The Analytive Blog
Marketing that's inputs and outcomes.
Practical, no-fluff thinking on SEO, paid ads, and building marketing that drives revenue.
When I realized Facebook Ads aren’t all they are cracked up to be….
In late 2017 I did some soul-searching. Throughout 2017, I’d run a ton of Facebook campaigns. Some were fairly successful. Others failed utterly. None of them totally knocked it out of the park. I tried every ad strategy I could get my hands on. I studied copywriting, landing pages, and conversions. Did A/B testing. Tried […]
🕵️♂️ The Case of the Odd Grocery Store Cashier 🏬
The other day I was in line to check out at the grocery store. When I got up to the cashier, he did something odd: Before he scanned the first item, he laid all 15 items out with the barcode facing up. Then he grabbed the handheld scanner and scanned them all as fast as […]
🖐 Five Marketing Tactics That Won’t Change in 2018🥂
A while back we talked about focusing on the things that don’t change. After all, if you’re going to spend hours and dollars focusing on marketing, don’t you want things that will last a long time? But what things won’t change? What are the things you should still be investing time and energy into in […]
A Lesson from the Inventor of the F-16
John Boyd is a legend in the fighter pilot world. If you haven’t heard of him, you may have heard about two planes he helped design – the F-15 and F-16. The F-16 is designed for one thing – maneuverability. It doesn’t have the longest range. And it isn’t even the fastest in a straight […]
😳 Your Customers Are Completely Nuts!! 😳
Which ones are irrational? All of them. I’ve been digging deeper into the irrationality of humans. Before the past 2 years, I assumed people make the logical decision 90% of the time and act irrationally ~10% of the time. I’m now convinced it’s the opposite. I think we’re really rational about 10% of the time. […]
Best Google Analytics Reports for Small Businesses
Have you ever had to analyze your website’s performance? Did you ever get lost trying to determine which reports work best? Do you wish there was an easier way? If this sounds like you, then you’re in the right place! It’s no secret that we here at Analytive, love looking at analytics. It’s just […]
If Your Website Was a Salesman…
What if your website was a salesman? It might look something like this: P.S. Get more awesome content like this weekly by subscribing to our blog. We seek to provide massive value and respect you deeply. We won’t spam you.
How to set up Shopify Cross-Domain Tracking
Google Analytics is a powerful tool, yet it fails in automatically tracking across multiple domains. This results in missing pieces. The missing pieces that you would need to paint a complete picture of visitors on your website. Luckily, it’s an easy fix. But does everyone need it? Well, not everyone needs cross-domain tracking. Many websites […]
I Lie in Surveys ….
Confession time: I lie in surveys all the time. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I had to connect to the same airport WiFi three different times. Each time I connected, I was forced to complete a survey before I was allowed to connect. I didn’t even read the questions. I think between the three connections, I […]
Link Tagging for Google Analytics UTM Codes
Imagine you created a killer online handbook that you want to promote using a Twitter campaign. You send out tweet after tweet, each containing links that drive traffic back to your website. 3 weeks later, the campaign ends. Now, which tweet drove the most traffic? …. Enter, UTM codes. Urchin Tracking Module (or UTM for […]
Pizza Hut Failed Me 🍕🍕🍕
I’m currently sitting in the airport waiting to board a plane. Prior to sitting down, I wanted to grab a quick bite to eat. The Caribou Coffee in the terminal line was long – to say the least. But tucked away in a corner was a Pizza Hut. Interesting…Pizza Hut for breakfast? As I walked […]
Don’t Let Your IT Company Build Your Website 🤓🤓🤓
And this isn’t a dis on IT companies. But there’s a really good reason not to let your IT company build your website. You may be thinking, “But Tyler, isn’t a website technology? Therefore shouldn’t they be the best?” Well, yes, a website is “technology”, but it’s first a marketing tool. Let me repeat: Your website is primarily a […]
The Things That Don’t Change
I was recently invited to speak to a group of marketing managers for influential companies. The topic of the talk is around new trends and changes in the industry. It’s certainly a popular topic, and I’m excited to give it. As we wrap up 2017, you’ll start to see dozens of articles start floating around […]
Become an Analytics Ninja
I’m super excited to bring you something our team has been working on for a long time. But first, a quick backstory: When I started in marketing (years ago), Google Analytics was in it’s infancy. Somehow it got installed on every website, but no one used it. It just sat there. We’d spend hours putting […]
🎃 The ONE Metric You Should Care Most About
For those of you who know our company, you know that we live and die by metrics. We focus on analytics extensively. All our campaigns are tracked in some way. But what about when we’re first starting? What about when we’re testing? What metric do we use to measure performance when none of the other […]
😵Why you Should Fire your Web Developer😵
I’ve had two nearly identical conversions with small businesses in the past week. And they both started with something like this “We just launched a new website! What do you think?” And it’s always a painful conversation to have. Why? Well, usually the website was created by a friend, friend-of-a-friend, or a family member. And […]
How to Suck at Marketing (Just like Proctor and Gamble) 👎👎👎
If there’s one thing that makes me frustrated, it’s when people blame a marketing channel for their terrible ads. In fact, a friend of mine linked me out to this article the other day. Basically, it says that Proctor and Gamble have reduced their ad spend by over $1 Billion (yeah, with a “b”) on […]
💸🎊💸Case Study: How we Used Facebook ads to Increase Sales 5X📈📈📈
Let me give you an example of a real Facebook ads project we recently worked on: We partnered with a supplement provider who was marketing a vitamin designed to enhance the appearance of skin. The company has been around a couple years, but they are just starting to get meaningful sales. As soon as we […]