The official Google Analytics blog makes a great point about the importance of bounce rates to your marketing efforts. They are a simple enough metric that can be applied to nearly any kind of website.
It is a metric tailored especially for landing pages...where a high bounce rate can tell you almost as much as a defined conversion funnel.
If you need a resource for understanding which metrics provide the most insight, check out the new book
Web Analytics an Hour a Day.
If your site conversion rates are low, Bounce Rate can help you understand why. If your Bounce Rates are also low, your troubles are likely due to site design and usability issues. In this case, you might focus your efforts on streamlining your conversion funnel or making your site easier to navigate. But if your Bounce Rates are high, you can focus your efforts on redesigning entrance (landing pages), improving the quality of traffic to your site, and doing a better job of pairing landing pages with ads. |
I ran across this today and have to say that this is one of the funniest cartoons I have run across lately!
If you understand this comic all too well then I truly sympathize with you!
If you are a big analytics fan like I am you have to run over to Grokdotcom and view Bryan Eisenberg's interview with Avinash Kaushik. Its broken down to two podcasts that you can find here (1st) and here (2nd).
I was able to finish his book over my vacation and I am greatly impressed...there is not a better book on the topic, and I have read alot of books that cover web analytics (Jim Sterne's "Web Metrics" is another great read). But this one is by far the best of its class.
So forgive me if I sound like a broken record...but you must go out and buy his book. If you want to know exactly how I feel about his book you can read my amazon review.
Great job Avinash!
I have been evaluating a cool tool provided by VivAlytics for the Yahoo widgets desktop application.
Its pretty simple to get up and running. You just download the Yahoo Widget Engine and then download the VivAlytics Google Analytics Desktop Widget ...and after customizing the application to view the reports you want regular access to - Voila! You have all of your favorite metrics available to you right from the desktop.
If you dont want to get deluged with scheduled email reports and dont want to have to login to Google Analytics every time you want to recieve your favorite metrics then this little tool may be for you.
I actually found that the Yahoo Widget Engine 4.0 to be a very cool application and have found a number of tools that I am using it for so its worth checking out on its own. There are hundreds of widgets available for it and its increasing every day.If you take VivAlytics for a test drive let us know your experiences here!
I just received my pre-ordered copy of Web Analytics: An Hour a Day by Avinash Kaushik!
I just broke it open and will be frantically reading through it for the next day or so. I have been skimming the chapters already and it looks to be an outstanding read. I know it makes more sense to post about a book after you have read it - but this is one of those occasions where I have been eagerly anticipating its arrival since I am a frequent reader of his blog posts! Between this and Email Marketing by the Numbers, I am in heaven.
If the book is half as good as his blog then we will all be very informed!
Here it is...
If you logged into your Google account recently you saw a notice about Google Analytics undergoing a face lift. So I was pleasantly suprised when I logged into my account today and saw that my account had been migrated already and I was able to take it out for an initial test drive!
I have to say that I really love the new interface. Its much more intuitive and even simpler to use and understand than before...which was hard to do since it was already a pretty sleek and easy to use interface.
Here are the main improvements:
- Email and export reports: Schedule or send ad-hoc personalized report emails and export reports in PDF format.
- Custom Dashboard: No more digging through reports. Put all the information you need on a custom dashboard that you can email to others.
- Trend and Over-time Graph: Compare time periods and select date ranges without losing sight of long term trends.
- Contextual help tips: Context sensitive Help and Conversion University tips are available from every report.
I have to say that I really think the interface is a huge improvement in helping you find the information that is most important to you. Where you usually had to dig through to find the data - you are now able to get to it more quickly, save it, and share it.
So far I am very impressed. What do you think?
When I first started blogging I came across an analytics tool called Crazy Egg. I saw that it was free and decided to take it on a test drive. It has been almost 2 months now and I have to say that its a pretty neat tool and has some cool features - however because of its simplicity I would not use it as my lone solution for analytics.
Crazy Egg is marketed primarily as a testing tool. This can be misleading for those looking for a real testing solution ala Offermatica or Website Optimizer (Google's free tool). If you are looking for a way to do complex multivariate splits do not turn here - it does not handle content serving.
What Crazy Egg does allow you to do is to set up simple tests within the application where a specified number of visitors are tracked per page. Once that number of visitors is reached the test completes and stats are recorded for the test. The next step is to make a change to the page and run another test - typically with the same visitor count. This is supposed to provide insight as to what is working and what you may wish to change.
So if you want to conduct some simple(and manual) tests this tool will work fine.
Crazy Eggs biggest asset is that it is simple to follow for those who do better understanding visually (I am one of them). Crazy Egg has some unique features... the one that I found to be the most interesting is the heat map. It tracks where in a web page user clicks are being recorded and visually displays the results over the web page itself. This is rather interesting data and could be used to better understand your visitor behavior.
