WEB MARKETING: Analyze This. Analyze That. Analyze Free.

All of us at trendspottings have reverent admiration for the ingenious minds at Google. So it's with great genuflecting that we report on Google's newest, latest and (yet another) free way to better integrate its way into your world.

It's called Google Analytics.

With Google Analytics, now anyone and everyone with a website can have a highly sophisticated, highly detailed, extremely useful and (did I mention this?) free web analytics program. With your free account (available at googleanalytics.com/getstarted), you can add tracking elements to your website that provide on a daily basis:

• Unique Visitors
• Pageviews
• New Visits
• Referral Source Visits
• Geographic Visitor Map
• Top 5 Sources, Keywords, Campaigns
• Top 5 Entrances, Exits and Content (Including Pageviews and Average Time)
• Marketing Summary
• Conversion Summary
• Marketing Optimization Reports (With a Host of Tools)
• Content Optimization Reports (More Tools!)

All of this includes a really cool site overlay of your website, where every clickthrough on your page appears as a box, and all you need to is scroll over the box to see your report.

Of course, Google Analytics works with Google Adwords and you're encouraged to participate. But why not? Google Adwords is a complementary component to many marketing campaigns, and this valuable free service from Google almost makes you want to give them money.

SOURCE: NOISE, Adweek

PUBLIC RELATIONS: AirTran's Slogan? Laugh, There's Nothing Stopping You.

From our point of view (which is generally an aisle seat), there's no question: AirTran Airlways advertising is by far the funniest, coolest, hippest around. Read their witty billboards or, better, fly 'em one time and check out the back of the bag of peanuts.

This December 24, at 10 am, 3 pm and 7 pm, along came a three-part series of AirTran news releases (now in its third year) which outlines important information on the company's "Satellite-based Aviation Navigation Tracking Apparatus" (S.A.N.T.A) report. Delivered with the same tongue-in-cheek approach as AirTran's ad campaign, the S.A.N.T.A. report provided updates on the travels of Santa Claus' international one-night flight, with AirTran technicians "mysteriously losing radar contact as Santa's sleigh entered airspace off the coast of Bermuda" in apparent approach to the United States.

The fact that AirTran's S.A.N.T.A. report is issued via national newswires and picked up by many news bureaus shouldn't be lost on any marketing professional who might Scrooge the idea or its cost. As msn.com noted in picking up the entire release (including AirTran stock, flight and promo info), it's all "delightfully fun." And that translates into good feelings toward AirTran by the consuming public. Which influences selection. Which influences sales.

Kudos to AirTran's creative marketing minds for realizing that for PR and promotion, the sky's the limit (pun intended). Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all.

SOURCE: NOISE, eTurboNews, msn.com

MEDIA: Google Goes Radio

As if there isn't enough advertising in the world, now Google has purchased dMarc Broadcasting with the goal of integrating radio advertising into its search engine similar to its AdWords pay per click program. As Kevin Leff of ClickZ sees it, Google will most likely "implement its famous auction methodology for radio ads, replacing traditional ad rotation with an ad-spot auction running in real time. Soon media buyers will bid for each defined group of ad spots against all the other marketers who want to reach the same audience. Media buying is going to get a lot more interesting."

And searching for information, potentially a lot more noisy.

SOURCE: NOISE, clickz.com