This morning Webtrends announced their revised partner program and SwellPath is excited to be included. Our established expertise in implementing, customizing and consulting on Webtrends products puts on the same page as larger agencies like Razorfish and Ogilvy. We look forward to working with WebTrends as they continue to push innovation in marketing measurement and optimization. Read Webtrends press release on the agency partner program.
Archive for the ‘Analytics’ Category
Integrating Annotations into Google Analytics Reports
Fluctuations in website traffic can be caused by many factors. Some are intentional marketing campaigns or optimization efforts and others are “outside” influences like news articles or competitive marketing campaigns. I was recently asked to integrate some key events into trended campaign reports in Google Analytics. Instead of having to go back through emails, news releases and other sources to gather important dates that influenced the client’s site traffic we pulled the information from Google Annotations. You can incorporate any events, up o 160 characters, across all of your reports and add them as they are happening. Another nice feature is the ability to make them visible to everyone or private to your login.
Annotations offer several helpful advantages:
- Save time and effort searching for causes in data fluctuations
- Incorporating offline marketing efforts into your reporting
- Documenting key optimization dates
By utilizing the annotations feature, you can save valuable time digging through multiple reports trying to investigate the cause of a spike in traffic. Websites can change frequently with content and design as well as the various marketing campaigns and media buys that drive traffic to the site. The more data that you can incorporate into your annotations, the less time you will have to spend digging through reports or other sources to be able to explain major fluctuations in traffic.
Integrating the release of offline media campaigns into your annotations is a great way to bridge the gap of measuring offline marketing efforts through web analytics. Insert an annotation on the date that your print ad was distributed and see how it influenced site traffic even if you can’t specifically segment that traffic out.
As media campaigns run over time, your web analytics application is generating valuable data on the quality of that traffic. Certain ad campaigns will prove to be more successful than others and some campaigns simply need to be optimized to improve results. Annotations are a great way to mark specific dates of key optimization efforts. You may notice an upward trend in paid search conversion rates but and can easily attribute optimization to that change by referencing your annotations.
This powerful and easy to use feature in Google Analytics is often overlooked but can save valuable time and effort if it is utilized. Hopefully Google will continue to improve upon this feature by allowing you to group annotations by specific categories or allow you to insert an active link to a blog post or article directly into the annotation.
Swellpath Joins the Analysis Exchange
The Analysis Exchange was launched by Eric Peterson and Web Analytics Demystified as an opportunity to help grow the web analytics profession and offer career development opportunities to new web analytics professionals. The concept of the Analysis Exchange is to pair a web analytics student with a professional web analytics mentor and to work on a project for non-profits or NGOs. All parties benefit from the program and there is no monetary investment.
I held the student role when I completed the UBC Award of Achievement in Web Analytics program and now have the opportunity to provide mentorship to other students through the Analysis Exchange. The UBC program is excellent however there is a gap between learning the concepts, techniques and best practices and actually getting the opportunity to apply your knowledge in the business world. Companies are looking to hire analysts with professional experience and a track record of success so after completing the courses it is difficult to prove yourself as a new hire. The Analysis Exchange offers a way to bridge that gap and provide students with that next step towards a career in web analytics.
Swellpath Interactive signed up as a mentor for the Analysis Exchange and was paired with a student and local Portland non-profit, Schoolhouse Supplies. We collaborated with the student and Schoolhouse Supplies to define a project that was achievable to accomplish in the suggested 3 week time frame. Based on an assessment of the website and of the current configuration of their Google Analytics account, it was decided that the final deliverable would be to build a weekly KPI report. The report would then be built out into a PowerPoint deck to deliver on a weekly basis to Schoolhouse Supplies and include analysis of the data by the student. In our particular case, the student works for Schoolhouse Supplies so they will be able to continue the reporting after the project development work is over.
Some issues that came up during the project were mostly focused around technical and development resources available in-house for Schoolhouse Supplies and configuration issues with Google Analytics. These types of issues can occur in any business engagement as well so we just worked with the resources and functionality that we had. Schoolhouse Supplies was taking its first steps towards analytics reporting so any data they can pull and report on was a step in the right direction.
