Presentation by Ted Rheingold, Dogster on how to create engaging user experience, what development process works best to drive activation & retention.

1. Sit! Stay! Click! Making Your
Users Beg for More
Startonomics ‘08
Ted Rheingold
Top Dog, Dogster, Inc.
blog.dogster.com

2. First Things First
Is your product used?
Are happy customers creating new
happy customers?
Do new visitors engage?

3. Ready
Set Objectives & Key Results
Go!
OKRs must be determined in advance
OKRs will show transformative growth
(revenue, users, partners, etc.)
Must be collectively agreed to by all
stakeholders
Your resources must be allocated to
achieve your OKRs

4. Key Performance Indicators
KPIs: metrics that define and measure
progress toward organizational goals (OKRs)
KPIs are often ratios (ARPU, bounce rate,
actives rate, etc.)
KPIs can and will change over time, do so
conscientiously
Everything else in info-porn

5. “So What?” & Actionablility
Put everything through a triple “So
What?” test
Actionable insights are everything
Don’t do anything for less than a 25%
gain. Shoot for 100%

6. Much More to Testing Than
Being In Beta Testing
Test, Test, Test
A-B Testing
Multivariate Testing
Click-Density Testing
User Experience Testing

7. Best Practices
Be disciplined
Have a clear line of sight
Minimize stats review fight info-porn
Do not dilute responsibility among
stakeholders
Test your data is sound
Filter user types

8. Case Study

9. Marketing Initiative Feb ‘07
Goal: 2,000 New Registrants a Day
Marketed sites via AdSense and BlogAds
At launch we linked ads to our homepages
Quickly made a general landing page with
intro info and big link to register
Then made dynamic landing with relevant
text and registration form.
This significantly increased percentage of
ad clickers that became registrants

10. LANDING PAGE Daily Candy

11. LADING PAGE Dog Info

14. REGISTRATION PAGE -Activate

15. Quantitative Success Doesn’t
Mean Qualitative Success
We hit OKR of 2,000 registrants a day
BUT only 60% were activating
Only 8% we’re making profile pages
Real members were generating a $4
ARPU, these were worth $0.10

16. Activants Aren’t Always
Members Either
Of those new members only 8% were
making a pet page vs. 80% for people
who found our sites naturally.
Within 3 months we halted all ad
spending.

17. HOMEPAGE - Current

18. CRAZY EGG Searchers

19. Dogster Search Traffic

20. Great Reads
Web Analytics Advanced Web Metrics
Avinash Kaushik Brian Clifton

21. Free/CheapTools
Google Analytics
Google Trends, Adwords Keyword Tool
Google Website Optimizer (A/B Multivariate)
Awstats (free server-side webstats)
CrazyEgg (click tracking heat maps)
Kissmetrics (social space analytics)
Medialets (iPhone apps)
Silverback (experience testing)