Web Analytics

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  SemAngel

• Getting Engaged

  SEMangel

  6 Feb 2010 | 11:02 am

  I thoroughly enjoyed this past week at the WebTrends Engage 2010 Conference – enjoyed it for both the right and wrong reasons (note to wife – I don’t mean really, really wrong reasons)!Let’s start with the wrong reasons. I know we aren’t supposed to go to conferences to enjoy the city, the accommodations or the parties but, of course, we do. New Orleans was an inspired choice for location. It’s a city most of us never get to visit for business; it’s distinct – like no other city on earth – and it’s fun. You fly into Louis Armstrong Airport and right there it’s different…

• Tactics in Web Analytics Visitor Segmentation

  SEMangel

  31 Jan 2010 | 2:25 pm

  Time-Based SegmentationSegmentation is at the heart of most real analysis – and in this series I’m focusing on analytic segmentation – not segmentation for reporting. In the last post, I showed how we used segmentation to create a control group to measure the impact of particular content and tool areas on a publisher’s site. In today’s post, I’m going to show how segmentation can be used to measure the before vs. after behavior of visitors for key events on the site.Before I go there, another reminder about the upcoming Semphonic 2010 Vision of Web Analytics webinar. Due to a…

• WebTrends Engage and Visitor Segmentation

  SEMangel

  24 Jan 2010 | 3:29 pm

  Conference season is getting into high gear and WebTrends Engage 2010 is the first big conference of the year. Engage is a pretty cool conference and I’m going to be there on a panel talking about visitor segmentation. I don’t know if it’s cause/effect or just happenstance, but it’s always nice to be talking about something I’ve been writing on. The WebTrends Conference – rather like the company – has gone through a pretty dramatic and positive transformation in the last couple years. If I were to say that they ripped off some the concepts we pioneered in X Change, I wouldn’t…

• Tactics in Web Analytics Visitor Segmentation

  SEMangel

  20 Jan 2010 | 10:39 pm

  Using Discover to Test Site Area PerformanceSegmentation is at the heart of most real analysis – and in this series I’m focusing on analytic segmentation. In the last post, I showed how we used segmentation to isolate both geographic and multi-visit search behavior. Today, I’m going to show how we used segmentation to understand the impact of particular content and tool areas on a publisher’s site and decide whether or not the tool should be emphasized in navigation for some or all types of visitors. Before I start, however, I wanted to mention two upcoming Semphonic events. We are…

• A Belated Christmas Gift for Semphonic: Greg Dowling former Head of Analysis at Nokia joins Semphonic

  SEMangel

  11 Jan 2010 | 7:00 am

  January 4th is a tough day to go back to work. Semphonic closes for the week between Christmas and New Years and while I don’t exactly stop working I do take it quite a bit easier – especially on the alarm clock front. But this year there was a nice, belated stocking stuffer for all of us at Semphonic– Greg Dowling started his new life as a Semphonic VP, Head of New York Office and unofficial leader of our Mobile Practice. This is a huge step forward for our practice and it made rolling out of bed in the January dark quite a bit easier! We started the New Year with several days of all…

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  Digital Alex by Alex L. Cohen

• Keyword Research Beyond the Ordinary at SMX West

  DigitalAlex

  25 Jan 2010 | 5:30 am

  I’m very excited to announce that I’ll be speaking at SMX West this year. I’m on the Keyword Research: Beyond the Ordinary Panel with a distinguished group (see below). Stop by on day 1 at 3:00 to hear me speak or say hello in the expo hall where I’ll be manning the ClickEquations booth. Register for SMX today to get the discounted rate with the code smx10click Here’s a preview from a ClickEquations webinar, Master Search Queries to Save Money and Increase Conversions. You can also check out this search query article. Keyword Research: Beyond The Ordinary –…

• The State of Search Analytics

  DigitalAlex

  18 Jan 2010 | 6:52 pm

  This post originally appeared on Search Engine Watch, where I will be a (semi-regular) contributor You can’t make money in web analytics just by looking at reports.” With that, SES Advisor and New York Times bestselling author Bryan Eisenberg set the stage for the state of analysis in search marketing. As budgets flow from offline to online, they’re moving disproportionately to search. Search has always excelled at accountability, but as the spend increases the bar is being raised. We all have and know what web analytics are. Data quantity isn’t the issue, action…

• Predictive Analytics 101: An Interview with Eric Siegel, PhD

  DigitalAlex

  30 Aug 2009 | 8:19 pm

  Actionable analysis is hot topic in the web analytics community. But how much analysis looks forward instead of backward? That’s the realm of predictive analytics, a little covered topic in the measurement community. I interviewed Dr. Eric Siegel, President of Prediction Impact, to introduce the topic, explain its role in search marketing and talk about the upcoming Predictive Analytics World conference (PS: use the exclusive discount code ALEXCODC09 to get 15% off a 2 day pass) Can You Briefly Define Predictive Analytics? Predictive analytics is business intelligence technology that…

• The MBA Guide to Search Marketing

  DigitalAlex

  22 Aug 2009 | 8:53 pm

  Budgets are moving online and moving to search marketing faster than any other channel. Today’s MBA’s need to understand what paid and organic search are and how they fit into the marketing mix. This presentation discussed the channels conceptually and gives practical tips to use them. View more presentations from Alex Cohen. Here are the resources and links from my presentation ClickEquations – http://www.clickequations.com My Twitter account – http://www.twitter.com/digitalalex LinkedIn – http://www.linkedin.com/in/alexcohen Cornell University eyetracking study…

• I No Longer Work at Commerce360

  DigitalAlex

  11 Apr 2009 | 10:59 pm

  By WTL Photos - http://www.flickr.com/photos/wtlphotos/ I’m happy to report that I no longer work at Commerce360.  I had a good time while it lasted, but it was time for something different. And that something different is ClickEquations.  We’ve re-branded Commerce360 as ClickEquations to focus on our advanced pay per click software.  (Sorry, it was a little late for April Fool’s but I needed a dramatic intro :-) ) This is a bit of a personal post, which I almost never do, but worth reading if you care about paid search. A Trip Down Memory Lane Back in 2007, I left…

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  Webanalyticsbook - Web Analytics

• Userfly Demo Video

  admin

  26 Jan 2010 | 1:42 pm

  I haven’t really followed Userfly lately. However, it is still  one of the most interesting analytics companies out there.  Sometimes I wonder why G Analytics or any other vendor never looked into a great service like that.  The video analysis is very useful for usability issues or in order to get a basic understanding of user behavior. Here a good video describing their service:

• Financial Analytics

  admin

  19 Jan 2010 | 6:22 pm

  My obsession with analytics software is probably obvious (if you’ve read here a little bit). Since I always try to come up with new ways of doing things and getting new ideas,  I had a look at a wide variety of products, including more than 200+ web analytics solutions. However…sometimes it makes sense to look beyond e.g. at other industries. Recently I’ve checked out a few financial analytics software products. Most of them are high-end business intelligent software and I really liked what they are offering and I am sure some web analytics vendors can learn from them:…

• Analytics Annotations

  admin

  7 Dec 2009 | 7:22 pm

  Pretty interesting feature added to Google Analytics. Seemed like someone read my blog, when a few months back I posted about the key events graph, which basically showed what G Analytics annotations is about. Check it out:

• Music Analytics

  admin

  3 Dec 2009 | 8:16 pm

  While everybody goes crazy with Twitter Analytics it’s interesting to look at other stuff: Nextbigsound.com is a music analytics system aka actionable intelligence for the music industry. Nextbigsounds measures plays, fans on Facebook, Myspace or Last FM and even shows comments.Pretty nice idea…especially since the music industry trends are more and more happening on the web and numbers such as fans or comments can barely be faked (unlike fake CD buys )

• Keyword Visualization

  admin

  19 Nov 2009 | 6:03 pm

  Pretty cool use of the Google API. A Keyword tree visualization with the most frequently used seach keywords and how are they used together. Well done juice Analytics HD Video Website in Greenville SC – Everything Greenville in HD

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  Web Analytics, Behavioral Targeting and Optimization Consulting

• Significance of Statistically Significant Results in A/B Testing

  2 Feb 2010 | 2:17 pm

  You are running an A/B test (or multivariate test) but are in a hurry to make a decision to pick the winning page. Should you pick a winner based on initial few days of the data before your tool has actually declared a clear winner? This question comes up quite often during the conversations with the clients. I always warn against such an approach and advice to be patient and get statistically significant results before pulling a plug on an underperforming variation o declaring a winner. I wanted to share few graphs with you to illustrate my point.The following example is from a test…

• Is Your Conversion Rate Wrong?