The student that we worked with was very responsive and timely as I set forth action items and deadlines to keep the project moving. The initial objective for the student was to define the goals of the website and then determine which of those goals were measurable within their current Google Analytics installation. From there we moved on to develop the framework of the KPI report and created an analytics tagging guideline document to address the issues where we weren’t collecting the data we needed. Fortunately, Schoolhouse Supplies has a developer on their Board of Directors to help with the tagging implementation. The final deliverable is a PowerPoint presentation where the student includes an overview of the weekly data, trended graphs of the data with the student’s analysis and a slide of recommendations and action items for the Schoolhouse Supplies key stakeholders.
After the project is completed, each party evaluates the performance of everyone’s efforts. Students will receive a score on their project work to help quantify their performance to help build their resume with real experience. Each party can then move on to join another project.
This has been a great program to get involved with and a great concept to help further the web analytics profession. Swellpath Interactive has been offering voluntary services to community non-profits over the years working with the United Way of the Columbia-Willamette and the Surfrider Foundation. The Analysis Exchange is another great program for Swellpath to partner with and we encourage other analytics professionals, agencies and students to get involved.
Portland Web Analytics Wednesday – May 2010
Just a quick post to let everyone know that we are sponsoring Web Analytics Wednesday next week with Webtrends. Bill Kent from Response Capture will be presenting on their landing page optimization techniques and findings. This should be a very interesting presentation for anyone with an interest in analytics, but also in general landing page optimization (you PPC folks, I’m looking at you). So please come out and have some free drinks and food and socialize with the local analytics community. Hope to see you there!
Early iPad Adoption Numbers from Google Analytics
It’s been 3 weeks since the iPad was released and initial the media frenzy has died down a bit, along with the digital marketing industry’s fascination with the device has subsided a bit. However, for those of us responsible for tracking the activity of visitors on “traditional” web sites, the captivation just is only beginning. Early questions amongst the SwellPath team revolved around how much iPad traffic we would see on our clients’ non-mobile sites, and what kind of engagement would iPad visitors exhibit? Beyond those, would we see different navigational behavior from iPad visitors, and different conversion rates?
SwellPath account coordinator Chris Sullivan dug into Google Analytics last week and pulled data for the first 2-weeks of the iPad’s life (4/3/2010 through 4/16/2010). Overall, the results weren’t mind-blowing, but it was interesting to compare the percentage of total visits that visited via iPads, and the number of pages per visit by these visitors.
Business-to-Business Sites
First, we compared 4 B2B sites that who have a majority (or all) of their customer base working in IT or technology related roles. Here are some highlights:
- For the 2-week period as a whole, .18% of visits came from an iPad
- The average of daily percentages rose from .18% in week 1, to .21% in week 2
- The total increase in iPad visits from week 1 to week 2 was 8.7%
- The average pages per visit for iPad visitors was 2.95, 16.1% less than the 3.52 average for all visits.
Business-to-Consumer Sites
Next up we looked at 3 B2C brands with ecommerce components of their sites. Here’s what we found from them:
- For the 2-week period, only .11% of visits from the iPad
- The average of daily percentages rose almost doubled from .08% in week 1 to .15% in week 2
- The total increase in iPad visits from week 1 to week 2 was about 116%
- The average pages per visit for iPad visitors was 9.28, only 1.35% less than the 9.41 average for all visits
Additional Findings
There are some other interesting findings, but the sampling of data is so small enough that we don’t want to put much weight on the things just yet. One of the major sources of iPad traffic to the B2B sites was news articles about the companies; without the press, the overall percentages would have been a bit lower. Along those lines, we don’t have clients focused entirely on media, but we have worked a bit with a magazine that caters to a more affluent younger customer base; about .22% of their traffic was from iPads. So, users seem to be initially using the iPad for media consumption, as expected.
More…
The data is a week old now, so I did a quick check in today to see how things were trending. I focused only on sites with at least 100,000 visits per month. The number of visits from iPads is definitely trending upward; rates vary between about 10% and as much as 18%.
