Google Analytics Launches New Features

Google Analytics announced today new product features that they will be launching in the next few weeks. Here are a few brief descriptions:

1. Increased goal completions. The days of only being able to implement 4 goals are over. Now you will have the ability to implement 20 goals; and be able to  assign specific number of viewed pages and/or time spent on site as a goal

2. Mobile websites will now be tracked regardless if the device runs Java Script or not. Mobile applications within the iPhone and Android will now be tracked through Google Analytics to understand how users are engaging with the application. Of course there will be additional coding required

3. Added advanced analysis features allows you to apply filters within the reports for easy analysis and drilling down into the data without having to export

4. Multiple custom variables will allow you to track and define visitors by specific attributes, interactions, and/or behaviors

5. The most attractive improvement that Google Analytics is launching is Intelligence. While reviewing your reports, Google Analytics will alert you when there have been substantial changes in metrics or trends within daily, weekly, or monthly reporting periods. You will also be able to customize and define your own alerts that you want Google Analytics to  monitor.

If you’d like to read more about the features in more depth, check out the Google Analytics Blog.

Web Analytics Wednesday in San Diego

What a success!

I’m happy to report that the co-sponsored event by Geary Interactive and Quantivo brought in some great individuals from all over San Diego county. We had a raffle drawing, where we gave away 2 books written by Eric Peterson and 2 $50 gift cards to the Apple store.

If you were unable to attend last night’s event, stay tuned as we plan our next event in the coming months!

Think About Optimizing…NOW!!

One question that I get asked when talking about site optimization is “when do you start planning a site optimization.”  My response is always the same:  as soon as the planning stage is complete.  A site optimization plan should be as well crafted as defining your KPIs, in order to minimize cost and maximizing visitor interaction. 

Another factor that a well crafted site optimization plan does is limiting the emotional factor on the analyst.  We all know that regardless of how well we plan a site, visitor behavior is something that is not easily determined.  As soon as the results are not as expected, our emotions take over and we tend to do anything to “fix” the problem.  Rather than being reactive to a situation, I like to take a proactive stance (having a Plan X), planning ahead on what to optimize.  Even if the results are favorable, you want to improve the quality of your traffic, while attracting a diverse number of visitors.  Remember that a static web site is bound to fail.

You might be thinking “OK, this is good, but what to optimize.”  What’s great about optimizing a site is that there are multiple points that can be used to improve the quantity and quality of traffic.  At a minimum, you should be looking at the following:

• The relationship between your media initiatives and your entry/exit points of your site, and look at what attracts or repels visitors when they are on the site.
• Look at the layout of your landing page and ask yourself “would I give out my personal information if I landed here?”  Ensure that your landing pages are not just relevant but that they convey a clear and concise message that entices visitors to move forward.
•  Look at the visitor experience that you’re providing  and look at modifying it by adding additional content, in order to not just attract new visitors, but also returning visitors as well. 

Thinking about an optimization plan before you launch a site is a way to “have in the ready“different options to attract not only returning visitors but a complete set of new visitors beforehand.  This allows you to spend more time analyzing your data and increase your site’s footprint.  What do you think?  Do you think about optimizing beforehand or once the results roll in?  Let’s get the discussion going.   

What!?! Less Than Half of Marketers Use Analytics?

So I was perusing through marketingcharts.com and came across a stat that just astounds me. Alterian released a survey in January that reported less than half (47%) of marketers use analytics to measure their campaigns. Less than half of marketers surveyed know how their campaigns are performing! I’m still baffled. In fact, I would love to learn more from those who do not measure their campaigns and why. If they’re not measuring the effectiveness of their campaigns or their website then I wonder how they decide what works and what doesn’t. The survey also revealed that 25% of the marketers stated that analyzing the results of the campaigns were the hardest part. If this is the case and you find that analyzing your campaign results to be difficult, here are a few steps that may help:

·         Define your goal. What are you trying to accomplish other than increasing traffic to your website? Once you have defined this goal, make sure that you are able to attribute your goal or conversion to your campaigns.

