Search results matching tag 'Web Analytics'

Is the rush to embrace digital eclipsing the traditional?

2652554 — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:25:00 GMT

Digital digital digital – isn’t it wonderful?! With its power to engage, its speed, the huge choice and access it offers consumers and, not least, the vast opportunity it provides for marketers to get under the skin of prospects and customers like never before.

Well, a resounding ‘yes’ to all of the above and more. As marketers we must all learn to adopt and adapt to all things digital if we are to maintain currency, credibility and capability. Traditional DM agencies can no more afford not to have some kind of digital skills now than their above the line colleagues and, in the heady world of data in particular, digital’s role is rapidly moving from peripheral to central.

The richness and depth of the data that can be captured, analysed and manipulated takes us closer to real-time customer insight and understanding than ever before. Clickstream and web analytics are just a couple of the many tools now at our disposal to track consumer behaviour and preferences in minute detail. There seems to be daily coverage on some clever new way of using web, e mail and mobile data to better effect, eclipsing other channels in a frenzy of new technology-itis.

And at this point we need to sound a cautionary ‘But’. Yes, the speed of technological change in the digital channel is exponential and very, very exciting – of course, this brings its own challenges with almost instant obsolescence of the latest gadgets – but let’s not lose sight of the bigger picture. Data to drive consumer insight comes in all shapes and sizes – at campaign level, at channel level (including digital) and at customer and household level. Clever tools such as web analytics are excellent when well-used at campaign and channel level. The problem is that they only give a part of the picture, so whilst the digital channel and the data-rich benefits it brings are growing rapidly in importance, a little perspective can go a long way.

High streets may have suffered in the last few years but we still see millions of people browsing and shopping in-store every day of every week. Direct mail volumes may be dropping but there’s still plenty piled up waiting for us when we get back from holiday. Call centres are also still seeing a brisk trade for both sales and service, and for more complex, big ticket products (especially such as pensions and mortgages in the financial services market) many consumers still prefer the reassurance of dealing with someone face to face.

So digital, although growing very rapidly, is still only part of the whole channel mix. What’s more, most consumers will often use a mix of channels - sometimes over a sustained period of time – to make their purchase. Using data from all relevant channels and bringing it together at the customer level is where we get the real insight for improving communications and targeting.

So the value to be gained from data sourced from digital activity is enormous, but let’s not lose sight of the basic (and still valid) principles of what makes great direct marketing. By looking at the picture from the customer perspective the whole really does become greater than the sum of the parts.

Your Customer = Ruthless From Brighton

980070 — Tue, 27 May 2008 10:27:38 GMT

My brother said “I love the internet” to me at the weekend. He’s a civil servant, married with three kids, house by the sea and no business experience or interest in marketing whatsoever....

“I love surfing the internet. I love looking around, reading the news, checking up on things. I like getting bargains too. Searching for stuff, reading reviews and finding the best price. With three kids and a mortgage I have to go for the cheapest.”

A pretty normal guy with an average attention span, he just needs to find whatever he’s looking for, and this means getting in and out as quickly as possible. He doesn’t care about advertising, cares little for privacy or how computers or the internet works. For him it’s a wormhole, a window through which he can get Portsmouth football results, research campsites in the South of France and save money on tat so he can buy even more tat!

Jakob Nielsen, the usability expert, has been talking about his annual report showing we’re getting better at closing the gap between what internet users are trying to do, and what they actually succeed in doing on the web.

A report by the BBC on the research, cites users are getting more “ruthless and selfish” when they go online. 75% of tasks are successfully executed these days, compared with just 60% way back in 1999.

Because the internet’s been around for a while, users are more savvy, they know what they want or where they want to go. That’s why we all agree that search is becoming so navigational. We all have our favourite sites, but according to Nielsen, we want them to get straight to the point. Apparently we have little patience for widgets and engagement exercises.

