I studied the usage patterns of one of the biggest News Media publishers in the US as part of an optimization dialogue and created the following four News Media content segments:

• Galleries
• News articles
• Front pages
• Other

Giving me a much better understanding of where the bulk of the page views and thus the advertising inventory is generated. There is no surprise in the below bar chart that visualize the total number of page views per news media content segment.

Galleries make up for almost 60% of all page views, which is a dramatic number. I believe it is dramatic, because you don’t have to conduct to many studies or interviews, to find that the value of a gallery page view, is probably not the same as news article page view. I was therefore interested in telling a different story with the same data.

I summed up the total time spent on each of the content segments using a simple time spent metric. Whether you believe that total time spent on news media content segments is identical to reader attention, probably doesn’t matter too much, as I am sure you would agree that, if not, it is at least a decent proxy metric.

There might be a positive surprise in the below visualization, which quite clearly shows that galleries might have the most page views in total, but that the core news media article product (and the front page it is promoted on) is where the reader spend most his time, and I would argue his attention.

It is therefore somewhat sad to see quality news articles getting thrown into ad exchanges and sold alongside galleries. I was therefore positively surprised and happy to see that Nick Denton and his Gawker Media announce their move away from measuring success on page-views. Starting 2010 they will measure and compensate success on Unique visitors. I’m no direct fan of one metric over the other and am not sure gawker has the ability to accurately calculate a true unique visitor. I am however a fan of not valuing every page view the same, simply because, any decent publisher knows how to increase page views without adding any real value to their publication (yes, I am talking about galleries).

- OR as Nick said it “An item which gets picked up and draws in new visitors is worth more than a catnip slideshow that our existing readers can’t help but click upon.”

There is some really good commentary on the subject on The Nieman Journalism Lab’s website as well.

Cheers :-)
/ Dennis (@dennismortensen)

We have spent the last 18 months integrating YWA (IndexTools) into the Yahoo Network and whilst our Account Management team has worked tirelessly to ensure that our client base (both YWACN members and Direct Customers) are well supported, we have also managed to find time to run some projects in the background!

Our onus has been on serving our customer base more effectively, tackling this in a variety of ways: Dedicated Account Management for YWACN members, an expansive list of FAQs available to all on help.yahoo.com as well as the recently announced YWA Status Blog keeping our customers informed in real-time (RSS, Email, Phone and Messenger Alerts).

I’m pleased to announce that today we add a considerable resource to our existing support and self-serve channels!

Yahoo Web Analytics Product Training on-Demand

We have spent the last few months converting our original on-site product training that we use to deliver to clients and partners at IndexTools, into short, easily digestible, on-demand webinars. These webinars are accessible by all and aim to give new and existing users a complete overview of the product allowing them to concentrate on what’s important: analysis. The webinars are collated using a combination of PowerPoint Slides and in Product Demo’s.

Further to this we have also added an Interactive Q&A section (Adobe Captivate) for each of the training sections. This will enable users to check their knowledge at each stage of the training, or go back and check it further down the line. N.B. We don’t capture any personal data or results :)

So where do YOU go to get access to these?

We have created a section within help.yahoo.com and you can access the individual sessions here. We’ve created a page for each session and you’ll currently have access to the following sessions and sections:

• Session 1: Deploying and Customizing the Tracking Code
• Session 2: Sales and Merchandising – Deployment and Reporting
• Session 3: Basic Reporting: Traffic, Demographics, Techno-graphics, Content, Navigation, and Path Analysis
• Session 4: Conversion Analysis, Scenario Analysis

Still to come over the next month or so are the remaining sessions these include:

Session 5: Reporting Interface Features
Session 6: Manual Campaign Setup
Session 7: Automated Campaign Setup
Session 8: Campaign Reporting
Session 9: Dashboards
Session 10: Settings

We hope you find these informative and useful! Stay tuned for the remaining 6 Sessions. If you’ve not had a chance to view the product yet checkout Dennis’ 30 min Yahoo Web Analytics Demo.

