Atlantic Business Technologies, Inc.

Category: Strategy & Design

  • On Edge about Leaving Internet Explorer?

    Our Answers to Your Internet Explorer FAQs

    On January 12, 2016, Microsoft ended support for older versions of Internet Explorer (IE). For those of us in web development, this was cause for rejoicing—we now had fewer browsers to support.

    However, for the many organizations and businesses who have relied on older IE versions to run their applications and websites, this news left them feeling a bit on edge. At Atlantic BT, we’ve heard a lot of questions from our clients who depend on IE: Why is Microsoft ending support?  Which versions are affected?  What happens for applications that remain on IE? And (most importantly) what are next steps I should take?

    Though we don’t know why Microsoft made the decision to end support for older versions of IE, we can help with the other frequently-asked questions.

    What Does End of IE Support Mean?

    Companies like Microsoft announce the end of support when the company feels their product is at the end of useful ‘life’. This decision usually means the company intends to focus its resources on supporting and developing newer software rather than patching older versions.  

    For Internet Explorer, end of support means that Microsoft will:

    • Cease technical support
    • No longer provide downloads of the browsers
    • Stop security updates

    All of these changes are excellent reasons to transition your company away from older versions of Internet Explorer.

    Which Versions Are Affected?

    The end of support announcement affects several versions of IE. Specifically, Microsoft has decided to end support for IE 10 and all previous versions; while IE 11 will continue to receive security updates this year, Microsoft has announced IE 11 will be the last version of Internet Explorer.

    This makes it vital to transition away from Internet Explorer. If you’d prefer to stick with Microsoft’s browser, then you should begin using Edge, Microsoft’s new browser for Windows 10. Microsoft developed Edge to better compete with Chrome and FireFox, so it offers new features found in these browsers. In addition, Microsoft is offering free upgrades to WIndows 10 for a limited time.  Because only Microsoft knows how “limited” this time is, it’s important to upgrade sooner rather than later.

    What Happens to Applications Running on Unsupported Versions?

    Older versions of Internet Explorer will not be automatically uninstalled from computers. So applications running on unsupported versions can still run on old computer systems.  However, this is not recommended because of the risks involved, including:

    • The end to security updates. This risk opens the application or website up to vulnerabilities from malware or malicious attacks. This puts your business application and its data at risk.
    • Appearance issues. If a user attempts to open your application or website in newer browsers, there’s a strong chance your site will not look the way you intended. The user may experience broken images, misplaced buttons and text, and an interface that appears scrambled.

    What Are My Next Steps?

    Considering the answers to these questions, it’s important for your business to plan its transition away from older versions of Internet Explorer. As digital problems solvers, AtlanticBT can provide direction as your business moves to newer technology.  We can help you:

    • Evaluate your current web applications and website to determine the most effective way to upgrade.
    • Redesign apps and webpages using cutting-edge technology that works across modern browsers such as Chrome, Safari, Edge, and Firefox;  these web browsers provide faster and more secure access to websites and services.
    • Develop a solution that is mobile-friendly; this means being more accessible on tablets and mobile devices, unlocking another path for business growth and productivity.

    And once your application or website has been updated, we can help you to stay up-to-date. If you’re interested in learning more about how we can help your business transition away from Internet Explorer, please contact us.

  • The Case of the Firefox and Magento eCommerce Enigma

    An Atlantic BT eCommerce Mystery

    It began with a typical upgrade. Then the data disappeared.

    My marketing team at Atlantic BT had just set up Google’s Enhanced eCommerce for a client who had just upgraded to the latest version of Magento Enterprise (1.14.2). This process involves setting up a Google Tag Manager (GTM) account and creating a container, then defining all the tags and triggers needed to properly run Google’s Enhanced eCommerce tracking in Magento’s platform. By measuring this critical eCommerce data, we’d have insight to guide our client’s online strategy for the long term.

    We’re experienced with Google Tag Manager and Magento, so it was easy to get Google Enhanced eCommerce up and running.  After testing on the staging site and when we confirmed that all eCommerce data was recording accurately, we copied the GTM container to the live site. For the curious, the setup and testing was done in Chrome and tested in IE. At this point, we should have had everything we needed to record eCommerce data from web users.