This goes against the grain of the last couple of years, where site owners and marketers have been told it’s all about time on page, getting social and trying to impart messages whilst holding attention for the maximum amount of time.

When he says that businesses “still feel that their site is interesting and special and people will be happy about what they are throwing at them," I guess that’s because so many online marketers are still measuring success in terms of “hits” and “uniques”?

You can have a thousand visitors a day, but if all they do is bounce off your home page it doesn’t matter how many page views you’re reporting, you’re not engaging them properly for what they’re trying to do.

I remember when I was at 24/7 Search some years ago. A colleague sat opposite me couldn’t understand why my client had sold three times the amount of flowers, running up to Mother’s Day, as his. They were both blue-chip, household, high-street names, yet the advertiser whose search campaigns I was managing had by far the higher conversion rate. On analysis, his client sent customers through 3 more pages/steps in the purchase process and would recommend all sorts of weird and random products along the way. This simply served to annoy and alienate their customers, who just wanted to buy some flowers quickly for their mums, and get on with their work.

The fact that search fails a lot of users is nothing new, “when you watch people search we often find that people fail and do not get the results they were looking for.” Search engines know they provide links and not necessarily answers to queries, which are essentially the user asking a question. Technology is getting better at assessing user intent, but we’re some way off.

The report goes a long way to prove that we’ve got better at addressing users needs, but that it depends on what they’re trying to do. Engagement is still a good measure to assess effectiveness, as many sites have “push” or “read me” content which needs to be optimised.

But if my brother wants to buy something like a bathroom tap or a chopping board, there’s a balance to be struck between providing him with all he needs to make an informed decision, and making him sit through a video or suggesting he play some crazy game.

The web has had a huge effect on how we market products and services to the masses. If we put one foot wrong, users will vote with theirs and walk the other way. At least now we have the power to measure where they came from, what they did and where they went, so we can make better decisions about how we tackle them next time.

Hopefully then, they’ll be a little less ruthless!

Digital Twin Peaks

980070 — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:21:59 GMT

There are two "summits" going on this week in London that you should consider attending...

The eMetrics Marketing Optimisation Summit will be kicking off from 20-21st in Russell Square. If you enjoyed my posts from San Francisco then you'll know I've been totally absorbed by this way of looking at business metrics and web analytics.

The other conference is at the British Library and is all about International Search. Andy Atkins-Kruger leads the agenda which includes sessions on advertising in Asia, International content management & geolocalisation.

If you can get time off, do go along - you won't be disappointed!

Embracing Online Ecosytems

980070 — Tue, 13 May 2008 02:34:22 GMT

Having had a long weekend in the Olympic National Park to recover and ponder what I learned at the eMetrics Summit in San Francisco, this idea of the online ecosystem is becoming more and more what the future looks like becoming...

Currently we have different search networks (including contextual) and different display networks. But if what was talked about last week is true (that we don’t know enough about what goes on on our websites even though we spend so much time and money getting people there) then surely it’s a matter of time before we’ll be able to combine analytics, or “business success measurement”, with paid advertising models in order to auto-optimise sites and networks.

Mark Simpson was bang on a couple of weeks ago with his letter to Media Week: Buying Market Share Is No Way to Up Conversion Rates – I’m not getting into the Google trademark thing, but what Mark said about sites investing in more sophisticated site optimisation resonated well after 3 days listening to folks talk about analytics and optimisation and KEEP saying they have real trouble getting any serious endorsement and visibility higher up in their companies.

Automation and a more wholesome approach (combining multiple-media from fewer platforms) to web-marketing is not that far off. Business owners could do worse than start trying to understand what has traditionally been seen as a back-room reporting mechanism for “hits” and get ahead of the game.

Segment Or Die

980070 — Wed, 07 May 2008 16:52:06 GMT

Bit OTT I grant you, but these analytics fanatics I’m listening to over here in SFO are pretty passionate about what they do.....

The premise behind segmentation with web analytics is around grouping customers based on their behaviour. Once you understand why they behave the way they do you can do something about it.