  22 Jan 2010 | 3:36 pm

  According to Web Analytics Association (WAA) standard definition, a conversion is a visitor completing a target action. Conversion rate is calculated by total number of visitors completing a target actions divided by a “relevant denominator” (Sometimes it is total number of target actions divided by a “relevant denominator).The key here is “relevant denominator”. This is often ignored by many organization and they tend to use the default denominator provided by their Web Analytics tool provides. The most common denominator used by most of the tools is either total visits or total…

• Bounce Rate: All That Bounces is Not Bad - Part II

  7 Jan 2010 | 11:53 pm

  Most likely, you have all heard that high bounce rates are bad. Some people even believe that bounce rate affects your sites search engine rankings. Meaning higher bounce rate is bad for your organic rankings. I am not sure if that actually is true or not but it does show you that most analysts consider high bounce rates as a negative indicator of a site’s health. Are high bounce rates really bad? Generally they are but you have to consider the other factors and put everything in context before you can come to that conclusion. In my post “All that bounces is not Bad”, I showed you that…

• Predictions 2010: Web Analytics, Social Media and Digital Marketing

  4 Jan 2010 | 10:37 pm

  This is the time of the year to make few predictions for 2010. Here are my 5 predictions for Web Analytics, Social Media and Digital Marketing. Website Testing – What’s the point of creating a cool looking site that does not engage or covert the customers? Website Testing (A/B and Multivariate testing) is the key to those conversions, Website Testing won’t be optional in 2010. Website testing will become an essential part of website design and development. Website designs will make it easier to change the elements of page and hence make it easier to test them. Jobs in A/B and…

• Are Form Validations Invalidating Your Conversions?

  16 Dec 2009 | 5:34 pm

  Form validations are a great way to ensure that the data you collect from your users is clean and in the right format. However form validations can also frequently lead to lost conversions. CAPTCHA is one such type of validation. Some validation put unnecessary formatting burden on your customer/visitor leading them to abandon your forms and go to your competitors. A lot of data formatting can be done via client side JavaScript or backend processing without putting the customer through a lot of pain. I am not suggesting to remove all required data and data formatting requirement, all I am…

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  Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik

• Analysis Ninjas: Leverage Custom Reports For Better Insights!

  Avinash Kaushik

  1 Feb 2010 | 2:01 am

  Here is a key difference between Reporting Squirrels and Analysis Ninjas: The latter almost exclusively leverage custom reports (powered by advanced segmentation) and the former flirt with one standard report and then another and then other and in the best case scenario pull only half of their hair out.There is nothing particularly wrong with the standard 19,000 reports in your web analytics tool. But they do represent the Vendor’s best guess about what you should look at. Sometimes they even get it right.Most of the time though your business is absolutely unique (even as it exists…

• Dear Avinash: Search / SEO Metrics & Analytics Questions + Answers

  Avinash Kaushik

  20 Jan 2010 | 12:47 am

  How do you measure success of a online webinar?I recently did a webinar for the Search Engine Strategies conference (I am doing the opening conference keynote at SES London and SES New York) and my Market Motive co-faculty member Greg Jarboe sent me this KPI via email:“Your webcast was a big success. Your KPI questions per attendee was off the chart!”I don’t know why I had not thought of this wonderful KPI. So much better than # of attendees.As always though context is king.It could be a good thing (“you were great, engaged the audience”) or a not such a good…

• Five Sweet Web Analytics Resolutions To Kick It Up A Notch

  Avinash Kaushik

  6 Jan 2010 | 1:13 am

  The new year is such a wonderful time. Wonderful smells in the air. The world is full of hope. Unachievable things seem achievable and are being polished into shiny resolutions. World peace seems within grasp.As we spring to action full of passion I wanted to share with you all a short list of things that will expand your little world of online marketing & web analytics.We all have a tendency of getting caught in a rut, using the same tool to do the same things and spew forth the same data. Change is hard, even if we know that we should be executing a multiplicity strategy to win in the…

• Analysis Ninjas: Move Beyond The Top Ten. Find Love (/Insights).

  Avinash Kaushik

  21 Dec 2009 | 4:31 am

  You know what is the one thing stopping you from finding truly actionable insights from your web data?Web analytics gems lie deep in the data and we spend our lives looking at the top ten rows of data.It does not matter which report you look at. Affiliates. Products sold. Referring URL’s. Pages viewed. Search keywords. Promotions. Geographies. Really pick any report with any dimension you want to look at, we spend our time (and valuable space on our dashboards) looking at the top ten.We look at the top ten rows of data because:1. Too much data from our web analytics tools.2. Lack of…

• Who Owns Web Analytics? A Framework For Critical Thinking.

  Avinash Kaushik

  9 Dec 2009 | 1:30 am

  It is rare for me to work with a organization where the root cause for their faith based decision making (rather than data driven) was not the org structure.It is almost never tools. Not any more.Surprisingly it is often not their will to use data, that is there in many cases.Sometimes it is that they don’t follow the 10/90 rule.It is always the organization structure.Specifically: Who owns web analytics / who it reports to from a org structure perspective.[Let me hasten to add that this, web analytics ownership, does not exist in a vacuum. If your overall web business is misaligned…

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  Web Analytics Demystified

• Flash Cookies and Consumer Privacy

  eric

  5 Feb 2010 | 10:12 am

  Update: I should apologize to Adobe since I knew they had written to the FTC but didn’t mention it when I originally published this post. If you’re interested in this topic you should definitely download and read Adobe’s letter to the Secretary of the FTC regarding the use of Flash Local Shared Objects to re-spawn cookies. They cite my BPA white paper and do a great job outlining the company’s position on this particular use of their technology. I am writing to Adobe now to see if I can get someone on the phone to discuss in greater depth but if you know anyone there…

• Welcome to Web Analytics Demystified 2.0

  eric

  18 Jan 2010 | 11:31 pm

  By now you’ve noticed that we’ve completely re-done the Web Analytics Demystified web site, that is unless you only ever read my posts in an RSS reader in which case I would ask you to click-through and have a look. The new site is the culmination of nearly a year’s effort starting with convincing my good friend Aurelie Pols to join the Web Analytics Demystified and, more recently, convincing my other good friend John Lovett to leave his cushy job at Forrester Research to join Aurelie and I. Hopefully you find the new site more streamlined, easier to read, and a little more…

• The Most Important Post on Web Analytics You’ll Ever Read

  eric

  22 Dec 2009 | 5:16 pm

  When John Lovett joined Aurelie and I here at Web Analytics Demystified earlier this month an awful lot of people said, “Hey, nice job getting such nice guy on board,” “We love John, he’s great,” and “Man, what a great addition to your team!” Clearly John has the respect of the industry, but one thing that remained an open question in some people’s minds was “how will John make the transition from the ivory tower an analyst sits in to the ground floor where consultants actually do work?” I admit, I wondered that too in a way, having…

• Amazing response to The Analysis Exchange

  eric

  17 Dec 2009 | 8:17 pm

  UPDATE: The compliments and willingness to help just keep coming in.  Members of the Web Analytics Association Board of Directors, entire staffs from consulting groups around the globe, and too many individual students and practitioners to possibly mention. Thanks so much everyone! Wow. Wow. Wow. I am at a total loss for words when it comes to the response from the web analytics community regarding our soft-launch for The Analysis Exchange on Tuesday.  We’ve had over 250 people, largely from within the measurement community, sign up to participate and have seen the nicest emails…

• Announcing The Analysis Exchange

  eric

  15 Dec 2009 | 3:30 pm

  A few weeks ago I started pinging folks within the digital measurement community asking about the work we do, the challenges we face, and how we got where we are today. The responses I got were all tremendously positive and showed a true commitment to web analytics across vendor, consultant, and end-user practitioner roles. What I learned was, well, exactly what I expected given my decade-plus in the sector: “web analytics” is still a relatively immature industry, one populated by diverse opinions, experiences, and backgrounds. Those of you who have been following my work know…

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  Analytics Notes

• Emetrics Toronto

  Jacques Warren

  30 Jan 2010 | 4:54 pm

  Since time flies by so quickly, as the song says, Emetrics Toronto will be here soon. I guess I should say that if you’re Canadian and interested in digital Marketing optimization, you should absolutely attend. Heck even if you’re not Canadian! So, you register here. And know what? You use this code and you’ll get 15% off! JWARREN15   Pretty darn simple, isn’t it?   So, when you’re there, make sure you come shake my hand, and tell me how miserable your life would be without web analytics.   And make sure to attend the last panel (no early flight…

• Oh! You Old Fart!

  Jacques Warren

  12 Jan 2010 | 5:45 pm

  I’m turning 47 next week. I used to laugh (in my head of course) at my parents and grand-parents when they told me they felt so much younger than their age. Yeah right! Well they were… right I mean. I’m still 16 between the ears. You start noticing you’re getting old through little details: your hands change, your bones hurt a little, your digestion is not so good when you eat fatty food, nobody thinks you’re 40 anymore, and you have difficulty accepting change. The last one is the worst I think. Well, I just took my beloved Web Analytics Association…

• Semphonic + 1

  Jacques Warren

  10 Jan 2010 | 6:16 pm

  Just heard from the channel Semphonic, the Web Analytics agency located in San Francisco, is announcing the hiring of Greg Dowling, former Head of Analysis at Nokia, to lead its New York office as Vice President, focusing on mobile analytics. Here’s an excerpt from the press release: “Dowling comes to Semphonic from Nokia, where he served as the company’s Head of Analysis. At Nokia, he built an enterprise wide online measurement team that integrated customer and online data from mobile and fixed web for all of Nokia’s services. Prior to joining Nokia, Greg was Vice…

• In the Flesh

  Jacques Warren

  4 Jan 2010 | 5:32 am

  I don’t know everything I’ll be doing in 2010 yet, but my participation to two events is already confirmed. First, I’ll be on a panel with Gary Angel, Jim Novo, and Kevin Hillstrom, big guns of Digital Marketing Analytics, at WebTrends Engage10 in New Orleans, February 1 – 4. Judging from the speaker line up, and the opportunities to mingle between sessions (which should not be neglected!), you should definitely register! Second, I’ll be on another panel with again Jim Novo (yeah, I know, there’s been a pattern here for some time), John Lovett (who now…

• Interview With Jennifer Wilson - Senior Product Manager Webtrends

  Jacques Warren

  21 Nov 2009 | 7:13 am

  This week, I have the pleasure to present an email interview I conducted with Jennifer Wilson, Senior Product Manager at Webtrends. Jennifer takes care of the Marketing Warehouse, Visitor Intelligence, and Score suite of products. Marketing Warehouse is at the heart of the suite, and is a relational database. This allows for connection with other backend corporate systems. It also makes it possible to do analyses at the individual level, not only of visitors, but actual prospects and clients. Since Jennifier and I share the same initials, I will use our whole names to identify each other.