    But by the second day of live data recording, we noticed 30% lower revenue being reported in Google Analytics from the revenue reported in Magento. While a 1-2% difference could be explained by javascript or cookie blocks, 30% was a major issue. Without accurate revenue reporting, we wouldn’t be able to determine how well the eCommerce upgrade was performing—our ongoing eCommerce strategy for our client would be flying blind.

    Searching for An Explanation with Google Tag Manager

    To solve this mystery, we began looking for data anomalies that could explain the 30% difference. We found that eCommerce traffic from Firefox users converted to sales at 0.1% while the rest of the client’s site converted at almost 8%. At the same time, we learned there were sales orders in Magento that were completely missing from the sales orders in Google Analytics. Could all of these missing sales orders come from purchases in Firefox?

    To find out, we first used Google Tag Manager’s debugger to make sure all tags were working properly on our test site with no traffic filters. In all browsers, including Firefox, we verified the tags were firing and values in the data layer were populating for product impressions, product detail views, add-to-carts, purchases, and other eCommerce metrics.  However, while the tags were working properly, the test transactions from Firefox still weren’t appearing in Google Analytics. This was nothing short of bizarre—somehow our tags were gathering eCommerce data only to have the data from FireFox disappear before it could be recorded and analyzed.

    To find an explanation, I turned to Atlantic BT’s team of veteran developers. Using each browser’s debugger, our developers explored what was happening when the eCommerce events were supposed to trigger the tags. They found when the gtm.dom event was called— specifically in the purchase confirmation step of the checkout—the data layer was dropped. So while the session data (like page view numbers) remained, all enhanced eCommerce data (transaction, revenue, product, etc) was no longer there.

    Developing a Workaround

    At this point, the whole team was scratching their heads. There was no obvious explanation for why the gtm.dom dropped the data layer before the eCommerce data could be recorded. Somewhere between the Google code and the Firefox javascript, the data just got lost. After all the time spent on this issue, we now needed to choose between continuing to investigate or creating a workaround.

    We decided to put curiosity aside and focus on a workaround. While the gtm.dom is a standard event for Google Tag Manager, it was not the only event we could use to trigger the tag.  For that very specific event—the order submission click leading to the order success page, and only in Firefox—we fired the tag on the Purchase event (which is pre-built into Magento) instead of the gtm.dom event.

    It worked. Google Analytics now records all transactions and enhanced eCommerce data from all browsers, including Firefox. This gives us a variety of insight into how our client’s online store performs and how our marketing team can better support this eCommerce strategy.

    Focusing on Resolution over Explanation

    We have a solution, but no explanation for why the issue happened in the first place. Perhaps the best lesson from this experience is to be solution-oriented, not just explanation-oriented. While we’d still love to know exactly what caused Firefox to drop our eCommerce data, the time needed to find this explanation could take us away from more valuable tasks that could benefit our client (such as analyzing the data we could now collect from Firefox).

    As digital problem solvers, we at Atlantic BT love a good data mystery. But ultimately, our primary goal is to resolve our client’s challenges, not just research the causes of them. By focusing on a fix with the help of our expert developers, we rerouted the client’s essential data to better inform our eCommerce strategy.

  • How to Become a Meeting Whisperer

    Every day, there are 11 million formal meetings in the United States. That’s more than 3 billion meetings per year. By one estimate, this means that the average professional spends 37% of his or her workday in meetings. That’s a lot of time. As project managers, it is up to us to set up our meetings for success and make the best use of everyone’s time.
    When I think of someone who’s an expert in taming problems, I think of Cesar Milan, the dog whisperer. He’s a master of controlling wayward animals with a simple click of the tongue—a small gesture that makes a big difference. That in mind, it’s time for project managers like us to become meeting whisperers, taking the small but important steps needed to control wayward meetings.

