Recently in Analytics Category

This was my first trip to Omniture Summit, with my expectations and excitement growing significantly during the two weeks leading up to the trip to Salt Lake City. As it was stated in the Twittersphere, this was going to be “THE” web analytics party of the year.  The Summit most certainly lived up to this name.

At today's eMetrics Summit in Washington, D.C., Google announced some pretty important new features for Google Analytics.  These are significant additions that bring Google Analytics much closer to being a true enterprise solution.

A few of the most important changes:

• This is huge! Analytics Intelligence:  Will provide automatic alerts of signficant changes in the data patterns of your site metrics and dimensions over daily, weekly and monthly periods.  For instance, Intelligence could call out a 300% surge in visits from YouTube referrals last Tuesday or let you know bounce rates of visitors from Virginia dropped by 70% two weeks ago.  Instead of you having to monitor reports and comb through data, Analytics Intelligence alerts you to the most significant information to pay attention to, saving you time and surfacing traffic insight that could affect your business.
• Number of allowed goals (success events): This has been increased from 4 to 20
• New types of goals: Allows you to set thresholds for Time on Site and Pages per Visit (important for lead-generation sites).
• Unique Visitor Metric: This allows marketers to see how many actual visitors (unique cookies) make up any user-defined segment.
• Multiple Custom Variables: Use custom variables to classify any number of ineractions and behaviors on your site.

At this time, we do not know what type of implementation these new features will entail.  I would guess that the custom variables will take the same amount of labor to implement as they do with Omniture.

So, why are these new features game-changing?  Google Analytics has no hard cost (still have labor costs of implementation and analysis), has a very user-friendly interface, and now has these very advanced features.  Companies will need to look very carefully at their web analytics goals and see if a paid solution is really a better fit for them.  Mind you, there are still places where Google Analytics can't compete (i.e. support, plus other customized reporting).

All of that being said, we don't know where paid solutions are heading either.  Adobe bought Omniture several weeks ago, and that could have a big impact on their user interface.  Adobe has stated that 50% of their corporate strategy will be directed toward Omniture Optimization products.  We also know that Omniture is working on a new release of SiteCatalyst.  Fuel has signed up to be part of the beta testers, and I'm really excited to have some input on the version.

The Analytics industry is constantly changing.  One thing is certain: when we look at this industry in 2-3 years, it will look nothing like it does today.

MarketingSherpa's Marketing and the Economy Survey shows an overall picture that offline marketing is definitely on the decline and online marketing is on the rise. I want to delve a little deeper into the online marketing trend.

Why are businesses adding more online marketing and reducing offline? Well, I'm a web analyst so my view of this answer may be a little biased. However, when marketing dollars are being cut, it makes the most sense to spend your money where you can definitively measure what you are getting in return. All online marketing can be measured using web analytics tools, whether it's email marketing, banner ads, pay-per-click or anything else. If properly implemented, all of these campaigns can be measured. How, exactly, do you measure the impact a billboard ad has had on your revenue for the year?

Let's look at the top three increasing online marketing items:

Web 2.0

The survey shows that 48% of marketers are adding dollars to their Web 2.0 (social network marketing) budgets. How is that measurable, and what do you get from it? There are many levels of social networking, and each will have its own goal. Check out The 6 Spheres of Social Media Marketing. Here's an example of what happened when our SEO team created a StumbleUpon post for one of our golf clients. On the day of the post, traffic increased 48% above the average daily visits. These visitors had a 45% lower bounce rate than the site as a whole. So not only does the post help our SEO efforts, the post boosted the site activity, and started building relationships with these new visitors.

Paid Search

Paid search has proven to have one of the highest return on ad spend (ROAS) - IF it is done right. We have seen great success stories from our clients with 500%-3500% ROAS. We are also now seeing some interesting trends on how paid search campaigns can help with natural search conversions due to the synergistic effect paid and natural search have together. As my colleague, Brian Carter, mentions in a recent blog post, "When you show both, you make a bigger impact on the buyer, which increases attention and trust, thereby increasing traffic, conversions, conversion rate, decreasing cost per conversion, increasing ROI."