My thanks to Miha Popa who worked so hard to get these recorded and to the rest of my team for drawing up all the questions and answers!

Cheers,

Charlie

• Mobile Device Maker
• Mobile Device Model
• Mobile Device Screen size
• Carrier name

The numbers themselves are rather exciting actually, even though my point is, just to show you some of the Dimensions you can use, when doing your mobile analysis with Yahoo Web Analytics. Enjoy! :-)

Cheers :-)
/ Dennis (@dennismortensen)

I was really excited to receive a Kindle the other day, as I finally got to actively try out a new reading experience in regards to my above fixation. If you think about it, kindle, or similar e-reader experiences, like what B&N or Sony peddle, provides the opportunity to deliver a digital magazine, while actually capturing a set of metrics. Still limited and few, but metrics nonetheless. My first set of purchases was (of course) Data Driven Insights with Yahoo Analytics, but also the Economist Magazine (both Amazon kindle links).

Like you, I am most sure, I tag into an endless stream of information (news), flowing in from RSS feeds, Twitter and so on and so forth. I even believe that I am somewhat selective in my limited 28 RSS feeds, following 57 folks on twitter etc. – BUT still en endless information stream nevertheless. I personally see that as somewhat of an issue, never being able tick a box and say that you are finished.

The first positive element about e-readers, speak directly to the above issue, which is that, it creates, just as with a traditional magazine (in paper), the feeling of having consumed and completed a task. I don’t believe this is a bad feeling to emulate in digital magazines. I for one have the interest and willingness to consume an editorial package that goes beyond the actual article. There is a huge difference between me letting a friend know that the December edition of Wired Magazine was really cool, as compared to me sharing a link to Evan Ratliff’s Vanish Article (which just adds to the endless stream).

The first negative element about current digital magazines on e-readers, is that they bring nothing to the party, above and beyond what I get from the printed magazine. They almost detract from what I have gotten used to from their online editions. Where I have the audio interview, the video extension, the additional pictures that didn’t fit to print etc.

Conclusion (day 3):
I honestly believe that a tablet of some sorts will provide the opportunity for a prospering digital magazine industry, I in particular see the need for a curated editorial product that can be consumed, completed and finally commented on as a whole. Everything that seems like a task - MUST create a structure to finish, which is my biggest issue with today’s endless information stream. However, I believe the digital magazine is up for a transformation which is more radical than the print replica I just read.

Please note that this comment is, of course, not about the hardware, but about the digital magazine concept. It is also difficult to figure out to what extent data mining and traditional analytics is being used in driving the digital edition – seems like NOT at all on the Kindle today (in the eye of the publisher, I am sure Amazon is mining the hell out of usage patterns). Well, more about this subject later, when I get even wiser.

Interesting digital magazine prototypes (video demos), especially the Mag+ presentations from Bonnier:

• Bonnier Mag+
• Sports Illustrated, Tablet Demo
• Wired Tablet Concept

(Please have in mind that my experience is limited to me having access to a kindle and the Economist for a few days, so don’t be shy in adding to the discussion, I would love to hear about your immediate experiences)

Cheers :-)
/ Dennis (@dennismortensen)

Having said that, I would like to suggest a different route, one that I in particularly talked about in my Adobe acquisition of Omniture post - where I suggest that the content and tracking marriage will be won or lost on a Web OS level.

BUT - while we wait for my prophecy to come true, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we can move towards a simpler web analytics data collection deployment, and at the same time a much richer data set. This sounds like the deployment engineers nirvana, but it might not be that far-fetched, if we take a step back and look at what we already have.

The universal tag should not be a standardization agreement in between a few web analytics vendors or even a forced through Web Analytics Association standard, neither should it be a vendor independent tag, developed by consultants.

I suggest that web analytics vendors adopt the most popular Microformats, so that the plain vanilla tracking scripts presently in place are able to read already semantic tagged elements.