The biggest drawback for me is that you cannot use this tool with a true testing application. If you are using Google Website Optimizer doing concurrent split/multivariate tests then Crazy Egg is not useful. Crazy Egg does its tracking at the page level which gets muddy because it shares split level traffic and inconsistent page elements.
But I still like to use Crazy Egg in addition to other testing and analytics tools because of some of its unique features. And if you are new and interested in web page testing then this tool is a great place to start... it is both easy to implement and simple to understand.
Grade: B
Have your own thoughts or experiences with Crazy Egg? Share them!
Here they are from Avinash.
Normally I would make a crack when someone creates a top ten list where they put themselves at the #1 spot...but hey, the guy is an analytics guru!
# 1: Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik
# 2: Web Metrics Guru by Marshall Sponder
# 3: Google Analytics Blog by Jeff Gills
# 4: Web Analytics World by Manoj Jasra
# 5: Eric T. Peterson’s Analytics Weblog by Eric Peterson
# 6: Increasing your website’s conversion rate by Robbin Steif
# 7: Unofficial Google Analytics Blog by Michael Harrison
# 8: Lies, Damned Lies… by Ian Thomas
# 9: WebAnalytics.be Blog by Aurélie Pols
# 10: Web Analysis, Behavioral Targeting and Advertising by Anil Batra
Have fun!
Imagine if you knew when a major competitor came to your site and what pages they were spending all of their time on? Wouldn't it be great if you could catch the bastards spying on you?
I read a great post from the WebAnalytics.be blog that did a simple walk-through on how to do some pretty cool competitive analysis using Google Analytics.
This is a great idea if you are worried that you might have competition lurking in the weeds. Once you know a competitor (or multiple competitors) are eyeballing a particular product - you can begin asking yourself why. You may find that you can turn the insight into a competitive advantage...
Who doesnt like catching the competition with their pants down?
I have another post that has inspired me so I want to be sure to share it. Its a great article about how to approach dashboards. It's a great follow up to one of my previous posts.
What is addressed very eloquently is a 5 step approach to creating dashboards that are actionable.
- Benchmark & Segment
- Isolate Your Critical Few Metrics
- Don’t Stop at Metrics—Include Insights
- The Power of a Single Page
- Churn (and stay relevant)
You can
read the full article at Occam's Razor here.
I have seen a growing number of businesses drastically cutting or eliminating their search engine spending. This is mostly due to low conversion rates and the rising cost of keyword phrases...so marketers are looking into alternative ways to spend their advertising budgets.
This is ridiculous to me.
You cant blame anyone for a lack of conversion - this responsibility rests solely on the shoulders of the marketer. A poorly converting site will always be a poorly converting site.
I have heard the argument made about lead quality from Google going down as a retort. This is factually wrong since Google is spending all of its time making the results even more relevant. To single out Google or any search engine as becoming poor in lead quality is a cop out - the searchers habits didn't change overnight...it is more likely that the competition is heating up and why keyword phrases are getting more expensive.
Unfortunately alot of marketers have grown to view Google as a cash cow, and hold it to a different standard. The fact remains that Google provides a huge amount of traffic and for anyone to ignore it as a viable marketing channel is looking for the next cash cow instead of putting sound marketing practices into place.
What if you treated all marketing tactics that way? You would soon quit marketing all together.
The smart marketer will always be looking into ways to improve the channel. They will test combinations of ads, landing page layouts, keywords, messaging, offers, and audience segments. They will always be looking for ways to increase response while reducing the bottom line.
So if you find that you are contemplating getting out of search marketing - you might want to think twice about throwing in the towel. There are over a hundred million searches performed every day...do you want to give them all to your competition?
There was a great article posted by B2B that does an outstanding job of discussing Web 2.0 and I wanted to share it here. If you have time check it out - its a very good article.
Happy Marketing!
I was told once that there are “no new ideas, only new ways of presenting old ones". And the more I surf around the more that holds true...especially with blogging.
That doesn't discourage me because I take away much more from individual perspectives and experiences, as do most bloggers. I actually love the smaller blogs that are "finding their voice" much as I am doing here...they have some great perspectives that you wont find anywhere else.
But that being said, there are 3 that I visit every day - and you should too. These are the best blogs on marketing and provide plenty of info for the small business marketer.
1.GrokDotCom
If you are serious about web analytics (and you should be...) this is one of the best blogs on the internet. This is the home of Bryan and Jeffery Eisenberg - they are web analytics gurus and founders of the Web Analytics Association. I also highly recommend their book "Call to Action" it is a must read. If you visit this site only once in awhile you will come away a 10x smarter marketer.