How about as a percentage of mobile devices? Google Analytics lumps the iPad traffic in with other mobile devices, but I’m sure many would argue that the iPad isn’t really a mobile device. As a mobile device, it shows up in the top 5 mobile devices on most sites we looked at.
There obviously are some takeaways from this process, but still some unknowns and we have to remember we are working with a very small sampling of data. I plan on checking back in with this in a month or so, after we have a couple full months worth of data, and we can see the impact of the iPad with 3G.
Web Analytics Certification & Education
Web analytics education has an active been subject of my life in several ways in the last couple weeks, so I thought I’d throw together a post covering my thoughts on the subject, what I’ve been up to, and what others have been up. First up, I’m officially ramped up to be Webtrends go-to trainer for Webtrends for Marketing Professionals: Fundamentals I and Fundamentals II, as well as their new course in Advanced Analytics. I’m really excited about that last one because it covers essentials for aspiring expert analysts, gets into advanced use of Webtrends, spends a good bit of time covering how to sell-in analytics in your organization, and includes an actual certification. After getting reacquainted with the materials, I highly recommend these courses for Webtrends clients. A few days of training can have a major impact on the evolution of your analytics program, and the value any marketing professional can personally derive from having a strong understanding of web analytics.
I previously posted about how I had the pleasure of teaching a couple of lessons for Aaron Gray as part of a course he is teaching at Portland State University called Measuring & Optimizing Your Website. I already wrote a blog post on that, so I won’t say much more about it, other than the presentations are now up on the SwellPath SlideShare account. There is Getting Started with Google Analytics and Getting Started with Google Website Optimizer.
A couple weeks ago I also had the pleasure of talking to Greg Holiat who recently received the University of British Columbia Certificate of Achievement in Web Analytics. It was great to get a first hand account of the program, and how it had directly benefited him. I was impressed with how enthusiastic he was about the program, and his well-rounded knowledge of web analytics. Similarly, this week I was speaking with Dash Levine, who is taking the Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence course through the University of California – Irvine, and he had nothing but good things to say about the course.
Finally, the Web Analytics Association launched a new site this week, which (besides looking great) has a section now dedicated to the new WAA certification program. Greg Holiat is volunteering with WAA to help finalize the certification program, and he was giving me the details on it. I’m looking forward to seeing this become a standard for all practitioners in the industry.
There are some other programs and certifications out there (e.g. the Google Analytics Individual Qualification); so don’t consider this post all inclusive, and I encourage you to contact me if you need any more info on any this. I don’t entirely have a point here, other than how great it is to see all of this effort in the industry to educate and certify web analytics professionals. We have vendors, academic institutions, and industry organizations all stepping up. Obviously they all are going to focus on slightly different aspects of analytics and measurement, but the core intention is the same: to fill in the gap in knowledge that exists in the online marketing and business community about web analytics. I’d love our clients and partners at various interactive agencies take an interest in these offerings; a more educated “consumer” will really help analytics really move to “2.0″ and beyond.
Portland Business Journal Article Features SwellPath
SwellPath was mentioned in a recent Portland Business Journal article on web analytics. It was great to get our first mention in the PBJ, as we are avid readers, subscribers, and frequent many of PBJ’s great events. The article is a surface level look at the current state of the web analytics industry. The discussion we had with PBJ focused on how SwellPath helps clients make sense of the seemingly limitless reports available in enterprise analytics solutions. Phrases like “drowning in data” and “analysis paralysis” are more relevant than ever with ever-growing types of reports now available. With social measurement, mobile measurement, rich internet application measurement, and traditional analytics reporting, the need for the tpe of expertise SwellPath provides is more critical than ever for most organizations. It was great to see the Portland Business Journal recognize this and feature SwellPath in the discussion.
Measuring & Optimizing Your Website Course at Portland State University
Our good friend Aaron Gray is teaching a course at Portland State University, as part of their Digital Marketing Strategies Certificate program. The class is Measuring & Optimizing Your Website and takes place on 3 consecutive Fridays. I’ll be a guest on the second and third days to teach on a couple of topics: Implementing Google Analytics, and An Introduction to Google Website Optimizer.
