Web Metrics & Consumer Behavior

 The following post will provide an overview on how organizations are using both traditional web metrics and social media measurement tools to gain insight on consumer behaviors and how that data, if used correctly, can drive conversions, campaign strategy and insight on ROI.  Examples have been included to help reinforce the importance key metrics and the value of the process as a whole.  The report concludes with a few suggestions on emerging tools that could add additional insights and the needed edge to remain competitive in the rapidly growing world that is online retail.

Web Metrics and Consumer Behavior.

Online retail is booming.  This is evident in the 1.98 billion spent by online shoppers this past cyberMonday, boasting a massive 17% increase from 2011. (srds.com, 2012) Online marketing analytist eMarketer projects online sales of apparel and accessories in 2012 will reach $40.9 billion. (Harriss, 2012)  Forrester Research expects online retail sales in China to hit $160 billion by 2015. (Bell, Choi, Lodish, 2012) According to Google 57% of apparel shoppers begin searching for clothes online and that four out of ten shoppers prefer to make their final purchase online. (Harriss, 2012) Research by IPG Media Labs reveals that shopper satisfaction at retail stores is declining 15% per year. (Grunsteidl, With online retail only capturing around 10% of all retail shopping in the U.S. (Swartz, 2012) there is room for even more growth and innovation in the online retail arena. 

An outcome of this rapid growth in online commerce is it has opened the door to an unprecedented amount of consumer data. How that data is managed and leveraged will have a significant impact on the long-term success of the company.

Collecting and managing this data is not an easy task. DBD Media conducted a survey of 50 e-commerce sites and found that “73% of businesses are inflating traffic in their reports, while 67% haven't integrated social media tracking.” (Charlton, 2012)

Ventana Research, a leading benchmark research and advisory services firm, released a report that shows that only 34% of retail companies are satisfied with their analytics process and that 71% of retailers are still using spreadsheets as their primary data analysis tool. (spotfire.com, 2012)  Other key challenges are highlighted in this section of marketing optimization company Monetate’s infographic on big data.

The main challenge to big data is internal communication. That is a much larger systemic problem within organizations. Web analytics can’t solve that problem but it can address the needs of the other four challenges, which when broken down to their core, is a reflection of the company not using the right tools, not using the tools with enough frequency, not using the tools correctly, or all of the above. The following list provides three essential features of Google Analytics that online retailers could leverage to gain more insight on consumer behavior.

1.              Custom campaign urls –  Googles URL builder allows retailers to customize URL links so campaigns and promotions can be tracked.  For example many retailers are sharing links on their Facebook page.  This tool will allow the retailer to tag that link with a specific code so that it can be tracked and separated from the rest of the traffic.   This provides insight on customer behavior and the success of the campaign. A small non-profit like Children’s Relief International is using both email and facebook to share their most recent campaign, the Compassionate Christmas, a catalog of giving options to help key projects this holiday season.

To gain a stronger understanding of how their campaigns are working they should use the URL builder and tag their key urls so they can measure engagement and conversions.  It will help them know if their supporters interact with email over social networks and if one of these channels has a higher conversion rate than the other.

https://www.childrensrelief.org/services/donate/compassionate-christmas/

2.              Advanced Segments – We’ll start of this definition with a fun quote, “If Analytics’ default measurements are a broad viewpoint on your entire website’s performance, Advanced Segments is a pair of high-power binoculars that allows you to hone in on a very specific point of interest.”  (Brugueras, 2012) This tool provides retails the ability to focus on key behaviors, which if tracked and measured correctly can result in actionable data. Here is an example. WBC, a packaging retailer in the UK, was considering redesigning their e-commerce site. They used advanced segments to track how their customers interacted with their site and where improvements could be made by tracking micro-conversions such as brochure downloads and on-sites searches.  They also tracked which products were the most popular. These products would later be profiled on the front page of the newly designed site, which boasted a 12% increase in conversion rates. (Google Analytics Team, 2012) 

