Posts tagged as:

web metrics

Learn What’s Working On Your Site: Web Analytics Fundamentals

by Tim on February 2, 2012

If you’ve been following our Web Analytics Fundamentals series for the last week or so, you’ve learned some analytics basics, how to track traffic, the importance of segmentation, and easy ways to measure conversion.

Today we’re going to look at another big piece of the puzzle: evaluating what’s working on your site. Again, in keeping with the “quick ‘n’ dirty” focus of this series, we’re going to look at just one report. As ever, you can contact me if you’re interested in exploring this in more detail for your site.

What I’m about to show you is a piece of cake in Google Analytics, though you can easily accomplish the same thing using any tool.

First, pull up whichever report shows you the most visited pages on your site. In GA, that’s going to be under Content > Site Content &gt. Pages. Next change the View from Data to Comparison, as you can see in this screenshot:

Then, select Unique Pageviews and Bounce Rate from the drop-downs above the data to display a comparison of the most viewed pages and their bounce rate relative to your site average, like this:

As seen in the example, three of the six most visited pages on this site also have a bounce rate that’s higher than average. Follow our steps to fix your bounce rate on the pages that “light up” your comparison report and watch your business grow, simple as that.

Like this post? Don’t forget to check out the rest of our Web Analytics Fundamentals series here.

Are you getting enough value out of your small business website? Want to make sure your business makes the most of the local, mobile, social web? thinks helps you understand how to grow your business via the web, every day. Get more than just news. Get understanding. Add thinks to your feed reader today.

Or subscribe via email.

And while you’re at it, don’t forget to follow Tim on Twitter.

Tim Peter & Associates helps companies from startups to the Fortune 500 use the web to reach more customers, more effectively every day. Take a look and see how we can help you.

Technorati Tags: analytics, continuous improvement, conversion, conversion rate, conversion rate optimization, e-commerce, ecommerce, Google, Google Analytics, how to measure anything, internet business, internet marketing, landing page design, landing page optimization, marketing, marketing best practices, measurement, metrics, Omniture SiteCatalyst, page design, performance, testing, Webtrends

Tagged as: analysis, analytics, conversion, conversion rate, conversion rate optimization, google analytics, marketing 101, online marketing, web analytics, web management, web marketing, web metrics, web site analytics

{ 0 comments }

Semi-Deep Thoughts on Measuring Conversion: Web Analytics Fundamentals

by Tim on February 1, 2012

in E-commerce, analytics

Measuring conversion successfully Yesterday, as part of our Web Analytics Fundamentals series, we looked at best practices for tracking conversion. Today, we’re going to look into a couple of common (and one not-so-common) conversion questions.

Visits vs. Unique Visitors

Which is better for tracking conversions, visits or unique visitors? My typical answer to this question is, “Oy.” You’ll find out why in a second. But the simplest answer is: “It doesn’t matter. Pick one and stick with it.” I tend to like unique visitors over the typical purchase cycle time. Meaning, if your typical purchase cycle is 21 days, use monthly unique visitors; if your purchase cycle is 3 days, use weekly unique visitors. Here’s why.

Sounds easy enough. So, why is my typical answer “oy”?

Here’s why:

Neither metric tells the whole story. In my experience, unique visitors represent the reality of available opportunity better than visits but visits tend to offer a better leading indicator of purchase intent (due to what I call the “first conversion” effect). At the same time, I’ve never analyzed any data that shows either accounts for more than 50% of the conversion decision. Little things like price, your offer, site copy, etc. all play a big role, too. You can read the pros and cons of visits vs. unique visitors if you’re really curious. But, you’re better off just picking one and sticking with it.
Some analytics tools impose limits. I’m a big fan of Google Analytics. I don’t dispute it (you can read why I like GA so much here). But many of its reports only provide segments for visits. If you’re using GA, you’re somewhat forced into using visits by default. Omniture and Webtrends often require expensive add-ons to drill down on some data. If your tool pushes you in a specific direction, don’t fight it. You’re much better off learning its nuances and focusing on your business than wasting time fighting to get different data out of it. In other words, pick one and stick with it.
It’s a religious debate. Those who live for one insist that their way is best and rarely change their minds. Don’t waste your time on religious debates. You’re much better off if, instead, you—say it with me now—pick one and stick with it. Then use your segments and trends to improve your business.

Life’s too short—and business is hard enough—without getting into the weeds of these things too much. I guarantee you either measuring unique visitors or visits can help you grow your business equally effectively. If you’ve really reached the point where one makes a measurable difference to your business, give me a call. I’d love to hear what you’re doing.

Bouce Rate/Retained Visits

The second factor when analyzing conversion rate is the number of people who bounce from your site. Customers who bounce hurt your overall conversion rate and represent truly lost opportunity. Usually, I consider the available opportunity by subtracting converted visits from visits that didn’t bounce (i.e., “retained” visits). Few things will improve your conversion rate faster than improving your bounce rate. See this post learn how to calculate your retained visits. And when you’re ready to improve, check out this post on how to improve your bounce rate.

Returns and Cancellations

Finally, what about returns and cancellations? Should you factor those into your conversion rate?

