Interactive Metrics, What You Really Need to Know

Interactive Metrics What You Really Need to

Know

June 18, 2009

Presented by:Maria Harrison

www.iclarityonline.com

http://www.iclarityonline.com/

Agenda• Introduction• Tracking vs. Analytics &

Analysis• What It Means to Be Average• Dashboards• Resources

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Introduction• Maria Harrison

– 12 year Internet industry veteran – Experience in online marketing strategies, online marketing plans, online

media buying plans, web site usability, email marketing, search engine marketing, web 2.0, affiliate marketing, social media and more.

– Previous Roles & Accomplishments: • Vice President of Marketing, The Laredo Group • Director of Online Marketing, Interval International, an InterActive Corp

(IAC) company• Interactive marketing consultant for IAC’s new business opportunity unit• Former President, South Florida Interactive Marketing Association and

founding board member• Founded and operated Key Promotions, Inc., a private web consulting

firm for clients such as Barbizon International Modeling, the National Cancer Health Institute, Lexus and others.

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Quote of The Day

Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count;

everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.

Albert Einstein

Tracking vs. Analytics & Analysis

• Website tracking refers to the act of archiving existing websites and tracking changes to the website over time. –Wikipedia.com

• Web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of internet data for purposes of understanding and optimizing web usage. There are two categories of web analytics; off-site and on-site web analytics. –Wikipedia.com


– Web analytics suites do the tracking and allow you to report on the data you’re tracking. Web analytics suites give you:

• Ways to slice and dice the data• Charts and graphs• Reports - aggregate your log file data• Examples of some popular ones:

– Google Analytics (It’s FREE!) – Omniture– Coremetrics– Webtrends– Etc.


• Knowing what to track and selecting the right tracking tools are NOT accomplishing ANALYSIS!

• Analysis is hard work. Analysis is hard work. Analysis is hard work. Analysis is hard work.


• Breaking it down– Tracking gives you data points such as:

• Hits• Visitors to site – unique and repeat• Average time on site• Referring sites• Bounce rate• Keywords• Pages visited within a site• Clickstream data

– Bounce Rate• Represents the percentage of initial visitors

to a site who "bounce" away to a different site, rather than continue on to other pages within the same site.

• Anything over 50% should scare you • Anything over 35% should be testing page

elements to lower it• Anything between 25-35% is OK• Anything under 25% is worth doing a back-

flip over!



• Goals - Before you start analysis, you need to understand your goals.

• Actionable Insights – If what you’re tracking, and what your web analytics suite is reporting on does not help you form actionable insights, you’re tracking the wrong thing OR you don’t understand how to use the data.


• Inclusive – Being inclusive when it comes to analytics means two things: – Not analyzing data that exists in silos– Not analyzing in silos – include your

stakeholders! – Classic Example of the former:


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Click Data

AnalysisWhat can we

learn from this data?


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Click Data

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Conversion Data

What it Means to Be Average

• Why Averages Are Like Dessert– Like a good dessert buffet, it’s very

tempting to use averages when talking about your web metrics.

– But averages are not always the answer.– Dive deeper, look beyond the surface.


• A quantity, rating, or the like that represents or approximates an arithmetic mean; a typical amount, rate, degree, etc.; norm. – Dictionary.com

• Aggregate averages are more or less, useless, especially for high volume trafficked sites.

• It’s lazy.


• So, what is one to do? Check out what every user is doing and give them each a separate path through the site to accommodate them?

• No. Segmentation is the answer.• Take all that rolled-up aggregate data that

you your web analytics tool spits out in it’s invariably pre-programmed, pre-defined report and segment it.

• Dig into your analytics suite and figure out its segmentation capabilities.


• Segmentation Example by Channel:



Hey! Now we can gain some real insights about visitors!

Dashboards• Why Use Dashboards

– Understand business performance– Track critical business data in an easy to

understand manner– Can vary by many factors: data

available, seniority in institution, etc. – Excel

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Dashboards• General concepts that should be

considered when creating your dashboard: – Benchmark & Segment

• Provide context for dashboard readers– For example: previous sales, industry

benchmarks, goals, etc.– Isolate Critical Few Metrics

• 10 metrics or LESS• Each has to have context• Each has to be further segmented

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Dashboards– Don’t Stop at Metrics—Include Insights

• Summarize• Recommended Next Steps• Opportunities/Missed Opportunities• Don’t make your executives think!

– The Power of a Single Page

– Evolution (and stay relevant) • Your business evolves• So should your dashboard

23*Avinash blog post, Five Rules for High Impact Dashboards, March2007

Dashboards• Google Analytics Dashboard

24Needs Context and A Summary!

Segmentation by Channel

Segmentation by Metric

Dashboards

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Benchmark by Date

Resources• Web Analytics Association

www.webanalyticsassociation.org

• Great article on ClickZ about what digital analysis is: www.clickz.com/3633924

• Avinash’s blog, author of Web Analytics: An Hour a Day www.kaushik.net/avinash/

http://www.webanalyticsassociation.org/

http://www.clickz.com/3633924

http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/

Shameless Self Promotion: University of San Francisco

www.usanfranonline.com

Masters Certificate in Internet Marketing

Integrated Online StrategiesSearch Engine Marketing &

UsabilityAdvanced Interactive MarketingWeb Analytics & Measurement

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http://www.usanfranonline.com/

Thank You

Want a copy of this presentation?

Go to http://iclarityonline.blogspot.com

Stay In Touch: Twitter: @iclarity

[email protected]

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http://iclarityonline.blogspot.com/

mailto:[email protected]

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Interactive Metrics, What You Really Need to Know