Another example would be if the retailer were trying to track the effectiveness off a social media campaign across multiple regions of the country. The retailer could select a landing page from the drop down menu and then add the regions they want to poll from. Advanced Segments provides the ability to customize and dive into the details of customer behavior, an important tool for long-term success. (Brugueras, 2012)

3.              E-commerce tracking – This extremely useful tool tracks sales and conversion metrics and then allows the retailer to compare this information with the rest of their data which can be segmented by campaign, region and a wide range of other options to help gain a better understanding of customer behavior. The tool can also track what sales did not happen and chart abandonment. This is a more advanced technique but by creating a second e-commerce profile to the add-to-cart transactions (the first profile is the track real transactions profile) the retailer can begin to gather a wide range of insights on consumer behavior like completion and abandonment rates which can result in helping make key strategic decisions, like when to offer a coupon or what popular products should live on the homepage.  (Iyengar, 2011)  The downside of this tool is it can be tricky to implement unless you are on Wordpress or Blogger where plug-ins are provided.  Some instructions on the process can be found at Nick Iyengar’s blog cardinalpath.com (http://www.cardinalpath.com/advanced-google-analytics-e-commerce-tracking-just-in-time-for-the-holidays/)

The three tools listed above lean heavy into measuring traditional engagement methods like page visits, conversions, micro-conversions, and tracking clicks.  Companies are comfortable engaging with this kind of information because it can be turned into actionable data relatively quickly. However the question has to be asked, does this focus provide deep insights on the customer? Maybe. It certainly provides enough to drive decisions on user experience and site design, but does it provide the deep insights of how the consumer feels about the brand, at a personal level? It is hard to tell at best and this is where measuring social media engagement can become important. Google Analytics has released a set of social media tools that will allow retailers to gain insights on what customers are saying about the brand and how social media conversions can impact business goals.

A company that has success in measuring social media engagement is Chico’s.

Chico’s FAS is a specialty retailer of woman’s apparel that operates more than 1,100 boutiques and 125 outlets. Each of their four brands, Chico's, White House | Black Market, Soma Intimates and Boston Proper maintains its own e-commerce web site. The company has begun to track social media engagement to better understand what is being said about these brands and where people are saying it. As the data is gathered it is filtered and applied to their core decision-making process. (Pappas, 2012)

Before Chico’s FAS began measuring social media engagement they created 5 overarching goals:

1.     See the bigger picture, understand how social media conversations affect business results, and apply this intelligence to decision making;

2.     Enhance internal social media reporting strategy;

3.     Identify key influencers;

4.     Ensure more timely responses to customers and maintain our high standard of customer service; and

5.     Better allocate time and resources spent on social media management. (Pappas, 2012)

Once these goals were established Chico’s began to gauge campaigns like the public response to a TV advertisement profiling a well know celebrity. They captured snap shots of web conversions from Facebook, Twitter, blogs and other media outlets in real time as they listened for key words, at specific locations that would resonate with their target audience. This data was filtered in real time and then shared with the marketing, PR and customer service departments so strategies could be adjusted based on consumer behavior and feedback.  Chico’s was not using Google Analytics do this but this could have. Google Analytics offers range of tools that allows businesses to track social media engagement. Googles Social Reports help companies get a stronger understanding of consumer behavior and ROI on social media engagement.  A clear breakdown of these reports can be found at SocialMediaExaminer.com. (http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/google-analytics-social-reports/) There are additional resources that can help companies like Chico focus in on a key social media platform like Twitter. Twitter is proving to be a significant player in social media and companies may benefit from taking a deep look into how the company is leveraging this platform to engage consumers, influences and even the competition. 

