KAIZEN Analytics

Measuring the impact of offline events with Google Insights for Search

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Notté) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:15:00 +0000

If you don’t know Google Insights for Search yet, I recommend having a look at it right away. In spite of its name, it is not just another tool for optimizing organic or paid search. It is much more than that as it can be used for many other purposes. And it is 100% FREE!

Last year, I covered a practical example showing how it can be used as a "competitive intelligence" tool. In this post I would like to show how it can be used for measuring impacts of offline events and the kind of actions you can take. Actionable data, that is what really matters!

Caught in crisis - What Google Insights for Search can tell you?

It can happen that sometimes companies go through hard times and become the centre of attention of media and people, whether for good or bad reasons. Believe it or not, Google Insights for Search can be use to see the general impact of a crisis – if impact there is. Whenever there is something hot, what most of us do is to go on Google and search for it. So if such crisis has a significant impact, it must reflect in Google Insight for Search (or Google Trends).

How to use the tool?

Search for your brand, on most relevant locations
Look at last 7 or 30 days to get a detailed view and latest hot trends
See if any outstanding peaks and add context to the data! Put these in parallel with any external events.
Look at rising terms section ( i.e. the "hot" terms) and find out if there are any terms relating to the “hot” topic.

(Tip: The great thing with Google Insights for Search is that all data can be exported in CSV so you can build your own dashboard (with comments, annotations) or aggregate these into any existing one).

What actions can you take?

Communicate: Found some interesting findings? Then communicate these to key stakeholders. Don’t keep the info for you, share it. And don’t forget to provide background information, explanations & definitions so your stakeholders can easily understand the information.
Optimize for search: If you are providing official information through your online channels, you want people to find it. Make sure you optimize your content based on the rising terms, those used by customers. And as a short-term action, consider putting in place appropriate SEA strategy to support your SEO efforts.

Want an example?

Ok, anyone heard about the Toyota worldwide recall following the issue with the gas pedal and the Prius brakes? I am sure you did (DISCLOSURE: I am working for Toyota Motor Europe - see short intro text on top right).

A search for “Toyota”, with location set to worldwide, showed the following trend line for last 30 days (at the time I started writing this post). Peaks are clearly visible and happened following key announcements or coverage in the media.

The cool thing with Google tool is that I can select specific countries and compare trends. It is not just about the US. Remember, I am working in a European context. So let’s do the same search for UK, Germany and France. Similar trends but with different amplitudes – look at the huge peak in UK around the 3rd of February.

Having a look at the rising terms, terms about the recall and the accelerator problem are all over the place. And “toyota recall” is 2nd in top searches. This clearly shows what impact the recall had on search behaviour and interest around Toyota brand.

Got it? Let’s move on to another application.

Does your latest TV ad trigger interest?

It is the dream of most marketers to do a really cool TV ad that will trigger positive interest, emotions and buzz. And yes, you may find the answer with Google Insights for Search- at least if your TV ad managed to get some interest. Again, if it is the case, people will talk about it and will search for it.

How to use the tool?

Proceed same way as in previous case. For such purpose, I even advise to do this on a regular basis.

Search for your brand, on most relevant locations
Look at last 30 days to get a detailed view and latest hot trends
Look at rising & hot terms section. Anything related to your TV ad? If yes then drilldown to get interest trends and compare related terms.
Again, add context. Do peaks coincide with start of your TV campaign? Or with any buzz in press / TV show / social media? Find it out and check with your colleagues from media department.

What actions can you take?

If people are searching for your TV ad - make it easily available, get your brand exposed! Aim for #1 spot in search results.

Share on social media: Post it on You Tube and any other popular video sharing platforms. And don’t forget to provide relevant description using terms reported by Google.
Broadcast your ad on your website: Add your TV ad on your site, create a specific webpage and get the You Tube video embedded in it.
Optimize for search: Optimize your TV ad page for organic search using terms you got from Google Insights for Search (and relevant variants).

Want an example?

This time I will take an example from a competitor. Recently, Peugeot, the French car manufacturer started a TV ad campaign to support the launch of its new logo. The TV ad shows the brand history - past, present & future - in a nice display of computer generated images.

Let's have a look at the "Peugeot" term, in France. This first interest trend may not show anything outstanding. That is where the "rising terms" section proves to be really helpful. A quick look shows the section is topped with terms related to the latest ad. People searched for the TV ad (usually a positive sign) and also look for info about the music (seems they liked it - even better!).

Clicking on the "Peugeot pub" term (i.e. Peugeot ad) you give you a much more interesting trend graph that can be analyzed against campaign planning for example.

Finally a quick search on Google France for "peugeot pub" will return as top results a video of the TV ad from YouTube or from Dailymotion (not posted by Peugeot but who cares) - giving the info people are after and exposure to Peugeot brand!

These are two examples of how you can use Google Insights for Search for measuring impacts of offline events and taking some online actions (among others). Now, of course it requires that you regularly check results in the Google tool. Just a good habit to take and appropriate process to put in place.

What do you think about these applications? Are you also using Google Insights for Search? If so, any example you can share here? Comments are more than welcome!

Final note: I would like to take this opportunity to make following recommendations to Google (if they read my post :-)) in order to make Google Insights for Search even better:

Add the possibility to save queries (Still one can copy/paste query URL's or bookmark these)
It should be possible to receive summary of the top & rising terms on a regular basis by emails or even the full report.
Add the possibility to create own annotations.

Related posts & resources:

Competitive intelligence for free: a practical example, post from May 2009
Competitive Intelligence Analysis: Google Insights for Search by Avinash Kaushik

Exceptional Web Analytics Days in Lille, France on March 18th

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Notté) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:13:00 +0000

On March 18th, Lille (Northern France) will host several exceptional Web Analytics activities.

The day will start at with Stéphane Hamel's "Roadmap to Online Analytics Success"workshop (organized by Hub'Sales, check here more information and registration).

In the afternoon, the "Web Analytics Avenue" forum will propose 3 conferences with 3 panels of local and international experts (including myself :-)) will be held on the following topics :

What are the right performance indicators for an e-commerce site?
how to implement an optimization strategy on your web site?
how to make the right technological choices for Web analytics?

These conferences are organized in the context of the Nord IT Days trade show (Check here more information and registration).

Finally, at 5 45 pm, the "Rendez vous des Web Analytics" - a free social networking event will start with 3 keynote presentations:

European launch of the Web Analytics Maturity Model with Stéphane Hamel (Immeria, Canada),
Web Analytics News, by Michael Notté (Belgium - yes it is me again :-)) and Julien Coquet (Hub'Sales, France),
How to measure the performance of your social media actions, by Siegert Dierickx (These Days, Belgium).

The presentations will be followed by a cocktail sponsored by Hub'Sales. You can register here.

7 good reasons why you should attend?

Need to be convinced? Ok, here a some good reasons to go to Lille on March 18th:

Quality of the content & speakers (I am talking about other speakers of course)
Quality of the event - I attended & spoke at a previous WAW in Lille and I had lot of fun. Nicolas Malo does a great job, people are very nice and atmosphere is really cool!
The conferences & the networking event are FREE!
It is a good opportunity for you to learn or practice your French if you are not French-speaking
Lille can be easily reached by train from London, Brussels or Paris in a hour or less
They have Belgian beers in Lille
I will be there :-)

I hope to see you there.

A très bientôt!

“Online analytics from a Managerial perspective” workshops in Belgium & in the Netherlands

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Notté) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:06:00 +0000

In 2009, Stéphane Hamel, creator of Web Analytics Solution Profile (aka WASP), board member of the Web Analytics Association and tutor at the University of British Columbia (among other prestigious titles) made an important contribution to the Web Analytics community by releasing a first proposal of a Web Analytics Maturity Model (a contribution that I listed in my Web Analytics top 5 for 2009).

The WAMM triggered lot of feedback and many people asked him for more. Stephane’s answer is a half-day or full-day “Roadmap to Online analytics success” or if you prefer online analytics from a managerial perspective.

The good news is that Stéphane will be touring Europe in March, making a stop in little Belgium on the 23rd of March, after Lille and before heading to Amsterdam on the 25th. Hurray!

The half-day workshop in Belgium and Amsterdam is organized & hosted by These Days. Registration is now open and full information can be found on These Days WAMM special page.

“Oh no, another Web Analytics training” – not really!
It is important to highlight that this workshop is NOT another training on how to use a specific Web Analytics tool or optimizing your latest campaign. No, it is about how to successfully manage online analytics within your organization. Stéphane will share years of his experience on the Web Analytics field and will address topics like objectives definition, insights communication, analysis process, change management…

The workshop is not technical and it is open to large audience and in particular to directors, online marketing managers, Web analysts and managers, IT managers and more.

The workshop cost is less than 300 EUR (if registration is made before the 26th of February) – I think this is a very low price for such knowledge (one day of consulting from a Web analytics expert will cost you much more than that).

Personally, I think that having someone like Stephane Hamel coming to Belgium is an unique opportunity to any Belgian Web Analytics practitioner who want to further develop and leverage Web Analytics within its company.

If you want to give a boost to your Web Analytics expertise, this is a training you should definitely attend. I will be there, that’s for sure.

Note: if you can’t not make it to the workshop in Antwerp nor in Amsterdam, full-day workshops are also taking place in Lille on the 18th & 19th of March. See Hub Sales site for registration & information.

Related resources

"Roadmap to online analytics success" workshop @ These Days page
"The Web Analytics Maturity Model" site
"Workshops: Roadmap to online analytics success" - post from Stéphane Hamel (Jan 2010)

My Web Analytics 2009 top 5

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Notté) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 13:06:00 +0000

Start of a new year is always a good moment to stop for few minutes and to have a quick look backward at the past year or to do predictions for the new one. To be honest, I prefer to leave predictions to real experts :-). So I will just have a look at the past…

Beginning of last year, following the suggestion from a friend of mine, I came up with my Web Analytics 2008 top 5 i.e. the top 5 things related to Web Analytics that I would remember or that influenced my work, from a practitioner perspective.

Now is the perfect time to do the exercise again for 2009. There we go, here is my Web Analytics top 5 for 2009 (drums rolling):

The Web Analytics Maturity Model from Stephane Hamel
The rise of the European Web Analytics community
My blog experiments
Web Analytics 2.0 book by Avinash Kaushik
Social Media monitoring

Why these five ones? Here are the reasons why I have picked each of them:

1. The Web Analytics Maturity Model (WAMM) from Stéphane Hamel
Web Analytics management & strategy has become for me a very important topic – a though one if you ask me. Moving further on the Web Analytics journey is hard, especially when working in a large organization. When Stephane shared his work and released the Web Analytics Maturity Model (WAAM), I think he offered the Web Analytics community a great & valuable tool. I don’t care if this becomes or not an “industry” standard model, if it can or can not be applied to everyone. At least it is a great tool for me.

The WAAM came in just at the right time for me and it was the communication tool I was missing. I think it is a good model to assess and represent your ‘state of the nation’. It is not the only way but it is a good one. It helps you evaluate where you are and where you should go next, what are key areas to strengthen… And it is a good way to communicate to higher management. It deals about governance, process, objectives, and resources. All are aspects that any (good) manager will understand.

But most of all, the WAMM is really practical – much more than many strategy tips or advices that I have read before. You know those kind of tips that leave you thinking to yourself “ok, good ideas but how do I do it practically”. It is well defined and it can be easily applied. On top, it is an “external” and “objective” model – which is always better when you try to promote your discipline internally.

The WAMM is not a silver-bullet, it does not make Web Analytics easy – but it contributes to make it easier. I hope to be able to share more of my own experience with it and I am also looking forward for meeting Stephane in 2010.

2. The rise of the European Web Analytics community
Last year I nominated the Web Analytics community, the incredible contribution of all its actors, the WAA... In 2009, I have been particularly impressed by the European Web Analytics community and I am proud of being part of it :-D.

The Web Analytics community in Europe really got more structured, more mature. Communities are now present in most European countries – Web Analytics Wednesdays have been taking place all over Europe. And the level of expertise is getting very good. Just look at the numerous experts we have (Aurelie Pols, Julien Coquet, Steve Jackson, Nicolas Malo, Lars Johansson…) – some even released their first Web Analytics book ("Cult of Analytics" by Steve Jackson and "Web + Analytics = Profits" from Nicolas Malo and Jacques Warren). The number of Web Analytics events also kept increasing (eMetrics –coming to Paris in 2010, Internet Marketing conference, Web Analytics Congres…). Personally, I had the chance to attend events in the Netherlands and in France and I was really impressed by the quality of the audience and presentations. Really great moments! I am really looking forward for attending some more European events.

On the vendor site, Europe have some competitive Web Analytics vendors – like the French AT Internet that released a new version of their product (AnalyzerNX), a good contender to traditional solutions (from what I have read).

