Web Analytics

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  SemAngel

• Measuring Online Applications : Automated Testing for Web Analytics

  SEMangel

  1 Nov 2009 | 4:11 pm

  Online Applications and highly-interactive web sites written in full-on programming languages are becoming the norm on the web, not the rare exception. Measuring these applications is challenging for a whole host of reasons. In my last post, I talked about what a real application measurement framework might look like. In today’s post, I’m going to cover an issue that increasingly plagues measurement efforts – how to integrate testing of the measurement system into your application development process.When we talk with the development teams these days, I’m often the one who has to…

• Measuring Online Applications – Creating a Measurement Framework

  SEMangel

  25 Oct 2009 | 5:11 pm

  Online Applications and highly-interactive web sites written in full-on programming languages are becoming the norm on the web, not the rare exception. Measuring these applications is challenging for a whole host of reasons. In my last post, I talked about what a good programmatic interface might look like. But even with simple, logical calls to the measurement service, measuring applications won’t be a slam dunk. Applications simply don’t adapt well to the page/link view paradigm deeply embedded in web analytics systems. In today’s post, I’m going to cover some of the most important…

• Measuring Online Applications – Structuring a Measurement Interface

  SEMangel

  18 Oct 2009 | 6:39 pm

  Online Applications and highly-interactive web sites written in full-on programming languages are becoming the norm on the web, not the rare exception. Measuring these applications is challenging for a whole host of reasons. But one of the biggest problems right now is how clumsy the javascript tagging method is when applied to applications.Most measurement systems now work similarly – they rely on a small javascript program (the tag) that allows a coder to customize the values for certain variables and then call a function that assembles those values, adds a set of environmental variables…

• Measuring Online Applications

  SEMangel

  10 Oct 2009 | 10:40 am

  I’ve been doing a series of posts on topics that came up at X Change but today’s topic is even more timely than it was just one month ago. With Adobe’s acquisition of Omniture, the goal of increasing the measurability of web applications has really come to the forefront. It seems to be the core strategic rationale for the whole Omniture deal; making it an issue that’s really gotten everyone’s attention. When I blogged on the deal, one of my main points was that while the strategic rationale makes sense, capturing the benefits will not be a slam dunk. When analysts think about this…

• Data Warehousing Analytics Data and the Universal Tag

  SEMangel

  4 Oct 2009 | 9:49 pm

  The Really Big Topics at X ChangeI’ve been doing a series of posts on thoughts from X Change Huddles and I started with two on behavioral integration of survey data – which was the very first Huddle I took part in. But this was by no means the hot topic at X Change. In fact, the Think Tank class on survey/behavioral integration was one of the least popular offerings we did (much to my chagrin). What were the really big topics? There were two – warehousing online analytics data and using a universal tag. Both came up over and over again. I was mildly surprised by how popular the first…

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  Webanalyticsbook - Web Analytics

• Google Analytics Vs. Yahoo Analytics

  admin

  1 Nov 2009 | 7:49 pm

  A comparison of analytics systems has been done a bunch of times. A head to head collision comparison of Yahoo Analytics vs. Google Analytics is something so far not many have presented. However Insightr made a great presentation ……and the winner is …….Yahooooo. Insightr InSite: Comparing Free Analytics (Visual) View more presentations from Insightr Consulting.

• Webanalyticsbook 2.0

  admin

  17 Aug 2009 | 5:12 pm

  A few more days to go and then Avinash Kaushik’s 2nd webanalytics book will be released. It’s called Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity. Congrats Avinash. Will definitely be in my bookshelf! You can pre-order it here!

• Attention Analytics – Bridging Brain And Business

  admin

  5 Aug 2009 | 5:55 pm

  The question about which  parts of your website draw the most attention is as old as web analytics. The industry has done mouse tracking, visitor tracking, eyetracking…but never really looked at attention prediction studies done by neuro scientists. EyeQuant is one of these new solutions right out of the laboratories of the University of Osnabrueck, Germany.EyeQant ist based on a neuroscientific attention models. These models calculate within a few seconds which parts of the Design draw the most attention. The results are stunning and are close to what Eye tracking studies can…

• Webtrends 9 – Back to the roots

  admin

  4 Aug 2009 | 5:14 pm

  When a company seems to be called out for underdelivering…it’s even more surprising when it’s back up on its feet and finally goes back to it’s roots. Webtrends, one of the first players in the market,  just relaunched in one of the most interesting ways it’s brand new analytics solution. It’s the first time, that a large vendor simplifies it’s interface and makes it usable to pretty muche everybody (instead of adding layer and layer of complexity). I think a big part of this effort comes from Alex Yoder, who took over the CEO position last year…

• Simplyhired widget re-directs to Malware

  admin

  27 Jul 2009 | 9:10 pm

  Usually I don’t care much about blog plugins since they are free, but what Job-a-matic,which belongs to Simplyhired is doing with Job-o-matic, their “related job widget”, is not ok. I installed the widget about 1.5 years ago since it was recommended by Techcrunch, Gigaom and a few other high-profile bloggers. The installation worked great and I started earning a few hundred USD, which was great and unexpected, but after not getting paid (you have to claim your money, no automation!), Job-o-matic looked a little suspicious to me. However…it’s the internet A few…

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  Analytics Talk

• New Google Analytics Goals

  Justin Cutroni

  20 Oct 2009 | 11:47 am

  We all know that it’s critical to measure conversions, or goals, for our website. But for a long time Google Analytics limited the number of conversions, and types of conversions, you could track with Google Analytics. All that changes today (October 20, 2009). You can now create up to 20 goals per profile in Google Analytics. I can literally hear the applause at eMetrics :) In addition to expanding the number of goals Google has expanded the types of goals to include ‘threshold’ goals for pageviews per visit and time on site. I think we all know the importance of tracking…

• Segmenting Unique Visitors in Google Analytics

  Justin Cutroni

  20 Oct 2009 | 11:47 am

  Google Analytics now has the ability to EASILY segment Unique Visitors. Some of you may be yawning, but I can hear many, many people saying, “That’s fuc*ing AWESOME!” Unique visitors is a critical metric especially in the advertising industry. But it’s also a really hard metric to measure because it take a lot of data processing power. Why? Because of the way unique visitors are identified and measured. Google Analytics defines a unique visitor as a cookie. For all you nerds it’s the __utma cookie. Every time a visitor visits a site GA checks for the cookie. If…

• Google Analytics Custom Variables Overview

  Justin Cutroni

  20 Oct 2009 | 11:46 am

  Today Google releases Custom Variables (cv for short) in Google Analytics. This is an evolution of the custom segmentation feature. This post is meant to give you an overview of the feature. We’ll discuss how to use it in a later post. Like Custom Segmentation, custom variables are a flexible way to add more information to Google Analytics. The big difference is that you can create LOTS of custom variables. How many? In theory you can set an infinite number of custom variables. But GA has some internal limits that keep you to 50,000. What can we use custom variables for? The…

• Introducing Google Analytics v4

  Justin Cutroni

  20 Oct 2009 | 11:45 am

  Google introduced a new version of Google Analytics today, filled with new features to make analysts and marketers drool. Included in this new release is: New and Improved Goals (20 goals per profile and new ‘threshold’ goals based on pageviews and time on site) New mobile tracking Table Filtering (a way to quickly filter data in a report) Unique Visitor Segmentation (Unique Visitors is now a metric and can be added to custom reports) Multiple custom variables (an evolution of Custom Segmentation, wicked awesome!) Analytics Intelligence (automatic data analysis. And yes, it is as…

• Tracking Zero Result Searches in Google Analytics

  Justin Cutroni

  8 Sep 2009 | 7:53 pm

  I <3 Google Analytics Site Search reports. There’s amazingly actionable data in those reports. But they’re missing one vital piece of information: searches that don’t produce any results. Why is this important? Don’t you want to know when visitors search and don’t get any results? Zero result searches can help your identify missing content on your site or a problem with your site search engine. Many search solutions will provide this information for you. For example, I use Search Meter for Wordpress and it shows me which search queries generate zero results.

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  Web Analytics, Behavioral Targeting and Advertising Consulting

• All That Bounces Is Not Bad

  28 Oct 2009 | 11:10 pm

  If you have any connection with web analytics then, I am sure, you have heard about the bounce rates (see Bounce Rate Demystified and Typical Bounce Rates). A lot of analysts and a few web analytics tools are obsessed with the bounce rates. High bounce rate is considered bad. If you are one of those who is obsessed with the bounce rate or think that all that bounces is bad then this blog post is for you. I do believe that bounce rate is a great starting metrics when you are trying to optimize your site but be careful and make sure that you are measuring the true bounce rate.