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  Omniture: Industry Insights

• Social Media Guru Rudi Shumpert as My Co Presenter (Advanced Solutions)

  Pearce Aurigemma

  9 Feb 2010 | 3:00 am

  If you peruse web analytics blogs and/or any social media outlet that deals with wed analytics you will definitely come across the name Rudi Shumpert.  He is quickly becoming famous on the web from the new solutions he creates and his insights on how to take advantage of all the data available. One of his most popular solutions is his innovative solution on tracking Social Media with Omniture.  In his recent blog post he describes how he takes advantage of yahoo pipes to “pipe” data into Omniture. During summit he will be discussing how the solutions he creates are valuable to…

• Get the Most Out of the Breakout Sessions You Attend (Advanced Solutions)

  Pearce Aurigemma

  4 Feb 2010 | 9:00 am

  Omniture Summit is an exciting time of the year.  You get to hear presentations from world leaders and network with your peers at the most important web analytics event all year.  For those of you who are able to go I wrote a simple post on my summit session blog to help you get the most out of your summit experience.  I encourage you to take a couple minutes out of your busy day to think about how you can get the most out of summit. Teaser: I will be announcing during summit new solutions that will transform the way you think and make decisions based on web analytics data. So if you have…

• Give SOAP a REST (if you want to)

  Brent Watson

  3 Feb 2010 | 4:34 pm

  Recently, we’ve been working on some very interesting new features for our developers. In order to simplify development, we’ve built out REST web services for our SiteCatalyst and DataWarehouse APIs! Under the same theme of simplifying development, we’ve built out a Web Services Explorer that provides an environment to easily test API calls. Let’s rewind a bit and give a quick overview of these things… “REST (Representational State Transfer) is an approach for getting information content from a Web site by reading a designated Web page that contains an XML…

• Engineering Services at Summit – Your Chance to Talk One On One With an Expert (Advanced Solutions)

  Pearce Aurigemma

  2 Feb 2010 | 4:00 am

  If you have never had the pleasure of speaking with an Engineering Services Consultant then I can give you my personal guarantee that you will learn something if you do.  Engineering Services’ will have a dedicated room where you can talk one on one to get your questions answered. Here is some advice to make the most out of your questions: They are experts on APIs so if you have questions on APIs then come prepared to receive answers. They are experts on VISTA solutions. The majority of VISTA solutions are custom solutions designed by the clients. So feel free to ask them how you can…

• OmnitureCare mailbag #2

  Ben Gaines

  27 Jan 2010 | 2:34 pm

  Time for another installment of OmnitureCare mailbag, where I answer real user questions that weren’t quite long enough to justify their own blog post, but that I think might be helpful to many of you. On a personal note, I’m busy preparing for Omniture Summit 2010 along with the team I’ve assembled to speak on advanced SiteCatalyst strategies that can help you better optimize your site(s); you can read about it on my Summit 2010 blog. Summit is probably my favorite week of the entire year. Let’s review some of my top 10 personal highlights from the 2009 edition:…

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  All Web Analytics Demystified Blogs

• Scout Analytics: They Know Your Customers

  8 Feb 2010 | 7:15 pm

  Washington based Scout Analytics offers unique and actionable analytics for subscription-based services and recurring revenue models. Their patent-pending technology identifies usage behavior and generates a comparable index of customer demand that can be used to increase customer lifetime value. What does Scout Analytics do? Scout Analytics is a SaaS-based predictive analytics tool that offers insight into your existing customer base. It provides behavioral analytics that can be used to recognize opportunities and risks based on subscriber usage patterns. For example, the solution can…

• La Bible des Indicateurs Clés de Performance

  5 Feb 2010 | 11:55 am

  Nous l’avions promis il y a déjà bien longtemps, trop longtemps! Depuis, beaucoup d’eau a coulé sous les ponts: la plupart des intervenants dans ce projet ont déménagés, la plupart sont devenus parents et la plupart ont tout simplement évolués vers un nouvel horizon professionnel. Ceci finalement pour expliquer pourquoi nous avons pris du temps. Nous sommes aujourd’hui heureux de pouvoir partager avec vous GRATUITEMENT la Bible des Indicateurs Clés de Performance, ou The Big Book of Key Performance Indicators, dans sa version traduite en français par Julien Coquet,…

• Flash Cookies and Consumer Privacy

  5 Feb 2010 | 10:12 am

  Update: I should apologize to Adobe since I knew they had written to the FTC but didn’t mention it when I originally published this post. If you’re interested in this topic you should definitely download and read Adobe’s letter to the Secretary of the FTC regarding the use of Flash Local Shared Objects to re-spawn cookies. They cite my BPA white paper and do a great job outlining the company’s position on this particular use of their technology. I am writing to Adobe now to see if I can get someone on the phone to discuss in greater depth but if you know anyone there…

• Nedstat’s Visitor Engagement

  2 Feb 2010 | 1:01 pm

  Dutch based Nedstat recently integrated the possibility of measuring Engagement within their standard Sitestat technology. While Engagement means different things to different users, through their integration with Live Segmentation, Nedstat’s Visitor Engagement offering is flexible enough to adapt to audiences’ needs. What does Visitor Engagement on Sitestat do? Well basically, at first glance, it’s a scoring methodology as it allows to attribute points to certain events undergone by visitors on a website. Nothing new here for those who have already done some scoring exercises in the…

• Building A Culture Of Measurement

  29 Jan 2010 | 10:40 am

  Building a Culture of Measurement is the title of the Keynote “Sprint” I’ll be delivering at Webtrends Engage next week in New Orleans. Like the other distinguished speakers during the keynote, I’ve only got 10 minutes to deliver my message and then get off the stage. Ten minutes isn’t nearly enough, so I thought that I’d elaborate here on my blog to hammer out the concepts behind my presentation. Let me put it right out there and state that culture isn’t built overnight. And changing culture takes even longer. So save your get-rich-quick schemes for some other ponzi project.

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  WebTrends Outsider

• You need to read this post about Table Limits

  rocky

  31 Jan 2010 | 8:07 pm

  If you don't know how to check WebTrends table sizes by now, you'll still find out eventually ... the ugly way.

• Cool custom dimension: IP addresses

  rocky

  21 Jan 2010 | 5:28 pm

  First, here’s the obligatory gripe.  How is it that WebTrends doesn’t offer IP address as a dimension???  What’s up with that? Second, here’s the obligatory Outsider solution.  Make your own IP address dimension, of course!  It’s better than the Visitors report because this version will combine into one row all the visitors that have an IP address [...]

• Cool admin utility – Display your custom report configs in Excel

  rocky

  11 Jun 2009 | 8:26 am

  Presenting a quick and dirty (actually, somewhat slow and dirty) cscript that parses through the custom report settings in your WebTrends program and produces a spreadsheet of their configurations.

• Add Bing to your keywords.ini file

  rocky

  3 Jun 2009 | 2:28 pm

  You'll need to add the Bing search engine to your WebTrends configurations in order to get it to show up in reports. Here's how.

• Cool Custom Report: Google Organic Rank dimension

  rocky

  14 May 2009 | 7:18 am

  Google is starting to record the organic rank in its referrer string. It takes about 3 minutes to turn that rank info into a WebTrends custom dimension you can use in any search phrase report.

