Marketers in every industry, including international education, are on the verge of desperation in their efforts to measure returns on their investments (ROI). Google has responded by enhancing their click-through technology with view-through technology.

According to http://adwords.google.com/support/, View-through conversion tracking provides you with additional information related to the value of your display campaigns on the Google Content Network. This feature provides a measure of the number of online conversions that happened within 30 days after a user saw, but did not click, a display ad on one of the sites on the Google Content Network. You can use View-through conversion tracking to better measure return on investment (ROI) for your display campaigns and optimize your campaigns based on how users are responding to your display ads.

I am personally not convinced of the accuracy in such tracking; for one thing, my singular brain uses a few different computers throughout the day. I also feel a bit uneasy about the depth of data collected about me online. Google itself notes that they haven't perfected the system yet. It is a trend worth watching, however; in the race to satisfy those who demand ROI metrics, be mindful of the complexity inherent in our dynamic field.

We have seen a definite shift toward creative invoicing requests among our advertisers in the past few weeks. Colleagues are clearly prepping for even tighter budgets in 2010, and scurrying to boost enrollments as their recruiting resources dwindle.

USjournal.com can help.

We offer 30 percent discounts for multi-lingual campaigns (with four or more language translations) as well as an additional 10 percent discount for multi-year campaigns. And our 2010 prices will remain the same as in 2009:
http://www.USjournal.com/en/educators/multilingual09.pdf

For more details about our promotional opportunities: http://www.USjournal.com/en/educators/sponsor.html or contact cheryl@USjournal.com to discuss.

* 2-5 November, Springfield, Massachusetts
NAFSA Bi-Regional (X and XI): http://www.region10.nafsa.org/

* 6-8 December, Miami, Florida
ICEF North America Workshop: http://www.icef.com/