Usability And Analytics: Hidden Gems To Unleash Your Website's ROI

Session 4: 11:30 – 12:15
Usability And Analytics: The Two Hidden Gems To Unleash Your Website's ROI

TP2010
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Your presenters...
Erik.Rubadeau@hjcnewmedia.com
Senior Consultant – Technology and Fundraising Innovation, HJC
Matt.Barr@hjcnewmedia.com
Fundraising and Innovation Consultant, HJC
Frances Hall
Senior Director of Development,
Make-A-Wish Foundation of America

Why usability and analytics?
“Until recently, most of the decisions we were called on to make were based on hunches, insight and a little bit of data... What are you going to do when your hunches don't match the data that's now pouring in?”
– Seth Godin, 2009
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What is usability
Making products and systems easier to use, and matching them more closely to user needs and requirements
Usability is about:
Effectiveness - can users do what they set out to do?
Efficiency - how much effort do users require to do this?
Satisfaction – what do users think about the website’s ease of use?
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No.

Why does usability matter?
With some help from Nielsen Norman and adapted by us for charities and non-profits, we have identified 4 key reasons:
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If your website is difficult to use, people will leave
If users get lost on your website, they leave
If your website's information is hard to read or does not answer key questions sought by users, they leave
If users cannot find how to donate in the way they want to donate, they don’t donate

Say again? Why does this matter?
The annual growth rate in online donors from 2004-2008 was 33% per year whereas offline donors declined 1% per year
Source: Target Analytics’ report “Internet Giving Benchmark Analysis”
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By 2020, online donations are estimated to account for the majority of donations

The ROI of usability
Usability seeks to:
Remove the barriers to making a donation
Pinpoint the common user errors on their journey through your website
Know how to avoid these design/architecture errors in the future
ROI is measured by a change in the ratio of website visitors to donors
If there is no benchmark data for your website you need to go out and record your own
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Great user experience will pay off
The 2010 NNGroup benchmark study of 20 for-profit e-commerce websites that employed usability testing prior to the redesign saw:
Sales/conversion rates increase on average by 87%
Traffic/visitor count increase on average by 96%
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“On a site with low usability, people buy only the stuff they need. On a site with high usability, users feel more welcome and are motivated to return for repeat purchases.”
– Nielsen Norman Group, 2010

Questions Questions Questions
All visitors to your website are either current or prospective donors. Fact.
Have you answered your visitor’s key question(s)?
Can they easily find your organisation’s goals, mission and values?
Can they see and read precisely how a donation will be used?
Do you even know for sure what they thinking and doing?
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Cartoon courtesy of the NNGroup

What are you looking to find out?
Have a clear set of objectives based on finding out:
What your users doing, how they are behaving, what they want to do/find out, what barriers exist in making a donation or influence the visitor on making donation
Data benchmarks for future designs
Know what works well and what doesn’t work so well
Know the ROI
Influence your design process
To base architecture and design on what your constituents do and want
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And how can you find this out?
Record user data using online tools
Use a focus group, online or offline
No need for more than 5-10 non-expert users
Listen to your users
Use surveys, record conversations in focus groups, provide usability or design related feedback opportunities
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Tools? What tools?
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Analytics
Let your data do the talking

Web Analytics Defined (wikipedia)
Web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of internet data for purposes of understanding and optimizing web usage.
Web analytics is not just a tool for measuring website traffic but can be used as a tool for business research and market research. Web analytics applications can also help companies measure the results of traditional print advertising campaigns. It helps one to estimate how the traffic to the website changed after the launch of a new advertising campaign. Web analytics provides data on the number of visitors, page views etc to gauge the popularity of the sites which will help to do the market research.
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Web Analytics is…
NOT a hit counter for your website
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Web Analytics is…
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A powerful set of business intelligence tools that can measure and provide insight into the ROI and ROE of all your integrated initiatives
Web Analytics Tool
Your Data
Your Answers

Analytics Answers your Burning Questions
How long does it take for a Twitter follower to make a donation? Do they ever donate?
How many people see our mission statement before donating? Does it have an effect on avg gift size?
What part of our website leads to the most tribute gifts?
Did the redesign of our newsletter signup form lead to more subscribers?
Do people who watch our videos on YouTube signup for our eNewsletter?
How many people call our 1-800 # from our donation forms?
Do we get more volunteers from facebook or from twitter?
What is our most popular campaign? Does popular equal profitable?
Are paid search donors worth more than organic search donors?
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What you need to get started
Web analytics tool
Strategy
Comprehensive Setup
Time
Patience
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Web Analytics Tools
Free vs. Paid
Choose a single solution and stick with it
Remember 90/10 Rule
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Strategy Before All Else
Strategic Points to Consider
Define what kinds of questions you want to answer
Define what the metrics are that answer that question
Define how you will capture these metrics
Define who (internally) will champion your metrics
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(V=?) Define and Assign Value
Everything you decide to track should have a value assigned to it.
If it doesn’t have value why are you tracking it?
Value is often monetary $
Value is defined by the user
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Analytics Setup
Customize your tracking setup to properly measure all of your goals
Goals
Events
eCommerce
Campaign Tagging
Test your setup (all of it)
Benchmark Your Data
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Wise Words from Chuck
I've always found that anything worth achieving will always have obstacles in the way and you've got to have that drive and determination to overcome those obstacles on route to whatever it is that you want to accomplish. -Chuck Norris
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Top 3 Priorities to measure
Donations (Single and Monthly)
Newsletter Signups
Social Media
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Tracking Donations
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What: Track thevolume and value of your online donations
Why : It provides you with snapshot financial data (on the fly) but also let’s you segment actual income by source and effort. (Email vs. Website vs. Twitter vs. Google)
How:
Add eCommerce Tracking
Add Campaign Tagging to everything you do
Track Single and Monthly Donations Separately

Tracking Email Signups
What: Track the number of new email signups to your organization.
Why : To benchmark the volume of people who sign up to hear more from your organization and to understand where they come from
How:
Add Thank You Page as a “Goal”
Add Virtual PageView
Add as an onClick Event
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Tracking Social Media
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What: Track your Social Media Efforts
Why : Establish an ROE for the amount of time you are spending on Social Media and measure the success/level of your engagement
How:
Add Campaign Tagging to your SM links (Survives tiny-ing)
Drive SM traffic to action that you can measure
Benchmark your # of fans and followers

5 Filters to Make your Life Easier
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Filter out your organizations IP Address
Filter your consultant/vendor IP address
Add Full Referral URL Filter
Filter all URI data to lowercase
Remove URL Root Filter

Now you have all this data...
What to do with it?
Frances Hall, Senior Director of Development, Make-A-Wish Foundation of America, will explain...
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Gain organizational consensus as to the goals of the website
Commit to follow through with all outcomes – begin with tests
Prioritize activity based on your organization’s goals
Assign timelines, responsibilities to staff
Review test outcomes and make changes to site according to results, refine test, and modify
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Next steps post-web usability analysis

Next steps post-web usability analysis
Gain organizational support along the way
Commit to ongoing testing with appropriate staff teams
Be sure to refresh site “maintenance” and explore “what’s new”
Continue to use analytics to track your outcomes
Create an organizational report that defines key metrics and benchmarks your data…monthly or quarterly
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Thanks!
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Usability And Analytics: Hidden Gems To Unleash Your Website's ROI

by hjc on Apr 16, 2010

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Usability And Analytics: Hidden Gems To Unleash Your Website’s ROI — Presentation Transcript