Marketing Logic

Many people point to the bounce rate in Google Analytics and assume that those who bounced are worthless visitors. This is not the case.

Before I explain why, I want to say that I have changed the GA code so that Bounce Rate is calculated from those who spent less than 10 seconds on the site, not those who viewed one page, which is the default. The reason I did this is that many of my sites are blogs or are using blogging extensively. If a visitor enters on a category page, they can spend up to 10 minutes reading posts, yet the default GA code only sees one page viewed, and says that they bounced.

If you would like to use this bounce rate, you need setTimeout, and here the code and where to place it:

var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(“UA-xxxxx-x”);
pageTracker._trackPageview();
setTimeout(‘pageTracker._trackEvent(\’NoBounce\’, \’NoBounce\’, \’Over 10 seconds\’)',10000);

Now, why are visitors who bounce not worthless? Simple, GA seems to be calculating bounces off of the most recent visit. This does not mean that the visitors have not spent time on your site before. Here is a screen shot of the Visitor Loyalty report, segmented by those who bounced.

(click to enlarge)

You can see that although the majority (93.5%) of visits were the 1st time to the site, around 6.5% of visitors were returning, some of them up to 9 – 14 times.

This means that these returning visitors liked what was offered on the site enough to come back, but then why did they bounce?

I believe that many of the Loyalty Bounces are looking to copy URL’s to send to other people. Yes, that may sound like wishful thinking, but when I go back to a site and leave immediately, it is usually for that very reason. Another reason may be to verify some piece of information. Every case is different, which is why Custom Segments are so important for your analytics.

To see this in action, you will need to create a custom segment by clicking on Advanced Segments in the left hand navigation of GA. Originally I used Metrics-Site Usage-Bounces with the Condition Greater than or equal to, and the Value as 1. This gave me the bounce rate of the site. Then I created another segment to combine bounce rate and returning visitors;

(click to enlarge)

Dimensions – Visitors – Visitor Type – Matches Exactly – Returning Visitors

Metrics – Site Usage – Bounces – Greater than or equal to – 1

There you have it. You created a custom segment, and you can see what I call a Loyalty Bounce.

Update: When I applied this to another of my sites, I believed it confirmed my suspicions about why people are returning to the site, then bouncing. The Top Landing Pages report segmented by Loyalty Bounces was very similar to the Top Content report for all visitors. The pages that are most popular on my site are the ones giving me the Loyalty Bounce.

So a visitor that bounces is not always a bad thing. They may be spreading links.

I know that there are a lot of people who are wondering if they should make the switch to Google Analytics, and I would say, yes. I was one of those people for a long time. I used Clicktracks (now Lyris) since the day I started analytics, and always resisted GA. It has only been within the last few months that I have really started to use GA extensively, and not only that, to like it.

Google does bother me a little bit with the amount of information that it has on the millions of people using it. Giving Google access to my analytics only increases its knowledge, and we all know that knowledge equals power. This ties in with Matt’s recent post on the failure of search engines, the bigger and more powerful the search engine (Google), the more we have to design and analyze for that engine. This can take away somewhat from the user experience and the conversion of those users.

In spite of all that, Google has given us a very powerful tool to analyze our visitors; and they gave it to us free.

Let’s take a look at some of the competition out there first.

Webtrends can cost upwards of $20,000 just for the first year. That buys you a massive amount of installation work, more graphs than you can graph, but not much actionable data. I have said that Webtrends is like a bodybuilder on steroids, it’s big and muscular, but it ain’t got no balls.

I have used Webtrends, but I found that it was too big and bulky, and I wasn’t able to really do my job and find actionable insights. I know there are people out there who will say that it is my fault, but it’s not. In my experience, Webtrends (and most other analytics programs) are implemented and run by IT or marketing people. Neither of which are web analysts.

I loved using Clicktracks. Because it uses log files, one of the major advantages is the ability to apply anything to historical data. That means I could set up a goal, and see the data for that goal for any time period I chose, even if that time period was before I set up the goal. Whereas in GA, you can only see the data from the time you implemented the goal. The only problem with log file based analytics is the slowness. A site with more than around 25,000 visitors really gets bogged down, and if you go over a couple hundred thousand, you might as well take the day off while it calculates the data.

Clicktracks is fantastic at segmentation. It is one of the basic features of CT and it makes it very easy to create custom segments, and to combine them any way you want. (Without segmentation, analytics is useless.)

GA is much easier to install, and is very easy to use. It does not look near as impressive as Webtrends, or have the ability to compute historical data like Clicktracks. However, there are a number of reasons I believe it is better.

First, it’s free. You can’t get a better price than that. Many people think that because it is free, it isn’t worth it, but they are wrong. Google wants your site to perform well. GA is their way of helping you make your site better, so that they have better quality sites in their index. Kind of selfish on their part, but it works.

Second, Avinash Kaushik is their Analytics Evangelist. Avinash helps Google to “…shape the vision, direction and features of 13 different Google tools that provide data to customers.” This is one of the biggest reasons for GA’s success, it has top web analysts working to make it usable and actionable.

