Check out a post on the top measurement predictions for 2012 on the Critical Mass blog, Experience Matters.

Just so you don’t think I’m not blogging at all…

Check out these two blog posts on the Critical Mass blog, Experience Matters:

• 3 Web Measurement Problems Solved
• I know what you’re doing online

3 web measurement problems solved is based on a webinar I gave recently, and I know what you’re doing online talks about privacy.

Check them out!

In follow up to my recent post on measuring the un-measurable in web analytics, I believe there are three general approaches to being able to quantify the things that maybe aren’t as straight forward.

1. Make them measurable
2. Estimate
3. Change your measurement framework

Continue reading “Measure the ROI of Anything! Measuring the Un-Measurable Part II” »

Recently, a few social media companies like Syncapse (right here in Toronto) and Virtue presented some sophisticated studies about the value of a Facebook fan.

Pundits and critics jumped on them. While I have my own opinion about these studies in particular (I think that they are a necessary first step, and if nothing else at least kick started a discussion), what it really got me to thinking about is measuring things that are difficult to quantify.

Continue reading “Measuring the Un-Measurable” »

If you work on big websites like I do, you’ve probably already suffered from the painful condition called “techinosis”, who’s primary symptom is web analytics tags that simply vanish or break for no apparent reason.

This condition can often go undetected for weeks or months, and unfortunately it’s deadly for your data. During the post-mortem when you ask the Tech-heads what happened, they mumble something about “release branches” or “incorrectly pinned files”. No one in the room seems all that concerned, except for you. That is, until someone higher up doesn’t get a report because there is no data to report.

Since all I need to know about life I learned from Star Trek, my initial reaction is “If it can’t be fixed, just ask Scotty.”

Continue reading “Site Audits – Why does Tech keep breaking my tags?” »

I was asked at work recently to develop a dashboard that could be delivered in almost real time to an iPhone or an iPad for executives.

The thought of going through a development process to try to create an application to do this seemed daunting, and the Omniture Application takes too long to load. Executives don’t want to wait.

Enter Roambi. These folks have created an application that can link to various types of databases. Although their API isn’t open yet (and they don’t yet have any web analytics data connections), you can connect to an Excel sheet.

My plan went like this. I created an Excel sheet using the Omniture SiteCatalyst Excel Data Blocks. I then update the spreadsheet in the morning and upload the result to the Roambi website. This then gets downloaded to the the target iPhone / iPad connected to the same account.

Overall, it’s pretty slick. I’d love it if they created an open API so I wouldn’t have to update the sheets myself every day. However the presentation is pretty cool and you can set up multiple levels that can be drilled into with details.

Check out some screen shots. Edited and cropped for privacy reasons.

Copying over content from an old blog I wrote, it’s out of date, so don’t be alarmed

So, as time goes by I’ve found myself drawn to web analytics. I’ve worked with WebTrends, Omniture, Google Analytics and more.

What I’ve quickly realized is that while good SEO is important, driving visitors to your site will only accomplish one thing, more visitors to your site.

What’s really important is what they do when they get there. Are they the right people? If your website sells snow shovels, attracting a lot of Australian visitors to your website due to some great SEO work is probably not the most effective use of your time.

Web Analytics will allow you to identify that many of the visitors to your site are coming from Australia, and then leaving without buying a single shovel. Darn them! Your site stats show lots of visitors, but a high bounce rate and no additional sales conversions.

I, as a professional, am now moving beyond Web Analytics to Web Intelligence. This is the theory of combining web analytics (what’s happening on your website), voice of customer and customer experience management data (why and how), along with business intelligence data (really well defined who).

The “who” factor is critical for sophisticated marketing efforts. If you find that snow shovels actually sell very well to Australian who are 19-25 and have an interest in snow boarding, you can target marketing spend in a much more effective way by using media and message that speaks directly to them.

Web Intelligence, in theory, can link your web analytics to your other sources of data for far deeper insight into who your potential customers are and what they want.

It’s not easy, but it’s not impossible. It will require the work of web analysts, BI, IT and business stakeholders to make it work. Yes it will also likely require alterations to, or a brand new data warehouse that’s linked to your web analytics and your CRM or ERP.

The marketing power you’ll obtain will be well worth it though.

Copying this article over from my old SEO blog…

So you’re website has great presence on the search engine and is getting lots of hits. You’re conversion ratios are pretty good and your tracking everything using a web analytics program. How do you improve on something that’s already pretty darn good?

Establish a Continuous Improvement Process (CIP). It’s very easy to complete a search engine optimization program, or establish web analytics tracking for your site. If you don’t do anything with the information though, you’ve just wasted a lot of time and effort.

While it is the tendency for major websites to undergo massive full site redesigns, oftentimes these redesigns are based on instincts rather than facts. In addition to the risk that the instincts might be wrong, there is also no way to identify what particular aspects of the redesign were positive and which were negative.

Changes should be made in small stages and KPI’s that could be affected should be watched closely. This evolution will allow you and your web analyst to determine which changes are effective, and which are not. By following this process repeatedly, your websites performance will improve over time with little or no risk.

By following a CIP, every change or new feature can be analyzed and compared to it’s previous state to determine it’s impact. Did a new feature add value? Did a change to your order page make it better or worse? Did the change contribute positively towards the business goals of your website?

It is only through establishing this type of process that web analytics can measure success or failure as your website changes. By improving successes and eliminating failures, your website will constantly improve and contribute more strongly to your companies bottom line.

Copying this over from an old blog of mine, but relevant to this one

Ok, imagine you have a popular website for a large consumer products company. Now imagine you’re getting a LOT of calls to your call centre. Your call centre tells you that the number one reason why people call is a billing inquiry.

Yet, your website has plenty of information about billing, and people can even log in to view their bill plus explanations online. So why would people call when the information is right there?

Well, maybe the information is hard to find online. Or perhaps the contact page is too easy to find. Maybe people are just too lazy to look because it makes no difference to them whether they look online or just call you (except of course they might wait 15 minutes on hold because your call centre is so darn busy, which does not make for happy customers or happy call centre managers).

So what would you do? Bury the phone numbers deep in the website? Increase the visibility of the help section? Encourage people to view their bills online by giving them a monetary incentive to do so?

The answer? Well, there is no direct answer, but you can find out by using the power of… you guessed it…. web analytics! With proper tracking, you can find out how people find the contact page, how people interact with your help section, and track subscribers to your Ebill feature. Finding out what you really need to know won’t be completely simple, but at least you won’t be spending time, dollars and resources shooting in the dark.

If you intend to use your website to make money, you need web analytics. If you’re a large corporation that wants to make more money from your website, you REALLY need web analytics. Beyond numbers though, you need interpretation. Someone who is experienced in all things Web and preferably marketing as well can offer insight as to what the numbers really mean, and how to act on them. Page views and visitors while interesting on a certain level, will not help you make business decisions.