10 Ways to Be Strategic with Web Analytics

10 Ways to Be Strategicwith Web Analytics
February 2011
www.NowMediaMarketing.com
Copyright 2011 James R. Smith

10. Keep Your Eye on the Prize
Your Web site exists for a purpose
Find it
Articulate it
Work towards achieving it
Design the site around that goal
Look at metrics that relate back to that goal
Continuously improve

9. Not everything that can be counted counts
Don’t count for counting’s sake
Web analytics exists for no other purpose other than improving site performance
“You can learn many interesting things by analyzing data. But you should only spend your time looking at info that identifies opportunities for improvement.” from Actionable Web Analytics Pg 53

Can Be Counted
Counts

Hits
Gain Faith
Visits
Visitors
Further Lord’s Work
Page Views
Registrations
Conversion Rate
Purchases
Click thru
Develop Testimony
Bounce Rate
Can Be Counted
Counts
Time on Site
Time on Page

8. Be Compelling
You might not be a PhD statistician or know how to run a multi-variate test or know how to set intervals with two standard deviations…
But you can be compelling

8. Be Compelling

7. Data Beats Guesses

7. Data Beats Guesses: Two Case Studies
Should you offer users help to adjust font size?
Studies say yes
100% of people who cited external data were right
25% of people who relied on personal opinion were right
Basing decision on data quadrupled the probability of being right
A/B test: Version A and B of online banking interface
3 usability attributes: Time to Complete, Success Rate, and Satisfaction
On all 3 attributes, version B scored best
Showed designs to people in web design course
Going on personal guesses, probability of choosing best design was 50%
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/guesses-data.html

6. Questions Before Data

We must understand the difference between a business question and a report request
These are all report requests…
How many hits has the site gotten?
How much traffic is coming to our website?
What’s the bounce rate?
Ask: What business problem are you trying to solve?

6. Questions Before Data: Example
Request for Data: How many people click on the Carousel Hero Banner on LDS.org?
Real Business Question: Are the benefits of Carousel Hero Banner worth the screen real estate it takes up?

10K Clicks
60K Clicks
20K Clicks
2K Clicks

Advice to Analysts:
Seek to understand the strategic questions of the business
Don’t just provide data. Provide answers and insights.
Advice to Business folks:
Bare your soul. Share questions that keep you up at night
Seek insight, not just reports.
Soon you’ll be getting (or giving) questions like:
How can we improve the registration rate on our site?
What are the most productive sources of traffic?
What is the impact of our website on our call center?
Which banner ad is most effective in driving conversions?

5. Ask “So What?” Three Times

“Ask every web metric you report the question "so what" three times. Each question provides an answer that in turn raises another question (a "so what" again). If at the third "so what" you don't get a recommendation for an action you should take, you have the wrong metric. Kill it.”
By AvinashKaushik, www.kaushik.net, Kill Useless Web Metrics: Apply The "Three Layers Of So What" Test, Mar 8, 2010, Emphasis added.

Example
Analyst: “Our search engine referrals have increased 10%.”
Business Owner: “So what?”
Analyst: “The data shows the visitors who come to the site through search engines are twice as likely to register.”
Business Owner: “So what?” What do we do?”
Analyst: “I have identified dozens of keywords that we should target. Optimizing pages around these phrases could double our search referrals, and drastically increase registration rate and volume.”
Business Owner: “That’s fantastic. Let's do it.”

4. Use a Balanced Scorecard

Any one metric can be manipulated
Visitors: can be inflated thru aggressive marketing
But bounce rate may suffer
Page views: can be increased (or decreased) due to site design
But return visitor numbers may suffer
Conversion rate: can be increased by targeting niche audiences
But overall conversions may decrease
Time on site: can be increased by adding interesting content
But that may distract from sites goals and reduce conversion
Try getting multiple metrics to improve simultaneously

3. Look at trends rather than level
Give data context through…
Trends
Percentages
Comparisons

15,000 iPhones visit LDS.org each month (report from summer 2008)
How confident are you in that exact number? Low.
High degree of confidence in:
The upward trend over time
The % of iPhone visitors (~1% of LDS.org visitors)
The distribution of iPhone usage across our websites
More iPhones use Scriptures and Gospel Library than other websites

2. Align Goals and Tactics

Strategic
Tactical
The tactical metrics are indicators on how well a site is performing against high-level goals.
Determine how user behavior on your website relates to your overall business goals
Prioritize web projects based on their relevancy to business goals and ability to move key metrics.

KPIs
Tactics/ Site Features
Objectives
Purpose
Goals
Visits, Downloads, Views, Time on Page, Bounce Rate, Search Rf
Talk on Why Share
Motivate and Inspire
Inspire members to share the gospel online
Why I Share – Stories
Visits, Views, Time on Page, Bounce Rate
Inform and provide examples
Other A/V Videos:
Bounce Rate, Search Referrals
In Plain English: RSS, Social Bookmarking, etc.
Views, Time on Page, Bounce Rate,
Hasten the Work of the Lord though sharing the Gospel and Reputation Management
Instruct How to Online
Teach members how to share the gospel online
Most Popular content and sections, site search terms, zero result searches, search conversion
Site Search and Navigation
Provide findable and sharable content
Provide Optimized Image Galleries
Visitors, Downloads, Search Ref, Key images Google Rank
Distribute Optimized Content
Code Grab Its, Widget and Badge Referrals, LP Google Rank
Provide Badges and Widgets for Key Landing Pages
Blog, Badges
RSS subscribers, Comments, Badge Referrals
Push out negative results in SERPs
Optimize site itself
Search referrals, Bounce, Visitor growth, Usage stats : % of visitors liking, # of times shared
Share It, Fav-ing and Liking-type features
Submit Pictures: “Temple” pictures, etc.
User Generated Content
# of submissions, # of good submissions

1. Hold People Accountable

#7 of Omniture’s Seven Common Mistakes in Web Analytics: No accountability for Web data
“Accountability drives adoption and change.”
From Seven Keys to Creating a Data-Driven Organization
“When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of improvement accelerates.”
Thomas S. Monson

10 Ways to Be Strategic with Web Analytics
10. Keep Your Eye on the Prize
8. Be Compelling
7. Data Beats Guesses
3. Look at trends rather than level

10 Ways to Be Strategicwith Web Analytics
February 2011
www.NowMediaMarketing.com
Copyright 2011 James R. Smith

10 Ways to Be Strategic with Web Analytics

by Jimmy Smith on Apr 16, 2011

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