• Web Analytics, Search Marketing and Social Media Analytics Jobs

  23 Oct 2009 | 11:03 am

  I have few open positions in Web Analytics, Search Marketing (Organic and Paid) and Social Media Analytics.Job RequirementsOne of the followingWeb Analytics Tools Implementation: Omniture, WebTrends, Coremetrics, Google Analytics, Yahoo! Web Analytics etc.? Any one tool experience is good.Analysis: Do you have experience making sense of the data collected by the web analytics tool? It does not matter which tool.Optimization – Do you have experience with A/B , Muti-variate testing or targeting? Experience with Google Website Optimizer, Test&Target, Widemile, Optimost etc?Search Engine…

• 7 Ways Of Handling 404 Error Messages

  4 Oct 2009 | 11:29 am

  Last week I wrote about 404 errors and how to track them in your web analytics tool. In this post I am going to look at how various sites are dealing with 404 error messages and provide your 7 ways of handling 404 pages on your site. The best way to handle the 404 error messages is to not have any by properly setting redirects in case of a redesign, proper sitemaps etc. But despite your best efforts there will be cases when your visitors will get the 404 errors so you just have to be prepared. This post will show you how other sites are doing it so that you can decide what will work for you.I…

• Web Analytics For 404 Errors

  1 Oct 2009 | 1:08 pm

  404 errors are a fact of life on the internet. 404 error is a message returned by a server in response to a request for a page that does not exist on the server (http 404 error code). Let me illustrate this with an example:A visitor comes to a site, bookmarks a page and then leaves the site.Next week the owner of the site decides to launch a new site completely replacing the old pages with the new pages (urls were different).Next month the visitor comes back to the site via the bookmark but the page she bookmarked does not exist as it was removed during the site redesign. She will get a 404…

• Are You Wasting Your Advertising?

  20 Sep 2009 | 8:58 pm

  I hope you have heard the famous words of John Wanamaker "I know half of my advertising is wasted, I just don't know which half." Today the phrase should be something like “Half my Advertising is wasted because I do not advertise responsibly” or “Half of my advertising is wasted; I can stop that but I fail to use the data”. Yes that is correct. We have an abundance of data today to help us save the wastage. There is no shortage of tools that will collect all sorts of data. Yet many marketers fail to act responsibly and use this data to stop advertising waste and also save customers…

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  Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik

• Analytics Becomes Intelligent. Hello Insights!

  Avinash Kaushik

  26 Oct 2009 | 1:24 am

  A while back I walked into a meeting and said:“You know what… web analytics tools like Site Catalyst, Yahoo! Web Analytics, WebTrends, and yes even Google Analytics, are mostly glorified data pukers. Each tries to outdo the other in trying to collect ever more data and regurgitating it. For all the math they do, it is astonishing how little intelligence they have, how little actual smarts are applied.”Silence for a a few mins.Awkward glances.Then this: “What do you mean, and what can we do?”Me: “I wish the tools would use an algorithmic approach to…

• Web Analytics Success Measurement For Government Websites

  Avinash Kaushik

  12 Oct 2009 | 1:45 am

  If you know what the desirable outcomes are from your website, it is not hard to measure performance of the website for you and your customers.Measuring top line success of ecommerce websites is not very complicated, all the sweet revenue based outcomes are there (at the least).Measuring non-profit websites is a bit complicated, but not really all that hard because we can, with a small amount of love, figure out outcomes to focus on (donations, # of sign-ups for the protest in DC, # of petitions signed, volunteer applications, etc).Measuring government websites is a bit more complicated, if…

• Brand Measurement: Analytics & Metrics for Branding Campaigns

  Avinash Kaushik

  29 Sep 2009 | 1:34 am

  One of the ultimate excuses for not measuring impact of Marketing campaigns is: “Oh, that’s just a branding campaign.”Admit it, you’ve heard it.I suspect you’ve even used it liberally!! : )Before we go any further I must clarify that I love branding campaigns just as much as the next guy.I love campaigns that Visa runs. I love watching the IBM ads (with the Linux kid perhaps the best of the lot). I loved the I’m a PC ads from Microsoft (and I am a proud PC!). I loved the Wario Land: Shake It ad from Nintendo on YouTube (now that’s creative!). I love a…

• Web Analytics Books!

  Avinash Kaushik

  14 Sep 2009 | 2:07 am

  Yes, books with a s. : )It is with immense excitement that I am sharing the news that I have just finished writing my second book!Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability & The Science of Customer CentricityIt is a long title ain’t it? The good news is we are going to refer to it simply as Web Analytics 2.0.In this post I wanted to share thoughts about the book, the process of writing it (and doing three rounds of edits!) and outcomes.The BackgroundSince mid-2008 Willem Knibbe, my wonderful Acquisition Editor at Wiley, was very kindly encouraging me to update my (best…

• Six Tips For Improving High Bounce / Low Conversion Web Pages

  Avinash Kaushik

  25 Aug 2009 | 1:11 am

  In my travels around the world the most frequently asked question is: “What’s your favorite web analytics report? “A close second is: “How can I improve my web pages with high bounce / low conversion rates?”Or “I have done all I can and I don’t know how else to improve my webpage, ideas?”If you think about it for a moment it is not a very hard question.I believe the insights for improvement exist at the intersection of customer intent and the webpage’s purpose.Let me explain.The Customer Intent – Webpage Purpose GapThere is a very…

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  Web Analytics Demystified

• Are You Ready for the Coming Revolution?

  eric

  18 Oct 2009 | 11:20 pm

  Few would argue that the past few years in web analytics have been, well, intense. The emergence of Yahoo Web Analytics, multiple management shake-ups at WebTrends, Adobe’s acquisition of Omniture following Omniture’s acquisition of Visual Sciences, WebSideStory, Offermatica, Instadia, and TouchClarity, and the continued push into the Enterprise from Google Analytics. From where I sit we have seen more changes in the last 24 months than we had in the entire 12 years previous (my tenure in the sector) combined. When I think about these changes, I find myself coming to the…

• An Apology of Sorts …

  eric

  15 Oct 2009 | 8:12 pm

  Now that Omniture’s Q3 earnings are public that I sort of felt like I needed to apologize to the company or at least recognize that they did a good job last quarter leading into their sale to Adobe Systems. Despite what I had heard from multiple sources their earnings announcement was right in line with guidance. Congratulations to the entire Omniture and Adobe team! It still leaves me scratching my head about the deal since the synergies are less obvious to me than they clearly are to Adobe and Omniture’s management and shareholders, but hey, with the sheer number of changes…

• New Data on the Strategic Use of Web Analytics

  eric

  11 Oct 2009 | 11:35 pm

  Recently Google published the results of a Forrester Research study they had commissioned (PDF) to help the broader market understand the use and adoption of free web analytics solution.  Google should be applauded for commissioning Forrester to conduct this work, especially given the quality of the research and the level of insights provided.  Without a doubt, free solutions like Google Analytics and Yahoo Web Analytics are having an impact on our industry and driving change in ways few of us ever imagined. I really did enjoy the Forrester report, primarily because the author (John Lovett)…

• Web Analytics Demystified European Tour

  eric

  3 Oct 2009 | 6:58 pm

  Those of you who live in Europe are likely already aware that my good friend Aurelie Pols has joined me as a partner in Web Analytics Demystified. Over the next two weeks she and I will be making a series of presentations and announcements at events across Northern Europe. We will be at: The Online Performance Management seminars, hosted by Creuna, in Copenhagen on Thursday, October 8th and in Oslo, Norway on Friday, October 9th. More information about our hosts and registration is available from Creuna. While we’re in Copenhagen we will be having a Web Analytics Wednesday on Wednesday,…

• More color on Adobe + Omniture

  eric

  16 Sep 2009 | 5:09 pm

  Wow, everyone seems to have an opinion about this acquisition. Some people think Microsoft will ride in at the 11th hour and out-bid Adobe because Microsoft and Adobe compete, and because Google has Google Analytics. On this point I am inclined to agree with Joe Davis, CEO of Omniture competitor Coremetrics, who comments that Omniture has been shopping the company around for some time and it is unlikely that Redmond hasn’t already had the opportunity to play (given the significant investment Microsoft has in Omniture.) Other folks appear to be worried that Adobe will be integrating…

