Web Analytics is not easy and can take up much of you time so it’s important to concentrate on the things which have the most benefit to your business. Below I have outlined the types of things you shouldn’t measure as well as some areas where you could potentially end up wasting time rather than focusing on tactics and metrics which will actually help your strategy to succeed.
Trying to Achieve 100% Accuracy
In a JavaScript and Cookie model, web analytics will never be 100% accurate. In a web analytics test performed last year by Stone Temple consulting where they implemented numerous analytics scripts on the same website, the results indicated up to a 10% fluctuation between analytics packages. I feel it’s important to test for accuracy but a waste of your time to try to balance your books using analytics.
Measuring only the Quantity of Leads
You launch a PPC campaign for your hot new service at 8 AM and by noon you have 1000 new leads, mission complete, pack it up and go home - I don’t think so. Yeah 1000 leads are wonderful until you find out that 50% of them are from a person who has the email test@test.com
Not Segmenting Your Data
Not segmenting your data is similar to closing your eyes and randomly throwing money at various advertising mediums. I can’t stress the importance of taking your leads, downloads, revenue and information requests and segmenting by Medium, Search Engines and keywords.
Keeping the Data to Yourself
Good or bad it’s important to share the data with Stakeholders in the company who need to make decisions with it. Long hours of Crunching number after number in order make the results appear in a certain way will only prolong the ability for the appropriate decision maker to take action.
Measuring Without Purpose
Before jumping head first into the data, Before creating a Dashboard make sure you sit down with your marketing team to figure out the goals of the appropriate project as well as what metrics they need to report on in order to do their job properly.
Having frequently been involved with the web analytics process I have noticed some consistent issues with web analytics both from an agency and in house perspective. I am not talking about data quality or even vendor selection, I am talking about how web analytics strategically fits in within an organization.
Analytics is not a priority: In many cases web analytics is often an afterthought and is not implemented during a site launch or during a sponsored/email campaign. Web Analytics needs to be given more priority and should be thought of before any marketing campaigns are implemented so that you can actually quantify the amount of dollars you budgeted and spent for the marketing.
The right stakeholders are not getting the right data: If the same dashboard is given to every person involved with your online strategy then you’re not allowing them to make informed business decisions which affect their part of the overall plan. Customized reporting is an absolute must - show the Marketing Manager leads (SEO vs. PPC), show the online marketing team keyword referrals/ROI by source, show the CEO/CFO sales and revenue numbers, show the IT Team Site Errors/Traffic Spikes and show the usability team barriers within conversion funnels.
Too much data and not enough resources: In both the In-House and Agency worlds there becomes a time where analysts are simply bombarded with so many requests that they simply can’t keep up. Web Analytics is an extremely important tool used to show the performance of a business and how to best tweak your business’s performance, so WHY NOT add some more resources to it.
Tough to find good analysts: It is difficult to find analysts who have the technical ability to implement a training solution but also have the marketing savvy to know what recommendations to offer once the data has been collected. However, there are a few good ways to train a new analytics analyst: Get them involved with the SEO/PPC teams so they better understand the business, Give them a mix between reading and scenario based training, give them some work to do which is out of their comfort zone, work with them through an analysis or deliverable, send them to SEMPhonic for some analytics training, and finally see if they’re still passionate after all of this.
In this multi-part series we are going to analyze numerous websites across different categories to help our readers better understand what metrics they should be measuring for their own website. Metrics cannot be reported without a proper web analytics implementation therefore it's important to be as thorough as possible because it's better to over collect data than under collect.
Today we are going to be looking at metrics to track for travel websites and for this post we have selected 2 travel sites which we are going to analyze. The first is a website dedicated to Caribbean vacations, Sandals.com and second is travel portal for visitors in British Columbia Canada, BCTravelGuide.ca.
Sandals.com
From the menu above from Sandals.com you can see that they offer their visitors many different options to book vacations. By implementing the ability to track the performance of each site section Sandals.com will have the ability to comparatively see the popularity of each section. Additionally in their analytics suite they could run a page popularity report for an entire year and quickly pick out seasonality trends for each site section.
Many travel websites allow visitors to check rates and availability for their destinations. Each element of the 'Availability' form on the left is an opportunity for Sandals.com to better understand their visitors. The web analytics should be setup so that users have the ability to segment the reports by all destinations and resorts as well as check in/check out dates. Why is this important? Imagine that through analytics reports analysis that you are able to figure out that visitors enjoy booking Caribbean cruises from May to June. By leveraging this wealth of information Sandals.com could offer more information on cruises or even discounts during this time, making visitors' site experience extremely remarkable.
