LeveragingWebAnalytics_TechnologyLeaders

8/4/2019 LeveragingWebAnalytics_TechnologyLeaders

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LeveragingWebAnalytics:

H o w to c la r ify yo ur g o a ls,

b uild w inning me tr ic s a nd

measure your way to success

B y A n d r e w E d w a r d s

featuring e5o:

The 5 Necessary

Steps to WebOptimization


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Leveraging Web Analytics 1

Table of Contents

Executive Summary

A Quick Take on Web Analytics and its Promise. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Chapter 1:Knock Knock. Whos There?Understanding Our Prospects and Turning Them into Customers . . . . . . . . 4

Chapter 2:

Its not Web Analyticsits Web ROI

. . .and How That Changes Everything . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Chapter 3:We Cant Have Any Pudding if We Havent Eaten Our Meat

The Five Necessary Steps to Web Optimization (e5o). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Chapter 4:Get em and Keep em

Reaching, Engaging, Converting and Retaining Customers. . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Chapter 5:

Conclusive EvidenceThe "How Do I make This Happen?" Part . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

About Technology Leaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

About the Author

Andrew Edwards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41


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Executive Summary

A Quick Take on Web Analytics and its Promise

As the web marketplace has matured, the need to derive tangible business

benefits from the web has become an obvious challenge. In response to

this, many of us have recognized the importance of web analytics in mea-

suring and achieving ROIbut few of us are reaping enough benefit from

web analytics technology.

And just as the need to receive a measurable return from our web sites has

increased, so has the simple recognition that, for most of us, there is no

repeatable method by which to make this happen. For many of us, there-

fore, the web site is a cost center, when it is supposed to be just the oppo-

site: a profit center or a measurable productivity enhancer.

It is no longer enough to cite the traditional disconnects between mar-

keting and technology. The time has come to identify a straightforward

best-practice for acheiving web optimization and web ROI.

A number of very powerful and very configurable web analytics tools

and offerings are on the market today. Yet the tool often is configured

incorrectly, or allowed to run in default mode. Worse, there is often no spe-

cific plan of action to adequately measure the right things, and then to do

something about fixing the problems discovered through measurement.

Therefore, measurement doesnt really spring to life.

By performing two parallel actions, companies can begin to make headway

in this important area:


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First, to recognize that there is a necessary class of professionals that must

be dedicated to the cross-disciplinary (marketing/technology) task of

achieving web ROI with web analytics tools.

Second, that those professionals require a repeatable, practical methodby

which to operate. This method can briefly be described as a series of five

steps* including:

1- Define Drivers (figure out what the on-line goals are)

2- Build Metrics (decide what to measure, and with what tool)

3- Plan Actions (decide what to do after reviewing metrics)

4- Create Changes (execute the actions that were planned)

5- Measure Success (measure again; see if goals were achieved)

Only by implementing the five steps above, and by making it a part of

every key web-based project, can an organization reasonably assure itself

that it has performed measurable, repeatable web optimization.

Quick Takeaway:

Web analytics software can only be leveraged for success by dedicating

specialized talent and expertise to the task; and by utilizing that talent

within a repeatable web-optimization process.

The above represents a high-level review of the value of web analytics.

Well go much deeper into the process of putting web analytics to work in

the following chapters-please read on.

*eBusiness 5-step Optimization (e5o)


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Chapter 1

Knock Knock. Whos There?Understanding our Prospects and Turning Them into Customers

Name a business transaction of any kindin banking, in manufacturing,

even the simple organization of a meeting. Likely, therell be critical, mea-

surable information that will serve to coordinate efforts and to determine

the success of the effort itself.

Now consider something that would be truly shocking: what if our bank

had no way of telling us the value of our investments? Wed look at our

account statement and the only things it would tell us would be, Well, it

looks like you have some money in savings; also, you wrote more checks

last month than the month before. And apparently you made some

deposits. How quickly would we switch banks?

Now lets think about our web site.

Why do we have one?

Is it one overriding reason? Or several reasons of somewhat equal

importance?

Ultimately, everyone wants something out of their web site. Like more

money. Or, maybe the ability to save money.

That may sound very, very obvious. But the next part isnt. If the site is

important to us, we need to know how successful it is at doing what we


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want. And not just sort of generally, like the bad bank we just mentioned.

We need to know much more exactly. Because if we dont know exactly

whats going on with it, we cant know how to improve it.

What makes this even more intriguing is that, of all the business channelsat our disposal, there is only one that can unobtrusively yield constant,

accurate, living data about our customers or other users.

Heres news: its the web site.

If this is true, it then seems to makes little business sense not to measure

accurately and effectively. To accomplish

this, well need to leverage a certain set of

tools and disciplines commonly known as

web analytics. Well want to implement

some of the very capable tools on the

market in order to get an accurate mea-

sure of what is really going on with our

web sitejust the way we would want to

track any other investment we had made.

The Elements are in Place

Today, we find ourselves with a wide

choice in web analytics vendorpack-ages. Many of these packages are capable of delivering highly sophisticat-

ed information about user activity.