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  Omniture: Industry Insights

• Explosive Mobile Growth: A Genesis for New Opportunities

  Ed Hewett

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:50 pm

  Strategic Developments Rapid expansion of mobile internet usage: Opera’s September State of the Mobile Web report pegs year-over-year US mobile page view and unique user growth at 309% and 123% respectively; Pew Internet reports daily mobile web users comprise 19% of all US adults (a 73% increase in 16 months) Emergence of new mobile markets: rough estimates place the market size of Apple’s App Store at around $150 million annually Mobile market share up for grabs: while Baidu is the clear leader in China for web searches, Google’s mobile investments have made competition…

• Migration Musings on Mobile

  David Kirschner

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:40 pm

  I had the opportunity to attend the AdobeMAX event in Los Angeles eariler this month. I sat there soaking in the eye candy that Adobe’s products can create thinking, “yeah, but how would that look on my Blackberry?” Then, as if Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch read my mind, he showed Flash 10.1 running on a mobile device — an iPhone no less, with no dithering or pixilation. It drew an enthusiastic round of applause from the 4,000+ in the Nokia Theater. It made me realize that clients still on HBX are missing the boat by not leveraging our Mobile tracking in SiteCatalyst V14.5. As…

• Internal search implementation and (a few) best practices

  Ben Gaines

  26 Oct 2009 | 10:09 am

  A few weeks ago, a SiteCatalyst user asked me whether Omniture products could measure and help optimize internal search engine data—the keywords that users are searching to find products, content, etc. within your site. This was one of those questions that make me smile, because I can answer confidently and affirmatively. It not only can be done—it probably should be done for just about any site featuring a search engine. After all, how better to determine what your users want than by examining their search tendencies? There are only a handful of chances in the user experience to learn so…

• Transactions and States: What Are You Measuring?

  Ben Robison

  21 Oct 2009 | 11:30 am

  The Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol (http) that runs the web is built on a request/response model.  The client (your browser) makes an HTTP Request which is handled by a server.  The server will send an HTTP response back to the client which contains the information requested.  The response can contain the contents of a web page, a link to a video stream, or a number of other things. Transactions This whole process is state-less by definition.  This means that the protocol doesn’t have any concept of memory to remember something from one request to the next.  To compensate, both the…

• Under the Hood: Preventative care against visit/visitor inflation

  Ben Gaines

  19 Oct 2009 | 2:25 pm

  Previously, I’ve discussed how visit and visitor measurement works in SiteCatalyst. However, there are some nuances that I haven’t mentioned, and which can wreak havoc on an otherwise solid implementation. I have seen numerous cases of good development hampered by minor errors which cause visit and visitor inflation, so I’d like to discuss briefly a few ways that you can ensure that you aren’t duplicating these metrics. Make sure that key configuration variables are always consistent—even across collection methods This is a common problem which is, unfortunately,…

• 
  Analytics Evolution

• eMetrics Fall Wrap-Up

  2 Nov 2009 | 4:28 am

  Summarizing the Fall eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in DC last week is actually quite easy. Check the stream of Twitter traffic at #emetrics to see what attendees thought in real time. Kudos go out to industry insiders like @June_Li and @ed_wu for keeping up with their views of eMetrics as it happened. I certainly appreciated their shared view presentations supplemented with valuable insights and commentary. But in addition to our dedicated industry insiders, a significant media presence emerged at eMetrics, made felt by Jessica Tsai tweeting under the @DestinationCRM handle.

• Truth, Lies and Delusion in Web Analytics

  19 Oct 2009 | 10:13 am

  Matt Cutler said it best recently at the Web Analytics X Change conference; “We are on a noble quest for truth”. He was referring to the fact that Web analytics - an industry that Matt helped to create - is about understanding. Yet, as with any epic story our protagonist (the industry), is challenged to find the way to the mysterious and intangible place that is Web analytics enlightenment. Matt went on to say; “Truth doesn’t happen easy…Truth doesn’t come for free.” And he was right on all accounts. These truths we seek in Web analytics are elusive because of innumerable…

• eMetrics Goes Social

  27 Aug 2009 | 6:10 am

  If you haven’t heard of the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit by now, you’re missing out. Founded by Jim Sterne, Web Analytics guru and widely recognized Godfather of Web analytics. This is the original #measure conference. With topics that delve into the real issues of Marketing in today’s world, eMetrics places its finger squarely on the pulse of digital marketing endeavors across the globe. Most recently, the eMetrics establishment launched a user group on LinkedIn to keep the conversation flowing in the months when there’s not a Summit event near you. Additionally, they…

• Webtrends Acquires Widemile

  30 Jul 2009 | 3:18 pm

  Things are happening up in the Northwest these days as Portland, OR based Webtrends (recognized as a leader in the recent Forrester Wave: Wave Analytics, Q3 09) announced today its acquisition of Seattle based testing firm Widemile. Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed, but the technologies are a perfect match.Widemile began its operations as a multivariate testing company in November 2005 and has been expanding on its capabilities; it’s proprietary Design of Experiments (DoE) algorithm; and client base ever since. The company delivers both self-service and managed service offerings…

• What Makes A Standard?

  28 Jul 2009 | 1:11 pm

  Something rather amazing happened yesterday in the Web Analytics realm that was enabled by social media. A longstanding conversation regarding all things Web analytics has been playing out in Twitter under the hashtag #wa. [If confused by this already, you may want to drop off here.] Recently, Washington state has jumped on the Twitter bandwagon and was creating "noise" on #wa. Thus, a number of Tweets ensued to shift the conversation from #wa to something we Web Analytics wonks could call our own.While @dustinwallace claims credit for conceiving the idea, the market was effectively moved by…

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  WAA Blog

• WAA's Annual Member Meeting

  Web Manager

  3 Nov 2009 | 7:04 am

  The WAA conducted its Annual Member Meeting on Thursday, October 29, 2009. As part of that meeting, a panel of board members representing key constituencies within the Web Analytics community shared their perspectives of where the industry is headed –...

• WAA President Responds to Adobe Acquisition of Omniture

  Web Analytics

  17 Sep 2009 | 6:58 am

  I, like probably all of you, was caught totally by surprise by the news this morning that Adobe has bought Omniture. My reactions ranged from "WOW!", to "Wow!", to "wow" and pretty soon the emails started arriving from friends in...

• Web Analytics Championship - Postponed

  Daniel Waisberg

  31 Jul 2009 | 4:51 am

  Dear WAA Members and Friends: A few days ago we discovered an unusual and unexpected issue with the WAA site and it requires us to suspend the Web Analytics Championship until it's resolved. When a user requests a new password,...

• WAA Webcast Series Follow-Up: Web Analytics Lab - Data Warehouse/BI Integration for Predictive Insights - Panel Q&A

  Web Analytics

  22 Jul 2009 | 1:26 pm

  On Tuesday, July 21, 2009, the WAA broadcasted its most recent webcast entitled Web Analytics Lab - Data Warehouse/BI Integration for Predictive Insights. This event was presented and created by our corporate sponsor Unica. If you missed the presentation, don't...

• WAA Webcast Series: May 19th - What online marketers can teach offline marketers (and vice versa)

  Web Manager

  7 May 2009 | 10:34 am

  Tuesday, May 19, 2009 12:00 PM EDT/ 9:00 am PDT Register: online with the Webcast Group Brought to you by our Corporate sponsor Unica! As a web analyst you face a chaotic multichannel world that includes your website(s), SEM, display...

