Web Analytics and Optimization Blog

I know I know, I’m a bit late on delivering the posts for the second and third day of the summit but I’ll be honest, after day 3 I was actually feeling pretty beat and being my first time in Washington D.C., I wanted to enjoy my stay a little too! Day 2 of the summit was another complete success and aroused some really interesting debate and discussion with colleagues and practitioners.

Keynote Address: Counting on Customers

Presented by Rachel Scotto, Executive Director at Sony Pictures Entertainment, this was a keynote that spoke right to my heart! A frustration I’ve lamented for a long time now is that the web analytics industry is seriously lacking a solid group of people who understand and know media inside and out.Rachel’s speech was great and really gave people an idea of practical examples of things that matter to a major media organization like Sony. Working for one of Canada’s largest media organizations it was obviously great for me to hear. Some interesting points of out Rachel’s presentation that I’ll try to summarize:

• Integrate your Various Marketing Metrics: it’s a common theme of what’s being called Web Analytics 2.0 but it makes sense. Rachel’s suggestions are to look at ways to include: Web Analytics, Primary and Secondary Market Research to get a 360 degree view of your media landscape.Primary Market Research – Online Surveys (check out Foresee Results and iPerceptions), Usability Testing, Focus GroupsSecondary Market Research – subscribe to analyst resarch services like Jupiter Research, Forrester and eMarketer as well as augmenting your competitive intelligence with Neilsen NetRatings, comScore and HitwiseTools that she’s used to achieve this view in the past have been: Hitlist (excellent competitive intelligence tool, but unfortunately no Canadian data yet), Accrue, WebTrends, SiteClarity by Cheetahmail
• Carefully Consider Analytics Vendors: make sure during your Request for Proposal (RFP) process to look at the level of customization that your web analytics vendor provides as well as the ease of being able to transfer knowledge to a new group of people. If your development department is showing some high turnover, this point becomes even more crucial
• Use Search to Measure Buzz – as Sony releases a ton of great movies, it’s important for them to get a feel for which are going to be a hit or a flop at the box office. How do they do that? They check out the performance of movie title search terms in the weeks / months prior to the movie’s release.Mike’s Recommendation: Create a “buzz” index by measuring not just these search terms, but the amount of direct traffic coming into as direct traffic = brand awareness!
• Create a Secondary Research Library: if you really get into secondary research then get organized! With a tool like Microsoft Sharepoint or something similar, create a content grouping structure like the one below and any time you or your group find something interesting, drop it in!

• Create and USE Report Formatting Guidelines: spend a single day with your team and work out what the conventions will be for all reports that anyone generates. Get descriptive and include things like allowed colour palletes, fonts, layout and suggestions of where to use visual displays to support analysis.
• Blown Away By Tagging With Web Analytics? Use A Phased Approach: Don’t try to get everything when you first tag your site, sometimes it’s completely acceptable to go with a phased approach.Phase 1 – Get the basics: Get the analytics tracking code on all pages of your site. Even if your site is completely Flash based (see my post on tracking Flash-based sites), isn’t it better to have some data rather than nothing to make decisions? After all, putting just that basic tag on would still accurately report on unique visitors and visits, data you can use to make some informed decisions with!Phase 2 – Get Advanced: try to track your Flash content, message boards and podcastsPhase 3 – Get REALLY Advanced: tracking some of the more complex features on your site like AJAX applications

NEW Version of Google Analytics to be Released!

That’s right! A new version of Google Analytics is on its way (see their official announcement) and with it you can expect:

Internal Site Search Reporting

I should note before going on that Avinash has a great post on this.

What do you mean “Internal Site Search”?	“Internal Site Search” Report Example 1	“Internal Site Search” Report Example 2

The new version of Google Analytics will offer a full report suite for optimizing internal site search. From the pictures above (sorry for the quality), you can see that with this new version of Google you’ll be able to get metrics like: Visits with Search, Total Unique Searches, Results Pageviews per Search, Search Exit Rate, Search Refinements, Time After Search, Search Depth and more! Although all of these metrics are really useful, I’m probably most excited about “Time After Search” – I see this metric as one of the most important for answering that question as to whether or not site search is really providing your visitors with value. Now granted, the argument can always be made that higher time on site could actually mean that internal search has only sent your visitors lost and searching (ha…ha…ha….).I’ve contacted Google and signed up for the beta release of the new version so with any luck, I’ll have some great screenshots up shortly and more information around this.

Web 2.0 Event Tracking

Google is (I think) the first vendor to really think Web 2.0 tracking out (or at least give it a first stab). With a lot of foresight, Google’s seen that in this Web 2.0 world, measuring everything against a fundamental unit like the “page view” just doesn’t make any sense. So instead in Google’s model we’ll measure: Objects, Actions and Labels.

