Analytics Insights

Tracking Referrals from Microsoft Bing

2009-06-12T15:59:00.000-07:00

On June 1st, Microsoft released Bing, the company’s next generation search engine and aspiring Google killer. Bing has gotten a lot of publicity lately and chances are, it may have referred a good piece of your website visitors already.

As a web analyst, you may be wondering what your Analytics vendor is doing to accommodate Bing and what steps you may need to take to update your search engine-related reports. I will try to answer those questions below.

If you are using a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution, your vendor may have already updated (or will soon be updating) their solution to accommodate this new search engine into their reports. If not, you will most likely need to perform an update to your software.

WebTrends On Demand customers have begun to see the changes on the date of the launch itself. If you are however using WebTrends Analytics on-premise software, you will need to run a browser and keywords updater, downloadable via the WebTrends Support site.
Omniture updated its collection of tools (SiteCatalyst, SearchCenter, Discover OnPremise) on June 3rd. You can check out Omniture's press release for more information.
Google is actively working on an update to recognize Bing in Google Analytics. In the meantime, you can customize your Google Analytics tracking code by adding the following line:

pageTracker._addOrganic("bing", "q");

Nestor Archival Jr.
Senior Analyst, Consulting Services
Stratigent, LLC

Educational Resources - As Promised

2009-06-11T11:07:00.000-07:00

I hope that you’ve been able to make it out to an OMS near you. I’ve had the pleasure of presenting in MN and ATL, and the crowds have been awesome! As part of my presentation, “Inside the Mind of an Analyst,” I promised to deliver a list of resources that you could use to educate yourself on Web Analytics. So, as promised, here is a list. I’d love for you to comment and add in other resources that I don’t have listed, and please contact me directly if you have any questions at all (bill@stratigent.com).

Books:

Web Analytics Demystified (http://bit.ly/11yceN) by Eric Peterson

The Big Book of KPIs (http://bit.ly/11yceN) by Eric Peterson

Web Analytics: An Hour A Day (http://bit.ly/G7G4m) by Avinash Kaushik

Yahoo! Web Analytics (http://bit.ly/9TIc2) by Dennis Mortensen

Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics (http://bit.ly/ah3ax) by Brian Clifton

Always Be Testing (http://bit.ly/33VUb) by Bryan Eisenberg

Call to Action (http://bit.ly/shNnt) by Bryan Eisenberg

Blogs:

http://analyticsinsightblog.stratigent.com/

http://blog.onlinemarketingconnect.com/

http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/

http://webanalyticsdemystified.com/wad-weblogs.asp

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

http://rich-page.com/

http://blog.webtrends.com/

http://www.omniture.com/en/resources/blogs

http://blog.coremetrics.com/

http://analytics.blogspot.com/

http://www.grokdotcom.com/

Help Forums/Developer Portals:

http://www.google.com/analytics/support_overview.html

http://developer.omniture.com/

http://developer.webtrends.com/community/developer/

http://groups.yahoo.com/phrase/webanalytics

http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/ywa/

http://www.twitter.com/ (Hashtags: #wa, #ga,#ya, #omniture, #webtrends, etc.)

Bill Bruno

VP, Business Development & Technology

Google Outage Proves the Importance of Page Tag Location

2009-05-21T17:33:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday's Google outage had a dramatic impact on more than just Google users. It was widely reported that the outage killed 5% of Internet traffic and prevented users from accessing popular services such as Gmail and YouTube. The less-reported aspect of the story is that the outage also impacted some websites using Google Analytics. During the outage, the visitors to those sites noticed distinctly slower-than-normal loading times.

The slow-loading websites problem was caused by the way that the Google Analytics tracking code was added to the site pages. The Google Analytics page tags are hosted on Google's servers, so if the tracking code was placed at the top of the HTML page, visitors experienced delays while the content below that code loaded.

There are risks and benefits with placing web analytics page tags near the top of the HTML code or near the bottom. Last week's outage highlighted the risk of placing the tag at the top. Because of this potential issue, Stratigent has generally recommended that the Google tracking code be placed at the bottom of the page, immediately before the tag. This ensures that visitors see your site content before the Google page tag is requested.

Although there are some exceptions, this best practice also applies to other page tag-based tools. There are rare cases when the data-collection servers for any web analytics tool are either down or slow. Putting the page tag code near the bottom of the page will prevent this from adversely affecting the visitor experience.

