Analytical News

Tracking Offline Media Online

2007-11-01T11:27:00.000-04:00

I'm not a big fan of conflict. It makes me nervous and I get all butterfly-y; it's not a pretty scene, trust me.So I'm going to attempt to be a peacemaker.

It seems there is a bit of a disturbance in the Force. My buddy Sage over at WebMarketingWatch.com has said some things that seem to have lit a fire in the hearts of print fanatics.

Sage said something about print being "so yesterday," and while that is a great Hillary Duff song, I don't know if it's really all that true. Sage is a passionate man, I'm sure he doesn't think all print is done for. I just think he wants people to know that there is a new media that needs to be embraced as well.

So as a peace offering, I'd like to show you where these two worlds collide. I'd like to show you how print and online media can work hand-in-hand and how you can track it. Offline campaigns can be a great way to drive traffic to your site, now you just need to understand what they're doing.

Vanity domains. The very phrase causes pangs of sadness among SEO people everywhere. But from a tracking point of view, I think they're killer, especially for tracking, billboards, tv commercials, fliers, and print ads.

You've worked hard creating an offline campaign to drive traffic, you've created new landing pages, and now you're ready to watch the sales of your Grumble Cakes shoot through the roof! Many times you'll see websites advertised in ads with URLs like www.mydomain.com/TypeInThisURL. That's great and all, but I mean, c'mon? Does anybody actually type in all of the URL? Use a vanity domain instead! Go out and drop $10 on a fun little domain and put this in your offline campaigns.

Alright, now let's get down to the actual implementation.

Create a new campaign in your analytics account (I know this can be a pain, but hey, it's no harder then tracking a new PPC engine.)
Append the URL of your landing page with the new tags that are needed to track a campaign.
Create a 301 redirect from your new vanity URL to your original landing page with the new tag.
Watch the data roll in!

Now you have a URL that you know people will type in fully and you can see what the hell people are doing on your site. It's a fun combination!

As print and web fight over the same marketing budget at many companies, we need to keep in mind that print and web are not mutually exclusive. They can, in fact, work together to give you a wonderful picture of your audience and your offers. While we're not creatures who like to embrace change, we have to. So in the infamous words of Rodney King, "People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?"

Omniture and Visual Sciences Sitting in a Tree

2007-10-26T10:41:00.000-04:00

Oh snap! Could it be true? Two of the biggest web analytics programs merge into some sort of mega-company? According to some press releases, that very scenario could be true. It appears that Omniture has asked Visual Sciences to be it lawfully wedded spouse by offering $394 million in stock and cash.

So what does all this mean to you and your analytics needs? Right now, not a whole heck of a lot. Uncle Sam still has to review the buyout and make sure all will be good in the world. Until then, the two companies are still operating separately and the packages are still technically competing.

The future of the web analytics world has just been radically shifted by this merger. While we're not sure of the future of either product, we do know that we have lost a major competitor. Is that good or bad? I'm not sure yet. Bringing together the minds of both companies could be a great thing for the market. The combined talent might lead to some great new functionality that we never thought of. It could also mean that since the competition isn't pushing quite as hard as it used to that the urgency to develop new and better technology might not as strong as it used to. This space (and the newly merged company) will be exciting to watch as this drama continues to unfold.

Google Analytics UrchinTracker Variable

2007-10-19T15:08:00.000-04:00

I am a cheap-ass bastard. I'm not denying it. I got my coupon clutch, my Firestone Falcons discount card and a variety of discount cards from a zillion stores. So when I find a good deal, I take advantage of it.

One of the best deals in analytics right now is Google Analytics. It is totally free and is of a very high quality. It is simple to install and has some amazing standard reports.

To set up Google Analytics all you really need to do is toss some code on your page. It looks like this:

<script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
_uacct="UA-xxxx-x";
urchinTracker();
</script>

The script call to Google-Analytics.com contains a lovely JavaScript file of Google-y Goodness that we can't customize. The first little block of x's are your account number the x after the dash represents which profile in your account the data belongs to. Then there is a fun little variable call urchinTracker.

The urchinTracker variable is a great little tool to help you name events that happen allowing your Google Analytics account to become quite the little powerhouse. (There is one little catch. Make sure you have the Google Analytics code just after the tag of the page instead of at before the tag. The Google-y Goodness is needed in order to get some of these to work properly.)

UrchinTracker can be used in a number of ways so I thought I'd break it down for you.

Change the name of the page!

You got some nasty, über-dynamic URLs? Use urchinTracker to make it look nice in your reports! You can name it anything you'd like, but I'd recommend some sort of logical structure. This is all taken care of in the code on the individual page.

Example: I have a nasty URL for my taco page on my foods of the world site. I wish I could find this page in my reports.

Let's fix this! Your new page code could be:
<script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
_uacct="UA-xxxx-x";
urchinTracker('/Mexican-food/Tacos');
</script>
Flash is the coolest thing EVER!!!!

So let's say you have a Flash site and since you can't get indexed organically, you're paying for all of your traffic and you'd like to know which terms are actually worth your money. Making you life even better, your entire site is one Flash movie. UrchinTracker can help.

UrchinTracker and ActionScript are like long lost brothers finding each other after 15 years apart: It starts out a little bit awk-weird, but it ends up pretty good and they'll probably send each other birthday cards or go out for a snifter of brandy for special occasions.

Example: I have a form on my Flashy site. How can I track it?

You have to make some changes to you .fla file in order to get this to work. In the on(release) ActionScript (or whatever ActionScript command you are using) for your submit button, toss in the following code:
getURL("javascript:urchinTracker('/flashForm/thanks');");
Yep. It's that simple.

