Know your
Audience:
Web Analytics &
Search Engine Marketing
Emakina Academy
11 October 2006

Agenda
09.30 Welcome Coffee
10.00 Web Analytics
by David Rademaker (Emakina)
10.30 Why choosing WebTrends
by Maarten Sambre (WebTrends)
11.00 Coffee Break
11.15 Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
by Michael Vandenhooft (Extenseo)
11.45 Optimize your website for indexation
by Laurent Goffin (Emakina)
12.15 SEM cases : Cora Direct & DVD Post
by Michael Vandenhooft (Extenseo)
12:50 Conclusion - Q&A
13.00 Lunch
14.00 End

Introduction
How many surfers visit your website every day? What are their
favorite sections? How can you turn a visitor into a lead, then in a
client? Where are the hurdles to this conversion?
During this fifth Academy, our WebTrends experts will explain how
web analytics can significantly improve your website ROI and better
profile your target group. In the second part of this session, our
partner Extenseo will show the power of Search Engine
Optimization and Keyword Buying to attract qualified audience
through Google & friends.
If you’re not interested in knowing your consumer, don’t stay.

About Emakina

Multi-channel approach

Competence Centre

Prestigious References

From visitor to customer

Web Analytics
David Rademaker, Emakina

Web Analytics > Agenda
Inspirational anecdote
Common mistakes
Statistics ABC: from hits to visitors
Types of metrics
Why managed statistics
Interpreting numbers
Top metrics to watch for
What Emakina can do for you

There are lies,
damned lies,
and statistics
Mark Twain
1835-1910

Real life anecdote
Overheard at Fortune 100 company
Person A:
“I have got 10’000
(something) on my website”
Person B:
“That’s all? I got 100’000
(something) on mine!”
The truth?
Person A had 10’000 visitors
Person B had 100’000 hits
but only 1000 visitors
What would you prefer?

Web Statistics: Terms Used
Hit
– Any information requested from a site - this
includes HTML pages, pictures, forms, scripts
and files downloaded
– Can be affected by redesign, robots, caching etc.
Page Views (or requests/impressions)
– The number of pages viewed
– Extensions such as .htm, .html, .asp etc.
User Sessions
– Series of requests from unique IP address within
a period of time (more accurate if registered
users
– Issues with firewalls, institutional caches etc.
Value
Users, Visits, Actions, Interests, Acquisitions

Apples and pears
1 VISIT 1 VISIT
1 HIT 100 HITS

Interpretation Issues
Profiling users - can we track users easily?
– You can’t tell the exact identity of your users
– Using IP addresses, domain names of visitors
– Following paths – entering and exiting the site
– Registration
Caching
– Browser caching and institutional/ISP caching
Robots
– Necessary enable your resources to be found
– Robots generate hits
Quality??

Types of Metrics

Typical Solutions
Log file based solutions Tagging based solutions
Log file based solutions Tagging based solutions
Works with standard log files Works with custom data logging
Works with standard log files Works with custom data logging
Typically 3rd party solution
Often in-house Typically 3rd party solution
Often in-house
Ideal for “classical” websites Better for non-HTML websites
Ideal for “classical” websites Better for non-HTML websites
(“HTML”, …) (Flash, …)
(“HTML”, …) (Flash, …)
Requires little setup Requires active setup
Requires little setup Requires active setup
Relatively development neutral Often needs development support
Relatively development neutral Often needs development support
Hybrid solutions
Hybrid solutions
Tries to marry best of both worlds
Tries to marry best of both worlds

Typical Solution > Log file based
(6) Read
(1) Request
reports
Page
Visitor Web Administrator
Reporting
server server
(2) Write (3) Read (5) Create
Request Requests Reports
Logfile
(4) Process log to
data for reports

Typical Solutions > Tagging based
(2) Custom (5) Read reports
(1) Request
parameter
Page
Visitor Web 2nd Web Administrator
Reporting
server server server
(4) Create
Reports
(3) Process
custom
parameter

Solutions > Pro & contra
Log file based Tagging based
Often in-house Typically external
Processing
Proxy caching (ISP, Browser, …) can JavaScript is run every time page is
Caching
hide part of true activity loaded / shown
Data All web transactions are recorded Only specific transactions are logged
Detailed tracking Limited: requires URL parameters Can go very far (clicks, non clicks)
Disk space Raw data logs can be large Tend to more compact (typically 10:1)
ROI Retro-active: you can use it on past Forward only:
More neutral because it respects Vendor specific solutions:
Vendor lock in
industry standards vendor lock-in
Web technologies HTML, ASP, JSP, … Flash, RIA,
Search engine Referrer
Development effort Low to none Low to high
Accuracy Comparable (caching vs browser config)