Finally the Web Analytics Association decided to give more structure to international activities with the creation and support of country groups – a sign of the WAA intent to strengthen its activities around the world.

But what about Belgium then? Well, I must admit there is still a lot of work to do. There was a good start in first half of 2009 with several Web Analytics Wednesdays. Second half was quieter – partially my fault – but I hope to give a good boost in 2010 with the help of few other persons. I can already tell you that Web Analytics Wednesday will be back in Belgium, in March (on Tuesday 23rd actually:-)) with a great agenda and with an international speaker. More details to come!

3. My blog experiments
When I started my blog, one of my objectives was to use it as a learning tool to develop new skills, to test ideas, to discover new tools - all in all, to experiment! And I was not disappointed.

My blog gave me the opportunity to know more about not only the blogosphere but also other social media platforms like Twitter for example. In that context, I learned how to measure blogs and Twitter

I also used my blog as a “testing lab” and I have tried out different tools on my like 4Q Survey, Kampyle, ClickTale and others. And guess what, all this experience has proved to be useful for my work too! Having a blog is really a good way to gain practical experience – I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to get some real experience in Web Analytics.

On top I had a lot of fun and pleasure in running my blog – thanks again for all my faithful readers & subscribers!

4. Web Analytics 2.0 book from Avinash Kaushik
I really liked Avinash Kaushik’s first book as it was quite practical and because it has been (with his blog) a continuous source of inspiration & ideas for me. So I was all excited when “Web Analytics 2.0” was announced. The least I can say is that I was not disappointed. The 2nd book is even better and it will get few levels further in Web Analytics – everything you need to become a Web Analytics ninja! Even if I have not read it all yet (“oh shame on me!” ;-)), I have been already spending hours testing tips & ideas from the parts I have read. For me, it is a must read.

On top, the release of “Web Analytics 2.0” was also for me a memorable moment and a special achievement. Seeing my blog being mentioned in the book (in recommended blog) was the greatest moment in my Web Analytics practitioner life (so far)! :-)

5. Social Media monitoring
Ok – social media was everywhere in 2009 (it is very likely to continue like that in 2010) – even at work. It was for me the opportunity to do my first steps into the world of social media monitoring – a fascinating and highly challenging one if you ask me.

I had the chance to see and even test some advanced and really cool tools like Radian6, SM2 or Synthesio. But as good as they are, all those tools are still in their infancy and far from being perfect (See very good presentation from Marshall Sponder).

Social Media monitoring and Web Analytics are closely related – social media monitoring is just measuring specific aspects of the Web and online activities. Nowadays, the Web is more and more decentralized and just measuring what happens on your websites is not enough. I believe that social media monitoring & Web Analytics tools will get more and more integrated (like it was initiated by Radian6 and WebTrends). The question that arises then is: how long before Google starts doing social media monitoring and integrates it in Google Analytics? Maybe 2010 will tell :-)

Social media monitoring will be probably one important area for me in 2010. An area I am looking forward for exploring.

This is it – my Web Analytics top 5 for 2009! Now your turn, what is your top 5? What are the top 5 moments you remember from last year? Please share with us.

Related posts & resources:

"My Web Analytics Top 5 2008" - own post (January 2009)
"Web Analytics, Dutch women and Dennis' vision of tomorrow analytics" - own post (June 2009)
"A French love fest in London" by Aurelie Pols (November 2009)
"State of the nation for Web Analytics in France" by Nicolas Malo (January 2010)
"The Web Analytics Maturity Model (WAMM)" by Immeria
"Web Analytics 2.0" book by Avinash Kaushik
"The Future of Social Media Monitoring" by Marshall Sponder (November 2009)

A Web Analytics challenge: the “Ignorance is bliss” syndrome!

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Notté) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 12:00:00 +0000

The biggest challenges with Web Analytics adoption are rarely the technology or the tools. Earlier this year, Econsultancy’s Online Measurement and Strategy Report listed top 11 barriers to effective online measurement. Technology was in last position. So where are the challenges hiding? They are in the organization, in the resources and…in the people & their entrenched mind-sets!

Challenge may even come also from where you would not expect it – from your business stakeholders – those for whom you directly work for! Are your audience prepared to face the truth? To become accountable? Or do they prefer to feign ignorance like the 3 monkeys(1)? After all what you don’t know can not hurt you, does it?

“Welcome to the real world!”

Imagine the following situation. An online marketer launches a new campaign microsite – a costly flashy one with HD videos, 3D CGI’s and spectacular design. The marketer is so proud of her/his creation, he/she shows it all around the place and especially to her/his boss. Everyone is impressed, the microsite even wins a web design award and the online marketer is more than happy – he is delighted! Now, how do you think she/he will react if you – the web analyst – come in with figures & facts that demonstrate that actually, the microsite is total disaster (from a business perspective)?

It is actually like parents: they are so proud of their babies who are the cutest & smartest in the world (here also I am talking from experience :-)). If you have friends who are parents and then you demonstrate them in a scientific & objective way that actually their kids are plain stupid and ugly, I am pretty sure they will not invite you for dinner anymore.

For business stakeholders, Web analytics is a (often painful) reality check in the beginning. It is saying “bye bye” to judgement based on gut feelings (welcome facts & figures!). Web Analytics is like taking the red pill in the Matrix movie – it shows them how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

In such perspective, do the business stakeholders really want to know? The answer sounds obvious but do not underestimate this aspect. In the poem “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College” (1742), Thomas Grays said “Where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise!”. From there came the proverb “ignorance is bliss” i.e. lack of knowledge results in happiness.

You, as the Web Analytics, you will bring knowledge and potentially put an end to some people happiness. Hoooo you evil!

Don’t shoot the messenger!

In old uncivilized times, it was a kind of custom to kill messengers with bad news. I am really happy that such times are over as otherwise I would been killed... a lot! :-)

As a Web analyst, you need to be prepared to bring bad news – especially when Web Analytics is new to your organisation. People gut feelings about their sites are often wrong. So be careful when bringing your bad news in the beginning. If you don’t, there is a risk that your stakeholders will start fleeing away when seeing you – like if you’ve got the Mexican flu.

This reality check is a necessity – no way to avoid it and it will often hurt in early stages. But people have to accept bad news – they have to know! Otherwise how the hell can they improve?

Communications skills are key!

Communications skills are often mentioned as an important trait of good Web analyst. I fully agree. Good communications skills are needed, not just for turning complex data into actionable insights but also in knowing how to bring bad news in a good way (so you don’t get killed).

You can’t just come in and throw the truth in your stakeholder face (and start laughing in an evil manner). Be positive & constructive - don’t come with your hands empty, show your values, emphasizes the positive aspects and most of all bring recommendations for improvements (look especially for quick wins, small but easy to implement). Show there is hope!

A personal experience example

Let me illustrate this by a personal example. Few years ago, one of our marketing departments was all ecstatic about a brand new Flash content, full of 3D CGI’s & animations (in a time where these were not so common). It looked really top-class! But being curious (another Web analyst trait :-)), I decided to analyse the data. The results were not what everyone expected. The report probably ended its short life in the shredder or got locked forever in a drawer (and the key got thrown in a lake)).

But together with the report, there were a series of recommendations - some were really basic ones. Some of these were applied on the similar project that followed. Guess what? Results really were much better. But we did not stop there, and in a true Kaizen way, we looked again at other smaller improvements to make the next one even better (and we did :-)). All in a sudden, the reporting became important and the marketing people started to ask for more because it helped them to demonstrate their progress and good performances.

The final words

As a Web analyst, you may be seen as the "bad" guy by many of your colleagues so be prepared to sometimes face resistance from where you would not necessarily expect it. Do not under estimate this “psychological” aspect. You will need to put your best communications skills to good use, turning yourself in a “good news” messenger. The best way to do this is to show your added-value by bringing actionable insights – not just figures. That is what makes you a good Web analyst!

Your turn now. Did you ever face such situations? How do your stakeholders react when you bring them bad news? What is your best strategy in such cases? Share your experience!

Related posts & resources:

Econsultancy’s Online Measurement and Strategy Report (Econsultancy, June 2009)
"Barriers To An Effective Web Measurement Strategy [+ Solutions!]" (Avinash Kaushik, July 2009)
"KAIZEN: a successful approach applied to Web Analytics" (Kaizen Analytics, August 2008)

(1) Note that in Japan, the concept of the 3 wise monkeys refers to being of good mind, speech & action. It is in the western world, the phrase is often used to refer to those who deal with impropriety by looking the other way, refusing to acknowledge it, or feigning ignorance (thanks Wikipedia). In my post, I used the western interpretation of course.

Automotive & Web Analytics in Europe - one year later

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Notté) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:00:00 +0000

Update: Following comments & feedback received, the research results have been updated (25th of November). It mainly concerns Sophus3 eMetrics that managed to increase its share - as Peugeot and Citroen are actually using it as they core Web Analytics solution for their main markets. The chart and PDF document have been adapted accordingly.

Last year, I did my own little market research on the European automotive industry and Web Analytics usage, using the excellent tool, Web Analytics Solution Profiler (WASP). Being curious - I decided to do it again and see if there was any major change (revolution?) or specific trend in this industry. Last year 1st place was held by Sophus 3 eMetrics, a industry-specific solution. Is it still the case? Does the crisis made manufacturers to massively switch to the free Google Analytics (or Yahoo Web Analytics)? Are paid vendors left with just their eyes for crying? The answer is just below...

Research background
The context is (almost) the same as last year: the research covered the 5 major markets in Europe i.e. UK, Germany, France, Italy & Spain. It includes 32 brands (last year I forgot Skoda -shame on me!) present on the European soil including premium and luxury ones. That represents in total 135 websites. Note that some brands only have one global website (or local sites under same main .com domain name).

As said, I used WASP to detect "core" Web Analytics solution used on the websites - I didn't look at ad tracking, voice-of-customer nor behavioral targeting solutions. It may be possible that some manufacturers are using other tracking solutions, either own-made or tweaked ones that are not recognized by WASP.

Finally, I regrouped in the total counts solutions from same providers i.e. Omniture includes both Omniture SiteCatalyst and Omniture HBX, Google Analytics includes Google Analytis & Google Urchin...

The full results for 2009 research can be downloaded using the button below:

And the winner is...

Google Analytics took pole position, being present on almost half of the sites (45.9%). Its share progressed by more than +100%! But is it really a surprise? In many case, Google Analytics coexists with a major paid solutions. It is probably used to track specifically search engine traffic and paid search performances as it fully integrates with Google Adword. Yet, Google Analytics is also used main primary solution in 23% of all sites.

More surprising is the result for Sophus 3 eMetrics, the industry specific solution, that managed to strengthen its position & presence (30.7% of all sites, +10% vs. 2008). Not only it is resisting against traditional Web Analytics vendors and but it managed to get new customers (Peugeot & Citroen, all major markets) in spite of the crisis. (Updated on 25th of November)

Omniture (16.3% of all sites) took the last place on the podium away from WebTrends (14.1%), leading traditional paid vendors (Note: for more details about Omniture result vs. last year - see post comments). In most case it is used as a global Web Analytics solution (i.e. on all local sites) by big players like Audi, Volskwagen or Mercedes-Benz.

More and more manufacturers are using more than one solution on their site. The average is 1.25 solution per site vs. 1.1 last year.

Some paid vendors lost customers: WebTrends (Ferrari, BMW Germany(!?), Volvo (!?)) and Nedstat (Nissan replaced it by Omniture Site Catalyst).

The number of sites with no (known) Web Analytics solution found decreased - only 5 sites with no solution found (vs. 14 last year).

The paradox: luxury brands (Lotus, Ferrari, Maserati, Porsche) seems to not want to spend money on Web Analytics as all adopted Google Analytics.

The missing ones: Yahoo Web Analytics, Coremetrics & Unica were not found - same situation as last year.

Google Analytics penetration is quite impressive but not really a surprise. Still, it is not yet really replacing paid vendors but for how long? Especially knowing that Google Analytics is closing the gap with paid vendors. Just look at the latest features that were announced last month. On top of that, traditional paid Web Analytics vendors are battling against an industry specific solution, Sophus3 eMetrics that is dominating the paid market and that even increase its presence. (Updated on 25th of November)

However, automotive manufacturers are still licking their wounds from the crisis and may reconsider paying for services that they may get for a much lower cost. Future will tell...

As said last year, this research does not tell anything about the expertise and usage of Web Analytics by the different manufacturers. After all, "a fool with a tool remains a fool" :-).

So what do you think? What comment would you add? Please share your thoughts with the rest of us.

Note: if you spot any error (yes, this can happen :-)), please let me know and I will update the figures accordingly.