Nestor Archival Jr.
Senior Analyst, Consulting Services
Stratigent, LLC

Tracking 301 Redirects in WebTrends

2009-05-15T16:03:00.000-07:00

One way to track referrals from a 301 redirect is to append a URL parameter. However, if you use a question mark (?) to do so, you will create duplicate content issues that impact your search engine rankings. To solve this issue, use a hash (#) tag instead.

In WebTrends, tracking hash tags as part of the query string requires custom changes to the page tag.

CAUTION: Don't change your WebTrends page tags unless you are familiar with JavaScript and the WebTrends tracking code. Always perform testing of code changes before moving changes to production.

Old Tag Versions

For older tag versions (1.x.x), the following changes need to be performed on the wtinit.js and wtbase.js files.

(1) In the wtbase.js file, add and run a dcsHash() function that will parse “hash” parameter-value pairs. For each page tag call, dcsHash() is called if and only if the custom trackhashes variable is set to true (set in step 2).

(2) Add a line of code to the wtinit.js file that enables a flag needed in the tracking of “hash” parameters.

To turn off the tracking of hash parameters, you can set this.trackhashes to false.

New Tag Versions

Due to code structure changes in the most recent tag versions (8.x.x) created from WebTrends Tag Builder, there are slight differences to the way you should modify the new tags compared to the old ones. The following changes need to be performed on the inline code and webtrends.js file.

(1) In the WebTrends() function of the webtrends.js file, assign a default value of false to a custom trackhashes variable.

Note: Always set the trackhashes variable to false since this acts as a default value. If you want to enable the tracking of “hash” parameters and set this variable to true, do so in step 3 below.

(2) In the webtrends.js file, add and run a dcsHash() function that will parse the “hash” parameter-value pairs. For each page tag call, dcsHash() is called if and only if the custom trackhashes variable is set to true (set in step 3).

(3) In the inline code right before the _tag.dcsCollect(); line, set the trackhashes value to true to enable the “hash” tracking functionality.

To turn off tracking of “hash” parameters, you can set _tag.trackhashes to false.

When this has been completed, the WebTrends tag will treat the “hash” parameters as if they are regular query string parameters. You will then be able to use and report on the “hash” parameters as dimensions in custom reports.

Nestor Archival Jr.
Senior Analyst, Consulting Services
Stratigent, LLC

How to Use Fiddler with Firefox

2009-04-20T09:01:00.000-07:00

Ever wanted to do QA and use Fiddler for Firefox? Are you frustrated with having Firebug restrict viewing downloaded objects on a page-by-page basis? Do you want to see all the downloaded objects for an entire session in a single list in Fiddler?

If you happen to answer ‘yes’ to any question above, then do this:

1. Open Fiddler.

2. Open Firefox.

In Firefox, go to Tools > Options > Advanced.
Go to the Network tab, and click “Settings…”.
Change the Connection Settings and use the ones below:

Firefox traffic should then go through the Fiddler proxy, allowing the tool to capture your data. Once you are done, don’t forget to reset the proxy back to normal settings.

As an additional tip, you can download the Firefox “SwitchProxy” which allows you to configure different proxy setting profiles for easy proxy switching:

Nestor Archival Jr.
Senior Analyst, Consulting Services
Stratigent, LLC

WebTrends Releases Tag Builder v3.0 with a Slew of Improvements

2009-04-15T12:37:00.000-07:00

WebTrends Tag Builder 3.0 went live toward the end of March and presented the renewed panache and enthusiasm that has been building up in the WebTrends organization recently. On the v3.0 release, WebTrends Technical Support Manager Wayne Denman said, “This is the first time the general public gets to sample the flavor of our customer centric approach to building products and marks an especially important milestone for WebTrends.”

There have been several iterations of the tool from its May 2008 initial release, which I discussed in my previous Tag Builder post. Since this initial release, a lot of incremental improvements have been introduced. The said improvements have carried over to this newest release along with several new enhancements. Here are some of the most essential changes I have seen:

1. The TB interface underwent a facelift, now offering to “support a more usable, task-based workflow.” A simple yet elegant interface greets you when you visit the TB site. The tool cuts to the chase as Required Settings, the minimum configurations you need to supply to build a tag, have been emphasized while not undercutting the ability to supply Additional Options when needed. Additionally, highlighted contextual help appears when you hover over each of the settings.

