The Direct Approach

Analytics Explained for Mom Bloggers

For those of you who don’t yet know, I’m actually expecting my first child this July. Which means that I’ll soon be a part of another community, the powerful network of mom bloggers.

I’ve already started dipping my toe into the waters of mom blogging by being a bi-weekly contributor to the Baby Bargainista Column on Eden Spodek’s Bargainista Blog.

And last week I was interviewed by Mom Blogger extraordinaire and co-host of the Profitable Mommy Blogging podcast, April Tara

We discussed the basics of web analytics, everything from defining what a visitor is to how to understand your stats and evaluating traffic to your blog.

While aimed at mom bloggers, it really is applicable to anyone trying to understand the world of analytics, especially those relatively new to blogging or web analytics.

You can hear the whole 40 minute show here and because we ran out of time, be sure to check the site in the next few days for my follow up guest post, giving my thoughts on Google PageRank and Alexa.

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05.03.2009 Web analytics 2 Comments

Clicks vs. Click Throughs and Why You Need to Understand the Difference

If you run advertising campaigns, you should be receiving reports from the publisher’s ad serving software/company showing you the number of impressions your ad received, as well as the number of clicks.

This information can be valuable to you as you decide whether or not to proceed with additional ad campaigns with said vendors. But what is a click, really? For vendors and ad-serving comapnies, a click can include the following:

1. People who click through to your website
2. Spiders/bots/webcrawlers trolling the net to index information and links
3. People who clicked on your ad (by accident) and realized that wasn’t the action they wanted to take and closed things down before actually visiting your site
4. Fraudulent click activities – which end up being a combination of automated clicking devices/ip addresses who never make it to your site

As you can see there are a lot of instances where a click may not be an actual click and may be inflatign your results. This is where the click-through comes in.

A click-through is exactly what it sounds like – someone has clicked on your ad and landed on your (campaign landing) page.

It can be kind of tricky to get this information, as it requires you to have your own tracking system in place that allows you to place your own click tags in your ads (as well as those from the ad serving company/publisher.) It also requires you to have the ability to place tracking code on your site to tell when someone has clicked through from an ad.

Generally speaking, if you sit down with your IT and marketing teams, you should be able to figure out a way to do this – especially if you are using some sort of paid tracking software/system.

Did you know that the variance between clicks and click-throughs can differ as much as 30-50% in some cases? Every tracking system will be different and there will always be discrepancies between data sources, but normally you look for a less than 10% differnce.

Paid Search advertisers seem to have the lowest data discrepancies, and that is because they have long since instituted double tracking and didn’t stand for the difference between clicks and click-throughs, especially because paid search is billed on a cost-per-click basis. This forced serving companies/software systems to pay attention and fix the discrepancies quickly in order to avoid losing money.

However, in banner advertising, most programs run on a Cost per Thousand (CPM) impressions basis, so it’s advantageous to the publisher to show lots of clicks and not worry about fixing any potential discrepancies. For anyone who is running banner advertising campaigns on a CPC basis, I strongly recommend you ensure there is a second tracking option in place for you to compare the numbers.

Perhaps it’s time to stop and take a second look at your advertising campaign and see how it’s really doing.

Photo Credit: iamwahid; Stock.Xchng

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26.02.2009 Banner ads, Web analytics, campaign tracking, online advertising, web marketing No Comments

A Recap of Tweetdeck’s Latest Update: Version 0.21.5b

I’m a huge fan of the Twitter application Tweetdeck . Tweetdeck essentiatlly helps organize the often chaotic social networking site to save you time. It does this by allowing you to keep track of your followers by putting their tweets into digestable groups, among other things. One of the biggest challenges of Tweetdeck was the amount of API it sometimes sucked up if you tried to do too much in the interface and weren’t managing the number of API calls you asked the application to make in an hour.

The latest version 0.21.5b not only provides measures to address these API concerns, but adds an entire other layer to the time-saving features offered. Included below is a list of the major enhancements that I’ve been able to notice with this version. To see these in action, check out this great video tutorial by non-proft social media consultant John Haydon .