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  Web Analytics Demystified

• Are You Ready for the Coming Revolution?

  eric

  18 Oct 2009 | 11:20 pm

  Few would argue that the past few years in web analytics have been, well, intense. The emergence of Yahoo Web Analytics, multiple management shake-ups at WebTrends, Adobe’s acquisition of Omniture following Omniture’s acquisition of Visual Sciences, WebSideStory, Offermatica, Instadia, and TouchClarity, and the continued push into the Enterprise from Google Analytics. From where I sit we have seen more changes in the last 24 months than we had in the entire 12 years previous (my tenure in the sector) combined. When I think about these changes, I find myself coming to the…

• An Apology of Sorts …

  eric

  15 Oct 2009 | 8:12 pm

  Now that Omniture’s Q3 earnings are public that I sort of felt like I needed to apologize to the company or at least recognize that they did a good job last quarter leading into their sale to Adobe Systems. Despite what I had heard from multiple sources their earnings announcement was right in line with guidance. Congratulations to the entire Omniture and Adobe team! It still leaves me scratching my head about the deal since the synergies are less obvious to me than they clearly are to Adobe and Omniture’s management and shareholders, but hey, with the sheer number of changes…

• New Data on the Strategic Use of Web Analytics

  eric

  11 Oct 2009 | 11:35 pm

  Recently Google published the results of a Forrester Research study they had commissioned (PDF) to help the broader market understand the use and adoption of free web analytics solution.  Google should be applauded for commissioning Forrester to conduct this work, especially given the quality of the research and the level of insights provided.  Without a doubt, free solutions like Google Analytics and Yahoo Web Analytics are having an impact on our industry and driving change in ways few of us ever imagined. I really did enjoy the Forrester report, primarily because the author (John Lovett)…

• Web Analytics Demystified European Tour

  eric

  3 Oct 2009 | 6:58 pm

  Those of you who live in Europe are likely already aware that my good friend Aurelie Pols has joined me as a partner in Web Analytics Demystified. Over the next two weeks she and I will be making a series of presentations and announcements at events across Northern Europe. We will be at: The Online Performance Management seminars, hosted by Creuna, in Copenhagen on Thursday, October 8th and in Oslo, Norway on Friday, October 9th. More information about our hosts and registration is available from Creuna. While we’re in Copenhagen we will be having a Web Analytics Wednesday on Wednesday,…

• More color on Adobe + Omniture

  eric

  16 Sep 2009 | 5:09 pm

  Wow, everyone seems to have an opinion about this acquisition. Some people think Microsoft will ride in at the 11th hour and out-bid Adobe because Microsoft and Adobe compete, and because Google has Google Analytics. On this point I am inclined to agree with Joe Davis, CEO of Omniture competitor Coremetrics, who comments that Omniture has been shopping the company around for some time and it is unlikely that Redmond hasn’t already had the opportunity to play (given the significant investment Microsoft has in Omniture.) Other folks appear to be worried that Adobe will be integrating…

• 
  immeria

• Job: Product Manager at iPerceptions (Montreal)

  Stephane Hamel at immeria.net

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:53 am

  As you might know, I recently sold the WASP technology to iPerceptions, and I'm now a member of their Advisory Council. I'm happy to relay the information about a job opening that will certainly be very interesting: Product Manager. iPerceptions is in the business of "Voice of the Customer" with the famous free 4Q survey and their corporate-strength webValidator continuous listening solution, and now WASP. iPerceptions works with top brands such as Dell, Toshiba, Reebok, Intuit, BMW, Sony, Nissan, etc. and as offices in Montreal, New York and London. Enough blabbing, here's the job! Product…

• Review: AT Internet NX

  Stephane Hamel at immeria.net

  30 Oct 2009 | 7:39 am

  Last week at the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in Washington D.C. there was a big buzz around the new Google Analytics features. But really, Google might win a prize for biggest industry shakedown (close to Adobe purchase of Omniture), but AT Internet would be a good contender for innovation in the field of web analytics. The France headquartered company has been pushing the web analytics envelope for a long time. Very strong in Europe, AT Internet was an early adopter of the freemium model with the Xiti solution launched in 1996! Here comes NX!The latest release, dubbed AT Internet…

• Book review: Web Analytics by Malo & Warren

  Stephane Hamel at immeria.net

  28 Oct 2009 | 2:22 pm

  My friends Nicolas Malo, from France, and Jacques Warren from Montréal, have just published the first web analytics book originally authored in French. Entitled "Web Analytics : mesurer le succès et maximiser les profits de votre site Web", the book is clearly aimed at non-initiated marketing managers. Organized around three main sections covering the basics of measuring online business success, outcome analysis and site optimization, the book offers a solution agnostic, easy to read and rich in examples overview of the underlying concepts of online analytics. They are not going into too…

• Smarter 404 with embeded Google Search Widget

  Stephane Hamel at immeria.net

  22 Oct 2009 | 7:27 am

  When I posted on the Yahoo! Web Analytics forum to announce the availability of the free Web Analytics Maturity Model paper, the post included this text: "the paper at http://immeria.net/wamm." (notice the dot). The link was broken because of the way Yahoo! parses text to automatically build links. Step 1: Use custom 404 pageThe first step to improve broken links handling (404 errors) is to modify your web server configuration to point to a custom page handler instead of the default, very technical and dull error. For example, doing this on an Apache-based web server is as simple as adding…

• Google Analytics new features: my take

  Stephane Hamel at immeria.net

  20 Oct 2009 | 10:30 am

  It is now entrenched in tradition: Google Analytics makes announcements at the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit. So here's the latest, straight from the eMetrics floor where analytics evangelist Avinash Kaushik is addressing a jam packed room of enthusiastic web analysts! Introducing Analytics IntelligenceThe feature that excites me the most is something I discussed privately with Avinash a while back: once we spot a dip or spike in a metric, I shouldn't have to manually dig for the other metrics that are correlated with this significant change. The tool should be smart enough to point…

• 
  June Dershewitz on Web Analytics

• 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…

• Functionalism Blog Post Series

  June Dershewitz

  23 Oct 2009 | 12:01 pm

  How do you actually do web analysis? I'm not speaking rhetorically here. I mean, if you're a web analyst, and you set out to make sense of the web site behavioral data that we all collect in web analytics applications like Omniture SiteCatalyst and Webtrends and Google Analytics, how do you frame a typical analysis project?When I do web analysis I often turn to functionalism.The concept of functionalism was developed several years ago by Gary Angel, Semphonic's founder and CTO. In essence, it is a framework for doing web site behavioral analysis. First, web pages are…

• 5 Industry News Tidbits from the First Half of the Year

  June Dershewitz

  18 Jun 2009 | 10:58 am

  In an effort to get myself all caught up on what happened in the web analytics industry while I was on leave, I've been sifting through posts and press releases from the first half of 2009. Here are 5 noteworthy items:1) Microsoft adCenter Analytics beta closesThe already-slim web analytics vendor market loses another player. Here's the development team's announcement from March.2) GA launches certification for individualsThe new Google Analytics Individual Qualification test costs just $50 USD - and all of the course materials are public domain. Will it become a must-have…

• Hello Again!

  June Dershewitz

  1 Jun 2009 | 5:29 pm

  I have spent the past few months offline - welcoming my new baby - and now I am making a gradual return to the professional world. I plan to work part-time at Semphonic through the summer and then go full-time in September 2009 when my daughter enters daycare.Ever the analyst, I have recently occupied my time with child-rearing data geek tools like the Itzbeen (it goes everywhere I go) and Trixie Tracker (oooh, pretty charts). Now, though, I am ready to pick up where I left off with the web analytics industry. I look forward to exploring all sorts of data and writing about the experience here…

• Taking a Break

  June Dershewitz

  27 Jan 2009 | 7:52 pm

  As of February 1st, 2009, I am officially on maternity leave from Semphonic. My blog will remain dormant while I'm away; I intend to pick it back up again when I return to work later this year.In the meantime I hope you get some value out of what I've written. This blog has been a great learning experience, as much for me as for the readers who've found their way here.If you're looking for a place to start in the archives, the 5 most popular posts are: Real-World Challenges of Tracking Mobile with Page Tags (plus a whitepaper I wrote on mobile analytics and CEM) Web…

• 
  web analytics - Google News

• Microsoft Sites Up Big in ... - InternetNews.com

  7 Nov 2009 | 3:06 am

  Microsoft Sites Up Big in ...InternetNews.comA leading Web analytics firm said Friday that Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) Web sites were the most popular with users on the Internet last month. and more »

• Be In Control of Your SEO Venture With Web Analytics - SEO Consult - SEO News (blog)

  7 Nov 2009 | 12:56 am

  Be In Control of Your SEO Venture With Web AnalyticsSEO Consult - SEO News (blog)Web analytics is a crucial part of an SEO campaign. In simple terms, web analytics is a tool used to measure, collect and analyse data. The Benefits of Web AnalyticsSEO Consult - SEO News (blog)all 2 news articles »

• Success With an SEO Campaign - SEO Consult - SEO News (blog)

  7 Nov 2009 | 12:56 am

  Success With an SEO CampaignSEO Consult - SEO News (blog)Well, there is only one way to find out; web analytics. Web analytics will tell you all the ins and outs of your website's performance.