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  Web Analytics Demystified

• Flash Cookies and Consumer Privacy

  eric

  5 Feb 2010 | 10:12 am

  Update: I should apologize to Adobe since I knew they had written to the FTC but didn’t mention it when I originally published this post. If you’re interested in this topic you should definitely download and read Adobe’s letter to the Secretary of the FTC regarding the use of Flash Local Shared Objects to re-spawn cookies. They cite my BPA white paper and do a great job outlining the company’s position on this particular use of their technology. I am writing to Adobe now to see if I can get someone on the phone to discuss in greater depth but if you know anyone there…

• Welcome to Web Analytics Demystified 2.0

  eric

  18 Jan 2010 | 11:31 pm

  By now you’ve noticed that we’ve completely re-done the Web Analytics Demystified web site, that is unless you only ever read my posts in an RSS reader in which case I would ask you to click-through and have a look. The new site is the culmination of nearly a year’s effort starting with convincing my good friend Aurelie Pols to join the Web Analytics Demystified and, more recently, convincing my other good friend John Lovett to leave his cushy job at Forrester Research to join Aurelie and I. Hopefully you find the new site more streamlined, easier to read, and a little more…

• The Most Important Post on Web Analytics You’ll Ever Read

  eric

  22 Dec 2009 | 5:16 pm

  When John Lovett joined Aurelie and I here at Web Analytics Demystified earlier this month an awful lot of people said, “Hey, nice job getting such nice guy on board,” “We love John, he’s great,” and “Man, what a great addition to your team!” Clearly John has the respect of the industry, but one thing that remained an open question in some people’s minds was “how will John make the transition from the ivory tower an analyst sits in to the ground floor where consultants actually do work?” I admit, I wondered that too in a way, having…

• Amazing response to The Analysis Exchange

  eric

  17 Dec 2009 | 8:17 pm

  UPDATE: The compliments and willingness to help just keep coming in.  Members of the Web Analytics Association Board of Directors, entire staffs from consulting groups around the globe, and too many individual students and practitioners to possibly mention. Thanks so much everyone! Wow. Wow. Wow. I am at a total loss for words when it comes to the response from the web analytics community regarding our soft-launch for The Analysis Exchange on Tuesday.  We’ve had over 250 people, largely from within the measurement community, sign up to participate and have seen the nicest emails…

• Announcing The Analysis Exchange

  eric

  15 Dec 2009 | 3:30 pm

  A few weeks ago I started pinging folks within the digital measurement community asking about the work we do, the challenges we face, and how we got where we are today. The responses I got were all tremendously positive and showed a true commitment to web analytics across vendor, consultant, and end-user practitioner roles. What I learned was, well, exactly what I expected given my decade-plus in the sector: “web analytics” is still a relatively immature industry, one populated by diverse opinions, experiences, and backgrounds. Those of you who have been following my work know…

• 
  immeria

• Web Analytics Maturity Model Q&A

  Stephane Hamel at immeria.net

  25 Jan 2010 | 8:11 am

  This post is a translation/adaptation of  Questions à Stéphane Hamel, concepteur du "Web Analytics Maturity Model" (WAMM), where I was interviewed by Nicolas Malo. --- Stéphane Hamel is a leading voice for Web Analytics in North America and has recently published the Web Analytics Maturity Model (WAMM). The WAMM is the result of an 18 months study conducted as an MBA project at Université Laval in Québec-city. Stéphane is also a member of the board of the Web Analytics Association. As part of his European tour of the "Roadmap to online analytics success" he will be in Lille, France…

• Of data and intuition; web analytics models and frameworks

  Stephane Hamel at immeria.net

  22 Jan 2010 | 8:06 am

  We strive to convince managers of developing a data-driven culture instead of relying on what seems to be emotional, arbitrary and political decisions. We despise the HiPPO and try to tame the beast in various ways. Data, experience and some intuition have a role to play in making good business decisions. As Jim Sterne puts it in Data, Data Everywhere and Not a Thought to Think, "Data is good. Data is valuable. Just don’t be black and white about it. You can use data to help you and you can use data to trap yourself." Training & education: again! Developing critical thinking is one of…

• Workshop: Roadmap to online analytics success

  Stephane Hamel at immeria.net

  6 Jan 2010 | 6:40 am

  Increasing conversions, reducing acquisition costs and optimizing online marketing activities are often cited as key reasons for venturing into web analytics. Properly installing the tool is a challenge in itself but even when done successfully, unexpected issues surface and the value of online analytics quickly fade. Analysis and data has been part of my job ever since I started over 20 years ago. I spent most of the last 15 years as a practitioner or consultant developing web sites and strategies for dozens of companies. More recently, I spent 18 months studying why some companies succeed…

• Nutty's creativity: 2nd grader analytics

  Stephane Hamel at immeria.net

  4 Jan 2010 | 9:56 am

  Here's the answer to a little question I asked on Twitter. It's straight from a math textbook for 2nd graders. It's a nice little demonstration of critical thinking and how sometimes, the obvious answer might not be the best one. Nutty's creativityM.Mansa, professor in a 2nd grade elementary class, asked: "Which number doesn't fit in the following series? 2, 4, 5, 6, 8" Every student found the right answer, except one, Nutty. It's 5, everybody knows that! Except Nutty, who says "I thought about it, but I prefer 4 because..." Unhappy, Prof. Mansa assign Nutty to write a text on "Why I should…

• Merry Christmas from up north

  Stephane Hamel at immeria.net

  24 Dec 2009 | 10:51 am

  Joyeux Noël!       Merry Christmas! Pictures I took while skiing at Massif du Sud this morning. I'm sure this is where Santa takes all his Chistmas trees!   Originally posted by Stéphane Hamel at immeria.net.

• 
  June Dershewitz on Web Analytics

• Review of All Android Analytics Apps

  June Dershewitz

  26 Jan 2010 | 2:37 pm

  Out of curiosity as much as necessity, I recently evaluated all of the mobile web analytics applications that run on my Motorola Droid phone. As of January 2010, a search for "analytics" in the Android Market turns up the following apps: Analytics Widget (free) mAnalytics (free/paid) DroidAnalytics (free 24-hour trial/paid) Mobile GA for Android (free) I have installed and reviewed each of these apps:Analytics Widget This very simple 1x1 widget sits on your mobile desktop and displays either page views or visits for the Google Analytics profile of your choice. The default (and only)…

• Greg Dowling joins Semphonic as Mobile Analytics Expert

  June Dershewitz

  12 Jan 2010 | 7:11 am

  I am thrilled to welcome Greg Dowling to the Semphonic executive team. I couldn't invent a new colleague with a more impressive background: head of analytics at Nokia, industry analyst at Jupiter, VP at Digitas, the list goes on. To round things out, he also spent time as a geologist.Here's the press release we have just issued. You can also read Gary Angel's take on the new hire, plus a welcome message from Greg himself.If you follow my blog because I write occasionally about mobile analytics, you'll be glad to hear that Semphonic's thought leadership in this space…

• Functionalism Basics

  June Dershewitz

  30 Nov 2009 | 10:45 am

  In this post I'll describe the basic building blocks of functionalism. As you follow along, think about how you can apply these techniques to your own web site measurement and optimization projects.Functionalism DefinedFunctionalism is a methodology for web measurement. It includes: A way to understand what each part of a web site is supposed to accomplish. A specific set of measurements to determine how well the function is being performed. Here's the cool part - functionalism is appropriate for any type of site: commerce, lead gen, media, branding, support, etc. Back when I was…

• Advancements in Mobile App Tracking [Or, the Mini-Me of Web 2.0]

  June Dershewitz

  11 Nov 2009 | 10:44 pm

  When I got into mobile analytics a couple of years ago, I quickly realized that there were several very different ways to interact with (and therefore, to measure) the medium: there's the mobile web, and then there are mobile apps.Mobile web - even though it's fraught with data collection problems - is easier to come to terms with as a web analyst because it's like the Mini-Me of the existing desktop (or "fixed") web. We know exactly what to expect from the mobile web, it just has a smaller-than-normal screen and lame browsing technology. Continuing with the Austin…

• Functionalism Works Because People "Get It"

  June Dershewitz

  30 Oct 2009 | 5:06 pm

  Back in one of Gary Angel's original blog posts on functionalism, he wrote this about why functionalism works so well compared with other web behavioral analysis techniques:"When we explained [Functionalism] to channel marketers and site designers, they got it immediately. We could see the lights go on. 'Ah – I get it. This page is supposed to move people here and it isn’t doing the job and I can even understand how you proved it isn’t doing the job.'"In short, functionalism works because people "get it."In web analytics - a discipline often plagued by…

• 
  Google Analytics Blog

• Upcoming Google Analytics Workshop

  Jeff Gillis

  8 Feb 2010 | 9:39 am

  Feras Alhlou, president and principal consultant of E-Nor, a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant, will be conducting a Google Analytics workshop at SMX West on March 5, called "Using Google Analytics to Improve Your Online Marketing & Business." Register here and get 10% off with this discount code: GA@SMXMany organizations, large and small, struggle to go beyond basic web metrics of visitor counts and pageview volumes. In this workshop, senior consultant Feras Alhlou will walk you through what you need in order to drive your online marketing strategy ahead of your competition. I've…

• Quick Survey on the Help Center

  Jeff Gillis

  4 Feb 2010 | 5:02 pm

  We're always looking for ways to improve Google Analytics - not just the product itself, but also the ways in which we provide information about the product. So help us help you - take a minute to fill out this quick survey on our Help Center, and let us know what we can improve!Posted by the Google Analytics Writing Team

• Web Analytics TV #5 with Avinash and Nick

  Nick

  1 Feb 2010 | 11:49 am

  This is the fifth installment in our Web Analytics TV series in which you share your most burning questions via the Google Analytics Google Moderator site and we answer them.Here is the list of this week's questions. You all are keeping us on our toes!In this episode we discuss:Tracking online conversions and success for small, local, businessesTracking the number of times a visitor converts in one visitHow the e-commerce conversion rate can be greater than 100%How you can change the duration of Google Analytics campaignsHow you can differentiate between paid and organic search in Google…

• Google Analytics Even More Global

  Jeff Gillis

  29 Jan 2010 | 5:21 pm

  Today, Google Analytics is available in 6 more languages: Bulgarian, Catalan, Greek, Lithuanian, Slovak and Vietnamese, bringing the total to 31 languages. It's a large cross-functional effort to localize the product, and we're so proud to welcome these new languages and users!We also now have over 150 Google Analytics Authorized Consultants (GAACs), from every major region (US, Canada, Latin America, Europe, Middle East & Africa, and Asia Pacific) and over 35 countries! Chances are, there's one near you.GAACs are our partners; each has been vetted by an internal team here at Google. They…

