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The Metrics That Matter:
Website analytics that show you how to
improve conversions and lift ROI
August 2, 2012
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Today’s Speakers
Rio Longacre
Amy Africa
Managing Consultant
Marketing, Sales & Service Consulting
Capgemini Consulting
President
Eight by Eight
Moderator
Thorin McGee
Editor in Chief
Target Marketing
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Please Welcome
Rio Longacre
Managing Consultant
Marketing, Sales & Service Consulting
Capgemini Consulting
#TMGWebinar
By Rio Longacre
• Marketing professional 15 years of
experience
• Blogger & journalist
• Columnist with Target Marketing
Magazine
• Consultant at Capgemini Consulting,
Marketing, Sales & Service Practice
Rio Longacre
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What is Web Analytics?
What you need to know
Web Analytics Strategy
Creating a Web Analytics Program
Web Analytics 3.0

Web analytics is the measurement, collection,
analysis and reporting of internet data for
understanding and optimizing web usage
• Companies use Web analytics to:
 Assess and improve the
effectiveness of websites
 Measure the results of marketing
campaigns
 Provide information on the number
of visitors to a website and the
number of page views
 Gauge traffic and popularity trends
for market research

Logfile Analysis – done by analyzing file the web server
normally already produces; almost always done inhouse
◦ Advantages: data is already available
◦ Disadvantages: Less accurate; requires technical skills

Page Tagging – tags are inserted on page that capture
and store data. Most companies now rely on Page
Tagging to track Web Analytics
◦ Advantage: more accurate; does not require access to web server;
can leverage cookies to track individuals
◦ Disadvantages: requires third-party software; national privacy
laws
Most firms use
Page Tagging

Hit – a request for a file from the web server

Page View – visit to what is defined as a ‘page’

Visitor – uniquely identified person arriving on website

Visit/Session – series of page requests from unique visitor within 30minute time frame

Pageview – request for a file whose type is defined as a page

Click – user visiting a hyperlink on a Web page

Click Path – sequence of hyperlinks a website visitor follows on a given
site

Impression – number of times a banner (advertisement) loads on users’
screen

Conversion – an action that is the objective of the page itself, which is
defined by the page owner (usually a sale or lead)

Conversion rate – percentage of visitors who complete the desired action
on the page

Heatmapping – a graphical representation of data
where the individual values contained in a matrix
are represented as colors. In Web Analytics, a visual
heatmap reveals clicks on a HTML page, showing
hot and cold click zones.
Visitors don't read, they scan.
People tend to scan pages in an
F-shaped pattern. The heat map
shows red colored markings
which are the areas visitors look
at the most frequently.
*Source: http://www.squidoo.com
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A cookie is a small piece of data sent from a website and
stored in a user's web browser while a user is browsing a
website
When the user visits the same website in the
future, the cookie can notify the website of
the user's previous activity
Cookies cannot carry viruses or malware
Cookies are commonly used as ways to compile long-term
records of individuals' browsing histories — a major privacy
concern that has prompted lawmakers to take action

For firms operating in Europe, the 2012 Data Protection
Directive requires that member states pass legislation that:
◦ Requires ‘consent’ (opt-in) for data collection on websites in the
European Union
◦ Restricts transfer of data to third-party countries not offering
adequate levels of protection


EU directives are addressed to the member states, and aren't
legally binding for citizens in principle. All member states
have enacted their own data protection legislation.
When passed, these national laws may affect your Web
Analytics program… so be aware!
Contemporary Web Analytics strategy has four
main attributes:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Continuous in nature – ongoing feedback loop
Multi-channel in scope – tracking Web visitors
from different sources and channels
Attribution focused– understanding marketing
spend and effectiveness
Action oriented – turning insight into action
Web Analytics Strategy:
1. A continuous feedback
loop between
Measuring, Reporting,
Analyzing & Optimizing
2. Multi-channel data
captured by the Web
Analytics platform is
provided to the various
marketing departments
3. Successful Marketers
use data to enhance
marketing effectiveness
and improve ROI
Measure
Optimize
Web
Analytics
Analyze
Report

Multi-Channel Traffic
◦ Multi-Channel – traffic from different channels, including
Social Media, email, Organic SEO and Paid Search
◦ Cross-Media – traffic from non-interactive channels, such
as direct mail and broadcast

Mobile Web
◦ Mobile – smart and feature phone traffic to Web and Mobile
websites
◦ Tablet – traffic to iPad and other tablet devices
• Attribution is the act of determining what
marketing channel and budget is responsible for
generating Web Traffic
Organic
SEO
Attribution is the holy grail of
Web Analytics, as firms strive to
determine the origin of all Web
traffic, and attribute it to the
appropriate budget
Mobile
Paid SEO
Email
Marketing
Broadcast
Website
Social
Media
Direct
Mail
Display
Catalogs

True cross-channel integration turns Web
Data into actionable follow-up:
Web Lead
Sales Call
Anonymous
Web Visitor
Known
Customer or
Prospect
Abandoned
Shopping Cart
Automated
Follow-up
Print-Web
visitor
Personalized
Email Outreach
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Business objectives. What is the purpose of the
website(s) you’re collecting data on?
Website goals. What actions do you want people to
take on the website to meet your business
objectives?
Key performance indicators (KPIs). What metrics
can be used to measure and evaluate the website’s
performance over time?
How can you make your analytics actionable by
connecting them to ongoing marketing activities?
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Governance
Objectives
Scope
Process & methodology
Tools & data
Actions & optimization

What does the future state structure of your Web
Analytics program look like?