TweetStats is a resource that provides a clean user interface and a significant amount of historical data. Known for its pretty graphics and ability to provide the aggregate number of tweets sent each month, which can be broken all the way down to the time of day, this free resource is fast becoming one of the most popular third-party twitter applications on the market.  TweetStats offers other resources, like helping a company like Chico identify their influencers by showing top users behavior, mentions, and retweets across all interfaces (web, smart phone, tweetdeck, ect).  It offers a Tweet Cloud feature that identifies the most common words and hash-tags used throughout the brands tweet history. This could be a useful resource for a company like Chico that is trying to track the four brands at once. Finally TweetStats can provide insight on the competition as it allows users to check the status of their competitors. By gathering this data and cross examining it with their own Chico’s can gauge how they are matching up to the competition. (Pring, 2012)

Conclusion:

Tools like TweetStat do not have the massive backend like Google Analytics or other proprietary web metric software but that does not discount their usefulness.  Measuring social engagement to gain insight on customer behavior will provide crucial intelligence around the customers needs, wants, interests and why they are making the purchase.  This data combined with traditional e-commerce metrics can become actionable information, business intelligence that will drive product innovation, campaign strategy, customer support initiatives, and clear insight on ROI.  Both are needed to be successful.

 Wilson Raj, Global Customer Intelligence Director at SAS believes that retailers armed with this combination of intelligence can develop brand campaigns that will strengthen brand loyalty, repeat purchase and overall sales. “Retailers must concentrate not just on selling products but offering real-time, personalized brand experiences across the social channels. Those retailers that focus on these experiences will do very well.” (Pappas, 2012). Finding the right balance between tracking traditional metrics and social media engagement will continue to be a challenge but the need for this data is driving innovation and that is making the process that much more interesting. The industry is still trying to figure out how all of this should work. It is fun to be a part of the process!

References:

Bell, David., Choi. Jeonghye., Lodish. Leonard. (2012, September 18) What Matters Most in Internet Retailing. Retrieved on December 10^th, 2012 from http://sloanreview.mit.edu/the-magazine/2012-fall/54116/what-matters-most-in-internet-retailing/

Brugueras. Jamie. (2012, May 14^th) Using Google Analytics advanced segments to find actionable data. Retrieved on December 10^th, 2012 from http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/3533-Using-Google-Analytics-Advanced-Segments-to-Find-Actionable-Data

Brugueras. Jamie. (2012, October 4^th) 6 Essential Google Analytics Features for Every Retailer. Retrieved on December 10^th, 2012 from http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/3758-6-Essential-Google-Analytics-Features-for-Every-Retailer

Charlton. Graham, (2012, October 19^th) 80% of nline retailers are using Google Analytics incorrectly. Retrieved on December 10^th, 2012 from http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/10925-80-of-online-retailers-are-using-google-analytics-incorrectly

Grunsteidl. Alexander, (2012, September 11th) Four Keys to Surviving the Future of Retail. Retrieved on December 10^th, 2012 from http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662269/four-keys-to-surviving-the-future-of-retail

Harriss. Ian, (2012, November 11^th) Lessons from the web: Online analytics translate into in-store strategies. Retrieved on December 10^th, 2012 from http://apparel.edgl.com/case-studies/Lessons-from-the-Web--Online-Analytics-Translate-Into-In-Store-Strategies83327

Iyengar. Nick. (2012, December 14^th) Advanced Google Analytics e-commerce tracking – Just in time for the holidays. Retrieved on December 10^th, 2012 from http://www.cardinalpath.com/advanced-google-analytics-e-commerce-tracking-just-in-time-for-the-holidays/

N.A. (2012, December 4^th) Big Data Analytics: High Stakes for Retailers. Retrieved on December 10^th, 2012 from http://spotfire.tibco.com/blog/?p=16094

Pappas. Lorna, (2012, June 9^th) Chico’s extends its customer insights with social media analytics. Retrieved on December 10^th, 2012 from http://www.retailtouchpoints.com/shopper-engagement/1672-chicos-extends-its-customer-insights-with-social-media-analytics-

Pring. Cara, (2012, July 17^th) Staying afloat in the sea of twitter analytics. Retrieved on December 10^th, 2012 from http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/social-media-analytics/twitter-social-media-analytics/

Swartz. Jon, (2012, September 8^th) Why Shopping will never be the same. Retrieved on December 10^th, 2012 from http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-08-05/future-retail-tech/56880626/1

Goals and a Hero's Story

Introduction:

This week we will begin the discussion by offering a review of Google Analytics goals and funnels and how they can provide actionable information to the novice marketers and business leaders. The research will be supported with an examination of goals and funnels put in place for my own blog. The discussion with end with a review of key learning’s and failures and a few comments on of how these tools will be leveraged in the near future. 