Related posts & resources:

"Automotive manufacturers & Web analytics tools - 2009" - full results (PDF report)
Automotive & Web Analytics in Europe – what are they using?" post (October 2008)
"Web Analytics Solution Profiler" official Website

Note on Sophus3:

Sophus3 provides two types of online measurement products to automotive manufacturers. the first one, eMetrics is full Web Analytics solution used to measure & track websites activity like traditional Web Analytics solutions. The second one, eDataXchange is a collaborative benchmarking project for the automotive industry. A majority of manufacturers are participating to the eDataXchange project that uses the same tagging technology as eMetrics - both based on TouchClarity script (now Omniture Test & target). However for the benchmarking project, only a subset of key pages are tagged. for more information, see Sophus3 website.

Google Trends for Websites - do you trust it?

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Notté) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:00:00 +0000

Google Trends for Websites is one of the free competitive intelligence services provided by Google. It is pretty easy and straightforward to use: just type in domain names of sites you want to compare and it gives you traffic trends over time (for the selected period) and some additional data. Unlike Compete free service, Google Trends for Websites offers worldwide coverage with the ability to segment results per country. Cool, isn't it?

Simple but valuable

While simple, it is a very interesting service as you can compare traffic trends of your site vs. your competitors. You can learn a lot like the impact of competitor advertising campaigns (were they successful?), product launches, announcements... You also get the key search terms used by visitors and the sites they also visited (and find out who are your biggest rivals). Super-cool isn't it?

(Note: for competitive search terms analysis, I strongly recommend Google Insights for search, another cool free Google service. See the practical example I did earlier this year)

For me the main limitation is the fact that data are only available for sites with traffic above a certain threshold (Google gives no details on this limit). Practically, it means that it is only usable for big sites and big countries.

Still, even if the provided information is limited, it can be very valuable and, hell, it is FREE (and ones knows that it is important nowadays :-)).

For more examples or details on Google Trends for Websites, read Avisnash's excellent post on that topic.

"But are Google data reliable?"

This is the question that usually comes when I show Google Trends for Websites. For quite some times, Alexa is offering similar service but it has received a lot of critics regarding its accuracy and reliability. Alexa collects data mainly from the Alexa toolbar - not the most used toolbar to be honest. The consequence is that the sample is rather limited (from a size & geographic perspective) and therefore it is quite biased in my opinion.

For Google it is quite different. Google has access to a huuuuuuuge amount of information from a variety of sources, such as aggregated Google search data, aggregated anonymous Google toolbar /Google Analytics data, consumer panel data, and other third-party market research. As Google claims in Google Trends for Websites help section - the data is aggregated over millions of users. So that is how Google can get information on your website traffic - even if you don't measure your site activity with Google Analytics.

Ok sounds good but still is it reliable? To answer the question in a simple way, I decided to do a simple test: compare our own data against Google Trends for websites data. I took the traffic trends for 2009, for 2 markets with high traffic volume, no Google Analytics on it! I put everything in Excel, I adapted the scale to get as close as possible to the scale of the Google tool and this is what I get (without any data tweaking, I swear!):

I think the result speaks for itself (a picture is always better than long explanations :-)). Spooky, isn't it?

Maybe I was lucky with my 2 examples but for me it is a simple way to show that Google data is certainly not bad quality and that somehow I can trust it. Therefore I usually propose it as a data source for benchmarking in appropriate cases - taking into accounts its limitations.

I would be really curious to know if anyone did similar comparisons and what was the outcome. Did it work out for you or Google Trends for Websites results were miles away from your own data? What do you think about this Google service? Like it or not? Please share your experience.

Cheers!

(A little side note: surprisingly Google Trends for Websites can give you trends for Yahoo.com or Bing.com but not for... Google.com (see here). Doh!)

Related posts & resources:

Google Trends for Websites from Google
"Competitive intelligence for free: a practical example" - May 2009
"Competitive Intelligence Analysis: Google Trends for Websites" by Avinash Kaushik

My little Web Analytics bookshelf

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Notté) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:41:00 +0000

When it comes to advices on how to get started in Web analytics and or how to expand your Web Analytics skills, nothing beats practical experience. However theory is also important. Blogs from Web analytics expert are a good sources of inspiration and knowledge (check my little blogroll on the right side for few ones). And Web Analytics books. Yep, books that talks about Web Analytics.

Not so long ago, Web Analytics books were a very rare specie but now these are almost like rabbits. There are plenty of them and the number just keeps growing. Just in the course of this year, many famous Web analytics experts published their own book. Like if you don’t have written a book, you can not qualify as being a true Web Analytics expert (Shame on you then! :-))

Web Analytics books are really useful. Serious. Not just to look smart or to impress your boss. These are a highly valuable source of ideas, best-practices & knowledge, whether you are a beginner or an experimented practitioner. No need to read them all, one can be more than enough. And it can change the course of your career. Actually it did it for me.

So let me present you the few ones I read and few others I plan to read.

The ones I read

“Web site Measurement Hacks” by Eric T. Peterson: This is not a new one but it was the first one I read – almost 4 years ago (gosh, time flies!). This book changed my professional life. Simple as that. It made me evolve from a reporting squirrel to analysis ninja rookie. I will never be grateful enough to the nice people who offered it to me (hi Aurélie, René & Siegert :-)). Personal memories aside, It may be bit old by now but I still think it is a very great book, well written by one of the most influential and experienced Web Analytics expert. Most of it is still relevant even after all those years. As its title says, it focuses more on the “measurements” part but it is where Web analytics starts, no? No one can pretend doing good WA without the right measurements. It is very practical – plenty of ideas that can be applied right away. And if you are a “code” geek – you will learn how to program your own Web tracking tool.

“Big book of KPI’s” by Eric T. Peterson: Bought it just after reading the previous book. It is not a book that is meant for reading chapter by chapter but more to be used as a reference, a source of inspiration for finding KPI’s based on the type of site you are working on. Even if I believe that best KPI’s are not found in a book but the ones that you defined yourself (using a good methodology like the Nokia’s methodology) – there are few standard and universal KPI’s that you will find in this book. Still worth to check it out. (Remarks: it is only available in electronic format. There is also a French version (for free) thanks to Julien Coquet and other contributors who made a great job translating it.

“Web Analytics an hour a day” by Avinash Kaushik: Do I really need to present it? If you don’t know Avinash Kaushik then start reading his blog, right now! His book is a must-buy for anyone having interest in Web Analytics whether you are a beginner, an experimented Web analyst, an online marketer, a marketing manager involved in the Web, an HiPPO... It covers lot of topics from the basics to more advanced ones (segmentation, processes, organization, framework…). It is written in Avinash’s unique style that makes it easy to read, funny and entertaining. You won’t get bored. For me it is constant source of inspiration as I keep diving in it regularly. I can’t wait for receiving my copy of Avinash’s 2nd book (see further). On top of that, you do a good action by buying this book as all proceeds goes to the Smile Train and Médecins Sans Frontières.

“Actionable Web Analytics: Using Data to make Smart Business Decisions” by Jason Burby & Shane Atchison: Another book I got offered (yes, I know such nice people :-)) and a pleasant surprise it was. In my opinion this book is less for beginners but more for those who want to go further in Web Analytics as it addresses more advanced topics like creating a “performance-driven" culture, KPI’s definition, organization (setting-up a team, selecting partners…) and more. But the most important, it provide methods to take “smart” decisions. How? By using a monetization model to prioritize your action. The idea behind the monetization process is really great and it makes this book a very recommended read.

The one I will read (as soon as it is delivered)

"Web Analytics 2.0 – the art of online accountability & science of customer centricity” by Avinash Kaushik: Let’s just called it “Web Analytics 2.0” :-). Avinash Kaushik just released the follow-up of his first great book. Knowing the quality of his first book and his blog, one can imagine that the 2nd book will as good as the first one – if not better. According to the author, the book covers topic like the web analytics 2.0 model (I am a big fan of it!), multi channel analytics, social meda measurement, multichannel campaign attribution analysis, mobile analytics, and so much more. Can’t wait to get my copy (too bad I ordered it on Amazon UK and it won’t be available before early November. Aaaargh!)

The ones I want to read later

There are two books that are currently on my “books I wish I will find time to read them as I heard they are very interesting” list.

“Multichannel Marketing – Metrics & methods for On & Offline Success” by Akin Arikan: For me Web analytics is only one piece of the puzzle and Web data should be integrated with other data (i.e. offline) – especially when you are working for a company where Web is just a channel or an activity among others. This book covers aspect like developing better marketing programs, optimizing online-offline advertising programs, selecting the right metrics for your specific needs, collecting measurements and reporting on customer behavior across channels & more. Why would I like to read this book? Because I heard a lot of good feedback on it and Arin’s blog is also one of the blogs I enjoy reading.

“Cult of analytics – driving online marketing strategies using Web Analytics” by Steve Jackson: For once, a book that doesn’t come from the US but from an European expert! This book is a detailed guide on how to build an analytics driven culture in your business or organization (well that's what the cover says :-)). The book is said to be very practical, full of examples and “tools” like scorecards, dashboards and more. Learning how to “do” Web Analytics is a first step. Making it a organization practice is one of the toughest challenges that comes next – and I am talking about experience here. So that is why this book on my wish-list.

The one that you should read if you speak French

"Web + Analytics = Profits" by Nicolas Malo & Jacques Warren: the first brand new complete guide on Web Analytics in French. It is set to become the reference book in the French Web Analytics community. Like Avinash's first book, it targets a large audience: whether you are an analyst, a manager, new to the field or experienced. The book explores step by step key concepts that anyone need to master to leverage the real value of Web Analytics. The two authors are really great and talented people (Congrats to both of you!). I will certainly add this book on my bookshelf (for once, it will be a change to read a book on Web Analytics in French).

So that's it for my personal bookshelf (and its future evolution). These are just a sample, there are plenty other great books out there, recent or older that worth reading.

I would be curious to know what would you recommend as a must read for a Web Analytics specialist? If you had to choose just one book – which one would it be?

All suggestions are welcome. I have a bookshelf to fill in. :)

Dear WebTrends, I need some REST!

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Notté) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:00:00 +0000

Early August 2009, it was quite difficult to not hear about WebTrends Analytics 9 launch. The new release generated a lot of buzz in the Web Analytics community – mainly about the new “revolutionary” user interface that “reinvented” Web Analytics (Cough! Cough!). Well, I had the opportunity to get my hands on the new baby and to test it. To be honest, what excited me the most was not the new UI (which is good I must admit) but the integration of REST URL’s, the latest WebTrends data extraction API.

What are REST URL’s?

REST acronym stands for Representational State Transfer – in case you want to know. It relates to a style of software architecture for distributed hypermedia systems such as the World Wide Web (thank you Wikipedia!). But let’s put aside the technical aspects. What is important is what you can do with REST URL’s: extract data from the Web analytics system in a easy and structured way!

A REST URL will return a data set whether in XML, HTML or JSON format. One can not only retrieve report data but also profiles list, reports list or even report properties. WebTrends people are so kind that they even provide a REST URL’s generator that helps you to generate the URL’s you need.

The URL can be used in whatever application that support Web requests. First one that comes in mind is of course Excel - the most widely used spread-sheet application in the world. Just imagine that you can build self-refreshing dashboard & tables in a very easy way. You can find an example on WebTrends Developer Network site.

With a bit of programming expertise, you can use REST URL’s to feed other data systems. Or you can integrate data in a website like an Intranet site and display key web statistics to the whole company for example. Or develop a Flash desktop dashboard that retrieves & refreshes data automatically, giving direct access to key infos to your stakeholders in one double-click.

Well, you get the idea, REST URL’s offer a lot of possibilities to better communicate Web data!

Free the data! Communicate them!

With REST URL’s, Webtrends finally opened this 'closed box' that contains all your precious Web data. Analytics product is really good at what it is designed for: convert Web data logs into (plenty of) reports. But Webtrends Analytics like any other Web Analytics tools is NOT a communication tool. Period.

Data needs to be communicated to the people who need or use them in order to turn these into “intelligence”, “knowledge” or “insights” (pick your favourite one).

To quote Dennis R. Mortensen, “providing people a login and password to the analytics interface, is in most cases more harmful than good”. I can’t agree more with that! No one can expect business users, managers or executives to log in the tool, to start learning how to use it, to find their way in the enormous pile of reports, to figure out how to extract the data they need... And in the end, what they get is just data, still have to transform these into insights.

Web activities are often only a part of the whole picture. Being able to get your web data out of the 'closed box' allows you to integrate them into your reports/systems with other data sources.

Data must be freed from the analytics system so you can communicate them in most appropriate way according to your stakeholders. For that, openness is key. WebTrends REST URL’s are maybe not revolutionary (other tools also have very good API’s to extract data – just look at Google Analytics & Excellent analytics plug-in for Excel) but WebTrends certainly made a huge step in the right direction towards data openness. Finally!

