Refine Theory

Analytics Moves to the Enterprise

noreply@blogger.com (EpikDave) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:56:00 +0000

In a strong showing of support for the enterprise market, the team at Google Analytics announced yesterday a new feature set for Google Analytics that will certainly change the perception of this fantastic product. I've worked with the team since back in the Urchin days in the early 2000's and have seen this product evolve from a log-file analysis software program to a full-scale enterprise application.

This launch could not have come at a better time. As businesses get shaken and stirred due to the global financial crisis, there is no better time for enterprise organizations to invest in analytics, and not the software, but the people.

Mark my words — if marketers don't start embracing analytics to measure their advertising and website initiatives, they will be out of a job in less than 2 years. Executives are not going to tolerate gunslinging marketers who manage advertising campaigns based on their emotions, ego and experience. It is time that these multi-million dollar campaigns be analyzed like a financial investment to gauge the true brand reach and ROI.

I advocate for marketers to start reporting their results to the CFO, controller or other financial oriented leadership positions with an organization. Ten years ago one could argue that the tools were not available to properly measure an advertising campaign — with marketers relying on post-research studies, sales results or other indirect metrics. Google has changed this paradigm and now provides marketers with a complete suite of tools to measure the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns and website performance, however, it is now up to marketers to invest in the people to utilize these tools.

Looping back to the Google Analytics announcement, the new Enterprise Class Feature set will provide marketers and analysts with a powerful set of tools all for free; truly amazing. The advanced segmentation will allow for more detailed analysis by slicing data up real time; motion charts is for uber-analysts that need to look at multi-dimensional data and look at how metrics interact over time; the API is a massive move for Google Analytics and will lead to new breed of applications that integrate with GA; Custom Reporting is a nice feature for those who need to prepare reports for colleagues or bosses; and the AdSense integration is a must-have for Publishers.

EpikOne is ahead of the curve again and has experience working with all these features. We've launched the first Google Analytics application, AnalyticsView, which offers custom reporting for agencies adding in features such as white-labeling, scheduling, third-party data integration and more.

Get ready enterprises, Analytics is coming whether you are ready or not!

Analytics in 2009 - Quick Thought

noreply@blogger.com (EpikDave) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:07:00 +0000

I prepared this statement for an analyst looking to gauge the health of the analytics space in 2009 and how it will impact vendors --- from software to services.

"We have seen marketing budgets slightly cut for 2009, however, we are seeing online grow by way of reducing offline. To our benefit, we are seeing a renewed interest in marketers focusing on analytics and optimization efforts as they are pressured to justify their existing budgets. We've been competing with other web analytics platforms and winning with large enterprise clients by leveraging the savings from Google Analytics which gives companies more resources for people to perform analysis and testing. So for 2009 we predict a much greater emphasis on making "analytics actionable" and less focus on investing in deep product features that may not get used and diminsh the overall return on their analytics investment. Testing most likely will gain momentum as marketers work to squeze every last dollar out of their budget. I believe the areas of online advertising that will face downtimes is social media, ad networks and other areas that are not providing a direct / measureable return."

Pillar 1 | Online Strategy

noreply@blogger.com (EpikDave) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:14:00 +0000

Online Strategy
Data Driven Insights

New Opportunities and Insightful Ideas
Growing your business online requires progressive marketing skills, technical savvy and most importantly a blend of strategic insight and diligent analysis that are nimble enough to meet shifting consumer and business demands. Whether you are selling online, finding prospects, or providing information it is imperative to define a strategic approach and then measure website interactions and marketing activities to gauge the effectiveness of the efforts. By establishing an initial baseline and then tracking the progress of each strategic initiative you can continuously evaluate the key metrics that will determine brand awareness, visitor engagement or conversion successes.

