They finally let you graph by month, which is many ways is far more useful than looking at long range trends by day.
For PointBuzz, not surprisingly, our pages per visit went up, and our bounce rate went down, when we re-launched. Granted, that's the slow season anyway, so I don't think I can make really meaningful comparisons until I've got an entire year's worth of data. I didn't start using Analytics until April. I don't really have anything to look at yet on CoasterBuzz either, since winter shows a dip in traffic.
Ad revenue had a nice little jump last month for the first time in forever, especially considering traffic was flat. CPM's were slightly higher all around, which I can't explain. I've been reading that ad revenue across the Internet is on the rise, but the numbers always include Google ads, which can sway the numbers, but aren't all that relevant to me. They (the analysts) say that advertisers continue to spend less on other media but are spending more online. I just wish they'd spend at the 1999 level. That would make me super happy!
I've been looking at advertising revenue in a general sense a lot in the last few weeks, particularly after Mix and some of the sessions there regarding the monetization of online content. There was a lot of optimism at the conference, which is inspiring. I think we had two or three years there where it seemed like good old fashioned display advertising was doomed because of the success of Google and the idea in marketers' heads that counting clicks was everything. They're starting to remember this thing called branding again. Duh.
Of course, you've still got head scratchers. While Yahoo can nail down CPM's in the $20 to $50 range, Facebook can't command even a buck. Someone there should be fired. You have intimate knowledge about the person's location, gender, age and education... how are they not getting a premium for that kind of targeting?
It's exciting to watch, and fun to be a part of. I hope I can make it a bigger part this year.
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