I want it! I want it! Pleaaase!

Unfortunately for me, my company is a software customer, so no REST for us as it is currently only for On-demand customers. Boohoohoo (me crying)!

Such flexible API is terribly lacking in current WebTrends Software offering. Yes, the software version has the ODBC driver, which is good and useful. But it is showing limitations as it is not meant for retrieve huge amount of data. So when we generate differents (automated) dashboards on a monthly basis for more than 30 countries and two brands, I can tell that our server suffers!

Moreover, implementing good ODBC dashboards require some expert programming skills. In our case, our former Web Analytics agency had such expertise and did a very good job (thanks to you Guillaume! :-)). On top of that, the ODBC driver needs to be installed & configured on every client computer, format is not real SQL... All in all ODBC lacks the flexibility that REST URL’s offer.

So I am dying for the day when Analytics 9 will be released in Software version with, I hope, REST URL’s support. Please Mr. WebTrends make sure it will be there. It is so so important. Otherwise it would be a huge disappointment.

And don’t make us, software customers, wait to long, pleaaaase!

Related resources & references

"Now available: WebTrends Analytics 9" - post from WebTrends official blog
"WebTrends data extration is live!" - post from WebTrends developer Network
"Excel, VBA and REST url's - a sample application" - post from WebTrends developer Network
WebTrends REST URL's generator (for WebTrends customers)
"Tomorrows Web analytics technology and example" by Dennis R. Mortensen
Representational State Transfer (REST) definition from Wikipedia

Usability labs: a way to really understand your online customers!

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Notté) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:52:00 +0000

Imagine the scene. You have what you think is a very simple. But when you look at the poor results you get from your favourite Web Analytics, it leaves you scratching your head and wondering: “How can our online customers failed to use it properly? Are our website users stupid?”

“I am a web user, call me stupid!”
Well, there are probably few of your users who may be stupid like in everywhere – but no, online users (i.e your customers) are not stupid! It is just that too often, we get it wrong!

Yes us, you know the super Web experts (web designers, online marketers, Web Analytics ninjas).Too often, we forgot one important fact: we are NOT our customers. We are not our Web users. The problem comes from the fact that our perspective is biased. We know all about our websites, their functionalities & tools. We designed these, we know their purpose, and how these are supposed to be used.

Our customers don’t. They have a radically different perspective and it is a very difficult exercise to put yourself in their shoes. For me, we should never forget a golden rule when trying to interpret the results of any online page or tool: "Never assume that other people surf they way we do"

“If users are not stupid then data must be wrong”
Let me share a personal experience. A while ago, we started a new major redesign of our website. In that context, we did some measurements to better understand how users navigated from our homepage to the product sections. One way was via a product overview page – that was supposed to help our customers choose a specific model and drive them to corresponding model section.

Marketing didn’t expect the results we got. The page was not performing well. The results were so surprising that first reaction was to question the data (“yeah – let’s blame the data”). But data were proven to be correct. So how was that possible? After all, the page was darn simple to use. At least that what we though. The answer came few months later…

Usability labs to the rescue!
As the new site design was in advanced stage, a usability lab was done to test the new layout. The great thing with usability labs is that not only users are filmed but they are also interviewed: they explain what they think about the page, how they understand it and what they expect from the page to do... It provides qualitative insights (hurray!).

The overview page was part of the content that remained unchanged – still it was tested and we finally got our answer. We actually saw it with our own eyes: users were definitely struggling with the page. While they entered the page with the right intent (i.e. get an overview of the full product range), they were puzzled by the way it was presented and how it behaved. They basically expected something else, they got confused and mostly frustrated in the end.
And what was a mystery for us suddenly became so obvious. Yes, they were absolutely right (customers are always right anyway :-))! How did we manage to not figure it before? Because we are not our customers.

Qualitative is a must-have because can it bring some lights on the numbers and the “why” that is missing. Without, one can spend weeks trying to figure out the reasons (and never find these).

D.I.Y. Usability labs
Usability labs are one way to get qualitative data. Sure, usability labs have some flaws and limitations but the great thing is that you can really see what people do with your site and understand what's in their mind.

“But a usability labs is hard to set-up, requires an expert company and damned expensive” you might say. It is true that usability labs are often used for major redesign or critical projects. These are often handled by expert companies that work for a price. Not something most of us can afford too often.

However for smaller projects, you don’t especially need the “big artillery”. So why not doing it yourself? It is not that hard to set-up your own usability lab. One laptop with a video camera & recording software, a moderator (ask your beloved web agency for help), a quiet place to do the tests and some incentives for the testers (like free Belgian chocolates or…beers! ;-)) and that’s it. It shouldn't cost you more than 1,000 or 2,000 EUR max. Of course, it may not have the rigorous & scientific approach that you get from an expert company nor the big powerpoint/100-page report but what you can learn can be very valuable.

Small details can turn a project into a failure. Doing light usability labs can help you uncover these and avoid painful results. Again, I am talking about experience here. For a recent project, we did a small usability lab with the help of our Web agency, all at a low cost. The feedback was not only very interesting but more important it helped us to discover a serious usability issue caused by a little detail. Project was a bit delayed in order to fix the issue but without this finding, we would have put live a project that would certainly have failed to achieve its goal.

Get qualitative insights!
All in all, the important points of this post are:

You are not your customer - never assume they surf the way you do.

Get a better understanding of your customer: complement your data with qualitative insights

Small usability labs can be done for a cheap price and still get you valuable insights that can make a real difference, from failure to success.

For bigger projects/major redesign, look for real professionals. It has a cost but often worth it.

And you, have you ever done usability labs? What do you think about these? Like or dislike? Don not hesitate to share your own experience and views on that topic.

Related resources:

"How to Conduct a Usability lab" by Amanda McArthur (Mequoda Daily)

Happy birthday Kaizen-Analytics!

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Notté) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:06:00 +0000

One year ago, I started this blog – going one level further in my Web Analytics passion (or “geekiness” if you prefer :-)). 37 posts later, it is time to blow the first candle. The first one of a long serie? Well, I hope so.

It is personally an “emotional” milestone for me. I can not hide that this experience has been really thrilling. Yes, really. Running this blog is very exciting & lot of fun (told you, I am a Web Analytics geek - no way I can hide it). But most important, it is rich in learning.

But it would not have been possible without you – yes you, behind your screen (or PDA, smartphone or whatever device). You, who spent time reading my posts, leaving comments or to forwarding/retweeting posts. You who added me to your blogroll or sent me encouraging emails. Maybe it is a bit cliché but I sincerely want to thank you all for your contribution – whether passive or active. This experience would make no sense without you.

And thank also to the 300+ (and steadily growing) faithful subscribers.

A quick look back…

This blog allowed me to share some of my personal experience, bringing in a practioner perspective that I think is sometimes missing in this world of Web Analytics gurus, experts and consultants.

It gave me the opportunity to extend my skills and expertise by testing and discovering things that I couldn’t not learn directly through my work (e.g. Google Analytics, 4Q Surveys, Twitter….). And that I could use for my work afterward. And how one can learn about blogs and social media without using these? After all the social media revolution is on the way. Better get ready!

Bit on the downside, I found out difficult to get “conversation” started – it took time before people really start commenting or interacting. And there were few ideas of post that couldn’t make it. Especially few ones relating more to Kaizen principles and processes. But the adventure is not over, so these will be for the coming year. Promised!

What’s next?

Well, I will do my best to keep up (or even improve) with current level of quality – I have still many ideas on my list – and with frequency. I have to admit that it has been a bit quiet over the two last months but I took time to enjoy the most important thing in my life – family. And you all know - children grow so fast… (Still, I am already preparing the future – see pic below ;-))

I will continue to share my experience, opinions & ideas from a practioner point of view but if you have any suggestion or wish, please let me know. These would more than welcome.

Again, thank you all for reading my blog.

Cheers!

Now let's have a piece of that cake!

And special thanks to my wife for supporting me in this initiative.

Web analytics– where should it sit in the organization: in business or in IT?

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Notté) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 20:00:00 +0000

In this post, I would like to talk about organizing Web Analytics in a company and the important question : who should own and lead Web Analytics competencies? where should these competencies sit in the organization? And what if Web Analytics all started from the IT side?

As a practitioner and based on my personal experience so far, my answer would be: not in IT.

But why do I believe that IT is not the best option for managing and leading Web Analytics competencies within an organization?

Web Analytics relates to business

Basically, Web Analytics is about improving business performances of online channels. This is done by understanding what are the business objectives, by defining appropriate “business-driven” KPI’s, by analyzing and interpreting the figures and taking necessary actions & business decisions.

But do not get me wrong, IT is key player as it is needed for all technical aspects such as hosting and maintenance of the Web Analytics infrastructure (if you are hosting your solution – not the most common set-up), definition of the technical/tagging specification based on business requirements, implementation of the measurement code in your CMS, websites and online applications. And if you integrate your Web data with other systems (BI, CRM...), IT is the one that defines and implements the required architecture & technology.

But in the end this is the business that drives the needs and that uses the data to gain insights. That is the business who takes decisions. That’s the business that normally defines the analytical strategy & long term vision (as it relates to what business will do).

Can IT have “business” mindset”?

An important trait of a good Web analyst (or expert) is the “business acumen”:

“Good web analysts know the business and the current business climate. They understand the business purpose and can identify and focus on the business problems and disciplines apart from analytics. They have both a great sense of the data and the business.”

Basically a good Web analytics expert needs to have a strong “business mindset”.

Having “business mindset”, is it something that IT can have? I mean genuinely. I don’t want to be harsh on IT departments but let’s face it, in many cases, IT department mission is to implement technologies, tools, systems, to develop & deliver applications, to make sure everything is up & running and all.

I am talking about personal experience here as I am working on the IT side (no one is perfect :-)). I started as business analyst and I took over the requirements analysis, the reports creation and the coordination of measurements implementation when my company insourced Web Analytics. From there I stepped into the world of Web Analytics and I started developing competencies & expertise while working closely with business.

As we moved from Web reporting to Web Analytics, business demand grew – requiring to make Web Analytics competencies more structured and organized. But doing this in IT is far from being easy. You need to spend a lot more time in order to explain the purpose and necessity of Web Analytics (and why having a dedicated centre of expertise). Already a challenging task! And if you succeed, the next question you may get: “a large part of the competencies are purely business so why should we offer such expertise in IT?”.

Centralization is key!

The main advantage of IT is that it usually has a central view of the needs from the various departments – especially in large organizations where business departments are often structured in silos. I believe that Web Analytics expertise & competencies should be centralized in order that standardized solutions & technology areused by the different departments and to share best practices (all will reduce costs in a significant way while improving efficiency).

Web Analytics should be lead centrally by a team that supports the different business departments (who need and use the data) and that makes the link with the technical side (i.e. IT, vendors & external agencies). A team that would assist & coach business key users in how to better use Web Analytics. I quite like the “Hub’n’Spokes” model proposed by Eric T. Peterson. This is something similar that I wish to develop.

But building such central team in IT is difficult as it mixes business expertise and practices with technological expertise. In most of the examples I have seen from other large companies, Web Analytics competencies are regrouped in a dedicated team that sit on...the business side.

So it is no surprise that I feel like sitting on the wrong side. “So why don’t you move to the other side then?” you may ask. Well, it is easier said than done.

Nevertheless, I am doing my best to improve organization in order to better serve the company growing needs. But changing organization and mindset in a large company is quite a challenge and takes time. Lot of time.

So what is your experience? How is Web Analytics organized in your company? Centralized or decentralized? Do you know examples where IT ownership of analytics does work? I am very curious to hear your experience and it would be more than welcome.

Other resources:

"What is your web analytics communication strategy?" by Eric T. Peterson (Web Analytics Demystified)
"Web Analytics Career Advice: Statistics, Business, IT & Mushrooms" by Avinash Kaushik
"eMetrics - What makes a good analyst" from Dooley Online blog

Successful Web Analytics: what does it take?

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Notté) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 21:04:00 +0000

Is Web Analytics hard? Well, I do not want to resurrect an old debate here but I must say that if Web Analytics may be not that hard, successful web analytics is.

We all know that Web Analytics is not just about having a tool (whether it is a free or a paid solution) and the right tags & key reports. You may have heard the famous Avinash Kaushik’s "90/10" rule: “For every 10$ you invest in your WA tool, you should invest 90$ in people". Or Eric Peterson’s "70/20/10" rule: “Web Analytics is 70% people, 20% processes & 10% tool”.

So people & process are essential for Web Analytics but is that all you need to be successful in your Web Analytics quest? No. I think you need some key “values” on top of these.