Thirdly, because they give out the API, anybody can create code for Google Analytics, and there are some fantastic scripts and add-ons out there. Here are a few that I use;

Enhanced Google Analytics - This was a script for Greasemonkey, but was later made into a FireFox add-on. This puts a little button on the top of the Referral report and Keyword report that show you the “unusual” traffic. It graphs out sites/keywords that brought 50% more traffic over the last 7 days, and those that had 50% less traffic over the last 7 days.

The next is Better Google Analytics. This is a collection of scripts that give you many, many options. Here are a few of the cool toys it adds to GA;

Adds search function to each search term in the Keyword Report.

Converts percent values to absolute values in tables.

Allows you to go full screen and minimize the left hand navigation.

Links to Google Insights and allows you to check keyword terms and perform a Google Insight search.

Social Media metrics from Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon and more.

These are only a few of the scripts that are available in the Better Google Analytics Add-on, and there are even more out there. With so many new scripts being written for GA, it will always have more to offer, and most of those offerings will be what we analysts need, not what some giant corporation thinks we need.

I am by no means a Googlephile. As I said earlier, sometimes I have to put on my tin foil hat before I start searching the web. However, Google has given us the tools to make our sites better, the code to make our own scripts for Google Analytics, and they have done it for free.

How can anyone compete with that?

If you think your analytics program is the best, tell me and let me know why.

Update:
Avinash has reminded me that by using Custom Segments in GA, you can create a goal segment and see basic historical data. I have used this, but my point was that even by doing this, there is still no historical data in the Goal Reports.

Also I have used Omniture Site Catalyst (another massive analytics program), and it does not even have segmentation abilities, and as I said above, without segmentation, analytics is useless. So I guess you can take from that what I think about Site Catalyst.

Re-designing or redeveloping a website has become a major issue for companies, as they seek to refine their online presence and invest in their websites. However, more than ever, the search engines are the biggest obstacle to website improvement.

Planning for a Re-Design
I find that in our development and Information Architecture consulting, one of the largest hurdles that we encounter is dealing with the transition from the old website to a newer architecture. For larger sites, planning a transition to maintain the links and rankings held by thousands of pages that will no longer exist is quickly becoming one of the more time consuming tasks.

Surprisingly, the main obstacle to developing improved websites (both architecturally and usability) is the search engines themselves. The method of retrieving pages into a central index for an algorithm is outdated and antiquated, as it does not account for improvements and changes in a website. In short, companies are being penalized for not being aware of the limitations of search engines, Google in particular.

What goes wrong:
1. In a new website project, the architecture of the site typically changes. Companies are becoming more aware of search-friendly programming and implementing it into their development. However, when the new architecture goes live, the old architecture and old pages addresses (URL’s) held the rankings.
Results: Rankings are lost as old pages are no longer available.

2. Incoming links to the website and the deep pages within the website no longer have a destination (page names usually change with a new architecture). This reduces the “link juice” that is carried to that website, as the destination of the link no longer exists.
Results: Decreased rankings and value based on incomplete (broken) incoming links.

Redirects
To remedy these situations, the old formula of applying URL rewrites and 301 redirects is employed in order to match the old pages to their newer counterparts. However, this requires server power to accomplish. In a re-direct, the old page is requested, and the server scans through the instructions to see if there is a new page to deliver instead of the old page. In doing this, rankings can usually be maintained.

Redirected Links
Links are also maintained, but lose their value overtime. Redirected links not a direct link; the new page destination may not be the page intended as the original link destination, thereby losing value. It is always best to have a direct incoming link for best link value. However, for site owners with hundreds to thousands of links, they now have to go back and ask other webmasters, site owners and companies to edit the links on their sites to point to the new URL in order to receive the full value. Is that really necessary? Is search engine technology so lacking in foresight that this will be the bane of webmasters and marketers for the next decade?

The issue with redirects is that every redirect takes a fraction of server resources to accomplish. A few redirects are fine, however when working with sites that are taking 8-10 years of history and thousands of pages, the redirects become a significant drag on server resources.

Duplicate Content
This also takes into account that the redirects are written and applied properly. I am amazed at the canonicalization issues that still hinder websites and the amount of work that a webmaster is expected to perform in order to “help” the search engines.

I have worked with many programmers that do fantastic, innovative work and develop amazing applications within websites, only to have the issues of duplicate content hinder the website. What can be considered effective user-based programming has to be tossed out the development window in order to accommodate search engine crawlers. How many companies are even aware of duplicate content and how that can hinder their rankings in search engines? How many websites are being penalized unaware?

Google asks: “Would I do this if the Search Engines Didn’t Exist”?
Companies are developing websites smarter than ever, using search friendly architecture, AJAX, CSS and other technologies in an attempt to make the experience better for their users. However, because the information of information retrieval is so outdated, these same companies are penalized for changing a site that would have been better left alone.

Essentially, Google has written the rules of website development, re-development and innovation. If a company is not aware of those rules or does not invest the time and money to reverse engineer their new website to accommodate outdated technology, then they are effectively penalized.

In short, the rule of “Would I do this is Search Engines didn’t exist?” (Google Webmaster Guidelines: Quality Guidelines – basic principles) is nonsensical. Especially when paired with the latest news of Google’s attempt to solve the AJAX issue – developers are left to struggle with increasingly outdated search engine technology in an attempt to have a new website (that is hopefully better for their users) maintain rankings.

