powering your presence on

the internet AIM: Measuring your online effort

Introduction to Web Analytics

Implementation: Tools

Ongoing Analysis Examples

– Traffic

– Site Efficiency

– Audience & Reporting

Additional Measurement Notes

Summary

What We’ll Cover

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Introduction to Web Introduction to Web AnalyticsAnalytics

Course DescriptionA bit about me…

President and Founder of Semphonic – one of the leading web analytics consultancies in the United States.

More than 10 years doing web analytics and helping companies measure online properties.

More than 20 years in statistical analysis, BI, and measurement.

Semphonic clients are primarily large enterprises. Focus is on industries that don’t have ecommerce conversion.

Clients: American Express, the BBC, Charles Schwab, Genentech, Intuit, Kohler, NCI, Nokia, Turner Broadcasting and many other top U.S. and global companies.

Frequent speaker at eMetrics, SMX, X Change, etc. and regular columnist on web analytics. Blog at http://semphonic.blogs.com/semangel/

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Course DescriptionWhat is Web Analytics?

What is Web Analytics?– Web Analytics is the study of how visitors on your web site actually behave.

What is it for?– Figuring out how to change your web site to make it better,– Understanding which marketing methods are working and which aren’t,– Finding better ways to use your web site and the online world in general,– Giving you insight into your readers, what they care about and what gets and

keeps them interested.

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Course DescriptionHow Does it Work?

Web Analytics tools track each and every page visited on your site. – These tools let you know everything that was done and the order in which

it was done on the web,– BUT – web analytic tools typically know ABSOLUTELY nothing about WHO

did these actions.

Therefore, Web Analytics is almost always focused on the behavior of visitors – not facts (like gender or age) about them.

Behavioral Analysis has three main components– Where visitors came from and how they arrived– What content they viewed– What they accomplished

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Sourcing Content Outcomes

• Your Campaigns• Search Engines

• Paid• Organic

• Directories• Partners• Linked Sites• Direct

• Pages Viewed• Site Areas Viewed• Path

• Engagement• Visits• Destinations• Interactions

• Commerce• Purchases• Baskets

How did they get here? What did they do? How did it work?

The Behavioral Trinity

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Web Analytics

• Web analytics is about relating Source and Content to Outcomes.

Key Concept

The Road to Excellence

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A process of measurement and incremental improvement provides the only reasonable and consistent path to excellence.

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Effective measurement requires a complete program and a continuing effort – not a single initiative or tool purchase - to be highly impactful.

Think About a Program

ImplementationImplementationVendor ProfilesVendor Profiles

Course DescriptionVendor Profile: Omniture

Type of Offering Tag-Based Analytics very robust Rich 3rd Party integration Current Market Leader Complex implementation

Appropriate For: Larger companies looking for the safest-bet in analytics. Combines solid reporting and analytics – strength in almost every area. Analytically inclined companies. Expensive & support is not considered good.

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www.omniture.com

Course DescriptionVendor Profile: Google Analytics

Type of Offering: Tag-Based Modest Reporting and Limited Analytics Low-range offering with easy implementation and very

attractive GUI.

Appropriate For: Modest web sites not requiring lots of vendor support. Sites that are limited in their analytic needs or heavily

focused on PPC. Companies new to web measurement.

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www.google.com/analytics/

Course DescriptionVendor Profile: Unica

Type of Offering: Tag-Based/Log-based/Mixed Good reporting and Analytic Capabilities Weak 3rd Party integration New from this company (acquired product) Very nice tagging scheme – easy implementation Weak distributed reporting

Appropriate For: Organizations wanting to keep data in-house Companies wanting open-access to DB data Companies blending analytics and marketing usage Sites without enormous volumes (eBay,AOL,Schwab)

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netinsight.unica.com/

Course DescriptionVendor Profile: Webtrends

Type of Offering: Tag-Based/Log-based/Mixed Good reporting and Analytic Capabilities Open Warehouse Structure Perception is negative – company is struggling in marketplace. Version issues.

Appropriate For: Organizations wanting to keep data in-house. Sites not requiring much Professional Services from the vendor.

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www.webtrends.com

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Web Analytics Tools

• There is no one “BEST” tool. Pick a tool that fits your real needs and budget.

Key Concept

Sample AnalyticsSample AnalyticsDriving TrafficDriving Traffic

Course DescriptionSEO: Finding Opportunities

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Tracking source by engine by site area using Omniture revealed areas that were significantly under-represented – both across all engines and with particular engines.. .

Measurement can help you find SEO opportunities and discipline an SEO program.

  Pages in GroupSearch Engine

Source Google % Yahoo % MSN %

Database Pages 6,210 81,534 78.0% 12.2% 0.5%

Index Page 1 8,037 40.9% 22.5% 20.5%

Overall Site 100,000+ 7,670,974 41.1% 32.8% 7.9%

Where should I focus SEO efforts?

Course DescriptionPPC: Organic Cannibalization

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We measured the difference in total SEM traffic between the PPC-on and PPC-off periods.

Study revealed significant (as much as 50%) cannibalization of organic traffic – correlated to both organic position and “brand” term.

  Light Period (PPC On) Dark Period

Search EnginesTotal SEM

Visits Paid Visits Organic Visits Organic % Cannibalization

Google 13,999 6,662 7,337 9,424 31%

Yahoo 6,926 3,052 3,874 5,191 43%

MSN 5,935 2,617 3,318 4,628 51%

AOL Search 1,199 770 429 582 20%

Client wanted to measure the impact of a long-standing PPC program on Organic Traffic. The PPC program went dark for a two-week period.