Ensuring positive online experiences for your website audience is achieved by following these fundamental strategic guidelines. As a business leader, senior marketer or small business owner, these key principals all apply to you and should be disseminated through your organization:

Define the Core Business Goals
Don't get caught up in the online hype that swirls around our industry and leads many to believe that by launching a website your existing business will flourish with new sales or a new business venture will spark overnight. Whether you are moving your business online to expand new revenue lines or launching a new business online, many of the age old business principals apply. So before you (re)launch a new site, take a step back and ask yourself and your team, "Why are we planning to do with this website?" Once you answer this overarching question, you can then move onto the micro aspects such as what are the success factors of the website. Will it be sales, leads, visibility or just a place for customers to learn more about your business. As you dive deeper into your online strategy, every single metric you measure should be tied back to your core business goals, which typically are revenue and profits. Make sure you map out these goals and get buy in from your President/CEO, Controller/CFO and others from marketing, operations and IT. By aligning all parties with consistent business goals and getting them all involved in the success of your online ventures, accountability will be clear and success will be more closely measured and achievable.

Define Your Online Audience
Whether keyword, demographic or site targeted advertising campaigns, your objective is to decrease cost-per-acquisition and increase return on ad spend. In order to achieve this, you need to ensure you understand who your target customer is first, then identify the online acquisition channels where you will find this customer, and then then launch campaigns that are closely monitored with analytics to gauge if they are successful or not. Some make the mistake by assuming their online customer base will be a replication of their offline customer base. Not true, especially for old business models. I can think of many consumer DM oriented organizations that had massive customer lists and then when launching online thinking those same customers would follow. This is also true of two other industries, banking and newspaper, where both had aging customer bases that tip-toed into the online world while the emerging customer base of tweens and gen x'ers never walked into a bank branch or read a newspaper. The motto here is that an online strategy can not be "one-size-fits-all". You need to consider how each customer segment will interact online and create experiences for each segment.

Awareness + Accountability with Analytics
The problem with most marketers is they never had the level of accountability that a President or Controller had in an organization. However, they never needed to because as long as the organization was doing well and the brand "looked good" then there wasn't an issue. To a marketers defense (and I'm one of them), if the organization wasn't doing well, they were the first to blame, even though it could have been a poor executive strategy that was flawed, a lackluster sales staff, or just a poor product/service to begin with. Analytics to the resue. Web analytics is where marketing and accounting intersect. The combination of creativity and accountability. See, in accounting, although there is certainly creative ways to work with the numbers and reporting, for the most part all aspects are measured and accountable . There is little grey area, at least not these days post Enron scandal. Plus much of accounting is rigid and structured. As an entrepreneur and CEO, I am always immersed in analytics in business as it revolves around an Income Statement, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Statement. So for us executives that have a flavor for marketing, analytics is nothing new. However, for much of the web industry and traditional marketers, the ideas of numbers driving strategies and the concept of being "measured" is relatively new. I am in no way proposing that marketers shed their creative skills and ambitions, rather balance them with analytics to create accountability to ensure you are measuring what is working and what is not.

Balance Design and Function
There is a wealth of customer data that is too often ignored. It is free and it if you listen you can hear your customers telling you exactly what they are looking for. So with this, the world of web design needs to further evolve to involve more function with the aesthetics. I personally love great design, strong branding and integrated identity systems. But, they need to work. What I propose is a separate between the core brand design and the functional design application. What does that mean? In no way should an analyst be telling a marketer that they need to change their logo, swap their identify system from black and white to pink and purple or to scrap the custom font their design team created. What needs to happen though is more integration of user experience best practices for navigation, search results landing pages and overall content layout. This area of strategy could go on for pages, because you need to also include consideration for SEO best practices, like scrapping the pretty headline tag that is an image for a clean H1 title tag that will be indexed better by search engines. The point is to involve analysts and user experience professionals in the website design process, advertising creation and overall design strategy to ensure your design is not only inline with your brand/identity system, but is also working to function for the users that will be interacting with your brand.

Initiate New Ideas
Never stop evolving. The web moves so fast sometimes my team at EpikOne thinks I'm insane because we evolve our business model so often. What sometimes they don't understand is that I need to in order to stay competitive. Although we are an online consultancy and deeply embroiled in this space, it does not mean companies like us should be the only ones consistently initiating new ideas online. I'll sway this to the B2B industry, but it could apply to B2C as well. Having a website is no longer enough. You need to have a more holistic online strategy that engages your customers, retains them and makes them love your brand. An e-commerce retailer can no longer just be a "commerce" company, but also a "content" company. This is something I've preached for years, better alignment of commerce and content. Customers don't want to come back and shop every day, but you could be publishing content every day to keep them coming back. For B2B, having your services, company bio, key leaders and contact information is no different than having a brochure splattered online. Here is what we've done at EpikOne to retain customers online, add value to our customers, expand our reach and visibility and position ourselves as thought leaders.