• Annotations Now Available In All Accounts

  Jeff Gillis

  28 Jan 2010 | 6:08 pm

  In December, we announced the phased roll out of Annotations. It's now available in all accounts! Thanks for your patience and enjoy!Here's a fantastic video on Annotations. You've asked for it for so long, and we hope you'll use it to great effect to better work in concert in your company, using phrases like, "Add it to annotations," or, "It's in annotations." If anything of note happens, log it there. Go tribal with your knowledge.Posted by Jeff Gillis, Google Analytics Team

• 
  Web Analytics World: Internet Marketing & Analytics

• Social Media Accounts for 11% of All Time Spent Online

  8 Feb 2010 | 9:43 pm

  Today comScore released its 2009 US Digital year in review in which they examined the trends in U.S. Internet usage, search activity, e-commerce, online video consumption, online advertising, and mobile.Focusing simply on the social media section the report reveals that by December 2009, almost 4 out of every 5 Internet users engaged with a social networking site. Social media accounted for 11% of all time spent online in the US.Facebook and Twitter both posted triple-digit growth. Facebook surged to the #1 position among social networks for the first time in May, finishing with 112 million…

• Q4 E-Government Website Satisfaction Index Released

  8 Feb 2010 | 8:59 pm

  By: Dave Lewan, Director of Government/Public Markets, ForeSee Results The fourth quarter ACSI E-Gov Index was released (Jan 26), and there’s good news: e-gov remains at its all-time high score of 75.2 on the ACSI's 100-point scale.Satisfaction took a little dip when President Obama first took office, in part because people were waiting to see what happened with public support of openness, transparency, and trust (which plays right to e-gov’s wheelhouse), but that’s not the whole story, because federal managers were working on this stuff long before Obama took office and will continue…

• Top Twitter Trends January 2010

  7 Feb 2010 | 10:11 pm

  If you missed it last week, Sysomos released a 'what's hot' list of Twitter topics in 2010 so far. As you can imagine, topics such as Tiger Woods, Avatar and Haiti were amongst the most popular this year. Full post here.

• Web Analytics Implementation Consultants - Tips from the Inside

  3 Feb 2010 | 4:53 pm

  A couple of weeks ago I've written about Web Analytics - Getting Help from External Resources or Not? And about the implementation consultants (either from the web analytics vendor themselves or the external consultant) having done these implementations many times before. This time I'll talk about the advantage of having an independent external implementation consultant rather than one from the vendor.So why is that?The web analytics vendor will usually try to sell you his tool AND a couple of consulting hours on top of that. But do you really need them or should you rather seek help from an…

• Modifying Google Analytics to Provide In-Depth Data

  2 Feb 2010 | 6:48 am

  Google Analytics is a comprehensive reporting tool, that allows you to gain insights into your website visitors. However even though it provides a lot of useful data, there are still a few limitations.Here are some neat hacks and plugins you can use to import detailed data into Google Analytics.Getting Started with Google AnalyticsIf you need a complete guide to Google Analytics I highly recommend the Google Analytics Cheatsheet(pdf), created by Ian Lurie with Conversation Marketing.Pull Adwords Keyword Data into Google AnalyticsI'm sure you hate when you look at Google Analytics under…

• 
  Piwik

• Plugin: Piwik inside your Joomla panel

  Matthieu

  22 Jan 2010 | 1:53 pm

  We recently heard the buzz about the new Joomla plugin to integrate Piwik smoothly inside the Joomla admin panel. The new extension is available for download from the Piwik in Joomla extensions repository. You can also find a bit more documentation and screenshots on the author's blog at: A piwik integration to Joomla 1.5.

• Marketing and Community Coordinator Wanted for Piwik!

  Anthon

  16 Jan 2010 | 6:27 pm

  The Piwik team invites interested individuals to apply for the volunteer position of Marketing and Community Coordinator. If you have a flair for communications, marketing, and/or business development, send us an email: hello@piwik.org The Marketing and Community Coordinator's responsibilities would be to: perform periodic SWOT analysis to identify feature gaps against the "competition" liase with prospective sponsors on how they can contribute identify partnership opportunities with other open source projects (e.g. self-hosted web applications) liase with partners and…

• Piwik Goal Tracking - How I Optimized My Affiliate Income

  marc

  25 Nov 2009 | 4:23 pm

  Guest Blogger Marc Lindsay Is An Internet Marketer & Runs An SEO Company - LTSEO Conversion tracking is the main scoreboard for any web campaign. If you are serious with what you are doing, setting up goals is a required step for reporting on how your traffic affects the bottom-line. Conversions follow the 80/20 principle. This principle suggests that roughly 20% of your traffic brings 80% of the earnings. This moves way beyond simple tracking tools where your measured traffic goes in and out of your website without any meaningful impact. Brand, exposure, and activity are all key…

• Piwik is Sourceforge Project of the Month!

  Matthieu

  8 Sep 2009 | 1:46 pm

  We are extremely excited to reveal that Piwik has been selected as Sourceforge Project of the month! After only one year and a half, Piwik has reached significant milestones: 150,000 downloads, 29 translations thousands of active users and community members, and a growing developer community. Many thanks to the Piwik users, developers, testers, translators… together we are building the best open source web analytics framework, and getting close to a 1.0 release (planned for early 2010!). For more information, check out the Sourceforge interview for answers to these questions Why and how…

• Piwik wins Best of open source enterprise software (Web Analytics)

  Matthieu

  8 Sep 2009 | 1:28 pm

  Piwik won the ‘Best of Open Source Enterprise Applications (Web Analytics)’ in Infoworld’s annual BOSSIE Awards. The awards “recognize the best free and open source software the world has to offer to businesses, IT professionals, and productive individuals who rely on computers to get work done.” Selected by InfoWorld’s editorial and test center staff, other winners in the enterprise category include DimDim, Magento, and SugarCRM. Stay tuned, the Piwik team is planning new features and improvements to the plugin framework, which will help the community and enterprise leverage…

• 
  web analytics - Google Blog Search

• Is Your Web Analytics Program on Solid Footing? (Part 2 ...

  Joe Kamenar

  9 Feb 2010 | 12:34 pm

  Just as a builder uses a blueprint to help guide his team, your web analytics program should also use a blueprint. At Edgewater Technology, we call this a “road map”. It is designed to help move your organization from simply collecting ...

• Eyes on Analytics: Web Analytics Wednesday Toronto...On A Tuesday!

  Christopher Berry

  9 Feb 2010 | 12:08 pm

  Tonight is Web Analytics Wednesday in Toronto...On a Tuesday! This is quite a big deal for us, especially since it's really the first time in the past two years that we've hosted it on a Tuesday. So, we'll probably see new faces. ...

• Custom variables are frosting on your web analytics cake ...

  przyklenk

  9 Feb 2010 | 11:28 am

  There is a lot to be said about implementing web analytics on a site, and using that data to improve customer experience and a company's bottom line. Guys.

• Web Analytic Client Pro v1.1.1 Application for Android | Tools

  unknown

  9 Feb 2010 | 10:23 am

  With this app you can watch your Piwik web analytics. Get visits, referers, bounces, pages, visit length and keywords. Without ads. Mail us, if you need other values. Notice, this client works with Piwik, only. ...

• 5 Starter Tips On Web Analytics Data

  Internet Income Guru

  9 Feb 2010 | 3:22 am

  Internet Marketing on Steriods. A powerful set of traffic promotion strategies, SEO promotion and Internet marketing tools,information & resources to drive profits from your online business.

• 
  Webmetricsguru - Web Metrics - Social Media Metrics - PR Metrics

• Over 4000 subscribers

  Marshall Sponder

  9 Feb 2010 | 5:16 am

  I know it’s weird it’s taken this long to reach over 4000 regular RSS subscribes – but I guess this day is filled with 4’s.   For example, I believe it was 4 years ago I started blogging at Webmetricsguru.com – 4 years ago today, in fact. If it wasn’t for a bad turn with Google as a result of being part, at the time, of Know More Media, I think my subscriber count would have been double what it is now – still, its nice to finally get above 4,000 RSS Subscribers.