2. TB implemented an improved and dynamic field validation system. Error messages are clear and provide valuable context. It notifies you when you forget to enter a value on a required field or when you enter an invalid value. It even requires you to enter the correct DCSID format (dcsxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_xxxx).

3. TB provided support for other existing tagging technologies, namely WebTrends Ad Director and Quantcast. To enable the tag integrations, you will need to enter your customer IDs for the said technologies.

4. TB incorporated a more comprehensive Help section that caters to each and every configuration setting available in the tool. As a plus, Help shows up as a convenient AJAX popup that can easily be closed by hitting the “Esc” key on your keyboard or clicking on “close.”

5. TB resolved several minor quirks, including but not limited to removing case-sensitivity requirements for file download extensions (i.e. exe, pdf, doc, etc) and META tag name prefixes (i.e. WT, DCS, and DCSext), and correctly tracking Silverlight 2.0.

Note: For a complete list of changes, refer to the Tag Builder Release Notes. Additionally, refer to the WebTrends Blog for an introduction to the new Tag Builder design.

Needless to say, I am very excited for how the newest version of the ever-evolving Tag Builder turned out. I am also very thrilled for our WebTrends clients who are now able to utilize the newest Tag Builder in their tagging implementation efforts, basic or advanced. As someone who has performed several tagging implementations in the past, I highly recommend Tag Builder v3.0 for its great usability, outstanding flexibility, and its up-to-date improvements to a robust tagging code structure.

Nestor Archival Jr.
Senior Analyst, Consulting Services
Stratigent, LLC

Google Analytics and Stratigent Co-host Web Analytics Wednesday

2009-04-14T14:01:00.000-07:00

Web Analytics Wednesday is the world's largest social network for web analytics professionals. Join Stratigent and Google for an evening of networking, and a presentation on best practices and real world examples for efficiently gaining actionable insights from your web analytics data. When you arrive, please tell the person at the security desk that you are here for Web Analytics Wednesday, and they will let you up to the 17th floor.

Host: Kristen Nomura (Email)

Date: Wednesday, May 20, 2009 at 6:00 PM

Venue:Google Chicago

Address: 20 W. Kinzie Street, 17th Floor, Chicago IL (Venue | Map | Group)

Sponsor: Event sponsored by Stratigent and Google

To Register Please visit: http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com/wednesday/index.asp?event_id=2782

Upcoming Webcast

2009-01-30T11:47:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post today to let everybody know about a webcast that I will be doing for the WAA with Akin Arikan and Bryan Eisenberg on testing and how to build a testing program within your organization.

Below is a synopsis of the webinar and registration information. We hope you can join us for this educational event!

Testing, testing, testing. Anybody can test. So why don't you?

Join us on February 5 at 11am CST for a WAA webcast on testing and optimization best practices. While digging for nuggets of insight in web analytics is one method of finding gold, the mainstream method is to improve success rates by testing alternative layouts, content, offers, ads, etc. and picking the winners. There are so many ways that web marketers can go after testing today. You can do it yourself. You can use free test automation solutions and of course high-end multivariate testing solutions. There are ups and downs to each approach. Which approach is right for you and how do you get off the couch and into the trenches now?

Join a renowned panel including Akin Arikan from Unica, Bryan Eisenberg from FutureNow, Inc. and Josh Manion of Stratigent for an insightful discussion and join in with your own questions to the panel! For more information, or to register, please visit: http://register.webcastgroup.com/event/?wid=0840205094502.

Josh Manion
Chief Executive Officer
Stratigent, LLC

Stratigent Announces 2009 Workshop Series Locations

2009-01-09T15:21:00.000-08:00

Beginning February 10th, 2009, Stratigent will be expanding its popular Pimp Your Reports: Executive Dashboards & Reports workshop series to become a six-city nationwide tour. Stops will include the following cities and dates:

· Washington, DC, February 10th
· Los Angeles, CA, March 10th
· Minneapolis, MN, April 14th
· Orlando, FL, May 12th
· New York City, NY, June 16th
· Seattle, WA, July 14th

This hands-on workshop will be led by Jennifer Veesenmeyer, a senior consultant at Stratigent and one of the highest-ranked speakers of the eMetrics conference. Participants will learn how to create reports that engage executives and drive action. Topics include KPI definition, meaningful visualizations, concise messaging, dashboard design and more.

For more information, or to register to attend, please visit http://www.stratigent.com/news-and-events/pimp_your_reports/default.html.

