Online Competitive Analytics in Macquarie

University

Eliud Carrera41641701

Supervisor: Deborah RichardsClient: Gary Lau

Outline» INTRODUCTION

» MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY SNAPSHOT

» WEB ANALYTICS ˃ RANKING AND TRACKING

SYSTEMS

» METRICS TRACKING SOLUTION˃ METRICS˃ DATA SOURCES

˃ BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE TOOL

» RESULTS – DEMO˃ DASHBOARD DESIGN

» FUTURE WORK & CONCLUSION

Introduction» “Users prefer to use Web-based services that are

already adopted by the wider community and that are free, robust, simple to sign on to, and easy to install and use.” (Hunter, 2009)

» Published by Sydney University:˃ 86% of future undergraduate students will visit the web page to find out

about the university

˃ 63% of postgraduate student said the website to be the most important

source of information (Clements, 2011)

Introduction» Web strategy is the translation of organizational

objectives and values into high-level management directives for the web

˃ University of Sydney˃ University York˃ Princeton University˃ Durham University˃ Glasgow University˃ ……..˃ Macquarie University

Introduction» HOW DO A UNIVERSITY IS ABLE TO TRACK THE

SUCCESS OF ONLINE TOOLS AND STRATEGIES?

» HOW DO THEY MAP TO UNIVERSITY-WIDE STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES?

“Web analytics is the practice of measuring, collecting,

analysing and reporting on Internet data for the purposes of understanding how a site is used by its audience and how

to optimise its usage.”

Web Analytics Association

MQ Snapshot» Macquarie University is presented with a big

challenge regarding the tracking and measurement of the effects of online marketing on the actual business success indicators.

» The lack of different metrics, a sound strategy, and the knowledge of the effect that this has in other business decisions is of concern

MQ Snapshot» Luke Williams, Online Marketing

Manager

» George Hernandez, Marketing Communications Coordinator (MQ International)

» PhD Neil Fraser, Director of Information

MQ Snapshot» Luke Williams

˃ “[…] measuring sites that Macquarie controls and produce one simple metric to decide whether we are performing well or not is the priority of Online Marketing […]”

» George Hernandez

˃ The different behaviour of the international market requires a different approach in how to track success

» PhD Neil Fraser, Director of Information

˃ Fulfill unique challenges and needs such as breakdown information in to International, domestic, internal and external, in order to gather actionable insight

MQ Snapshot» Online Marketing

˃ Use of Google Analytics to track simple metrics˃ There is no conversion tracking˃ Metrics generate a single number without real strategic support…

˃ Unified Tracking Profile…..the future?

» Macquarie International

˃ Heavy use of Google Analytics (Goal Tracking, Ad tracking)˃ Use of other sources of data eg. Customer Relationship Manager Vendor controls enquiries data˃ Tracking of directed and short term campaigns, highly focused on location

» Macquarie Analytics˃ Sentiment analysis˃ External vs. Internal˃ Use of current Business Intelligence Tool to provide actionable insights

Web Analytics» User-centric approach

˃ User installed software that tracks behavior˃ Provides poor demographics, given small population sizes˃ Hard to know the precise origin and size of the sample

» Website-centric approach˃ Tracks behavior attached to a particular website with the use of inserted code, cookies, etc.˃ More reliable regarding demographics˃ Requires management from website owner

» Network-centric approach˃ Data collected at the Internet Service Provider level. ˃ Generates bias due to poor demographics representation

Web AnalyticsProperties Compete Alexa Quantcast ComScore Google Analytics

Established 2000 1996 2006 1999 2005

Price Average Very high Average Average FREE

Type of data Clickstream Clickstream Tags/ Tracking Code Clickstream Tags/ Tracking Code

Unique visitor estimates Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

How they get data Panel and ISP Panel Cookies and couples machine learning with massive quantities of directly measured data

Panel Code insertion in HTML (Website-centric)

Normalisation methodology Multi-dimesnional scaling (age, Income, Gender, Location)

Not normalised Not normalised Normalised Not Normalized

Sample size 2 million 1 million 80,000 2 million Depends on traffic

Dependence on own toolbar ISP’s, Compete Toolbar, Opt-in panels, ASPs

Alexa Toolbars Comscore Research panels No

Trend analysis Very good Good NA NA Very good

Internal / External Internal/ External Internal/ External Internal/ External Internal/ External Internal/ Internet

Focus Keywords/Stats/ Referral Sites

Stats/ Demographics Demographics Stats/ Demographics Stats/ Demographics/ Keywords

Geographic Limitation US US with plans to develop outside US

International International Depends on traffic

Reporting Timeframes Monthly Daily NA NA Daily

Web Analytics» Top 8 metrics:

˃ Visits ˃ Visitors ˃ Time on pages˃ Time on site˃ Bounce Rate˃ Exit Rate˃ Conversion Rate˃ Engagement

“Google, and Google alone, has the power to offer truly accurate traffic information across a large portion of the web.”

Kincaid (2008)

Solution» Data Sources

˃ Google analytics accounts for:+ mq.edu.au+ International.mq.edu.au

˃ DB Tables:+ Visitors+ Location+ Landing Pages+ Exits+ Goals+ Search

Solution» Business intelligence tool : DATAMART

˃ Datamart is a Macquarie University product for data analytics, reporting and collaboration to improve precision, alignment and accuracy. It delivers trustworthy information to its users whenever they want it, however they like it, whenever they you need it.

Results - Demo

Results» Visibility of all the data merged together with aggregated analysis

» Allows separate business units to work together to drive change, sharing the same target metrics and KPI’s

» Unified single source for data consumption

» Provides the delivery of analytic reports, with the capability to customize and tailor the requirements to specific strategies

» Allows business stakeholders to focus on how to act on the data rather than how to generate it

» Streamlines the overall online marketing process for both Macquarie International and Online Marketing

» A proof of concept that is scalable to the point of incorporating other data sources like external analytic tools, data gathered by vendors, etc.

» Capabilities to present targeted measures to executives in order to provide performance indicators

Future Work» Relate current results with results from the Unified Tracking Profile

undertaken by Online Marketing

» Business units to move from basic metrics to strategic metrics, like conversions

» Develop a student behaviour based framework that will provide an overview of the cycle of interaction between students and Macquarie Universities website. It can be derived from insights gathered from basic metrics.

» Research on different sources for Analytics, like Social Media, in order to incorporate into analytical reporting.

» Develop an internal and external view of Macquarie University online.

» Map Web Analytics variables to general strategic KPI’s and processes

Conclusion» Web Analytics for Higher Education is not a straight forward process

» However, has to start with the basics

» Requires business stakeholder buy-in and collaboration

» Requires understanding of the strategic objectives that executives are trying to accomplish

» In Higher Education, interaction goes beyond a simple application submitted online. The range of services provided is extensive. Different points to measure performance need to be identified.

» An overall WEB STRATEGY needs to drive the requirements for Web Analytics in order to provide a unified experience, and therefore, a unified metric profile.

Questions