Key values you need to be successful

Recently, Jim Sterne - the Web Analytics Godfather - made a very good analogy when commenting the recent report "Online measurement and Strategy Report" from eConsultancy, comparing Web analytics to building a house:

"Web analytics reports are just lumber. It takes an architect, a designer, a builder and a lot of other skills to turn it into a house.”

On my side, I will use another analogy, comparing Web Analytics with a sport I like a lot – Formula One. Yes. Formula One! To win a race or even better to win the championship, a team (your company) needs more than having a very good car (the tool) and a very good driver (you). It needs other key ingredients to cross the finish line in first position.

The follow promo video from Toyota F1 summarizes well these key values.

Determination: Formula One is a very demanding discipline. So is Web analytics. In both cases, it takes a lot of patience and perseverance to get to the top. It takes a lot of time & efforts to make progress, to get all things correctly implemented, to get quality data, to get valuable insights, to make people act upon data, to establish a data-driven culture! It means also doing (and accepting) errors here and there. It means sometimes frustration, lot of frustration. You will need to get over it. Commitment all along the way and at every level is essential. Rome wasn't build in a day!

Continuous improvements (Kaizen): Every little detail matters in Formula 1. You need to constantly look for any small improvement that would translate in a slightly fastest lap time on the track – even if it is by 0.01 of a second. Because all improvements together make you faster and get you closer to success. Victory is not achieved overnight. Same for Web Analytics. Try to improve your processes, your work, your website step by step. Instead of looking for THE change that would rocket your results (and that you may never find), look for more modest, minor improvements that will be easier to achieve and that globally will lead you toward your goals. And if you do errors, impacts will be limited and you will learn from these. All in all, Kaizen approach is more likely to succeed than the big-leap approach.

Challenge: Formula One is constant challenge. It is a fast changing world with new technologies, new rules... and tough competition. It makes teams push their limits and skills further. It is kind of the same in our industry where Internet technologies, usage and businesses are evolving very fast - meaning new tools and new ways to measure these. New challenges! For example, look at social media or mobile. That is what I like in Web Analytics - the fact that it is a continuous challenge. If you manage to solve a problem, you can be sure new ones will come. There is (almost) no routine. If you don't like that then move along.

Teamwork: Victory in Formula 1 is the work of a whole team: designers, engineers, mechanicals, drivers, management team and more. A F1 driver alone can not make a team win. Same for Web Analytics – a Web analyst alone is not enough. It is a joint effort between business stakeholders (to define strategy and actions), IT team to host / support the tools (if hosted internally), developers (to implement tags), agencies (to advise & implement changes)… And you the Web Analytics expert as the key link between all these.

Passion: this one is not in the promo video but I think that Web Analytics & Formula One share that one too: passion. I had the chance to meet many talented Web analytics experts and practioners – famous or not. All have one thing in common: passion for what they do. I think this is an important ingredient for success. Why? Because passion is contagious. Passion is a positive (winning?) attitude. So do not keep it for you – communicate your passion around. Get people on board! Get support!

So don’t think Web Analytics is one-man job – make sure your get the right people around you, working as a team and committed towards same final goal: success! Don’t be hasty and persevere. Be prepared! It is a long road to reach success. But once you get there, you will never forget the taste of victory.

Related resources:

"KAIZEN: a successful approach applied to Web Analytics" (August 2008)
"Web Analytics - The Kaizen Way" from Paul Holstein on Web Analytics Demystified blog
"Web Analytics & Kaizen: Change for the Better" - my first ever (guest) post on WebAnalytists.info (June 2007)
"Web analytics are just the lumber ... you need more than that to build a house." from Econsultancy blog (June 2009)

Toyota Europe launches the Toyota Range Experience!

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Notté) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 07:56:00 +0000

I usually try not to do (too much) propaganda for the company where I work but this time – I can not refrain myself. I am so excited by this new project that went live today on the Toyota European site and that will be rolled out to Toyota national websites across Europe in the coming weeks.

Welcome to the Toyota Range Experience

Today we launched a new “tool” – the Toyota Range Experience, a rich full screen environment that allows you to explore Toyota European model line-up.

The “tool” was developed by our European agency – Amaze – and the Toyota Europe Web developers team. The main goal the tool is to increase Toyota model line-up & product knowledge while providing an emotional experience to the user in a "passive & relaxing" way.

Why am I so excited about this?

There are several reasons why I am so thrilled about this projec. First from an experience point of view. It is emotional, it is dynamic and stylish. It creates a special atmosphere. It will (we hope) certainly gives a more modern image of our brand. We really hope our customers and website visitors will enjoy it.

Secondly, from a technical point of view (this is the engineer part of me :-)): the content is full screen flash video featuring high quality computer generated images (CGI). Lot of efforts were put to deliver best possible performances on most broadband connections in order to not spoil the fun. A though challenge.

Finally, from a Web Analytics point of view. This project is the starting point of new Web Analytics project that will integrate quantitative and qualitative data. It will allow us to get all the insights we need to measure if we are successful but also to improve & deliver the best online experience to our customers. Future will tell.

In the meantime, please have a look and I hope you will enjoy the…experience!

(and please let us know what you think if you get prompted :-))

Web Analytics, Dutch women and Dennis' vision of tomorrows analytics

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Notté) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:00:00 +0000

Last Thursday, I spoke at the Web Analytics Congres in Amsterdam – presenting Toyota case together with WebTrends – one of the key sponsors of the event. In my part, I explained how we leverage Web Analytics in our pan-European context to drive actions and to continuously improve our business performances in true Kaizen way.

I was really pleased and honoured to present at such event. And from what I heard or read in some posts (for example see "26 learning van Web Analytics Congres 2009") and tweets, it seems that the audience was listening and had some interest. If sharing my experience has given some ideas to anyone then my main objective is achieved!

Dutch women rule Web Analytics!

What impressed me was not only the size of the audience – around 200 attendees – but also the quality of the cases & presentations I saw (even if I did not see all of them). Web Analytics practices seem to be quite mature and well developed in the Netherlands. Web analytics is recognized and has its place in the organization of many companies like Bol or Essent that see the importance of Web Analytics. Others are regularly using A/B testing to successfully improve their website performances (from a business point of view, of course) like Wehkamp or ING.

But what surprised me the most was that in the morning sessions, five of the seven speakers were women! Who said Web Analytics was a male thing? :-)

Future of Web analytics will be on recommendation & automation

This year International Keynote was Dennis R. Mortensen, former COO of Indextools and now Director of Data Insights at Yahoo! It is always a pleasure to listen to Dennis – he’s a very good speaker with a very direct style. And he has always a few funny stories to tell. His presentation was about “Tomorrows Web Analytics Technology and Usage”.

Dennis developed thoughts expressed in a recent blog post. Today, there is still a lot of work to do to reach excellence regarding 3 main areas:

Data collection: Simple in theory but often a huge and complex challenge in real life.

Data reporting: Looking at some metrics from a WA interface is not reporting – "it is entertainment”. Data has to be reported and communicated in the most appropriate format according to your audience (and I agree on that – said the same thing during my case).

Getting insights from the data: Most of us still fail to get the insights we are looking for. This is, according to Dennis, one of the most difficult steps to achieve. One that requires to have a real data-driven culture

But how does Dennis see the future of Web Analytics tools – from a vendor perspective?

The problem today – Dennis pointed out – is that some companies are collecting too much data. It takes them too much time get recommendations & actions out of it. It prevents these companies to take fast & reliable actions. Being slow in today fierce world can sometimes mean to get killed by the competition. Therefore Dennis believes that focus will be on:

Recommendation: Based on all best practices that exist in the Web Analytics industry, it will be possible to use data modelling so tools will be able to not only report on data but to make recommendations. Recommendations on what you should do next in order to optimize your paid search campaigns, your landing pages, your online forms…

Automation: If tools can make recommendations, why not let them do the actions (through some advance API’s for example)? Automation would also include testing and taking appropriate actions based on the results. For me this sounds like “learning” or “intelligent” systems (it reminds me AI classes at university :-)).

My practioner perspective

Systems doing recommendations?! Well the idea is not crazy at all. Just have a look at what NextStage Analytics is preparing. This is where they are going. And it will not be in 5 years but in few months!

But, as a practioner, I must admit that I am a bit sceptical about the last point: automating actions. The barrier will not be the technology – I am sure they are plenty of genius people out there that will make that possible earlier than one may think. The barrier will be cultural. Today it is already difficult to have organizations to trust online data and to take even simple actions based on these. So I wonder how can one expect to see organizations to trust a system that would make changes to their sites? I think this is where the biggest challenge will lie. And it will take more time to go over it than to develop the required technology.

But that’s just my humble practioner opinion. What is your opinion on Dennis’ vision? I am curious to hear.

Finally, as speaker, I also received a small gift from the event organisers: a book called “Dutch Delight”. A book about Dutch cooking recipes of course – not a Red Light District guide. :-)

And a very intriguing book I must say.

I woud like to thank again WebTrends for offering me the opportunity to present and the Web Analytics Congres organizers for having me as a “guest” speaker.

Related resources:

"26 learning van Web Analytics Congres 2009" by Eduard Blacquière (in Dutch)
"Tomorrows Web Analytics Technology and Usage" by Dennis R. Mortensen, Director of Data Insight at Yahoo!
NextStage Analytics - "Making Marketing Actionable" blog by René Dechamps Otamendi

Competitive intelligence for free: a practical example

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Notté) — Wed, 27 May 2009 15:00:00 +0000

Competitive intelligence is an important element of any ideal analytical framework. While measuring and benchmarking your online performances is a must-do, your website is part of an ecosystem. It is not just about you and the customers but you, the customers and competitors! So it is important to understand how you are performing against the competition.

Competitive intelligence is also usually one of the most difficult or expensive data to obtain. For a long time, it has been mainly limited to the Northern American market or to specific industries. Until Google introduced services like Google Trends, Google Trends for websites or Google Insights for Search. Basic competitive intelligence for all and for free!

Avinash Kaushik wrote a very good serie of posts on these services - definitely recommended reading (see related resources at the end of this post). Here is a practical example I made - inspired by a conversation I had with a friend about the Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight.

Toyota Prius vs. Honda Insight

No need to present the Toyota Prius, the "most-famous-best-selling" hybrid car in the world. The Prius has contributed a lot to Toyota brand image and popular success in a context where the "green" factor has become critical for a majority of car buyers(1). In 2009, Toyota launched the 3rd generation Prius. The Toyota Prius had no real contender until recently when Honda launched a new hybrid model, the Honda Insight - a Prius look-alike for few thousands Euro's/dollars less. The fight has begun! (here's where you insert the "Rocky" movie theme :-)) Will the Honda Insight put an end to Prius supremacy? What is the interest in the new Honda? Does it equal or surpass interest in the Toyota hybrid?

Understanding customer interest

Interest can be measured based on related search volume. And who is best placed to provide you with insight about search? Our good ol' friend Google of course and in particular Google Insights for Search. It is really a great tool as you can easily get actionable data out of it and more important - some competitive intelligence. "Yes, you can!"

For my example, I will take the French market (I working in Europe and I am French speaking :-)) and I will compare following terms "toyota prius" and "honda insight". Let's start to look at the last 12 months. Here is what Google Insight for Search returned:

First, let's have a look at the interest trends and see what we can learn from these:

Trends clearly shows the impact of key motor shows on customer interest: Paris Motor show in October (with the reveal of the Honda Insight), Detroit in January (with the reveal of Prius 3rd generation and official launch of the Insight) and Geneva in March. Clear peaks are visible at these times and one can see how the event influenced search activity.

The graph also shows that interest in the Honda model increased over time to get closer to the level of interest in the Toyota Prius. Good for Honda. Not that good for Toyota.

The other thing this graph can show us is the impact of advertising or media campaigns: in April, the Honda Insight curve jumped as major advertising campaign started in France for the launch of the new hybrid car. It even surpassed temporarily interest in the Toyota Prius before settling down.

So you see how you can use interest trends to compare your products against the competition but also to see the impacts of external factors like advertising campaigns, press & media coverage or events.

Now, you can drilldown to look into more details when exactly peaks occured by using smaller time range (last month, last 90 days...). For example, we can see a rising peak in May for the Prius - so let's look at last month trends.

See that peak that started around the 18th-19th? Is it a coincidence that it happened after the official launch of the new Prius in Japan and after the coverage of the news in the French media (like this article)?

You get the idea and you see how it can be used to get insights from the interest trends. Want more? Want "actionable" insights? Good because there is more you can get from Google Insights for Search.

Finding out customer "carewords"

I will not spend time on the regional interest - up to you to see if it can be of any value for your business - and I will jump to the last section of the page: related terms & rising terms.