So if a whole bunch of people are coming from a certain site and bouncing (not going further into your site or buying anything) you can do some analysis, change your strategy for them and then watch their behaviour change over time.

Alternatively ring-fence users who are converting well. They may come from a particular keyword in organic search, so it might be an idea to test variations of that keyword to see how you rank organically. If you don’t rank well, then try those words through PPC and get more sales.

Knowing who your customers are and how they behave is crucial to online success. Your customers are not sheep, they don’t all follow the route through your site you think they should. They don't always come through your homepage either.

By segmenting those behaviours, and understanding why they do what they do, you have the information you need to take action.

eBay's Approach To Analytics

980070 — Tue, 06 May 2008 22:00:45 GMT

eBay presented today at eMetrics on Improving Customer Experience – Some great content if a little poorly delivered...

In 1996 they had 41k users. Today their marketplace has grown to 276m sellers and buys worldwide. They have over one billion photos on their site, generate $2039 of sales per second and process 2 petabytes of data every day.

The premise behind the presentation was how they optimised the site for users through research. eBay is about people so they need to know who they are and what they need to do to find good value in the site afterall, 1.3m people make their living on the site. (Wonder how many of them pay ta!?)

The need to understand what motivates their users, what are their pain points and what are their challenges.

Their research/marketing teams do a lot of segmentation of users in order to drill down into the facts of what is going on on the site. They go much deeper than just buyers and sellers. They look at utility, usability, desirability and lastly the brand experience. They carry out the research in a number of different ways through lab testing, field visits, surveys and eye tracking.

They call it participatory design.

With lab testing, they watch people with different levels of experience. They’re very keen on watching what people do instead of what they SAY they do. Two very different things! The incredible thing is that they actually sketch whatever feature they’re looking at like a story board. Yes they actually draw it on a piece of paper before they do anything else!

The field visit idea was interesting too. They send staff into the homes of their users to watch them in their time and their environment. Talk about thorough! They take photos too. One of them was of a women holding a book standing on some bathroom scales.

For them it’s very much an end to end process of how, what and why. How does eBay fit into their lives? What can eBay do to address users issues?

They teamed up these small samples of research with online analytics in order to validate their assumptions and drive usability. One example of tabbing on the page used three different experiences which you could hardly spot the difference but it was impressive that they went to such lengths to get it just right.

Taking a really thorough approach really does work when it comes to design, usability and ultimately profitability. Too many sites are still being built because they look pretty or have whizz-bang features which have never been tried or tested. Striking a balance between innovation and ease of use is the holy grail.

Research and analytics can help you get there.

Tesco, DunnHumby & Digital Data

980070 — Mon, 05 May 2008 21:08:57 GMT

Rufus Evison, the new digital guy at dunnhumby spoke today at the eMetrics Summit in San Francisco on Deep Data Diving – Bringing Online & Offline Inline.

In the 45 minute slot he outlined a digital approach to analytics but with some offline examples, really making the audience think about how offline data can be used in the same way as we use it online.

Dunnhumby’s work with Tesco and the ClubCard is obviously a huge part of this. 13m people in the UK are on their list and if there are 26m households in the country, Tesco have an enormous amount of data to slice and dice.

Typically in the US coupon redemption is less than 1% but Tesco manages to convert 30-50% of coupons because they are so well targeted.

At a high level Rufus saw the analytics journey to financial nirvana as being a case of the flow between data, information and insight. The raw data, once we know the context, provides us with information and some robust analysis of the information with good controls, should in turn provide us with actionable insight.

The holy grail is seen as the achievement of three things:

Linking ad exposure to customer purchase behaviour
Understanding the effects of ALL advertising
Know what people are planning to buy

Once cracked, those achievements should be measured in financial return. In fact he went so far as to say that “E-Metrics is dead, it should be called business metrics!”

After all why are we doing all this analysis? To increase sales for the most part...

