross-posted from the Google Analytics Blog.

Back in December, we brought you custom variables for your Android applications. Today,
we’re doing the same for our iOS SDK by releasing version 1.1 of the Google Analytics SDK for iPhone with Custom Variable support. We are also offering a NoThumb version of this SDK.

Custom variables can be used to segment your users and provide actionable context. Some great use cases are:

• Free vs. paid: What percentage of users prefer a paid app vs. a free app that delivers ads? Are you making more money on the free version or the paid version?
• Installs by version: What version of your app gained the most users? What version lost users? How quickly are users upgrading?
• Portrait vs. landscape: Do your users prefer to use your application in portrait mode or landscape mode?

For more great ways to use Custom variables in mobile applications, check out Alex Lucas’ great blog post for the Andriod SDK.

In addition, we are providing support for NoThumb with our SDK. We have a NoThumb version of the library as well as the standard, Thumb version. This NoThumb version is available for developers that need the Thumb instruction set disabled in their applications.

Posted by Jim Cotugno, Google Analytics Tracking Team

Cross posted from the Inside AdWords Blog:

What if you found out that your AdWords campaigns were bringing you more customers than you realized?

Zac Stafford, Senior Search Strategist at Nina Hale Search Marketing in Minneapolis, MN, recently discovered that this was true for his client, modern furniture retailer Room & Board. Stafford saw some encouraging results as an early beta tester of AdWords call metrics, a new feature that automatically includes a unique phone number in your ads to measure the calls that you receive from AdWords.

“By cross-checking our call metrics reports with our sales records, we saw that half the people who called the toll free number in our ad purchased online but the other half purchased in a store. Before using call metrics, we determined our ROI just by looking at the online sales numbers. Now we have proof that online search ad campaigns drive in-store purchases.”

Today we're announcing that AdWords call metrics is available for more advertisers, making it easier than ever to measure the phone calls that AdWords generates for your business. Using the technology behind Google Voice, call metrics assigns your campaign a unique phone number which is automatically inserted into your ad on both desktop and high-end mobile devices, where the number is clickable.

click to enlarge image

click to enlarge image

click to enlarge image

When a user calls the number in your ad, the call is automatically routed to your business, and AdWords notes that this call took place. Then, when you look at your AdWords reports, you’ll see the number of calls generated by each campaign, call duration, and in the near future, caller area code. You'll still only pay for clicks on your ads, but we intend to charge for call metrics in the future. 

Once you know where your calls are coming from, you can refine your marketing strategy to make sure you’re getting the most out of your ads. For example, you could test different ad text variations to see which results in the most calls or reallocate budget to campaigns that truly bring you the highest ROI. 

Currently, call metrics is only available to a limited number of US advertisers. We plan to make the feature available to more advertisers in the coming months. To find out if call metrics is available in your account and to learn more about the feature, visit Google Ad Innovations.
 

Posted by Surojit Chatterjee, Senior Product Manager, AdWords