May 6, 2008 by ian
Beware bad statistics. They can kill your internet marketing campaign with bad assumptions, incorrect assessments, and by sending you far off track. By 'bad', I mean: Statistics that are collected from a small population. Alexa, for example, collects a lot of their data based on Alexa Toolbar users. It's very possible those users behave differently than the rest of the internet population. So being top 10,000 on Alexa may not mean a heck of a lot. Statistics that are just a rough model of the real data. Google's toolbar pagerank (the pagerank number you see in the Google Toolbar)…
Continue Reading 5 Kinds of Bad Statistics, and How They Can Kill Your Internet Marketing Campaign »
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May 2, 2008 by ian
If you're using Google Analytics to record sales data, you may have noticed really horrible sales over the last couple days. Don't panic. I don't think it's you. It appears that, starting April 30th, Google Analytics isn't correctly reporting e-commerce revenue. We figured this out after noticing that, of our 10+ clients using Google e-commerce reporting, all were showing the same drop in sales. Here are graphs from two completely different sites, on different servers, in different industries: Bounce rates, site traffic and visit quality have all remained totally stable on these sites - there's no evidence anything went wrong.…
Continue Reading Google Analytics Is Losing E-commerce Data: Don't Panic?!! »
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April 3, 2008 by ian
Cool new feature I just spotted in Google Analytics. The ability to graph data by week or month: You can even graph revenue by hour: Don't know about you, but I've been wanting something like this for quite a while. No more migrains from grouping data...…
Continue Reading Google Analytics Adds Weekly, Monthly Graphing »
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March 24, 2008 by ian
Google Analytics now has their nifty benchmarking feature all set up. If you're running Google Analytics you can see how your site traffic compares to others. First, here's how you set it up, and why you should: Open Your Kimono, Just a Little First, you have to give Google access to your analytics data. "OH MY GOD," you say, "THAT'S CRAZY. Let a giant software and internet company have access to my data?!! Forget it." Do it. Strictly speaking, Google already has all of this data. They're not going to share your specific numbers with your competitors. That'd be stupidity…
Continue Reading Google Analytics Benchmarking: Tutorial, and Things that Make You Go Hmmmmm... »
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March 16, 2008 by ian
Friday, someone told me it's hard to convince folks they need to use multivariate testing in their internet marketing campaigns. Once my mouth closed, I decided to write this post. What Multivariate Testing Is If you already know, you can skip down to why you need it, below. I can't define it without twisting my own brain in a knot, so I'm going to use an example, instead. Say I have a landing page. On this page, I want to test the headline, the body copy, and maybe how I link to the product sample: You can see the actual…
Continue Reading Multivariate Testing: What it Is, Why You Need It »
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March 12, 2008 by ian
I am so, so, so tired of 'experts' telling me that things like podcasts, social media or other, harder-to-quantify online media are "hard to measure". Bull. The most difficult-to-measure online asset is far, far easier to measure than the best offline one. More Measurable Than Any Traditional Media Corporations have blown ridiculous amounts of cash on television, print advertising and radio. Traditional agencies then tell them proudly of impressions and readers. But what do they really know? Nothing. I may have walked out of the room when the commercial played. Or flipped past the print ad. Or simply ignored the…
Continue Reading Web Analytics: The Myth of Inaccuracy »
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February 22, 2008 by ian
Google Analytics, Omniture, WebSideStory and other major analytics packages use tagging. They're all worth spit if you don't take advantage of it. This week I've had three clients nearly pop blood vessels over improper tagging by their teams. I thought a practical tutorial might be in order. Why? Without tagging, the software can't accurately track performance of paid search ads, banners and other forms of online advertising. Some of you are already warming up your keyboard to leave me a snippy comment about how clueless I am. Google Adwords, of course, now uses auto-tagging. It's one exception, I know about…
Continue Reading Google Analytics Tagging Demystified »
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January 29, 2008 by ian
There's an internet marketing metric you're not watching, but you should be. You're tracking visitors. You're tracking pageviews. Hopefully, you're even tracking keywords and conversions. But are you tracking bounce rate? Bounce Rate is the percentage of visitors leaving your site after viewing only the page on which they landed. If I visit your site, view one page and leave, without clicking any other links, then I'm a 'bounce'. A higher bounce rate is bad. A lower one is good. How to Measure Bounce Rate You need a basic web analytics package. In Google Analytics, you'll find bounce rate right…
Continue Reading Bounce Rate: The Stat You Need To Know »
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January 16, 2008 by ian