Should I buy these words?

Search Term Type% of Visits

Qualification1 Rate

Qualification2 Rate Drop-off

Type 1 Words 30.9% 12.2% 5.1% 58.4%Type 2 Words 36.6% 23.0% 10.7% 53.7%Type 3 Words 19.2% 53.4% 39.1% 26.7%Type 4 Words 13.4% 36.1% 20.4% 43.5%

Course DescriptionPPC: Optimizing to the Right Measures

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This client was optimizing by click-through – and shifting more and more dollars to key words that drove very poor customers. Almost 90% of visitors from Type 1 Words on this site “bounced” – meaning they left the site immediately.

What keywords actually produce?

Paying for many clicks (and SEO optimizations) is a total waste. Measuring the quality of visitors is the only way to understand what really works.

Course DescriptionPPC: Showing the Right Creative

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Optimizing Ad Creative by click-through is like a flipping a coin. You’ll be wrong half-the-time.

Ad Text is as important in qualifying visitors as search term. Measurement can help you find the truly optimal combinations.

Which Ad should I really use?

Google Ad Optimization versus Proxy Conversion Optimization

AdGroup Ad CTRConversion

Rate

% of time shown

by Google

A

3 0.49% 2.80% 35.46%

4 0.51% 1.72% 55.49%

B

2 0.31% 16.67% 1.01%

4 0.43% 0.42% 57.17%

C

3 0.05% 1.39% 46.04%

4 0.05% 3.39% 46.31%

D

3 0.30% 0.00% 32.41%

4 0.29% 5.56% 33.37%

F

3 0.37% 2.67% 14.03%

4 0.44% 1.46% 49.52%

5 0.47% 2.52% 17.82%

Sample AnalyticsSample AnalyticsImproving Site FunctionImproving Site Function

Functional Efficiency

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Do my Router pages get visitors where they need to go

Each type of page on your site can be measured with respect to it’s function. Comparing functional performance helps you target site improvements.

Functional Efficiency: Analysis

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Analysis helps guide what to put on the page, where to put it and how to understand its actual usage.

This page had significant real-estate devoted to useless purposes.

Can I eliminate a page or improve page real-estate usage?

Course DescriptionLead Optimization

This analysis identified places on the site where visitors clicked on lead-gen opportunities even without a strong driver. Adding more direct calls-to-action greatly enhances this behavior.

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When and where should I ask for a lead?

Course DescriptionInternal Search Optimization

On-Site (internal) Search is a critical component of actual site performance. But it’s analysis is complex because it routes to so many places.

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What do visitors search on and where do they go from search?

Course DescriptionInternal Search Optimization

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Part of this analysis identified site navigation options that were under-represented. Visitors had to search for some key options.

What is missing from my current navigation?

Sample AnalyticsSample AnalyticsReporting and AudienceReporting and Audience

Course DescriptionVoice of Customer (VOC)

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Online Survey data is illuminating in and of itself – and especially useful when integrated with behavioral data.

Here, it became clear that the more immediate the need the less effective the search tool.

What do customers really think about the site/features?

Course DescriptionIntelligent Reporting

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Part of online measurement is just describing what’s happening to your management.

Reporting should answer basic questions not raise them. Here, key changes are automatically identified and highlighted.

How do I tell management what happened?

Course DescriptionKnowing Your Audience

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Visitor Segmentation can use web site and online survey data to build powerful, interesting profiles that can help you market more effectively.

This is especially useful in driving direct response messaging.

Who really uses my web site?

Some Additional Some Additional Measurement NotesMeasurement Notes

Campaign Measurement– Make sure you code each online campaign distinctly (especially PPC)– Make sure you track campaigns at the appropriate level (AdGroup/Keyword

not Engine)– Track SEO as a campaign – concentrate on quantity and quality of traffic not

position

Lead Generation– Use site-specific phone numbers. Use multiple phone numbers for each

possible contact point– Always measure lead quality – even if it’s anecdotal– Make sure you carry through a lead-code in all your online measurement.

Measurement Notes

SummarySummary

How important is web analytics to you?– It’s a function of how important the web site is.– You can’t have a great website without analytics but you can have a

satisfactory one.

How to get started– Think about your organization, culture and knowledge– Choose a tool / resource direction that is realistic– Take the time to build a roadmap of what you want to accomplish

What you should worry about– Getting People is hard– Web Analytics won’t happen without both Tool & Resources– Have a plan – don’t just get a tool. Figure out what you want to analyze and

why.

Summary

• Bringing over twenty years of experience in decision support, CRM, and software development, Gary co-founded Semphonic and is President and Chief Technology Officer. He's responsible for leading Semphonic's development of Web analytics services and analysis. In addition, he helps companies like Morgan Stanley, WebMD, O’Reilly Publishing, Care2, Turner Broadcasting, Readers Digest, National Geographic, Intuit, Nokia, American Express and Charles Schwab maximize their web channel marketing through intelligent use of Enterprise Web Analytics.

• Gary is a regular columnist on ADOTAS and has published articles on Web and SEM Analytics in DM News, American Demographics, CRM Guru, CRM Buyer, IMediaConnection, Business Geographics, WebProNews, Targeted Marketing, BtoB Guide and Business Insurance. He graduated, with honors, from Duke University and lives in San Francisco with his wife and two young girls.

• 415 493-2582• gangel@semphonic.com• Blog: http://semphonic.blogs.com/semangel/• http://www.semphonic.com

About Gary Angel