I enjoy a good challenge, but the challenge is starting to come at the expense of innovation for developers and the companies that desire to improve their online presence and user experience. Rather than innovate in tools and applications, it’s time for the search engines to step up and improve their methods in their core service – search.

Otherwise, true innovators are the ones who are penalized.

MGM’s new Twitter promotion “Get Rewarded for Your Sins” invites people to “tweet their sins” to #mgmsin. The tweets are displayed on the promotion website, asking viewers to judge the sins as forgivable or unforgivable. In addition, the Twitter feed of sins will be projected onto buildings in Los Angeles at night.

A winner is chosen every day for 30 days, and awarded a free night at the MGM Grand, which is great, because you might just need that free night when you get kicked out of the house.

To me, this is troubling on a few levels. Don’t get me wrong, I think it is a brilliant concept, but it’s brilliant in that it plays on the inadequacies of human judgment.

Social Media is NOT Private
First, it perpetuates the notion that status updates, regardless of medium, are private. Most people tend to believe that only their friends or networks can see their updates, if they stop and think about it at all. Tweeting one’s sins can lead to a pile of trouble, especially if one does not stop to think that your network will also be seeing this message.

Updates Last a Very, Very Long Time
Second, your network will see this message (Repeated for emphasis). Unless you create an all new account with no followers, someone you know will see your tweeted sin. And it doesn’t have to be live – it can reside on your twitter page and in your feed. Anyone can see it anytime. If you have no problem airing your “sins” on twitter, and the people that follow you have no problem with that, then by all means, this is for you.

Third, the examples that are given on the website provide a unique insight as to what this promotion is looking for. One example is about having a sex dream about a co-worker, the other is about having an affair with a woman in another city. It’s implied that there are some sins that are more sensational (sex) and those are the ones that they want to see. Are those tweets that you would feel comfortable tweeting to your network?

TMI
The potential for hearing “too much information” is great for this kind of campaign. There are too many people that have no filter for this type of contest. This brings me to the marketing brilliance of this campaign. Its brilliance relies on the lack of judgment in people.

Who Pays?
If you were to tweet something and it causes problem in the workplace, or at home, or in the worst case, makes the news. The person who tweeted the sin will get the brunt of the judgment and consequence. MGM Grand will get free publicity on the back of any explosive or career-ending fallout.

Brilliance & Risk
And that’s the marketing brilliance of the campaign. No fault, just exposure. No risk for MGM Grand. The ones that express their sins without thought of consequence are the ones taking the risk.

As a marketer, I’m intrigued by this campaign, but I am apprehensive because of the collateral damage to other people’s lives this could cause.

This article originally appeared at Search Engine Guide, where Jennifer serves as Editor-in-Chief.

In the world of small business and social media, we’re seeing a massive migration to company Facebook Pages. It’s no wonder, they offer amazing functionality at practically no cost and they give businesses a chance to connect with the more than 300 million people who have already flocked to Facebook. There’s amazing viral potential involved with Facebook pages and it provides companies an easy way to reap the benefits of photos, videos, discussion forums, micro-blogging and pretty much every other form of social media in one neat little package.

But there’s a problem.

They’re NOT easy to set up.

Those of us in the industry might scoff at that statement. After all, you just head over to Facebook, start a page, slap a logo on it and get going. Sure, if all you want is yet another brochure for your site on the web. If you’re actually looking to take advantage of the features Facebook offers, it’s a whole other story. In fact, I spent a few hours last weekend watching a pretty web savvy friend get to the point of nearly throwing his laptop out the window in frustration as he tried to set up a Facebook page for his web site. (I’m betting more than a few readers can relate.) I went online to do some hunting to find him a step by step guide and was amazed at how many posts skimmed over the actual process with “set up your page, then…” before getting to any meat.

So in the spirit of my Twitter start-up guide, let’s do this again on the Facebook front.

Why Facebook? Why Now?

If you thought Facebook was just a way to share photos and life updates with friends and family, you haven’t looked very deeply into the largest social networking site this side of 2008. In fact, Facebook now owns nearly 60% of the market share for social networking sites and it continues to grow at an astonishing rate. (In other words, if you’ve yet to be inundated with friend requests from old classmates…just wait, it’s coming.)

I’ve been warning my small business audiences for years against jumping on the latest social media bandwagon, cautioning them to wait until a service reaches a saturation point that makes their involvement worth the time and effort it takes to be there. Facebook definitely fits the ticket. There are more than 300 million Facebook users as of the writing of this article…that’s roughly the population of the United States.

Need a little more perspective?

You know all that buzz you hear about Twitter?

Facebook has roughly 30 times the market share Twitter does. Yep…for every person you hear about that uses Twitter, there are 30 using Facebook. (Let that sink in for a minute.)

It’s also got loads more functionality and far more ways to communicate with your audience. Why limit your outreach efforts to 140 character snippets when you can incorporate multi-media, discussion groups, applications, games and almost anything else you can dream up?

That’s not even mentioning the fact that Facebook Pages are indexed by Google and can be a great way to capture yet another first page search result for your small business. In a time where online reputation management is key, the value in that extra search listing alone makes it worth the effort for most companies.

Ok, You’ve Sold Me…But What’s a Facebook Page?