• Teaching the Facebook Generation - BusinessWeek

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:32 am

  Business Daily AfricaTeaching the Facebook GenerationBusinessWeek how to optimize a Web site for search engines, how to analyze Web analytics data, develop a keyword strategy, and manage e-mail marketing campaigns. My budget is tight, what's the best bang for my buck getting more traffic to SmartCompany.com.auall 93 news articles »

• What Google Analytics cannot tell you - ZDNet UK

  5 Nov 2009 | 6:29 am

  ZDNet UKWhat Google Analytics cannot tell youZDNet UKGoogle caused a stir when it launched a free web analytics service in 2005. Since then, the search giant has steadily improved the service and expanded its and more »

• 
  Google Analytics Blog

• New Free Google Analytics API Dashboard Application

  Alden DeSoto

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:38 pm

  If you manage many Google Analytics profiles, it can be difficult to stay on top of all your top line metrics across accounts -until now. Trakkboard is a free, easy to use desktop application that allows analysts to create dashboards that pull data across different Google Analytics logins and different Google Analytics profiles to display top level metrics all within the same view.This application was built using the Google Analytics API by our friends in Germany, Trakken GmbH and is available in English, German and Spanish. Once downloaded, you can add multiple Google Accounts, select Google…

• Rapid Fire Web Analytics Q and A with Avinash and Nick - Episode #2

  Alden DeSoto

  4 Nov 2009 | 3:21 pm

  This is our second video in our recent initiative to ask you to share your most burning questions via Google Moderator (link: Google Analytics Google Moderator site).This week, Avinash brings his cast (leaving only one good analysis ninja arm) and we sit down to do a rapid fire Q&A to answer your questions.In this episode we discuss:Strategies for non-bounced non-converted visitors (Macro vs. Micro conversion)Ways to report total number of keywords over timeBenefits to tracking transactions as conversion goalsTracking unique visitors to specific web pagesPath analysis for keyword reports…

• New Feature Spotlight: Google Analytics for Mobile Apps

  Jeff Gillis

  3 Nov 2009 | 10:15 am

  Last week, we introduced expanded mobile reporting features in Google Analytics. To help developers, this launch includes features that make it easy to see how people are using specific parts of their iPhone and Android applications. The same Google Analytics reports that provide insights into website traffic and engagement are now available for mobile apps.As with websites, there are two basic categories of user interaction you can track: pageviews and events. Since mobile apps don't contain HTML pages, developers simply determine when their apps should trigger pageview requests. Google…

• Google Analytics API on App Engine Treemap Visualization

  Jeff Gillis

  30 Oct 2009 | 1:25 pm

  It's Friday, time for some fun! Advanced API analytics fun :)Here is a captivating way to look at your Google Analytics data in a Treemap visualization. You can visualize your own data with our live demo. (Note: IE currently not supported for visualization part.)click to enlargeAnd, here is a video explaining how to look at the Treemap visualization and how to use it.The goal of this example was to teach people how to use the Google Analytics API on App Engine in Java, as well as to demonstrate how to use both OAuth and AuthSub along with the App Engine's various services. The code looked…

• New Feature Spotlight: Engagement Goals, Goal Sets and 20 Goals Per Profile

  Jeff Gillis

  28 Oct 2009 | 11:39 am

  Last week, we announced a bundle of new enterprise-class features in Google Analytics. Over the next few weeks, we'll do posts which go into depth on each new feature. Here is the first, which goes into detail on the expanded and improved goals in Google Analytics (related video). It's very clearly and insightfully written by our friends at WebShare, a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant, with links to related help center articles.You can probably think of more than four things you'd like your visitors to be doing when they visit your website. Until last week, Google Analytics had limited…

• 
  Web Analytics World: Internet Marketing & Analytics

• Optimize Your Site for the Mobile Web

  6 Nov 2009 | 11:35 am

  We have obviously moved into the era of mobile now and to help websites transition their content to mobile, Google has put together a great article on how to speed up the mobile web.Mobile internet usage is skyrocketing worldwide. Throughout 2009, 50% of all new internet connections worldwide are coming from phones (eMarketer, 2008 and 2009). Google internal data shows that as mobile browsers improve, users' browsing habits increase.Mobile browsers render web pages differently from desktop browsers, so some steps are needed to make them work well on phones. This article contains some basic…

• Macro vs. Micro Conversions and Other Answers from Nick & Avinash

  5 Nov 2009 | 7:41 pm

  Avinash Kaushik & Nick Mihailovski answer questions about Analytics and other Google tools.In this episode they discuss:Strategies for non-bounced non-converted visitors (Macro vs. Micro conversion) Ways to report total number of keywords over time Benefits to tracking transactions as conversion goals Tracking unique visitors to specific web pages Path analysis for keyword reports -- why it's bad and what to do instead How Google Analytics can be used on affiliate sites How site owners can exclude themselves from being tracked by Google Analytics How to properly track sites that reside on…

• The Use of Online Video within Blogs

  4 Nov 2009 | 7:23 pm

  Sysomos recently released a study which takes a look inside online video engagement specifically how videos are used within online sharing sites such as blogs. This study, exploring the use of online video services by bloggers, is based on a collection of more than 100 million blog posts collected from July to September 2009.Here are some highlights from the study:Market Leader: YouTube - Not surprisingly, YouTube is the most popular video-sharing service used by bloggers, attracting 81.9% of all embedded videos and direct links. Vimeo is a distant second with 8.8%, followed by Dailymotion…

• Analytics and SEO Blended with Social Media

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:29 pm

  In this video yours truly (Manoj Jasra) discusses how it's important to incorporate analytics into your marketing and website strategy from the very beginning and how you can use the stats from your websites to drive decisions which will have a direct impact on your organization.I am part of the 4 man roster at the Social Media Innovation Summit happening in Calgary on November 12th. This is an event presented by West17Media which is aimed at addressing high-level information planning, a key concern which many other conferences neglect.

• Track iPhone Apps with Google Analytics

  3 Nov 2009 | 6:46 pm

  Last week Google Analytics introduced the ability to track mobile applications, and this week Meredith Papp, Product Marketing Manager for the mobile ads team, talks with Redfin about their experiences using new Google Analytics for mobile features. As with websites, there are two basic categories of user interaction you can track: pageviews and events. Since mobile apps don't contain HTML pages, developers simply determine when their apps should trigger pageview requests. Google Analytics then aggregates this data in the Content reports to display the number of visits, session length and…

• 
  web analytics - Google Blog Search

• Be In Control of Your SEO Venture With Web Analytics | SEO Consult ...

  Nick

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:54 am

  Web analytics is a crucial part of an SEO campaign. In simple terms, web analytics is a tool used to measure, collect and analyse data. These tools also report this data so that you can make integral decision about the way in which your ...

• The Benefits of Web Analytics | SEO Consult - Certified Search ...

  Michael

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:47 am

  Without web analytics it would be difficult to measure statistics or analyze visitor behaviour. It is a way to determine data in terms of profit, sales and market share or market interest.

• Macro vs. Micro Conversions and Other Answers from Nick & Avinash ...

  Manoj Jasra

  5 Nov 2009 | 7:41 pm

  Macro vs. Micro Conversions and Other Answers from Nick & Avinash - Web Analytics World Blog.

• Analytics and SEO Blended with Social Media - Web Analytics World Blog

  Manoj Jasra

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:19 pm

  Analytics and SEO Blended with Social Media - Web Analytics World Blog.

• Web Analytics is the Foundation of Driving Strategy - Search ...

  unknown

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:25 pm

  In this video yours truly (Manoj Jasra) discusses how it's important to incorporate analytics into your marketing and website strategy from the very beginning and how you can use the stats from your websites to drive decisions which ...

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

• Do you use Tynt? You should!

