The new year is such a wonderful time. Wonderful smells in the air. The world is full of hope. Unachievable things seem achievable and are being polished into shiny resolutions. World peace seems within grasp.
As we spring to action full of passion I wanted to share with you all a short list of things that will expand your little world of online marketing & web analytics.
We all have a tendency of getting caught in a rut, using the same tool to do the same things and spew forth the same data. Change is hard, even if we know that we should be executing a multiplicity strategy to win in the web analytics 2.0 world.
Before all the excitement of the new year wears out, here are five simple things I would love for you to try so that your company will have a glorious truly data driven 2010!
#1: Don't suck.
Seems obvious. And yet in our quest for ever more hard problems to solve we forget that the number one goal of every website is not to suck. Especially at the really simple and basic things.
At a recent conference there were three keynotes.
One was extolling the wonderfulness of their multi channel campaign tracking. When I went to their website it was a 100% flash website with a constrained small size where it took too much looking to click on anything and then too much scrolling to read anything and unclear calls to actions (if any). That's sucking. No amount of great multi channel tracking will save this company, they suck at the basics.
The second was about predictive analytics and how using massive integrations between online and offline databases they had accomplished some really cool reporting of data (and make no doubt the IT work done over 18 months to accomplish this was cool). Their home page is a mess. 24% of the content covers what any visitor might want, rest is the company shouting at you (in many annoying ways). That's sucking.

The third was about how to create data driven cultures and how this person had created a impressively big cross functional team across multiple countries and standardized on Omniture after a lot of work over two and half years. I did a search on some of their products and they did not have page one search listings (on Google or Bing) for what should be their head terms. (That's sucking.) They did have PPC ads, which I click on the ad for specific product they land me on generic nonsense pages. That's sucking.
I share these stories to illustrate vividly how we in the web analytics world get lost in our data and Omniture and Google Analytics and reporting and lose sight of the the basics and the customer experience.
It is important to realize that if you suck nothing else matters. Not your api driven integrated massively multi channel attribution analyzed campaign lifetime databases. That is not going to save you or your company.
Before you attempt the hard make sure that you do all the standard stuff to ensure your company has a fighting chance to win.
Here are some tips to inspire you:
I LOVE looking at the bounce rates for the top 20 landing / entry pages to the site. Find the losers, fix 'em. These guys are so bad they could not even get one click from the visitors.
Sit down with the owner of the top ten pages to the site and look at them. I mean really look at them and ask this question: "What the heck are we trying to do with each page?" Make sure there is a clear answer (and a match between Customer Intent and Webpage Purpose).
Check the load time of your important pages. Use something simple like: www.WebSiteOptimization.com Or whatever complicated tool you have.
Sign up for your websites campaigns using your personal email address. See how the emails look. Relevant? Personal? Click on the links, what to you see on the landing pages? Fix!
Create a funnel for your cart / checkout / lead submission process. Find the biggest abandonment page. Fix it.
Ask your Finance department where most money is being spent on the web. PPC? Affiliate? Display? What? Take a week to segment that data and find out how to save 10% of the cost.
Count the number of links on your main pages. I mean count them. There are 98 links on a travel site I am looking at right now, on the page for a hotel in Chicago. 98! This is a top site.
What are the analytics people doing if they are not helping the product page owner figure out how to kill atleast 50% of those links on a product specific page. There should be one link: Search for Hotel or Make Reservation! Do this for your site.
Fix the 25 things Dr. Pete lists in this delightful checklist: 25-point Website Usability Checklist.
There are so many ideas. I hope that before you go for massive web analytics glory that your use your wonderful powers first to make sure your site and customer acquisition strategy does not suck.
PS: Bonus tip: Make sure you visit your website once a week, atleast.
#2 Learn basic statistics.
The days of tools and reports simply puking data out are rapidly reducing. No longer can tools or "analysts" just puke 15 metrics on a report and hope to survive.
Web Analytics tools are starting to become smart (see: Analytics Becomes Intelligent). Data is starting to truly get numerous.
For all of the above reasons it is becoming ever more important that you are know atleast Statistics 101. You don't have to be armed with the knowledge of how to create various models or be able to jump into SAS and get naked with it. But you are going to have to know what a mean and a median and r squared and standard deviations and Z scores and confidence intervals and all that lovely stuff is.
If you have not been exposed to statistics perhaps you can take a class at a local community college or university. Many employers will pay for ongoing job relevant education.
Alternatively get one of the simpler books on the topic and immerse yourself in self education. Regardless of if you are a novice or an expert I think one of the best books to start with is The Cartoon Guide To Statistics ($13). A cartoon book? Yes. It is quite good.