Read that again. Think about it.  You get more data, better data, with little or no effort - other than what your web analytics vendor have to do. When analytics experts spots an enterprise web property with nothing more than a plain vanilla tag, it creates a tiny giggle. It shouldn’t be that way though, that simple tag should be able, through settings, to adopt and read Microformats, so that it becomes a whole lot more sophisticated - and that without ANY web analytics tracking script hacking. Using this idea, the extreme scenario, will be that anything else BUT plain vanilla tagging is laughable, simply because you will overwrite semantic rich information.

Example

Let me provide an example to illustrate my point on how comical it is that we force ourselves to mark up important data points twice, and sometimes even more:

If we look at the following Article from one of AOL’s web properties:

We will see, through the page source, that they use Omniture Sitecatalyst and that they collect sematic rich information into a set of custom fields:

s_265.disablepipath = false;
s_265.pfxID = "nws";
s_265.prop2 = "Article";
s_265.mmxgo = true;
s_265.prop1 = "World";
s_265.channel = "us.spherenews";
s_265.linkInternalFilters = "javascript:,sphere.com";
s_265.pageName = "nws : Iran Admits Guards Beat Prisoners to Death";
s_265.prop9 = "bsd:19287999";

This type of web analytics tagging is very much standard and if anything above average level in sophistication. Well done AOL! However, if you take a second look at the page source, you will notice that they have chosen to implement the hNews Microformat.

<div class="article hnews hentry item" id="article-19287999">
<div class="postTop clrFx">
<div class="artHeadline">
<h1 class="entry-title">
Iran Admits Guards Beat Prisoners to Death</h1>
<div class="miniComm">

<p class="author vcard"><b class="fn">
ALI AKBAR DAREINI</b></p>
<span class="source-org vcard"><span class="org fn">AP</span></span>

(*I didn’t paste all the hNews Microformat used elements, so take the above as confirmation only and go look at the page source, for a full look at the use, which will actually show MORE semantic rich information that whats being tracked with Sitecatalyst)

Which just shows that the values inflated into the Omniture Sitecatalyst custom fields, are essentially a duplicate tagging effort, as this is already included into the hNews tags. This should have been, if not automatic, then nothing more than a tick-in-a-box in the Omniture settings sections, confirming that the client would like to pick up hNews tags.

Conclusion

The universal tag should not be an agreement in between web analytics vendors or even a forced through Web Analytics Association standard, neither should it be a vendor independent tag, developed by consultants. I suggest that web analytics vendors adopt the most popular Microformats, so that the plain vanilla tracking scripts presently in place are able to read already semantic tagged elements.

Merry Christmas :-)
/ Dennis (@dennismortensen)

n.b. If this makes little sense, or if your thoughts are around, what’s the point? go read a) Avinash’s technical implementation post (which by its breath shows the pain in deployment) and b) Ian’s post about whence the universal tag? (which provide other great viewpoints on how to solve the current pain)

So come and find me in this December version of “Where’s Waldo?” – I would love to meet up for a nerdy chat about Analytics or Media. Drinks are on me! You are most welcome to connect on Tripit (thus increasing your chance of getting that Mojito)

..
Dec. 01 – New York: Speaking and Socializing at Stratigent YWA Analytics event

Dec. 03 – New York: Speaking about Bootstrapping vs. Venture Funding at ULS

Dec. 07 – Chicago: Speaking on Analytics & Attribution at SES / (my comments)

Dec. 08 - Chicago: SES Authors Book Signings Event (12:00 in the exhibit hall)

Dec. 10 – San Francisco: Customer Meetings
Dec. 10 – Sunnyvale: back to Yahoo! home base

Dec. 11 – Mountain view:  Speaking on Metrics for Success at SDForum
..

Cheers :-)
/ Dennis (@dennismortensen)

Join Stratigent and Yahoo! Analytics for an evening of insights, cocktails and networking at the Yahoo offices in New York City. Learn how enterprise organizations are gaining new customer insights by leveraging Yahoo! Web Analytics as a highly customizable web analytics tool. Uncover hidden ROI as Bill Bruno of Stratigent shares best practices for deriving maximum value from your analytics program. This exclusive event is hosted by Stratigent, an official Yahoo! Web Analytics Consulting Network member in conjunction with Yahoo! Web Analytics.