  Marshall Sponder

  6 Nov 2009 | 3:39 pm

  I heard about Tynt Insight and tried it out, pretty impressed! Tynt allows me to see how my content is being copied and used – but it also generates traffic – and it’s used on some larger sites (I believe Sports Illustrated is testing it out) – Tynt goes past what Web Analytics is currently capable of  in the way it can track content usage.  There is a tag involved, and for a blog, it’s put in the footer below the closing body tag. I’m pretty impressed with how Tynt told me how much traffic it generated for my blog – it also, in the advanced…

• The Coming Revolution includes Web Analytics and … Bauhaus

  Marshall Sponder

  3 Nov 2009 | 11:31 pm

  Sometimes, I get ideas from other things that don’t appear related, at all, like  Eric T. Peterson’s post about “are you ready for the coming revolution?” and an exclusive, press only invite to Bauhaus 1919-1933 Workshops for Modernity @ MoMA that I attended today.  Eric would say, I’m sure, there’s no relationship, but there is, because I made a connection and bridged two totally different currents that really aren’t so different; and, what I mean.  Eric wrote this: I’ll cut right to the chase: I believe that we are (finally) on the cusp of a…

• The Future of Social Media Monitoring – my presentation at Monitoring Social Media 09

  Marshall Sponder

  2 Nov 2009 | 4:44 pm

  Actually, I did this presentation for the panel I’m speaking on focusing on the Future Of Social Media Monitoring at  Monitoring Social Media 09, yesterday.  Turns out, panelists don’t need presentations at #msm09 (unlike Search Engine Strategies and Emetrics Summit).   Not a problem, as it got me to think about what I think the Future of Social Media Monitoring is, and the current problems that exist now. Here’s my presentation on Slideshare – let me know what you think. The Future Of Social Media Monitoring Marshallsponder View more presentations from…

• Future of the Social Web

  Marshall Sponder

  1 Nov 2009 | 10:37 am

  See this chart – it’s in PR 2.0 in a post from Brian Solis today I like the visualization but I have to say something – it’s amazing how many people are saying, much the same thing, in their own way (but hardly anything new is being said – perhaps, the value is in assembling the information, maybe that’s the contribution). Which gets me back to this point – what exactly are they saying? Anything original? – No, not really. What did JeremiahOwyang,  Josh Bernoff, Cynthia N. Pflaum, and Emily Bowen, say about the future of the Social Web…

• Google Analytics vs. Yahoo! Analytics – 53% vs, 79%, compared, point by point

  Marshall Sponder

  1 Nov 2009 | 8:42 am

  Overall, Yahoo! Web Analytics is a better platform than Google Analytics, but that doesn’t mean it’s a more accessible platform and  it’s very clear Yahoo! Web Analytics really is a much better platform – but …. to tell people how and why … that’s more problematic, since I don’t have Yahoo! Analytics on any of my sites and haven’t done much with it, yet. Fortunately, I don’t need to … someone has done that work of comparing Google Analytics and Yahoo! Analytics and come up with the point score of each. Hint :  Look at slide…

• 
  Increasing Your Website's Conversion Rate

• Navigation, Bounce and Exit

  Robbin

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:53 pm

  A while ago, we wrote a post about the Google Analytics navigation report.  The great thing about blog posts is that they last and last, and today, someone posted a multi-part question about the Navigation report.  So (assuming that lots of people have the same questions) here are hers, and here are the answers. 1. Do the exits in the navigation report include exits? Answer: Yes. This was easy to find out using the new Advanced Filter that everyone now has in Google Analytics and filtering on pageviews = 1, bounce rate = 100% and exit rate = 100%. Then when I found the names of those pages,…

• Website Conversion and SEO Copywriting

  Christina

  30 Oct 2009 | 2:44 pm

  First, let me start by introducing myself. My name is Christina Keffer, and I’m the newest addition to the team at LunaMetrics. I’m absolutely thrilled to be able to write my first blog post here about a topic that is quite near and dear to my heart: Copywriting. You have to be a really colossal word nerd to get all hot and bothered by the thought of dissecting web copy in order to find out what sells and why. Lucky for you, dear readers, I am that word nerd, and I’ve come up with a brief tutorial about writing for the web with one eye on user experience and the other on the…

• New Google Analytics Features Roundup

  Jim

  21 Oct 2009 | 9:12 am

  By now, I’m sure you’ve heard about Google’s announcement at eMetrics of the new features to Google Analytics (if you were away from your computer for the past 24 hours, read our post about the new features in Google Analytics). A lot has been written about these new features. Of course, we’ll be spending the next couple weeks going over each new feature in detail, letting you know how to use it, why it’s important, and what it means for your analytics. In the meantime, here’s a look at what other people are saying: Google’s Official Announcement…

• New Features in Google Analytics!

  Jonathan

  20 Oct 2009 | 12:00 pm

  Google Analytics has just introduced a gaggle of new features at eMetrics today. Some you’ll already find in your account, and some are being rolled out over the next couple of weeks. Analytics Intelligence & Custom Alerts The most exciting of these new features is a set of reports called “Analytics Intelligence”. They look for patterns in your daily, weekly, and monthly data and call out significant changes and anomalies. This makes it a lot easier to separate what’s really new and interesting from the mountain of data you have about your site. Here’s an…

• Make Mistakes While Noone is Watching

  John

  19 Oct 2009 | 9:51 am

  A website test can often involve a lot of people, IT staff, Designers, Content Owners, etc.  While the technicals are fairly straight-forward, the process involved to get everyone working together can be really hard.  And people *will* make mistakes. Are you going to wait to make those mistakes while everyone is focused on you for that massive Home Page test that you just barely got approval to run after months of trying ?? Why not make those mistakes before anyone cares? Start with a test page.  Have your designer create alternate content for it, your IT staff put in the code, etc.  This…

• 
  webanalytics at Yahoo! Groups

• Re: Unica's E-Commerce Capabilities

  SUHEL KHAN

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:24 pm

  Hi Kay, Unica quite robust tool  for ecommerce site, we are using it last 2 year, we have never face any problem also customer support is very good   Regards

• Re: Drop in direct traffic

  David Simmons

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm

  First, what kind of decline in direct visits (i.e. what %) are we talking about? Second, look at the long term correlation between direct entries and

• Re: facebook group page metrics

  Gabi Endress

  6 Nov 2009 | 11:59 am

  There's a company called Kontagent (www.kontagent.com) that I know can offer analytics for Facebook Apps. Not sure if they also have a way of providing

• facebook group page metrics

  joebull714

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:27 am

  Does anyone know what metric tools are available to measure a facebook group page? I can track the number of members/fans but I want to get visits and

• Re: GA custom reporting and advanced segments - do they work togethe

  Alan Etkin

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:10 am

  Hi James, Thanks for taking the time to respond. What I'm trying to understand is the behavior of visitors to a specific section of our site that was used for

• 
  Blackbeaks Blog....All things Analytics

• Social proof

  Captain Blackbeak

  31 Oct 2009 | 4:31 am

  I was discussing social selling the other day with a client and this is something I think many businesses overlook when they think about their marketing strategies. There is nothing better in my opinion than having someone unconnected rave about you, your product or service. Just the other day my friend Sean D’Souza put some material out there that used to be sold for $2500. I have advocated his materials for years and was impressed when I saw he was giving one of his old products away. I didn’t even think about it, I just tweeted the link to my followers. This wasn’t…

• Adobiture - Brave and measured or foolish?

  Captain Blackbeak

  16 Sep 2009 | 1:44 pm

  The day Kwantic had it’s official launch at the record breaking Helsinki Web Analytics Conference in front of 300 people, Omniture were acquired by Adobe. Slightly bigger news from the other side of the world then! There were 3 Omniture guys at the event and like me, none of them saw it coming or at first understood why it had happened. After reading reactions, particularly a good one here from Russ Mann and a very good one here from Eric Peterson as well as talking to Omniture I have reached my own conclusions. This is a great deal for Omniture. Probably Josh just did the best deal of…

• New beginnings, new company, Kwantic

  Captain Blackbeak

  16 Aug 2009 | 11:59 pm

  At the end of June 2009 I left Trainers’ House in a much better place than when I started there. In 2008 we did extremely good profits and were turning over multiple millions of Euros. We’d become one of the largest consultancies focusing on Analytics in the world, arguably the biggest in Europe and I had the pleasure to work with some extremely professional people. I have left Trainers’ House because the plans in 2009 did not match my ambitions. Their growth system story is good and I believe it can and will work. I would like to say good luck to those at Trainers’…

• Cult of Analytics Book launch in Helsinki

  Captain Blackbeak

  23 Jun 2009 | 1:13 am

  Just in case you’re in town you might be interested in checking out my Book launch in Helsinki. All the details are here. There will be drinks afterwards at Teatteri for those interested in beverages in the afternoon sunshine.

