April 2010

Using web metrics to improve your site A presentation for Liberty Hill Foundation

Dana Chinn

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• What’s noise vs. signals

• Questions to ask of your data

What data will give you answers

• Understanding web metrics

• Deciding which metrics to use, what your site needs to have

www.slideshare.net/danachinn@danachinn

3--The ”famous metrics” term comes from web analytics guru Avinash Kaushik

“After the disaster in Haiti, [our site] hit

168.6 million pageviews in the month of January. A new record.”

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web analysis usually starts here...

...and ends here

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• Panel dataActivity from a sample of self-selected people. Only total site data for a limited number of sites.

• Marketing, trending, external comparisons

• comScoreNielsenCompeteetc.

• Interactive Advertising Bureau

Decision-making Advertising, marketing

Internal vs. external metrics

• Census data100% of all visitors, visits, page views for all sections

• Analysis, decisions, actions, evaluation

• OmnitureGoogle AnalyticsWebTrendsetc.

• Web Analytics Association

Noise:

Signals:

Recognizing the signals amid the noise

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Everything, every one, every second of every day

Metrics you select for decision-making

-- Mark Smiciklas, IntersectionConsulting.com

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Only look at the signals you need

• How your site traffic changes due to external eventsso you can determine whether your actions made a difference (or not)

• Whether your actions led to the results that you anticipated

You need to know

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What people do (behavioral)

Who they are, what they think (attitudinal)

Two types of web metrics

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Unique visitors

visit websites,

generate page views.

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A “unique visitor” is actually a “unique computer”

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Work

Home

Hotel

= 3 unique visitors

Unique visitors may be over- or undercounted

= 3 unique visitors

Work

= 1 unique visitor

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YouYour Data

Questions to ask your data

Did people visit our site more than once last week?

Was this more or less than previously?If more, was it due to an outside event, OR

was it something we did?

If less, was there a holiday, ORdid we not do something?

Was the increase as much as expected?

Was the drop as much as anticipated?

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visits per unique visitor

Did people visit our site more than once last week?

For every question...

...there’s an answer hiding in Google Analytics...

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...but you have to gopast the Dashboard...

visits per unique visitor

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default report shows a 5-week period

Use weekly metrics, full-week time periodsso you can identify unusual movement quickly

...change the time period, and customize the reports for your decisions

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On average, last week, how many stories did people see with each visit?

Did most visits come from returning visitors OR new ones?

Are we hooking in new visitors?

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page views per visit

On average, last week, how many stories did people see with each visit? Are we hooking in new visitors?

percent of visits from new visitors page views per new-visitor visit

percent of visits from returning visitors page views per returning-visitor visit

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When someone came to our site, what was the first page they saw?

Did they leave immediately when they saw it?

Did new visitors leave more than returning ones?

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When someone came to our site, what was the first page they saw? Did they leave immediately?

bounce rate of the page where people enter your site most often

1. Overall 2. Visits from new unique visitors3. Visits from returning unique visitors

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Source: “Can CNN, the Go-To Site, Get You to Stay?” by Brian Stetler, New York Times, Jan. 17, 2009

Home page bounce rateExample

= over 50%

Over half of the visits to the CNN.com home pageleft CNN.com without clicking into any other pages

Best (?) cases: Came only to get the headlines

Worst cases: Couldn’t find what they wanted Didn’t like what they saw

Home page has dynamic content not captured with page views

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Put “please donate by going to ourspecialcampaignURL.com” at the beginning

Measure engagement...

...and construct your site to maximize success

No. of podcasts -- put on iPod -- played -- listened to the end

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The perfect (measurable) Tweet

• A call to action to participate, engage with youLook at this. Go here. What do you think?

• A link To get news, information Tweets are now a primary news source, the new home page

To respond to the call to action

• A #hashtag and/or keywords

• Handle specific to person/topic

• A comment

RT/via @handle + call to action/comment + link + #hashtag

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“Perfect” tweets are less than 120 characters

Lost the link

Watch handle, hashtag sizes

100 characters 111 characters

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What people do (behavioral)

Who they are, what they think (attitudinal)

Two types of web analytics metrics

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in the numbers you want?

and

Are you reaching the audiences you meant to reach

Is it your content?

Is it your design?

Is it you?

1. What was the purpose of your visit today?

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Some questions that can’t be answeredfrom web traffic data

2. Were you able to complete your task today?

3. If not, why not?

4. If you did complete your task, what did you enjoy most about our site?

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What are the indicators that your web site is - or isn’t - contributing to your project?

Evaluation assignment

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How do we get more [type of people] to register?

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Is our site selling the number of Upton Sinclair Dinner tickets, sponsorships and ads that we want?

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-- home page bounce rate

Look at trends after flyer is mailed to each audience type

-- visits per unique visitor by week

-- pop-up bounce rate

How do we get more [type of people] to register?

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How do we get more [type of people] to register?

Does our reg form capture the info we need?

What’s our goal? -- No. on print newsletter list [by zip code, business, name] -- New vs. returning - “...register...even if you’ve been a supporter for decades”--Percent of registered people [by type] who buy Upton Sinclair dinner tickets

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Is our site selling the number of Upton Sinclair Dinner tickets, sponsorships, ads, eBay items that we want?

-- Total sold last year from all sources, by time period-- Tickets (premier, standard); sponsorships (by type); ads (by type)--Percent of registered people [by type] who buy tickets, sponsorships, ads

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Where are we losing people?

(ad option is below this screen fold)

-- Percent, no. of visits that started with dinner overview page, ended with completed payment

Web analytics is not easy...

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• Have clearly defined, accountable goals, objectives on which everyone agrees each of which is someone’s direct responsibility

• Know the limitations of your data, metrics Guess rather than rely on bad data, metrics

• Dedicate people, processes - budget - to analytics Technology, software are just tools

• Let the hippos decide whether metricswill really be used for decisions Use only what you need

HIghest Paid Person’s Opinion

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Dana Chinn Lecturer chinn@usc.edu 213-821-6259

Analytics for news orgs bookmarks http://www.delicious.com/danachinn

Presentations http://www.slideshare.net/danachinn

Twitter: DanaChinn

Blog http://www.newsnumbers.com