And, as we will demonstrate, we can also implement a real-world method-

ology for putting this class ofmeasurement tools to work.

It is possible today to combine these elements and achieve an important

goal: that of finely-tuning our web site so that it functions as a unique and

powerful business tool. In this light, notputting our site to work is like

having a titanium, thirty-speed bicycle sitting in the garagewhile were

squeaking around the neighborhood on a tricycle.

Notputting our site to

work is like having atitanium, thirty-

speed bicycle sitting

in the garagewhile

were squeaking

around the neighbor-

hood on a tricycle.


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The logic sounds fairly straightforward. We have a way to better under-

stand our customers behavior: the web, properly measured and observed.

We know too that if we understand how customers are interacting with our

site, we can make improvements directly to the site and come closer to

getting customers to do what we want on the web.

It all seems so obvious and so simple.

So, why isnt web analytics being leveraged successfully more often?

Let us take a look at some of the challenges.


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Chapter 2Its not Web Analyticsits Web ROI. . .and How That Changes Everything

There is no small amount of science in getting a web site to yield useful

business data. First, there are tremendous amounts of raw informationgenerated by web usage (such as log files and cookie data). Then, there are

dozens of kinds of sophisticated products that take this raw data

and turn it into "reports" of many different kinds. Finally, there are the

reports themselves, and they tend to look like lots of other technical

reportsbar charts, pie charts, charts and charts and more charts.

It tends to be very geeky sort of stuff.

It is the sort of stuff that the people who are responsible for running a

businessthe senior executives in the business lines as well as the salesand the marketing executivestend to gaze at for a few moments and then

place in a corner of their desk and wait for it to be covered up by some-

thing more important.

Let us propose that the reason for this is that, typically, a hundred or more

pages of charts and graphs do not help a busy executive make any deci-

sions. Believe it or not, theres actually stuffmissing from these reports.

Theres no news. Theres no story. Nothing to be proactive about.

So weve got this firehose of information coming out of the web site. And

people are kind of running away from it. They seem like they are uncom-

fortable with it. Its techy, its geeky, and anyway they dont know what to

do after theyve seen it.


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The Web Development Metaphor

Theres a useful analogy to be made here about technology and results.

Lets say we knew we needed to reach a certain audience, and we knew wecould reach them with a targeted site. All the market research is done,

all the merchandising is done, everything is in place. Except for the dev-

elopment". The technical part.

And lets say that a certain marketing executive decided that the site

wasnt going to go livebecause neither he/she nor anyone on his/her staff

knew how to use web developmenttoolkits.

Theres a reason why this will never happen. That reason is, because the

entire set of skills referred to as web development has been built

around leveraging complex and configurable software tools to produce

required results (eg. websites).

But something like this mighthappen if the following were true:

That there was no class of professionals who even knew how to skillfully

use the software, in order to create the proper digital files for launch. In

other words, no web developers.

This, unfortunately, is the dynamic that inhibits the use of web analytics.

Think of web analytics software/services as the equivalent ofweb development

toolkits. Think of the process of web optimization as web development.

Whats lacking in most companies is:

A cross-disciplinaryclass of professionals who are able to use

web analytics software in acarefully defined process to create

valuable results.

In the case of web analytics, the results are not beautifulweb sites. The result

is a web site that is optimized for maximum ROI.

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The Goal is Web ROI

Now that weve discussed some of the barriers, it is relatively easy to see

why the tools arent really being used to maximum advantage.

And heres how we can begin to fix the problem.

The first part comes from fixing how we think about it.

Just as we dont think of catalog creation, print-

ing and distribution as a collection of technolo-

gies (even though it employs them) and exper-

tise (even though expertise is required), we

shouldnt make the same mistake with this thing

we are calling web analytics.

Simply put, let us therefore stop talking about

web analytics. Lets start talking about web

ROI. Because thats what this is all about.

The implications of this are profound.

It means that the whole endeavor is on a new footing. We are no longer

concerned with getting data and deploying software. We are interested inachieving results. Measurable, repeatable results. Like more customers

converted. Like more sales. Like more users directed to information more

quickly.Like more dollars dropping to the bottom line as a measurable

result of our efforts on the web.

If these sound like marketing goals or like business goals, its because they

are. If anyone tries to tell us there is some other goal to be served by web

analytics, we must tell them to go away. Quickly. They are wasting our time.

So weve identified that this is about marketing. And weve identified that

there are missing pieces.

Lets stop talking

about web

analytics.

Instead, letsstart talking

about web ROI.


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We talked about a class of professionals as one of the (mostly) missing

pieces. But we also talked about a carefully defined process. Lets take a

look at the parts of that processthe parts that will help us in achieving

better, measurable web ROI.


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Chapter 3

We Cant Have Any Pudding if We Havent Eaten our Meat:

Five Necessary Steps to Web Optimization (e5o)

In the previous chapter, we began by saying there was no small amount ofscience in web analytics. However, in obtaining results with web analytics

software, there is probably more art than there is science.

