What is “classical” Web Analytics and why to we need it?

What the activity of Web Analytics

typically comprised of

Image Source: www.kaushik.net

The Data Collection Process

Need to track events on you website using Analytics such as

Your stakeholders are drowning in data, but need help understanding it – that’s now your job.

Start with the Virtuous Cycle of

Web Optimization

Evaluating Analytics implementations requires a clear set of questions

Tracking across Devices is challenging – often more heavily used at certain times of the day. Source: comScore Device Essentials, Monday 21st January 2013

http://practicalanalytics.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/analytics-case-study-schwan-foods/

The customer

of today is

complicated

and

distracted,

can be hard to

engage

Attribution Modeling –where is credit applied?

Attribution Models in Web Analytics

Getting “accurate” attribution models is challenging

http://www.therain

man.in/Cross_Med

ia_Attribution.html

Pathing

Fallout

Troubleshooting

Customers were expecting be reassured about site security and didn’t see this, so they mostly did not buy and left the site

Working with Stakeholders and Web Analytics Data –

..driving better results.

The ability to have Good Communication is Key to the successful deployment of Web Analytics in an enterprise

Ideal Analyst Scenario

•Analyst: “We can increase Page Views on our website by 5% by sending out a weekly newsletter just before content updates which, by my estimates, would increase our advertising revenues by about $200,000 per week.”

•Manager: “That’s sounds great! When can we implement your idea?”

Web Analytics works well mainly if/when your business is willing to make frequent changes to the website based on reports from the Analytics.

If not, Website Analytics (Web Analytics) is almost useless.

• The entire point of collected data with Web Analytics is to optimize.

• Are you making recommendations on how to improve your Web site or simply

just creating and sending reports to stakeholders with none of your own insight?

Make sure that you do the former.

My own KPI definition: What Your Business (or You) Actually Care About

KPIs are not always a conversion rate.

In the table, to the right, the sum of all

Purchases and the sum of all Cart Additions

can also be KPIs.

Sample: Success Events by Industry

• Retail: Product View, Checkout, Purchase

• Media: Subscription, Contest Sign-up, Page View, Video View

• Finance: Application Submission, Login, Self-Service Tools Usage

• Travel: Booking (purchase), Internal Campaign (click-through), Search (pricing itinerary)

• Telecommunications: Purchase, Leads, Self-Service Tools Usage

• High Tech: Whitepaper download, RFP, Form Completion, Support Requests

• Automotive: Lead Submission, Request a Quote, Brochure Download

Metrics Convergence

Metrics, Metrics and more Metrics

Two types of Metrics (these are classified differently depending on the platform)

Example: Which Pages are Working? Not?

Depending on how you want to define it (lets take “Bounce Rate” as a metric to follow”, Search Results seem to “bounce” less where as the Woman’s Merchandizing section of the site bounces the most.

Example: Which Pages get no traffic?

Fashion detail pages got very little traffic, but that may be due to the very specific styles offered on each page.

Example: Which areas in your intended paths are weak and see a lot of dropout?

We may need to do more to make our equipment page/s stand out.

Example: Which pages have high exits?

We may need to do more to make our equipment page/s stand out.

Example: Which products are selling and which are not?

This Adobe Site Catalyst instance does not have products defined.

We can segment Web Data to make it more actionable

Acting on Data once it’s been defined

Everyone needs a Plan – what's yours?

Goal(s): Audience:

Location: Timing :

Vehicle (how your going to do it): Venues (where your going to do it):

Message (Call(S) to Action):

Product / Service / Program

Metrics/KPI’s

among

through/ with

ask fans and customers to

Regarding our

Where Success will be judged by

Here’s a template to help visualize “Your Plan”

Begin the Analytics Planning by defining your Business Goals so they are clear

Then match those “business goals” to goals your organization can accomplish online

Finally, match Digital Initiatives to KPIs that are tied to specific reporting from your Analytics

The end product is a Digital Strategy and Action Plan to help your organization realize its goals.

Dashboards and why we need them (or not)

Dashboards help if they are set up properly

Reports have several options and often populate dashboards

Summary

We covered what Web Analytics is, what kind of questions it can answer and how to use define your key performance indicators in order to get answers from the Web Analytics system.

Additional Sources of Information

• Google Analytics Academy

• Adobe Training Services

• ComScore Academy

• Digital Analytics Association

• Direct Marketing Association