Emailing to House Lists

This option has just as high a percentage increase as did Web 2.0. From my perspective, this is hands down, one of the best returns on spend out there. Judging from the 48% of marketing putting more money into this venue, clearly I'm not alone in this opinion. We have seen time and time again clients getting 1000% or more return on spend. If you train your subscribers well, don't abuse your list, and send quality messages, you won't be disappointed with this decision.

That being said, not all online marketing is increasing.

Emailing to Rented Lists

NOT ALL EMAIL IS CREATED EQUAL! This is why I am not surprised to see 43% of marketers reducing spend here. With more and more companies implementing web analytics, I believe it has shown that many rented lists do not perform as well as we would like. Why spend the money here, when you know your existing list gets a much better response?

Online Display Advertising

43% of survey respondents are reducing spend here as well.  Why?  In general, display ads are more costly than other makreting media, and that drives up the cost per acquisition, and brings down the return on spend.

Every company has a different marketing budget and different goals.  Maybe you are still adamant about sending email through rented lists.  I'm not going to stop you, but I am going to insist that you measure your results.  Look at your conversion rates, cost per lead, return on spend.  The numbers will speak for themselves.  You be the judge of your marketing effors to see which onces give you the best bang for your buck, and then spend more on those efforts.

Through diligent testing and market research I have determined that if you're reporting the user sessions that your analytics system, such as Omniture, is using you're way under reporting success.

By studying the average number of people standing behind a computer user in stock photos, it becomes very clear that you must multiply user sessions by a factor of three (the Average Bystander Session: ABS).  The ABS is often referred to as a passive user or collateral impression.

Example:
Omniture shows 21,000 sessions in May X 3 ABS = 63,000 TruSessions^TM

In order to come up with this rock solid, analytical approach to proving success we monitored the stock image market over pages upon pages of results to determine the TruSession factor of three (90% of relevant stock photos show a total of three persons huddled around a single computer).  However, our research has shown that for dinner parties a TruFactor of four is required; as shown in this example.

The TruFactor is really just a way to illustrate what may be happening on a site and does not reflect any true value to you, the owner or decision maker who needs to use this type of data.  So..what's the value of it? 

Answer, not all that much.  User sessions, impressions and other metrics have their place.  They are very valuable in determining the overall health of your site, traffic sources and popularity.  They do not show the client (this may be you) if your site is working.

It's Clear I'd be Reckless to Consider Using TruFactor.  So How Do I Judge Success?

Great question, we try to lead our clients to look at the real value metrics and not aggregate numbers.

I came up with the concept of TruFactor to illustrate the absurdity of some of the metrics I have heard people use over the years.  In truth, if your site is designed to transact any type of business the one key metric you should watch is... are you ready?

How Much Money Did Your Site Make!

Once you start measuring success based on a cost and return basis, all the other metrics make sense and you can then leverage your more traditional stats to improve the bottom line  watch how this works:

OLD:  My PPC campaign is great, I'm getting clicks at just $0.75.
NEW: I'm showing a return on ad spend (ROAS) of 571%  For every dollar I spend I'm seeing revenue of $5.71!  How can I make this even better?

OLD:  Wow, I got 20,000 visitors to my site last month, I'm super and smell great!
NEW: Hang on, I'm only seeing an average value of $0.10 per user on my site.  What type of on-site improvements can I make to increase the value of my user base?  Am I paying for traffic that's just not qualified?

I think you get the idea, when you put dollars into the equation, it makes all decisions much easier.  My plea to you is to stop making revenue decisions based on non-revenue based analytics.  Like Deep Throat said, "follow the money."

When you start following the money, you'll find plenty of business.

Disclaimer: TruFactor is complete BS and Fuel Interactive, it's employees, and subsidiaries do not recommend smoke and mirror type reporting.
We do recommend checking out Shutterstock for great prices on a wide selection of royalty free stock photography.