What will I use this Web 2.0 tracking for?	The Google Web 2.0 Tracking Hierarchy	What does Google mean by Objects, Actions and Labels?
A look at the code…	Web 2.0 Reports Example 1	Web 2.0 Reports Example 2
Web 2.0 Reports Example 3

With a few additional JavaScript calls in your Web 2.0 objects (be they AJAX, Flash or whatever), you’ll be able to measure these objects with much greater precision than before without incrementing your page view numbers!On any site this is incredibly important as with most analytics vendors right now any Web 2.0 tracking could end up in a greatly overly inflating your page view counts. Well when you go from 3.00 page views per visit to 10 page views per visit, how much of that activity is really true organic page views?!I really do commend Google on this one for at least taking a stab at this hierarchy and being the first vendor (that I’m aware of) to propose a complete Web 2.0 tracking model.

Outbound Link Tracking Without Tags

A feature that I’ve actually built into my Google Analytics Tag Generator tool (to be released shortly), the new version of Google analytics will offer the ability to track outbound links without adding to page view counts! A few other vendors have already implemented this type of thing but I’m really glad to see that Google has decided to do the same thing.And of course, on top of just tracking these outbound clicks differently, Google will provide a new report section around these activities.

What do you mean “Outbound Links”?	Outbound Link Reporting

New Optional JavaScript “ga.js” File

Of course the ability to track all of these wonderful new features requires an upgrade to the core JavaScript file that Google Analytics makes use of. So instead of updating the file that we all use (urchin.js), Google has opted to create their own JavaScript file (ga.js) which needs to be included in order to track the new features mentioned above: Outbound Links, Web 2.0 and Internal Search.If you choose not to upgrade your script, you will still be tracking your traffic, you just won’t have access to the new features. Also included with

Free Site Scans from Epic One

In a previous post, I provided a link to a tool developed by a young man that checks to ensure your site is properly tagged with Google Analytics. Google has now announced that with its new version, EpikOne will be providing a free tool that will validate your site for Google Analytics tags.The tool will crawl your entire site and search every single page looking for the Google Analytics tags in the source. At the end of the day you get a report that lets you know which pages aren’t tagged. Your site doesn’t use Google Analytics? No worries! The folks at Maxamine have a similar tool that does the trick of validating analytics tags and much, much more (it’ll validate your ad tags too!). Mike’s Suggestion: Make this tool a part of your process by including it in your QA process for every single site update. After all, what good is launching a single thing on your site if you can’t measure and assess its success?

Urchin Software From Google Now In Beta

Google has also announced that they’ll be offering Urchin Software from Google. An announcement that as I understand it many people have been waiting to hear from Google. Just a few points to summarize about the release:

• Software will be offered at $2,995 USD (sorry everyone, not free)
• Urchin Software will be provided free if you bought “advanced support”
• If you’ve paid for Urchin 5, every dollar that you’ve spent there can be applied to the new Urchin 6 offering
• The new offering will be sold and supported by Google Analytics Authorized Consultants

That’s it for now

There was a lot else that happened on day 2, but I’m going to break that down into separate posts over time…this one has taken a lot out of me!

Greetings everyone from Washington D.C.!

I’m very pleased to comment that the first day of the eMetrics summit has been a complete success (at least for myself). The day started off with a quick update on the Web Analytics Association presented by Richard Foley. Not a whole lot new here, just an update showcasing that the association is starting to grow into its own and that 2007 has been a year for a pretty dramatic increase in membership. A great metric to me demonstrating that web analytics is definitely starting to be a substantial interest in many organizations and one that they are willing to invest heavily in.

Before I move onto another huge point I’d like to draw attention to is…(and I really want to stress this):

eMetrics Is Coming To TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA!

You heard me correctly! After I’m sure many Canadians in the online industry trying to convince others of a thriving audience for an eMetrics summit, Jim Sterne has apparently heard us! The conference will be held in early April (1-3) in Toronto and will be composed of:

• 1 day Web Analytics Base Camp led by the Web Analytics Association – a great resource for all of you out there who still feel uncomfortable with the “big picture” of web analytics or even the terminology used by many of the tools
• 2 day eMetrics summit – I know I know, why do the other locations get three days? Well I guess I have to give it to them in that we have a smaller audience but even still!

This summit plans to be targeted to a broader audience out there as the analytics market in Canada is largely unknown and the WAA is trying to not be elitist and leave anyone out.

Keynote Address

Jim Sterne gave a great keynote address entitled “Think Different” (inspired by Avinash’s post and image (see right)). In truth, I didn’t actually take many notes during the key note but Jim largely addressed issues around what’s now being called “Web Analytics 2.0″. A term referring to the emphasis to go beyond evaluating site success on just clickstream data and an effort to try to get that 360 degree view of you visitors. Avinash does a much better job explaining the strategy in his post, so I’ll leave the rest to him.