Once you know statistics 101 you'll find that you'll think of data analysis differently and you'll get better at finding that proverbial needle of insight in the haystack of data. Knowledge of statistics is a key arrow to add to your analytical skills quiver.
Hello statistical significance!
#3 Try one (or two) new usability / VOC tool/'s.
My passion for the customer is, as they say, legendary!
Part of it is the humility I have developed at the powerlessness of clickstream data to answer all the needed questions. Part of it is that there are just so many darn good options out there to listen to our customers.
So this year why not try one of the newer more powerful and yet cheap usability analysis tools?

 
Here are some tools that are pretty cool and unique:
Five Second Test. I absolutely love the idea of collecting "first impressions" from current customers, employees or just randomly selected people. Within thirty seconds you can take a screenshot of your lovely home page or landing page, upload it and for free get feedback from real people.
4Q / Kampyle / UserVoice. Each of these tools does something completely different, and yet each allows people to type things that you can read and be wow'ed or saddened by. Why not try one of these tools this year and truly get in touch with your customers and a real and meaningful way?
UserTesting.com. You are not a small enough company, or a big enough one for that matter, to do usability testing. This is usability testing for ultra cheap, $29 per person. Set out the tasks, identify your audience, test happens, you watch the video and read comments, you cry, you fix things, you become rich.
Also checkout Feedback Army.
WebSort / OptimalSort. The information architecture on most website is terrible and the reason is that company employees create it for themselves. A great option to hear from the customers was to do card sorting studies. Problem? Expense! Not any more baby. Both these tools are quite affordable, all online and in a fraction of the time it would take to do a offline card sorting study you can get the key data you need. Sweet.
You don't have to do all of the above. But you do have to listen to your customers.
In 2010 Consider trying just two tools listed above that you have not used so far. I promise you that you'll want to give me a big hug the next time you see me.
#4 Try one new competitive intelligence tool.
I practically have a illicit love affair with competitive intelligence. And I am not embarrassed!
If I ever come to see your company, or you see me presenting publicly, then you have seen me present data about your company / industry and then proceed to say nice / not nice things. There is just so much gold out there to be discovered.
Here are some tools for you to try, ideas for analysis you could do:
Compete.com / Trends for Websites. I love the depth of data now available in both tools for free (even if you use just the free part of Compete). Index your overall performance against your competitors.
Where do people go after they leave your site? What are the top five referrers for your competitor? What are the top sites that get traffic for the word love? All free from Compete.
People who visit my site, what other sites do they visit? What are the things they search for? What's the difference between US traffic and India? All free from Trends for Websites.
Google's Search-based Keyword Tool. If you have never explored the long tail for your website (if you are a medium to large site) using SbKT you might be committing a crime. If you have never taken a list of keywords AND the landing pages recommended by SbKT where you have zero impression share and given it to your SEO team then you should feel bad. There is so much here.
[Learn how to use SbKT here: Monetize The Long Tail of Search.]
Google Ad Planner. Some display / banner ads stink because they are just terribly produced and blink and annoy you with sound and do insane things when you mov[…]

In my travels around the world the most frequently asked question is: “What’s your favorite web analytics report? “
A close second is: “How can I improve my web pages with high bounce / low conversion rates?”
Or “I have done all I can and I don’t know how else to improve my webpage, ideas?”
If you think about it for a moment it is not a very hard question.
I believe the insights for improvement exist at the intersection of customer intent and the webpage’s purpose.
Let me explain.
The Customer Intent – Webpage Purpose Gap
There is a very simple reason many websites and web pages have a very high bounce rate, and in turn very low conversions…

There is no connection between why the customer came to the page and what the page exists for.
This could be someone typing in vegetarian shoes into Bing and landing on your web page for swim suits (as happened to me recently).
This could be me visiting www.couponcabin.com and clicking on a $10 off a $35 coupon link to Snapfish and landing on a page for “great new gifts” or, the other day, landing on a page that said “Get a free deck of cards”. What! Where’s the scent?
Never let your campaigns write chq’s that your website can’t cash.
Fix that, your outcomes (revenue, leads, donations…) will improve.
The second type of problem is a lot more common…