It is not enough to take steps, which may some day lead to a goal; each step must be itself a goal and a step likewise.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Google Analytics provides its user the tools to create and measure simple or incredibly detailed goals that if set correctly will provide actionable information over as set period of time. Like the quote above these goals are set up to achieve the bigger picture objectives while allowing the user to track and measure every step of the way. The function of a goal is to provide information on where a visitor has come from, how they behave on the site, and what the value of that activity should be. (Kuruc. 2012) Goals can be set under four key venues: URL Destinations, Visit Duration, Page/Visit and Events.

Each business is going to have their own specific needs and this will influence which goals they plan to measure but by default marketers tend to view goal development at the macro and micro levels. Macro goals are tied closely to ROI and consist of key metrics like sales and conversion rates. This makes them popular among marketers and analysts. There is some risk in making macro goals as this clever example highlights, “If we continue to look to macro goals as the only success metric, we end up manipulating data and ignoring the obvious misfit. In many cases, and as any jewelry adoring woman will tell you, good things in life can come in small packages.” (Kuruc. 2012) Those small packages are micro goals.

Micro goals allow businesses to strategically track visitor engagement.  This behavior can provide key insights on how user behavior and which behaviors might have a stronger impact on conversion rates. Below are nine examples of micro goals:

1.     Social Bookmarking

2.     Newsletter signups

3.     New user signups

4.     File Download

5.     Customer Review

6.     Blog Comments. 

7.     Using a Live Chat Feature

8.     Viewing the Contact Us Page

9.     Viewing Videos

Tracking and measuring macro goals while keeping a careful eye on micro goals can be time consuming but rewarding if a balanced approach can be found.  That balance comes from a strong and consistent purpose, which is supported by clear objectives. Google expert Avinash Kaushik provides the following five-step process on which any digital marketing campaign can set its foundation.

1.     Identify business objectives

2.     Identify key goals for each business objective

3.     Identify the key performance indicators  (KPI)

4.     Identify the targets for each KPI

5.     Identify the segments of people/ behavior/ outcomes that will be analyze to measure success or failure.

If a business does not take the time to answer these foundational questions they are at risk of becoming overwhelmed by the data. Too much data combined with soft measurement criteria can create paralysis through analysis. (McAthy, 2012)

I do not believe Kaushik’s advice works for my IMC blog as it is a lab experiment but these steps will be as a foundation for my future blog and play a role in how I advise CRI and WynnPress on how to leverage Google Analytics. A key difference between what we are doing in class and what will be done in the future is each of these goals will be assigned a value. Google Analytics allows users to give each goal a monetary value.  There are three ways to set goal values.

1.     Single basic value across all goals: Give the goals a number. Track it. See which sites are generating the most value.

2.     Margin: Assign a specific margin, which will be applied to all goals, which can help establish the value of macro goals like leads.

3.     Weighted score: Begin to dig into the details by providing weighted value/scoring system to key activities, both macro and micro, on the site.

(McAthy, 2012)

For an organization like CRI this becomes useful as they try to understand the potential value of a visit or a bounce on there donate page.

Another key difference between the IMC blog and a real site is the use of funnels.
Shopify.com defines funnels as “…the path that you expect visitors to take on their way to 'converting' to your goal. A funnel is defined for a goal. Defining the pages for a funnel allows you to see how frequently visitors abandon goals, when they join in on the path to your goal, when they drop off the path, etc.”  (Shopify.com, 2012) Funnels are set up on the same page and at the same time as goals.