·         Be sure to tag your URLs with the proper campaign parameters that are available with your web analytics solution. Refer to your vendor’s manual for a detailed description of what this may entail. (Vendor’s URL parameters may differ)

·         Drive traffic to specific landing pages. Preferably landing pages that have content that is pertinent to your campaign and target audience.

·         Metrics that you will want to evaluate for performance include click through rate (CTR), conversion rate (CVR), cost per acquisition (CPA), return on investment (ROI), and landing page bounce rates

·         If you want to gather more insight about your campaigns, segment visitors based on the campaign that they respond to and analyze their behavior with your website. You may learn something new about your visitors or you may not, but until you analyze your site visitors, you will never know

Analyzing your campaigns does not have to be hard if you have the available resources. If you don’t, then the problem should not be that it is hard, but that you need to hire someone who can make sense of the data for you.

Behavioral Targeting: A Web Analytics Approach to Segmentation- Part 2

In my prior post, I discussed using segmentation as a way to better understand key metrics by removing the noise of your non-targeted site audience. For this post I would like to discuss some guidelines for identifying segments and targeting them to help improve key performance indicators.

By using Web Analytics data, you can identify different segments based on specific actions that your site visitors are taking once on your website. Trying to remain broad here as there are many different types of websites; any action a user takes with your website, through a call center, or in-store, defines an opportunity to identify a behavior. That behavior can provide some very valuable information that can benefit marketers with re-targeting strategies.

For example, let’s say that you have a content site with lots of information that is separated into different categories. You could target your returning visitors with ads that are relevant to their interests based on the different sections of the site that they visited.

 Another example would include someone who visits a commerce site repeatedly because they are in the research phase of learning about one of the products that you carry. After the second or third visit to a specific product page, you could serve them a type of incentive to persuade them to purchase at that time. I hope your competitors haven’t thought of that yet.

Here are some guidelines to help with your behavioral targeting strategy:

1.       Clearly define the goals of your website

2.       Identify key segments (Note that additional research aside from web analytics data may be necessary to define)

3.       Understand the goals for each of your segments and the increased value they will provide

4.       Select the appropriate tools that will allow you to target your site visitors

5.       After implementation, analyze your segments and identify improvement opportunities

Behavioral targeting is not a one time initiative; a continuous improvement plan should be performed as segmented behavior may change over time depending on your website goals.

Remove the Noise: A Web Analytics Approach to Segmentation- Part 1

Segmentation can be used to analyze site visitors in a multiple of ways to compare different types of behavior and identify new insights. Another method of segmentation that can be used is to eliminate visitors by removing the noise of the un-targeted traffic that is not intended for your website.

For example, hopefully you currently exclude Internal IP addresses so that your employees’ activity on the website is excluded from reports. However, if your site only sells products or services in the U.S. and you do not provide services in another country; then you might say that your analysis may be a better representation of your site visitors or intended audience if you filter our traffic from other countries.

Some may argue that having that data is valuable as it may provide insight to the demand of your product or service in another region. This is true and thus should be the reason why you always have a profile that collects all web data to your site. It’s a lot easier to segment out the data you need to do an analysis than it is to add it back in (if that is even an option).

So what are some other ways you would find value in segmenting out types of behavior to better understand your target audience?

Packet Sniffers – The X-Ray Glasses of Web Analytics

One tool in a web analyst’s belt that is critical in the implementation of a web analytics solution is a packet sniffer.  A packet sniffer allows you to view the data that is being collected from your site and sent to the analytics tool’s servers.  This tool allows you to not only troubleshoot your implementation by viewing that data is currently sent, but it gives you a ton of insight as to what behavior is dependent to the type of data that is collected.    

