Advanced AnalyticsHow to prevent online analysis paralysis?October 4, 2009

• How many reports a day, a week?

• What do you use?

• How do they help you make the right decision?

• Is their a better way?

2

TOO MANY REPORTS?

TOO MANY VARIABLES?

seasonality

competing objectivesCPM, CPA, CPLnews and current events

new medianew campaignsdrop off

budget allocations

time of day

changing technologiesgeo targeting

open ratenew agency

New Competitors

bounce rate

new boss

clickshits

bounce ratevisits

TPS Reportspage views

John from Kentucky came to the site and visited three pages

TOO MUCH INFORMATION?

open ratedeliverable rate

time of dayPages per Visit from

California

Traffic from Twitter

Unique Visitors

Cookie Rejection

5

UNCLEAR, SKEWED DATA

Doesn’t make sense, anomalies, don’t know what pages are included and excluded...

UNCLEAR CONTEXT

Does this include all of our sites?

Is this just us?

Are these actual unique people?....

DASHBOARDS

ANALYSIS PARALYSIS

9

GETTING STARTED

Car insurance monthly searches: 31,000,000o Monthly spend: $6,450,000

Auto insurance monthly searches: 53,000,000o Monthly spend: $11,000,000

Life insurance monthly searches: 6,200,000– Monthly spend: $858,000

NFL monthly searches: 44,500,000o Monthly spend: $102,000

SEARCH

WHAT IS SEARCH?

SEO

Paid Search

Display or banner advertising placements:

• Networks, Specific site deals, contextual targeting

Pricing:• CPM, CPC, CPL, CPS

Measurement:• Brand Awareness, Traffic, Sales

DISPLAY ADVERTISING

Aggregators• Good source for online leads• Can drive up online marketing

costs• Very savvy with paid search,

display

Affiliates• Similar to aggregators• Often smaller sites that can

have less volume and favorable rates

AGGREGATORS & AFFILIATES

• Effective stand alone tactic

• Works well in conjunction with direct mail

• Provides strong testing ground for offers, copy

• Cost effective as acquisition and CRM tactic

E-MAIL

• Beyond traffic and conversion• How should I measure if a consumer had a positive

experience?

ENGAGEMENT

• Existing customer service– pay bills (go paperless)– up sell additional policies and products– claims– review their policy– FAQs– Learn tips to reduce claims

• Prospects– enrollment form– interactive quote tools– sales copy– 800#

• Investor relations• Employment opportunities

YOUR WEBSITE

• Standard Web Server Log files• “Pixel” tracking• Redirect tracking• Feeds from other systems• Eye tracking• Full session activity tracking• Panel Tracking• IP Tracking• Onsite vs. Offsite tracking• Listening trackers for Social

Media

TRACKING OPTIONS

The Perfect Team

Segmentation

Data Normalization

Focused KPIs

Test & Learn

Integration

Automation

BEST PRACTICES

MarketingITExecutive ManagementFinance• Share learning across

the organization• Training is key

THE PERFECT TEAM

SEGMENTATION

•Geo-segmentation

•Age-segmentation

•Time-on-site segmentation

•Product segmentation

•Behavioral segmentation

•Time-of-day segmentation

Learn how different segments interact with the site

Create a list of key segmentation points

DATA NORMALIZATION

When possible, calculate out the effect of variables in your data

This can make the difference on whether a trend is good or bad

FEWER FOCUSED KPIS

Average Pages/Visit/Segment

Revenue/returning visit

Video views/unique visitor

number of visits until newsletter subscription

average quotes/purchase

percentage of site searches with 0 results

percentage of page views with errors

percentage of branded vs. unbranded searchers

completion rate of contact form

clicks on agent-locator tool

disqualification rate/traffic driver

top converting searches

conversion rate/hour of the day on weekdays

percentage of eligible visitors opting into paperless billing

completion rate of contact form

bounce rate/keyword

top pages used in the refer a friend toolnumber of users who used the online chat tool

average time to complete a quote

Example:

1. Quotes/visit by non-customers by channel

2. Purchased policies/quoted visitor

3. Percentage of eligible users who opt into paperless billing

4. Completion rate of online registration form

5. Find-an-agent tool usage rate

TEST & LEARN

• Create a calendar of tests to be performed throughout the year

• Prepare each test with a decision tree to ensure that various outcomes are actionable

• Share the results with additional business units where applicable

• Be flexible to modify the testing plan if business needs change

• Focus on larger gains and losses rather than superficial refinement

• Make sure a project manager is assigned to coordinate the resources and see the tests to completion

INTEGRATION

Paid Search bid management

Scheduled report delivery

Pre-calculated metrics

Ad targeting and re-targeting

Event-driven email

Automated optimization

AUTOMATION

When trying to improve acquisition performance, it’s important to measure against the segment of visitors who aren’t existing customers

Logging in or completing a purchase identifies someone as an existing customer

SEGMENT CUSTOMERS AND PROSPECTS

CREATE BUCKETS

Oftentimes the company itself and its partners can produce enough traffic to skew web data

Entire workplaces may be excluded by their IP address to ensure that only consumers are tracked

FILTER OUT NON-CONSUMERS

Focus on Consumers

CONSIDER DATA OWNERSHIP

USE GRANULAR ALLOWABLES

$300 CPA

$150 CPA

Keep short and focused to maximize participation

Use web analytics to segment responses

If tracking is present, replay user sessions to understand context

SURVEYS

• Focus on quotes and leads for user experience, but focus on conversion for business value

• Survey customers and prospects

QUICK TIPS

• Make analytics a priority

• Create consensus KPIs

• Evaluate your current reporting tools

• Develop actionable reporting

• Create a test plan

WHAT’S NEXT?