One of CRI’s main objectives in the coming year is to understand how users are getting to the donate page. CRI has assumptions on which pages drive the most conversions but these are unfounded and best guesses. Setting up funnels in unison with goals will provide them with real data and actionable information. Digesting this data so the site can be optimized will be crucial for long-term success.

Let’s put it into practice!

For the purposes of this weeks exercise I set up a goal on my IMC blog based on page views. I created a new page that profiled a recent project completed for Children’s Relief International.  The page was titled “The Hero’s Story”.

To generate traffic I sent an email out on December 1st to eight of my connections. Earlier in the term I tried to use my Facebook connections to generate traffic and the response was dismal so I did not bother with that platform. Here are the results as of December 3^rd.

The Google Analytics dashboard is deceptively encouraging at first glance.

It shows that on Saturday the site had one new visitor and on Sunday it had three. 3 of the four visitors bounced immediately. One stayed and read the blog bumping up the average site visit duration to over two minuets. Email proved to be a more effective invitation since none of the earlier Facebook visitors stayed to read the content. This holds true to the long-standing opinion that email will provide a higher conversion rate than social networks. The infographic from Monetate provides a clear comparison of email, search and social. (Bennett, 2012) 

In regards to the page view goal of my blog as it stands, two days after sending out the email only one person has visited the page.  

One of eight is not very good although I am optimistic more traffic is coming. I will be checking again later in the week to see if the conversion rate increases. The email was sent to family and friends and since I know this target well I am confident the numbers will go up. (Is that considered cheating?!)  As a side note the statistics on the blogger site shows thirty page views on December 3rd, which implies more traffic has come through but Google Analytics has not caught up yet due to the standard 24-hour delay.

Conclusion:
This was an engaging exercise. In hindsight I would of done a few things differently. It is clear that I should have sent the email request out much sooner.  There has not been enough time for people to respond and engage which has sabotaged my ability to collect data. As I reviewed my strategy for this discussion I realized that setting up my goal around URL destination would of tested more of the tools.  By sending the users to my main blog page and asking them to click on the new page  (found on the right side menu) this would of required an established funnel (main page to new page) and that would of offered more insight on user behavior.  I would have gathered more actionable information on user behavior with this approach verses examining just page views.

The key takeaways from this weeks exercise are robust. I understand that before setting up goals and funnels a clear purpose supported by strong objectives needs to be in place. Success will come from the foundation of knowing what needs to be tracked, why it is being tracked, and how the data collected will be measured. These elements are the framework for creating strategic goals and their strength and focus will dictate success of failure. Those strategic goals will need to be broken down into the macro and micro level, and finding a balance between the two will provide a wider range of data which will help in making informed decisions. Identifying funnels will offer insight on how the users are engaging with the site and if goals are being met or abandoned. Finally, when trying to measure traffic I will make sure there is ample time for the users to engage with the communication channels and the web site. This is where my testing fell embarrassingly short.  I will be setting up Google Analytics for CRI this week, including establishing the baseline objectives and goals, so I have a chance to redeem myself.  We should begin tracking those goals by the weeks end. It is exciting to be in the process and despite my failures this week I believe I have to tools to help them set up a strong foundation with clear goals that will gather actionable information.

References:

Bennette. Shea, (2012, August 2^nd) Email Marketing Coverts Better Than Search,
Social Media, Says Study. Retrieved on December 3rd, 2012 from http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/email-search-social-marketing_b26304

Kaushik. Avinash, (N.D.) Digital Marketing and Measurement Model. Retrieved on December 3rd, 2012 from http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/digital-marketing-and-measurement-model/#wamm

Kuruc. Kayla, (2012, June 13^th) Small Goals – Big Results, Using Micro Goals in Google Analytics. Retrieved on December 3rd, 2012 from http://www.morevisibility.com/analyticsblog/tag/google-analytics-goals

McAthy. Russell, (2012, May 24th) How to best use goals in Google Analytics. Retrieved on December 3rd, 2012 from http://www.smartinsights.com/google-analytics/google-analytics-setup/how-to-best-use-goals-in-google-analytics/

N.A. (N.D.) Google Analytics Goals and Funnels. Retrieved on December 3rd, 2012 from http://wiki.shopify.com/Google_Analytics_Goals_and_Funnels

Google Analytics - Laser focus

Introduction:

This post will take an in-depth look at key reports and measurement tools found in Google Analytics and how they can help the following users:

·      The non-profit organization Children’s Relief International.