Tools/Applications:
SiteScan - www.sitescanga.com
AnalyticsView - www.analyticsview.com

Content:
AnalyticsExperts - www.analyticsexperts.com
Analytics Talk - www.epikone.com/blog

We've also launched a free Google Analytics Setup Guide, a free Regular Expression Tester and many other tools and articles to strenghthen our community. It takes time and commitment but it will pay off in the end by increasing your volume of leads and visibility within your industry. Point is, don't be content with a single website; expand your web presence and constantly initiate new ideas in your organization to stay ahead of the competition. Especially in times like this, where being in a recession requires you to work harder to keep your edge.

Why Do Marketers Ignore the Bounce Rate Metric?

noreply@blogger.com (EpikDave) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 00:38:00 +0000

Such a simple metric — Bounce Rate. However, even with industry evangelists like Avinash working to shift our focus to this website metric by naming Bounce Rate "The sexiest metric ever...", marketers are still ignoring this simple metric. Visitors bouncing off of your site at first sight should be a startling reality of your "first impression". Imagine operating a bricks and mortar store and 75% of potential customers left the store within 10 seconds — basically they walk in, take a quick look and walk right back out. In the "real world" we would take immediate attention to fix this major issue. In the "online world" we have a quantifiable metric updated every few minutes and people simply ignore this metric.

I believe Google Analytics should send you SMS or RSS alerts if your bounce rate increases more than 10% at any given time. Because if it does increase by 10%, you are losing potentially qualified customers because of that fancy design element you put up!

If you are ahead of the crowd and passionately focused on this one simple metric, Bounce Rate, then lets look at what you can do to make it better. First you need to establish What is a Good Bounce Rate? The new benchmarking service from Google Analytics will provide you good insight into what is the "norm" amongst similar sites in your industry. If not, I believe a 20% bounce rate is fantastic, 40% average and acceptable and above 50% should be improved up...oh and if you have above 80% you better get your act together and stop losing 8 out of 10 potential conversions before they have a chance to hear your message.

So once you've established what your bounce rate is and if it is good or not, start thinking about your segments. I'm not talking about demographics or anything like that (not a big fan of demo), I'm talking first-time and repeat visitor segments, which indicate attitudes. A first time visitor needs to understand if they want to take the time to explore your website and if it will lead value in their time (time is money). A return visitor however most likely understands what to expect but now they may need to find something new. It is likely that both their intentions are the same — came to find information, make a purchase, get contact information, etc. — but their attitudes are different.

Ideally when you segment this metric you'll find your bounce rate for return visitors is lower and for new visitors it is higher. Once you've established your bounce rates you have to consider if you want to invest in improving (lowering) your bounce rate for a particular segment and what impact it will have.

This is one of many posts to come on how to Optimizer Your Bounce Rates...stay tuned.

A New Version of Google Analytics...and it's Amazing!

noreply@blogger.com (EpikDave) — Tue, 08 May 2007 22:05:00 +0000

Yes, you heard right. Google Analytics has launched a new version and it is quite an evolution. The new interface improves the usability and adds many useful features such as automated scheduling of reports to e-mail and a calendar view that is second to none. I'm going to be brief here but rest assured EpikOne has quite an arsenal of information and tools coming to make the transition as smooth as possible. We've been working with the application for some time now so let us know of any questions and keep posted for new announcements!

Dave @ EpikOne

How is Your Agency Performing?

noreply@blogger.com (EpikDave) — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 00:54:00 +0000

A recent article on MediaPost.com caught the attention of both specialized digital shops and traditional ad agency's. The article highlighted that traditional agencies are slow to embrace the new marketing paradigm and are marketers "...seek fresh approaches from digital shops..." They went on to mention how shops like Agency.com are now winning traditional work. Wow, what a wake up call for Madison Avenue and the rest of the agency world.