    How Meetings Lose Their Way
    When was the last time you walked out of a meeting thinking, “Wow. That meeting was incredible!” Most likely you’ve left feeling drained and with an action item of a follow up meeting. But it doesn’t have to be this way. It’s up to you, project manager, to not be the main culprit of bad behavior. If you’ve ever set up a meeting and did/thought any of these things, your meeting could be a waste of time:

    • Who needs an agenda? I’ve got this.
    • I don’t need to explain why we’re meeting. We’ll cover that in the meeting.
    • I can squeeze another one hour meeting between my 2 o’clock and 4 o’clock. It’s not like I need to prep the room.
    • It’s cool if people use their phones/laptops during the meeting. I know they’re busy.
    • This collaborative meeting is turning into a one-man show, but I can’t interrupt him. That would be rude.
    • Is this phone working? Why is nobody talking, and why are they all looking at me?

    Become A Meeting Whisperer

    Scheduling a meeting shouldn’t be taboo. Your meeting shouldn’t be unproductive or uninspiring. It should be to the point, drive results and get things done. Here’s a helpful checklist to make this happen. What project manager doesn’t like a checklist?

    1. No Agenda | No Meeting

    If you walk into your meeting and you don’t have an agenda, your meeting will not be productive. Instead of getting things done, you just charged your client money to talk to your co-workers about their weekend plans. Create a firm agenda with a desired outcome and plan, then send it out with your meeting request. Remember to be flexible, but having a set agenda for the meeting sets you up for success.

    2. Have A Set Meeting Time Every Time

    When you plan a project, you know there will be demos with the client. You also know that weekly check-ins lead to success. Plan for these meetings, and schedule them at the same day and time every week. This gets both your team and your client into a rhythm. It also guarantees your developers will always have their next release in mind and helps them avoid unexpected disruptions of their work.

    3. Think Like A Boy Scout

    Follow the scout motto and always be prepared to handle possible technology and room issues. Give yourself enough time to set up the room, clean the whiteboard, and make sure you can start your meeting on time. If you are using a conference line, dial in early. If you need to walk through a presentation, have it on screen as people walk in. Set out copies of the agenda on the table. Taking time for these preparation tasks will help you start your meeting on the right foot.

    4. Assign A Note Taker

    If you are running the meeting and doing most of the talking, then assign someone to help you take notes. If you are operating as the facilitator, then assign yourself as the note taker. Don’t be afraid to pause the conversation to let everyone know you’re jotting down what they said. Repeat back key points. At the end of the meeting, share out your meeting notes so everyone is on the same page. This will help your team leave the meeting ready to work instead of feeling drained and unsure.

    5. Please Mind The Clock

    It’s up to you to control the pace and respect everyone’s schedule. If you scheduled a meeting for 30 minutes, start wrapping it up at the 25 minute mark. Use your agenda to time-box the meeting and set a end time. Time-boxing will discourage the group from wanting to ramble. It will also reveal if a topic is too large to cover in one session. If a topic starts to run long, carve out time for a micro-meeting to stay on schedule.

    6. Leave Your Cell Phones At The Door

    Messing with your cell phone during a meeting is disrespectful. We understand how busy everyone is, but the world will not end if you go for 30 minutes without a phone. At the start of the meeting, ask everyone to stay off their phones. If there are a lot of laptops, go around the room and ask everyone to identify how they will be using their laptop. If it’s not being used to bring value to the meeting, ask them to close it. These measures sound strict, but they’re essential to keeping everyone focused in the meeting.

    7. Be The Enforcer

    If you called the meeting, you control the pace. We’ve all experienced the meeting hijacker—a person who takes advantage of having everyone in the room to interject his/her own agenda. This can rapidly eat up important time while distracting from the purpose of the meeting. If someone interrupts the agenda, it’s up to you to speak up. You can diplomatically interrupt to get the meeting back on track. Listen to his/her point, express appreciation and then suggest tabling that topic for another time. Engage with the group and be a facilitator.

    8. Leave With A Plan

    What project manager doesn’t love action items? The most successful meetings are those that end with actionable tasks and a clear understanding of what’s expected. At the close of the meeting, recap what was discussed, address each person by name who has a takeaway, and get their confirmation that they understand what’s expected of them. After the meeting, send out a recap email. Don’t forget to thank everyone for participating.