There is some overlap between what your customers want and what your web page exists to do. But the overlap is not very much, only the most dedicated (say your mom) will put up with the pain required to complete the task.
I land on your site to buy QuickBooks Simple Start but you have it very well hidden because you want me to buy the $400 QuickBooks Premier product.
This could be an email campaign you sent me and the landing page does not have a one click checkout link, though it does have a ton of irrelevant content.
This is every site with a painful flash intro, this is pretty much every site ever created by every big CPG company, this is Propel Water’s website where the only reason for your existence is to be impressed by a slow site with a dancing water bunny that hops!
What rarely happens, and what we should all aspire for, is this…

Not only is there a large overlap between Customer Intent and Webpage Purpose, the company’s own objectives are subservient to customer needs.
That’s how you get to nirvana. That’s how you get to low bounce rates. That’s how you get to higher conversion. That’s how you get to the kind of magic with your website visitors that will make your competitors green with jealousy!
Here’s an example, it is extremely rare for me to do a Google search and get a result from Amazon (PPC or SEO) that is not magnificently relevant.
It is rare for me to shop at www.crutchfield.com and not feel that the entire company exists to make me happy. From recommendations that start with Budget Friendly first (rather than most expensive) to humongous product pictures to all kinds of shopping guarantees to bonus stickers and custom helpful manuals that are in the box when I get the product.
They understand my intent (worry free quick shopping to install process) and they have done their best to have web pages whose purpose is to meet that intent.
Moral Of The Story
If you want to have high performing web pages make sure that you:
1. Have a clear understanding of what the purpose of that page is and
2a. a clearer understanding of what drove customers to the page and
2b. what they want to accomplish to ensure that
3. #1 and #2 are in alignment.
Glory will be yours!
Tips For Improving Web Pages (Understanding Customer Intent)
We know what needs to get done, right? I think so.
With each tip below my hope is to share with you how I try to glean customer intent (2a and 2b above) so that I can improve the pages (accomplish #3 above).
Uno: Insights from Sources (URL’s, Keywords, Campaigns)
One of the obvious sources for understanding customer intent is to use the sources that drove traffic to your website. In your analytics tool this is all available in one nice window where links are just waiting to be clicked!

You are looking for the Entrance Paths, Sources (referring websites / url’s) and Keywords.
To the left of that screenshot, from Google Analytics, you’ll also see a segmentation drill down that you can click to see Medium, Campaign, Ad Content etc, all great ways to understand intent for Visitors that arrived via campaigns.
This concatenated screenshot shows the analysis that I end up doing…

In this case the high bounce rate is now easier to understand.
9 out 10 keywords referring traffic to the website are not about the purpose of this page. This page is about web analytics career planning, and only keyword number 6 is remotely related to that. No wonder people bounce.
Now I have several actions I can take. I can either do better SEO so it ranks for the right words. I can add this line to the top of the page: “Hey if you are here to learn about Avinash or about the Occam’s Razor then go here and there“.
For my other websites I also click on the referring url’s and go back and visit those sites and see what they are writing about this page when they link to it. They are saying “get discounts on iPods” and linking to my site. But my webpage is about the ZuneHD! Well I can contact that site and get that fixed or add a promotion on my Zune page for the iPod discounts. Both will help meet customer intent.
Ditto with your campaigns, see what campaigns drive people to the site and what promises you made on those campaigns (content, discounts, calls to action) and make sure the web page reflects those promises.
If you do the first part well then this is how your webpage entrance keywords report should look…

Every single referring keyword is a perfect match for the content on the site. It reflects my hard work with SEO and a perfect match with customer intent.
Dos: Insights from Mis-matched Calls to Action
I think this is the biggest miss when it comes to why webpages stink. The customer wants to do x on the page and you are pushing y.
Take a look at this example from www.frys.com (click on the image for a higher resolution, you know you want to!)…

What is the call to action on this page?
There are three layers of tabs on top, a dysfunctional left navigation (still with lots of choices), a link on top that says Disable Menus (I clicked, nothing happens, hmm…), two sets of searches, DVD deals, Blueray something, category links, ….. lots more.
I know this is a category page, but what’s the call to action Fry’s wants me to follow? How does that reflect what I might want to do as a customer?
How about some clarity?
Another example. What is the call to action here…