Take a look at the article here.

Analytics Resource Planning

noreply@blogger.com (EpikDave) — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 23:11:00 +0000

One of the fundamental issues with making Web Analytics integral in an organization is the lack of resource planning. For instance, will Analytics function as a department similar to Accounting and Marketing or will Analytics be integrated into many departments?

After meeting with a client recently we realized that there was no clear plan as to who would be accessing Google Analytics for reporting and how the information would be disseminated throughout the organization for decision making purposes.

This is an important phase and can open up new opportunities for making Analytics move to the "frontal-lobe" of key executives and directors who may have previously not been exposed to the value of this information. For instance, how many PR Directors are mining through top referrer reports to find out what kind of visbility their press releases are generating. My guess is not many. I believe the old days of "press clippings" will be pushed to the back by the ability to generate a top referrer report in Google Analytics in less than 1 minute from logging in. Some may say, well what if the media source didn't publish the press online and you can only get it in print. Well, I guess that media source is a good candidate for a course in "Why the Web is Important" - which most businesses took back in the 90's when they started moving their business online.

My point is, that without proper planning for integrating Analytics into the organization the valuable reporting will be nothing more than the Employee Handbook gathering dust on the shelf. So before you go an allocate six-figures on a fancy new web analytics application you may want to consider giving Google Analytics a try and spending that six-figures (or five, four or three figures!) on Analytics Resource Planning and then Analysis and Optimization. This will most likely get you a better ROI on your Analytics and then the Analytics will get you a better ROI on those Marketing Campaigns.

Website Optimizer Media Blitz

noreply@blogger.com (EpikDave) — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 17:54:00 +0000

Here are some follow-up reviews, blog posts and general information following the announcement of Google's Website Optimizer.

ClickZ wrote a brief column. In it they highlight Google's partnering with us to provide consulting for the new technology. Also, Mark Wachen of Optimost comments on how this launch will increase awareness for the category. Read the article here.

The Official Google Analytics Blog also posted information about the Website Optimizer based on an announcement from Brett Crosby of Google. In the post they list a few Google partners who will be offering consulting, implementation and support for Website Optimizer, one of which was us. Check out the post here.

Google launches official press release on the new Website Optimizer tool - EpikOne's Alex Broussard quoted in it explaining the value of identifying key conversion elements quickly. Read more here.

Marketing VOX publishes post about Website Optimizer.

Just in - a great write up from E-Commerce Guide.

Multivariate Testing with AdWords Optimizer

noreply@blogger.com (EpikDave) — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 18:37:00 +0000

The world of analytics keeps progressing and Google is leading the charge. A new feature in Google AdWords - Website Optimizer was released in beta today. The new feature allows for multivariate testing on AdWords campaigns. Once a tactic for sophisticated marketers and analysts, Google has provided a fairly streamlined tool for allowing any AdWords user to lift conversions with this dynamic tool. Here are the three steps to a successful multivariate test with Website Optimzer.

1. Methodology
You must identify the landing page you will be testing and then the elements on the page you can provide variants for. The goal typically is to convert more visitors on the landing page so consider what elements contribute to the goal - call to action, copy, images, headlines, etc. Plus what is the intended goal - with this test try to limit to one goal.

2. Configuration
Website Optimizer provides the framework for implementing the campaign however some technical aptitude will be needed. You need to modify some coding on the page with the variations of elements plus configure the AdWords tool for the experiment. However, having the framework for free is a big bonus - as other companies charge hefty fees for similar tools.

3. Measurement
There is no use doing steps 1 and 2 unless you plan on analyzing the experiment and using the results to drive decisions. Once you've determined the outcome with the highest probability to lift conversions, implement the changes and start experimenting with other pages.

The official Inside AdWords blog post.

To official beta signup.

If you are interested in having EpikOne work with you on any of the three steps get in touch here.