Who is going to manage your program?

What skills sets does the current team lack/require?

Are the right people on the job?

What is the best plan for implementing the changes
you have identified?

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
No program can succeed with a clear mandate and
set of objectives
Have you decided what your program seeks to
accomplish? For example:
◦ Website optimization
◦ Channel attribution
◦ Campaign management/optimization
◦ Market research
Is corporate leadership aligned to your
goals?
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Today’s Internet is more than the World Wide Web:
◦ Mobile Web
◦ Apps
◦ Social Media websites
Different websites serve different markets and
purposes, including specialized landing pages and
product-specific sites
What is the scope of your initiative? Which online
destinations do you wish to get analytics on?



Once you have the data, what processes and
procedures have you set up to evaluate the
program?
What Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) will you be
measuring?
Who will analyze the data, and what will they be
looking for?
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What Web Analytics Software will you use?
Are the tools you’ve selected aligned to your
departmental goal and reporting needs?
What outside tools (if any) will you need to help
analyze the results?
What additional insight can you draw from the data
that you may be missing?
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Web Analytics data is worthless if you don’t plan to
do anything with the information
How can you use what you learn to improve your
marketing program?
◦ Learn more about your customers, who they are, where
they are, and what they want
◦ Optimize your website for improved performance and user
experience
◦ Improve the performance of your marketing campaigns
◦ Rationalize your marketing spend to segments based on
ROI analysis
◦ Connect your data to a marketing automation
program
In a digitally-driven multi-channel world, Web Analytics
becomes an important cog in the enterprise firm’s
global data strategy
Three main trends are affecting us today:
 Big Data – the proliferation of data across the enterprise
organization has transformed the way firms look at their
customers
 Mobile Web – Today’s Internet is much broader than just the
World Wide Web
 Social Media – Social Media Analytics has become critically
important to every firm’s marketing strategy
Proliferating channels are providing us with an
unprecedented amount of data – Big Data refers to the
drive to make sense of it all
More data has been
created in the last
three years than in
ALL past 40,000 years
of human history!
Marketers are beginning to break down their various
silos and unify their data - Website Analytics is but
one component of this ecosystem
Social
Media
CRM
Data
Marketing
Automation
Email
Software
Website
Data
Location
Time
Role
Action
• Geographic
• When does a customer
interact with a
marketing message
(time of day or day of
week)
• Research
• What was the
customer doing at the
point of interaction
whether it be ‘Liking’
a Facebook post,
reading a blog, or
retweeting a Twitter
message
• In store or venue
• On street near venue
• Home based
• Aisle browsing
• Length of time that
they interacted with
the message
• Shopping
• Buying
• Point of Sale
• Post Sale
• Seeking Support
Community
Activity
Sentiment
Context
Influence
•Facebook
•Post
•Positive
•Location
•Reach
•Linkedin
•Like
•Negative
•Activity
•Amplification
•Quora
•Respond
•Mixed
•Time
•Network
•Twitter
•Tweet
•Role
•Topic Influence
•Pinterest
•Retweet
Past
Present
What happened?
What is
happening now?
What will happen?
(Reporting)
(Alerts)
(Extrapolation)
What’s the next
best action?
What’s the
best/worst that
can happen?
Information
How and why did
it happen?
Insight
(Modeling,
experimental
design)
(Recommendation)
Future
(Prediction,
optimization,
simulation)
5-6%
IMPROVEMENT IN
PERFORMANCE
For firms that emphasize
decision-making based on
data and analytics
26%
2/3 of executives
describe themselves
as “Data Driven”
76%
Energy and Natural
Resources
54%
PERCIEVED IMPROVEMENT
For firms that emphasize
decision-making based on
data and analytics
73%
Financial Services
Sector
41%
EXPECTED IMPROVEMENT
In performance due to Big
Data in the next 3 years
Assert that
management
decisions are
increasingly
based on ‘hard
analytical
information’.
75%
Healthcare,
pharmaceuticals
and biotechnology
65%
Regard
management
decisions based
on intuition or
experience
suspect.
Say that Big Data
management is
not viewed
strategically at
senior levels of
their
organization.
55%
Let’s keep the conversation going:
@rio_longacre
www. whos-your-data.com
Rio Longacre
http://www.linkedin.com/in/riolongacre
http://www.targetmarketingmag.com/channel/who-s-your-data
Please Welcome
Amy Africa
President
Eight by Eight
#TMGWebinar
METRICS THAT
MATTER…
Amy Africa, CEO, Eight By Eight
Follow me on Twitter: @amyafrica
Read the QLOG: amyafrica.com
E-mail: [email protected]
CRITICAL NUMBERS
Sales, Number of Orders, Average Order
Leads (Ranked on propensity to buy)
RFQ’s (requests for quotes)
Sign-ups (email, podcasts, webinars, catalog
requests)
• Overall traffic (especially unique visits)
• Traffic make-up (SEO, PPC, affiliates, email, etc.)
•
•
•
•