OMG!
The job of this page seems to be to get me to attend MONEYFest. That’s the most important thing for this company because that’s the only call to action that stands out.
But should it?
Here’s one final example to hammer this concept home.
I just searched for Color Laserjet Printer in Google and clicked on three ppc ads.
The Dell ad takes me to a page that asks me to choose if I want Home & Home Office Printers or Small Business Printers. What? I just want a printer. I also don’t want to be conned into a expensive price, yet I feel one of those two links will do that. Why should I have to put up with this simply because Dell’s business is organized into two divisions? Dell’s revenue, analytics tools and number of analytics people is not an issue – all quite large. So why not land campaigns on pages where I get what I want, a printer / netbook / music player with no prices. As a customer I am satisfied, then when I click Show Me Price make me choose Small Biz or Home. Why not?
[ Oh and for the record click on Small Biz, offers were $10 cheaper than Home and Home Office. How mean!]
The HP ad takes me to a page where half of the page is taken up with the menu, dancing promo, best deals of the week link (which sells computers) and at the bottom of the page, almost below the fold is every printer they sell in all categories. I just want a color laserjet printer.
The Xerox ad takes me here:

No crappy menus. No crappy promotions. No home or small business choices. Just a printer. Just a color laserjet printer.
Perfect match between customer intent, content and call to action.
And it compares it to the direct competitor and tells me that with HP I would not only pay more ($749 to $1,299) but the HP printer would cost me $320 more to operate!
I see you think this is all too ecommerce centric. Ok look at www.flickr.com.
When I land on the site I see three links above and beyond all else. Your Photostream. Upload Photos & Video. Your Contacts. That is what I want to do 90% of the time on that page/site. For the other 10% of the times the other calls to action are there, unobtrusive and yet always there.
Look at your web pages. Identify what are the one or two jobs they are supposed to do. Eliminate every thing else. Focus your calls to action.
Tres: Insights from Website Visitors
Why guess how to improve your webpage? Why not just ask them? You know, them. The customers? : )
For site level surveys free onexit survey tools like 4Q from iPerceptions are a good choice.
But for for feedback from pages I prefer specialist page level surveys like the one from Kamplye.

The survey invite sits nicely at one corner of the page and provides localized feedback from visitors about that particular page. What they liked, what they did not, what could be done better.
[The screen-shot above is from my buddy Brian Clifton's excellent analytics blog: Measuring Success.]
Page level surveys won’t get too many responses, and are more likely to contain negative responses. But both of those things are quite ok, and you do want all the negative responses. I know that because you have a strong ego!
You can also easily build one on your own (embrace your IT person and get her/him a case of red […]

It is such a cliché: Don’t just present data, tell a story.
Yet it is rarely followed.
We almost always present data.
Actually we don’t present data, we send out reports. With data. Lots of it. With 6 size font and some pies and stacked bar graphs thrown in.
Then we are frustrated that no one seems to pat us on the back, sing songs in our glory, give us more money.
We don’t truly tell stories because it seems like a lot of work. And it can be. But you’ll be surprised at how often it is simply a matter of framing things differently, letting your imagination roam free.
Last month I had to present to a group of executives in New York. One of the key things I wanted to communicate was the power of not doing random advertising but rather using freely available data to target the advertising on sites where relevant audiences exist.
Goals Summary:
1. Show the power of free tools available. [Google's Ad Planner specifically.] 2. Highlight the importance spending money on advertising to relevant audiences. 3. Tell a memorable story.

Below is how I did it. . . . hopefully it will inspire you to look for stories in your data, stories that will hold interest and might even get you some smiles (and you know that a raise is not far behind!).
My first step was to try and tap into current events / pop culture. That calls for some research. I use Google Insights for Search as the best way to get a pulse on what people find interesting.
Specifically what I often do is run this query: Who are the most popular celebrities in New York in the last 30 days?

Turns out it is someone called Kim Kardashian. It also turns out I have no idea who this person is, an unfortunate side effect of not have time to watch television.
Quick Google search and I am caught up on why Ms. Kardashian is “famous”. She has some overlap with Paris Hilton in terms of the path to fame.
The key ingredient for any story is to have interesting protagonists. For this story due to their popularity it will be Ms. Hilton and Ms. Kardashian.
The plot: Your business has a need to market something related to Ms. Hilton and Ms. Kardashian, a perfume or a clothing line or a cd/dvd. Amongst other things you’ll want to make use of display advertising (banners / widgets etc).
How do you figure out who the right audience is, and where you’ll find them? As opposed to of course buying the main banner spot on www.yahoo.com were your ad might be a hit or a miss.
Tools for doing audience segmentation were quite expensive until recently. Google’s Ad Planner is free and makes this valuable data democratic. You can segment by demographic (age, education, income, gender etc) and psychographic (Extreme Sports Fan, Film Buffs, Fantasy/Comic Book Readers etc) data.
Perhaps its most cool feature is the marriage between all the above data with Google’s search data.
That’s where the analysis starts.
Question: What are the websites that are visited by people who have searched for the keywords “paris hilton” and “kim kardashian”?
Here’s the answer:

[Click on the image for a higher resolution version.]
Notice the I have typed the keywords on the bottom left. In the right frame are the sites that are visited by those who searched for those two terms. Some obvious sites, many surprises (good thing, now we know!).
I have a habit of sorting by Comp Index, just to check out concentration of the audience. For example a comp index of 990 means that you are approximately nine time as likely to find the same audience (paris, kim searchers) on wallpaperbase.com.
If you look at the higher resolution version (click on the image) you’ll easily find out how many page views are on the target site, what kind of advertising they accept, ad impressions/day and other data you need to create a media plan.
So far so good.
I have always believed that Men are more interested in the kinds of stories and “entertainment” value that Ms. Hilton and Ms. Kardashian generate.
The nice thing is I can validate that hypothesis. I simply open the Gender option in the left panel and choose Male.

You are looking at the top part of the segmentation panel. Notice the delta between UV (users) between the overall segment and just the Males.
Turns out I was not totally right. Males make up a bit less than half of the audience.
No worries. They are still a lot bigger than what many people think (and it is wrong to think it is overwhelmingly female).
My next believe, perhaps controversial, is that older males are more interested in Ms. Hilton and Ms. Kardashian than younger males. Now this seems odd because Ms. Hilton and Ms. Kardashian seem to be more cool and hip and more of a young generation cup of tea.
Well we can test my hypothesis, in addition to Gender I can also choose Age. . .

This data is still just for people, in this case Males, who searched for the key words paris hilton and kim kardashian.
It might have been a odd thing to say but it seems that 45 and older males are a lot more interested in Ms. Hilton and Ms. Kardashian. By almost two to one.
Surprised?
: )
Let’s prep for the punch line of this story.
I have identified a audience that is of value to my goal, marketing Ms. Hilton and Ms. Kardashian (or things connected to them).
I want to target the top end of this audience, Males 55 and older, how many of them are there and where can I find them (to ensure my advertising will be relevant for this audience and my ad dollars are spent wisely)?
Here you go. . .

[Please click on the image for a higher resolution version.]
How about now… surprised?
I was.
The top sites listed for this audience (older Males interested in Ms. Hilton and Ms. Kardashian) turns out to be bedrock sites, typically, for Republicans and the Conservative movement! Starting with a Comp Index of 1700 for impactguns.com. Other sites: weeklystandard.com, rushlimbaugh.com, nationalreview.com, worldnetdaily.com, and townhall.com.
Not in my wildest dreams would have I have expected that this audience would be so highly correlated with actual searches done for Ms. Hilton and Ms. Kardashian. It seems odd with the conservative moral values espoused.
Very Important: I am not judging them. To each unto his / her own.
For my marketing campaign one more valuable nugget of insight is in th above data (click above for higher resolution). Turns out they are also very rich. Note the prominent appearance of morningstar.com, pgatour.com, seekingalpha.com and ft.com.
So a bumper crop: right audience, lots of money to spend. That’s hot!
Now I have to go execute the campaign and I know where to target my ads, how many impressions/day I can expect and how many people I can hope to target.
Relevant audiences change with seasons, hot trends, shifting preferences. Repeat the analysis to ensure you have the most current data.
End of story.
Closing Thoughts:
Turns out this was a very effective story to tell, most people in the room were media buyers (especially offline).
They were impressed with the kind of data we have online, and how easily accessible it was.
They will never forget how wrong one can be about who the relevant audience might be (it would be impossible to guess the Weekly Standard, Rush Limbaugh audience might have any interest in Ms. Hilton or Ms. Kardashian).
Data Wins.
Ok its your turn now.
When you present data how do you tell your stories? How easy or hard is it? Got a favorite story to share with us?
What did you think of the above story? Methodology or conclusions? What did you link? What did I miss?
I would love to hear from you. Thanks much.
PS: Couple other related posts you might find interesting:
Make Your Web Analysis / Reports “Connectable”Competitive Intelligence Analysis: Google Ad PlannerCompetitive Intelligence Analysis: Google Insights for SearchParis Hilton, Kim Kardashian & Telling Stories With Data is a post from: Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik