Getting more business value from Web Analytics

Dr Dave Chaffey, CEO Smart InsightsMay 17th 2010

eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit London

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Best practice

Qualifications

Books

About Dave Chaffey

Portal & software:www.smartinsights.com/beta

Search &Conversionconsulting

Strategyconsulting

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Today’s agenda = getting analytics used 0 The elephant in the room 1 Creating a marketing optimisation plan 2 Integrating analytics into your business processes

o A Effective dashboards• REAN • Google Analytics custom reports

o B Customised alerts• Google Analytics Intelligence

o C Identifying problems and opportunities• Google Analytics Advanced segments

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Featuritis = Too much choice

IMO All web analytics systems have a common flaw OOB...

They don’t readily answer the questions…

o “How are we doing at the moment?” Context. Company targets, time, competitor relative performance.

o “What does good look like?”Context. Gap analysis. Marketplace benchmarking.

o “Where are the problems or opportunities?”Context. Gap analysis. Marketplace benchmarking.

o “So what should I do next?”Advice on where to focus. Context. Advice on where to focus marketing activities.

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Consequently, oftentimes… Analytics don’t get used.

If they do, WILFING commonplace

Unsegmented averages reign

Reporting NOT actionable analytics

4 stories from the coalface

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“There’s just me as web analyst and 60 users of Google Analytics. They

don’t dedicate time to using it. They’re too busy running

campaigns… ”

“I use it primarily for monthly or weekly reporting. Due to the

amount of data and lack of time I don’t have time to do more ”

Ecommerce manager, B2B

“It’s very frustrating. I’ve no time to go into any great depth. I don’t

know where to go to find information to show what’s working

and what’s not”

Brand manager, PharmaWeb analyst, Financial Services

“We have 79 users, but the analytics people still become

bottlenecks so we ran a project to export data into our data

warehouse to give us exactly what we want… ”

Marketing manager, B2B Software company

8 Source: Web Analytics Association Industry Outlook Survey 2010

= Our agenda

9 Source: Web Analytics Association Industry Outlook Survey 2010

1 Creating a marketing optimisation plan

Source: Chaffey: Internet marketing strategy, implementation and practice, 4e

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Creating a marketing optimisation planusing SOSTAC

What are the strengths and w

eaknessesin your current process?

http://www.smartinsights.com/blog/digital-marketing-strategy/digital-marketing-planning-template/

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What is your capability maturity?

Source: Carnegie Mellon University http://www.sei.cmu.edu

Maturity stage

Business contributionreporting

Campaign performance

Site optimisation

Voice of customer

1 Initial Ad-hoc review of traffic volumes and outcomes

Ad-hoc post-campaign review of performance

Ad-hoc review of page popularity and conversion

Ad-hoc collection of customer feedback

2 Managed Regular actionable structured review

Actionable review of campaign efficiency during campaign

Defined outcomes reviewed for different referrer segments

Regular surveys and monitoring customer conversations

3 Defined Actionable review against target

Multichannel influence reviewed

AB page testingMicro-conversion review

Actionable review of customer conversations

4 Quantitative Review involves drill-down to tactics

Micro-analysis of conversion qualityReview of referrer attribution

Page portfolio review Multivariate testing of key pages

Structured customer satisfaction reporting

5 Optimizing Continual optimisation of targets given performance

Real-time optimisation during campaign

Real-time personalisation based on context

Closed-loop reporting informing NPD and service quality

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Source:

Planned sales/conversion optimisation

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Other work on analytics capability maturity

Stephane Hamel : http://immeria.net/wamm/

Mini case study www.euroffice.co.uk

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SEO and brand intro

OVP

OVP

Encourage searchdominant visitors

Encourage browsedominant visitors

“Reasons to return”

Social proof

Where do we start? What will give us the biggest uplift in…?

Home page Landing pages

Category pages

SearchProduct pages

Conversion goal pages Check out pages

Branding & utility pages

Practical Tip – Identify most important page types by Content Drilldown volume, $Index (low or high), bounce

and exit rates multiplied by page views

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SOUND ADVICE…

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Activity: Where do most prospects enter and leave your sites? What are bounce rates? How does this differ for segments.

Home page

Search page

Category page

Product page

Sub-product page

Checkout / forms

Tailored landing page

Security & Privacy

About Us

“Points of Resolution”

Pricing

Detailed product info

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Practical Tip Review % age of visits by

different landing page types (for first time and repeat visitors)

Source: Craig Sullivan independent survey 2009 | 20

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Show me the money!

http://www.advanced-web-metrics.com/blog/2010/05/11/how-much-value-is-your-website-generating/

The 3 key value measures in GA:o 1. Index value (Top content reports)

Shows the influence of pages in generating value either through Ecommerce transactions or conversion goals with a value assigned.

o 2. Per Visit Goal Value (Traffic Sources reports for Referring sites, Search Engines and Keywords – Goal tab) Based on value assigned to your conversion goals this shows you the Total Goal Value for your reports.

o 3. Per Visit Value (Ecommerce Revenue per visit) You can see Per Visit Value measures within Traffic sources on the Ecommerce tab if you have Ecommerce tracking enabled.

http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=86205

Source: Craig Sullivan independent survey 2009| 22

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Process Integation:A. Effective dashboards

Surfacing issues for HiPPO

sM

aturity of practice

What are we trying to achieve / optimise?Introducing the REAN framework : Steve Jackson, Cult of Analytics

► Reach – Reach prospects and customers via search engines and brand communications on publisher, social network and other partner sites

► Engage – Engage through relevant quality content mainly on your site, but also content syndicated to partner sites

► Activate – Convert engagement into business value – generate leads and sales

► Nurture – Build relationships throughout the customer lifecycle through online direct messaging (Email, Blogs, RSS Feeds and SMS messaging) and community content

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Analyst REAN Questions► Which questions should you ask to improve the

effectiveness and efficiency of REAN?

► Reach:► ► ► ►

► Engage► ► ► ►

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► Activate► ► ► ►

►Nurture► ► ► ►

Examples of measures within REAN framework

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What we need: Role-based reporting

CommercialPerformance

Marketingeffectiveness

Digital marketing

effectiveness

Digital channelefficiency

• MD / CEO • Finance Director• Marketing Director

• Leads • Sales• Brand health

• Offsite campaigns • Site health• Opportunities

• Search• Paid media• Conversion optimisation

Analytics view Managing Helping• Contribution • Margin• On target performance

• Marketing manager• Brand / Product managers

• Digital marketing manager• Web manager

• Channel specialists• Site / content owners• Web analysts

Tip: Develop a role-based dashboard

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Tip. Use Feedback tools“Why” not “What”

http://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-software/website-feedback-tools-review/

Google Analytics will only show you ‘What’ not ‘Why’ – other tools can helpiPerceptions http://www.4qsurvey.com/

“Bad web site. Difficult to find item as no search box provided for short cut”

“I can't find any prices on your website” “Would like to see where I can buy products from” .

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Voice of the customer

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Site and business innovation ideas

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Market insightsCustomer

(inc searches)Competitors

Intermediaries

Summary performance dashboards

Web analytics& optimisation

TrafficEngagement

Value

BrandSearches

ConversationsEngagement

Health

CommercialSales

CustomersFinance

Digital marketing management system

Intelligent alerting and diagnosis

What we need: 3. Integration

How do you use the dashboard??

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Custom reports beta (can overlay segmentation)

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Some ideas for using custom reports 1. Time reporting.

Use a dimension of week/month to compare performance over time more easily

2. Value reporting. Repeat the value of different contributors:o Keywordso Landing pageso Product categorieso Countries

3. Role-based reporting.Setup different tabs for different types of people or marketing activity

http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2010/02/leverage-custom-web-analytics-reports-insights.html

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Process Integation:B. Customised Alerts

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Use your “Intelligence”

http://www.smartinsights.com/blog/web-analytics/google-analytics-web-analytics/my-experiences-of-using-the-google-analytics-intelligence-feature-to-review-seo-and-pay-per-click/

Tip: Use Custom Alerts in your system

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Process Integation:C. Diagnostic analysis

highlighting problems and opportunities

Segmenting pages/product by performance

High Potential(Problems)

Top Performers

(Stars)

Low Potential, Low Performance

(Dogs)

Consistent Performers(Cash Cows)

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Conversion rateOr conversion rate variance (add to basket) compared to average

Page

or p

rodu

ct p

opul

arity

(vie

ws)

or p

age

view

var

ianc

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ompa

red

to a

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ge)

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Smarter reporting options1. Pivot tables2. Filter reports with simple filter based on page

or keyword name or New: an Advanced Filter on any variable

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Bubble ormotion charts

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NB shows animated performance by day

Page analysis technique : Reverse and forward path analysis

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Advanced segments – some options• 1. Segmentation by Referrer / Traffic source:• Paid• Natural• Paid and natural brand and non-brand• By number of keywords – 2,3,4• Social media • 2. Segmentation by Visitor Type• New visitor• Returning visitor• Registered visitor• Customer

• 3. Segmentation by Engagement• 5 pages,• <3 pages

• 4. Segmentation by Content Viewed • Key landing page• Product page• Checkout complete• Folders for large organisation

• 5. Segmentation by Landing Page Type

• 6. Segmentation by Event:• Conversion goal types and E-commerce

• 7. Segmentation by Platform (less important)

• Browser• Screen resolution• Mobile platforms

• 8. Segmentation by Location Geography

• Main markets• UK• US• FIGS• ROW

| 45 + By behaviour – search and browse

See http://www.smartinsights.com/blog/web-analytics/google-analytics-web-analytics/segmenting-google-analytics/

Advanced segmentation exampleSegmentation by Visitor Type

Practical Tip Use Content Drilldown for understanding grouped content

popularityBut need DFA! URL Strategy

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Advanced: Dimensionator for second page viewed

http://www.analyticspros.com/blog/googleanalytics/93-dimensionator-google-analytics-dimensions.html

Handy plugin for relative SEO changes

Firefox plugin:

http://www.juiceanalytics.com/writing/enhanced-google-analytics-firefox-plugin/

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Advanced segmentation for social media Tracking social media

Source (Step 10) : http://www.davechaffey.com/blog/web-analytics/configuring-google-analytics-guide/

See also: www.davechaffey.com/online-reputation-management-tools

Let’s Connect! Questions & discussion welcome

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