QLOG: www.amyafrica.com * Twitter: @amyafrica * © 2012
METRICS THAT HELP US…
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Exit pages
Entrance pages
Keywords (used to find you and within your site)
Referring URL’s
Bounce rate
New versus returning traffic
Percentage of mobile traffic
Top products and their respective performance
QLOG: www.amyafrica.com * Twitter: @amyafrica * © 2012
WHAT ABOUT
CONVERSION?
There’s no doubt that you should measure your
conversion. However, it’s not the be-all-end-all
metric that you may have been led to believe.
METRICS THAT
MATTER…
Nobody ever tells you the things that will really
make a difference in your business… Until today…
AAUS
• AUS = average user session
• AAUS = average active user session
• AUS/drills = AAUS
• This is, by far, one of the best ways to know whether
or not your navigation is any good.
• Look at your overall AAUS and be sure to look at the
time spent on your major entry page(s) as well.
ATC (ADOPT TO CART)
• Out of 100 people, how many folks add an item to
their basket.
• This is one of the best metrics you can measure. It’s
far more telling than abandons, it’s just not as sexy.
ATA (ADOPT TO ACTION)
• ATA (Adoption to Action) looks at every action that is
important to you and its respective adoption rate. In other
words: out of 100 people, how many do it:
– How many people sign up for your emails?
– How many users start your lead forms? (Catalog requests, quote
requests, podcast/webinar sign-ups, survey/poll completions,
etc.)
– If you use video, how many people click on it? How long do they
view the video? Do they put the item in their basket (or start the
lead generation process) afterwards?
• Again, you want to know, out of 100 people, how many people
start this action. Then you need to look at how many folks
finish it.
DIRECT/NO REFERRER
• If you want to fix/improve your business today, this
is a metric you simply must know.
• What percentage of your traffic is direct/no
referrer/branded?
• How do these folks behave differently from the other
folks? (For example, SEO and PPC leads.)
• These users often deserve separate programs,
including their own entry pages, carthoppers, lead
forms and checkouts.
APS (ABANDONS PER STEP)
• Abandons per step takes a critical look at your
checkout or multi-step lead forms.
• Looks at abandons per step and/or per field. (Per
field really works especially on shipping and
payment screens.)
• This helps you identify what specifically to fix on
your website and more important, how you can best
market to your abandons.
DTS (DAYS TO SALE)
• How many does the average sale take?
• Change your email follow-up program (especially
your triggers) if you want to decrease this number.
VISITS TO SALE (VTS)
• How many times does the average user visit your
site before they purchase/inquire?
• Track all site visits including email visits. (Some
people look at email opens instead of visits. This
can be effective, just be consistent with your
measurements.)
INTERNAL SEARCHES
• Out of 100, how many visitors use your internal text
search function?
– How many searches are conducted? (Overall? Per visit?)
– Of those folks, how many have “successful” searches?
“Unsuccessful” searches?
– More importantly, how many of them are actually
successful? (This is indeed a separate measurement.)
– How often does using the search result in an exit?
• At the end of studying your searches, you should know if
you have a word connect.
MOBILE METRICS
• How many people are reading your emails on a
mobile device?
• Be sure to break out tablet traffic versus phone
traffic.
• The key is to look at the differences between your
desktop traffic and your regular traffic. (Very few
folks do this and it’s VERY telling.)
• User linking is key.
USER LINKING
IS KEY
I take a picture of your
product with my phone. I
send it to you. I get a text
message back. I click on
the text message. I click on
the phone number in the
message. I get IVR.
Someone sends me info to
my e-mail address. I open
my e-mail at home. I click
on your website from that
e-mail…
MOBILE TRANSFER
• The mobile transfer looks at how many people start on a mobile device
and finish on a desktop site. You can also measure the reverse.
• Works just like regular transfer although the measurement process is
indeed more complicated.
• You can segregate this into several buckets: smartphones, feature
phones, traditional desktop site, phone, live/instigated/video chat,
email and so on.
• This impacts many things. Two of the most important are your email
program (especially your triggers) and your backend swaps. (It’s one of
the many reasons why collecting mobile numbers is imperative for good
tracking.)
• Working the mobile transfer will be key for the next 18 months. Less
than 1% of companies do it.
SUPPORTING METRICS
• Search behavior (this includes internal and external
search)
• Email metrics
• Upsell/cross-sell information
• Social media mentions
• Mobile metrics
• Live and instigated chat
“IT’S TOO MUCH…”
It’s far easier than you think. One dashboard to
make sure that there’s nothing run amok and one
list of things that you need to keep tabs on.
THANK YOU…
Follow me on Twitter: @amyafrica
Read the QLOG: amyafrica.com
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: 802-881-0061
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