This section is fantastic as you can see most popular related terms used by your customers - not the one you may think they should use :-) The rising terms give you indications about "hot" terms and trends.

(Tip: Only the top 10 terms are displayed on the screen but you can get more if you download all figures and terms in CSV format. All you need is a Google account and to log in)

Looking at a wide time range (e.g. last 12 months) gives you a snapshot of the main trends. In the above results, we can see that new Prius is part of the rising terms with terms like "Prius 2009", "Prius 3" and variants. Note also the presence of the "Honda Insight" in the rising terms. The presence of competitors in the list is an important information.

The great thing is that Google Insight for Search allows you to see the same list for the other terms. For "Honda Insight", this is what we get:

Here we can see that people where also looking for prices and reviews ("essai" in French) on the new Honda hybrid. And here again, "Prius" related terms are among top related & rising terms - showing how these two models are competing each against the other.

What you should do with this information? Well, first thing is to check your search engine ranking for these "customer" words and then use these as input for SEO and/or SEA (if you can not achieve a good organic ranking). Adapt your content and adword copytext so they include these terms! You can also check competitors ranking for their own terms to see if they do a better / worse job than you do and possibly use this info to convince your boss about the necessity of improving organic ranking and paid search investments.

I also advise here again to drilldown to smaller time period (last 3 months, last month) to detect specific recent hot trends for search terms. However the inconvenient is that you may not get enough search volume and the result list may be quite short if not empty.

Conclusion

Free competitive tools are often underutilized while they can sometimes provide insightful information, depending on context. It is not because they are free that it means you can not do anything valuable with it. The problem is that most the time, people ignore that such competitive information exists and is available.

The main inconvenient of Google Insights for search is that it is not always usable. It will provide information only if there are significant search volumes. Also the level of details will vary according to the market/region you look at.

But still it worth the try - you never know what you could learn or discover. And it is free so what are you waiting for?

What do you think? Did I make sense? And you, how do you use such tool? Or others you may suggest?

Related resources:

"Measuring the impact of offline events with Google Insights for Search", post from February 2010
"Competitive Intelligence Analysis: Google Insights for Search" from Avinash Kaushik
Google Insights for Search
"Competitive Intelligence Analysis: Google Trends for Websites" from Avinash Kaushik
Google Trends for Websites

(1) Capgemini Cars Online 08/09 “10th Annual Global Automotive Study

Next Web Analytics Wednesday @ TheseDays (Antwerp): Understanding the value of social media!

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Notté) — Thu, 14 May 2009 11:00:00 +0000

I am pleased to finally confirm that 3rd Belgian Web Analytics Wednesday will be held in June. For the occasion, WAW will go back to where it started this year. The event will be hosted by These Days. The event will take place in Antwerp at These Days office on the 3rd of June 2009, starting at 18:30.

WebTrends, the Analytics advisor, is generously sponsoring this WAW edition.

Host:

Sponsor:

Social media: "Are you listening"?

I am really excited to announce that the main theme of this Web Analytics Wednesday will be all about "social media: listen, measure and engage!". Highly recommended to Web Analysts, marketing managers, online marketeers, media specialists, communication managers or anyone interested in leveraging the value of social media.

In the first session, Bart De Waele from Talking Heads, a company specialized in starting “conversations” on the social web will explain what can be the “value or ROI” of social conversations, why listening to these conversations is critical nowadays and how these can be measurable.

The second session will focus on practical social media monitoring & measurement. It will start with practical presentation of Radian6 measurement solution with a real-case demonstration (by Siegert Dierickx from These Days). Maarten Sambre from WebTrends will then explain WebTrends new partnership with Radian6, why WebTrends & Radian6 are a perfect match and explore a bit WebTrends specific features.

The event will close with the traditional drinks and snacks where you will have the opportunity to network with peers, share ideas & experience about social media, web analytics, online marketing or whatever pleases you.

Agenda

18:00: Venue opens & welcome

18:30: "The value or ROI of social conversations" by Bart De Waele from Talking Heads

19:45: "Listen, Measure, engage - Radian6 & WebTrends Social Measurement solution" by Siegert Dierickx from These Days and Maarten Sambre from WebTrends.

20:30: Networking, free drinks and snacks offered by WebTrends

(all presentations are held in English)

Do I still need to mention that this event like all Web Analytics Wednesdays is 100% free events?

You have NO excuse: register now!

The event is free by we invite you to register in advance. You can register here on the official WAW worldwide site (yes, Web Analytics Wednesdays are worldwide events, doh!).

The event is opened to anyone who has an interest in online marketing and communications. See below for summaries from previous events.

These Days and I hope to see you there on the 3rd of June!

Summaries from previous WAW's:

Web Analytics Wednesday @ Zebrastraat - Ghent (March 2009)
Web Analytics Wednesday @ These Days - Antwerp (January 2009)

Coming speaking engagements: Amsterdam (NL) & Lille (FR)

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Notté) — Thu, 07 May 2009 11:44:00 +0000

The San Jose eMetrics summit took place this week in California. It is THE event of the year (with the Washington DC edition) and if you were not there (like me), you may have heard about all great presentations & announcements on Twitter or various WA blogs. eMetrics are really great event. I already attended past editions of the London eMetrics summit so I know how it tastes (by the way, I highly recommend this event to all European practioners - really worth it). Unfortunately for me, due to the current recession, I will not be able to attend this year edition. So sad... Still, I will have the great honour to speak at other "European" analytics event!

Web Analytics Congres in Amsterdam, Netherlands - 28th of May

For few years, the WebAnalytics Congres is taking place each year the Netherlands, an European country where Web Analytics practices are quite developed and mature. This year edition will take place on the 28th of May at the Hotel Okura in the superb city of Amsterdam. While most cases are Dutch cases, they usually invite "international" speakers, whether industry leaders like Dennis R. Mortensen from Yahoo Insights (who will be this year international keynote speaker) or simple practioners...like me.

Indeed, I have been invited by WebTrends, one of the main sponsors of the event, to present a practioner case on Toyota Motor Europe. I will explain- as first case of the day - examples on how Toyota Motor Europe use Web Analytics in Pan European context to improve online business performances and online media efficiency but also key future challenges. You can find the full program here.

Web Analytics Wednesday @ Lille, France - 17th of June

Earlier this year, Nicolas Malo organized the first Web Analytics Wednesday (WAW) in Northern France area in order to promote Web Analytics in the region. The event was quite a success with more than 60 attendees.

For the second Northern France WAW that will be held on the 17th of June at the Espace Tween in center of Lille, I have been invited as guest speaker to share my experience in deploying Web Analytics in a Pan-European context. The other speaker of the day will be Julien Coquet (WAA country manage - France and moderator of the French WA forum analyse.fr among others). I am really pleased by the invitation and I am looking forward for going back to this very nice city where I worked for a year few years ago. You can find the agenda here (French only) and register on the official International WAW page. Note that all sessions are held in French.

I am really excited by this two coming events - not only because I will be there as a speaker - but mainly because I think such events are really great places to live our Web Analytics passion, to meet peers and to exchange experience & ideas. It may be not eMetrics summit but I am sure these will be great and quality events. After all, size doesn't matter :-)

So why won't you join me there? I hope to see you either in Amsterdam or in Lille!

Cheers.

Automotive & Internet: towards online vehicle buying

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Notté) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 06:30:00 +0000

The importance of Internet for automotive industry is not to be demonstrated anymore (see previous post “Automotive & Internet: trends & challenges”). Automotive websites play a key role as they support customers during the purchase process, mainly during the awareness and consideration phases. Still the most important step - the purchase - happens offline but for how long?

According to Cap Gemini’s Car Online 08/09 report(1), online vehicle buying may become a reality as the one of the key changes consumers expect to see in the coming decade is that the whole purchase process will be done online.

Cap Gemini’s Car Online study – 10 years of global automotive study

The Car Online 08/09 is the last edition of Cap Gemini’s famous study on automotive industry. It was done in 2008 – during the gas price crisis but before the major financial crisis. So if you are after more information about how economical crisis is affecting customer online behaviour, you will have to wait for the next release.

For its 10th edition, the study not only looks back at the evolution over the last 10 years but also took the opportunity to expand the coverage of the research to new emerging markets: Russia, India and Brazil in addition to China. So if you are looking for information on automotive online trends for these markets, the Cap Gemini report is for you!

The emergence of social media and new online tools

With no surprise, the Internet continued to strengthen its position as primary source of information during buying process. In 1999, only 11% of respondents used the Web to research vehicles. In 2006, the number reached the 80% and climbed to 88% in 2008.

The report confirmed the increasing usage of new online tools & social media such as blogs, forums, customer reviews, RSS… especially in emerging markets like India. For example, in average 42% of respondents said to use automotive blogs. In India, they are 56%!

And online tools can have a significant impact on the buying decisions as the report explains that “almost three-quarters of consumers said they would be more likely to purchase a vehicle from a specific manufacturer if they found positive comments on blogs & forums”. So automotive manufacturers have to pay attention to these communication platforms.

The report also addresses other topics such as the importance of environmental aspects (the “green” effect) and customer satisfaction. However what I found particularly interesting is the “confirmation” of consumers’ interest in having the full buying process online – including the sale itself!

“Buy your car with a click of a mouse”

Many may found it is a silly idea but we are actually getting closer. Recently, in the context of buzz campaign, Toyota Finland launched the iQ Store where you can buy online a Toyota iQ (comes in two colors :-)), accessories and Finnish design objects. The site is actually built on an e-commerce platform so even if it is for marketing purpose, Toyota is technically the first manufacturer to sell cars online in Finland.

Peugeot, the French manufacturer already provides for a while the Peugeot Webstore in France where customers can search for a vehicle by dealership, budget, model, get prices & special offers, delivery time and arrange an appointment with a dealer. In a recent press release from Renault(2), the other French car maker announced that they will follow same path toward e-commerce with the launch of RenaultShops in France & Spain this year and later in Italy, Germany & UK.

In 2000, only 1% of consumers surveyed by the Car Online study showed interest in buying vehicle over the Internet. It was only 2% the next year therefore Cap Gemini stopped asking the question until reintroduced it in 2007. The number went up to 20% and it made a big jump in 2008. In total, 44% of respondents said they were very likely or likely to purchase vehicle online. There is a significant interest especially in the emerging markets like Brazil, India or China. Most skeptic consumers were from the U.S. where the number was less than 20% while it was around 25% in Europe.

Common barriers to online buying

It is certainly too early to say that consumers’ desire for online purchasing will translate into their actual behaviour as barriers exist but most seems addressable. You could think that number one barrier would be the inability to negotiate pricing or having face-to-face contact with the retailer but these only come in 4th and 6th position respectively. Instead, inability to test drive the car or lack of full price and product information were the top 2 blockers. The second one can be easily addressed by improving the information that is available online. Regarding test drive, a solution would be to book test drive online and having the car brought to you, directly at your place. Wouldn’t it be cool?

Whatever happens, the vehicle buying behaviour will certainly evolve in that direction. It will lead to significant changes in the role of OEM’s and dealers. For example, retailers will focus more on services (test drives, financing, maintenance…) rather than sales.

Manufacturers need to get ready for it and be prepared for the future. They will need to overcome challenges and obstacles like regulatory roadblocks, technology hurdles, data integration (and I am not even talking about Web analytics)… Interesting times ahead!

Who will be first?

Does it sound like science-fiction? What happened in many other industries tend to make me believe it will happen. It will begin with the younger generation and early adopters. Once it will get started, it will probably grow fast even if it will take times before a majority of consumers buy their car online - many sales will still be made offline. The question is what manufacturer will be the first one to make the move? - Future will tell!

I will end with a quote from a Russian consumer taken from the Car Online 08/09 report: “Sitting at my computer, I will directly order a vehicle from the maker, making design changes. It will be put on the assembly line and I will have a unique vehicle. Funny maybe but we can buy furniture that way today so why not cars in 10 years?”

What do you think? Is buying a car online a silly idea? Do manufacturers play an important role for you when looking for a new car?

UPDATED 17-08-2009: Seems that selling cars online is not a silly idea. Not for General Motors. On the 10th of August, General Motors (GM) joined forces with eBay to test online car sales (http://gm.ebay.com). More than 200 dealers from California are selling models from GMC, Buick, Chevrolet and Pontiac. Customers can browse new 2008 & 2009 models, either buy it directly at the proposed price or make offers, ask questions to dealers and figure out financing. The test will be limited in time but one can imagine that if it is successful that it will be made available in other states and possibly for latest models. More info here.

(1) Capgemini Cars Online 08/09 “10th Annual Global Automotive Study: Tracking Consumer Buying Behavior in Both Mature and Emerging Markets”. Survey covers following markets: US, Western Europe, China, Russia, India & Brazil. It can be downloaded on Capgemini website(registration required).