Besides the Direct Message, Reply and Retweet options, the biggest, most notable change is that when you mouse over someone’s avatar, the ‘fourth icon’ is now named Other Actions. If you choose this icon, a fly-out navigation menu appears giving you the ability to:

* Email a tweet to somone (Using the default Microsoft email of course)
* Translate the tweet (I clicked on this and nothing happened – so assume it’s for non-English tweets)
* Untranslate a tweet (Again nothing happend when I clicked this – but to assume again, I imagine it’s to undo what you translated)

Other items in the Other Actions drop down include the ability to follow or unfollow someone, Search, View the tweeter’s profile, Mark as Read, Delete, Favourite and Add to a Group.

Being able to view the profile and add to a group without the extra clicks should save a few API calls and in general makes the interface that much easier and faster to use. What will save even more of those API calls comes from some new options in the Settings tab. You now have the ability to open profiles in web pages vs. in Tweetdeck – again to save API calls. I think this is really quite brilliant.

Other new setting options include:
* Choose how many tweets to keep in a column (automatically set at 500)
* The ability to hide direct messages after you’ve sent them or tweets you’ve marked (when you restart the system)

The other big news that hashtag users will love, is that when you reply to someone who used a hashtag, Tweetdeck now automatically picks up the hashtag and puts in the reply for you. This is just another wonderful time saving measure (and will avoid some typos I’m sure).

I’m thinking there are a least a couple of other new items, so feel free to let me know what I might have missed in this list.

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16.02.2009 analytics tools, blogging No Comments

More Omniture News – A partnership with WPP

Without turning this into an Omniture only blog, it’s hard to ignroe additional events/news happening at the company these days.

An article in DM News talks about the recent announcement of a parternship between Omniture and the WPP Group.

Besides WPP investing 25 million into Omniture – which in my opinion is a much-needed investment if Omniture hopes to try and keep up with Google, or shake the recent troubles it’s had with unhappy customers and latency issues – there will be an integration of several WPP/ 24/7 Real Media products, like Open AdStream.

This merger recognizes that neither company can afford to let the likes of Google take away their business. It also helps eliminate some of the clutter and duplication amongst web analytics platforms and companies.

It means more sharing and collaboration of tools and technology, which in the long run only benefit those using those applications. It’s much better than what either Omniture or Google was doing in terms of buying up companies and technology as it means there are two companies each with their own stakes and reputations on the line if this doesn’t work. I think it means everyone will try harder to please the other and again, means those using any of the products should win in the long run.

Of course, I’m sure there will be some interesting techinical glitches along the way, but I find this a very positive annoumcent all around.

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09.02.2009 Analytics Systems No Comments

Tracking Systems Are Only As Good As The Data They Capture

Being able to know what visitors to site are doing, and how they behave are really quite important statistics for major companies. Especially if they are able to make changes on the fly and boost conversion rates based on the (near) real-time information that’s available.

In fact, most companies pay big bucks for that. Being able to get this real-time data is one reason why free systems like Google can’t compete. But what if those systems you pay big bucks for suddenly stop spitting out real-time data? What if it takes a couple days (or longer) for that data to appear? That would make daily optimization nearly impossible.

Well, this is what is happening to those customers of Omniture at present. And as a user of Omniture for a client of mine, I can attest to the fact that data sometimes disappears, or doesn’t exist for several days, and then suddenly does as though it was there all along and you just didn’t look hard enough.

It makes testing campaigns very difficult, especially when you’re trying to give the go-ahead for an ad to go live.

An article in Forbes last week shows that my client isn’t the only one facing this challenge. Which is good and bad news. It’s good news because we’ve usually been made to feel like we are the only ones with these issues. The bad news? Poor Omniture; they are really heading up the creek without a paddle.