Once weve understood that our goal is driven by marketing concerns, we

immediately begin to apprehend one fairly obvious fact: that there is no

software for our on-line marketing that allows us to press the make-it-bet-

ter button and then see wonderful results come tumbling out.

Except for a very small number of cases, obtaining results will require two

irreducible elements: a process of best practices; and skilled web analyt-

ics people in order to make the process yield results.

Many companies fail to optimize their web marketing efforts because they

lack one, or very often both, of these two critical components.

This is neither to say that there arent very capable people in the marketing

department; nor that there arent capable people in the IT world as well.

There are, and they know exactly what they are doing.

The problem is that measuring and optimizing web sites is a new thing for

almost everyone. And the set of skills it calls upon bridge different depart-

ments within an organization.


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The class of professionals that specialize in this is only just now beginning

to emerge: web optimization professionals. These folks may already be

found within the organization. Or they may be represented by a new breed

of service companies that are hybrids of marketing, technology and profes-

sional servicesand that work to bridge the gaps between marketing and ITand the software itself.

This type of professional will focus on using web analytics tools as the

most likely way of achieving measurable e-business ROI.

To do this, they, or organizations that want to do this themselves, will have

to engage in some very particular behavior.

They will have to work themselves through five separate and very impor-

tant steps. Each step is so important that we feel comfortable in calling the

process "e5o" (eBusiness 5-step Optimization) and making the following

statement:

If a company has notfollowed each of the e5o steps, they have demon-

strably not performed web optimization.

e5o: Five Steps That Must Be Followed

Here are the steps. Well go into detail a little further along.

1- Define Drivers (figure out what the on-line goals are)

2- Build Metrics (decide what to measure, and with what tool)

3- Plan Actions (decide what to do after reviewing metrics)

4- Create Changes (execute the actions that were planned)

5- Measure Success (measure again; see if goals were achieved)

Lets talk about how each of these steps can work in a real world situation.

1-Define Drivers

This part of the process is essentially a strategy and a discovery exercise. It

will call upon people who have both very high-level requirements as well

as more targeted, specific requirements of the site.


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Let us imagine a company that is holding a high-level web strategy meet-

ing, and that one of the attendees is a senior executive in the company.

This business-line executive might say I need to get more leads out of the

site.

After all the marketing discussions are over, and the muffins and jam have

been cleared from the executive meet-

ing room, one thing emerges: lead gen-

eration is probably the main reason the

site exists.

That company has just begun defining

its drivers.

Of course, there are tactics that derive

from this. Well want, for instance, to develop a rich, nuanced understand-

ing of the sites drivers in order to develop the best way to reach prospects;

the best way to convert prospects to customers; and the best way to retain the

customer after sale. Well get to those in a chapter to follow. But lets keep

going down the list.

2-Build Metrics

Heres where were able to really take advantage of the built-in tracking

abilities of the web, as an advantage over traditional, off-line marketingintelligence techniques. Its in this phase where we employ some very par-

ticular tools that do a great deal of sophisticated parsing and reporting on

the activity that takes place on the site.

There are a number of capable tools on the market. They come from com-

panies like Omniture, WebTrends ,Google, and CoreMetrics and

are commonly known as web analytics tools". Many of us are already

familiar with one or more of these toolkits.

The level of complexity found in web analytics tools can vary greatly.

However, all are designed to deliver reports based on site activity record-

ed by our web servers.

After all the marketing

meetings are over, one

thing emerges:

that getting leads is

probably the main

reason the site exists.


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The most common mistake in using web analytics is in thinking that sim-

ply having a canned (standard) report is tantamount to having done

web analytics. Worse, many may believe that web analytics toolkits will

deliver useful results after it is implemented and allowed to run in default

mode.

The fact is, allowing web analytics tools to run out of the box (e.g.

without making it answer any business questions), is a profound mistake.

It renders the software as near useless as it can get.

Important point: there is nothing wrong with the tool. There is only a

problem in how it is being used.

To demonstrate how common this problem is, consider the following question:

How often have reports arrived on peoples desks andas we indicated

abovethey just sort of sit there?

Our guess is, pretty often. And it isnt because people are too dumb to

understand the report. Its because the report isnt reporting anything worth

reporting. Page views? Hits? Total visitors? How does knowing that make

money for us?

Even for a well-versed web analytics expert, the basics mentioned abovehave little insight to offer these days.

These days, we are concerned with much finer views into customer

behavior.

For instance:

What activities define a valuable prospect?

Lets look at (e.g. use web analytics tools to measure) the people who

came to our site and accomplished what we wanted them to accomplish.

People who we converted from prospects to customers. What did they

commonly do before they got to the successful conversion?


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If we knew that, we would be able to predict, via observable behavior, a

valuable prospect: someone who was acting like they were about to do

something valuable (buy something, contact us, download our demo).

We might then have a couple of options.

We could tailor their experience based on their perceived valuea

special offer?

Or, what if lots of them got nearly through the process we wanted them to

followand then left consistently on a certain page? We might be able to

review that loser page and fix it.

In order to gain this insight, we have to configure our web analytics

to measure it.