(2) “Renault adapts its marketing strategy to the economic environment” – Renault official press release (from www.renault.com)

Free "Improving Online Performances" seminar - Antwerp May 14th

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Notté) — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 08:30:00 +0000

If you have missed past Belgian Web Analytics Wednesdays and their case-studies, Netprofiler is organizing a FREE seminar - "Improve online performances" on the 14th of May, 18:00 at the Ramada Plaza in Antwerp, Belgium.

The event will start by an overview of Web Analytics key solutions and latest developments. It will be followed by the presentation of three "success" cases.

The first case will be about Selexyz - the Netherlands largest bookshop - and how it managed to increase its traffic from Google by 250% in half year through a successful Long Tail campaign with Google Adwords.

The 2nd case will explain how the World Wild Fund, a non-profit organization, leverage the usage insights collected from Web Analytics and A/B testing to more than double its fundraising conversion.

The last case will illustrate how PANalytical, a worldwide supplier of X-ray equipment, used website visitor behavior data to drive offline sales.

Case-studies will be presented by Frans Appels, managing consultant at Netprofiler and also founder & chairman of the Web Analytics Association in the Netherlands.

The event is open to everyone having interest in online marketing or Web analytics - whether you are a marketing manager, an online marketeer, a Web Analytics specialist or a Web Analyst.

You can register and find the full agenda and all details on Netprofiler seminar page.

Increasing online form conversion – some tips & best practices

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Notté) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 12:10:00 +0000

The great thing with Internet is that you have many services that used to be done in the offline world: you can ask questions to a company about its products. You can arrange a test drive on automotive site. You can register to a TV cable service, you can switch energy provider… You get the idea (and I am not even talking about e-commerce sites). All these services involve filling an online form at a certain stage. That is where online experience can turn into online nightmare and frustration. Online forms are often the Achille’s eels of many websites and I am still surprised – as an end-user – to see so many terrible “online” forms. While I do not pretend to be a usability expert, here are some tips & best practices from my own experience to make forms not only better for end-users but also for your business.

Shorten the completion path as much as possible!

I think that whenever you have to design an application form, there are some principles and guidelines to follow in order to make it user-friendly, intuitive and most important effective.

Whatever the purpose, put all efforts to make the completion path as short as possible. You must reduce the number of interactions required from the users to complete the process. Temptation is high to ask a lot of “nice-to-know” questions but keep in mind that each additional interaction is an additional opportunity for the users to abandon.

Who is your target audience?

Think carefully about your audience and never – never assume users will use the form the way you do! You know your business by heart, you designed and built the form so you know what is the purpose of each field, what input is expected. Your audience does not! Consider the context: are you offering services to regular users? Or is it a service that users will use once in a lifetime or very rarely? Is it for experts or for common people? This aspect is very important but not always taken into account – we tend to extensively use our jargon that is unknown for the rest of the world.

Some tips & best practices

Considering the previous general principles, here are some rules and tips that you should try to apply to your own forms. Some are easy to implement, some are obvious (but then why are these often forgotten?). The list is far from being exhaustive but I think these are a good starting point.

Fit in the browser screen: long forms not only discourage users but also require them to scroll down – distracting them from the process and adding unnecessary interactions. It should fit in most standard resolution screens (check your browser stats) and if not possible, split it into multiple steps.

Reduce mouse usage: Ideally, it should be possible to fill the form only using the keyboard, tabbing through fields (watch out for the fields tab order). Requiring users to use the mouse to move from one field to another should be avoided - not only it is annoying but also it adds up “distractions”.

Clear & functional design: Forms are often seen as boring – especially when Web is all about flashy, colourful animated content. But hold on your horses and do not try to do the same with online forms. Keep them simple and clear – unnecessary visuals are distracting users from the main purpose (i.e. filling that damned form). Avoid “visual noise” – use a clean and neat design. Only use visual elements where it helps.

Logical process & flow: Filling a form should be a smooth process. Group data in logical blocks/pages and order them accordingly. A good logical structure will make the process more intuitive. If multiple pages, clearly indicate steps and show where users are in the process.

Reduce cognitive load: End-users are lazy and in a hurry – they don’t like to think too much. Simplify their task: use radio button, dropdown lists (with limited choices), automated controls (address validation, calendar interface) and set default values according to context whenever possible.

Clear labels – use "customer" words: Ensure that questions and field labels are clear, leave no room for ambiguity and remember, no technical/marketing jargon (depending on your audience of course). Use "customer" language - not yours.

Provide contextual help: Show help/instruction text for each question whether dynamically (when accessing the field) or on user action (help icon). Indicate clearly what you expect and give examples when relevant (even if it is plain obvious for you).

Clear error messages and handling: for me there is nothing more annoying then a form saying a generic message like "Invalid value. Please provide a valid value" and leaving it to me to figure out what I exactly did wrong. Highlight erronous fields and ensure that error messages provide enough explanations for the person to understand what needs to be corrected. Ideally validation should be done at field level when users move from one field to the next one.

Save data across steps: when your form is split over multiple pages, make sure that going back to previous step will not result in loosing data. High source of frustration and abandonment (I hate that when it happens :-().

Optional questions come after the conversion: Only ask first mandatory or key information. Forms are often seen as a way to collect lot of “marketing data” (what is your favourite color, when is your birthday…). However all these optional questions should come AFTER the main action is completed. Less data to fill – shortest path to completion, remember? Once the conversion occurred, feel free to ask whatever you want. And you will be surprised by the high percentage of users who will actually answer you (because they are so happy they managed to complete their request :))

The next tips are not really for improving conversion because they relates to “after-conversion” aspects – still there are important to enhance the customer experience:

Confirmation message & summary: It is good to tell users that no gremlin prevented their data to be successfully processed. And thank them for using your service. Tell them something nice and explain them what will happen next. And even better, show them what they sent to you (so they can double check). And the cherry on top of the cake: allow them to modify their data in case of errors!

Keep users interested – bring them back to original context: In many case, filling a form gets you out of the original context and when completed, you often find yourself looking at a dead-end page (like “ok, you are done, bye bye”). In my work, I have observed that while around 50% leave the site after completing a request, the other half continues to explore the site. So why not bring them back to where they were when they initiated the process? Or suggest them other actions.

The latest version of WebTrends tagbuilder is a good example (even if it is a “specialized” application) as it applies many of the above tips: clear & simple design, detailed contextual help, error messages handling, shorten path to completion. All these improvements make the tool easier to use – especially compared to previous version (far too technical).

At Toyota Motor Europe, we implemented new forms that open in an overlayer (no pop-up – avoid them at all costs) – not only forms fit in a regular browser screen but it keeps users in original context so they can continue exploring the site when done. Also we provide a summary screen and the ability to correct data if any errors.

What else?

As a Web Analyst, make sure to measure the overall process so you can identify leaks.

Usability labs are really great to find out usability issues and collect user insights – most of the time you may miss obvious flaws that real users will find in few seconds. But as labs can be costly, they are recommended if you plan a major redesign otherwise do some A/B testing.

Don’t aim at the perfect online form from start but try to build a good one and do small improvements (Kaizen) based on lessons learned, measurements & tests.

If you plan a major redesign and if forms are business-critical for you, consider calling upon a usability expert.

What do you think? Any tips/best practices that you think are really important for improving online form conversion and/or user experience?

If you want more, here are some related articles/resources:

“Best Practices for form design” – a very complete presentation by Luke Wroblewski, a usability expert.
“Best practices for content form development” – article from TamingTheBeast.net

Applied Segmentation & Targeting - two case studies from WAW @ Ghent

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Notté) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:00:00 +0000

Two months after first Belgian Web Analytics Wednesday (WAW) of 2009, a second one took place last week in Ghent. The event was hosted and sponsored by bSeen, a Belgian specialist in Search Marketing but also in Web Analytics. For the occasion, they hold the event in a superb location – at the Zebrastraat.

Thanks to lot of promotion done by bSeen who invited many of their customers, the event drove more than 90 persons! This was really great to see so many attendees and for once also many “practioners”.

Theme of this WAW was about “applied segmentation & targeting” with two case studies and one vendor (Nedstat) short demonstration.

Case 1: Targeting customers and optimizing lead generation @ Volvo Cars Belgium

First case was about Volvo Cars Belgium and it was presented by Jourik Migom, from Boondoggle, their digital agency.

In a very traditional way, Volvo Cars is using online advertising to drive traffic to campaign microsites or main site where the main goal is to turn visitors into leads that are then passed to the retailer network through a CRM system.

However the problem was that until recently, online media analysis was limited to "basic" analysis (impressions, CTR, CPC...) and there was no link with the leads generated by the various campaigns. One of the main obstacles was that the different steps of the funnel (media -> microsite -> main site -> lead) were tracked with different tools. Volvo wanted also to use behavioural data in order to increase lead generation in general.

First, a behavioural targeting solution was implemented: HitsIntoLeads from Netmining. The "intelligent" solution identifies visitors who are considered as potential hot leads based on their behaviour (e.g. visit frequency, key sections visited…). Specific content is then pushed to these “hot” visitors – for example an invitation to test the car or to receive a product brochure.

But in order to go further and to link CRM data with online media activities, Netmining tag was added in online campaigns allowing Volvo to better measure leads generated by the various online channels (banners, emails and others). Behavioural data is also passed along with the lead to the retailer, providing key information about the visitor main interests. Next step for Volvo will be to close the loop and link online campaigns to sales.

The case was really interesting (I am always curious to hear case from competitors) but it was lacking more details about the actual results (for confidentiality purpose I guess). All that was said is the behavioural targeting helped increasing the number of leads but in what extent? We were not told…

It ended with a quick but optional introduction from Netmining. At least they showed us a sneak preview of their new impressive real-time control room.

Case 2: "Practical customer segmentation: basic ideas with great results - Isotrie.be & Combell.com"

Steve De Veirman from bSeen presented the second case: two very simple examples of how user segmentation was successfully applied using Google Analytics segmentation functionalities.

The idea is very basic: think about your audience and split it in limited number of key segments. Try to identify them explicitly on the website - ask them who they are (whether when they enter the site or via navigation options)! From there, measure and segment results accordingly – get insights and take actions.

The first example, Combell.be, a provider in hosting & domain names solutions, defined key segments (IT starters and IT professionals) and redesigned its website accordingly (still on-going) to better serve each type of customer. Proposed products and offers will be adapted according to the segment.

Isotrie.be is selling isolation products for house builders and renovators – each type of customer having interest in specific products & services. Therefore Isotrie defined 2 key segments builders & renovators (each being split in two sub-segments: Belgian Dutch and Belgian French). The Welcome page was modified: when entering the site, visitors have to select if they want to isolate their new construction or their renovation. The selection defines the customer segment. The product page is adapted based on the selected option – appropriate key products are presented on top of the page.

A/B tests were conducted in order to full assess the impact of the new design – results were more than encouraging – boosting conversions!

All was conducted in few months and showed that you don’t need complex sciences or to be a Fortune 500 company to be able to successfully applied customer segmentation.

You can find the case presentation below (from SlideShare)

Waw Segmentation & Profiling

View more presentations from stevedv.

Next WAW – call for hosts, sponsors & speakers!

The cases were followed by WAW traditional networking and drinks. As usual it was great and I really enjoy it. Again, a big thank you to bSeen for making this event possible and more important, such a success.

Now, it is time to start thinking about the next WAW. Target is to have another one before the summer holidays – ideally end of May (or early June).

So I am making a call: if you want to host and/or sponsor the next Web Analytics Wednesday, if you think you have a great case you would like to present – do not hesitate and contact me (michaelnotte at yahoo.fr).

See you at next Belgian Web Analytics Wednesday!

"Web Analytics Wednesday Gent - report" from Bart Vermijlen (in Dutch)

Web Analytics, recession and...me!

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Notté) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:39:00 +0000

Is Web Analytics a recession-proof job? How does it feel to work in Web Analytics in an industry that is severely hit by the current economic crisis? How does it affect one’s daily job? And future? How to survive it? Here are some personal thoughts & experience from a Web Analytics practioner working in the automotive industry

“Web Analytics – the recession-proof job”

That was what many professionals were saying last year before the recession really hit hard on the world: whether it was survey from the Web Analytics crowd or predictions from various industry experts such as e-Consultancy. All sounded good. Maybe too good to be true?

Later, Eric T. Peterson took a different position and wrote a very relevant post raising the question: “is Web Analytics really recession-proof?” Eric’s post and reactions from other Web Analytics experts showed that maybe Web Analytics was not so “recession-proof” after all.

Everybody knows it: the automotive industry is badly suffering. I am working as a Web Analytics specialist for a major automotive manufacturer. Do I feel protected from the recession? To say “yes” would be a lie! I used to think that working in Web Analytics would leave me more or less unaffected by the crisis however as situation evolved, I had to seriously reconsider my opinion.