Microsoft Gatineau Preview

I’m very happy to say that today I was part of the privilaged few that got to see the first public demonstration of Microsoft Gatineau. For those of you who are unaware, Gatineau is Microsoft’s answer to Google Analytics and will be provided as a free analytics tool for all to use (provided you have an adCenter account).

Overall, I really liked what I saw of their offering. In particular, the more advanced options they offer in terms of visually modeling clickstream data as well as visitor segmentation (made possible by tying in Live ID profiles), will differentiate them enough from Google Analytics to provide some companies with a reason to switch over.

Another nifty differentiator is a tool that Gatineau has built in that will automatically tag your site for you. The demo we saw today accesses your web server via FTP and then checks the files on your server for a closing </body> tag somewhere in the page. When it finds one, it simply inserts the Gatineau code and you’re done! Imagine that, even less IT involvement than ever before! Obviously this tool will have it’s flaws on CMS driven or dynamically generated content, but still a very neat offering from Ian Thomas and his team.

Breakaway Session #1: R.E.A.L. Reporting for the Real World

Presented by Jennifer Veesenmeyer, I found this session a bit to rudimentary for my tastes but I think a lot of people got value out of it. The session largely focused on extremely applicable tips-and-tricks in order to shorten the pain in everyone’s butt which is producing reports. On top of that, Jennifer also went into some real world ways of changes you can make to your reports in order to convey only the most important information in a organized and coherent manner.

Her second session in the day provided some great insights on not only shortcuts to producing highly effective reports, but suggestions on how to get management buy-in to those reports in order to make decisions.

Again, my only problem was just that I knew most of the tips and tricks discussed, but otherwise I thought it was a great session!

Breakaway Session #1: Rethink SEM / PPC Analysis: Ego Bidding, Cannibalization, Long Tail Exploitation and More

Finally I got to see Avinash Kaushik present in person and he is just as enthusiastic, fun and animated as I’ve seen him on any of his videos. As I told Jim Sterne, Avinash’s session today alone made eMetrics worth the investment in my opinion. Although I don’t want to go into too much detail, Avinash presented 6 things to think about when looking at SEM and PPC campaigns:

1. Measure bounce rate – when running SEM / PPC campaigns, don’t measure clickthroughs. A click is useless if, as Avinash states it, “they came, they puked, they left”. Although I’m in agreement with this completely, remember to go one step further. A low bounce rate on a campaign only implies that a visitor went > 1 page deep. Make sure to look at pageviews per visit and visit duration to make sure that you’re evaluating true measures of engagement and to an extent, satisfaction.
2. No more ego bidding – stop worrying about bidding for spot number one if that spot is producing the worst qualified traffic. What is qualified traffic? Like I mentioned above, qualified traffic can be defined as “sticky” traffic or traffic that completes the goals you have set out on your site. Use tools like Google Analytics to not only evaluate which positions are bringing in traffic, but bringing in qualified traffic (see below).
   
   In the images above, the image on the left demonstrates the “wrong way” to look at keyword bidding. Notice that position 1 brought in the most amount of visits but as the second image shows, the third position actually brought in the most qualified traffic with the highest pageviews per visit!
3. Search Traffic Cannibalization – before investing in PPC / SEM, realize the benefits of these methods versus organic search. In the PPC world, I purchase keywords that I know (or expect) my audience to be using and then based on which keyword, I can guide that user to the information I think is most relevant to them. This differs greatly from organic search that simply decides on its own what content on your site is most relevant to a visitor’s search. The reason we buy keywords is so that we can guide a visitor’s experience. Don’t buy a keyword that if I searched and clicked on an organic result, would drive me to the same spot on your site. In this case, you literally threw money down the drain in the form of results that organic search would’ve provided you with anyway!
4. Think Long Tail – Understand that 10 keywords drive probably 90% your traffic.
   
   In the chart above, the “long tail” is that long thin portion of your incredibly diverse keyword landscape. At the “head” of the graph are those top 10, usually brand related keywords that drive the majority of traffic to your site. But brand keywords = brand awareness. The “long tail” of your site is where the work needs to be done. This is the traffic that came to your site possibly having no prior awareness of your brand at all and these are the people you need to work the hardest on in order to persuade and convert them.
5. Experiment or go home! – Don’t guess at your SEM / PPC spend anymore. You’re spending a lot of money on these initiatives, make sure they’re working out for you!
6. Competitive Intelligence Rocks – compete.com can give you views of people you didn’t even know you were competing with for your keywords! Hitwise also offers a variety of tools (except as I found out today, no luck for Canadian data from hitwise…yet).

That’s it for today!

It isn’t that there isn’t more to write about form today but just that I’m tired and there’s so much more to go into tomorrow! I’ll try to do a recap post at the end of the summit for anything I’m missing now, but I hope that gives everyone some relevant information!