U NDERSTANDING
W EB A NALYTICS
Measuring Value & Spotting Problems
presented by Kate O’Neill

ANALYTICS PROCESS
• Determine KPIs
• What factors will determine
success?
• What’s actionable?
• Establish a baseline
• Where are the pain points?
• What’s the range?
• Prioritize
• What’s most critical?
• What’s easiest?
• Validate
• Form a hypothesis
• Test
• Analyze
• Compare with baseline
• Extrapolate to ROI
source: Omniture SiteCatalyst Basic User Training Workbook

WHAT’S MEASURABLE?
• Traffic
• Sources (finding methods)
• Composition (visitor profile)
• Engagement
• Navigation
• Content
• Conversion

WHAT’S MEASURABLE?
• Traffic
• Sources (finding methods)
• Composition (visitor profile)
• Engagement
• Navigation
• Content
"Not everything that can be counted
• Conversion counts, and not everything that counts
can be counted."
- Albert Einstein

WHAT’S MEANINGFUL?

WHAT’S MEANINGFUL?
• “Where in the site are visitors most often
deciding to leave?”
• “Where do visitors most often go after
using the internal search?”
• “Do visitors who come in on blog posts
actually visit the rest of the site?”
• “What search terms are used by the
people who are most likely to purchase?”

WHAT’S MEANINGFUL?
• “Where in the site are visitors most often
deciding to leave?”
• “Where do visitors most often go after
using the internal search?”
• “Do visitors who come in on blog posts
actually visit the rest of the site?”
• “What search terms are used by the
people who are most likely to purchase?”
In other words:

WHAT’S MEANINGFUL?
• “Where in the site are visitors most often
deciding to leave?”
• “Where do visitors most often go after
using the internal search?”
• “Do visitors who come in on blog posts
actually visit the rest of the site?”
• “What search terms are used by the
people who are most likely to purchase?”
In other words:
start with a good question.

PLANNING IS KEY TO ANALYSIS
• Anticipate
• Implement
Data collection begins!
• Modify Incremental data only

QUICK QUIZ:
What are the key
performance indicators -
the factors that
determine success - for
the Sitening.com website?

CONVERSION METRICS
• ConversionRate (Orders
or Leads per Visit)
• Orders
• Revenue
• Leads Completed

MODEL THE SITE
identify actions / events, content hierarchies, products (e-
commerce), and potentially interesting characteristics

TYPES OF REPORTS
• Metrics Trending
• Pathing
• Next Page / Previous Page
• Fall-out
• Dashboards

TRENDING
helpful in spotting anomalies in patterns

FUNNELS
helpful with path fall-out visualization

PAGE FLOW
helpful in spotting content & navigation problems

DASHBOARDS
helpful in reviewing KPIs at a glance

TRAFFIC:
WHO’S COMING TO THE SITE?

EXAMPLES OF
TRAFFIC METRICS
• Visits
• Page Views
• Traffic Sources
• Unique
Visitors
Wait... what’s the difference
between ‘absolute unique’
and ‘daily/weekly unique’?

EXAMPLES OF
TRAFFIC METRICS
• Visits
• Page Views
• Traffic Sources
• Unique
Visitors
Wait... what’s the difference
between ‘absolute unique’
and ‘daily/weekly unique’?

EXAMPLES OF
TRAFFIC METRICS
• Visits
• Page Views
• Traffic Sources
• Unique
Visitors
Wait... what’s the difference
between ‘absolute unique’
and ‘daily/weekly unique’?

EXAMPLES OF
TRAFFIC METRICS
• Visits
• Page Views
• Traffic Sources
• Unique
Visitors
Wait... what’s the difference
between ‘absolute unique’
and ‘daily/weekly unique’?

EXAMPLES OF
TRAFFIC METRICS
• Visits
• Page Views
• Traffic Sources
• Unique
Visitors
Wait... what’s the difference
between ‘absolute unique’
and ‘daily/weekly unique’?

VISITORS: AREN’T WE ALL UNIQUE?
Mon: Joe, Jane, Jeff
Tues: John, Jack
Weds: James, Jill
Thurs: Jeff, Jason, Jack
How many visits? at least 13
Fri: Jay, Joel, John How many visitors? 13
How many unique daily visitors? 13
How many unique weekly visitors? 10

ENGAGEMENT:
WHAT’S HAPPENING ONCE PEOPLE
GET THERE?

EXAMPLES OF
ENGAGEMENT METRICS
• Return Visits
• Timeon Site /
Time Spent per Visit
• Bounce Rate
Wait... where’s Bounce Rate
in SiteCatalyst?

EXAMPLES OF
ENGAGEMENT METRICS
• Return Visits
• Timeon Site /
Time Spent per Visit
• Bounce Rate
Wait... where’s Bounce Rate
in SiteCatalyst?

EXAMPLES OF
ENGAGEMENT METRICS
• Return Visits
• Timeon Site /
Time Spent per Visit
• Bounce Rate
Wait... where’s Bounce Rate
in SiteCatalyst?

EXAMPLES OF
ENGAGEMENT METRICS
• Return Visits
• Timeon Site /
Time Spent per Visit
• Bounce Rate
Wait... where’s Bounce Rate
in SiteCatalyst?

LIVE EXAMPLE:
CREATING CALCULATED METRICS

WHY PAY FOR ANALYTICS TOOLS?
Google Omniture
Analytics SiteCatalyst
near real time data no, typically a day behind yes, usually available
within minutes *
advanced classifications no yes, with SAINT
ability to customize data 1 custom variable 50 props, 50 eVars
reporting
native ActionScript Flash
no yes
tracking
price free not free
non-existent /
support included
crowd-sourced
* except for data warehouse queries

GA & SC NAVIGATION

GA SC
Visitor Profile >
Map Overlay
GeoSegmentation
Visitor Retention > Return
New vs. Returning
Visits
choose unique visitors by
Absolute Unique Visitors
period
Pageviews Page Views
Average Pageviews (custom calculated)
Time on Site Time Spent per Visit
Bounce Rate (custom calculated)
n/a Path Length

GA BENCHMARKING
Compare a given site against others

SEGMENTATION

IN SITECATALYST: ASI SLOTS
we’ll cover this more in a later session

IN GA: ADVANCED SEGMENTS
let’s look at this now

PREVIEW OF ADVANCED SESSION
• Tracking across Channels (SEO, PPC, social media)
• Customizing & Modeling
• Multi-domain Sites
• Balancing Subjective and Objective Research
• Behavioral Analysis & Targeting
• Other topics?