Web Analytics and Optimization Blog

New Blog KPI Dashboard!

 Printer-friendly version

For those of you that have visited my old “Blog Metrics” page, you may have noticed that it’s a pretty sad excuse for a dashboard.

No use of KPIs or anything that really lets you know how the blog is performing.

Well I’m slowly but surely aiming to change all that.

Please take a look at this blog’s new and improved dashboard!

The KPIs that I’ve selected are largely based on a previous post relating to the most important metrics for content-based sites. I’ve also made the dashboard downloadable in Excel if you’d like to compare it to your own results (not to mention adding a few slick sparklines for basic metrics ).

My reasons for producing this dashboard are really two fold:

1. Help other fellow bloggers with relative metrics in order for them to know if their performance is “good” or “not so good”
2. Provide a demonstration of the power of storing your KPI information in a relational databaseOn that second note, all the data you see in the dashboard is stored within a database on my web server. The benefit of this of course is that I’m able to pull from this datasource anywhere I want! The web-based dashboard you see is only one incarnation, I also am pulling this information into an Excel spreadsheet I plan to publish soon.

Thoughts and opinions are always welcome!

 Printer-friendly version

Posted in kpis, news | 4 Comments »

eMetrics Summit - Web Analytics on Steroids!

 Printer-friendly version

If you’re any kind of veteran (and by that I mean 2-3 months :)) in the web analytics field you’re probably already well aware of eMetrics, but if you’re not this is for you.

Here’s a short shpeel on what the conference is and why I personally think you should be signing up.

What is the eMetrics Summit?

The eMetrics summit is the location to learn more about web analytics and really - how to use online data to improve your website for your visitors or customers. Learn about the terminology, the tools, the best practices and the pitfalls to avoid from industry gurus as well as people just like you!

Who should attend the eMetrics Summit?

Basically anyone who interacts with and is responsible for a portion of the online channel. Whether you manage content, usability, paid search marketing, e-mail marketing or your entire website - this conference is for you.

Why should I attend the eMetrics Summit?

You mean besides the fact that yours truly will be speaking?

To be honest, the only summit I’ve attended as of yet was last year’s in Washington D.C. but I’ll go on record saying if you have the budget for only one conference all year, make it eMetrics.

Knowledge

The knowledge you end up with at the end of the day can honestly almost make you dizzy (in a good way!).

I came back from Washington with presentations to share with many people in the organization. In fact, I recall that within Rogers, eMetrics filled me with info to share with: executives, paid search marketers, content creation and management folk, our business analysts and even our finance guys!

What I’m trying to say is that the conference isn’t just about web analytics, it’s about online optimization.

Contacts

The people you’ll meet and connections you come away with are incredible after an eMetrics summit. Here are a few people I’m happy to say I’ve now had the pleasure to correspond with (some on a fairly often basis!):

• Eric T. Peterson - CEO - Web Analytics Demystified
• Avinash Kaushik - Author / Blogger /Analytics Evangelist, Google
• Brett Crosby - Senior Manager Google Analytics, Google
• Rachel Scotto - Executive Director, Sony Pictures Entertainment
• June Li - Managing Director, ClickInsight
• Eric J. Hansen - President, SiteSpect
• Braden Hoeppner - Director Web Sales, Coastal Contacts Inc.
• and more!

Just think about it - the people at eMetrics are literally the brightest in the industry and you’ll meet all of them, share your stories and at the end of the day, have a new buddy to call on!

Where is the eMetrics Summit?

The eMetrics summit is actually in a number of cities: Toronto, London, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Stockholm and Munchen! Check out the website for more info. Right now, I’ll be most concerned with Toronto :).

Toronto Marriot Downtown Eaton Centre Hotel

525 Bay Street

Toronto, ON, Canada

M5G 2L2

When is the eMetrics Summit?

The Toronto summit is March 31 - April 2, 2008 but the early bird registration date (save $200) is
March 9!

Booked that ticket yet?

What are you waiting for!? Book your ticket and flight if you need to and make sure you’re there!

If you have any questions at all please feel free to contact me at mike.sukmanowsky@oddinteractive.com.

 Printer-friendly version

Posted in news | 6 Comments »

Web Analytics and Net Present Value - Part 1

 Printer-friendly version

Companies with projects that deal with the internet in someway always surprise me.

Say a company like Ford was evaluating the purchase of a major piece of machinery that was expected to increase plant efficiencies. These efficiencies resulted in the plant being able to produce x more number of cars per day.

There’s no way executives at Ford would approve the purchase without their finance department performing some analysis.

Specifically, at a bare minimum I’m sure executives would want to know the project’s net present value (NPV), payback period (PP) and return on investment (ROI).

None of the above calculations are difficult (in fact, a few seconds in Excel produces the results!), the work all lays in the underlying assumptions that feed the simple formulas.

For most web firms however ROI is often the only metric ever discussed (and often only at a very high level). It isn’t that NPV or PP is impossible to calculate for web-based projects, but the analysis can be slightly more difficult. Often the difficulty is only rooted in the fact that many people don’t understand the relationships between revenues and costs behind online businesses.

I’ve taken a stab at writing a business case that demonstrates how to use web analytics to evaluate a project’s net present value. Please check out the following two files and let me know what you think!

Download the business case and the background!	Download the NPV analysis and the answer!

 Printer-friendly version

Posted in strategy | No Comments »

Jim Sterne and the Web Analytics Association Need Our Help!

 Printer-friendly version

Jim Sterne the president of Target Marketing as well as the Chairman for the Web Analytics Association (WAA) is looking for some help from the analytics community at large.

Jim has posted a survey and is attempting to find out which channels marketers and analysts are measuring as well as how they plan to use the data for optimization. As this information is being collected by the WAA Chairman, you can bet that it’ll be used for good! I’d even expect seeing the WAA using the data collected to optimize their offerings to members in 2008!

I’ve personally taken the survey and it used all of maybe 2 minutes of my time.

Click here to take the 2 minute survey!

 Printer-friendly version

Posted in just for fun, news | No Comments »