In the above example, we will want to carefully construct campaign defini-

tions based upon the combination of an entry page and its referrer; gather

related pages into content groups; focus path analysis on critical pages

within the site; and create custom reports aligned with our business objec-

tives. Depending upon the site and our goals, pre- or post-processing may

be required to deliver the needed information.

Also, we will want to have established a persistent cookie protocol (which

helps identify a return visitor) in order to separate particular groups of

users from the general run of traffic. Of course, we will also want to have

used some of the filters available within the software to keep from measur-

ing such things as intra-company traffic, web-spiders and the like.

There are many other ways to leverage the tools. In our review, weve

only included one example.

Weve now completed two of the five steps in the process: we figured out

what we wanted people to do. And weve measured how close theyre get-

ting to doing it.


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The next part takes us out of the realm oftoolkits and into the what do

we do now? part of the process.

3-Plan Actions

Weve already configured the toolkit and have gotten reports back. Nowwell dig deeper into the statistics to analyze the data, perform some mean-

ingful calculations and make recom-

mendations.

This is the part where toolkit alone cant

take us. Only a certain level of knowl-

edge about both marketing goals and

technology will get us through this

part.

Its the part where, even when theres

a richly detailed report lying around,

nothing else happens.

One of the barriers here is that, often enough, companies have a communi-

cations problem between the issuers of the report and the recipients of the

report. Typically, the issuers are in the IT departmentbecause they knew

something about how to configure the tool to deliver the report. But the

recipients are oftenor should bein the marketing department or thebusiness-lines.

Simply put, the frame of reference used by a capable IT person is different

(not to say nearly unrecognizable) to a capable marketing or line-of-busi-

ness person. Both are critical to the organization. But if the report arrives

on the desk of the marketing person, but it is designed to address the rather

technical frame of reference of an IT professional, the report is virtually

useless.

Unfortunately, the reports are not going to somehow turn into a form of

advice. Someone inside or outside the organization has to do this.

The frame of reference

used by IT professionals

is different from that

used by marketers.

Therefore, marketershave to learn the lan-

guage of web analytics.


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Marketers and other business professionals, specifically, have to learn the

language of web analytics reports to drive their own action plans.

It might take time; it might be annoying. But there is almost no way

around it.

Of course, there is one way around it. There are companies that specialize

in taking an organization through some or all five of these steps and as part

of that, are prepared to turn the report into useful action plans.

Whichever way is right for the organization, the same activity has to take

place:

Look at the data. Interpret the data. Target problem areas with

decisive action.

We may notice, for instance, that a goodly percentage of our best

prospectsthe ones that, way back in define drivers, we wanted to con-

tact usare getting pretty far through the process of actually contacting

us.

But they are stopping short.

Where? Well, we might observe that theres a page on which we ask usersa list of questions. And lots of folks are not getting past it. Too many ques-

tions? Maybe. The wrong questions? Perhaps.

Another example: we notice lots of users dropping off on a key conver-

sion page. And well take a look at that page and see theres an offer

being made, and a contact us button. But the offer is perhaps not that

clear. And the button is not that visible. The physical space between the

offer and the contact button iswell, lets just say you cant see them both

at the same time.

Clearly, we should invest some time and effort into identifying some new

ways of presenting that page and its contents.


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Were now creating actions plans.

At this point, weve clearly stated what we really wanted users to do. And

we configured our analytics tool to know where to look for trouble. We

think weve found the problem. And weve made some plans to fix it.

Of course, we wont really know ifweve fixed it until later, when we

measure again. But well get to that.

The next thing that happens is, someone has to actually make the changes.

4-Create Changes

This part, of all the steps in the process, is the most obvious and easy to

understandbut is also the one that can cause the most headaches.

There are many ways to get changes done. Most organizations know who

will be making the changes before they begin the process at all.

But the nature of the changes is rather important, and it dictates some

guidelines in choosing who should be making the changes and how they

should be managed.

The changes might be on the content side (for instance, a different offer),

the design side (a page thats easier to understand), a technology side (thepage needs to load quicker), or an information architecture side (the

important page needs to be easier to find). Most organizations will know

where to find the capable folks to do this kind of work.

It is important, however, to be economical in the types of changes that

need to be made. The effective changes might be very simple. They might

take an hour. Of course, they might take much longer. But they might just

take an hour.

The implication is:

Be careful that the group involved in recommending changes has noth-

ing to gain by making lots of them.


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Now weve defined our drivers, configured our toolkit to measure rele-

vant activity, identified and planned to fix a problem, and executed the

action plan. How do we know it was worth the effort? Soon, well know.

Well know because we will measure whether it was worth the effort.

Now we have to go back to our web analyticsplatform and put it to work

once again.

5-Measure Success

Using the same criteria that we used to discover a potential problem area,

we now run fresh reports. That means: the same criteria, over the same

elapsed period of time. We may need to re-instrument the pages now that

they have changed. But the measurement criteria must stay the same, or

the measurement will be rendered statistically meaningless.

If things have worked out well, well see a jump in the percentage of

prospects that were converted to customers. In our hypothetical case, that

means: more of the people we wanted to contact us, are contacting us.