Unfortunately the first session of the class has already started, but another session begins in May. The combination of Aaron’s background and this subject matter will truly make this a worthy endeavor for anyone interested in increasing their knowledge of analytics and optimization. It is great to see Portland State pushing these types of courses for those interested in careers in digital marketing.
Web Analytics Wednesday at eROI
Our friends at eROI are graciously hosting the first Portland Web Analytics Wednesday of 2010 on January 27th, and Adam will be giving a short presentation on real-time analytics. We will be on the 4th floor at eROI, which is located at 505 Northwest Couch Street. As always, everyone is welcome, from existing Web Analytics practitioners to those with even a passing interest in the field.
The event will begin roughly at 5:30pm, with drinks and snacks provided by eROI and SwellPath Interactive. There will be a short presentation by Adam Ware from SwellPath Interactive on options and applications for real-time analytics reporting. Several tracking platforms and tools will be covered, potential application of real-time reporting in various online marketing programs will be discussed, and then some short case-studies and examples will be presented.
The expected schedule is as follows:
5:30 – 6:30: Networking/Drinks/Snacks
6:30 – 7:00: Presentation by Adam Ware from SwellPath
7:00 – 8:00: Questions/Discussion/Networking
More information and please RSVP on Upcoming, and on the WAW website.
Looking forward to seeing you there!
Real-Time Analytics Solutions
Real-time web analytics reporting is more critical than ever for many organizations. It’s not realistic to wait 4 hours, or even 1 hour, to see how visitors are consuming fresh content, navigating new product sections, or generally browsing, on many sites. With the recent changes to Google’s search results, integrating real-time social media content, the transition from launch (or post, or release, or whatever) to tracking and refining, has been shortened even more. But even before the social media revolution, marketers have wanted to get real-time data when an email campaign is sent, a microsite is launched, their product is featured on Oprah, etc.
So how do you monitor your website in real-time? Omniture will provide you with some real-time data, likewise with WebTrends, but it isn’t complete. Google Analytics provides you with none (though I see this changing in 2010). So you need to employ a different analytics solution for this need. For enterprises, this might not be for your entire corporate site but maybe just your blogs. For smaller organizations, this may be something you want on your whole site. Regardless, here is a quick breakdown of three popular real-time web analytics offerings, and what I like about each of them.
Clicky
I’ve written about Clicky before as a low-cost analytics solution, and it is pretty cheap. You can get a base level package for just $9.99. We use Clicky on this site and we love it for its ability to breakdown the pathing that specific visitors took through our site. This can be done in real-time or historically. I literally can look at the Visitor report, see what organizations are on my site, and then see what paths they’ve taken, and what source brought them to the site. So, if your reading this shortly after I’ve posted it, I’m probably looking at your network (your ISP or organization name) of the corner of my eye on my extra monitor. If your with a Fortune 500 company, chances are I’m watching the path your taking through my site. Can you see the sales benefits we get from Clicky now? Deployment of Clicky is straightforward and it has some cool “event tracking” type capabilities that can be leveraged.
chartbeat
Admittedly, I’ve only been using chartbeat for about a week, but I really like it. The interface is a simple yet effective dashboard. Instead of looking at standard analytics metrics and reporting in real-time; it defines its own reports and metrics, ones that are more relevant to real-time needs. For example, page density and whether visitors are idle, reading, or writing (dependent on your CMS). It also integrates Twitter conversations and incoming links into the dashboard. Chartbeat also runs about $10 a month (for up to 5 sites) and has a 30 day trial for you to check the product out.
Woopra
I was a big fan of Woopra at first, but I don’t really use it as much as I used to. My biggest problem with the product was that it isn’t web-based, but required an installed application. That aside, it also has a great dashboard, and more comprehensive reporting. It also features the ability to chat with any visitor currently on your site. I haven’t employed that in a real business situation yet, but I have played around with it a bit. Most folks tend to think that Woopra is great for monitoring, and covers the same bases that chartbeat does, so if you’re looking for that type of solution it is worth checking out. Woopra has pricing plans from $5 a month up to $180, based on number of pageviews, so it seems more focused on pursuing larger customers. So if you’re enterprise level, it definitely is worth checking out.
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