Pimp Your Reports Workshop Series Announced

2008-11-17T13:48:00.000-08:00

Reports are the primary way we share web insight throughout our organizations. Unfortunately, they can be very time consuming, and in many cases, no one reads them anyway.

However, great reports can be a powerful tool to help you move your organization forward. So, learn how to create great dashboards and executive reports, by participating in a day-long workshop led by Jennifer Veesenmeyer.

Beginning in December, Jennifer will be leading a series of workshops called Pimp Your Reports: Dashboards & Executive Reports. This hands-on workshop will cover best practices in dashboard design, meaningful visualization, concise messaging, and more. Participants who bring a sample dashboard or executive report to the workshop will also receive feedback on how to improve it.

The first workshop will be held in Chicago on December 10. Additional times and locations will be announced soon.

Register before November 27th for the Chicago workshop to receive a $100 discount on your registration at http://www.stratigent.com/news-and-events/pimp_your_reports/default.html.

Learn how to get one view of your customer at WebTrends Connect 2008

2008-11-03T12:28:00.000-08:00

Throughout the month of November, Stratigent will be speaking at the WebTrends Connect Seminar Series. The free, half-day seminars are scheduled for 7 cities throughout the US. For a detailed list of locations, the agenda, or to register, visit the WebTrends Connect website.

The goal of these seminars is to show you how to go beyond basic web analytics to extend the power of analytics throughout your organization using open, platform-agnostic technologies. You will also learn how to:

• Maximize your investment in the marketing technologies you already have in place.

• Assemble best-of-breed analytics solutions based on your organization's requirements and resources.

• Create unique Key Performance Indicators that help turn web analytics into a comprehensive strategic plan for your organization.

• Determine when to use in-house vs. outside services for your implementation and optimization needs.

Stratigent’s Bill Bruno is pleased to be able to provide his insights into these topics based on years of client experience. We hope you will be able to join us at the city nearest you!

eMetrics DC - The Place to Geek Out!

2008-10-30T07:59:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Jim Sterne and the eMetrics crew for another great Marketing Optimization Summit. The keynote speakers were some of the best that I’ve seen – James Robinson from The New York Times, Mike Marvel from Home Depot, Joe Megibow from Hotels.com and Kim Johnston from Symantec.

Most of the sessions I attended were good, but in my opinion the best sessions were before the conference at Industry Insights Day. Here are a few highlights:

Joel Book from ExactTarget talked about the future of email marketing. One of his points was about the changing definition of SPAM. He cited a MarketingSherpa research report that:

(a) 56% of consumers consider messages from known senders to be SPAM if the email isn’t interesting;

(b) 50% consider emails sent from known senders to be SPAM if they’re sent too frequently;

(c) 48% of those surveyed said that they’re using the “report spam” button for reasons other than to report unsolicited email.

This drove home the point that we will need to be increasingly more sophisticated in how we create relevant messaging.

Bob Page from Yahoo! talked about how Yahoo! makes their data actionable. The most interesting point was about how they build user profiles and how they use those profiles to provide targeted messages. He also talked about a couple of advanced KPIs including “User Value” and “Search Lift” (the latter is a way of measuring brand engagement.)

Pat LaPointe from MarketingNPV had an interesting presentation about the similarities between measuring offline and online marketing. He had a great model for how marketing programs evolve that he called the “Ladder of Insight.”

Matt Cutler from Visible Measures had a couple of case studies in which VM tracked the full reach of viral videos. By full reach, I mean that in addition to providing video metrics for the videos on your own site, VM can track when your videos are played across a dozen video sharing sites (even when your videos have been modified or spoofed.) Stratigent has partnered with Visible Measures on some key accounts so I was already familiar with the technology, but many people in the audience hadn’t seen it before, so it was entertaining to see jaws drop.

Outside the sessions, there were a lot of good discussions in the Lobby Bar about the implication of the new Google Analytics API and (anecdotally) where we are seeing companies get traction with their web analytics programs.

As always, eMetrics is a great place to geek out. I ’m looking forward to the next Summit in May. Rumor has it that it will be held in San Jose rather than San Francisco, but there are no details posted yet.

Jennifer Veesenmeyer
Manager, Consulting Services
Stratigent, LLC

Web Analytics Wednesday Recap

2008-10-13T08:52:00.000-07:00

We had a great turn out at our WAW event last Wednesday in Saint Paul at Dixie’s on Grand, thanks to everyone who attended and to WebTrends, our sponsor! It was definitely a successful and fun evening, attended by a good mix of people representing many disciplines including search marketing, customer experience, marketing consulting, web development, and of course, web analytics.