Typical solutions
“Free” “Managed”
Solutions Solutions
Good starting point Best long term solution
Good for simple websites for Ideal for companies that want to
companies with low requirements have long-term solutions
Features are subject to change Supported software
Example: Example:
Google Analytics WebTrends

Managing numbers

Why do we need statistics?
They indicate how popular your site is
They show how successful your marketing strategy has been
They can be used in management reports
They can identify gaps in service provision
They predict and plan for future load patterns
They allow you to monitor performance levels
They can be used in consideration of deployment
of new technologies
They can inform and motivate contributors
They can show who your users are

Store management
100 years of expertise
Fact:
Management of stores and
shelves is almost becoming an
exact science with plenty of
proven rules
Impact
Well managed stores are a
competitive advantage and can
make or break a business
Main criteria
Profitability per square meter
(horizontal & vertical)

Site management:
10 years, but still young industry
Most companies still ask:
How many visitors did we have?
How many visits this year?
Most are not up to questions like:
How did sales or visits improve
after changing parameter A?
Real world example: Amazon
Not the best looking site,
but a professional managed site
that is run like a supermarket
Criteria to introduce
Profitability per pixel

The Wheel of Management…
Plan Do
Act Check

… Applied to Website Management
Implement
Plan site objectives
mechanics
Define KPIs
for statistics
Update
& reporting
Plan Do
Act Check
React to meet Follow-up
objectives Monitoring
Find solutions Interpret

Website nirvana
Reached through continuous quality improvement
Website
nirvana

The Coke Wars:
Return on Number Management
• John Sculley, in the 80’s
\"The Nielsen ratings defined the
ground rules of competition for
everyone... top managers would
carry little charts in their wallets with
the latest key Nielsen figures. They
became such an important part of
my life that I could quote them on
any product in the market. We would
pore over the data to search for
vulnerable points...
It was the man at the top who made
it this way. The challenge for the
person at the top is to make sure
everyone knows what he or she is
watching. Then they can direct all
the company's energy towards the
same goals.

Questioning
numbers

Real life example
Reported figures over 1 year
Large Belgian company
>10K employees
1M unique visitors
2M visitors
3M page views
Questions to ask
Reasons to celebrate?
Or….
Emakina did an analysis to
assess the numbers and look
for opportunities

Returning visitors
Reported figures
– More than 70% of the visitors never returned the same year
– Only 12% came back at least 2 times
– Only 5% came back 3 times
Interpretation problems:
– Search engines are not
excluded from these visits
– Internal people are not
excluded from these visits
Conclusion:
– The proof is in the pudding:
Visitors do not come back
because the site offers NO relevant reason to come back

Duration visit
Reported figures
– 58% left the site within a single minute (!)
– Only 20% stayed longer than 5 minutes
Business fact
– Stickiness = the quality of a website
to retain visitors, by keeping them
at the website and by getting
them to return regularly.
– Here:
Site has near-zero sticky value
Conclusion:
– The site offers NO relevant
reason to come back
More then 80% leaves
within 5 minutes; almost 3
out of 5 leave within a
minute

Number of pages seen per visit/visitor
Reported figures:
– More than 70% of visitors consults less than or 3 pages
– For normal sites, true visitors and a site of this kind, number of pages
seen should be around 5 (home-news-search-find-read-contact)
Conclusion
– We can safely assume that, again, there is no incentive whatsoever to
motivate people to explore the site
More than 70%
3 pages or less

Comments to key figures
Average of 10K “visitors” per day
Seems a good average but this includes
all traffic, search engines, collaborators,
85% comes only once or twice per year
Too low = lack of reason to come back
Site visits vs real consumption:
One visit for every 715 rides…
Visit duration: 55% less than 1 minute
Too low = lack of stickiness / content
A site can appear to have quantity traffic at first sight
but upon detailed analysis, it can lack quality traffic.
Understanding numbers is more important than having numbers

Quality site
performance:
Metrics to watch
Web Analytics

Introduction > Making sense of numbers
When it comes to web analytics, there is no shortage of
measurements site managers can take to understand how their site
is performing: visitors, visits, sessions, page views, hits, …
Sifting through such vast amounts of information can be mind
numbing. Even more daunting is knowing how much weight to put
behind each measurement and how to put the data into context.
It’s easy to identify which performance characteristics to track, but
not necessarily how to interpret the resulting data and know what to
do with it.
Site owners agree that knowing which metrics to track and how
much weight to give each one comes down to a very simple
premise:
Understand what you want to accomplish, like in real life. How to use
that information to pinpoint problems, improve performance, identify
customer priorities and generate more revenue or decrease costs