I understand that packet sniffers have been criticized for displaying too much information, or that you must be of the “technical type” in order to decipher the image request.  There are plenty of packet sniffers available that offer a diverse amount of features that anyone can use.  In order to ease the learning curve, and to convince those of you who might be reading this with a raised brow, here are some tips that I’ve learned during the years:

Get the right packet sniffer for you – I always hear the argument that the packet sniffer is too complicated.  There are packet sniffers that offer as little as the actual request from the analytics tool or as much as the “kitchen sink.”  The idea is to match your needs with the capabilities of the tool.

Find a list of variable parameters – Another point of confusion when reading data from an image request is that the parameters don’t match the variables in the code.  You can find list of parameters with the variable that it matches from the vendor.  You can use the list to familiarize yourself with the data that is collected when you travel from page to page on your site. 

Learn how to filter your requests – Each analytics tool uses a unique identifier in their requests that can be used to filter them from other requests.  Here’s a list of the most popular tools:

·         Omniture SiteCatalyst – b/ss

·         Omniture HBX – HG

·         Google Analytics – utm

·         Webtrends – /dcsd

·         Coremetrics – /cm?

A packet sniffer not only displays what information is sent from your site, but also displays other information that can help you learn more about how your analytics solution behaves and how to improve it.  The answers might not be as polished as you may like, but that’s part of the fun.  So, what do you think, have I convinced you or confused you?

Measuring the success or failure of a social media engagement

Last night I had the honor of presenting at a Web Analytics Wednesday event here in San Diego.

I discussed strategies for the often frustrating task of measuring the effects of a social media engagement. My advice? Nail down concrete KPIs before you begin your foray into social media; use reliable proxies to measure nebulous concepts like engagement; look at the campaign holistically; and stay focused on what really matters – whether it’s awareness, sales or customer retention. Lastly, do projections to help manage expectations and understand what you need to do to break even.

My co-presenter, social media guru Brian Watkins of Omniture, spoke about Omniture’s work on integrating social media cues like Twitter posts, so stakeholders can get all the information they need from their analytics suite.

View my slides on Slideshare to get a taste of the presentation.

How Can I Drive Performance without a Goal

Something that has been talked about in the Web Analytics industry long before I came along is how to make Web analytics actionable. There have been many articles and books written about remaining goal-driven when developing a new website or creating/implementing a strategic online campaign. As a biased analyst, this is something that seems logical to me. Yet, I often see others struggle with the idea.

Let me see if I can help clarify this type of idea. When it is time to launch a new website or acquisition campaign, what is the goal? What are you trying to accomplish at the end of the day? I think for lead and e-commerce sites this is a self-explanatory goal: to increase leads or increase online orders. What about those sites that do not have a lead form or Commerce store for transactions to take place? Well, that’s when it’s time to get creative and do some research to find some information about the visitors to your website. I think, and please correct me if I am wrong; at the end of the day it’s every business’s goal to increase revenue. If that can not be accomplished online, then find out what visitors do on your website that provides value to them making the transaction. Maybe it’s visiting a page on your website that provides information to that person or visitor.

When the call to action or desired action is unclear, maybe it’s time to re-evaluate your website goals. If there is nothing on the site that measures success, then something needs to change so that a success metric can be measured and ideally monetized. Everything on a website can be measured, and it’s time to take advantage of it if you are not doing so. What are some goals you have used to track the success of a web development project?

More Than a Search Engine

Web analytics vendors tend to treat search engines as simply that – a search engine. In reality though, search engines are becoming oh so much more than that. With search engines now offering things like email, maps, user-generated content and other things that are decidely NOT search, maybe it’s time that web analytics vendors help analysts by finding an easier way for us to report on TRUE search activity. How about it Omniture? How about not lumping all google.com traffic in your “Search Engine” bucket, just based on the domain it came from? We can tell based on the details of the URL what activity people were engaged in, so why not give us more options in our reports of what people are really doing? Our clients and my team of website analysts thanks you in advance.