• Cult of analytics Master class

  Captain Blackbeak

  15 Jun 2009 | 3:09 am

  This week I am holding the first Cult of Analytics MasterClass in Copenhagen. See below for details. If you’re in Copenhagen on the 17th we’d love to see you there. Copenhagen 17th June Cult of Analytics enables professionals to build an web analytics driven culture into their business or organization. Marketers will learn how to turn tried and tested tactics into an actionable plan to change their culture to one that uses web analytics on a day to day basis.  With examples from dozens of companies ranging from small businesses, to consumer sites like Amazon, to some of the…

• 
  Judah Phillips at Web Analytics Demystified

• It takes A Village Or A City And More…

  Judah

  16 Oct 2009 | 1:40 pm

  Companies are more dependent on solid Web analytical data to drive increased revenue and improved efficiency than ever before. Yet, most companies underinvest in the people and technology needed to deliver optimal levels of analysis. In my discussions with colleagues at industry events, it is not uncommon to find one analyst or a very small team of fewer than three analysts responsible for everything related to Web analytics, from soup to nuts. And by that I mean all vendor relationships, systems administration and maintenance, tagging specification/verification/QA, AB and multivariate…

• Web Analytics: Easy? Hard? Complex? It Depends

  Judah

  18 Sep 2009 | 2:42 pm

  In the Web analytics industry, there has been an ongoing debate for some time over whether analytics is easy, hard, complex, or both hard and complex.  Certain thought leaders advocate for each categorization.  My take on it is “it depends” on the tools you are using, the site you are analyzing, your company’s requirements, your team’s skill set, and the processes you define for analytics.  Let’s dig a little deeper into each of these concepts: Your tools.  While Web analytics tools all share common functions, like counting, at a minimum, views, visits,…

• Web Analytics Integration: Holy Grail or White Whale?

  Judah

  1 Aug 2009 | 5:10 pm

  A few years ago, when I spoke about “integrating Web analytics data with data from other systems,” I was often met with quixotic looks from vendors and asked, “Why would you want to do that?” Practitioners, on the other hand, wondered, “how are you going to do that” with the current tool sets available at the time. Consultants would say, “we can help you with that, as long as you purchase specific tool X and have your data in database Y.” I quickly learned that it was a real challenge to integrate Web analytics data in heterogeneous data…

• Analytics Isn’t Just For Marketers…

  Judah

  13 Jul 2009 | 4:40 pm

  The practice of online analytics is most often discussed in the context of marketing. Analytics pinpoints the highest performing marketing and advertising campaigns. Analytics assists in identifying and helping to nurture leads. Analytics informs marketers of audience attributes and behavior, so that the best and most appropriate messages can be targeted to them. Analytics must be used to optimize search. While all of these statements are true, and I agree that analytics for marketing is among the highest and best use for the data, it is not the only use for data by far. Several other…

• Why Web Analytics Tools Fail

  Judah

  10 Apr 2009 | 7:38 pm

  In 2009, Web analytics managers have a multitude of different tools to select to deploy at their corporation.  Sets of tools from industry leaders, such as Omniture, WebTrends, Unica, CoreMetrics , Google, and Yahoo, are among the most popular, while options from smaller players like ClickTracks and Woopra exist as well.  In theory, you deploy a tool, customize it to fit your needs, and start analyzing the reports — and it all goes swimmingly, right? Then why have many corporations already chewed through two, maybe even three tools over the last several years, or deployed multiple…

• 
  Official Webtrends Company Blog

• John Lovett Talks Data Integration, Webtrends and Teradata

  Michelle Anderson

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:16 pm

  Learn How the Webtrends and Teradata Integration Solution Paints the Whole Picture There is little doubt of how highly critical the importance of integrating online and enterprise data is. It is necessary to analyze both types of data in order to get the whole picture in a customer’s buying habits and satisfaction, and to improve conversion rates. Knowing when a customer connects with sales staff, knowing which direct mailings and catalogs the customer received, and knowing if the customer is chatting in social networks about the company or its products – all of these are tiny pieces to…

• Don’t Miss Rives at Engage 2010

  Michelle Anderson

  3 Nov 2009 | 3:48 pm

  Rives – Webtrends’ Engaged MC with an Edge Imagine this: It’s February in the year 2010, and you’re at Webtrends’ Engage 2010 conference in beautiful New Orleans. You’re in The Big Easy, a place known for its ability to inspire and captivate with its vibrant, historic scene. You’ve just heard a presentation that’s chock-full of ideas on getting more out of your enterprise customer intelligence data. Your brain is racing with new methodologies, is searching for the true impact of these new ideas on your data marketing plans, is trying to focus on the…

• Deadline Looms for Session Submission for Engage 2010

  Michelle Anderson

  29 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am

  There are only 18 days left to submit your thought-provoking session idea for Webtrends’ Engage 2010! Webtrends’ Engage 2010 Factoids Held February 1-4, 2010 in New Orleans, LA at the beautiful and historic Roosevelt Hotel, a Waldorf-Astoria hotel Rives, 2.0 poet, TED Conference regular, and co-host of Bravo channel’s show Ironic Iconic America, will MC and wrap-up each session with a poetic, multimedia commentary Ignite presentation that our “sprint” talks are modeled after. November 16, 2009 is the last day to send us your fresh ideas on getting the most out of enterprise…

• Are small businesses in the UK using Twitter changing the game for Enterprise?

  Michelle Anderson

  28 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am

  Big Fish, Small Fish: Who will rule the pond in the UK? A recent survey of office workers in the UK suggests they cost the country’s economy roughly £1.38 billion each year because they spend time on the clock surfing social media networking sites such as Twitter. A consultant for the company that commissioned the report said, “When it comes to an office environment the use of these sites is clearly becoming a productivity black hole.” Sound familiar? Maybe reminiscent of the fears people had about email in the work place in 1994? It also sounds eerily like the concern that…

• Where are our social media elders?

  Justin Kistner

  27 Oct 2009 | 7:24 am

  Village elder from Rajasthan, by Michael Foley Read an interesting article in the Chicago Tribune today: Younger employees help senior executives unlock social media mystery. It struck a chord for me because I have worked with executives on the development of their social media presence for a few years now. I started off helping Sam Lawrence build his presence while he was the CMO at Jive Software. From there I went to Voce Communications where I worked with a number of execs employed by our clients. Now that I’m at Webtrends, I recently launched an executive social media support…

• 
  Ambient and Transparent

• New Google Website Optimizer Features Announced at eMetrics Washington

  Rehan Asif

  6 Nov 2009 | 9:35 am

  At eMetrics in Washington just a short while ago, two new and quite cool features for GWO were announced that you might want to check out: An experiment management API which allows you to create and manage experiments outside of the interface.  For those that work with a lot of experiments or deal with third party integration, this will save you a lot of work! Conversions over time charts can be found on the reports page of GWO.  Conversion rates are rarely a static number and websites might undergo changes during an experiment, so visually seeing how your combinations performanced over…

• The Cost of Misinformation

  Feras Alhlou

  4 Nov 2009 | 8:55 am

  I find it interesting how misinformation can widely spread and at times remain uncontested. You might have seen a recent webinar and a guide by Omniture about “The Cost of Free” and the analogy of “Free analytics tools are much like free puppies” and that “free can turn into a lot of responsibility!” Well, while the analogy is cute, the premise and the details are misleading. The problems with Omniture’s argument are that they are irrelevant and out-of-sync with the challenges that exist in the web analytics industry. When was the last time…

• Urchin 6.6.0.2 available now!

  Shiraz Asif

  22 Oct 2009 | 9:59 am

  Google has just released version 6.602 of their Urchin Software product. Version 6.602 contains one major new feature, along with several small improvements and bug fixes. The major new feature in this version is multi-language capability. Now our friends from Germany, Spain, Mexico, Japan, and other regions can have localized instances of Urchin. Very cool Here is a quick overview of the features included in this release: Switch between supported languages (total of 10) Added SSL/TLS protocol support to External Authentication (LDAP) The Urchin “Home” page (sometimes called the…

• Google Analytics: Powerful, Flexible, and Intelligent

  Feras Alhlou

  20 Oct 2009 | 11:48 am

  Marketers and analysts, are you ready for the latest version of Google Analytics!!! As announced today on the Google Analytics blog and at eMetrics, the Google Analytics team is rolling out a new version of GA (version 4) with exciting new capabilities, many more customization options, and the totally awesome and super powerful Intelligence feature. Over the next several days I’ll be posting specific posts about each of the new GA features, but for now here is a quick summary of what you’ll start seeing in your reports. Expanded goals Mobile reporting Advanced table filtering…

• eMetrics in DC – Web Analytics Training, Education & Networking

  Feras Alhlou

  18 Oct 2009 | 3:08 pm

  It’s one day away, eMetrics will be in Washington DC, and it’s not too late to register (you never know, check with your boss for some unused training budget ). Jim Sterne and the eMetrics team have an incredible line up of speakers and tracks, including multi-channel metrics, search analytics, emergent media and many others. In addition, there is a number of workshops offered. Topics include: reports, predictive analytics as well as a workshop on Google Analytics by our dear friend and GA Ninja Caleb Whitemore of AnalyticsPros. So don’t miss out if you can make it, you can…