Topics of discussion included Eric Peterson’s recent white paper on Visitor Engagement, using Google Site Optimizer, creating custom WebTrends reports, report automation, and a host of other related subjects.

There was also a lot of interest in having additional events in the Minnesota area, possibly quarterly with the next one in late January. I have set up a LinkedIn Group that we will use to notify every one of these future events. If you’re interested, be sure to join the group. Thanks again to everyone who made this a successful event, and we look forward to seeing you at future ones!

Jennifer Veesenmeyer
Manager, Consulting Services
Stratigent, LLC

Subscribers Rule!

2008-10-02T09:21:00.000-07:00

Last week, Stratigent attended ExactTarget’s Annual User Conference in Indianapolis. On all levels, it was a fabulous show – great attendance, great sessions, and amazing evening events – the highlight was a tour of the Indianapolis Colts’ new football field, Lucas Oil Stadium, and an appearance by Colts head coach Tony Dungy. All in all, a job well done by the entire ExactTarget team!

One of the most insightful sessions of the week was called the “The Triangle Offense of One-to-One Marketing” – a fitting headline in the land of Hoosiers. In the session, ExactTarget explained how the use of CRM data and web analytics data drive successful e-mail marketing programs. The stakes are high in this economic environment when every marketing dollar spent must be justified and proven. When done right, e-mail marketing returns $45 for every dollar spent, much higher than other online marketing programs.

Integrating web analytics data into your e-mail marketing program is an important tactic for keeping your customers engaged with your business. As we mentioned in last week’s blog post Does your e-mail marketing make the grade?, website click stream data provides key insights into visitor behavior on your site. That data, in turn, can be used to create more relevant campaigns that result in better response rates and conversions. And over the long-term, more targeted e-mail campaigns help you stay connected with your customers.

So what do we mean by integration? Most often, companies use analytics data to send triggered emails initiated by a customer action or event. Examples of the most common trigger e-mails include the following:

Cart-Abandonment E-mails. Re-connect with customers that have left products in their shopping carts.
Customer Service E-mails. Follow up with customers if they have visited the customer service section of your website or made other inquiries related to their experience with your business.

With $45 returned for every dollar spent, it’s not hard to see why companies are embracing email marketing. But, as ExactTarget demonstrated last week, you don’t get that kind of return if your email campaigns are not tailored to the right audience or the right segment of your audience. Using web analytics data to power your email marketing programs is the key to helping you succeed.

Does your e-mail marketing make the grade?

2008-09-18T08:40:00.000-07:00

Next week, Stratigent will be participating in Exact Target’s Connections '08 Conference in Indianapolis. Last year’s conference was a big success, so naturally we are looking forward to it again. If you haven’t checked out the agenda or registered to attend, take a few minutes to do so now.

The conference reminded us that now is a good time to bring out our 5-point checklist to grade the health of your e-mail marketing program. Our checklist focuses on the intersection of e-mail marketing, web analytics, testing and CRM data with the goal of helping you deliver more relevant and tailored e-mails to different segments of your audience.

Consider these questions to find out if your e-mail marketing program is as productive as possible in growing your business.

Collecting data about your visitors. While not the most glamorous work, proper page tagging, campaign tracking standards, and report configuration are essential for tracking visitors from click to conversion. This data provides the foundation for all of your customer analysis. If it’s not configured correctly – that is, to provide answers to the questions you’re asking - it won’t help you much down the road.
Capturing website click stream data. Click stream data provides key insights into how visitors are behaving on your site. That data, in turn, can be used to create more relevant campaigns that result in better response rates and conversions. Obviously, you want to do everything in your power to turn an email campaign into actual revenue, and this can help.
Improving e-mail effectiveness with CRM data. Are you integrating offline customer purchase behavior with online behavior? If so, you know this too can help you deliver highly targeted, personalized e-mails to previous customers.
Selling what you have. You might be doing everything right in your e-mail marketing program, but what happens if you are promoting a product that isn’t in stock or available to customers? Integrating inventory levels into e-mail marketing programs is necessary for avoiding the dreaded out-of-stock dilemma and customer dissatisfaction.
Performing A/B and Multi-variable Tests. Do you change the content and copy of your e-mails? Are you performing A/B and multivariate tests on your landing pages and other heavily trafficked pages on your site? Testing isn’t a hassle – it’s a process and an opportunity to test specific messages to different segments of your audience.