I really have learned so much since I started working at Fuel Interactive. Sure, I had quite a bit of technical, internet and math knowledge. But since I have been here I have learned so much more about websites, how you track them, and just how much you can learn about the visits to them. All of my co-workers have been extremely nice and helpful. Everyone is always willing to help, and go the extra mile to help in any way. I feel extremely comfortable like I have found a home here at Fuel. So comfortable, next week I might even put up my “chalkboard” next to the picture of my husband and Cooper at my desk. What chalk board you might be thinking? Well, like I said before… I am extremely into sports. And if you have ever seen the show “Around the Horn” on ESPN, then you would know what I am talking about when I say “Woody’s chalkboard”. You see, one of the sports writers on the show has a different comment or something to ponder written on this chalk board sitting behind him every time they come back from a commercial break. And I will usually take my favorite ones and put a different one on the chalkboard at my desk each day. It turns out I am not the only one that gets a kick out of this chalkboard. I will usually have several co-workers that will come say hello to me throughout the day just to see what I have written on my chalk board… I guess I kind of show my personality for that day through the chalkboard. 

With all of the new information that is being introduced to me, I feel as though I am stuck right in the middle of “not knowing anything about what a web analyst does” and “everything I will need to know in order to be a successful web analyst”. So I figured… what a better time to write a blog??? I will keep you informed as I am going through my training process so that we may learn together at the same speed; this way I will not be talking in a language that neither of us understand. 

By now, everyone knows how important it is to have a website up. And being a consumer on the other end, I am sure that you know there are some sites that you exit the second you land on it! Why? Was it the look of the website? Was the website not giving you the information that you were looking for? Or maybe this website is completely not at all what you were looking for!

My goal is to educate the individuals that are not certain what exactly a Web Analytics Specialist does and why they might need one. Lets first start with what I said before, “Sure, you can buy the data… But can you analyze it?” What does this mean exactly? Well there are plenty of ways for you to purchase the data regarding your website - with tools like with Google Analytics, Urchin or Omniture. But once you get all of this data, what will you do with it? Will you be able to tell by all of these numbers and strange terms what you should do to improve traffic to your website or increase revenue? This is where your web analyst jumps in; because these tools can only provide the data… not answers.

Here is a list of just some of the things that your web analyst will be able to do for you:

·         Test different items and pages on your website to see what is working the best

·         Let you know which of your marketing techniques and campaigns are working

·         Where your visitors are located geographically

·         Understand what pages the users are visiting, how many pages they view, and how long they are on each page

·         How many new visitors compared to returning visitors

·         Advise you on improvements you should make to your website – what and where fixes are needed

·         How and where you should be marketing

·         Page layout, placement & design changes that need to be made

·         Work with SEO to allow clients to find you easily or be noticed

·         Understand your sites actual performance

·         Emails, banners, direct mail, sales & leads response rates

·         Traffic issues – make sure that your site is well targeted and that you are not getting unwanted traffic due to poor SEO

·         Identify patterns and strategies made by each visitor

·         Keep your bounce rate to a minimal – and find out where and why visitors are leaving the site

·         Which pages are the most popular and why

·         Determine how visitors are getting to your site – Was it through a search? What did they search for? Or do they have your site bookmarked?

·         Amplify Newsletter and Email Sign-ups

·         Meet your business goals

·         INCREASE REVENUE

There is a lot that a Web Analyst can do for you and your company. I think the most important would be to meet your business goals. What exactly are you expecting from your website? Are you wanting the most visitors you can have or to redirect them somewhere else? Would you like it to bring in more newsletter signups and increase your database? Or maybe you just want to increase your revenue! What exactly are your business goals???

Stuart Butler and I were recently interviewed by a reporter for a local dining guide about the latest techniques in web design, pay per click, SEO, social media, and email marketing for restaurants.

 .

Conversion optimization is one of the most valuable tools to improve a site’s performance from the time it goes live throughout the entire lifespan of the site. Through a process of continual testing including A/B tests and multivariate tests, the sites conversion tools can be dramatically improved.

The Situation

Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday (www.golfholiday.com) began running an aggressive pay per click campaign to drive consumers to complete an online form for a vacation quote request. The form was effective, converting at approximately 5%, though no testing had been completed to determine if the form could produce superior results.

With a high volume site, such as this, even a minute increase in conversion rate would result in a dramatic improvement in leads.