• Forresters Blogging patch

  Marshall Sponder

  8 Feb 2010 | 11:53 pm

  I have never been a fan of  Forrester Research – but  they produce a lot of good research. By the way, have you noticed a lot of the research firms have been acquired  or are merging of late.   So, it wasn’t entirely surprising to me Forrester Research would tell it’s own analysts they can’t have blogs of their own any longer.  As reported in  SageCircle Forrester CEO George Colony is well aware of that savvy analysts can build their personal brands via their positions as Forrester analysts amplified by social media (see the post on “Altimeter Envy”). As a…

• Finding Influencers using Social Media Monitoring Tools #SMWNYC

  Marshall Sponder

  7 Feb 2010 | 11:22 pm

  Social Media Week is over as of Friday night but I didn’t get a chance to write a post about Influencer Identification based on the tools I have access to.  As in the other posts in this series, I will place a datafile you can download at the end of this post so you can examine the information for yourself if you want to. And, I did post about Finding Influencers – based on the idea that being influential is function of …. being connected to others who have short chains to many other people with high betweenness. Or, looked at differently, betweenness is a measure of how…

• Superbowl XLIV Predictions using Social Media

  Marshall Sponder

  7 Feb 2010 | 10:20 am

  Since it’s SuperBowl XLIV today I worked that into my “editorial schedule” (chuckle) and decided to do a post focusing on what chatter I could pick up from other NFL Players who might be blogging and tweeting and offering their own predictions (or just expressing their sentiment). However, Radian6 teamed up with Mullen to do some of it’s own predicting – and real time following Mullen and Radian6 today announced BrandBowl2010 (http://brandbowl2010.com/), a Twitter/Super Bowl experience that combines tweeting, ad reviews and a host of metrics that will let viewers…

• Finding Influencers – Part One

  Marshall Sponder

  6 Feb 2010 | 4:12 am

  Some of my readers have asked me to weigh in on Stowe Boyd’s post on It’s Betweenness That Matters, Not Your Eigenvalue: The Dark Matter Of Influence as it impacts how influence in a social network is determined; Stowe Boyd’s post is also a useful framework to talk about how good Social Media Monitoring platforms do with determining Influencers. … influence doesn’t seem directly linked to how many people you are connected to. It’s a function of being connected to others who have short chains to many other people with high betweenness. Or, looked at…

• 
  Increasing Your Website's Conversion Rate

• Automatic Cross Domain Tracking

  John

  4 Feb 2010 | 11:40 am

  Whenever a visitor crosses from one domain to another, the information contained in the cookies must be passed in the query string to the second domain. Google Analytics documentation recommends using the provided method of _link().  This looks like: <a href=”http://www.newsite.com” onclick=”pageTracker._link(‘http://www.newsite.com’);return false;”>Go to our sister site</a> Following this link will cause the visitor to arrive on the page http://www.newsite.com/?__utmb=. . . .&__utmv=. . . .&_utmk=123456789&__utma=1.1234567.1234567.

• Usability Testing Through Translation

  Christina

  2 Feb 2010 | 11:23 am

  Looking at a website written in a foreign language is incredibly insightful. You may not get the immediate gratification of being able to easily find the location of a particular Prada shoe store, but you’ll find out a lot about yourself and how you use the site. Let me preface this post by giving you all a little background about my recent activities. I recently went on a 10 day trip to Rome, Italy to visit my mother who has an apartment there for a month. Rome, with its seemingly never-ending wealth of culture, beauty and delicious, delicious gelato and amazing boots kept me completely…

• Conversion Rate Mysteries, and other GA tales

  Robbin

  20 Jan 2010 | 10:30 am

  I got this question the other day in my email (and I promise you, I could never make this up.) I have a question.  Should you insert Google Analytics code in every single page if you want to track goals correctly? What I mean is this: My main opt in (squeeze page): /optin.html My goal page: /thankyou.html If I insert the GA code into EVERY web page of my domain, then GA is going to report my goal conversion inaccurately. What I’m saying is this… Take a look at this scenario: Visitor A visits /subfolder/subpage1.html Visitor B visits /subfolder/subpage2.html Visitor C visits…

• HTML5 and Analytics

  Jonathan

  15 Jan 2010 | 9:10 am

  HTML5 is the next generation of HTML, the markup language that the web is written in. Its features are slowly being adopted by browsers), and there are a few that have some ramifications for analytics. <video> tag Embedding video in your site these days usually involves a Flash-based player of some kind. Often this is an easily embeddable player from a site like YouTube or Vimeo. But what if you want to track when your visitors click the play button, or whether they watch the video all the way to the end? Well, it’s certainly possible. Google Analytics offers Flash tracking, for…

• 5 Most Obvious Website Usability Issues.

  Christina

  11 Jan 2010 | 1:31 pm

  There are a lot of ways one can make their website into a conversion driving machine. Site design tweaks, endless A/B and multivariate testing, exit surveys (gasp!) are some of the hardest to pull off. However, some of the most obvious usability issues often get ignored. There have been countless roundups of these issues, and a lot of them are really technical in nature. I’m going to keep this one really simple and try to make these tips as actionable and specific as possible. That might mean that they don’t apply to a specific kind of site, but there’s something here for everyone.

• 
  webanalytics at Yahoo! Groups

• [WAW] Feb 10 - Orem, UT

  Matthew Miller

  8 Feb 2010 | 12:02 pm

  You're invited to Web Analytics Wednesday at Terra Mia Ristorante, Orem, UT on Wednesday, Feb 10, 2010. We're preparing a special speaker this month; free

• Re: Web Analytics podcast?

  rshumpe

  8 Feb 2010 | 11:57 am

  I may be slightly partial, but I'm fond of http://www.beyondwebanalytics.com -Rudi

• Re: Hosting WAW in Ahmedabad, India for the 1st time

  Amish

  8 Feb 2010 | 11:05 am

  Hi Dipali, I would say this is great initiative. I will be always there if you need any kind of support or help to organize this event. I would suggest, lets

• Question Regarding Tableau vs. Visual Mining

  Leticia Colon

  8 Feb 2010 | 11:01 am

  Dear Members: I am recommending certain tools to make my life easier as a digital analyst. Though I did have a trial version, I only had a chance to play

• Re: Google Analytics change of traffic source during the same visit

  Béate Vervaecke | e-Zen

  8 Feb 2010 | 11:01 am

  Hi Brian, I changed referrers during the same session · 1st traffic source is a referring site · 2nd is a organic with a very specific

• 
  Blackbeaks Blog....All things Analytics

• An open message to the WAA

  Captain Blackbeak

  4 Feb 2010 | 12:21 am

  We’ve all worked or work for global organizations. The way they are run is that usually there is a central set of rules, standards, global controls and global belief and culture passed down to locals who then execute the vision.  I believe that the WAA is attempting to do the same thing (essentially) whilst maintaining a unified brand and a unified approach on a local level. Let me first say I have no problem with that approach, especially in immature markets. It has served us well for the first 5 years of the WAA but I just feel in certain cases it is outgrowing this method. I…

• Digital Marketing Parasites

  Captain Blackbeak

  13 Jan 2010 | 4:14 am

  Recently in my sales work with clients and prospects I have heard some very disturbing trends which has prompted this blog post. The most recent shocking meeting I had was this Monday but prior to that I also heard of some disturbing tactics being touted by some of Finlands’ “best of breed” digital agencies. Rather than name names and turn this whole post into a rant I figured I best just demonstrate why you should run a mile if you hear any of these tactics mentioned. Traffic generation via link farms, 1000s of domains, or “our network of websites”. When I heard…

• 5 Analytics tips for 2010

  Captain Blackbeak

  29 Dec 2009 | 3:25 am

  I don’t do predictions so I thought I’d give you some tips, whether you’re in e-commerce, the lead generation business or the media advertising business. If I could only do 5 things using Analytics for my business in 2010 these would be the first things I’d do. Measure segmented outcomes. In e-commerce it’s easy, measure conversion rates to sale across your different traffic sources. With lead generation measure conversion rates of how many people sign up to hear more about your services. With the media business the outcome might be the amount of heavily engaged…

• Why I Won’t Tell You About Web Analytics 2.0

  Captain Blackbeak

  6 Dec 2009 | 11:06 am

  I recently (Nov 19th) had my 38th birthday and travelled to the UK for the occasion. The very day before I was due to travel I got a review copy of the Web Analytics 2.0 from Avinash Kaushik. Talk about perfect timing. I read the book cover to cover in the trips to and from the UK. This is an excellent read. I’ve read everything out there about analytics, I’ve written one book myself and found myself smiling throughout this read thinking… why didn’t I say that? Or, why couldn’t I have put it that way? I am my own worst critic and my own natural tendency to compare my work to others…

• Is Finland Anti-Social?

  Captain Blackbeak

  2 Dec 2009 | 11:21 pm

  I wrote an article for a local newspaper in Finland Markkinointi & Mainonta which published today on their blog. It discusses the rising usage of social platforms across the Nordics and how Finlands adoption is a little slower than others but also how to utilize social media in business. Let me know what you think.

• 
  Conversion Rate Optimization & Marketing Blog | FutureNow, Inc

• 20 Questions to Ask When Evaluating Optimization Services

  Since the common predictions over the last two months have been that Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is going to have a big year in 2010, some of our GrokDotCom readers have expressed interest in how to evaluate the different CRO service providers out there. Despite an obvious bias, I still think ...

• Can Conversion Rate Optimization Improve Lead Quality?

  There was a question posed in the comments section of my last post on Pay Per Click optimization that I thought I'd try to address: "What are your thoughts on using CRO to improve the quality of leads?" Good question!  Many people assume that optimizing for higher conversion rates in the ...

• Avoid Asking for the Lead Too Early

  My best girlfriend, Brittany was searching online for an apartment in Salt Lake City last week. She told me about her frustrating experience with Rent.com. I want to share her experience with you, to show you what NOT do on your site. This is a perfect example of a reputable ...

• How To Optimize Pay Per Click Advertising & Control Costs

  Every client I talk to who's using Pay Per Click (PPC) as part of their online marketing mix voices some level of concern about cost and ROI, and for good reason.  With PPC, there seems to be a thousand different ways to spend too much money for not enough return.  ...

• Your Visitors Are Individuals So Treat Them That Way

  I have a friend who is responsible for gathering & reporting all the stats for his company.  In speaking with him, I found it interesting when he said “although stats are vital for reporting, they sometimes don’t tell the full story of what really is going on.” Numbers don’t report the ...