If weve placed a value on each of those contacts, each percentage point

gain can mean significant dollar gains for the organization. Often a gain of

just a few points can mean the difference between the site being a contrib-

utor to the bottom line, and an expense.

Lets assume that were reasonably happy with the result of our exercise.

Weve been able to define what we want from the site. Maybe weve even

given a dollar value to each contact made through the site, enabling us to

understand exactly how much each percentage point gain might mean to

us. Then, weve followed all the steps and ended up with a 3% improve-

ment in contacts made.

Can we do better?

Probably, we can. In that case, we can go ahead and try to plan additional

actions to drive even betterresults.


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Repeated rounds of measurement and change will lead to

enhanced results.

Now weve completed a full cycle of web optimization. Weve defined our

objectives; measured activity; planned and executed actions; and proventhe result by measuring our success.

Taking Ownership of Web Optimization

Now that weve improved the site, it might

be comforting to think that weve reached

the finish line and can now end our web

optimization project.

Wrong.

Rather, as contribution to the bottom line becomes necessary; and as the

ability to report accurately about contribution becomes absolutely essen-

tial, leveraged web analytics becomes a way of doing business.

To lead the way in web optimization, we want to go through the above

process early and often. We should always be looking out for ways to

improve the site. Constantly trying to get a better sense of our customer.

Continually aligning our site to respond to the evolving needs of our

clientsand the always-changing competitive environment.

Not as an I did that already exercise. But as a way of continually breath-

ing new life into both the site and the organization.

Simply, by treating the web as the critical marketing tool that it is.

There are more dimensions of web analytics for us to explore. Within

each step there are a number of critical factors that will drive real-world

decisions about the site. The next chapter begins to discuss these in

more detail.

As contribution to

the bottom line

becomes necessary,

web analytics

becomes a way of

doing business.


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Chapter 4

Get em and Keep em:Understanding How to Reach, Engage, Convertand Retain Customers

Imagine for a moment the five steps we talked about as a stack of building

blocks, and were looking at them head on. Below, youll see they look like

boxes with their names lined up next to them (figure 1). This shows us a top-

to-bottom progression of things to do in order to achieve optimization.

We are now going to add an

extra dimension to our stack of

building blocks by talking

about how each of the four

items in the title: Reach,Engage, Convert and Retain,

fits within each of the five

steps.

These four items: Reach,

Engage, Convert and Retain,

form a customer-centric con-

version cycle, and proper

understanding of how each

one works will enable us to

maximize our ability to sell to

and retain clients (figure 2).

Define Drivers

Build Metrics

Plan Actions

Create Changes

Measure Success

Figure 1:The Five Necessary Steps


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In other words, we have to perform each of the five optimization steps so

that we can better Reach our prospects, Engage them in interactive rela-

tionships, Convert them to clients, and Retain them for valuable repeat

business.

To visualize this, add four stacks of blocks, each five blocks tall.

Go ahead and cross-reference this for a minute. For instance, we are going

to be looking at the intersections of two concepts like Define Drivers

and Engage. Meaning, we will talk about what we want to engage our

users to do.

Or, we might talk about Plan Actions and Retain. Here well want to

understand what we can plan to do on the site to retain users better than

they are currently being retained.

Definitions

First, lets agree on what the terms mean. A number of these concepts

already have pretty wide currency in off-line marketing. Were here to

Define Drivers

Build Metrics

Plan Actions

Create Changes

Measure Success

Reach Engage Convert Retain

Steps

Customer Cycle

Figure 2: with Customer Cycle


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define what they mean on the web.

Reach

This is how we get them to arrive at our web site. It might be by putting a

big billboard on the highway with our URL. It might be by purchasing alink on Google. It might be a button on another web site that is owned by

our organization. Doesnt matter. Reach is how we get them to show up in

the first place.

Engage

Our visitors are of little or no use to us if they arent engaged. Are we

happy if they get to our home page, see our companys name, and leave?

Of course not. Thats almost worse than if they hadnt come at all.

If theyve done that, they have definitely not been engaged. But, what

about if they clicked on one more pageand then left?

Still not so good.

Okay, how about if they went to four pages; then came back the next

week and went to five pages; and then clicked on an about our prod-

uct page. Twice.

Thats an engaged prospect. We want to treat them differently than the fel-low who moused over a couple of jpegs on the home page and then went

to another companys site(see Plan Actions, above).

Convert

While the definition of engaged can be a little gray, the definition of

converted ought not be vague at all.

Convert links right back to the original, strategic driver that may have

been defined at our hypothetical meetingthe one where it was decided

that the site needed to refer contacts to the sales force.

A prospect is only converted once they have performed the desired action.


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In our hypothetical case, that would be when they have in some way con-

tacted (or asked to be contacted by) the company.

At this point, the web site has done its most important job. Not its only

job. But its most important. It got someone to do what we wanted him orher to do: to buy, to call, to stick around, to get information quickly. Any

of these would qualify as true conversion, depending on the type of site

we have.