2.SEO Moz
I am a junkie for all things search marketing and read many blogs on the topic - but this one is the standard bearer. If you are looking for ways to increase search traffic there are few things that these folks haven't tried and have all documented them here. If this isn't in your reader...it should be.
3.Marketing Sherpa
This is where serious marketers go. This blog is filled with success stories, case studies, whitepapers, manuals, surveys, studies, and analysis on every marketing topic and tactic that ever existed. Smart people learn from successful people - and this is where they go.
Honorable mention:
Forrester
I almost included it and made this a top 4 list - but decided against it. Some of us only have so much time in the day. So if your finding that you have a little extra time to devote swing by here for some of the best insight on marketing trends and analysis.
I have been testing this tool for a few months now and I am excited about its release to the public!
This finally brings sophisticated split and multivariate testing to the small business marketers that don't have the budget for an expensive tool like Offermatica. The beauty once again is that Google provides it for free.
My personal experience with it has been great.
The power of Website Optimizer tool is evident. It is very easy to set up simple test right away - it took me 30 minutes to get my first one set up. You can test simple page elements or entirely different layouts - the choices are entirely up to you. All that is required is a little knowledge of html and what makes sense to test. Everything is available to you - long term and short term tests, A/B splits, or large multivariate tests.
Once note: Some people may run into issues if they are running a fairly sophisticated content management system or don't have access to the back end. However this shouldn't hinder using it for landing pages unless they are tied to your CMS as well. Landing pages are arguably the most important pages of your site so it makes sense to begin there. Detach them and begin testing!
And for most websites the implementation will be simple across all of their web pages.
What is cool is that combined with Google Analytics, this is extremely powerful. Now you not only have a place to measure traffic in aggregate, but a easier way to do testing. No more having multiple landing pages to keep track of - just set up your tests and the data comes pouring in.
You will still need to know what to do with that data, however. Check out this post for a little help.
So with the launch of this new product you no longer have to spend thousands of dollars to compete. The playing field is leveling and the small business marketer can rejoice. Now its time to roll up your sleeves and get dirty with testing and analytics!
I am a firm believer in learning as much as you can about your customer by analyzing all of the data available to you. This allows marketers to make informed decisions that will ultimately build out a relationship with their customers based on mutual benefit. This is a win-win and is the only real way to achieve long term customer loyalty and build brand awareness.
But the question is when does it all get a little weird?
I was once charged with looking into a product that was able to cookie a person when they became a lead and then recorded all of their individual browsing behavior into the company CRM. So every time they came back to the site - the activity was recorded and sent to the appropriate sales person where they could act on the information.
But I was forced to ask - how?
I understand that it could help prod conversation without actually having to come right out and say
"Hey, I noticed that you looked at but didn't download that whitepaper - how come?!"
But it was still extremely creepy to me. How exactly was this really going to help the salesperson close the deal? What kind of risk does this pose if this method of tracking became public? How do you really make use of the data at the individual level?
I understand that there are B2B companies out there that have a very small and concentrated customer base where individual information is more meaningful than in aggregate - but it seems to me like spying on someone while they shower...i dont think just because you let them over to your house once that you gave permission for that level of access.
But maybe Im crazy! Let me know what YOU think.
I was reading an interesting Marketing Sherpa article that summarizes top marketers analytics frustrations and had a couple of thoughts.
Check out the article here...
The second frustration listed in the article discusses the wealth of information and how such a small amount of it is useful. This is the place where I think some SMBs gets overwhelmed.
The article goes on to discuss how Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) can help you decide what information is worth tracking and measuring. This is where the playing field levels considerably.
The truth is that you don't need a huge analytics platform to measure against most of your KPIs. If you understand what impacts visitor behavior and how you can measure that you are already half way home. Something as simple as "average depth of visit" can be a truly telling statement if you run an ecommerce website that has a defined purchase conversion funnel. If buying the red widget takes 5 steps to complete an order and your average depth of visit is 2 pages...you have a serious problem.
Its important to approach analytics in order...
- Do an audit of your business and revisit the goals you had for the website when you built it.
- Revisit that website RFP and proposal from when you had the website built. Are the business goals the same today as they were then?
- Spend concerted time understanding the website and the actual process of taking action.
- Its amazing how many SMB's don't actually know what is involved for their customers to take action on their website. Reintroduce yourself to your website and get familiar with how you expect your users to find and interact with it.
- Understand what impacts that behavior
- Is the online demonstration too long?
- Are there too many steps to purchase?
- Did search traffic lead to increased revenue?
- Open up your analytics tool and find the metrics that measure that behavior
- Time spent on page
- Average depth of visit, exit pages
- referrers
- Create dashboards that track those metrics
If you do any of this out of order - you might find that you are tracking things that aren't really actionable and therefore an inefficient use of your time. Spending time fully understanding your business and its online presence will make all the difference.
clipped from analytics.blogspot.com