Google AdWords Seminars

noreply@blogger.com (EpikDave) — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 17:04:00 +0000

The Google AdWords team has launched a nationwide seminar program to help companies get more out of the powerful paid search tool. Take a look at the schedule. Should be a good training opportunity to increase your knowledge of the AdWords interface - you'll be surprised how much flexibility AdWords has built in.

However, if it's Google Analytics you are looking to get more out of - I'd recommend taking a look at some of our firm's offerings. We've training individuals to fifty person marketing groups on the finer points of Analytics. Take a look at our Google Analytics Training sessions.

Facets of a Landing Page

noreply@blogger.com (EpikDave) — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 13:27:00 +0000

One online marketing tactic that seems to be demanding more attention lately is refined landing pages. Often overshadowed by advertising efforts, a landing page can be the single most important element to converting qualified visitors on a web site.

Imagine Wal-Mart runs a thirty-second television spot that promotes an end-of-summer sale on outdoor grills. The campaign launch is successful and customers visit the store in droves. However, the grills have been placed in the back room for storage and when the customers arrive they are unable to locate them. A percentage of customers will ask a store clerk for help and the rest will exit the store. Failing to display the grills has not only hurt store revenues but also decreased the ROI for advertising spend. Now, apply this theory to the web and remove the store clerk from the equation. Not only will brand reputation suffer because customers are frustrated, but very few qualified customers will convert into buyers.

What can be impacted by poor landing pages?
1. Brand
2. Conversions
3. ROI

Here are three key facets to consider when designing landing pages:
1. Clear Call to Action
2. Message Consistent with the Advertising
3. Targets the Intended Demo/Pyschographic

Furthermore, as Google AdWords continues to increase the importance of Landing Pages in the Quality Score, more than ever advertisers will need to pay attention to these often overlooked pages. For more information on this, take a look at Google.

What I find most interesting is not just the small businesses who need to open their eyes to this but the major brands. Let's take a look at American Eagle.

The other day I was trying to show someone how the search query "Jeans" on Google.com would likely result in top brands with amazing landing pages.

After clicking on an AE.com ad (see left), I was surprised to see their homepage with a small banner at the bottom promoting a Jeans Guide. This company is investing significant advertising dollars into their PPC position on AdWords and failing to tailor ads to landing pages.

Take a look this landing page - for a jeans ad.

This is not a good example of user experience. In fact, we probably don't need to look at the Analytics to find out that the ads are not performing as well as they could.

As Analytics continues to become more dominant in marketing, tactics like Landing Page Optimization will become more important and user experience will improve.

Dave @ Epik

EpikOne Press on Forbes.com

noreply@blogger.com (EpikDave) — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 02:11:00 +0000

Just wanted to give us a mention for some recent press on Forbes.com. The enterprise search world is gaining exposure and momentum and search analytics will play a critical role in the overall success for businesses.

The Press Release is no longer active but focused on EpikOne's new partnership as a Google Enterprise Professional for serving the Google Search Appliance and Google Mini product lines.

Dave @ EpikOne

Two-Cents on SEO

noreply@blogger.com (EpikDave) — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 23:24:00 +0000

Programs and automated tools such as WebPosition Gold typically are not preferred by Search Engine Optimization firms and frowned upon by the actual search engines. Search Engine Optimization has been most successful through more manual processes. While software can add some advantages such as tracking previous initiatives and generating ranking reports, the auto-submission and content development components typically don't work well and at times, can be penalized by the search engines.

An example:
1) Google penalizes duplicate content. So if these programs create two sets of similar content for two different companies and the content is uploaded to the sites, then Google could potentially see it as duplicate content and penalize the companies.

I believe the best approach to SEO is 3-tiered:

1) Submissions
Manually submit your site (homepage and major directories) to the engines and directories. Make sure to hit DMOZ, etc. Use Google SiteMaps as a tool for Google.com - it is powerful and offers great reporting. Also check your robots.txt files to ensure those are properly setup. Keep this process consistent but don't spam the engines - rather re-submit if there is a dramatic change.

2) Content
Content is king. As Google has stated - become an expert on your site subject matter and write about it. Then consider keyword density, internal links, etc. Properly coded sites play into this equation as well. Dynamic sites are difficult so use neat url's. CSS vs. tables definitely helps and there are many hidden tricks you can use with CSS that are not considered spam. Plus H1 tags should contain prominent keywords as they get prominent consideration.