Highlights include:

• The Future of Analytics: Discover how online marking measurement and optimization is evolving and learn what it takes to keep your business ahead of the curve
• Best Practices for Deriving Value from Analytics: Bill Bruno, VP of Business Development and Technology at Stratigent.
• Yahoo! Web Analytics Product Demo: Presented by Dennis R. Mortensen, Director of Data Insights at Yahoo! and author of Data-Driven Insights with Yahoo! Web Analytics
  
• Networking and Cocktails: Connect with analytics professionals in the area and speak with the Analytics experts of Stratigent and Yahoo!

Registration to this invite-only event is complimentary. To request an invitation (while seats remain) contact Jenny Kimbley via email: jenny.kimbley@stratigent.com.

Anywho..

Happy Thanksgiving. :-)
/ Dennis (@dennismortensen)

“Cut to the chase! Use analytics tools to get the specific answers you need about your search marketing campaign’s economic performance, your users’ on-site behaviors, and how to look for major red flags in traffic patterns. This slate of experts will keep you focused rather than poring through hundreds of pages of meaningless statistics.”

I know this is the usual promotional event pitch, and that’s OK. The easy response (presentation) would have been a focus around the magic, one can pull out of behavioral data in conjunction with search data. And that would be OK as well. I was, however, reading an article from Jacques Warren [1], who as a web analyst is as smart as they come, and during the post he concludes the following:

“Google organic accounted for 65% of all visits, 89,5% in December, 87% in January, and 84% so far in February. That’s only one search engine (and its various properties)! In a word, we LOVE Google.” [2]

I decided to use that as my outset and I in particular focused on what I bolded above (the capital letters are his). Before I move on, let me be clear that this is not a bashing of Mr. Warren, by no means. His post, and specifically the above comment, in combination with my talk in Chicago, just happened to trigger something in me, to finally utter my concern around the unfair relationship between content owners and search engines. This includes, what I believe to be a set of unhealthy search success metrics, or for some people, even a naïve belief in a search engine friendship.

Any other person, might just agree on how fantastic the traffic influx from Google is, in the above example, and continue to thrive on the euphoria of that - and perhaps even apply additional search engine optimization processes across multiple search engines and aggregators in regards to new content. But doesn’t this seem wrong to you, that we celebrate yet another winner of the Google organic search lottery ?

If I ran a business where most my revenue, if perhaps not all of it, depended on visitors to my site, I would be very dissatisfied to the extent of concerned by the fact that my life was in the hands of a random search engine.

To marginally illustrate my point, but mostly for us to continue the debate, let’s have a look at Figure 1 and Figure 2, and the apparent question that’s comes with those two data sets, such as; which of the below two trends would you describe as more successful (forget all about the usual ‘it depends’ and just assume that all the stars are aligned to your satisfaction).

My point is that, in the scenario of monetization being most successful around returning visitors (as we see with a lot of content owners), figure 2 is the more successful trend. AND the accompanying suggestion could very clearly be that by the introduction of Search Engine de-Optimization one might be able to force such a pattern. One action could actually be to remove some of your content from search engines all together! Drastic, yes, and this is certainly not for everybody, but think about it twice, before you conclude that I am completely crazy. :-)

Conclusion
It seems fair to debate whether or not search engines and other content aggregators extract too much the webs value, leaving less for the content creators (originators) - if this is true, one should introduce tactics such as Search Engine de-Optimization to destress the dependency!

I’ll prepare myself for the bashing and first hit in this blog post – it might mentally prepare me for Chicago. So there you go! Dear search engine, I don’t Love you anymore. - and it’s not you, it’s me that changed ;-)

Cheers :-)
/ Dennis (@dennismortensen)

[1] If you are coming to Chicago Jacques, Diet Cokes are on me! :-)
[2] You can replace Google with any other content aggregator and the above critique still rings true

That’s a first, and not that I am surprised, but James found a mistake on page 90 in my Yahoo! Web Analytics Book – minor and repeated on the next page in correct form, BUT I still owe him a free Diet Coke in New York for pointing it out. Here is the section from the Book – I highlighted the error and added in the correct deployment syntax.