• 
  Emerging Technology Blog at Web Analytics Demystified

• Nedstat’s Visitor Engagement

  Aurelie

  2 Feb 2010 | 1:01 pm

  Dutch based Nedstat recently integrated the possibility of measuring Engagement within their standard Sitestat technology. While Engagement means different things to different users, through their integration with Live Segmentation, Nedstat’s Visitor Engagement offering is flexible enough to adapt to audiences’ needs. What does Visitor Engagement on Sitestat do? Well basically, at first glance, it’s a scoring methodology as it allows to attribute points to certain events undergone by visitors on a website. Nothing new here for those who have already done some scoring exercises in the…

• An Excellent Google Analytics Companion: Shufflepoint

  Eric

  26 Jan 2010 | 8:36 pm

  Delaware based Shufflepoint has taken the most user friendly web analytics application in the world today and managed to make it even more useful. Their ability to move data easily between Google Analytics and Excel makes GA an even more viable option for businesses of all types. What does Shufflepoint do? In a nutshell Shufflepoint connects Google Analytics indirectly to Microsoft Excel and Powerpoint, arguably two of the most widely used analyst tools in the world today. While somewhat time-consuming to use the first time with a little practice Shufflepoint has the ability to dramatically…

• Coming To A Mobile App Near You: Localytics

  John

  24 Jan 2010 | 5:15 am

  Boston based Localytics is, in a nutshell, web analytics for mobile applications. Based on the projected growth of mobile applications and the likely surge of tablet computing this year, Web Analytics Demystified thinks this company is really onto something. What does Localytics do? Localytics is a digital measurement solution designed to provide metrics specific to mobile applications. The interface allows clients to view details about their apps such as usage patterns over time, user type (new vs. returning), user software (platform and OS), as well as user hardware and device versions. It…

• Welcome to the Emerging Technology Blog

  Eric

  18 Jan 2010 | 12:38 am

  If you’re reading this hopefully you’ve already noticed we made some changes recently at Web Analytics Demystified. In addition to adding two new partners (Aurelie Pols and John Lovett) we over-hauled  the web site and have added a new blog (this one) called The Emerging Technology Blog! In the next few weeks we are going to start reaching out to technology vendors — both those who are our consulting clients and those that are not — and asking them for 30 minute briefings on their most recent software or service releases. The output from these calls will be what…

• 
  Official Webtrends Company Blog

• Engage 2010: The Last Day

  Michelle Anderson

  8 Feb 2010 | 5:45 pm

  It was a clear day in New Orleans on the last day of the Engage 2010 customer conference, which continued the camaraderie and collaborative learning found in the first and second days. The breakout sessions overflowed, smiles lit the rooms, and the conversations that spilled out in the hallways were punctuated by the sound of high-fives between attendees, speakers, sponsors and Webtrends employees alike. I’m in absolute awe of the fine folks at Webtrends who summoned this magic for us all to enjoy. Here is a very short, incomplete list of session highlights on the last day that merely hint…

• Engage 2010: The Second Day

  Michelle Anderson

  3 Feb 2010 | 4:24 pm

  The first full day of the Engage 2010 customer conference began yesterday morning with a ballroom packed with professionals eager for inspiration into the methodologies of making sense of customer intelligence. We started off with a short speech from Webtrends’ VP of Marketing Jascha Kaykas-Wolff. Jascha welcomed everyone to New Orleans, explained the philosophy behind the Engage customer conference, invited everyone to enter to win great data-centric prizes offered in The Great Data Give Away, and thanked all who attended the previous night’s first-ever Ignite NOLA for helping to…

• Engage 2010: The First Day

  Michelle Anderson

  2 Feb 2010 | 5:41 pm

  Yesterday was a very big day for Webtrends, our customers, and our partners. Now, after months of planning, promoting, and pulling together a plethora of particulars, Engage 2010 began at 7am with the opening of the registration table on the mezzanine of the stunning, historic Roosevelt Hotel in the French Quarter of New Orleans. I assisted with the check-in of those with last names starting with H-M, and quite frankly, even at that early morning start time, the energy was already palpable. It might have been the vibrant city, it might have been the fact that Engage 2010 is SOLD OUT…

• Targeting added to Webtrends Optimize!

  Billy Shih

  2 Feb 2010 | 11:33 am

  As a tech geek, one of the best parts of working for Webtrends is playing with new technology.  I’ve seen Optimize evolve over the past few years and although it has made huge strides, this is, no doubt, the biggest release. I have never been more excited to use a new version of Optimize. Today we are revealing advanced targeting; a way to deliver content to your visitors that is tailored to them.  This is not a separate tool, this is an integrated part of the existing testing and optimization experience within Optimize.  Moving from testing to segmentation to targeting or any other…

• Announcing The Great Data Geek Giveaway

  Michelle Anderson

  1 Feb 2010 | 9:57 am

  Do you “get” data? Do you enjoy processing it, extracting meaning from it, and communicating the story that data tells? If someone asked you if you love data so much why haven’t married it yet, would you reply that if it was a statistical possibility you most certainly would have long, long ago. Or something. Webtrends understands how you feel, fellow data geek. We love data, too. That’s why we’ve created a contest tailor-made for the guys and gals that live and breathe data. Starting TODAY we’re giving away hot data on the Webtrends Facebook fan page. Data so hot that will make…

• 
  Web Analytics Guy's Blog

• Adoption of Web Analytics in Your Company

  webanalyticsguy

  31 Jan 2010 | 12:29 pm

  In the last seven years that I have spent in web analytics one of the biggest challenges that I have had is getting adoption of web analytics in the company. This can be very challenging for a variety of reasons. Some of the people in the company might not know about, know how to use, or understand web analytics. Some people in the company might not think web analytics can help them. These are just a couple of the reasons why adoption of web analytics in a company might be challenging. This was not any different for the first company that I worked for when I first entered into web analytics.

• Year in Review

  webanalyticsguy

  23 Dec 2009 | 1:00 am

  It was a year ago this week that I was traveling for the holidays and I made the decision to start this blog while sitting in a hotel room. I knew there were quite a few blogs about web analytics already with various opinions on different topics. When I decided to start this blog I wanted to focus on one thing, sharing my experience in web analytics both good and bad. The experiences that I have shared have been about recent topics and some as far back to when I first started my career in web analytics. I have had a great time writing this blog this past year sharing my experiences. I hope…

• Web Analytics and Voice of Customer

  webanalyticsguy

  6 Dec 2009 | 11:53 am

  And the survey says……(this reminded me of watching Family Feud when I was younger). A couple of weeks ago I read a blog post from iPerceptions about how they are going to integrate web analytics with behavioral and attitudinal data. As I kept reading the article, I kept thinking “WOW that is awesome.” Then I got to the Features and Benefits and I was really impressed with the crosstab capabilities of the survey and clickstream data and to look at your analytics and survey KPI’s in one dashboard. After reading the article, I started to think about my other co-presented breakout…

• Advanced Analytics for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

  webanalyticsguy

  17 Oct 2009 | 11:22 am

  As I mentioned in my Omniture Summit 2009 recap, I was fortunate enough to be a co-presenter for a breakout session – ‘Makin’ Gold Records: Turning your SEO team into Rock stars.’ One of the most difficult things to do is track SEO and to determine how successful the SEO efforts have been. I am not going to talk about tips about how to optimize your site for search engines. There are already quite a few blogs and forums that talk about how to do this. What I am going to talk about are reports and analysis that can be set up to help determine how successful the SEO efforts have been. I…

• Sizing It Up: Measuring and Optimizing Rich Internet Applications

  webanalyticsguy

  25 Sep 2009 | 5:00 am

  When I started thinking about what I was going to write for my next blog post, I had a couple of topics in mind trying to keep with my original plan for my blog of sharing my experiences in web analytics. Then the news broke that Adobe has agreed to purchase Omniture. Whether this acquasition is going to be good or bad, only time will tell. There has already been enough written on this topic, so I am going to focus this post on another topic. When the news broke of the acquisition, an idea for a post came to me. About a year ago or so, I co-presented a webinar with Omniture for an Adobe…

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  Visual Revenue

• News Media that use Galleries to increase Page-views don’t increase Time-spent (Attention)

  Dennis R. Mortensen

  22 Jan 2010 | 6:15 am

  It is not uncommon to see News Media Publishers drive un-segmented page views as one of their primary Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) - And one of the biggest page view drivers for online News Media today are the common use of Galleries (slideshows if you will). I would argue that those additional page views, however massive they are, don’t deliver the same value to the advertiser, as compared to the core product (the news article) - and ultimately isn’t really what the user/reader wants. I studied the usage patterns of one of the biggest News Media publishers in the US as part of an…

• Yahoo Web Analytics Training Webinars Launched

  Charlie Holbech

  19 Jan 2010 | 1:00 am

  The following is a post by Charlie Holbech We have spent the last 18 months integrating YWA (IndexTools) into the Yahoo Network and whilst our Account Management team has worked tirelessly to ensure that our client base (both YWACN members and Direct Customers) are well supported, we have also managed to find time to run some projects in the background! Our onus has been on serving our customer base more effectively, tackling this in a variety of ways: Dedicated Account Management for YWACN members, an expansive list of FAQs available to all on help.yahoo.com as well as the recently announced…