The Insight

People don’t like to fill out long forms. If we could reduce the perceived length of the form we can improve conversion rates. Our plan was to implement a multiple phase A/B test. We would begin by testing just one or two variables and use the most effective form. Through this process we were able to isolate what factors improve performance.

Through the course of four A/B tests we were able to determine the optimal form layout, maximize conversion rate and gain a better understanding of how consumers interact with the site.

The Result

In the case of Golf Holiday, we changed the one column to a two column layout and were able to increase conversions by 7%. We then coded the form to hide optional content unless the visitor wanted to request specific information. Once again we were able to increase conversion rate another 20%.

The conversion optimization program for this form
resulted in a 28.4% improvement in success rate.

The Facts

Conversion optimization can work wonders for any site regardless of the goal is to gather leads or generate revenue. In this example we optimized a request form, though optimization is also just as effective in improving the rate in which a consumer finds this form. Through A/B and multivariate testing the entire site can be analyzed and improved from the time the visitor enters the site to the time they complete a form or make a transaction. Thorough testing is the keystone to maximizing the success of an interactive marketing campaign and delivering the best possible return on investment.

A recent post by Brandt Dainow entitled “The disturbing inaccuracy behind Google Analytics” has created some healthy debate about website visitors who bounce.

Before we get to the debate, let’s define what a bounce is, and what it means.  The basic definition of a bounce is when a visitor enters a website and does not view any other pages.  In most cases, we want to keep the bounce rate as low as possible (my opinion of an acceptable bounce rate is below 30%, and a very good bounce rate is below 20%).

There are some exceptions where a high bounce rate might be acceptable, or even favorable.  First is when you have a website with the primary focus of advertising other sites or services.  So your goal is to get people to your site and have them click on an ad or some other exit link and leave your site – that’s how you make money.  Another case could be when a user finds your site and is looking for a very specific piece of information, like your hours of operation.  They search for you via a search engine, land on your “hours of operation” page, and leave.  Those visitors accomplished the task they needed to and left the site.  Blogs could be another exception, where visitors come and read your latest blog entry and leave.  These really are the exceptions to the rule, though.  In most cases, you want visitors to take some type of action when they come to your site (make a purchase, generate a lead, signup for a newsletter, etc.).

The debate in this post begins with the author’s opinion that bounces should not be treated as visits, and because Google Analytics (and many analytics tools) includes bounces as visits, the data is highly inaccurate.  He believes that it skews some very important metrics, such as visit count, time on site, and a variety of conversion rates.

Visit Count

The author states, “If you see Total Visits as the number of people who entered your site, who reacted to the sales pitch, who engaged with your content, who potentially could have bought products, then you are wrong. It is the number of people who arrived at the front door of the site, nothing more.”  I don’t understand where he is coming from here.  Every single time a visitor comes to a website, there is the opportunity to engage that visitor, whether it is with news, sales, research or whatever you have going on.  If visitors are leaving without engaging, then that is a sign that something is wrong (unless the bounces fall under the exceptions I’ve mentioned).

Time on Site

Google Analytics, according to Dainow, calculates bounced visits as 0 time spent on the site.  So when you add all of your 0 minutes from bounced visits to calculated time from non-bounced visits, your average time is site is much lower than it should be.

This is very interesting.  Omniture handles bounced visits differently.  Bounced visits are not included when calculating total time on site because the user did spend some time on the site, but because there is no time stamp from a secondary click, the system cannot determine how much time was spent.  So it does not count it as 0 time, it just does not count it at all.  This is why Omniture’s average time on site is generally higher than what Google Analytics shows for the same site.

This raises the point I was talking about in my “Dirty Data” blog post.  Clearly, these are two different ways of measuring the same thing.  I personally agree with Omniture’s way of calculating this metric.  However, that does not mean that Google’s way is wrong, nor does it mean that the data can’t be used.  This metric should to be used for trending purposes.  If Google Analytics shows your average time on site to be 3:45 last month, and 4:30 this month, can’t you easily see that users were engaged for a longer period of time this month?  Does it really matter that the exact time this month might have actually been 5:00 by someone else’s standards?