Facebook doesn’t let businesses set up personal profiles. If you register for Facebook, it has to be YOU registering. A single human being who might like to share their life and connect with others. Businesses? They get relegated down the hall to the world of “pages”. Now this might be confusing to you if you’re used to referring to your personal profile as your “Facebook page.” See Facebook, in their infinite quest to make the heads of usability experts explode, decided to name the presence a company/web site/organization builds on Facebook a “page.” Clear as mud, eh?

That’s not a bad thing mind you.

Facebook’s Page option allows you to create a presence for your business, web site, product or whatever and then promote it to the community. Facebook pages let you gather “fans” rather than “friends” and gives you the ability to send them updates, engage them in discussions and perhaps handiest of all, examine user analytics and data just like you can for your web site.

Since Facebook has an API they’ve released to developers, the potentials for a fan page are virtually endless. Companies on a tight budget will be limited by what applications have already been developed by the community, but even then, there’s functionality aplenty just waiting for you to tap into it. For now, let’s focus on getting you set up with a presence.

Yoo Hoo! Facebook Page Creation Link…Where are You?

You’d think if Facebook wanted companies to flock to the network creating Facebook pages, they’d make it easy for them to do so. You’d be wrong. What they actually do is hide the Create a page link in a variety of different places on the chance you might eventually stumble across one. Of course even if you do, that’s not to say you’ll ever remember where you found it. (Not to mention the fact that someone else will likely find it a totally different way…and the different ways you enter determine the path you take to set up the page…it’s all very Alice in Wonderland of them.)

Ironically, it’s easiest to find the create a Facebook page link if you aren’t even logged in to the site. Hit the home page without being logged in and it sits there plain as day on the front page.

If you’re already an active Facebook member and your cookies dump you right into the system, it’s a bit more difficult.

Two surefire ways to find the link?

1. Sign in to Facebook, scroll to the very bottom of the page and look for the link that says “Advertising.”

Once you reach the advertising page, look along the top of the page and locate the link that says “Pages.”

At this point, you’ll have the option of learning more about Facebook Pages from Facebook or of jumping right into the process. If you want to jump right into the process, look for the green “Create a Page” button on the top right.

2. Sign in to Facebook and visit an existing Facebook page. Scroll to the bottom and left for the tiny link at the bottom left that says “Create a Page.”

Ok, Let’s Get Started!

Yes, yes, I know that was a lot of work just to get to where you can even start setting up a page, but so it goes. Your first decision is to figure out how you want to classify yourself. If you are a local business with a physical presence, you’ll want to look through the drop down options and find the one that best fits you. If you’re a business, organization or web site with a national or international presence, you’ll want to look through the “Brand, Product or Organization” options. If you’re looking to create a Facebook Page for yourself because you’re one of those famous types (artist, public official, etc…) go with the last option.

The example site I’m using here is Life in a Tent, a new camping blog I’ve set up to test some new social media marketing outlets. That means I selected the second option and chose “website” from the drop down.

Once you’ve done this, you’ll be taken to the bones of your new Facebook page. Yes, it’s pretty bleak and boring. It’s up to you to add some personality to the mix.

To do this, you need to look at the list of links right under the big image of a grey question mark. There you’ll find a link that reads “Edit Page.” Click on this link and you’ll be taken to your admin page.

The first thing you’ll want to do is click on the little blue edit icon (blue box with what looks like a pen in it) that appears over to the right in the box called “Settings.” You’ll see a pop up window. Select Edit.

This will pop up the window that let’s you create your most basic settings.

You’ll need to assign your country and any age restrictions. This is also the page where you decide if you want your page to show as live or not. If you’re just getting started, leave this set to “Unpublished.” Once you’ve got your page the way you want it, you can quickly go back and turn on access for the world.

Next you’ll need to return to the admin page and select the “Wall” option.

This is where you start to have some options and need to start making some decisions. For instance, you can set it so your wall displays only posts you’ve made yourself or you can open it up to include the posts from your fans. While I understand the temptation to retain control and publish only your own comments, it’s important to remember you’re setting up a Facebook page for the sake of building community and communicating with your target audience. Unless you’ve got a good reason not to, it’s a good idea to go ahead and set the default view to include posts by you and by fans.

You also get to set the default landing page for people coming onto the page. Most companies leave this set to “wall” but there are some good reasons to consider changing it. If you’re building a Facebook page with a heavy focus on conversations and community building, you may want to push people straight to the discussions page. If you’re a travel destination or a food site or something else very visual, you may want to push them straight to the photos page.

You also have the ability to decide how much publishing power you want to give your fans. Decide if you want to let them post their own photos, videos and links. And remember, if you turn this feature on, you will need to have someone keeping an eye on things to make sure nothing inappropriate is being posted.

Now that you’ve got this section set, hit save and head back to the admin page. Your next step is to click on the edit button for Facebook Mobile.

This area of the admin panel lets you create the ability to interact with your Facebook page via mobile phone. Granted, with most smart phones, you can just pull a Facebook app in and interact with the site that way, but depending on the purpose and scale of your Facebook page, it can be a handy addition to your toolbox. This step by step process only takes a minute or so…

Once you set this up, you can publish status updates to your Facebook page from your phone using SMS. This is handy if you aren’t near a computer or can’t pick up an Internet connection on your phone.

Once you’ve got the basics set up, you’re ready to go back and add some personality to your page. To do this, you’ll need to go back to your default Facebook page again.