The good olds day are gone my friends!

I am working on the IT side (the dark side :-)) but working very closely with business as Web Analytics is sitting in between. My work has high visibility on business side and as far as I know, I think I can say it is appreciated. While being so focused on my work for the business, I forgot one important think: make Web Analytics and my work more visible to IT management. A big mistake…

Web Analytics has never been put in question before – it has been always considered as a necessity, a must-do – especially in a company used to analyze everything in details and take decision based on facts and where continuous improvements (Kaizen) is a part of the company’s culture.

But with the severe recession, major budget cuts had to be applied and all projects / positions were reviewed and yes, Web activities and Web Analytics were put in question. The good old days where online marketing had not to be justified (“hey, it is marketing!”) were gone and future looked suddenly quite dark. Wasn’t my job supposed to be “recession-proof”?

“In the heart of every difficulty lies an opportunity”

That’s what good old Einstein said once and he was right. I could have let it down. Instead I decided to bounce back and I seized the opportunity. It was time to make Web Analytics more visible to my top management. How? By demonstrating the potential value of using Web Analytics efficiently. I stopped talking about “improving conversion ratios” or “reducing landing page bounce rate”. Instead I used money, a language that everybody – especially top management – understands. I talked about “increasing profits”.

With the economic situation, priorities for most companies are more than ever to:

Raise profits
Reduce spending
Increase customer satisfaction.

With Web Analytics, you can certainly make a case for first priority and that you can better spend the money. You need to demonstrate that Web Analytics can achieve a significant positive return on investment (ROI). This sounds so obvious but let’s be honest how many really does it? I think we – Web Analysts, tend to focus too much on improving whatever ratio but forgot to link it to money!

Demonstrating ROI is not always straightforward especially for websites without tangible/direct revenues. Still you should link your website activities to money value using a monetization model. You will need to define your own model! It will not be always easy but it is a must-do in these times!

Base your monetization model on facts you have and make assumptions for the rest. Start with a simple one and then elaborate as much as you can. It doesn’t have to be 100% accurate. What it needs is to be consistent, realistic and most important to be convincing!

Did it work in my case? Well, I managed to get extra budgets in a period where the trend was to cut them down so I guess I did not do too bad…

A “positive” consequence of the recession is that Web is getting much more attention from business stakeholders and their management. They became highly accountable and therefore there is a high demand for measurements, analysis and optimization. This is a unique and challenging opportunity to move Web Analytics out of the shadows and bring it to the frontline. It is a unique opportunity to change the way people work. It is now or it will be never.

Recession is hard!

But unfortunately the crisis has many negative impacts that make this challenge difficult. It is far from being joy & happiness all over the place. Severe measures and uncertain future have impact on the working atmosphere and employee’s morale – including mine. I am human. Seeing your revenues and benefits cut down is not the best motivator.

In addition, teams got reduced – in my case I lost a precious support resource as number contractors is significantly reduced. This means more work, more pressure on my shoulders.

Finally, I am a bit sad (okay – I am really sad) as there will be no London eMetrics summit this year for me. And it is not this year I will participate to Stockholm Internet Marketing Conference (sorry Lars). So sad…

So it is not always easy – but at least work remains exciting and as I said – there is a great opportunity on the long-term.

Make your job recession-proof!

I don’t think Web Analytics is per se recession-proof but it is up to you to make sure it will be!

Here are some tips to help you make yourself more recession-proof:

Demonstrate your added-value: Build a monetization model and prove that you can contribute to a positive ROI. Even if not perfect. Get a good “story” – stop bothering management with bounce rates & conversion ratios – they don’t care! Use money, the language they understand!

Make your job more visible & get support: Communicate about all the great things you are doing. Look for support from Business stakeholders / managers. It is not always easy when you are always the head underwater but make sure to allocate some of your time to advertise yourself!

Have a plan B (and C & D…): Keep an eye on job boards for opportunities - if your company does not see the importance of Web Analytics role in such times, maybe others do (honestly I would do everything to avoid that but…).

Working in a recession is not easy – don’t be over-confident because you are doing Web Analytics. It is what you do with Web Analytics that will make your recession-proof.

Still these challenging times are a unique opportunity to really shine. As Jim Sterne said in this year WAA New Year letter: “Now more than ever it is time to show the value of our logic, ingenuity and insight. […] We have the power to make a difference, to effect change and to help our colleagues and our companies in the short term and in the long run!”

Good luck and keep faith!

Here are some very interesting related posts on Web Analytics and recession. Worth reading if looking for tips & advices:

"Web Analytics is Recession Proof?" by Eric T. Peterson
"Thoughts about Analytics in the recession of 2009" and "What Smart Advertisers Will Do In The Recession" by Steve Jackson from Blackbeaks Blog
"Five Steps to Keeping Your Job" by Jim Sterne - the Web Analytics Godfather

Your Web Analytics data vs. online advertising data: why they don’t match (and never will)

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Notté) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 23:30:00 +0000

Whenever you fully measure an online campaign (SEA, banners, emailing), you usually get data from your beloved Web Analytics tool (what I call internal or onsite data) and data from your advertising agency (what I call external or offsite data). A common reflex is to put both together, trying to reconciliate them… But they won’t and (almost) never will. How is that possible?

“There must be something wrong!”

I have stopped counting the number of times I got asked this question “I got figures from my Adwords/banner campaign but when I look at our WebTrends data, I don’t get the same numbers. Why are there some discrepancies? Which data are correct?”. Be prepared –if you start tagging your campaigns with your own tool (and God knows you should if you don’t) and if you get advertising data – you will be asked such question a lot! It is also a recurring question on the Yahoo WA forum.

“Welcome to the real world!”

You will have to accept that "external" data and “internal” data will never match (or you are very lucky if they do) – external ones (from banners/adwords) being usually higher. The difference can vary to a large extent: from few percent (very good) to more than 25% (not unusual). Is this abnormal? Not necessarily.

In a perfect world, one would expect that figures would match. After all, isn’t the Internet highly measurable? Isn’t Web Analytics a science? Well, world is not perfect – far from it. Same for Internet and Web Analytics.

Why they will never match

Business stakeholders want an answer. Something else then “because, it’s like that” (it hardly works with my 3-year son so…). You need to provide explanations. Here are some of the reasons why these damned figures don’t match (they evil!)

Clicks are NOT visits: Most of the times banners/ads performances are measured using impressions and clicks while your tool will report visitors and visits. These are totally different measures & concepts. Comparing these is like comparing apples with er… well something else :-) Again in an ideal world, one would imagine that 1 single click would convert into 1 visit. But not in the real world. Why? For example a visitor clicking on an ad, bouncing back to the original page and going back will result in two clicks but 1 visit. If you really want to compare clicks to something else, the measure that comes closer to a click is a page view.

Different tools, different results: Add to the unit difference the fact that two different tools will give different numbers because they have their own way to collect data and they have their own secret algorithm & measure definitions. The final results will differ (but it should be in a limited extent).

Link tagging issues: Most Web Analytics tools rely on specific parameters added in the URL’s to identify campaign traffic (for example: utm_campaign in Google Analytics, WT.mc_id in WebTrends). If no present, traffic from these URL's will be considered as “normal” traffic. This is a very frequent source of discrepancies so make sure that all your campaign links get correctly tagged – what you need are good guidelines, standards & process (see "Working with Web Agencies - Take control" post). If not tagged, clicks from these URL's will be counted but not the visits (well, they will be but not as campaign traffic).

Landing page tagging issues: If the landing page or microsite is not tagged (or badly), no visit will be counted while ad clicks will be - leading to discrepancies. Always double check (quality process)!

The use of first party cookie: In many tools, campaign traffic measurement is based on a cookie (usually a first party cookie). But not all users will accept it and they will not be counted as campaign traffic – introducing some differences in visits/visitor counts (while ad clicks are based on server hits recorded at server level).

Tag position: it is usually recommended to place your WA tag at the end of the HTML page – giving priority to content (and therefore to the user experience) over measurement. However with heavy content (often the case with Flashy campaign microsites), the page can be slow to load. This gives enough time to users to bail out (you have no idea how quick they can be) before the tag is triggered. The click is counted, not the visit. Or they can have time to move to another page – in this case the visit will be counted but the campaign referrer will be lost.

Referrers got lost in between: If the ad points to a URL that does a redirect to the actual landing page, the referrer parameters will be lost (if no special mechanism in place) and the visit will be considered as “normal” traffic. It may seem obvious but it happens more frequently than you think.

Technical issues or bad configuration: If the page fails to load (can happen) or if ad links are not correctly set-up, users will never reach the pages while clicks still got recorded.

Others: Filters that prevent some visits to be reported in your reports, users who deactivated Javascript (I always wonder how can one surf today’s web without Javascript), click fraud (never be confronted to such situation but I know it happens), etc.

“Ok but what can I do?”

The first thing is to understand and accept there will always be some discrepancies between external & internal data. You can have a look at the difference between the various sources and check it remains more or less constant over time. If not, there may be something wrong happening.

Also if you see a major difference, something like above 30% - it’s time to put on your Sherlock Holmes hat and start investigating!

First check that URL’s are correctly tagged & configured (no redirect).
Inspect your landing page and make sure it is correctly tagged and that the tag is fired quickly enough (use WASP or any HTTP sniffer). Also if your campaign measurement relies on a first party cookie, is it set-up correctly?
Check server monitoring logs to see if there was any performance issue or downtime during the campaign.
If you are using page tagging, a good way to investigate is to have a look at the Web server logs and analyze them with a log analyzer. Are the results closer to your data or the external ones?

Another advice is to define a quality process & checkpoints to ensure that tagging is done correctly and fully tested before going live. Again, it seems so obvious but still happening too often.

To conclude, here is an example from my personal experience:

Once, one of our local markets made an important banner campaign for our luxury brand. They decided to have it tagged using our central solution (WebTrends) in addition of usual advertising reporting they got from their local agency. After the campaign, they got back to me as the difference between the figures reported by their agency and WebTrends was above 50%!

The first point to solve for me was to check if ad requests reached or not our server. We took the Web server logs and analyze them with our WebTrends software installation. The campaign traffic figures were quite close to the ones from the page-tag logs. So the problem occurred upfront. The agency investigated and discovered that a technical issue prevented some of the banners to work correctly so clicks were recorded but visitors never reached the site. Case solved!

What do you think? Does it make sense? Any other sources of discrepancies? How do you tackle such situations?

Related posts & resources:

"Good practices: Working with Web agencies - take control!" - September 2008
"Yahoo ad click-thru rate and Webtrends referral visits" thread on Yahoo WA forum
"Discrepancies between WebTrends and Google Adwords" from WebTrends Outsider
"Why Don’t the Numbers Match?!?" by Judah Philips from WebAnalyticsDemystified

Web Analytics Wednesday @ Zebrastraat - Ghent: book your agenda!

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Notté) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 12:16:00 +0000

Following the success of last Web Analytics Wednesday (WAW) in Antwerp, bSeen and the Web Analytics Association are very pleased to invite you to the next Belgian WAW that will take place in the superb Zebrastraat center in Ghent on the 25th of March 2009, starting at 6:30 PM.

The event will be hosted and generously sponsored by bSeen - the specialist in Search Marketing.

Segment, target and optimize!

Segmentation & targeting are very common terms in Web Analytics but how can one make it actually actionable in order to really improve business performances?

To find out, come and join us to this Web Analytics Wednesday where main theme will be about "applied customer segmentation & targeting" with great case-studies and demonstration. Have a look at the agenda:

Agenda:

18:00: Venue opens & welcome

18:35: Introduction & updates on the WA Belgian community (M. Notté, WAA Country manager for Belgium)

18:45: "Targeting customers and optimizing lead generation @ Volvo" (J. Migom from Boondoggle & Netmining)

19:15: Tool/vendor demonstration - Sitestat Live Segmentation (Nedstat)

19:30: "Practical customer segmentation: basic ideas with great results - Isotrie.be & Combell.com" (S. De Veirman from bSeen)

20:00: Networking and free drinks offered by bSeen

(all presentations are held in English)

It is a 100% free event and it has an exciting agenda, so what are you waiting for? :-)

Register here on the official worldwide Web Analytics Wednesday page. You can find all details (agenda, address, location map...) on the special WAW page on bSeen site.

Anyone interested in Web Analytics is more than welcome! And if you are from a Web agency, feel free to invite any interested customers.

We hope to see you at Zebrastraat center next month!

Practical info:

WAW registration page on official WAW website
Event details on bSeen site

Other events:

The first WAW in Lille/Rijsel (France) will be held on the 1st of April at Le Café Citoyen. You can register here