·      The small, but growing, e-book publisher Wynn Press.

I will end the post with a few comments on how I plan to use key reports to help me measure social media engagement for a resource I am developing. I decided to take this approach because I have a direct connection to both organizations and I plan to provide advice to each based on the content covered below. The challenge to provide real value to existing organizations felt more appropriate than focusing on my current IMC blog, since its purpose is limited and muted by comparison.  It is exciting to be able to offer this kind of council after just a few weeks of engaging with the content. My hope is that by the end of the term they will be using some of these tools and I will be able to share real results.

Google Analytics and Children’s Relief International.

Children’s Relief International is a small non-profit that helps the world’s poorest children in places like India, Africa, Pakistan, and Burma. They support native leaders in supplying food, medical care and education through a team of dedicated missionaries and volunteers. (Full disclosure, I wrote about CRI in the week 4 discussion post.  I use some of that content in here, but only for set up. The rest is original.) To promote their work they have a decent web site, a half a dozen project blogs, a monthly email newsletter that goes to donors and partners, and an online donate option.

CRI’s main KPI is donor engagement which makes the donate option on their web site crucial to their long-term success. The donate button sits at the top right of the site design. This button stays in the top right no matter what page the user is on. It is always visible. Currently CRI believes the placement of the button is working and easy to engage with.  What they do not know is how long it takes a user to click on donate button and if they actually complete a transition when they are on the donate page.

http://www.childrensrelief.org/

This is where Google Analytics can help. They offer a set of tools that provide a range of reviews options around user flow through the site. Blogger and analytics expert Jim Gianoglio puts provides a more articulate definition, “Flow visualization is a way to understand how visitors flow through your website. It uses intuitive imagery, along with the ability to segment your visitors, to make insightful analysis easier. These reports better help you understand how to optimize your landing pages, navigation, conversion funnels and more. They can help explain the behavior of segments of visitors after they land on a page, and see where there might be commonalities and differences between key segments.” (Gianogilo, 2011)

At first glace these visualization tools feel complicated but they have been put in place to help make the click path analysis process more valuable and user friendly. (Cutroni, 2011)

To begin using these tools CRI will need to identify the pages they want to track. Google Analytics calls these groups of pages nodes. (Cutroni, 2011) It is recommended that CRI group the key pages seen below into a node. As they become familiar with the process they can group pages in more strategic nodes based on key data, which should provide a solid baseline for future measurement and analysis.

Google Analytics offers a wide range of flow visualization tools that could be useful. Two of the more useful reports for an organization like CRI would be the Visit Flow Report and the Navigation Flow Report.

Visit Flow Report.

This will allow CRI to track the navigation flow of a specific segment, which can be traffic source, browser, country, keywords, direct traffic, and a range of other options as visitors move between nodes.  (Waisberg, 2011) This data is useful when trying to analyze the success of a campaign, like CRI’s monthly email campaigns. The report, which is a well designed, easy to navigate flow chart, will show CRI where people came from, what they engage with after arriving on the landing page, and other important details like bounce rate. (Cutroni, 2011)

Navigation Flow Report. 
As CRI establishes their nodes they will need to see how traffic is flowing to and from that node. The Navigational Flow Report will provide that data. (Joe, 2011) This could be used to see trends in visitor behavior and help identify the pages that are better are driving users to the donate page and the pages that have high bounce rates.

If used correctly these visualization tools will help CRI get a better understanding of how their users are navigating their website and how they engage with the donate page. By digging into that data, segmenting it and then identifying key behaviors (are people clicking on the donate button and making a donation) they will be able to manage their content and site design with more precision and efficiency, which may result in strong conversion rates (more donations).