Scroll your mouse over to the grey question mark image and look for the little blue editing icon to show up again. When it does, click on it and select the appropriate option for uploading a photo or image to use as your avatar.

While you don’t have to upload a perfect square to use as your profile picture, it’s important to remember Facebook will create a mini avatar for your posts off of what you upload. Use a rectangle and you may end up with an off center or less than ideal mini avatar. To keep it simple, it’s best to try and upload a logo that works well when it’s shrunk down.

Once you’ve got your profile picture in place, look for the “Information” box on in the left hand column and click that edit button. This will pop up windows allowing you to mark the year your business/org/site was founded. You’ll also have the chance to add in a link to your web site along with a company overview, mission statement and information about any products or services you offer.

Finally, you’ll notice yet another box in the left hand column that says “Write something about…” Think of this as a little tag line for your site or a mini-profile for your business. Editing it is easy. Just click on the box, type your text in, then click off the box again. It will save your entry.

That’s it! You’ve got yourself a starter presence on Facebook!

Now you just need to start using it. That said, while I understand the temptation to rush to Twitter or email and send an announcement out to the world about your new Facebook page, I’d caution you to be patient. There’s no sense inviting people to an open house when all you’ve done is unlock the front door and lay down a welcome mat. You still need to learn how to leverage Facebook’s tools to create something people will find valuable.

In the next post, we’ll take a look at the default Facebook Page applications and how you can leverage them to create a more interesting and interactive experience for your visitors.

Part 1: Analytics: Is it Fun or Easy?
Part 2: Ambiguity is Opportunity

Part 3: Segmentation Finds Motivation

Why Segmentation?
Segmentation is the principle that people come to the website for many different reasons, they enter at many different points, the see different pages, and are looking for many different pieces of information. Basically – you can’t treat all of your visitors the same way, neither in the marketing and content nor in the measurement and analysis. As John Marshall of Market Motive (who also developed ClickTracks) famously said, “people are not cattle.” Therefore, we should not treat them as such.

Aggregate = Inaccurate
Funny enough, when we build reports on aggregate data (page views, visitors, top 10 pages, top 10 search terms) we are doing exactly that. Aggregate numbers view people as a herd of cattle, all with the same motives, behaviors and views. Segmentation allows a deeper examination of the website and the different types of people and their motivations.

Analytics finds Behavior based on Expectation
By simply segmenting visitors based on their keyword searches, motivation can be determined. By segmenting those same visitors based on goal completion and the entry point of the site, you can begin to compare behavior alongside the motivation. Comparisons allow new ways to interpret the data, and find areas of the website that need immediate improvement. Not all products can be sold the same, so why measure them the same?

Context, Context, Context
Building context is a primary step in developing new ways of viewing data. The more we know about a group of visitors, the more we can understand them. By viewing people as the complex organisms that they are, we can begin to develop the site around them and make changes suited to best market to that segment. This isn’t a difficult step; it’s actually very simple by using the 3C’s of Analytics: Context, Contrast & Comparison.

Context is simply building multiple data points into a specific view of activity. Essentially, the more data points involved, the better the story becomes. Adding content to a segment tells a particular story about a specific group of people and what they encountered on your website.

Start building context by segmenting visitors based on the acquisition method and their motivation. Contrast that with the average, which Google Analytics does by default, in order to see how this segment performs compared to the site average. Then, compare to other segments in order to find significant differences. Comparison allows the analyst to find specific segments that are performing at extremely high or low levels. This is the first method of a direct evaluation for the website.

Test poorly performing segments, and grow the higher segments. Compare segments and keyword rankings to be sure that you are targeting the right words. Get a clear picture on exit rates by finding the segment that is contributing the most. Comparing and contrasting segments is the basis of learning, and it is the easiest method to find opportunities for growth in your marketing. You may find that your best ranking keywords, the ones bringing in the most traffic, are also the worst performing group. Only segmenting and building context will allow that exploration.

More Data Points = More Understanding
The simple conclusion to this type of analysis is that there must be multiple conversion goals. One conversion rate doesn’t tell the story of who came to the website, what they expected to see, what they did see, and how they reacted to it. Multiple conversion rates; based on keywords, actions, product types, price points, keyword rankings, navigation methods are just a few of the ways that one can build conversion segments.

Action-based conversions, such as video views, navigation tendencies, point to the behavior of people within a segment and can provide insight as to how people respond when they interact with elements within the website. Understanding the actions and how they affect conversions will provide direction for continued development of interactions within the website.

Part 4: Compared to What?

Related Articles:
Segmentation: Analytics According to Captain Kirk
Social Media Under the Microscope
Multi-Channel Marketing and Self-Fulfilling Prophesy

Part 1: Is Analytics Fun or Easy

Part 2: Ambiguity is Opportunity

Hamster-Wheel Analytics
From Part 1, setting goals is the first and only place to start when developing an analytics strategy. Otherwise, the analyst or the website marketing manager will spend the majority of their time developing reports with numbers on them. The rest of their month will then be spent justifying why those numbers are higher or lower than the previous month. Without goals, there is simply no direction.

Large numbers become the goal, and people become enamored with large numbers, even though everyone knows that more visitors is not necessarily the goal. Qualified visitors are the goal . This is hamster-wheel analytics. The endless cycle of doing the same thing and going nowhere.