The next metrics are both related to conversions on Sandals.com. The first is Sandals.com's toll free number. Although phone numbers can be difficult to track using web analytics, the leads that they generate can be captured by a CRM and be imported back into your analytics suite. If your toll free number is unique only to your website, then the number of leads generated by the number can be attributed directly back to the website. The site's second conversion is a "7 days Sweepstakes." Not only should you capture the number of people who actually entered the email address, but the email address themselves for promotional purposes later on.
The last couple of metrics that I'd like to point out for Sandals.com to measure are: the number of log-ins (total and by users), time between log-ins and activity after login. Creating a community is an excellent way to offer targeted content to your visitors as well as remembering their preferences. However if you are noticing a very low number of log-ins then you should consider offering more content outside of the login or more perks for creating an account.
BCTravelGuide.ca
Instantly we noticed that BC Travel Guide is categorized by Regions and Activities in British Columbia therefore it is important for this site's owners to be able to understand the popularity of these various categorical segments. Metrics needed to be tracked for each segment include visits to each individual region/activity, the amount of time spent per region/activity and the referring sources. Measuring these metrics will help this website's owner better understand which sections visitors find most engaging allowing them to capitalize on the popularity with additional offerings or advertising. Furthermore these metrics also help site owners understand the areas visitors find least interesting and are therefore are performing the poorest.
BC Travel Guide also offers 2 calls to actions located on every page which allows visitors to list their BC Travel business for free in BC Travel Guide's directory. A few different metrics can be measured here including a comparison between the 2 calls to actions as to which attracts the most clickthroughs. Secondly, it is very important to measure the clicks down to actual conversions (in this case the number of free listings created). I would recommend creating a funnel which measures All Site Visitors >> Clicks to "Free Business Listings" >> Listing Creations.
BC Travel Guide also has an "Advertise" call to action and similar to "Free Listings" this site should measure the number of clicks to this call to action and the number of real requests to advertise (emails, form completions). This site also has a great opportunity to experiment with design and location of their "Advertise" call to action with a simple A/B Test.
Finally we noticed that the last step of this site's navigational process is to land on a listing for a given Region/Activity combination. For end users who have their businesses listed in BC Travel Guide I am sure it is important for them to know how many visitors are actually looking at their listing as well as how many are clicking through to their website.
The web analytics implementation process can often be a long and grueling process which includes numerous resources and environments. When you're trying to focus on items such as accurately trying to integrate with a CMS or ecommerce solutions, forgetting the little things can often occur. Here are a few items worth double checking before you declare the implementation 100% complete (Download Checklist - PDF):
Local IP Exclusion: Have you blocked local IP addresses as well as your vendors' so that their activity doesn't get included within your results? If your site receives tens of millions of page views monthly this won't have a huge impact, however for websites that receive only 1,000-10,000 page views, this will skew the data.
Sub Domains: Not all analytics solutions automatically track activity on a sub domain of a website, so make sure you either have activated the sub domain in the code or in the analytics admin area. Here's how you do it in Google Analytics:
_uacct = "ACCOUNT NUMBER HERE"; _udn = "DOMAIN HERE"; urchinTracker();
Email/Download Links: Contact forms and newsletter email registrations aren't the only way to measure the number of leads and conversions. Don't forget to apply appropriate tracking for links to emails and downloadable collateral. Here's an example of how to track a link in Omniture's SiteCatalyst:
a onclick="s_linkType='o'; s_linkTrackVars='s_events'; s_linkTrackEvents='event#'; s_linkName='Contact us email@domain.com'; s_events='event#'; s_lnk=s_co(this); s_gs(reportsuite);" href="mailto:email@domain.com" mce_href="mailto:email@domain.com">email@domain.com /a
Development vs. Production: During the publish from the development to the production environment make sure you're referencing the correct attributes and files on the production server.
Paid Search: Analytics providers often don't automatically attribute Paid keyword referrals to PPC unless there is an admin setting turned on or the referring URLs have appropriate parameters appended to them. Forgetting to setup Paid Search tracking can result in the inflation of natural/organic search referrals.
Tagging Error Pages: Error pages are part of your site as well and a great way to determine if there are any navigational issues throughout the website, so make sure they're tagged.
Internal search: Want to know what users are looking for on your website? Without being able to identify the internal search queries, this task becomes increasingly difficult. EpikOne has a useful post on how to track internal search queries using Google Analytics.
QA and Testing: This should be an obvious one not to forget but after a long implementation, QA and Testing often don't get integrated into the implementation plan.
There you have it, 8 items to permanently add to your checklist for a proper web analytics implementation.
Within the SEM industry a trend can be noticed towards the internalization of search; the formation of in-house SEO and SEM teams to handle search. With the costs of reputable outsourcing agents continuing to rise, the justification to hire within and develop an in-house team becomes justifiable, or at least appears to on the books. Return on investment with a team working full time on bid management and organic strategies should be able to deliver the same value as does an outsourced company, not working nearly as many hours.The simple ROI calculation cannot factor in the intangible factors associated with outsourcing to a reputable SEM company (I'm saying reputable because the industry is littered with the living room-based self proclaimed SEO firms who are anything but reputable and whose services can be easily internalized.) However, having worked with internal departments it is apparent that the value justification of an outsourcing is apparent.