3) Strategic Linking
We've all heard of Google PageRank. Well Google isn't the only one considering this - we believe other engines now consider the relevancy of strategic links - of course taking the concept from Google. Don't worry about link farms and linking to every Joe.com site. Link to sites that have a good PageRank as this will be more important. Consider partners, vendors, etc - get listed with them. Think of a business analogy - it's who you know. Knowing every business owner in Burlington may not be helpful, but knowing 10 who can improve your business is helpful. Same concept with PageRank.

Prioritization
Google generates almost 50% of web searches so I'd suggest putting 50% of your efforts in Google. Then Yahoo!, MSN, Ask and a few others. Keep in mind - having a top 30 listing in 30 engines means a lot less than having top 10 in 10.

Use Analytics to measure performance and track improvements. You could also use Google Alerts to monitor performance for specific keywords.

Web Analytics vs. Web Analysis

noreply@blogger.com (EpikDave) — Sun, 11 Jun 2006 23:20:00 +0000

The area I want to address centers around the fundamental difference of web analytics and web analysis.

Web analytics is a product that typically collects information through log files or cookie tracking and then formulates the data into reports that we can analyze. Some products include Google Analytics, Urchin Software, ClickTracks, Omniture, Webalizer, etc. What these products don't do is analyze the data, review historical patterns, determine outcomes and make decisions.

This is what leads us to the human side of the industry - web analysis. This is the sister of web analytics; it is what makes web analytic products valuable. To date most of the industry has been focused on the product and reviewing stats like visits, hits, page views, etc. Great information but sometimes meaningless when it comes to truly gauging website and marketing performance. Analysis will dive in deeper and look at things like conversions, organic vs. paid search activity, funnel processes and visitor segmentation. A web analytics product will generate much of the data needed but now we need marketing and business analysts to interpret the results and make decisions or recommendations on areas of marketing, web design and business strategy.

We will see a movement in this industry towards more business intelligence driven by our currently underserved Key Performance Inidcator (KPI) market. Maybe what we'll see is KPI's drive the need for more web analysis because the web analytic reports will be much more customizable towards each business.

So where is your company at?
Are you paying for a web analytics product and not doing the analysis?

Improving Web Analytics

noreply@blogger.com (EpikDave) — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 23:08:00 +0000

I was listening to an old podcast from Stephan Spencer's website that was Jim Sterne asking audience participants at E-Metrics 2004 to list their 10 Nastiest Web Analytics Problems. Well, there were quite a few so I decided to pick out a few that I think are still relevant today...

Implementation - Customers don't know how to setup tools themselves properly
and end up getting incorrect data - with both tagging or log analysis solutions.
Comment from Dave - This is still an issue today. Even with Google Analytics giving away the product for free, there is still a need for Professional Services to provide implementation, training, support and consulting. Google has decided to partner with industry experts to provide these Professional Services for Google Analytics.

Expectation - Customers need more than just a tool or product that supplies data. They need analysts who can interpret the data and provide ansers and recomendations.

Mirroring Data Across Applications & Making sense of multiple data sets

Web Analytics Tools and Marketing is a lot of work. Most individuals can't handle more work - can setup, but not provide ongoing analysis due to resource constraints.

Analytics is not tracking on new browsers (PDA) and Capturing Online Move to Offline

Timely Access to Data & Determining which KPI's are Needed, Plus Data Overload!

Aligning Analytics with a Single Individual - Selecting Online Business Coordinator

Executive Sponsorship or Buy-In and Educating Executives on Web Analytics

Search Engine Effectiveness

noreply@blogger.com (EpikDave) — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 23:05:00 +0000

Ever wonder if search engines are an effective online marketing tool. Well, based on a recent report by MediaPost, a survey by Outsell notes 71 percent stated they feel Google search ads are effective as compared to 62 percent for Yahoo and 49 percent for MSN (Microsoft just can't win in this new medium!). Very impressive trends indeed - considering the number of both online and offline media choices available today.