Why Do You Have a Website?
Clearly stated goals are the first place to start. I find that the best answers are the clearest and simplest. Points are awarded for brevity. Two word answers are clear, and everyone involved in the website should have these printed out and displayed clearly, as they are your new measuring stick – The measurement upon which every decision about the website should and must be based.

No guesswork, measurement.
1. What is the purpose of the website?
2. What is the company goal for the website?
3. What do we want visitors to do?

One of the best goal statements I heard from a company was the simplest. Make Money, Sell Shoes. Simple, to the point and a clear measuring stick from which to base every decision. From design, analytics, social media strategy and continued development, the questions are simple – “Does it make us money? Does it sell shoes? From that, a successful website marketing strategy is born.

Into Action
How these are answered provide the framework for building measurement outcomes for the website. By now, I am hoping that the numbers developed for typical reports would start to seem like foreign concepts. How can you measure company goals and visitor expectations by unique visitors and page views? Hint: you can’t.

Clearly, we need to think differently about our concept of analytics.
This concept was made clear when I read Iconoclast. The book features examples of those individuals who went against common thinking and the wisdom of crowds. Gregory Berns, a neuroscience attempts to explain how iconoclasts think differently, respond differently and can even learn things differently.

Pursue Ambiguity
In one of the sections he discusses the concept of Bayesian updating. Most people learn by entering a subject with a preconceived idea of what they need or want and then find the information that develops and reinforces those ideas.

People tend to avoid ambiguity – as ambiguity is traced to a fear of the unknown. People desire some semblance of structure, which is why it is easy to cling to the concepts of unique visitors, hits, page views, time on site, etc. However, when the goal is to increase sales and get to the “why” of analytics, it requires foraging into the unknown and making guesses. Some of those forages may not yield substantial information; most will reward the analyst with a gold mine of information.

The most important trait is the ability to learn and respond as new information is found.

Bayesian updating is important to an analyst as it is the process of using new information to update probability. As Berns writes, “The key reappraisal for ambiguous circumstances is to view ambiguity as an opportunity for gaining knowledge.”

Once the goals have been established and the analyst has been freed from the shackles of mundane reporting, the process can be viewed as a blank slate. Start from the company goals to determine how the website is doing.

The very first report I would recommend building is an acquisition report based on motivation. Who came to the website and why? Segmentation is the principle that answers motivation.

Part 3: Segmentation Finds Motivation

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Hearing the questions from so many that come to my seminars, one would think that analytics was difficult or hard to grasp. Seriously, it has caused great wonder as to why the concept of analytics would prove such a perplexing and daunting task to so many people.

Unlearn Analytics
At the heart of the matter, I believe, is that many people have been incorrectly “trained” based on their thinking and practice of analytics. Those that have been online for many years know that the earliest analytics packages were simply traffic counters, hardly “analytics” as we call them today, but more “stats,” as they became more widely known. The basic stats packages still exist today: FunnelWeb, AWstats , just to name a few.

The History of Bad Stats
Because the early stats program provided just that: statistics. Mainly, the statistics were based on numbers that webmasters needed to estimate bandwidth and hosting requirements. People assumed that the numbers provided in these reports were important. Granted, for many businesses, a goal of increasing visitors was able to be reported, but that’s about as far as one could go. Because of the limited amount of information provided in these reports, marketers simply added them into web reports and they essentially became part of doing business online. It was (and still is) assumed that if these were the numbers provided by the stats, then these must be important and necessary – the measuring stick with which we are provided.

Your Measuring Stick is Wrong
And that is my theory. We were given a measuring stick at the beginning of the internet age, and many people have not yet realized that the measuring stick is wrong. Thus, the words “hits” is so engrained into the vocabulary of many business people, not realizing exactly what hits are, nor how they affect the website, or even much larger, the business.

So, we need to trade in our old measuring stick for a new one. One that is based not on off-the-shelf, one-size-fits-none numbers, but one based on the company’s website marketing goals.

Goals?
Goals are the starting point for any analytics endeavor. “Analytics works best when measurement expectations are clearly defined in advance,” wrote Eric Peterson in Web Analytics Demystified “not after the fact or on an ad-hoc basis.” Smart words.

Most marketers attempting web analytics are missing this piece of the puzzle. What are the measurement expectations? Does management simply want to know the number of visitors to the website and why that number is lower than the previous month? If so, then I pity your job. Justifying visitor numbers within in a vacuum without any context has nothing to do with improving the company website.

Every analyst needs to demand clear goals in order to create the correct measuring stick. Without these goals, there is no point in tracking anything.

Part 2 – Ambiguity is Opportunity

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This has been stewing for a while. Just brimming under the surface. An brewing anger towards companies that do not understand accessibility, nor the commitment that is required to be accessible, but will give it a light treatment simply as a sales tactic.

Basically, I’ve had it. I’m mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore.

I’ve worked with too many projects where a vendor has sold a program, content management system or software application as a part of the overall project, and claimed that it was “technically compliant”. “Sure it is 508 compliant,” they say. Not understanding the implications of such a statement.

Invariably, the application is exposed for what it really is. A basic treatment of accessibility veiled in sales gibberish. The charade lasts until it is actually placed under scrutiny of those will be needing accessibility features. When asked to produce evidence of 508 compliance or some sort of accessibility certification, there is rarely any documentation, other than a simple automated test.