But we have to be careful which data we take notice of. Not all online campaign research should necessarily result in the thumbs up for digital. He gave a great example of how a $7m TV campaign had created a 13% uplift in sales because it had crossed over to YouTube and gained a bit of viral love. A relatively quiet press campaign for the same product earlier in the year, had cost just $1.7m but only seen a 9% uplift in sales.

When they digged deeper into the data, the TV/online campaign uplift was with existing customers, while the press campaign had generated new buyers, resulting in a much more valuable life-time value number.

Just goes to show that digital is only part of the media mix. It’s proving of great value but should be seen in context. It’s the data analysis that proves its value positively or negatively for any given campaign.

One privacy question sprang to mind so I asked it:

“Are the 13m ClubCard holders in the UK aware that Tesco rifles through their shopping baskets every week, knows an awful lot about them and targets the coupons in order to get them to come back and spend more?”

Rufus was quick to answer that, “Pretty much all of Tesco’s customers know or understand why they are getting sent relevant coupons?”

Really?

Anyway bit of trivia: When people start buying nappies, Tesco sees an uplift in sales of cans of beer too!

Any ideas why?

Banking Bank Holidays!

980070 — Mon, 05 May 2008 01:47:50 GMT

This'll be the second bank holiday this year I've missed through my dedication to the digital marketing industry....

One of the things that baffles me about Microsoft is the lack of holiday my US counterparts get. Ten or so days a year as official "vacation" is their lot, although they do get 8 more days for things like Thanksgiving and celebrating Columbus (the detective?)!

Anyway I'm out in San Francisco for the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit. It's all about Web Analytics and such like and should be interesting.

I'll let you know what I learn...

Brian Clifton's 1st Interview - Post Leaving Google Analytics

980070 — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 07:42:09 GMT

I've known Brian Clifton since we were asked to speak at the Reykjavik Internet Marketing Conference in Iceland in 2006.

Passionate, articulate and highly intelligent (well he has got a PHD!) Brian has done much for the online advertising industry, preaching the importance of the sometimes misunderstood and underutilised discipline we call web analytics.

Last Friday was Brian's last day as Head of Google Analytics in EMEA, and he's kindly agreed to this exclusive interview where he reflects on what he's achieved, why he's leaving and what he's going to do!

You joined Google in 2005 to "define, develop and lead Google Analytics into EMEA" – How successful do you think your team has been in spreading the word?

Web Analytics is a completely different industry now compared to then. It really is amazing how fast things have moved on. What used to be a niche industry with just a few thousand active participants (bloggers, event speakers, consultants, analysts etc.) has now become almost mainstream. That is, an integral part of online marketing with participants now in the millions world-wide. I think it is safe to say that Google has been the driver of this change with my team helping large European advertisers with their adoption.

I'm someone new to championing web analytics in the internet marketing community via the adCenter Analytics Blog – what's the secret to capturing website owner's imagination and persuading them that web analytics should be a critical part of their strategy?

Monetization. That is, the value that measurement can bring. I always use a couple of slides at the beginning of my presentations illustrating a theoretical before and after effect of increasing your conversion rate by 1 percent. It always gets the audiences attention and sets the scene for why website owners should invest in measurement.

Why does all that data make people's eyes glaze over? How can we make it easier for people to understand?

That's traditionally been a common complaint from a lot of web analytics users. Web visitor data can feel overwhelming simply because the volume is high after all it is so easy and inexpensive to collect.

The Google philosophy has always been one of "data democratisation". That is, unlocking tools from the exclusive realm of small specialist departments, and instead empowering all uses with data that they can hopefully contribute to the improvement of. After all, we are all web users, so we can all suggest improvements. Often the collected knowledge of the many can exceed that of the few available experts

Can you give us 3 top tips or things to look out for when analysing website traffic?

The single most important thing is to have a complete best practice implementation of your web analytics tool. Otherwise its "garbage in, garbage out". It never ceases to amaze how much money organisations are prepare to spend just on 'having' a tool and yet do not invest on installing it to its full potential - so that they can actually do something with the data.

