More on Banner Metrics
Banner advertisements on third party websites are increasingly common as websites target niche visitors. Tracking how well your banner campaign did is extremely important to justify the expenditure outlay on such campaigns. The key metrics in tracking a banner campaign are:

1. Impressions
 This is the fundamental metric in banner campaigns. It refers to the number of visits to the page on which the banner appears.

2. Click Through Rate (CTR)
The CTR indicates the percentage of people who saw the banner and clicked on it. The more effective a banner is, the more people are likely to click on it and hence CTRs are a key metric to ascertain the effectiveness of a banner’s design, content and location on a page.

The CTR is the number of clicks on the banner divided by the number of total impressions.

Web analysts tracking banners need to be very sure of the query parameters they run. A visitor who sees a banner of XYZ Global Inc. on a third party site follows a sequence shown here to reach the landing page of the banner. 

If the banner leads to a page which has 4 different downloads as in the case of XYZ Global Inc., that’s when web analytics reporting can get more complicated. Visitors to each of the 4 downloads on the page have to be tracked for a comprehensive analysis on the banner campaign’s effectiveness and performance.

Web Traffic reporting based on Key Words and Key Phrases
There is an increased focus on SEO, content optimization, meta tags and page titles of web pages with a view to gain ground in search engine rankings. 

Key words and Key phrases are words and search phrases used by internet users in search engines to locate specific information on the internet. Key words are individual words used in a search query while the complete string of words used in the search is a key phrase.

Some web analytics software allow web traffic reporting based on key phrases only, Omniture for instance. However key words are just as important for market intelligence on websites.

Key words are relevant:
• In detecting emerging themes and patterns in website traffic.
• Have higher usability in site optimization.
• Help to focus on services or products that drive traffic to your website.

If your web analytics software is not configured to include key word analyses, it is worth looking at alternative ways of including key words within the ambit of your reports or even writing a program that does it for you.

Referrers to a Site
Key referrers that are not search engines or your own group sites are an interesting input for any organization. What are the ‘other’ top referrers to your site besides search engines and your own group’s websites? An answer to this question can lead to insights into what drives your website’s traffic and where your visitors came from other than the obvious Google/Yahoo. 

MSDN’s library gives a tutorial on Adding Customized Color Scales using Excel 2007  which allows your numbers to tell their story visually. This is done by applying a two- or three-color scale to your data.  The upside: conveys visually through color gradations the relative values in cells. The downside: you need Microsoft’s 2007 Office System!

This blog on Web Analysis (Analytics), Online Advertising and Behavioral Targeting [http://webanalysis.blogspot.com/2007/08/relying-too-much-on-seo-think-again.html] cautions companies against too much dependence on SEO. The writer makes a strong case for alternative tactics such as branding and diversifying, so that your web traffic is not entirely search engine based because if it is, your visitors could be ‘here today and gone tomorrow’ given the dynamics of serach engine crawlers!

Engagement Metrics
There is certain degree of arbitrariness in what qualifies as a ‘High Engagement Visit’. Usually a ball park figure of ‘greater than 8 pages’ should work fine for qualifying a visit as a ‘High Engagement Visit’ and one that engages the visitor to a greater degree.

However, deciding on a ‘Low Engagement Level’ visit should be fairly straightforward. A ‘Low Engagement Visit’ should be any visit of a SINGLE page view only. It is advisable not to fix a range, say ‘less than 3 pages’ etc. to qualify a visit as a low engagement one.

These are times of falling attention spans and low engagement visits should necessarily focus only on visitors who stay for just 1 page.

Six Broad Categories for KPI Identification
A client brief on web analytics was that we work with fewer metrics and a predetermined minimum list of KPIs. All reporting to all service heads had to go under these broad KPIs. The broad categories for KPI identification were fixed as:
 
1. Branding
2. Traffic
3. Thought leadership
4. Interaction
5. Campaigns
6. Database

This ensured that all reporting clearly went under any of the above categories, made for more focused analytics and well-defined reporting.

AD Hoc Reporting
Ad Hoc reporting is becoming increasingly common as a web analytics tool to gauge effect on traffic caused by changes in design or content to the site. It is also used to analyze unexplained rise in traffic to a particular service section or to track other changes to the website.

Ad hoc reporting could be made more effective by:
• State the Objective - Putting Down the stated objective of the Report right at the top
• Summarize - Summarizing Solutions/Broad Trends
A brief text summary at the end of the report which outlines the findings and the broad trend of the analysis greatly enhances decision making. A definite value-add.