    What’s Your Approach?

    Ultimately, we project managers are the ones responsible for the success of our meetings. We can prevent our meetings from being a waste of our colleagues’ and clients’ time. Becoming a meeting whisperer doesn’t mean being bossy or condescending; it’s simply about being respectful of everyone’s time.
    We all have our own style and rules to live by when it comes to meetings. Some of these techniques may not work for you, but they should give you new ideas on how to transform your meetings. Do you have any tips or suggestions you’d like to share? Atlantic BT would love to know!

  • What Beyonce and Google Did in February

    The title of this blog post may have you wondering: What do Queen Bey and the king of search engines, Google, have in common? The answer is unexpected releases.

    Since the surprise release of Beyonce’s visual album in 2013, most of her fans are accustomed to unannounced music dropping. This month, on the day before her scheduled Super Bowl performance, Beyonce surprised her fans with a new song and video posted to her YouTube page. She followed the unexpected release with the announcement of a Summer concert tour, which added to the media frenzy and level of public hype.

    Taking a page right out of the Beyonce playbook, Google delivered an unexpected release of their own last Friday which made big news. Google released a revised SERP (search engine results page) layout which removes sidebar ads from the right side of the page and reformats paid ad positions. This new SERP caused quite a stir among digital marketers and advertisers everywhere. Atlantic BT is already monitoring Google’s changes and taking steps to keep our customers’ campaigns successful. However, if you don’t have an agency partner, here’s what you need to know:

    1) R.I.P to right-hand ads. In the past (that is, prior to Feb. 19), paid ads were shown in three locations on the Google search results page. These locations included above, below, and to the right of organic search results. What Google has done through their recent update is increase the number of ads shown above organic search results and remove one of the locations completely (right-hand ads). Now when you search for a term, the results page will look like this:

    Beyonce_tickets

    2) Organic got the bump. If an organic strategy had successfully placed your organization in the top organic position of Google results, you’ve been bumped. The former spot for top position in organic results is now the fourth position for paid advertising. Organically-ranking first position results have been bumped down, so they now appear below the fold on desktop search.

    3) It isn’t costing you…YET. To date, there hasn’t been a cost increase in CPC rates. While it’s still too early to tell, Google’s new SERP could lay ground for additional changes. The good news is the release hasn’t changed the CPC or PPC ad inventory overnight. The bad news is some marketers expect an increase in cost due to a reduction in the number of ad spaces. Google’s elimination of right-hand ads decreases available ad “real estate” from 11 positions to only seven. Considering the laws of supply and demand, you can understand why less ad space among the same amount of advertisers could eventually increase CPC rates.

    For the time being, the best move for those advertising on Google is to not be alarmed. Pay attention to any updates in the news about search updates and make adjustments in your account if you notice an impact in your campaign’s performance.

    Want to Know More?

    If you have additional questions about Google’s recent changes, contact a Google Partner like Atlantic BT to assist you. In addition to keeping our customers informed about industry trends, Atlantic BT’s digital marketing team generates strategies that make a difference in our clients’ online initiatives. We work hard to create conversion-oriented campaigns that are affordable, meaningful, and impactful to your bottom-line. We’d love to meet you and help you think through your next strategy, so contact us if you’d like to learn more.

  • A Happy Accident: Why Your Company’s 404 Page Matters

    Someone made a mistake.

    Maybe it was a typo in the URL. Maybe he followed a broken link. Maybe she was searching for a hidden page, and the search was for naught. In any case, she tried to access a page on your domain that did not exist.

    What’s her reward? No, I’m not kidding. This visitor took the time to go to your site, search your content, and engage with your brand. How are you going to show your appreciation on the 404 page that appears?

    It’s easy to treat your company’s 404 page as an afterthought, a tiny element of your digital presence that ultimately doesn’t matter. However, every touch point with a potential customer is an invaluable opportunity, and the special circumstances surrounding your 404 page make it especially important.