One must ask though, what factors are pushing these respondents to consider the search engines effective. Was it a hunch? An increase in revenue? I assume it was a combination of a few factors but most likely no hard-lined statistics to determine the "true" effectiveness.

Enter now, Google Analytics! Now we can transform that hunch into an informed decision. With analytics you have the ability to measure the effectiveness of an individual search engine including organic and paid activity along with individual keyword performance. This is critical as search engines are typically the leading source of referral traffic to websites and understanding the effectiveness of each one can have a large impact on the success of your site.

In the next post we'll dive into some Analytics and look at different key performance indicators that can measure search engine effectiveness.

It's The Trending

noreply@blogger.com (Justin) — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 12:36:00 +0000

Clients often ask us to validate or reconcile the statisitcs that Google Analytics or Urchin Software provide. This is an almost impossible task that can take weeks to accomplish and usually provides inconclusive results. We advise our clients to begin by focusing on trend in the data over time rather than laboring over the details of the numbers. Then, when they make specific changes to their site or advertising they can dig deeper into the data because they know exactly what changes were made.

So why do I bring this up now? I read two interesting things this morning that reminded me of this tenant.

First, Bob Cringely has a great piece about Google and their AdWords customer service. The article was actually about a friend who was fighting Google over some AdWords charges. In the article Bob references some visitation data that his friend used in his fight with Google:

Visitor Sessions per Month
Jan 06 = 386 visits (Google account active = $555.99)
Feb 06 = 328 visits (Google account active = $1,893.26)
Mar 06 = 348 visits (Google account paused)
Apr 06 = 410 visits (Google account paused)
May 06 = 916 visits (Google account active = $751.03)

These data show the number of visits and the Google AdWords cost per month. The numbers are interesting for the client because the visitation increased even when his AdWords account was paused. Those are some pretty important numbers, especially when you're evaluating the value of your Google AdWords account. Notice they're not some obscure statistic about the number of times a manager clicked on a blue icon. It's just visits per month, a nice standard analytics number that can help the individual make an informed business decision.

Second, Avinash Kaushik has a fantastic blog post titled Data Quality Sucks, Let's Just Get Over It concerning the quality of analytics data and how to make informed decisions based on your comfort level with the data. He stresses that you will not get 100% accurate data but that doesn't matter. You can still make informed decisions with the data that your analytics solution provides. It is a really great post and I highly recommend giving it a read.

What is RSS Feed and Why Should I Sign Up?

noreply@blogger.com (EpikDave) — Wed, 24 May 2006 14:29:00 +0000

Information About RSS Feed.

Making Metrics Meaningful

noreply@blogger.com (EpikDave) — Mon, 15 May 2006 23:26:00 +0000

How many business owner's who have a website know how many visits are coming to their site daily? Page views? Return visitors?

Imagine you were running a retail store and at the end of the day you could view a report that told you:

# of customers that came through the door
# of customers that had been in before
# of products each customer looked at
Coversion rate of shoppers/buyers
How the customers found out about your store

All of these are burning questions that in the traditional world of business, go unanswered unless you have a few thousand dollars to invest in research (which most businesses do not.)

A website can tell all of this plus more. With website metrics you gain a timely, in-depth view into your customers and their activities.

For those running an online business, metrics are a must.

Analytics for an Intranet

noreply@blogger.com (EpikDave) — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 00:23:00 +0000

Are You Tracking Your Intranet Usage?

If not you may want to consider the fact that IBM is rumored to potentially save almost $200M a year with its BluePages Intranet.

If you have an Intranet this post will be relevant; if you don't have one I'd recommend looking at your options which may include: a customized application, Intranets.com or our favorite, Wiki. Yes, that's right, our Intranet is powered by Wiki.

So many of us have been using web analytics to track marketing campaigns, visitor activity and content for our websites; but tracking an Intranet has been often overlooked. This task may not fall into the Marketing department - but maybe I.T., Operations, or the web team (unless your company has an Analytics Department).

The benefits of tracking your Intranet are immense. Here are a few scenarios:

* What are top downloaded forms?