An Excel Tip
To enter the same text or formula in a range of cells
To instantly enter the same text or formula into a range of cells:
1. Select the range of cells that you want to fill.
2. Type the text or formula in a single cell and press CTRL+ENTER (instead of just the ENTER key).

3. The data appears in the entire range selected

Web Analytics Resources
Read the article by Sandeep Mittal of Cartesian Consulting on ‘Marketing Analytics: The Big Thrill’. It talks of the growing breed of marketers who are bringing more precision to marketing analytics using data and analytics tools in clever ways.

Also check out Shinystat an Analytics Tool that is available in the Free, Professional and Business Versions.

The Nablerstats team has been meeting up periodically to bring to the table our collective learning from client sites, unlearn mistakes and share new ground that has been covered.

We decided that this is a good time to revive the Nabler blog that had been languishing for a while, as our guys were busy at various client sites. This revived blog is a collaborative effort inspired by the combined learning of the entire team. Entries will be posted each week by team members.

Here are some of the interesting insights that we came up with last week.

Blog Metrics: Specific Issues
Page views does not seem to be a relevant metric for tracking blogs since a single page of a blog has more than one posts. Some relevant blog metrics (for a monthly report) could be:

• Number of posts
• Number of comments
• Average comment per post
• Traffic source (search engine / direct / own website / other websites / other blogs)

Web Analytics for Banners or Videos

• Videos on websites are different from page views. A visitor has to do the extra step of playing the video and hence when tracking videos for clients additional metrics to look at would be:
 Number of times video was displayed
 Number of times the video was played

• Web analysts necessarily need to view the banners, campaigns or videos that they are tracking. Basic familiarity with the subject that you are studying is the least precondition to a better analysis.

• As far as possible, include screenshots of the banner or video or links to the same in the report format. This makes for easier assimilation of the report findings and helps users to visually connect the report findings with the element being tracked.

Definitions of Standard Metrics

There are some terms that have become so much a part of the web analytics lexicon that often lines blur and we work with our own understanding of the term and its formulae. Taking stock once in a while helps to stay the course. 

We tried that with the term ‘bounce rate’ and you would be surprised at the various permutations of the formulae that came up. But to bring some clarity to the matter:

A bounce is a visit that consists of a single page-view.
The bounce rate: Single page view visit to a page divided by Total entry visits to the page.

And for further clarity on the most basic metrics in web analytics that you thought ought to have been standardized by now, the verdict is out. The Web Analytics event at San Jose has issued the WAA Aug 2007 Standards which has standardized definitions for the most basic metrics in the field. At least we now know we are all talking the same lingo!

Tips on better Reporting formats:

• Any month-to-month comparison should factor in the additional weekend in the succeeding month. Taking equal number of days in each month would be a good way to avoid skewed reporting.
• Reporting formats in Excel could have muted grid lines that call attention to the numbers.
• Go easy on the color fills in reporting tables. Let the numbers speak!
• Present all relevant findings in a bold, summarized, ready reference format, right at the top of the report. It helps to look at neatly summarized findings way at the top of the report before a client plunges into the details.

Dashboards

Most of us have read enough on the web about all things that a good dashboard ought not to be…it should not run into too many pages, not track too many metrics, not give data overload and on and on…

Someone at our team decided to put things in perspective by looking around for a few dashboards that got it right. These dashboards make you sit up and wish you had done that for your client.

An Internal Communications dashboard plotting quality scores in relation to employee satisfaction.
Source : Measures of Success PDF document

 A dashboard that summarizes broad areas of Concern, Highlights, Lowlights
Source : Measures of success PDF document

Recommended Web analytics Resources can be found at WebTrends article on Improving Conversion.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been trying to find a blog reader for my mobile. I looked around and found two – pocketRSS and pRSS reader. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get either of the reader to read my current favorite blog. Nor could I uninstall it. Too bad. However, I finally found Google RSS reader to be a viable solution. It formats the html well, shows all the images and is fast. So I’m all set to read blogs on the go.

One of the first blogs I started reading on my mobile was How to change the world by Guy Kawasaki. And I feel inspired to start blogging again. Thanks Guy!!!

My current favorite topic is Taguchi method. We’ve been playing around the idea of writing code for implementing Multivariate testing and Taguchi method seems to be the way. You got to reduce the number of options that is to be tested and Mr.Taguchi seems to have the answer. More on this in future posts.