• Tracking Mobile Devices in Yahoo Web Analytics

  Dennis R. Mortensen

  13 Jan 2010 | 11:45 am

  Tracking mobile activity has become, not just a nice to have feature, but a necessity in any mature Web Analytics tool. You of course know this already. Find below a set of entertaining custom Mobile reports from Yahoo Web Analytics, using dimensions such as. Mobile Device Maker Mobile Device Model Mobile Device Screen size Carrier name The numbers themselves are rather exciting actually, even though my point is, just to show you some of the Dimensions you can use, when doing your mobile analysis with Yahoo Web Analytics. Enjoy! :-) Custom Report 1: Custom Report 2: Custom Report 3: Cheers…

• My immediate thoughts on Digital Magazines – after buying the Kindle

  Dennis R. Mortensen

  10 Jan 2010 | 9:55 am

  As I have stated repeatedly over the last year or so – I am obsessed with the state of News Media and in particular how Analytics, in that regard, can help publishers increase their current performance. This post is nothing more than exciting boyish musings, that does little to validate my conclusions. Anywho, this is my blog! :-) I was really excited to receive a Kindle the other day, as I finally got to actively try out a new reading experience in regards to my above fixation. If you think about it, kindle, or similar e-reader experiences, like what B&N or Sony peddle, provides the…

• Using Microformats to extend Web Analytics tagging

  Dennis R. Mortensen

  21 Dec 2009 | 10:01 am

  The traditional Web Analytics industry tend to bring up the concept of a universal tag (a common data collection tracking script) now and then. Which is not at all bad thinking, I even participated in a session at the X change Analytics symposium in San Francisco earlier this year, on that subject. However, thinking it through, you might agree with me, that there is probably little point in creating a universal tag, as you (the web analytics deployment engineer) doesn’t really get anything else but yet another somewhat proprietary tag. What you might get though, is a vendor independent tag,…

• 
  Think Like a User

• Wacky Website of the Week – 22nd January 2010

  Colette Mason

  22 Jan 2010 | 5:06 am

  Time again for some Friday Fun This week’s wacky website is phoons.com According to the site owner, the rules for phoon photography are as follows: Rules for the Phoon pose Stand sideways to the camera. (A Phoon is always viewed from the side.) Bend your arms at the elbows. (Look like an athletic runner, not a ballerina.) Lift your rear elbow (not your hand) so that it is easy to see behind your back. Lean forward at the waist. This will help you look more energetic and will help you lift your rear ankle. Preferably, do not look at the camera and do not smile. Either arm can be the rear…

• Add Another Call-to-Action Towards the End of Your Pages

  Colette Mason

  18 Jan 2010 | 3:32 am

  To achieve maximum effectiveness, primary calls-to-action (e.g., add to basket) are usually placed at the top of web pages. Yet, it is equally important to include calls-to-action at the bottom of the pages, too. You might lose customers who have not selected a call-to-action from the top and will just exit for lack of further push from you. Such calls-to-action are determined by the goals you have set for the site or page. They may consist of links to the following: 1. Contact details Contact information should be seen at the bottom of every single page of your website if this is what you…

• Wacky Website of the Week – 15th January 2010

  Colette Mason

  15 Jan 2010 | 4:53 am

  Time again for some Friday Fun This week’s wacky website is mustachesofthenineteenthcentury.com According to the site owner, the purpose of the site is this: “Dear Gentle Reader, Many of the following pages have graphic and clear images of the masculine mustache in all its forms, both sublime and grotesque. My intent is not to shock or titillate, but merely to inform on the subject. The Nineteenth Century gave us many things, but above all it was a hotbed of facial hair experimentation and this is but a poor sampling of those many lost forms.”…

• 
  Key Web Metrics & Web Analytics Blog

• 5 Tips for Negotiating A Winning Web Analytics Contract

  Sameer

  31 Jan 2010 | 3:36 pm

  If you are a web analytics manager or a senior web analyst then one of your job responsibilities is to negotiate analytics contracts. Like any other technology vendor contracts, the web analytics contract contains a multiple level of intricacies. Some of the technical jargons make it really hard to sign a good contract. In this post, I am going to provide 5 powerful tips to pull a winning contract and become a hero in your organization. These tips are time tested and proven to work. I have personally used them to significantly reduce our enterprise analytics software cost and get more value…

• Case Study: Using Web Analytics to Optimize Media buy

  Sameer

  18 Jan 2010 | 2:22 pm

  I recently participated in a case study with Omniture Inc., (Adobe company) on the campaign attribution success stories. The case study explains how Rackspace Hosting used Omniture Genesis & Eyeblaster integration to improve our media buy campaign attribution and performance. Here are some of the actionable insights - Automate display campaign management Track display view through conversions Develop better campaign attribution model Effective & efficient ad spend I have acquired special permission from Adobe to allow my blog readers to directly download this informative case study.

• 5 Web Analytics Predictions for 2010 and Beyond

  Sameer

  31 Dec 2009 | 5:16 pm

  I still can’t believe that 2009 has come to an end, and I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your comments, feedbacks and retweets. Your input has helped me become a better analytics blogger. In this post, I will talk about my version of the web analytics predictions for the new year 2010. #1. Web Analytics becomes Multi Channel Analytics Web analytics has evolved from being a niche segment of the online marketing world to become a big piece of the web optimization pie. 2009 was the turning point for web analytics with free solutions like Google Analytics becomes more…

• Top 5 Coolest Web Analytics iPhone Apps

  Sameer

  29 Dec 2009 | 10:52 am

  Apple applications are raging the world by storm. There is hardly anyone who would not love to have one of these Apple mini computers. Web Analyst are not left behind and there are several apps that could improve analyst productivity. #1. Analytics App ($5.99) Analytics App allows you quick access Google Analytics on iphone/ipod touch. You can instantly get a snapshot of your GA account or access detailed analytics reports. One of the most reviewed GA app, analytics app allows you to create custom reports on the fly from within the app itself. #2. HootSuite ($1.99) Click here to view the…

• PPC 2.0: Google’s Top 3 Paid Search Updates

  Sameer

  14 Dec 2009 | 12:17 pm

  Paid search has always been my second hobby after the web analytics. It is pretty amazing how paid search has evolved over time. With significant growth in social media, paid search growth has slowed down a bit year over year. According to latest research done by Forrester Research, Inc., more businesses will shift a larger percentage of their budget towards the social media marketing in next three years. Source: March 2009 US Interactive Marketing Forecast Online Survey by Forrester Research, Inc. Google being the biggest player in paid search marketing (more than half of their revenue comes…

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  Samir Balwani - Internet Marketing Strategy

• Are You Marketing or Advertising?

  Samir Balwani

  2 Feb 2010 | 7:28 am

  Lately, I’ve been thinking about how social media has been a part of our overall marketing program. I started to realize that our definition of marketing and advertising is slowly evolving. In my mind advertising was the driving force of a marketing campaign. The idea was to create something interesting and broadcast it with advertising. credit Advertising was more important than the actual campaign. If you spent enough money and as long as it was marginally interesting, you could be successful. Nowadays, there’s seems to be a tip in the scales. Marketing is becoming more…

• This is How You Measure Social Media ROI

  Samir Balwani

  28 Jan 2010 | 6:45 am

  More talk about social media ROI and measurement? You know it. This time Mitch Joel of “Six Pixels of Separation” wrote a post about measurements and metrics. As much as I like Mitch (his articles are great and I highly recommend his blog), I really disagreed with his take on social media ROI. credit He states that… “Thinking about business objectives instead of ROI makes the whole strategy that much workable and doable. In the end, instead of looking for the ROI in Social Media, maybe the smarter thing to do is to focus on what the business objectives are, and then figure out if…

• Will Social Media Survive?

  Samir Balwani

  20 Jan 2010 | 6:44 am

  Social media… what a buzzword. It’s grown, exploded, and ushered in a new paradigm in marketing. Kind of. It seems like everyday there’s a new social media guru, someone to tell you how to use your Facebook, when to Tweet, or berate you for not having a FourSquare. The social media industry, in its current form, is not sustainable. Why do I say that? Well, two main reasons stand out. First, it’s not easy to assign or forecast ROI from social media. Without being able to at least estimate return, managers have a hard time justifying investment. It’s not a large issue right now…

• Social Media Requires a Cultural Investment

  Samir Balwani

  13 Jan 2010 | 6:00 am

  Investment is a word that rules business decisions. How much do I need to invest? It’s a question I hear on a near daily basis. So why is it that when it comes to social media, many focus on money and ignore the cultural investment? Everything you do has a cost, whether it is monetary, time, or some other abstract resource. Social media although not the most expensive, requires a cultural evolution. For many of the largest companies, a cultural investment can be greater than a monetary one. To change a business culture requires a form of dedication and collaboration rarely achieved. But…

• Welcome to 2010… Now Trim the Fat

  Samir Balwani

  11 Jan 2010 | 7:00 am

  It’s January, the month where the gyms are packed, fitness rules, and ad campaigns take an odd turn towards diets. But as much as we’re trained to make weight loss resolutions, your business should be looking to lose excess baggage as well. credit I’ve written fairly extensively on how most brands tend to shoot themselves in the foot when it comes to social media. Almost always, the largest culprit to online marketing failure is bureaucracy. It’s the reason why small businesses can excel at social media, while adoption is slow for large brands. Online marketing requires a company be…