In a time where Google is heavily ramping up their free systems, and companies are looking to tighten their belts, Omniture can’t afford to be losing or misplacing data – even for short periods of time. It doesn’t give them much of a leg to stand on when clients ask why they have to pay so much for their services.

I also feel like it raises a few more questions including:

1. Are we expecting too much from data systems?
2. Makes me wonder about those who pay for tracking systems – especially huge sums of money. These troubles kind of make free look good… Don’t they?

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30.01.2009 analytics tools 2 Comments

What the CRTC Can Learn From Email Marketers

Back in September when Canada’s Do Not Call List was announced, I wrote a post outlining some of the major issues that I (and other marketers) saw with it, including the vagueness of the wording itself.

What has actually happened though is probably the biggest backfire in the history of Backfires. Many news outlets, including the Globe and Mail, have reported that those on the list – myself included – have actually had our names and numbers sold to scammers.

You see, it’s rather easy to get the list. All marketers have to do is register online and pay a small fee. When they register, as long as they know the format for a business number and the other information they ask, they are immediately accepted. There’s NO cross checking that takes place. No confirmation before the list is downloaded.

This means anyone, including those who aren’t Canadian – and can’t be processed since this is a Canadian law, that applies to Canadians – can get the list and use it to call people.

Which is, unfortuntely, exactly what’s taking place. If you take a look in the hundred or so comments you see with the article, you’ll notice that most of these calls are ones we all get, the fog-horn cruise and those with call-display numbers of 1234567890.

The problem? It’s obvious the CRTC didn’t put any checks and balances in place to stop this kind of thing from happening. Again, if you read through the comments, you’ll notice several people mention things like seed numbers, data checks and data cleansing – without releasing the information.

This last idea is really the way things should have been handled in the first place. It’s the way respectable email marketing is run, so there’s no excuse as to why it couldn’t work here.

The way it works is that (after all the non-disclosure agreements are signed), the mareketer sends their list to the CRTC, who then ’scrubs’ it against their Do Not Call list and sends back the ‘cleaned’ file. Now, this is the most rudimentary way of doing this. Technology has advanced so much that many of the email companies (and some major computer companies with giant lists) allow online data scrubbing to occur in a secure environment where humans don’t actually touch/see the data.

GASP what a concept! If the CRTC had done their homework, or talked with vendors who offer this service, they would see how easily this could be done and is currently done here and in the U.S., where it’s the law to have an email DNC and for suppressions to take place when renting lists.

Now Canadians who were told to register in good faith for this list, have no choice but to continue suffering the fate of illegimate marketers phoning them whenever they please.

Photo Credit: Jazza Stock.Xchng

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28.01.2009 Email Marketing, campaign tactics, telemarketing No Comments

Knowing When to Admit You’re Wrong

It’s not often that someone will come right out and say – “You know what? I goofed, I made a mistake, I’m sorry and here’s what I’m going to do to fix it.”

Yet Vicki Flaugher of SmartWomanGuides.com did just that recently. She sent out an email to her newsletter subscribers that was quite honest, sincere and very apologetic.

The sad news, unfortunately, is I quite apparently stink at newsletters. I have had numerous technical difficulties that have made many of you not receive the newsletters or for them to arrive jumbled. Perhaps you never got one. The problems have been overwhelmingly disappointing to me.

Being a SmartWoman sometimes require you to recognize when you’ve been whipped. So, it’s official – I give up. I am temporarily suspending publication of the SmartWoman Newsletter.

She then went on to outline a plan of how she planned on fixing things, and how a subscriber could continue to get their SmartWoman ‘fix’ by following Vicki on Twitter or tuning into her radio show on Blog Talk Radio.

Full disclosure: Vicki is a client of mine and I am helping her revamp the newsletter. We talked about setting expectations and about the fact that anyone subscribing to her newsletter was probably wondering what had happened to it. However, we’re just in the beginning stages of working together and I didn’t tell her to send out that note. Vicki did it all on her own and I was truly impressed when it showed up in my inbox.