Google Analytics and Wynn Press (www.wynnpress.com)

These tools could be helpful for our next subject too, the small but growing e-book publisher Wynn Press. WynnPress.com creates interactive e-books for web designers. They plan to expand into more design disciplines and marketing tools over the next year. (Photoshop, Illustrator and the love-hate relationship with PowerPoint.)

 

Over the past two years Wynn Press has found success in getting their books adopted by large online colleges. They plan to leverage this success as they roll out new products and try to capture market share among general consumers. Currently the majority of their success has come from word-of-mouth marketing tactics. They have a web site and it is seen as a driver for sales but to they are not tracking or measuring its use. This needs to change. Since a good portion of the site is coded in Flash, and the very important video demos are in Flash, the first step will be to install the Google Analytics SWF so the site can talk to GA and being tracking video views. In the past this was more complicated but now it is a matter of installing some code. (brightcover.com, 2012) Brightcove, the leading online video platform, shares some valuable technical tips on this process. Link below:  

http://support.brightcove.com/en/video-cloud/docs/integration-google-analytics - Measuring demo video views and their bounce rates to purchase rates will help Wynn Press know if their demos are working or need to be reworked. Collecting this data will not be difficult and should provide valuable insight on visitor behavior.

In addition to tracking how many people watch their demo videos and how many views convert to sales Wynn Press needs to understand how visitors are getting to their site. GA offers as set of tools under their Traffic Sources section that can provide this information.  The Traffic Source tools breaks down visitor traffic into three categories:

1)   Direct Traffic – Visits that go straight to their site through either typing in a URL into the browser's address bar, clicking on a bookmark or clicking on a link in an email, SMS, or chat message. (Roggio, 2011)

2)   Referral Traffic – Visitors that click on a link for a different site, like a social media platform, and land on the Wynn Press site.

3)   Search Engine Traffic – Visitors that comes from clicking on links on a search results page for any search engine. This traffic is broken down into two parts, paid and organic. Wynn Press is not engaging in any AdWord campaigns or paid searches so they would be focused on the organic and referral traffic.  (Roggio, 2011)

As the data is collected the report can identify top performing traffic sources and if they fall under four distinct mediums; direct, organic, referral or cpc (cost-per-click). If Wynn Press sees a spike of activity due to Facebook referrals then they can begin to develop a tailored campaign strategy to leverage that platform and be intentional about tracking its success or failure. If there is a steady flow of traffic coming from organic searches then they should dig into which key words are driving the traffic.  Another tactic that can be applied is to measure the bounce rate of each source. If organic searches are driving a lot of traffic to the site but the visitor immediately exists there may be a problem with key words.  

If implemented Google Analytics Traffic Sources will help Wynn Press be competitive and meet their long-term goals as they gain a stronger understanding of who their customer is and where they are coming from.

Google Analytics, social media metrics and me.

As I review these tools and think of my long-term goals a few rise to the top. I am currently working on a series of resources that will help potential design students and their parents navigate the ever-changing and competitive landscape of Colleges and Universities offering art and design degrees. I plan to use a blog and wide range of social media platforms as part of my communication strategy. Google Analytics Social Sources tools will allow me to see which social media sources are doing the heavy lifting. This data can provide a clear path on which platform should get the majority of my time.

To help me understand the data Social Sources will breakdown social media activity into 6 reports:

1)   Overview

2)   Sources

3)   Pages

4)   Conversions

5)   Social Plugins

6)   Social Visitor Flow

Let’s take a closer look at 4 of these reports:

1)   Overview – Provides a mini-dashboard of the social reports and their data. It also includes a social value visualization which will pinpoint how the social networks contribute to website conversions. (Waisberg, 2012)

2)   Sources – This tracks source activity based on social referrers. It will keep track of all of the URL options associated with each social network. An example would be witter.com and t.co. (Waisberg, 2012