Retain

The cost of keeping a customer is much, much less than going out and

acquiring new ones. So well want to pay special attention to folks who

already bought from us, or who have already contacted us. In other words,

well want to retain customers who have been converted from prospects.

The site needs to be constructed in such a way as to accommodate

these customers. Discounts, targeted offers, customized, cookie-driven

content all play their roles. Usually, well know weve retained a cus-

tomer when weve succeeded in getting them to repeat or upgrade their

prior conversion.

But along the way, well want to be able to tell if their usership is falling

off, or if they have once again gotten into a buying pattern and then

abandoned it. Well want to examine that and see what can be changed tofix thatand to keep those folks engaged until their next purchase.

The Four Types of Sites

Now weve got a series of actions that we can take; and we have spoken

about the way we want to pull potential customers through the conversion

and retention process.

But before we can begin any of the careful planning that gets web opti-

mization accomplished, we will want to understand and agree upon what

type of site we have. Because the goals of our site will be determined by

which type of site it is.

We will propose that for our purposes, there are really only four types of


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siteswhile recognizing that some sites combine certain of these elements.

In our list, we have named the type of site, and in bold, the result we

expect from that type of site.

The Four Types of Sites

Commerce: sales

Lead-generation: contacts

Content (and sometimes Branding): long, trackable visits

Self-Service: quick, valuable visits

Once weve agreed on one of these types of sitesand we contend there

are few if any sites that are notone of thesewe can begin the process of

optimization. We begin by deciding what we want out of our siteand the

customer-centric approaches we need to take in order to drive results.

Lets visualize this as it relates to the table that weve created. Weve got

five sequential steps to perform in order to improve our ability to Reach,

Engage, Convert and Retain customers. But depending on the type of site

we have, our considerations and our deliverables will be different. For

instance, if we are planning our actions for improving the engagement

process for a content site, that is going to be a different task than if we

were doing the same for a self-service site.

Now well take the table and make it three-dimensional by adding the

types of sites. This gives us a 3D cube that happens to illustrate for us how

we can structure our thinking through the entire process, no matter what

type of site we have.

Lets take a look(figure 3):


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Site Type Customer Cycle

Five

Optimization

Steps

Define Drivers

Build Metrics

Plan Actions

Create Changes

Measure Success

Content

E-Commerce

Lead Generation

Self-Service

Retain

Convert

Engage

Reach

Web Optimization Cube

leveraging web analytics

Technology Leaders, LLC (www.technologyleaders.com) 230 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10169

(212) 808-3058 [email protected]

Figure 3: Web Optimization Cube (Copyright 2008 Technology Leaders)


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We now have a structure where we can collect and retain ways we want to

approach each part of the web optimization process.

And, we can ask important questions by looking at different instances ofthe cube, for instance:

How do we Define the ways in which we want to Engage users in a Lead

Generation site?

Or:

How do we Build Metrics to measure how we Retain people in an E-

Commerce site?

Rather than try to fit all our words into cubes, lets allow the illustration to

be a theoretical guide; and give ourselves some space to lay out the plans.

In order to facilitate moving ourselves through this process, lets take a

look at a sort of working guide that gives us a way to track the tasks

necessary in each part of the job.

Turn to the next page to find the detailed working guide.


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Working the Process

For each of the five steps to web optimization. . .

Define Drivers

Build Metrics

Plan Actions

Create Changes

Measure Success

. . .we have included detailed tasks that comprise each step. These tasks

are associated with the four customer-centric, relationship-building disci-

plines that are necessary to drive web success:

Reaching Prospects

Engaging Prospects

Converting Prospects to Customers

Retaining Customers

We also know that our tasks will be different depending on what kind of

site we are:

Content E-commerce

Lead Generation

Self-Service

The Five Necessary e5o Steps: Detail

1. Define Drivers

This strategic part of the process really asks only one question: what do I

want visitors to do? So while other parts of the customer-cycle are impor-

tant, this part focuses rather tightly on the Convert part of the cube.

Weve included a number of questions, below, that will help inform the

strategic discussion. Please use them as guidelines to keep the project

headed in the right direction.


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Generally, as a part of defining drivers, we will want to have:

Identified stakeholders within the organization

Discovered the specific needs they have from the site Socialized the concept of Web Optimization and Web

Analytics by discussing its importance and presenting industry

examples

The goal here is to obtain sufficient buy-in so that the team will stay

with you as you lead them through the rest of this process.

Lets begin to define what we want to achieve (e.g. define drivers) inside

each part of our customer cycle.

Reach

Here we are asking Who do we want to reach, and how do we want to

reach them? Well want to:

Identify techniques already in place to reach prospects and get

them to the site

Define the characteristics, categories, and sizes of target audi-

ences

Identify the offers we are currently making to attractprospects to the site

Engage

Now were asking What defines engagement for us? In order to clarify

this, pursue the following exercises:

Identify visitors likely goals upon arriving at the site (map to

offers, above)

Identify the first steps we want visitors to take in order to lead

them to conversion

Build a visual map of this critical path.

Establish relative importance of pages and what criteria would

determine a successful visit to a particular page (time spent,

clickthrough, etc.)