If you're using Google Analytics, Google Adwords and 'auto-tagging', you may have noticed that your numbers suddenly dropped: It's not you. We've researched this and contacted Google. Here's what we found out: Apparently, this is only occurring for folks using auto-tagging. If you're using UTM codes, you're fine. Google is aware of the problem and is working on it. The folks at Google say no data's been lost. It appears, at least for us, that clicks and sales from Adwords were recorded as 'direct' instead. So the revenue may still be in your reports, just mis-allocated. So, if you're seeing…
Continue Reading Google Analytics Is Having Problems: Auto-Tagging Issues »
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December 12, 2007 by ian
Google Analytics is getting ready to roll out some cool new stuff. Looks like they've started. I went in to check the stats for my blog, and can now compare two metrics: This kind of comparison is very valuable. With it, you can check to see if, say, pageviews/visit remain stable with visits increase. If they stay stable, then visitor quality is pretty solid. If pageviews per visit plunge as daily visitors rise, you're attracting the wrong visitors: Even snazzier: You can compare data for a single traffic source, segment or event type to data for the entire site: This…
Continue Reading New Google Analytics Features Rolling Out »
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December 9, 2007 by ian
SEO and Social Media support each other: Higher rankings mean more visitors and more bloggers writing about you. More bloggers writing about you translates to more links, which in turn improve your rankings. It's easy to say, but hard to prove. The next time your boss/client is asking you why they should spend any time on social media (or SEO), show them this: In early June we began an intensive social media campaign for a client: We sent their product to key bloggers, linked to them, and started a paid search campaign that actually focused on that audience. We started…
Continue Reading The Relationship Between Social Media and SEO »
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November 8, 2007 by ian
Zain asks: “How do you know your Internet Marketing is working, if there is no CPA?†I use several different metrics: Pageviews / Visit Time on site Non-CPA conversions, like e-mail newsletter signups Segments defined by complete reads of specific site sections, etc. 3 and 4 are the best - they're the most flexible. A conversion doesn't have to be a purchase or a form completion. It can also be any time a user reads more than 5 pages on your site, reads one entire white paper, or spends more than 4 minutes on the site. For example, on…
Continue Reading Analytics Without a CPA Goal: Stump Ian, Question 5 (or 6?) »
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November 5, 2007 by ian
Yesterday I explained how to set up Google Analytics new site search feature in five steps. For that little bit of work, the site search reports provide lots of great data. Here are some of highlights. After you've set up site search, you'll find a new item under 'Content' - 'Site Search': That displays the site search overview page, which includes this trending summary. You should pay particular attention to the summary, because it'll show you if something's going wrong (or right) that's causing folks to use your search tool less (or more): Visits with Search shows you the…
Continue Reading Google Analytics Site Search: Working with the Data »
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November 4, 2007 by ian
On Friday, Google added Site Search to Google Analytics. Site search lets you track the phrases visitors use in your onsite search tool, as opposed to the search phrases they use on search engines. This information is gold: If you know what folks are looking for on your site, you can make sure it's available from your home page, increase conversion rates, and have happier visitors. Setting it up is a cinch - far easier than the roundabout hack I created a few months ago. It takes only 5 very easy steps: Step 1: Log In To Google Analytics…
Continue Reading Install Google Analytics Site Search In 5 Steps »
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October 30, 2007 by ian
Note: I'm doing some final prep work for my SMX presentation tomorrow. Well, actually I'm sitting here in a daze after a good Swedish beer, trying to stay awake until 9 PM local time. But I'm rehearsing, too, and I often get my thoughts straight by writing about it, first. If you have a moment, please review my notes, and let me know if you've got any comments/additions. I only have 10 minutes to talk - the rest is a panel discussion. Thanks! Measuring Pay Per Click Keyword Effectiveness(without conversions) Analytics improvements in the last few years have made…
Continue Reading PPC Waste Management Without Conversions: Smart Keyword Analytics »
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October 24, 2007 by jadeI
Darwin, Cyberspace, and Oprah’s Book Club Note from Ian: Jade is senior copywriter and creative lead at my company. Like me, she often wonders if we should take people's internet connections away... If author Francis Bellamy* lived today, the Pledge of Allegiance would probably be changed to read “and flickr and facebook for all.†Indeed, every time you sigh, fifty-six thousand shiny new podcasts, blogs and social networking sites make their proud launch into our web 2.0 world. As a result, gracious, intelligent and useful online content is scarce, buried ten-fold by Zombocom and “Are You Hot?†quizzes. Such…
Continue Reading Guest Post: Online Democracy Must Die »
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October 19, 2007 by ian
A nice way to end the week. My company is officially a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant. Pretty prestigious company, and there are only 14 of us in North America. Hopefully this will mean more cool tutorials on new features right when they come out. Technorati Tags: Google Analytics…