So, what is “technically compliant”?
I would describe “technical compliance” as a label company’s use when they go through the motions of compliance, without truly understanding the reasoning and methods of accessibility. Simply running a page or an application through an automated accessibility checker is NOT an approval for the “accessible” label.
Accessibility is much more than the “strict” side of the technical checklist. Accessibility is about much more than screen readers. Accessibility is about understanding the people that use a website and that making a website accessible actually makes it easier to use for everyone, not just a single, small group of people that need these features.

To better understand the “technically accessible” label that people like to use, I like to examine some of the elements of the Web Accessibility Checklist, version 1, developed by the W3C. These are elements that cannot be tested by automated software, only by actual human testing.

Where Automation Fails
MultiMedia
Checkpoint 1.3 Until user agents can automatically read aloud the text equivalent of a visual track, provide an auditory description of the important information of the visual track of a multimedia presentation.

This just makes sense. Search engines can’t read images, video, podcasts or other multimedia. Instead they rely on tags, descriptions and transcripts. For accessibility, this also provides information to anybody; regardless of access device, technology, browser, or assistive technology.

Color Contrast
Checkpoint 2.1 Ensure that all information conveyed by color is also available without color.

Checkpoint 2.2 Ensure that foreground and background color combinations provide sufficient contrast when viewed by someone having color deficits or when viewed on a black and white screen.

There are numerous contrast tools available online, some are much better than others at identifying contrast issues on a web page. I prefer aDesigner from IBM, as it highlights specific areas on the page and identifies them as problem areas. The main issue is that running a website code through a validation test does NOT identify problem contrast areas. This is a visual test, and must be tested by humans in order to find the problems.

Contrast is also a key element in design. By using contrast designers can influence the path of the eye as it follows the information and is attracted to specific calls to action. High contrast areas on a page get much more attention and are easier to see. Misusing or misunderstanding contrast results in a very poor user experience

Markup
Checkpoint 3.1 When an appropriate markup language exists, use markup rather than images to convey information.

Checkpoint 4.2 Specify the expansion of each abbreviation or acronym in a document where it first occurs.

Another validation test that an automated procedure will miss is the ability to spot when an image is not clear and mark-up would do a better job of conveying information. IN addition, there are many times when another graphic might even be more explicit. Again, only human testing will show these issues and no amount of automated testing will provide correction.

Abbreviations and acronyms are to be defined in the markeup, which enables users to simple see purpose of the letters. It provides clear context to the abbreviations or the confusing world of acronyms. This is especially helpful when the acronym is also a word, which can be confusing.

Issues related to this area are the surging popularity of tag clouds, where large numbers of words are rendered on the page and their popularity is shown based on text size. For users accessing the site through a reader, there is no method of understanding the difference in size of these tags. The tags are simply read aloud with no context, order or understanding of their purpose.

Programming
Checkpoint 7.3 Until user agents allow users to freeze moving content, avoid movement in pages.

Checkpoint 6.1 Organize documents so they may be read without style sheets.

Checkpoint 9.4 Create a logical tab order through links, form controls, and objects.

Movement on pages is just like the aggravation of watching cable news networks. The news ticker that tries to compete with our attention as we watch the talking head and listen to the news and look at the news video – too many things compete visually for your attention. When the same principle is applied to a web page, the same result applies. When there are too many competing elements for the viewer’s attention (movement) there is no clear place for the user to focus their attention. It lessens the ability of the page to communicate a specific idea or purpose.

Tab order is especially critical, especially in administrative screens, ecommerce sites, interactive technologies and other form-intensive applications. This can take place in everything from a content management system to setting up a YouTube account. Tab order allows keyboard-only users to tab through forms and options. If the order is not logical, the cursor focus can easily be lost.

Tab order is not something that can be tested with automated software or web validation. It requires strict human testing and intervention, especially on different operating systems, browsers, computers and assistive technology. The combinations of all of these technologies create issues and different combinations may produce very different results. Human testing is the only way to find this issue.

Readability
Checkpoint 12.3 Divide large blocks of information into more manageable groups where natural and appropriate.

Checkpoint 12.4 Associate labels explicitly with their controls.

Checkpoint 13.8 Place distinguishing information at the beginning of headings, paragraphs, lists, etc.

Checkpoint 14.1 Use the clearest and simplest language appropriate for the site’s content.

Checkpoint 14.3 Create a style of presentation that is consistent across pages.

None of these points are able to be tested in any type of automated environment. One of the most difficult problems online for websites is readability. Beyond readability, it is estimated that 40% of the population has lower literacy skills. Add to that low-vision, senior citizens and new adopters of the internet, and there is a significant learning and learning curve that keep people from easily accessing the information that they need.

Clear and simple language, consistent presentation, making text readable by arrangement, mark-up and headings – all of these are techniques that make content more accessible. They also rely on testing with target audiences rather than an automated button-push.

Navigation
Checkpoint 13.1 Clearly identify the target of each link.

Checkpoint 13.4 Use navigation mechanisms in a consistent manner.

Checkpoint 13.5 Provide navigation bars to highlight and give access to the navigation mechanism.