With analytics you can find this out and post the top 10 on the homepage so employees inquire less when they can't find the document they need; therefore reducing the amount of administrative time.

* Is there a bottleneck in defined processes?

It's great that you are promoting employees to use the Intranet to submit time-off, reimbursement and other related tasks, but is the 6-step process losing users on the 3rd step? Sometimes looking at the analytics will highlight issues that arise with design, programming, etc.

In summary, it is just as important for a company using an Intranet as a business tool to assess the performance just as you would your website.

The Mini Arrives at Epik

noreply@blogger.com (EpikDave) — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 22:30:00 +0000

Google Mini Search Applicance
We embarked on a new Mini adventure - this time around with a focus on integration with Google Analytics or Urchin Software and Google AdWords.

Are you asking what a Mini is? Check out one of Google's most valuable products that has been under the radar to most of the industry. This gem is perfect for small and medium business websites or corporate sub-sites and intranets who need a more refined search (which most sites do!).

(The Google Mini enjoyed the spotlight on the EpikSpace conference table before entering the Network)

Of course when the Mini arrived from UPS most of our techies (and a few marketers) immediately exited their workstations to contribute to the new network addition.

We'll be sure to keep everyone updated as the Google Mini and Epik explore new opportunities with Google Analytics and Google AdWords.

Also, EpikOne will be launching a new suite of Expert Services for Google Mini support, training and performance assessments.

Our consulting group will be delivering Enterprise Search solutions in addition to our Knowledge Group creating new case studies, resources and tools.

Visit Google to find out more about the Mini.

Google Analytics - Start-Up to Enterprise

noreply@blogger.com (EpikDave) — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 05:21:00 +0000

Google Analytics was launched in November 2005 as the evolution of Urchin 6 On Demand. For all of us Urchin fans it was the announcement that put our analytics fears at ease; with this re-assurance that the product would live on. Urchin was a solid web analytics company that was acquired by Google in Spring 2005 - a great move for both companies. The period of time leading up to the new product announcment was filled with anticipation of what Google would do with Urchin's product, technology and loyal user base. And Google Analytics was launched with great acceptance.

Now we need to assess whether Google Analytics can support the Enterprise market while still offering value to small and medium businesses. While Google Analytics may have a robust set of reports and functionality, for the Enterprise market a few key features are needed to provide the high-end analytics tool they require. They are few, but critical such as custom-reports, ability to push reports to e-mail, SMS, etc and the need for getting all marketing cost data into the reports.
However, Google Analytics still offers plenty of value for the Enterprise marketer and merchandiser through custom-segment report drill-down capabilities, goal and funnel reports and integrated Google AdWords analysis. As we all know, Google will surely be adding value to this product with its plentiful resources!

For the small business market Google Analytics is a great tool for better understanding their website activities. The product features an intuitive navigation, is relatively easy to implement and scaleable to grow over time.

The organization of the reports in Google Analytics is outstanding. The key reports are split into Marketing and Content categories - otherwise - tracking how people get to your site and what they do on your site, respectively.

Overall, Google Analytics will be a strong player in the market and continue to force other web analytics solutions to evolve their products at a Google pace.

SES '05 San Jose Review

noreply@blogger.com (EpikDave) — Sat, 20 Aug 2005 23:27:00 +0000

Well, today was an insightful day in San Jose as what is to come in the next year of the search engine and web analytics market. The Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference wrapped up in San Jose, California today with some good expectations.

Paid search - yes, it's going to grow. Site optimization - yes, it's still important. Web Analytics, yes - it is now a phrase that will be heard more and more.

San Jose saw a nice mix of vendors from industry leaders Yahoo!, Google, etc - along with e-commerce vendors like MonsterCommerce and Zunch Communications.

Epik was in town for training with one of our Partners (that big search company!).
We carved out some time to check out SES. What was our greatest observation - no it wasn't the amazing tradeshow booths, it was the amount of wireless warriors in the Wi-Fi lounge. To be honest, I think SES should have a lounge service with the amount of time spent in this area - serve up some drinks and food and keep these wireless warriors happily typing e-mails instead of networking with the rest of us in the exhibitor area!

Until next time....