Similar to an accounting department hiring an external company to perform audits, an outsourced SEO firm can act as an independent auditor for your entire SEM campaign. Being once removed from the business is not a disadvantage, in fact in many cases, being external to the company allows the SEO firm to understand the business problems and strategic goals without losing site of the main objective due to corporate pressures. An outsourced company needs to not only understand the business objectives and resource allocation limitations of their clients, but act to ensure the SEO efforts remain on track to achieve the corporate goals.
Furthermore, an external company does not become involved in the political environment of the company. The politics are understood by the outsourced company, however, an outsourced company does not become directly involved. When recommendations are made from an external company auditing the current SEM campaigns, the recommendations will be results-focused and should be relatively free of political motivations. A significant time-savings can be realized by externalizing certain SEM elements such as bid management. An outsourced search partner consistently trains and educates themselves in the latest industry best practices, maintains its position on the leading forefront of knowledge and explores new alternative marketing tactics. Moreover, a strategic search partner will have already made the contacts within the industry there by ensuring new campaign tactics are quickly implemented. Outsourcing to a SEM solutions provider does not mean externalizing your entire SEM department, but rather accessing an entire knowledge database for strategic insight. An SEO firm should not be used to perform the basics; quite frankly anyone can write an optimized Meta tag and can be paid significantly less than what you would pay and outsourced firm to do the same. However, the SEM firm should be able to provide the training, best practices documentation, and support to the in-house team. Where the value of an outsourced SEM company truly does show its value is through the advanced, higher level strategic planning and execution.
For example (and at the risk of trivializing strategic planning), when I had set out to write this article I had an idea of what I wanted to achieve; however, half way through I seemed to have gotten off track and needed a colleague, external to the situation, to help put me back on track to achieve my desired results. Now I do know that most of you reading this are probably saying big deal it's only an article; however, in a metaphorical sense, this does describe many of the situations with designing a complex e-marketing campaign we deal with on a daily basis. Many business systems, and even our own government structure, are based on a series of checks and balances; an SEM firm should serve as that strategic check and ensure your total campaign remains in balance with your objectives.The argument for in-house SEM is extremely apparent with Pay Per Click campaigns. Although the argument can be made that bid management can be automated, the simple fact is that no computer can optimize a campaign to respond to competitive pressures or respond to a change in quality score. Moreover, a computer cannot determine the most effective advertising mix for a specific campaign nor can it determine what language the user is using to more effectively market to them. Total reliance on an automated bid management system will simply maintain the status quo (maintain return on investment or your position on the Search Engine Results page), but will not allow for strategic improvement. Computer programs can only sustain a campaign and it is up to a strategic search partner to work with you to grow your business. A computer program also can not determine how to increase conversions from a particular campaign nor can it determine which elements are the most effective and what the most effective communications mix (language, images, and calls-to-action) will work the best. Tools are on the market to aid in the testing of page features to aid in increasing conversions, such as the Google Website Optimizer; however the information these tools provide are only as good as the initial set of data entered into them. Automated bid tools for PPC are one of the major reasons that the costs of campaigns are driving smaller advertisers out of the industry. With the implementation of any campaign a SEM company can help to establish limits on the campaign, implement the proper tracking, and ensure that ROI is constantly measured. Outsourcing to SEM companies can provide significant opportunities to build upon the in-house team and provide real value through strategic insight. Anyone can be taught the basics of SEO, but a true SEM solutions provider will act as the extension to your strategic planning team, implementing the complex solutions and working with you to achieve your business goals. Stay tuned for part two…
Google has just released a new version of it's Google Analytic software. This new version of Google Analytics includes a brand new interface, email reporting, customizable dashboards, improved map displays, and plain language descriptions to make important information more accessible.
I was also able to get an interview with Google Analytics' Senior Manager, Brett Crosby to discuss the new release in more detail. Listen to it here:
Here are the questions I asked Brett:
Can you first give us some background on what created the need for the new version and how long your team has been working on it?
Tell us about the redesigned interface and what it will do in terms of user interaction.
Can you tell us more about the email reporting and customizable dashboards?
What exactly are the plain language descriptions?
How long do you think it will take to roll out the new version to all of the current users?
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Web Analytics is not easy and can take up much of you time so it’s important to concentrate on the things which have the most benefit to your business. Below I have outlined the types of things you shouldn’t measure as well as some areas where you could potentially end up wasting time rather than focusing on tactics and metrics which will actually help your strategy to succeed. 
