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Posted in just for fun
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Google Analytics Changes Time on Site Calculation (Again)
Google Analytics has (once again) changed their calulation of time on site reverting back to “the old way”. In the current calculation, time on site is calculated as total visit duration divided by all visits. Previously, time on site was total visit duration divided by (total visits – single-page visits) which in my opinion makes a lot more sense.
Single-page visits in Google Analytics are considered 0 second visits because Google Analytics (as well as most other vendors out there) needs at least two page views in a visit for it to even begin calculating that visit’s duration.
So by including single-page visits in this calculation, you’re effectively including visits that didn’t contribute anything to your numerator (total visit duration) and are therefore lowering your number of time on site.
Google claims they made the change because enough people demanded they “liked” the old way. What I think really happened here is that Google made a change, not enough people were informed and as a result a lot of people were a little ticked off with no explanation for a large change in this metric (one that many people use as a Key Performance Indicator)!
Posted in google analytics, news
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How to Optimize Your Marketing Spend
The word “marketing” isn’t usually one that’s synonymous with “accountability”. Now granted it definitely can’t be blamed on many marketers out there as many channels are either impossible to track accurately or would require overhead costs that would likely exceed their benefits. But marketing online is a different animal from anything that you’ll do in what may, by today’s terms, be deemed as traditional channels.
For instance, free tools now like Google Analytics can let you know that the Search Engine Marketing (SEM) campaign you’re running not only brought this many people to your site, but it also was responsible for 25% of sales or 10% of newsletter sign ups. In my opinion, not enough people give this kind of information the credit that it really deserves. As stated above, many marketers have to continually operate in the dark in their channels. If I run a television ad for a new product or service my company is offering and I see a modest increase in sales, of course I’ll go as far to assume that my ad did its job, but I don’t actually know how many people came due to my ad. With a website however, I can track almost anything and this article is dedicated to showing you how.
In some recent conversations with colleagues at work, I realized that people may not be aware of all the types of marketing activities you could potentially use a web analytics tool to evaluate so let me first provide a few ideas:
- Any (and I mean any) offline channel: TV, radio, print, direct mail, outdoor
- Online search engine marketing (cost-per-click) campaigns
- Online e-mail campaigns
- Nifty Web 2.0 features like RSS feeds, social networking sites and so on
From my Principles of Marketing book I have in front of me from undergrad, that actually covers just about everything (they list newspapers, television, direct mail, radio, magazines, outdoor, internet). What I hope this illustrates so far is that you potentially could be measuring the impact of virtually every activity you are currently devoting towards driving people to do something online. Why is this important? Because measuring the impact of every activity is the first step towards deciding how to better spend your marketing dollars to achieve the online outcomes that you want. Continue reading
Posted in coremetrics, google analytics, omniture, strategy, webtrends, webtrends sdc
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Microsoft Gatineau Screenshots Released!
It’s almost here folks! Microsoft’s answer to Google Analytics is just around the corner with screenshots being leaked out on the internet. Feel free to view the original post, or click on the screenshots below. Enjoy!
 A Pages Report (clearly still with some kinks by reporting 101% of visits to a single URL) |
 A process conversion funnel |
 Gatineau’s most powerful new feature, demographic segmentation using Live ID |
Just to make sure everyone got that mention, Gatineau’s current biggest differentiator is its ability to provide demographic segmentation information to your profile. Although I’m not positive yet, I’m guessing it accomplishes this by utilizing cookies that are automatically stored with users who sign into any service that uses Microsoft’s Live ID. So the incentive they’ll be pushing is increased use of Microsoft services (i.e. Hotmail) via Live ID and increased ad revenue with the same model that’s been successful for Google Analytics and its tie in with Adwords accounts.
In any case, I criticize, but we all know I’ll be one of the first people to have it installed on this site to see what it looks like .
Posted in microsoft gatineau, news
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Google Analytics Changes Time on Site Calculation
According to an iMedia post by Brandt Dainow, Google Analytics has modified their calculation of Average Time on Site. Brandt reports:
“Previously, the Average Time on Site had been calculated as the total time on site for all visits divided by the total number of visits. Both the total time on site and total number of visits included bounces.
As of July 20, 2007, we began reporting the Average Time on Site as the total time on site for all visits (excluding bounces) divided by the total number of visits (excluding bounces). This change also affected data from earlier dates, not just newer data.
Because bounces have been removed from this calculation, you may notice a significant increase in the average amount of time spent on your site. Please be assured that we have in no way changed your data, only the way that the Average Time on Site is being calculated.”
I found this an important post building on my previous article entitled “Web Analytics for Content Sites” in that one of my reccomended Key Performance Indicators was actually time on site! Make sure to be mindful of this development as you may be saying, “Hey! As of July 20, people started really loving the content we had!”, when unfortunately this may not be the case.
Posted in google analytics, news
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