Email programs can successfully bring visitors to your site and ultimately convert them into customers. By using web analytics to optimize the email message, timing, landing page, and other key points along the conversion funnel, you can make it easier for your organization to increase conversion rates and improve the ROI of your email marketing program. For more information about Stratigent’s 5-point checklist for effective email marketing, contact us.

WebTrends Tag Builder is a Must

2008-09-08T09:36:00.000-07:00

WebTrends recently released Tag Builder, a dynamic online tool used in creating advanced base tags for your site. Tag Builder produces a much improved set of tags from the one generated by the WebTrends user interface.

For starters, the Tag Builder uses a cleaner code structure that employs a single function to store global variables. Consequently, a lot of the configurable components (i.e. DCS ID, timezone, first-party cookie domain, etc.) are declared at the top in the global function, making it easier to make necessary changes before deployment. Most importantly, Tag Builder has the ability to create more advanced custom code that subsequently produces more meaningful reports tailored to your type of site.

A few of Tag Builder’s features include:

The option to use a single first-party cookie or multiple-first cookies for your subdomains
Automated click event tracking for download links, off-site links, and form buttons
The ability to specify single or multiple on-site domains
Tracking by navigational area (through DIV or TABLE tags)
Usage of a separate DCS IDs based on domain(s)
Capturing custom META tags
Configuration for use with WebTrends Dynamic Search.

Along with the Tag Builder tags, the tool also outputs an XML configuration file to store Tag Builder configurations. You can upload a configuration file to Tag Builder and it will remember all the configurations performed as specified in the file. This feature also makes it easier to keep track of different tag versions that you apply to your site over time.

Overall, the Tag Builder is a nifty tool that you should consider keeping in your WebTrends toolbox.

Nestor Archival, Jr.
Senior Analyst
Stratigent, LLC

My Data Doesn’t Match!

2008-09-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

As you track your web initiatives, think about how much time you spend reconciling or explaining the differences between the numbers contained within your web analytics platform and other data sources (i.e. paid search, offline data, etc.) in a given week. Extending that across an entire year, my guess is that you spend a large percentage of your time going to bat for the validity of your data.

All of the data you are collecting exists for one reason: to provide you with the insights needed to drive the optimization of your web presence and online marketing programs. However, you can’t harness that value until you can trust the data and get past the hurdle of having numbers that just don’t match.

So here is my question to you: Does the data across your data sources need to match? The answer is “It depends.” It depends on how you are planning to use the datasets and who the intended audience is for the reporting and analysis that you provide. In the online world alone, each dataset collects and presents information in a different way. As a result, numbers generally aren’t going to match 100%. However, your offline transaction data with your analytics transaction data should match without question. So, there is a use case and scenario for each dataset which generally aligns across the visitor lifecycle. Here at Stratigent, we generally analyze the visitor lifecycle across the following stages:

Reach
Acquire
Engage
Convert
Retain

You need to determine which datasets, or integrated datasets, you are going to use to address each of the above stages. For example, you might use your analytics package for the last three. If that is the case, then don’t use the reporting in your other datasets to address those areas. If you only configure the reporting to address the predetermined use cases you can avoid many of the fire drills that companies face today.

Now, having a strategy in place for the datasets is only half the battle. The other obstacle that lies ahead deals with establishing confidence in each of your datasets. To clarify a bit further, let me ask the following question:

“Are you confident that your company’s data collection process delivers accurate and complete datasets?”

Chances are, you are not entirely confident in the data you are collecting, and you are definitely not alone in that sentiment. Establishing confidence allows you to use the data to make business decisions, which will ultimately enhance the visitor experience on the web for your customers.

How do you establish this confidence? Here’s a short list of areas to assess:

Is every page on your website tagged properly?
Are your campaigns tracked properly?
Are the appropriate filters in place to cleanse the data?
Do you understand the different ways data is being collected by these systems?
Are the reports configured correctly?
Have you established a use case for each dataset?
Are your business requirements being answered?
Have you adopted analytics into your business processes?

When dealing with multiple systems, you will never be able to get the numbers to match. I’m sorry to break that to you, but only concern yourself with what you can actually control. That is, validate that you have everything set up correctly and establish a solid foundation for your online efforts. If you can get there, you’ll be ready to spend much more of your time each year being proactive with your data. Your customers will thank you.