Continue Reading Google Analytics Certified!!!! »
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October 16, 2007 by ian
Google has announced a new version of Google Analytics. They'll be rolling out the new features over the next several weeks, and they sound great: Tracking for outgoing clicks without tagging. Until now, you've had to hand-tag links away from your site if you wanted to track clicks on those links. Not any more. Rich media and AJAX analytics. I'm not 100% sure how they'll do this, so I'll withhold judgment until I see it in action. Integrated site search tracking. Remember this long tutorial I did? You won't need it any more. Sniff. There will be bumps in…
Continue Reading New Google Analytics Announced »
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September 21, 2007 by ian
In internet marketing, that which is measured, improves. But it's tough to know exactly what to measure, especially as your web site becomes just one part in a much larger campaign. And it's even tougher to know how to measure. I always say internet marketing isn't about the tech stuff. That's true. But the tech stuff can still trip you up. Here's my ideal metrics, and how to collect them, in priority order: 1. Conversions Your internet marketing campaign is supposed to do something that will ultimately impact your organization - generate leads, or sales, or votes, or something…
Continue Reading 7 Internet Marketing Metrics You Must Track (and how) »
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September 18, 2007 by ian
You have a phone number on your website, or your landing page. Or maybe in that Adwords ad. But how do you know if it's the reason you're getting those calls? More important, how do you prove it the CEO, who continually harasses you about the money you're 'wasting' on internet marketing. Every time he looks at you, accusingly, you can feel your career prospects dwindling. But I digress. You can measure your site's performance, in terms of its ability to make your phone ring (literally). Four steps, and you're all set: Get a separate 800 number for the…
Continue Reading Wiretap Your Website: Measure Phone Calls Generated By Online Ads »
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September 13, 2007 by ian
This tool should help you decide the internet marketing medium (organic search, pay per click, e-mail, banners, etc.) on which you should focus first: You can download it in PDF format here. How I Created It I've spent the last year collecting data from various client sites. I averaged sales, conversion rates and time-to-conversion across the sites. The sites included: 7 e-commerce sites, all B2C except for one B2B site. 2 sites where a conversion was a sales lead. 1 site where a conversion was a minimum time on site. I can't provide the numbers, I'm afraid, as that'd…
Continue Reading Internet Marketing Tools Ranked. Conclusion? Search Rocks. »
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August 14, 2007 by ian
There's a lot more to successful internet marketing than a sale, or a lead. Your 'key performance indicators' (KPIs, for short) measure your site's contribution to success in other channels. And they measure your site's drip-drip-drip effect as it grows your organization. Sometimes it's hard to know what 'success' is. And you can't figure out something like what a click's worth until you do. Here's how you can find your web site KPIs: What's your business? If services, skip to #4. If product, go to #2. If you offer a catalog, then a catalog request is a goal. If…
Continue Reading Measurable Goals: Key Performance Indicators For Your Web Site »
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August 9, 2007 by ian
I am a social media stalker. I admit it. Thankfully that breaks no laws, and I'm allowed to use tools like Pythia (disclosure - I built it) to snoop now and then. I've been watching what happens on Wendy's eMomsAtHome over the last few weeks. Note the big surge in Bloglines mentions: Wow. And, just a few days later, a nice surge in pages indexed by Yahoo: The cause is pretty easy to track down - Wendy was at the BlogHer conference. She's famous and stuff - so she generated some buzz, mentioned the conference, and voila, instant surge.…
Continue Reading Social Media Voyeurism - Stalking eMomsAtHome »
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July 31, 2007 by ian
I've seen conversion rates jump by as much as 20% on sites tailored to internal search phrases. To accomplish that, though, you need to know your site's internal search data. What's internal search data? If you know what your customers search for on your site, you can deliver more of what they want. Here's how you can use two free tools to measure internal search. Google's new Custom Search Business Edition is a great search engine for small to mid-size sites. But it doesn't provide much in the way of useful analytics - a little graph of search volume,…
Continue Reading Know What Your Customers Want: Analyze Internal Search Data With Google Analytics »
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July 30, 2007 by ian
Update: Starting to see some data now. According to the Google Analytics Blog, they're making progress. Update: From the Google Analytics Blog - “Temporary Reporting Delay Since Saturday Nightâ€. Google reports they are updating accounts right now. All data was stored. The reports just weren't updated. That's the best case, I guess, given the circumstances. They will post a further update when reports are fully restored. I'll update here, too. Google Analytics has been dead, recording zero results, since late Saturday. No note or message from Google or from Avinash. It's hard to tell what's going on, exactly -…