10 Metrics to watch
Study Site Search Results - and Non-Results
Optimize the Home Page
Know What Works on Landing Pages
Analyze tool usage to profile and streamline tools
Look at the Look-to-Act Ratio
Know Banner and Search Engine Marketing ROI
Use Analytics to Make E-mail Marketing More Effective
Inspect Customer Navigation & Maturity
Find out why visitors abort their session
Correlate data, go beyond plain stats

1
Study Site Search Results - and Non-Results
Tracking what your customers and visitors search for is the best
way to learn about their expectations and problems: if they search
for it, it means they didn’t find it at a first glance or even after a little
click search s This can be directly used for optimizing site
navigation and structure
You may think that people will search for “product X” but you may
be surprised how many people will search for “service Y”
Used metric: log submitted form data
Comparing list of searched for words with site structure
confirms if your site is addressing key customer expectations

2
Optimize the Home Page
The homepage is the most crucial Hot
piece of real estate available: Hot Zone
Zone 2
knowing what information items 1
and transactional tools to position
above and below the scroll line is a Without scrolling
crucial balancing task Below the fold
Not
Hot?
Used metric:
click path from homepage
Check that people click on items in the sequence that you expect them
to click. If not rearrange items accordingly or analyze why.

3
Know what works on landing pages
It makes no sense for site owners to pay attention to optimizing
their home pages if they won’t create custom landing pages. More
than half of customers will land at a retailer’s site either through a
search engine, banner ad, e-mail promotion or affiliate marketing
partner.
It makes sense then for site owners to create landing pages
designed to appeal to these customer’s expectations for product
and service presentation and branding based on the search words
used to lead them to the site
Used metric: search engines data vs secondary clicks
Google?search=my interest
http://www.yoursite.be/pageX.html
EXIT? CONTACT/MORE/DETAILS
EXIT? CONTACT/MORE/DETAILS
FAILURE: CONTENT DOES NOT SUCCESS: PEOPLE FOUND WHAT
FAILURE: CONTENT DOES NOT SUCCESS: PEOPLE FOUND WHAT
MATCH EXPECTATIONS THEY WERE LOOKING FOR
MATCH EXPECTATIONS THEY WERE LOOKING FOR

4
Analyze usage of information and tools
Analyze how people use static information vs interactive tools on
your site:
– Do they prefer static tables?
– Do they interactive tools?
– How many iterations do they do?
– Do new visitors use tools differently then returning visitors?
– If forms permit free text input (from “A” to “B”) does what they type in
match your expectations?
Used metric: hits/iterations on page X and tool Y, time spent on
pages
An analysis of tool usage may help you to decide where to invest in:
more easy-to-print tables or a simpler, smarter planning tool?

5
Look at the Look-to-Book Ratio
Review periodic usage ratio for various periods of the year:
Examples: seasonal promotions
Data patterns are but one clue to improving look-to-book ratios. The
number of times a consumer views a product before buying it, or
not, can tell retailers such things as whether the item is over-priced
compared to alternatives, whether the Add to Cart button is visible
or whether the customer got distracted after linking to a related
page. Items with high view rates, but low add-to-cart rates are in
need of close scrutiny from all angles
Used metric: scenario analysis between pages
An analysis of pre-buying usage may help you to decide how to price
products / services and detect service overlaps

6
Know Banner and Search Engine Marketing ROI
Awareness and promotion campaigns have real costs:
Calculate these marketing costs and returns
That means accurately tracking how many times a customer comes
to a site through the same affiliate or search engine and what they
do once they gets there.
Used metric: incoming traffic via referrer X / Y
The costs of communicating online can easily be 10% of traditional
communication costs once reaching a certain volume.

7
Analytics to Make E-mailing More Effective
Emailing is the most cost efficient information delivery tool
but it is crucial to check if it is also appreciated
– How valid is your email database?
– What is the bounce rate on emails?
– How many emails get delivered?
– How many get read?
– How many do get clicked?
– How many get forwarded?
What works best:
– Frequency: weekly, monthly, quarterly, …
– Delivery technique: table of content linking to site or full text?
Used metric: statistics on landing pages, email sending reporting
tools & click-troughs
Effective email campaigns can build customer loyalty
if part of larger citizen information program.