Bill Bruno
Principal
Stratigent, LLC

The Rise of Video Analytics

2008-08-25T10:20:00.000-07:00

Marketers have fallen in love with online video as the newest advertising medium. And while it is projected to drive huge growth in this area during the coming years, the industry currently lacks proven best practices for measuring online videos, a critical step for proving the overall value of online video.

In our recent newsletter, we discussed the types of KPIs needed for taking action on video analytics (Basic, Engagement and Distribution) and the analytics tools used to measure video.

I would like to hear from you about what approaches have been used to make video analytics actionable for your organization. Please take a moment to participate in a brief survey about the type of video analytics tools you use and the KPI’s that you have found most actionable. I will reveal the findings in a future blog post.

Josh Manion
Chief Executive Officer
Stratigent, LLC

8.8.08 Catching the Olympic Spirit – It isn’t just web analytics any more, it’s marketing

2008-08-08T08:10:00.000-07:00

Two noteworthy items hit the press recently – both involving the role of web analytics in tracking and measuring Olympic coverage online. Web analytics has clearly become an integral function within the marketing department.

The first article, from the Wall Street Journal, discusses NBC’s strategy for demonstrating that the $894 million spend on the Olympics was a wise decision. NBC is pursuing an ambitious plan to publish a daily Total Audience Measurement Index (TAMI) which measures viewership across NBC’s entire channel for delivering Olympic coverage. This includes television, online, mobile and video on demand content. Omniture, a long-time Stratigent partner, will be providing the web analytics portion of the measurement.

While all the advertisement spots for this year’s Olympics have been sold, the information gathered will be used to negotiate ads for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

In another recent press release, China Central TV announced they will be using WebTrends to track their online video and other web content during CCTV.com’s extensive coverage of the games. Their goal is to offer customized content for a more relevant and engaging experience. For example, viewers receive highlights or scores of their preferred sporting events throughout the games as well as notifications of upcoming events. This is the third year that WebTrends, another member of the Stratigent partner network, has supported the Olympics’ efforts through the use of their solutions.

The articles show how web analytics, when integrated with other marketing functions, provide the data necessary for making better, more informed decisions. Share with us your story on how web analytics is changing your business or is becoming an everyday part of measuring your success.

Check Out the Online Marketing Summit (OMS)

2008-07-21T10:00:00.000-07:00

The Online Marketing Summit (http://www.onlinemarketingsummit.com/) is a great conference put together by Aaron Kahlow, an expert in online marketing and a good friend of mine. I’ve had the pleasure of presenting alongside him in the city tour last summer, and at the big conference in San Diego this year. This year, we will be presenting in 4 cities on this summer’s tour.

If you’re a marketer looking for some insight without all of the vendor sales pitches, then this is your conference. As a presenter, the crowd is allowed to “boo” if you try to sell them during your presentation. The conference is designed to create an environment focused purely on education. It is well run and managed. And networking opportunities are probably the best of any conferences I have attended.

If you get the chance, check out their website and the schedule and sign up for one of the cities to see for yourself. Enter in STRAT10 on the registration page for the Discount Code.

Bill Bruno
Principal
Stratigent, LLC

Welcome to Analytics Insights!

2008-07-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

For awhile now, many of our clients and industry friends such as Eric Peterson and Avinash have asked us to share our web analytics experiences through a Stratigent blog. While the growth of the web analytics industry has kept us plenty busy (just like many of you) we have been looking forward to introducing the Analytics Insights Blog from Stratigent.

Our Analytics Insights Blog, written for the web analytics professional, provides best practices for building a culture of analytics and testing within your organization. Many of the blog posts will be “how-to” in nature aimed at solving the typical web analytics challenges we see every day. Additionally, we’ll also offer our perspective on major industry events and the ever-changing landscape of web analytics and digital marketing. Analytics Insights will be updated weekly.

We continue to offer our popular monthly newsletter, WebSight. Written for both the web analytics and digital marketing professional, it provides detailed discussions on best practices, emerging trends, and the latest technologies. Sign-up for WebSight today!

If you have any comments or if you’d like us to discuss a particular topic, feel free to contact me at Josh.manion@stratigent.com.

Again, Welcome to Analytics Insights!

Josh Manion
Chief Executive Officer
Stratigent, LLC