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Convert

Here, as we define what conversion means for us, we are deciding on the

whole reason we have built this magnificent information engine known asa web site. Its all about funneling prospects to perform this (or this series

of) action(s). We will want to:

Narrowly define what activities constitute conversion

o Recognizing that in some cases conversion may occur

off-line

Establish a monetary value for each conversion

Decide if there are different levels of conversion, and what the

relative importance of each one is (e.g. a phone call to a sales

person is better than an email to an info@).

Make sure we are focused on one true conversion goal, as

opposed to numerous soft goals.

Retain

Here we are determining how important repeat visitors are to us; how

important upsell and cross-sell is; and how we will determine what consti-

tutes having retained a customer. We will:

Decide upon whom we want to retain as a customer Accept the cost at which we will attempt to retain them

Specify behavior that will satisfy our criteria for retention

Understand how much that behavior is worth. It should be a

number derived from:

Profit on items sold

Cost savings related to infrastructure (for example) web-

usage v. phone center usage

Amount saved on new-customer acquisition

Cost of retention efforts

When we have finished the key task of defining what we want in each of

these phases, we can begin to build the measurement program.


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Build Metrics

Here, we need to select, design and configure a metrics program that maps

to the four stages of our customer-centric lifecycle. Weve provided some

broad examples below.

Reach

An example of the types of things well want to do to establish measure-

ment programs include:

Identify how well track ad campaigns and e-mail campaigns

Identify how well measure the success of affiliate marketing

Set up measurement for such things as key referring pages

Build a method to track search-engine effectiveness

Identify the number of people reached by each technique

employed; and what percentage of the target audience has been

reached

Engage

Identify new as well as returning visitors

Measure number of engaged visitors by reach technique

Review freshness factor (e.g. ratio of content freshness to visits)

Identify and measure behaviors of browsers v. shoppers Review ratio of engaged visitors to total visitors

Measure profile of typical buyer-paths; identify percentage

of fall-off of visitors at different pages along the way to

conversion

Convert

Measure number of conversions for each reach technique

Measure conversions of various types of visitors

Measure scenario completion rates (e.g. how many overall visi-

tors finally converted to customers?)

Measure ratio of conversions as a percentage of engaged visi-

tors; finalize locations where visitors are dropping off

Identify visitor paths most associated with conversion


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Determine the average number of visits necessary to convert

Measure how many average visits were required to achieve

conversion

Retain Measure duration of visit

Determine frequency of return visits for converted customers

Review how recent are the typical conversions of return visitors

Review the rate at which converted customers do not return

Review the rate at which customers who nearly got converted,

do not return

Plan Actions

As part of this process, we will analyze the collected metrics, perform new

measurements based on emerging data (sometimes with multiple vari-

ables); and we will try to integrate measurements into a unified visitor

behavior model. We will also plan actions that help us optimize the effec-

tiveness of our customer-centric cycle.

It is important to note that at this point in the process, our tasks will have

become very specific and we should be able to enumerate a high number

of specific tasks within the Create Changes and Measure Success parts

of the worksheet.

These phases will naturally have fewer theoretical tasks, thereby short-

ening them in comparison to some of the earlier sections in this chapter.

Reach

Adjust marketing efforts, affiliate programs and offers to

reflect findings in measurement phase

Optimize search engine techniques

Maximize inbound-link campaigns

Review and adjust digital ad and email campaigns

Engage

Adjust landing pages

Adjust critical path pages

Adjust content focus


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Review creative; may result in redesign or re-think of creative

approach (with metrics built-in to new creative)

Refine personalization process

Convert Shorten the path to conversion page

Optimize conversion page based on user behavior measure-

ments

Adjust "offer" to reduce amount of visits it may take to success-

fully convert

Retain

Develop strategies to entice return visits

Follow-up campaigns

Value-based offers

Seek user opinion

Locate efficiency engines within the site; attract users to return

to them

Create Changes

This part of the process is focused on getting concrete changes made.

Consequently, the actions here are entirely dependent on the previous three

steps and will differ in each application. Now it is simply a matter of exe-

cuting the plans. Naturally, each stage. . .

Reach

Engage

Convert

Retain

. . .of the customer-centric cycle will have specific production deliverables.

The overall objective, apart from the specific changes required, is to make

certain that metrics are built into the site from this point forward. The site

will generate more useful information this way, rather than retro-fitting

an existing site.


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Measure Success

Using the same drivers that we defined at the beginning, and the same

measurements, we will measure again to determine the effectiveness of the

changes we made for each of the four customer-centric stages of. . .

Reach

Engage

Convert

Retain

. . .while recognizing that improvement is a constant goal, not a final goal.

In that light, the Plan-Create-Measure phases of the process should be

considered iterative.

Since web optimization is not a do it once and walk away operation, its

important to understand that we will want to work again and again to con-

tinue to improve upon what was already improved.


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Chapter 5:

Conclusive Evidence:The "How Do I Make This Happen?" Part

The organization that wants to achieve successful web optimization needs

to take a few critical steps that will pave the way for success. Weve

already discussed the five-step process, the four site types and the cus-

tomer life-cycle.