8
Inspect Customer Navigation
Identify information search patterns as customers move across
categories, enabling site managers to more properly streamline
navigational paths: >80% of content should be findable within 3
clicks
Consult how returning visitors use site vs new visitors:
if it returning always have to click 1-2-3 to get where they want,
consider a direct link from homepage
Make an abstraction of individual pages and group them in content
type pages: analyze content hopping like
(descriptions) (prizes) (shopping)
Used metric: scenario analysis over grouped content pages
Knowing how customers vs prospects use your site can help you to
minimize the total number of clicks to reach goals

9
Find out why visitors abort their session
Nothing is more frustrating to site owners than seeing that
customers do not click beyond homepage or do not use their brand
new tool
Analytics can pinpoint where the customer dropped out:
Once all the pieces are known, the site owner can determine
whether the process is too long, too cumbersome or does not
provide enough data at the point the customer appears ready to
proceed.
Used metric: exit pages
Learning why and where abort your site can help you to make every
page of your website more attractive and meaningful to visitor

10
Correlate data, go beyond plain stats
Avoid the one-dimensional: applying web site analytics can be a
complex undertaking. Understanding the results can be even more
daunting. But that understanding is essential to a web site’s
success.
The true value of analytics is understanding the insights provided
by the numbers not the numbers themselves
Multi-dimensional thinking is the key to keeping their web site
performing at the highest level:
– Visitor behaviour vs customer profile
– Buying behaviour vs price setting or incentives
– General site satisfaction results vs improvement cycles
Used metric: any to any
Finding meaningful relationships between datasets
is the key to gaining valuable and useful insights

Emakina
service offering
Web Analytics

Maturity in statistics
II drive results
drive results
II have an action plan
have an action plan
to reach my goals
to reach my goals
II have objectives
have objectives
II have insight in to
have insight in to
Current
what it means
what it means
level
II have some
have some
numbers
numbers
I have a site

Integrating web statistics in your company
I make yearly reports
but no one seems to
use or understand
them
Big Company
webmaster

Typical company
Management
Management
Delivers
website
+logfiles
Classical
Classical
IT Marketing Other
IT Marketing Other
Web
Web Department Department Departments
Department Department Departments
Agency
Agency
Biggest mistake that can be made: business managers
Biggest mistake that can be made: business managers
assuming that web reports are hard to make and understand
assuming that web reports are hard to make and understand

Well integrated companies
Deliver logfiles,
insights, know-how,
solutions, trends,
the right tools, long-
Management
Management term advice
Value
Value
Added
Added
Web
Web
Agency
Agency
IT Marketing Other
IT Marketing Other
Department Department Departments
Department Department Departments
e-Enabled business managers from all departments that can
e-Enabled business managers from all departments that can
act and decide as soon as data comes in
act and decide as soon as data comes in

Why You Need Web
Analytics
Goal setting
Examples:
– Decrease costs by e-handling
– Site satisfaction at >80 percent…
– Double your customer base…
Challenge:
– Determine what is desired,
what is realistic,
what is achievable
…
and then plan
Internet offers a unique trackeable and personalisable medium that,
if properly managed and correctly interpreted can give you
a fair and unbiased 24/24 view on your business
Measurement is the first towards management

Our expert
recommendations
Adapt metrics system so that
statistics become meaningful
and easy to interprete by
business
Analyze not absolute numbers
but focus on trends
Learn the meaning of definitions
and get insight in numbers
Filter undesired traffic from
logs that inflate numbers
Start with a set of quality
metrics to watch monitor and
set realistic business objectives

Emakina Service Range on Statistics
Analyze Act Plan
Analyze Act Plan
Review historical log files Install business reporting Define measurable and
Review historical log files Install business reporting Define measurable and
and give second expert solutions: dashboards manageable key
and give second expert solutions: dashboards manageable key
opinion and drilldown reports performance indicators
opinion and drilldown reports performance indicators
Accuracy and reports Setup appropriate filtering Deliver strategies to meet
Accuracy and reports Setup appropriate filtering Deliver strategies to meet
Review historical and definitions and deliver on those KPIs
Review historical and definitions and deliver on those KPIs
objective-strategy Help you to observe and Integrate KPIs in daily
objective-strategy Help you to observe and Integrate KPIs in daily
mechanics understand trends management
mechanics understand trends management
Benchmark analysis:
Benchmark analysis:
identify weakness &
identify weakness &
strengths
strengths
Now
Past Tomorrow

Questions?