That’s right.

For my farewell gift, I had the pleasure to “bail” First Rate COO, along with the Team Leader and the Lead Consultant

Thanks for the fun, guys. It has been a great 4.5 years and I will definitely carry those moments everywhere I go.

Good luck.

(More pics after the videos)

Auckland Sky Screamer

Victims & Me

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LOL nervous

Final countdown

We attracted quite a crowd

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I’ve recently returned from Palo Alto from the Google Analytics Partner Summit. This year the summit was held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.

Whilst I can’t share any specific information as far as GA is concerned, what I can share is that upcoming changes are going to be big.

One thing that really impressed me is just how much was being shared with the GACP partners. Furthermore, any concerns or questions raised were addressed and answered on the spot. I’ve come away feeling genuinely excited to be working in the analytics industry on a platform as impressive as Google Analytics.

Another really nice thing was that we also got an update on Google+ and Android. It’s amazing how Google is pulling all this together and it has been a real pleasure hearing directly from the engineers and product managers.

And of course Avinash Kaushik did not disappoint and had the crowd laughing uncontrollably on several occasions.

Given that there isn’t really all that much to see and do in Palo Alto, I spent a couple of days in San Francisco which was excellent. One of the locals whom I met at the Summit showed me around town which was really nice. I even managed to take a pic of the bridge without any fog:

Here’s the list of speakers from the 2011 GACP Summit, responsible for draining my laptop battery to near-death levels on both days from all my note-taking:

• Amy Chang – Global Head of Product, Ads Measurement
• Dr Phil Mui – Group Product Manager, Google Analytics
• Paul Muret – Director of Engineering, Analysis Products
• Sissie Hsiao – Group Product Manager, Cross-Channel Measurement & Attribution
• Brett Crosby – Director of Product Marketing, Google+
• Enrique Munoz Torres – Senior Product Manager, Google Analytics
• Hasan Bakhshi – Director, Creative Industries, NESTA
• Juan Mateos-Garcia – Creative Industries Research Fellow, NESTA
• Marc Vanlerberghe – Director of Product Marketing, Mobile & Android
• Archana Ravichandran – Global Services Manager, Google Analytics
• Bill Kee – Product Manager, Google Analytics
• Chao Cai – Engineering Lead, Conversion Tracking & Cross-Channel Attribution
• Jesse Savage – Product Manager & Privacy Officer, Google Analytics
• Kerri Jacobs – Team Lead, Google Analytics Sales
• Lucas Pettinati – Lead User Experience Designer, Google Analytics
• Matt Ackley – Director of Product Marketing, Media and Platforms
• Michael Fink – Product Manager, Google Analytics
• Michal Neufeld – Product Manager, Google Analytics
• Nick Mihailovski – Senior Developer Programs Engineer, Google Analytics
• Sagnik Nandy – Engineering Lead, Google Analytics Backend and Infrastructure
• Shauna Gerry – Team Lead, Google Analytics Account Management
• Sophie Chesters – Product Marketing Manager, Google Analytics
• Trevor Claiborne – Product Marketing Manager, Google Analytics
• Jesse Nichols – Partner Program Manager, Google Analytics
• Timo Josten – Partner Program Manager, Google Analytics
• Avinash Kaushik – Digital Marketing Evangelist, Google
• Justin Cutroni – Director of Digital Intelligence, Cardinal Path
• Russell Sutton – Managing Director, ConversionWorks
• Timo Aden – Managing Director, Trakken
• Juan Manuel Damia – Co-Founder, Intellignos

I’ve learnt a lot and passed on my learnings to the team.

We are keen to help your business maximise your return from Google Analytics. Please contact us for a no-obligation chat.

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Today the IAB announced the list of finalists for the inaugral IAB awards. We’re proud to say that First Rate were named as finalists in the Search Marketing (Organic Search) category for our submission “The Power of Longtail: Focus Property”.

This is the first year that has seen the ‘Search’ category split into Paid vs Organic with the increase in entries for the category over recent years. This year also marks a jump in entries of 19% from the previous year, and with the awards ceremony already nearly at capacity, it’s proving to be a highly competitive event.

Our team devised a strategy that not only saw a significant increase in unique visits and visits from organic search but also an increase in ranking for head and secondary terms securing the head term as ranking number 1.

We’ll post a case study once winners are announced so stay tuned.

Congrats to the First rate Sydney team who worked on the project and to the other finalists!

Click here for the complete list of finalists

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