    If a customer sees your 404 page, someone made a mistake—and how you react to it tells that customer a lot about your company, your brand, and your service. Here are some ways to use your company’s 404 page to your advantage (with my favorite examples in hyperlinks):

    Best Practices for Your Company’s 404 Page

    Present the Right Attitude—Every time your 404 page loads (outside of testing), something went wrong. In awkward moments like this, it’s important to acknowledge the mistake without blaming the visitor or escalating the tension that can come from an error. Humor is a proven way to strike this balance—a gentle joke or funny image accompanied by a “something went wrong” message can make your visitors feel at home on your site even when they don’t find what they want.

    If your brand would rather be serious, it’s a good idea to make your error message fit your company messaging. For example, a big data company focusing on customer analytics might use a 404 message like “Even the best analytics can’t find what isn’t there. Sorry, but the page you’re looking for does not exist.” This offers a gentle plug for the company’s value while letting the visitor know that an error occurred.

    Adapt Your 404 Page to the State of Your Site—If you just redesigned your site’s look and navigation, remember to update your 404 page to match the new design. It’s also a good idea to include a message on the new 404 page reminding visitors that you just redesigned your site, so some URLs may be different. In addition, you can use this message to invite visitors to comment on the new site navigation in order to guide future development.

    Helps visitors find what they’re looking for—Chances are, whoever landed on your 404 page was trying to find a specific page on your site. To get this visitor back on track, provide links to the most popular pages on your domain, such as your blog or eCommerce page. You can also provide a search tool or steer the user to your contact section so he can tell you what he was trying to find when he landed on the 404 page.

    Learn from the kind of pages your customers wanted to find—A broken link is rarely a garbled string of letters. By analyzing the key terms your customers are trying to find when they land on your 404 page, you can gain insight into the kind of pages your customers want. For example, if multiple customers keep trying to access a /FAQ page on your domain, you should consider adding that kind of page to your site. And if a visitor landed on your 404 page because of a misspelled link on your domain, you should fix that link immediately.

    ——————————

    Because your website is the digital face of your business, you want every element of your site to represent your brand—even when something goes wrong. While your 404 page may seem like a tiny aspect of your digital presence, it represents a small but powerful component of your brand strategy. By showing that your company cares about every public-facing element of your business, your customers will have greater confidence in your ability to listen to and meet their needs. To learn more about how to design your digital presence to engage your ideal customers, visit the Atlantic BT page on creating a strong user experience.

  • Building Key Performance Indicator Environments that Work

    Earlier this summer, I had the opportunity to speak at the 2015 Digital Marketing for Business Conference. My presentation focused on building key performance indicator (KPI) environments as part of your marketing structure. It’s an important topic at Atlantic BT and one we spend a great deal of time on. It’s also a topic I’ve written a good bit about in the past in posts such as “Why Google Analytics Doesn’t Give Us Answers.” Our clients invest in digital marketing platforms, strategies and campaigns designed to help them transform their business and they need to make certain they can effectively evaluate the results. As part of our work, we use a process we’ve developed and a set of tools that we rely on to create helpful KPIs. In this post, I’ll provide a glimpse into what that process looks like and how we’ve helped clients build KPI environments that work.

    KPIs: Measuring Outcomes Not Activities

    At the outset of my presentation, I reminded the audience of a piece of advice I was given while in graduate school: “Measure outcomes, not activities.” This small nugget of wisdom reminds us that the purpose of any system is to move the needle. To make an impact. To accomplish a goal.

    And while activities are important, if you make them the sole focus of your measures you will likely miss the bigger picture. For example, accumulating a certain number of likes on your social media posts, producing a certain number of blog posts or garnering a certain number of impressions in a paid search campaign is good, but those are activities and they don’t tell us if we really achieved our goals. By contrast, getting your audience to sign up for a free trial, purchase your product or download more information as a result of those activities is far more valuable. And that’s what you should focus your measurement efforts on.