3)   Pages – This report shows social activity on each page of your site. (Sharif, 2012) If someone likes my page on how to handle tuition costs and share this on Facebook and LinkedIn it will show up on this report. (Sharif, 2012)

4)   Conversions – This report provides an overview of which social sources drove conversions to the site. It will show the data in comparison to my set goals and ecommerce, providing an overview of which social source is creating the most value. (Waisberg, 2012)

Google Analytics and these Social Sourcing reports are working hard to make it easy for me to track and measure the effectiveness of my social media strategy. As marketers become more familiar with social media platforms and their analytics it should become even easier to understand the true value of the channel. Finding the true value of social media is hotly debated topic by the industry. Dan Zarrella of HubSpot recently released a formula on the value of a ‘like’. This formula (VOLA) combines and crunches numbers associated with Total Likes (L), Unlikes-per-month (UpM), Likes-per-Day (LpD), Average Clicks (C, Conversion Rates (CR) and Average Conversion Rate (ACV). By using Google Analytics and his custom calculator (ValueOfALike.com) he is trying to help us “understand exactly what the value of each social networking connection is to our bottom line.” (Zarrella, 2012) The tool has been met with praise and criticism.

I plan to try it in the future and share it here to reinforce my final thought, which is this; the process of analyzing and measuring digital strategy and online consumer behavior is a living ecosystem.  It is constantly changing due a wide range of variables, tangents, trends and technology. Google Analytics provides an entry way into this wonderfully complicated world of data. Both Children’s Relief International and Wynn Press should make the effort to engage these tools and start measuring the analytics of their sites.  They should start off with clear and simple goals. Find out where the traffic is coming from, figure out what pages have high bounce rates and keep and eye on how social media is impacting traffic. These are not complicated goals and if measured consistently over time they should net positive results. It will be an important step for their long-term success.  I know I plan to use these tools as I develop those resources I intend to share with students and their families. The past 5 weeks has me feeling ambitious and I am ready to embrace the task. Looking forward to seeing what the next 4 weeks will bring.

References:

www.brightcove.com

Cutroni. Justin, (2011, October 19^th) Path Analysis in Google Analytics with Flow Visualization. Retrieved on November 26^th, 2012 from http://cutroni.com/blog/2011/10/19/path-analysis-in-google-analytics-with-flow-visualization/

Gianoglio, Jim. (2011, October 19) Flow Visualization in Google Analytics. Retrieved on November 26^th, 2012 from http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2011/10/19/flow-visualization-google-analytics/

N.A. Joe, (2011, October 19^th) Top 5 Use Cases of Goggle Analytics Flow Visualization. Retrieved on November 26^th, 2012 from http://www.blastam.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/ga-flow-visualization-use-cases/

N.A. (N.D.) Video Cloud Support: Integration with Google Analytics. Retrieved on November 26^th, 2012 from http://support.brightcove.com/en/video-cloud/docs/integration-google-analytics

Roggio. Armando, (2011, July 18^th) Understanding ‘Traffic Sources’ in Google Analytics. Retrieved on November 26^th, 2012 from  http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/2916-Understanding-Traffic-Sources-in-Google-Analytics

Sharif. Sayf, (2012, March 29^th) Tracking your social engagement with Google Analytics. Retrieved on November 26^th, 2012 from http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2012/03/29/tracking-social-google-analytics/

Waisberg. Daniel, (2012, March 20th) Google Analytics Launches New Social Reports To Measure Social ROI. Retrieved on November 26^th, 2012 from http://marketingland.com/google-analytics-social-reports-8138

Waisberg. Daniel, (2011, October 19^th) Google Analytics Gains “Napoleon’s March” Flow Visualization Charts. Retrieved on November 26^th, 2012 from http://searchengineland.com/google-analytics-flow-visualization-97066

Zarrella. Dan, (2012, November 26^th) How to calculate the value of a like. Retrieved on November 26^th, 2012 from http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/11/how_to_calculate_the_value_of.html

www.wynnpress.com

www.childrensrelief.com