I don’t think so. While returns and cancellations are, obviously, critically important from a business metrics perspective, I don’t believe they tell you very much about your e-commerce activities (though, one could argue that cancelled orders could be a sign that your customers found a alternative after they made the initial purchase from you).

It’s no secret I fall into the “precision, not accuracy” camp of web analytics. Conversion rate tells you how well your web site and marketing activities work to drive sales. Introducing cancels and returns into your web data, which tools such as Omniture SiteCatalyst can do, may confuse things more than it helps. As long as you know that “revenue” numbers in your analytics tool represent gross numbers, not net, you’re fine.

Or subscribe via email.

And while you’re at it, don’t forget to follow Tim on Twitter.

Tim Peter & Associates helps companies from startups to the Fortune 500 use the web to reach more customers, more effectively every day. Take a look and see how we can help you.

Technorati Tags: analytics, conversion, conversion rate, conversion rate optimization, E-commerce, e-commerce, ecommerce, Google, google, Google Analytics, how to measure anything, marketing best practices, measurement, metrics, Omniture SiteCatalyst, Webtrends

{ 0 comments }

Tracking Conversion: Web Analytics Fundamentals

by Tim on January 31, 2012

in E-commerce, Marketing, analytics

I’ve covered conversion rate in a competitive context in the past, but today I want to look at conversion on your site in more detail.

First, whenever you’re talking about conversion rate, you need to talk about what defines “conversion” for your business. As this series focuses solely on the most important metrics to determine how well your site and business perform, we’re only interested in conversion metrics that lead directly to—or themselves represent—meaningful business results.

Here are some examples from clients I’ve worked with:

Hotels: Reservations
Retail: Online sales
Restaurants: Reservations
Loyalty programs: Account sign-ups
Financial services: Accounts opened
Training services: Courses enrolled, courses completed
Franchisors: Leads
Wholesalers: Orders
Real estate: Leads

Configuring your specific analytics tool to track conversions is outside the scope of this post, other than to say it usually entails placing a “tag” (a small piece of Javascript code) on each web page in the transaction path. Sometimes IT requirements make that a little more onerous than it sounds. But, to be fair, your CEO usually holds those IT folks accountable for ensuring that transaction path stays up and running 24/7/365, so work with them. You’re all on the same team. If you need help getting your analytics configured, drop us a line.

In some cases, your existing shopping cart/booking engine/lead system/what-have-you won’t let you modify the analytics code to track conversions. In those cases, you can usually pass parameters through the transactions via a hidden field or some other such mechanism. Again, if you need help, contact me and let me know.

Once you’re tracking meaningful conversions, it’s usually easy to pull a report that shows you how many you’ve received over a given period. For instance, this is what it looks like in Google Analytics (we’re looking at a nine-week period):

As ever, we’re looking for anomalies, which makes that dip in the middle (around week 4)—or the spikes surrounding it—curious.

And this is where the segmentation we looked at yesterday offers so much value.

Our traffic segment report shows that we had a drop in referral and natural search traffic beginning in week 4 when sales dropped off:

Now, wouldn’t it be great if you could view your conversions the same way?

Actually, you can. Most tools allow for segmenting conversions the same as traffic (in particular, this is an area where Google Analytics really shines):

It’s clear by looking at the data that organic search and direct traffic provided the bulk of the conversions prior to week 4, but only organic search picked up again in week 8. As with the discussion yesterday, this level of data offers both insights and opportunities for improvement. Did the company end any off-site or other offline marketing during the same period as the decline? Did they change their email marketing pattern? Could we use paid media to offset the decline in direct conversions? Again, we’re looking for anomalies and using those to drive business decisions.

Another point worth mentioning is how segmentation aids our understanding of what’s going on with the site. Without segmentation, we see that there were roughly 8,700 visits and 154 transactions resulting in a 1.77% “conversion” rate. But, in reality, this is what conversion actually looked like:

Source	Conversions	Visits	Conversion Rate
Direct	38	1,594	2.38%
Organic search	57	2,462	2.32%
Paid search	22	1,692	1.30%
Referred	37	2,965	1.25%

Armed with this data, we’re immediately able to create action plans around each of these areas to drive increased traffic, increased sales, or both. It’s important to note that looking at data at this level also ignores multi-channel attribution.

But, the point isn’t to answer every question. It’s to get enough information to start making positive business decisions. Notice how quickly we’re able to make some decisions once we’ve got some trended, segmented traffic and sales data. In the spirit of fairness, I’ll take a look tomorrow at some of the nuances of conversion data worth thinking about. In the meantime, check out the rest of the Web Analytics Fundamentals series and start digging into your data. I guarantee that with only this level of information you can start making some seriously positive changes in your online marketing and e-commerce efforts.

Or subscribe via email.

And while you’re at it, don’t forget to follow Tim on Twitter.

Tim Peter & Associates helps companies from startups to the Fortune 500 use the web to reach more customers, more effectively every day. Take a look and see how we can help you.

Technorati Tags: analytics, attribution, attribution modeling, Avinash Kaushik, conversion, conversion rate, conversion rate optimization, E-commerce, e-commerce, Google Analytics, how to measure anything, integrated marketing, internet business, internet marketing, marketing, marketing best practices, measurement, metrics, Omniture SiteCatalyst, online marketing, performance, ppc, search, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, sem, seo, Webtrends