    The Four Pillars of Atlantic BT’s KPI Framework

    As a technology consulting agency, we invest a great deal in our marketing strategy and we need to measure our impact. To do this, we’ve constructed a KPI environment build on four key pillars:

    • The Client Canvas
    • Personas
    • The Content Marketing Engine
    • Selecting the Correct Analytics Platform

    The Client Canvas

    We starting the development of a KPI environment, you need to understand as much about the business environment as possible. What are the business drivers? What are the stumbling blocks? What opportunities exist in the marketplace? Who are the primary and secondary customers? By identifying this information, you will gain a much greater understanding of the business model and the critical points where prospects become leads. These become the foundation of the KPIs you’ll focus your efforts on.

    Personas

    One of the keys to success in marketing is tailoring your message to your audience. If you talk about what is important to the audience and show how you can help solve their problems, you will have a much better chance of success in the marketplace.

    At Atlantic BT, we specialize in developing personas as part of our client engagements and it is an important part of our marketing program, too. Typically, personas give a name and a face to a particular segment of the target audience. Our team, however, takes personas one step further. We create full-on profiles that describe a member of the audience segment, their preferences, their perspective, their background and what influences them. We even go so far as to use a photo that helps us keep in mind what this audience member may look like. This information becomes a valuable point of reference for our marketing campaigns. We can keep in mind exactly who we are writing for, what we are trying to say to them and what it may take to motivate them to act.

    Personas are an integral part of our KPI environment as we are able to break out our conversion data by persona. This helps us determine whether or not we are connecting with the audiences we want to talk with.

    The Content Marketing Engine

    We are firm believers in content marketing. Content marketing is the process of sharing what you know with your audience to help them make informed decisions. Content marketing typically leads to much higher levels of engagement with your audience and creates room for conversations with potential customers.

    On the surface, content marketing might seem easy. Just create content and put it out onto the Web and your audience will find you, right? Wrong. Content marketing requires an approach that balances creating the kind of content that might interest your audience and finding the right distribution channels to get it in front of them. To guide our marketing efforts, we use a framework I call the Content Marketing Engine that brings balance and order to the content marketing efforts. And while the details of the CME merit more time and space than I have in this blog post, I’ve found the CME to be very valuable to creating optimal KPI environments.

    The CME helps us create healthy KPI environments because it allows us to plan for and distribute content in specific channels. And once we know where the content is to be distributed, we know which channels to monitor and what data sources we need to pull from to evaluate the health of our marketing campaigns. In many respects, the CME is the skeletal framework for our KPI dashboards.

    Analytics Platforms

    The final piece of the KPI puzzle is selecting the correct analytics platform. As you can imagine, with content moving in lots of different places, engaging with a wide-range of audiences and tied to specific business needs, lots and lots of data will be generated by a number of different systems. Pulling that data together in a unified view is critical. I view analytics platforms on a continuum based on need and level of maturity. On the low end of the scale is a tool like Google Analytics (GA). GA is great for monitoring your Web site and can do some fairly sophisticated things to evaluate the impact of your marketing campaigns in areas such as social media, email marketing and PPC advertising.

    As campaigns grow more sophisticated, you may find you need to combine other data sources beyond what Google Analytics can provide to get a well-rounded view of your marketing efforts. In those instances, I turn to a tool called Cyfe. Cyfe is a dashboard that unifies different data sources and provides a very slick presentation that can be shared throughout your marketing team and across the organization with those that need to keep tabs on progress. It can even be shared directly with clients and put up on TV screens within your offices.

    The last stop on the continuum are the reporting tools available within the marketing automation platforms. Marketing automation tools make it possible to deploy fairly complex, large-scale marketing campaigns that span long periods of time. And some of the leading marketing automation tools like Hubspot and Marketo make available dashboards that are highly customizable based on business needs, personas and your content distribution channels. As a result, it is easy to see why these are the pinnacle of analytics dashboards. They give you a great summary of what’s going on in your business.

    The End Result: Key Performance Indicators That Work

    As I shared with the audience during my presentation, there are a lot of elements and a good bit of work that goes into building a solid, working KPI environment. At Atlantic BT, we regularly evaluate our KPIs to make sure they are telling us what we need to know about our marketing efforts, and we make adjustments as our campaigns grow and change. The end result is a KPI environment that works for us.