Continue Reading Google Analytics Down For the Count »
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July 26, 2007 by ian
My company just started offering Google Analytics consulting. There, I said it, after 5 days of pondering whether I should or not. I'll go back to our regularly scheduled programming now. Technorati Tags: analytics, Google Analytics, web analytics…
Continue Reading Because A Shameless Plug Is OK Now and Then »
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July 9, 2007 by ian
Hey Steve: Page views still have value. I'll bet you lunch on it. Steve Rubel just posted 'The Page View Is Officially Dead', based on the news that Nielsen NetRatings will no longer use page views as a metric. Total time on site is a far better measure of attention. Or is it? A lousy navigation system may lead to more time spent on a site. So might slow site performance. Or someone heading to lunch and leaving their browser window open. Keep pageviews around. You're going to need them. So Steve, here's my challenge: Pick a campaign. Let…
Continue Reading Page Views Live! I'll Bet You Lunch. »
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July 2, 2007 by ian
We've just launched a free social media analytics tool. It's called Pythia. The free version of Pythia measures your marketing campaigns based on several metrics: Links pointing to your site, according to Yahoo!. Pages from your site in the Yahoo! index. Links pointing to your site, according to Technorati. Posts mentioning your site, according to Del.icio.us. And mentions of your site on Bloglines. Changes in all of these metrics, over time. The paid version also adds: Site ranking for specific keywords. Changes in rankings over time. Pythia doesn't re-invent anything, nor is it revolutionary in the data it collects.…
Continue Reading Introducing Pythia: Social Analytics »
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June 29, 2007 by ian
Analytics is great. Now stop using it for a week. The beauty of internet marketing is that you can measure everything. But that's also its curse. I see more and more companies who won't move an inch without hard data. That's shortsighted, and ignores the fact that marketing is for human beings, by human beings. Sometimes you have to take a chance on something new and creative. How will you build a brand around something if you wait for a 4:1 ROI? At some point, you have to use the best computer you've got: Your own brain. Next week,…
Continue Reading Tear Up Your Web Stats: One Analytics-Free Week »
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June 15, 2007 by ian
Google Analytics 2.0 has some great upgrades. The best ones, though, center around easier data exploration and discovery. Avinash has some great pointers, and I've finally done an video tutorial about it: Online Videos by Veoh.com You might want to keep count. I believe I said 'notice' at least 100 times...…
Continue Reading Google Analytics Tutorial: Version 2 »
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May 29, 2007 by ian
Joy asked how you can use Google Analytics to track exactly what users do when they get to your site. There are a few tools in Google Analytics that let you research how folks move through your site: Navigation Summary Click Content > Overview > Navigation Summary: You'll see a screen that looks like this: In the Content drop-down menu (near the top of the image above), select any page. You'll see how site visitors got to that page, and where they went after. This feature works 'out of the box', even if you don't have any goals defined.…
Continue Reading Navigation Analysis with Google Analytics »
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May 8, 2007 by ian
Google is rolling out a new version of Google Analytics. If you have an Analytics account, you should be upgraded in the next couple of weeks. The new look and feel is much friendlier: But the coolest changes, in my opinion, are: Customizable dashboards. Automatically e-mailed reports. Easier date range selection. Google is billing this as an easier-to-use toolset. But I have to say that features 1 and 2 make this a better toolset for the geeks, too: Now I can have reports e-mailed to my office and automatically imported into our analytics tools. Go Google!!!! Technorati Tags: Google…
Continue Reading Google Analytics 2.0 »
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May 8, 2007 by ian
I've just started contributing a bit to the Wikipedia article on Web Analytics. My main focus right now: The difference between web analytics and web traffic reporting. To me: Analytics is the practice of analysis, where a person looks at data and attempts to draw useful conclusions. Traffic reporting is usually done by software, like Google Analytics (a confusing name) or Omniture. I've talked about this before, but I think it's becoming my latest internet crusade. Free the analyzers! Give them credit where credit is due! Technorati Tags: analytics…
Continue Reading Analytics Versus Reporting »
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May 7, 2007 by ian
Jeremiah interviewed Avinash Kaushik, who reports that adding a person to manage web analytics can increase ROI as much as 5000%. Duh. Drive down the road with your eyes closed. How far do you get? (please don't - it's just a metaphor) Now drive down the road with your eyes open. You get farther, right? Adding a dedicated web analytics resource, whether it's an outside firm or a person in your organization, has limitless potential. Suddenly, you know what's working and what's not. You can dump investments that don't bring results, and test new ones. This works whether you're…
Continue Reading 5000% ROI Increase With Analytics »
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