Users need to have a sense of location when they are on a page – Where do I go if this is not the right page? Where is there related information? How do I get there? These are all questions that can be answered quickly and easily by a good navigational structure with visual indicators, highlights and clear labels and targets.

In a sense, users need a sense of location, clear content relation, common sense navigation and a call to a specific destination in order to reduce their frustration. Deny any of these mechanisms, and your site is a whole lot harder to use. Automated tests, again, fail to properly identify issues of clarity, purpose, consistency, readability and understandability.

Automated Testing Fails True Accessibility
These are issues that no amount of automated testing will grasp. When a company claims “technical accessibility” it is because they have not actually tested their software or content management system with people, much less tested with those that rely on assistive technology. Simply choosing which checkpoints are more important than others and adhering to those are a dangerous precedent to establish. In doing so, adhering to strict technical issues, but not the grammatical, layout, contrast, navigation or readability issues ignores a significantly large portion of the population that can benefit from these improvements.

No amount of automated testing will explain to you that your instructions are unclear and visually hard to find. Only testing performed by people that are familiar with assistive technology, accessibility and the multitudes of combinations of these issues can ensure that a site is truly certified as accessible.

Developing a new website?
If you are a project manager or web manager, and you are tasked with purchasing or building a specification for a website, application or content management system, I recommend that you demand a third-party verification of accessibility. Relying on the manufacturer’s word and getting the “technically accessible” line can come back on you when a user discovers the truth.

As an example, a well-known software manufacturer claimed that their software was “technically accessible” that they met 508 requirements. Interestingly, the reports the software generated were accessible, but the methods necessary to generate those reports were not even close to being accessible.

Do the Work, Reap the Rewards
In their haste to be technically correct, programmers and development companies have forgotten (if they ever even knew) that the readability of the content, and the clarity of instructions, and calls to action are just as critical to accessibility as alternate navigation, alt attributes and graceful degradation.

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Multi-channel merchants suffer from a self-fulfilling prophesy, and it is completely understood. On the surface, it makes perfect sense. For those that slept through Psychology 101, Self-fulfilling prophesy is when you tell yourself that you are no good at math, you keep telling yourself this and as a result, don’t study as much, give up easily, so that when you finally take the test, you score low, and you mark it up to the reason: “I’m not good at math”.

Multi-Channel marketers tend to overstate the reach of catalog sales, they see that catalog makes up 90% of sales, and the website makes up 10% of sales. So, they reason, the catalog will continue to have most of the marketing resources, and website will have a small amount of resources, because it doesn’t perform as well as the catalog.

Obviously, I have a number of responses to that proposition.

1. Is there a sales tracking mechanism in place that covers each channel?
   Many catalog retailers that I’ve talked with don’t have sales tracking on the website. It is an assumption based on a number of factors, but mainly their gut instinct and initial sales numbers, which can easily reinforce that thinking.

   It’s not a wrong assumption at its face value, but it must be explored more in depth. Each channel must have a sales tracking mechanism in place in order to know for sure which channel accounts for a percentage of sales.

2. Have the basics of search engine optimization been implemented on your online catalog?
   If not, then of course, your printed catalog will perform better than the website. If search engine optimization has not been performed on your website, then the average amount of search traffic is about 20% of total visits, and 80% of that 20% is most likely branded searches for the company.

   Search Engine Optimization reverses the traffic sources from your website. It takes general product searches that result in visitors and increases it to 60%-80% of your traffic. The branded searches and other means of accessing the website actually slightly increase their levels, but get dwarfed by the incoming search traffic very quickly.

   Because of the increase of search traffic, sales from the website will increase, as should sales from every channel; call centers, catalog requests, and the catalog itself. This is where tracking is critical. Knowing the source of growth and action is vital to continuing marketing efforts.

3. The Internet is not a single channel.
   The internet is a broad term covering significant channels and it has changed the very definition of multi-channel to include: Organic Search, Paid Search, Shopping Search Engines, Email, Banner/Networks, Social Media, Online Public Relations, Link Building, Blogging, and more every day . . . .

   Tracking is vital again in order to understand the value of each channel. While some channels are more effective in providing a direct response for sales, others are just as vital in providing an accurate story of your company and product. Others are important simply for visibility, others for buzz.

4. The channel determines the motivation, expectation and the qualification level of the visitor.
   Segmenting the channel is important because the source determines the motivation and the behavior of the visitor. To treat all visitors to your website the same, regardless of HOW they got there is to ignore the individuality of the consumer and the method of which you acquired them.

   Expectations of the visitor are everything; understand what they expect and tuning the message to them is vital to convert them into a long-term customer. I am surprised by the amount of companies that do not start with the simplest of segmentation analytics just by channel. There is an immense amount of intelligence to be gathered, but just starting with the basics will provide a significant reward.

5. To quote a famous stand-up philosopher, the website gets no respect.
   I remember talking with one multi-channel manager, who took the website to an amazing 70% of sales revenue for the company. But as he asked me – “Do you think I can get even 50% of the marketing budget for the best performing channel in company history?” Here is the case where the tracking, search optimization, and marketing were all in place and humming along, but the majority of the budget still goes to print. Maybe because “it’s the way it has always been done”? I’m not sure, but history will have to answer that one.

   My guess? Print is tangible, and it wins awards, but the web will win sales.

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