But what about the ways in which an organization prepares itself to per-

form web optimization? Here are some considerations:

Organizational Steps

RecognizeThe first thing to do is to recognizeas an organizationthat leveraging

web analytics is the key to success. There really is no substitute for deci-

sions made using quantitative knowledge.

In many companies, theres likely to be a considerable amount of selling

through of the concept before it is fully embraced. It is natural that some

folks may be sensitive about being judged on the performance of the

site. Or, therell be people who are likely to say dont measure yetwait

until I fix it.

These are understandable responses. But for the organization, they may not

be the best course of action. The best option is to get the facts about whats

going on with the site and plan actions around improving performance.


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Therefore, for those who contemplate putting off the decision to

measure:

The best way to avoid being judged byweb analytics is to embrace it nowand

achieve web optimization!

Align

Too often, theres a schism in organizations

between the IT folks who run the web archi-

tecture (and usually the web analytics tool) and the business-line folks.

Web analytics is often seen as an activity lying wholly within the domain

of the IT department. True enough, the robust technologies that support

web disciplines are properly placed inside IT.

But the value of web analytics is relevant only partly to IT (e.g. errors,

speed, etc.). The major portion of the value is relevant to the business side:

to Marketing, to Sales, to Customer Service.

When the IT group gets together with customer-oriented groups within the

company and they coordinate their efforts, good things start to happen.

They are able to achieve results with web analytics that are much superiorto those that result when one group or the other tries to proceed alone.

The best way to structure this type of cooperation is:

Marketing folks need to understand the discipline well enough to ask

the right questions; and the IT department needs to configure the web

analytics tools to provide answers to those questions.

Embrace

The Five Step Process is indispensable to web optimization. Simply put,

an incomplete process will not gain the desired result. Remember, the

object here is to show a measurable improvement on specific goals. It can

only be achieved by following the program from beginning to end.

There really is no

substitute for making

decisions based on

quantitative data.


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Design the web analytics program and stick with it.

Deciding halfway through the optimization project (for instance) that what

we really wanted was to take a gamble on providing on-line billing state-ments, negates the effort.

Do the measurementand then listen to what it says. It may turn out to be

that the above-mentioned on-line billing is not worth the effortbut mea-

surement may indicate that moving the buy page three places forward in

the architecture of the site will generate a measurable return.

Report

If a web site is improved in the forest, nobody can hear the cheering.

Or something like that.

Just as most marketing efforts are tracked and reported with some thor-

oughness, web analytics needs to be treated with the same rigor and

importance.

Therefore, report the improvements, and how we got them. But dont for-

get to report progress along the way. That way, well build a constituency

of support for web analytics.

To build this constituency, formulate web analytics data into targeted

reportsa different report for each important group within the company.

Make sure the reports are action-oriented, with data provided as supporting

documentation. Keep the focus on news and to-dosand away from pre-

sentation of statistics by themselves.

Paired with web analytics software, the web site is a torrent of information

about our customers. Irrigate the company with this unique and critical

intelligenceand the crops will grow greener.

The web represents a conundrum of sorts: it is the only business tool that

automatically generates its own effectiveness data (via web analytics soft-


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ware). But it is also the only business tool that has almost no other way to

evaluate it except for this data.

Leveraging web analytics is therefore both very valuable and quite unavoid-

able for those who want to maximize the effectiveness of their sites.

Wraps

Weve identified a process to optimize any type of site. Weve identified

the drivers we should expect in each of four possible site types. Weve also

identified the customer life-cycle on the web.

We hope that these concepts will help your organization deliver on the

promise and the power of web analytics.

If you have any questions about this guide or about web analytics, please

feel free to contact Technology Leaders at the locations provided on the

following pages.

----


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About Technology Leaders:

Technology Leaders is the world's most experienced web analytics consulting

company.

Founded in 2002, the firm is expert in the deployment and customization of all major vendor

offerings in the current web analytics space. It uses web analytics tools to mea-

sure user activity in a way that is meaningful to the organization.

TL's consultants then draw upon market expertise to make sense of what was

measured. Finally, TL helps customers take action by improving, optimizing,

and measuring again to prove effectiveness.

Organizations can now rely on one company to deliver a complete package

ofimplementation, analysis and the ability to measure improvement for web sites.

Technology Leaders Contact Information:

Technology Leaders, LLC230 Park Avenue

New York, NY 10169

(212) 808-3058

[email protected]

www.technologyleaders.com


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About the Author:

Andrew Edwards,the founder and Managing Partnerat Technology Leaders, is a

recognized e-business expert and pioneer with significant credits in on-line

marketing, web architecture, project development, and web analytics. In the 90s

he founded an award-winning interactive design agency servicing Fortune 50

customers and launched several brands on line. Expert in identifying and capitalizing

on market opportunities, he is also an accomplished interactive designer

and technology professional. He co-founded the Web Analytics Association

in 2004, and is thechiefarchitect ofthe web analytics approach developed by

Technology Leaders.


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