With good, clean data coming in, start looking for engagement points on your website. Apart from goal conversion rates, time on site and bounce rates are excellent top level indicators of success, or not. These can be used as your benchmarks for improvement.

If you have a site search feature on your site (internal search engine), analyse the keywords used by your visitors. This can provide invaluable insight as to what your visitors actually want from you, so that you can determine whether this aligns with your marketing message. What's great about performing site search analysis is that visitors are using in their own terminology - it removes the guess work for marketers. It can also provide feedback for future product features - perhaps you were not aware that a significant proportion of visitors also want your specialist widget in metallic blue!

Today is your last day at Google – Why on earth are you leaving? It's not the falling share price is it?

LOL, remember I joined Google in 2005, post IPO! In fact the beauty of working with a product that is free, is that its given me the freedom to build a team of product experts rather than sales managers. That's a pretty unique position for anyone to be in and one that I feel immensely privileged to have been a part of.

Unfortunately that is also the caveat of being a manager - as your team grows you move further away from client interactions which is the part that most excites me. In fact, the vast majority of web content is made up of poorly optimised websites. By that I mean poorly optimised for visibility (visitors can't find you via the search engines) and poorly optimised for the user experience (leading to low conversion rates). These two are closely related and web analytics is the key to unlock the potential of both.

Therefore from April 7th, I am happy to announce that I will be the Senior Strategist for Omega Digital Media - the company I founded back in 1997 that specialises in search integration and conversion marketing. They have been an official analytics partner for Google for many years (that's how I got recruited by Google!), so the connection continues. I will be focusing my efforts on providing the service needed to help clients grow their business by making web analytics central to their strategy.

So your new book that you were plugging at Search Marketing World in Dublin last week, is it all about GA or can readers read the techniques and tips and apply them with other analytics solutions – like Microsoft adCenter Analytics for instance?

The book is entitled Advanced Web Metrics for Google Analytics, but is actually aimed at a broad audience - essentially anyone with an interest in making their web site successful. That includes website owners, marketers, web designers/developers, content creators, PR departments and all the various intermediaries. Its about measuring for success (the title of the first chapter) and applies best practice techniques on how to do so using Google Analytics.

There are of course some chapters specific to GA, but to be honest there is a great deal of feature parity out there among the various other vendors. So yes, it is possible to use the principals that I describe for any enterprise class analytics tool - including Microsoft's adCenter Analytics which I even use on my own blog.

Thanks Brian and good luck with the book and the new venture!

Accentuating Analytics

980070 — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 10:32:28 GMT

In NMA last week, Charlie Symmons from Accenture made a great point about the need to introduce more analysis and get better AT analytics, in order for agencies to keep achieving great results for their clients in an increasingly more digitised advertising environment.

Last week I went to Paris for Imagine 07 – an EMEA-wide Microsoft conference - which over 600 advertisers and agencies from the digital fraternity attended. Steve Ballmer, our enigmatic CEO, said he saw the $550bn advertising industry being totally digital in the future.....

Accenture’s survey of over 70 ad execs showed opinion locked on advertising becoming more performance based, and over 87% believing that analytics crucial for getting better results through more targeted campaigns.

In the Summer I was at Search Engine Strategies in San Jose, and blogged on the web analytics session which talked about a report called Web Analytics Demystified in June 2007 which stated 82% of those surveyed poorly understood analytics, and 56% found the whole process far too difficult and confusing to carry out.

Looks like there may be a gap to close here, and quickly. I sometimes get a little narked when advertisers complain they’re paying too much, or not getting great ROI and you look at their sites and they’re riddled with usability issues or not running any kind of analytics packages.

Google Analytics is free and so will Gatineau – Microsoft’s new web analytics tool – with analytics we can start building even better sites, make better advertising/targeting decisions, and ultimately work towards a better web.