I think Vicki’s note went a long way to earning credibility with subscribers. It let them know she was aware there was a problem and that her standards wouldn’t let it continue any longer. She made a commitment to her subscribers to no longer send out the newsletters until she was confident in them again.

That showed her subscribers she cared about what material is sent to them, and ultimately about the content they received. Being someone who wants to empower the female entrepreneur, Vicki recognized that she could share this learning experience with her readers, and everyone would end up walking away more fulfilled.

Photo Credit: mai05; StockXchng

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12.01.2009 Email Marketing 4 Comments

Holiday Stats Reveal More Than You Realize

If you’re a non-retailer who is not paying attention to your December traffic, then this post is for you. It will tell you why this is the most important time to pay attention to your stats.

Unless you are a retailer, many companies/sites don’t often look at their website stats/usage in December as they might find it slightly depressing because numbers are down. Now, this is a big generalization, but is usually the case for non-retailers (if you’re a non-profit you’re counted with the retailers for the sake of this post since gifts often include charitable donations).

The question is, who comes to your site if you don’t have something to sell as a gift (online)? Your loyal customer/reader. The people who come to your site during the holiday season are doing so for one of several reasons.

1. Perhaps they don’t celebrate the holidays for religious reasons

2. Perhaps they are tired of looking at Christmas things and want to take a break

3. Perhaps they visit your site often and are the types of customers/readers/visitors you try to attract all throughout the year

Didn’t think about that did you? People who come to your site over the holidays are likely the people you are trying to reach all year long. So without the clutter of accidental visitors, take some time and study the paths they take on your site.

What content interests them the most? Are there any patterns or trends you can see from this period and then what about year over year during the same holiday season? You can even compare it to the rest of the year to see how/if that differs and if there are any interesting conclusions you can reach.

Looking at this data just may give you some information to use to base the website decisions for 2009 you’re probably fine-tuning at this very moment.

Photo Credit: Kitsos13; Stock.xchng

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05.01.2009 Web analytics No Comments

Why Campaign Visitors Need Their Own Path

When a prospect lands on your website from an advertising campaign, do you send them on the same path as any other visitor to your website? If you do, you need to think again.

Visitors to your site (especially) from online advertising programs have different mindsets than visitors who come to your site because they are regulars, or took the time to search for something they were interested in which brought them to your website.

Here’s what you need to know about (online ad) campaign visitors.

They were in the middle of doing something else first. It was great you caught their attention with your ad and they landed on your site, but remember this: They didn’t start out looking for your ad.

Your ad was a distraction from the original task they wanted to complete.

They want to go back to whatever it was they were doing previously, as fast as possible.

You need to understand and accept that.

You do this by making it as easy and painless as possible for them to complete the task you want them to do.

If you were to compare stats between someone who came to your site from an online ad campaign vs. someone who didn’t, chances are you would quickly come to see the following:

Campaign visitors are unlikely to go more than 1-2 pages deep on your site, whereas non-campaign visitors are more likely to explore your site and its pages.

Keep this in mind, you need to determine the single-most important action you want an ad campaign visitor to take and focus on helping that user complete that task. Giving them too many options complicates the process and makes it easy for them to bail before getting past step two, so they can get back to what they were doing before.

Anything you can do to speed up the process of completing the step you want them to take (say subscribe to your newsletter) and help them get back to their previous task, will be well received. Chances are they will come back to explore later when you’re not just a distraction.

Photo Credit: CanadaKick; Stock.xchng

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16.12.2008 Web analytics, online advertising No Comments

Subscribers

Analytics Explained for Mom Bloggers

Clicks vs. Click Throughs and Why You Need to Understand the Difference

A Recap of Tweetdeck’s Latest Update: Version 0.21.5b

More Omniture News – A partnership with WPP

Tracking Systems Are Only As Good As The Data They Capture

What the CRTC Can Learn From Email Marketers

Knowing When to Admit You’re Wrong

Holiday Stats Reveal More Than You Realize

Why Campaign Visitors Need Their Own Path

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