Downloads, downloads, and more downloads.

I don't know about you, but I would like to see information that pertains to downloads of PDFs and MP3s on my site. Unfortunately, Google Analytics doesn't like to track non-HTML files natively.

Example: I have the biggest Rick Astley unofficial fan site in the Western Hemisphere. How do I track the illegal MP3 downloads from my site?

Ready for this one? Okay. This time the code needs to go in the anchor tag of the link to your MP3. Here's your code.
<a href="http://www.you-ve-been-rick-rolled.com/music/
never-gonna-give-you-up.mp3" onClick="javascript:urchinTracker ('/mp3/NGGYU); ">

So there you go. Lots of simple ways to use urchinTracker to make your Google Analytics account more fun! Okay... maybe "fun" isn't the right word. How about more useful? Yup. I like that better.

Determining your Most Wanted Response

2007-10-11T10:46:00.000-04:00

I know it sounds obvious, but ask yourself, "What do I want people to do when they come to our site?"

This could be really simple. You might only want people to fill out a form or request more information. It may be you want people to make a purchase online. You might just want people to click on your ads. Hell, you might even have multiple goals for your site. No matter what, here's what I want you to do. Open up Excel or Notepad or MSPaint something you feel comfortable working in and list out the desired responses.

Give yourself some room and start brainstorming. What goes into that end response or encourages multiple visits? Do you offer downloads and whitepapers that encourage people to learn more? How 'bout an email newsletter. Do you have one of those? What about some sort of tool like an interactive-calculator-gizmo-widget-thingy? While these are not your site's main purpose, these are all important tools that you can use to leverage people back into the site and eventually do what you want them to. These are all trackable actions that might correlate in some way to your bottom line. List them, too!

I know this all sounds really basic, but you would be amazed at how many people are not thinking this way! I have had so many conversations with clients where you ask them what they want people to do and they're not 100% sure. If you don't know, how is your visitor going to know?

Forrester Wave; Web Analytics, Q3 2007

2007-10-05T11:18:00.000-04:00

In September, Forrester published a list of their top picks for web analytics tools. If you want to blow a grand, you can buy the report here. If you're not in the mood to spend your Benjamins that way, I'll recap for you!

Making headway in the list is Visual Sciences Visual Site. Since WebSideStory and Visual Sciences became one, there has been a whole new set of products that integrate into HitBox. Really, Forrester seemed to like it because it is pretty. Yup. I'd agree. HBX has a nice interface and that really is a good selling point. If it's pretty you want to use it even it isn't the best data. I mean think about it. Dart is a killer tool, but the interface isn't nice and snazzy. For Joe Average stuck in web analytics, this can be oppressive. HBX is pretty with all sorts of graphs and colors; it actually draws you in a bit.

Other big guns like Omniture and Unica's NetInsight continue to do well. WebTrends also ranks well. This one always surprises me. I know WebTrends is supposed to be this awesome tool, but seriously guys, why can I not have my MS Office crap open while I'm trying to export data? This feature makes me loathe this software. No matter how good the data is, that makes me not want to use the program. That is a Shakespearian tragic flaw if ever I'd seen one.

ClickTracks and Google Analytics get honorable mentions this time around and I can see why. They're not as robust as the other programs. Don't get me wrong; these are great programs. They're just missing some features that the others have. Like Google Analytics, you can only have 4 different conversions there's really nothing there to hunt down click fraud. The other players tend to have add-ons to help.

This study was conducted using, like, 100 billion criteria, but the one piece of data that couldn't be factored in is you're business' website. Every website is different (well, unless you're a scraped clone of DMOZ), and have unique needs. This data is great and relevant, but make sure the features of any analytics package actually meet the needs of your site.

The Purpose Analytical News

2007-09-27T12:56:00.000-04:00

Hello and welcome to AnalyticalNews.org!

My name is Joe Abraham and I work for SageRock.com a web marketing firm in Akron, Ohio. I'm a Vice President of Web Marketing there; that means that I'm involved in our clients programs at varying levels. From doing research, to doing the work, to looking for new opportunities; I'm there to look at our clients' web marketing holistically and look for ways to increase performance.

During my early days at SageRock.com, I fell in love with statistics. I was amazed by the power they offered us. The granular level of the detail was like nothing I had ever seen in case studies in school. It was eye opening. We had several clients on what was then NetTracker (now Unica's NetInsite). The custom reports, the ability to track conversion to an extent, this all meant that I could make changes and measure the result! What a great concept.

Unfortunately, not all of our clients would spring for a statistics package. I find that incredibly unfortunate. The web is made for tracking so you should take advantage of it. I started this blog not only because I am in love with stats, but also to a stats evangelist. I want to help demystify stats and help people find a good fit for them.

I also did this because as a web marketer, I often feel like I'm pressured to push the high-cost statistics programs that many site owners will never look at. I hate this. I don't think it is always wise to push for top-tier analytics when they are neither required nor desired. I am a very firm believer that the best statistics program for a website is the one that people will actually be engaged in.

Over the coming months, I hope to explore these issues, dive into some analytics tools that are out there, show some fun features in the packages that are out there and hopefully answer some questions that arise (both my questions and your questions).

So thanks for stopping by AnalyticalNews.org. I hope you'll come back and read what I hope will be weekly posts. If you’d like, there are all sorts of RSS chicklets on the right side of the site, please feel free to subscribe to the RSS feed to make getting updates even easier.