Tracking Products Viewed

I have been very focused on the nirvana of e-commerce actions, the sale, but I am sure you agree with me that there are many steps and many actions before getting to this point. You can track any number of steps and any number of activities with Yahoo! Web Analytics. The tool has a few hard-coded events, however, that come right out of the box—one of them is the unique action value called PRODUCT_VIEW. The Product View variable provides you with the opportunity to expand your merchandising knowledge to activities, very close to the top of the sales funnel. In this way, you can see how often potential customers view your products, which products are the most popular, and whether a positive connection exists between product campaigns and product views.

Remember that selling only provides you with successful customer behavior, whereas events before the sale occurs can provide you with very powerful insights on unsuccessful customer outcomes. The product view can be used in a number of ways, and you will even see some use of it as a proxy for products added to cart or sales (if they do not have volume enough to perform signifi cant campaign analysis on that parameter). To enable this type of tracking, you apply the value PRODUCT_VIEW to the ACTION variable on all the pages where you display products:

Version 4

var ACTION=’PRODUCT_VIEW’;
var _S_SKU=’DM112899’;

Version 5

YWATracker.setAmount(“PRODUCT_VIEW“); //Correct: YWATracker.setAction(“PRODUCT_VIEW“);
YWATracker.setSKU(“DM112899“);

The pages where this code is applied do not have to be unique and in fact rarely are. Products are displayed on product marketing pages, technical specification pages, in search results, in recommendation boxes—and I am sure you have even more suggestions. I recommend you enhance your document-naming and -grouping skills to create opportunities to split different product views over the site.

Which leads to our next topic: forwarding to pages where we display multiple products at the same time. A product search result is likely to do this, as shown in Figure 4.3

Figure 4.3.  -  Standard product search result page

There are other scenarios where this is bound to happen. In order to track several product views at the same time, continue using the same syntax we’ve discussed in previous chapters, separating variable values by a semicolon. Tracking two product views at the same time looks like this:

Version 4

var ACTION=’PRODUCT_VIEW’;
var _S_SKU=’DM112899;DM113834’;

Version 5

YWATracker.setAction(“PRODUCT_VIEW“);
YWATracker.setSKU(“DM112899;DM113834“);

If you are not sure which product views to track together, the default merchandising report, shown in Figure 4.4, is a good starting point for you to play around with the various dimensions and metrics.

Figure 4.4  -   Default merchandising summary report

Note that the report in Figure 4.4 and those from earlier include product naming and product categorization, which we are yet to talk about, and thus your reports will look different. However, you can view merchandising reporting and products on a SKU level, as shown in Figure 4.5. You only have this option, though, if you have not uploaded any merchandising information. If you proceed to the summary report, you will see the screen shown in Figure 4.5.

Figure 4.5   -  Viewing products by SKU

As I mentioned earlier, you can choose to view products by SKU to begin with and then associate product names and categorization later. Now, let’s move on to tracking products added to your cart.

…

Well, error corrected! :-)

Cheers :-)
/ Dennis (@dennismortensen)

This got me thinking about how we choose to label each other, and how that is coming through the recent launched twitter lists. So before assembling a posse and hunting down my new friend from JCPenny; I thought I would collect all the lists my twitter followers use for me. You can see the result of this in a tag cloud below (I used wordle.net to create it):

So it seems like, I might actually be less of a Jerk and more of an analytics person. Personally I am fond of the terms sexy and data nerd. Ha!. (Perhaps they are actually conflicting labels though.. hmm). The other cool thing is that my blog is supposed to be about Analytics, Media and Marketing. Close eh?

Have a great weekend.. I am off for a walk around Chelsea (with the same two girls and traffic standards).

Cheers :-)
/ Dennis (@dennismortensen)