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  Web Analytics Guy's Blog

• 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…

• Tracking Marketing Campaigns

  webanalyticsguy

  27 Aug 2009 | 7:15 pm

  Have you ever experienced someone in the marketing department (SEM, Email, Corporate, etc) asking you how well the marketing campaign they just ran has preformed, only to realize that the campaign was not being tracked? This can be a very frustrating situation to not be able to let the marketing department know how well the campaign performed. The campaigns can be a newsletter, paid search, banner ads, twitter, facebook, widgets, or tiny URLs. The marketing department can run a marketing campaign on any combination of these. If the marketing department is not aware that the campaign needs to…

• Video Streams vs. Page Views

  webanalyticsguy

  6 Jul 2009 | 12:40 pm

  As I mentioned in my last post, Video Tracking, video is starting to become one of the more popular ways that sites are communicating and/or sharing information with their users. With the increased focus on videos, that begs the question, are the video plays hurting page views? This is a very interesting question. I am going to share some of the experiences that I have had of the last couple of years with the sites that I have worked since we have had more of a focus on video plays. The media sites that I work on also have tv channels that go along with the sites. Whenever possible, we…

• Video Tracking

  webanalyticsguy

  9 Jun 2009 | 6:18 am

  Video is starting to quickly become one of the most popular ways that sites are communicating and/or sharing information with its users. Sites like Hulu, Sling, and YouTube are growing in popularity. Portal sites, like AOL have a section that is completely dedicated to video. Media sites are putting more video on the sites than ever before, from video clips to full episodes. With this increased interest in video, it is important for accurate video tracking and to track the data that will help you understand how users are viewing the video. In this post, I am going to cover different tracking…

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  Visual Revenue

• Expanding the Yahoo! Web Analytics Consultant Network

  Charlie Holbech

  4 Nov 2009 | 6:00 pm

  Note: The following is a post by Charlie Holbech, who is a Sr. Yahoo! Web Analytics Manager out of Los Angeles. Charlie was the one running the Partners division (and half our revenue I might say) at IndexTools. As I am sure most of you recall we (Yahoo!) launched Yahoo! Web Analytics Consultant Network (YWACN) at the beginning of August 2009. Since then we have been literally inundated with applications (apply here) from all corners of the globe from smart, enthusiastic and extremely analytics savvy consulting firms. These companies excel in their various regions around the world and provide…

• Final: Microsite Analytics White Paper

  Dennis R. Mortensen

  9 Oct 2009 | 11:08 am

  Last week I posted a Microsite Analytics white paper preview note – and was happy to see a dozen something folks making the effort in going through the early version as I emailed it out. I would like to thank the following in particular: Mihaela Popa, Emer Kirrane, David Kopp and Rune Flint for their great input! I created a separate download page, so take it away guys - Microsite Analytics White Paper. Not convinced it’s worth your time; here’s the abstract and the introduction: Abstract Measuring and reporting on the impact of a Microsite without taking into consideration how it…

• Preview: Microsite Analytics White Paper

  Dennis R. Mortensen

  1 Oct 2009 | 8:26 am

  I am adding the finishing touch to my Microsite Analytics White Paper and I would love any feedback I can get. Should you have the time to flip through a twenty something pages draft (let’s call it v0.95), let me know, and I’ll send you a draft-copy to look at - especially if you are at an agency and report on the effectiveness of client Microsites. If you subscribe via my personal RSS feed, Email feed or Twitter feed for that matter – you should see a notice come out in the next coming weeks, in regards to the final Microsite Analytics White Paper. The white paper will be posted as…

• the Adobe Omniture marriage is a pipe dream

  Dennis R. Mortensen

  23 Sep 2009 | 7:07 am

  I and the web analytics Industry in general was flabbergasted by the announcement of the Adobe Omniture marriage and there’s been a big ‘huh?’ debate going on since; which I see no reason to elaborate on. Eric does (as usual) some good analysis/commentary in his two posts Thoughts on Adobe + Omniture and More color on Adobe + Omniture. However; I would like to set free my long term belief about this, as I can see some positive momentum in justifying the deal - people getting lulled into thinking that it might make sense (it does not). To put it politely, I am probably less optimistic…

• Kindle DX Edition of my Yahoo! Web Analytics book

  Dennis R. Mortensen

  18 Sep 2009 | 7:45 am

  Amazon just sent me a note as the Author of the above mentioned analytics book repeating that: “This title has complex layouts and has been optimized for reading on Kindle DX’s larger screen”. First. I am a huge Kindle fan and seeing the DX optimization is just absolutely fantastic! But wait, oh no, I don’t actually own a Kindle myself. Anyone out there who own a Kindle or even better actually owns a Kindle DX? .. or perhaps this is just a sign from God (or whomever) that I must go buy the device! :-) Amazon Kindle link: Yahoo! Web Analytics: Tracking, Reporting, and Analyzing for…

• 
  Think Like a User

• How to Get More Newsletter Subscribers

  Visitors are highly suspicious of parting with their name and email address details. Use these techniques to help reduce their fears and build your list of targeted prospects and customers. Label your opt-in form clearly When you are advertising or otherwise placing your link make sure that it is clear what it ...

• How to Improve your Landing Pages

  Follow these landing page tips to improve their effectiveness for your business and convert more prospects into customers. Many, many studies have shown that 80% of visitors to most sites leave in under 8 seconds. There are many reasons for that so I'm just going to focus on five main ones for ...

• Determining Website Goals are Vital to your Online Success

  Goal setting is an integral component of any business venture, and this reality holds true as well when developing your website. Primary and secondary site goals really help companies determine what their website should "do" and what it should "say". A pervading rationale among corporations for having their own website is to maintain ...

• 
  Key Web Metrics & Web Analytics Blog

• Web Analytics Dashboard for Executives & Senior Leadership

  Sameer

  26 Oct 2009 | 11:05 am

  Dashboard is one of the most important parts of web analytics reporting. It can provide a quick snapshot of your website performance. It can also be used to present your site performance to anyone in your organization. You can create dashboards using several third party solutions , or you can use out of the box solutions from analytics solution providers like Google, Omniture or Coremetrics. Honestly, none of these solutions can provide you web analytics dashboards for senior leadership or c-level executives. People in c-level groups do not have time to analyze data or interpret multiple…

• Ultimate Web Analytics Training Guide: From Click to Close

  Sameer

  10 Oct 2009 | 3:15 pm

  Here is the most comprehensive list of all the top posts from my blog and other popular web analytics blogs on the internet. These are organized in order to give you a complete start to end training on how to perform web analysis like a pro on your website to improve conversion, reduce bounce rate and provide exceptional user experience. Enjoy ! Getting started 1. What is web analytics? 2. Benefits of web analytics for small business. 3. How to install free Google Analytics solution on your website in 60 seconds? 4. Why bounce rate is the most important metric ever? 5. Most basic metrics of…

• Top 3 Web Analytics & Web Data issues that impact Your Decisions

  Sameer

  4 Oct 2009 | 2:44 pm

  Web analytics is a great solution for website authors and web administrators to know how well their site is selling and how to optimize it for maximum outreach. However, measuring raw data using web analytics solutions is not free from error and issues. Think about it, when was the last time you were 100% satisfied with the results you got? There is always concern about the accuracy of data, reliability of the data collected and the everlasting first party/third party cookie argument. Lets discuss some of the most popular web analytics issues and how to tackle each one of them. 1. Data…

• Top 5 Reason Why Paid Analytics Solution Rocks

  Sameer

  16 Sep 2009 | 10:04 am

  Watch this video to find out why paid/enterprise analytics solutions like Omniture or Coremetrics can help you take your web analysis and data driven decision making process to the next level.

• How to Become a Web Analytics Ninja in 5 minutes flat!

  Sameer

  2 Sep 2009 | 5:16 am

  This is a pretty bold claim and in this post I am going to teach you how you can literally perform web analysis like a pro in 5 minutes. To become true expert web analyst you have drill down the reports mentioned below and segment the data like crazy. This blog post is specially designed for individuals who are new to web analytics. The only caveat is that you should have already installed analytics solution on your website.If you have not already done so then I would highly recommend visiting Google Analytics(GA) website. If you want to learn advanced techniques to optimize your current…