Conversion Rate

Brandt says, “The Conversion Rate tells me how successful my site is at selling. It is legitimate to calculate Conversion Rate including bounces, but my personal experience is that it is misleading to do so. I use Conversion Rate to improve my site's sales pitch. People who bounce were never exposed to it, so including them in the calculation means I cannot possibly know whether my sales pitch is working or not.”  Again, I have to respectfully disagree.

Every page on your website is a sales pitch – if it’s not, you’re not using the site to its fullest potential.  No matter where your visitors enter your site, there should be some call to action leading them further into the conversion funnel – whatever that conversion might be for your site.  If you have a high bounce rate then, yes, your sales pitch was not very good.

Where We Agree

Dainow does mention an excellent calculation that he calls “Retained Visits.”  This is calculated as:

Retained Visits = Total Visits – (Total Visits * Bounce Rate)

I love this calculation and will start implementing it as a new custom metric in my Omniture reports. This definitely gives you a picture of “engaged” visits, and can be trended over time.

Take-Away

We need to go back to basics – look at the big picture when it comes to analytics data.  What trends do you see month-to-month, year-to-year?  Are bounce rates going up or down?  Is that a good thing or a bad thing for your site?  Is the average time on your site going up or down?  Is that a good thing or a bad thing for your site?  You get the point…it’s all about using a yardstick, whether that yardstick is 36 inches or 39 inches.

I’ve started an A/B test for a client almost 3 weeks ago.  We are trying to determine if we can bring overall reservations and revenue up by changing the layout of the homepage.  Our hypothesis is that if specials were promoted in a more visible fashion on the homepage, conversion rate would increase, as would overall revenue.

RESULTS - 2 DAYS

After two days of data, we saw that the “B” version of the homepage had twice as many specials booked than the “control,” or “A” version.  As a percentage of bookings, version B had 17% more specials booked than A.  Version B also showed 71% more total bookings, and an increased conversion rate of 71%!  This was looking to be very promising for our hypothesis.

RESULTS - 12 DAYS

With 12 days of data, we saw that as a percentage of bookings, version B had 23.22% more specials booked than A (up from 17% at the last check).   However, overall conversion rate had dropped to be 8.1% below the control version (previously 71% higher).  I decided that with such a swing in numbers, we probably didn’t have enough data to be able to draw a conclusion, and we should let the test continue to run for a few more days.

RESULTS - 19 DAYS

After 19 days of running the A/B test, and roughly 10,000 sample website visits, we have solid data that proves version B converts a higher percentage of specials than version A.  However, the overall conversion rate of version B has now dropped even further below the control. On the upside, the data also showed that average order per reservation was 5% lower than version A (an improvement from the 6% shown a few days earlier), and average revenue per night booked is now 0.1% higher for version B (previously 4% lower).  So...more swinging of numbers.

CONCLUSION?

So, what have we been able to conclude from all of this data?

From these raw numbers, we might conclude that we should stick to the original version of the homepage because, overall, it converts better.  However, when we look at the behavior of the 2 different groups of visitors, it opens a whole new theory.  We think that because version B highlights the specials more openly than the original version, it’s possible that we are changing the way visitors are booking their vacations.  Instead of going through a linear booking process, it’s possible that version B visitors are now “shopping for deals."  A thought-process something like, “Hmmm, I remember seeing a bunch of specials on the homepage.  I think I’m going to check all of them to see which one I like the best.”  We’ll implement some new tracking features that will allow us to better get in the minds of these visitors. I'll be commenting on this subject in another blog post.

With that theory, and the fact that the numbers are still flip-flopping, the existing test is going to continue to run a little longer.  

Stay tuned for final results…In the meantime, unless you are experiencing 100% conversion rates on your website, I encourage you to start A/B testing.  Just don't jump to conclusions after 1 day of testing.  Depending on the size of your website, the number of visitors, and seasonality, it may take longer than you think to get "normalized" results.  No matter how long it takes to run the test, I’ll bet that you’ll be surprised at the outcome!

It might be cliche, but I have to say it - web analytics is a dirty job, but someone has to do it.