Web Analytics World: Internet Marketing & Analytics

Twitter and LinkedIn Working Together

mjasra@gmail.com (Manoj Jasra) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:57:09 PST

Twitter and LinkedIn have announced a partnership in which both of their services will be integrated in their respected interfaces.

On Twitter
As a professional online and in the real world, you’ll often find articles or think of ideas that would be useful to share with your Twitter followers and your LinkedIn connections. It’s about sparking interesting conversations. Now you can share from anywhere. As part of the setup process, you can choose to either send all your tweets or select tweets from Twitter back to LinkedIn as a status update.

On LinkedIn
Want to share some interesting ideas about an industry-specific article you’ve just read with an even broader audience? Or how about letting people view your Twitter account name on your LinkedIn profile? Begin by joining your LinkedIn and Twitter accounts in just a few clicks. All you need to do is check the Twitter box under your Network Updates box on the homepage and follow a few simple steps.

Google Accounts for 25% of Wall Street Journals Traffic

mjasra@gmail.com (Manoj Jasra) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:49:32 PST

Over at the Hitwise Blog, Bill Tancer dives deeper into Rupert Murdoch's recent comments saying that he would consider blocking Google from indexing News Corp.'s news websites such as the Wall Street Journal. Considering Google provides quite a large amount of referrals to WSJ, I think Mr. Murdoch should think twice about pulling the plug on the world's number one search engine.

Below are some stats in regards the Wall Street Journal:

On a weekly basis Google and Google news are the top traffic providers for WSJ.com account for over 25% of WSJ.com's traffic.
According to Experian Hitwise data, over 44% of WSJ.com visitors coming from Google are "new" users who haven't visited the domain in the last 30 days.
Twitter and Facebook sent 4% of US visits to News and Media sites in October 2009.
The percentage of upstream traffic from Facebook and Twitter to News and Media sites is up 490% year-over-year.

Need a Business Card Reader for Your Next Conference?

mjasra@gmail.com (Manoj Jasra) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:59:14 PST

Business Card Reader - takes photo of the business card, recognizes it and writes card information into the iPhone's Address book automatically in matter of seconds. Available at the AppStore http://bit.ly/NLo3q

Macro vs. Micro Conversions and Other Answers from Nick & Avinash

mjasra@gmail.com (Manoj Jasra) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:41:33 PST

Avinash Kaushik & Nick Mihailovski answer questions about Analytics and other Google tools.
In this episode they discuss:

Strategies for non-bounced non-converted visitors (Macro vs. Micro conversion)
Ways to report total number of keywords over time
Benefits to tracking transactions as conversion goals
Tracking unique visitors to specific web pages
Path analysis for keyword reports -- why it's bad and what to do instead
How Google Analytics can be used on affiliate sites
How site owners can exclude themselves from being tracked by Google Analytics
How to properly track sites that reside on different domains but use a shopping cart on a different, common, site (cross domain tracking)

Analytics and SEO Blended with Social Media

mjasra@gmail.com (Manoj Jasra) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:29:48 PST

In this video yours truly (Manoj Jasra) discusses how it's important to incorporate analytics into your marketing and website strategy from the very beginning and how you can use the stats from your websites to drive decisions which will have a direct impact on your organization.

I am part of the 4 man roster at the Social Media Innovation Summit happening in Calgary on November 12th. This is an event presented by West17Media which is aimed at addressing high-level information planning, a key concern which many other conferences neglect.

The Use of Online Video within Blogs

mjasra@gmail.com (Manoj Jasra) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:23:18 PST

Sysomos recently released a study which takes a look inside online video engagement specifically how videos are used within online sharing sites such as blogs. This study, exploring the use of online video services by bloggers, is based on a collection of more than 100 million blog posts collected from July to September 2009.

Here are some highlights from the study:

Market Leader: YouTube - Not surprisingly, YouTube is the most popular video-sharing service used by bloggers, attracting 81.9% of all embedded videos and direct links. Vimeo is a distant second with 8.8%, followed by Dailymotion and MySpace.

Young Males Engage the Most - 20-to-35-year-old males constitute the most engaged demographic group in our study. In total, 77% of users are under 35-years old, while 60% of all users are male.

Asian Users Engage Differently - 90% of the users from Asia and Oceania are under 35-years-old. In comparison, a third of North American users are over 35-years-old. Bloggers in Asia and Oceania are less likely to use services other than YouTube, with 89% of the links and embeds pointing to YouTube.

Gender Balance - The most male dominated video service is Break.com (88%) vs. (12%) females. The most female dominated video service is MTV (68%) vs. males (32%). The most balanced video serviceis MSN (56% male and 44% female).

Countries and Cities - The countries with the most bloggers embedding and linking to videos are the U.S., Brazil, Spain, the U.K. and Canada. In terms of cities, the most active bloggers who embed and link to videos live in New York, Sao Paulo, London and Madrid.

Engagement Peaks on Tuesday - The most popular day for engaging with video in the blogosphere is Tuesday and Wednesday. The most active engagement takes place between 11a.m. and 1p.m EST.

Track iPhone Apps with Google Analytics

mjasra@gmail.com (Manoj Jasra) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:46:51 PST

Last week Google Analytics introduced the ability to track mobile applications, and this week Meredith Papp, Product Marketing Manager for the mobile ads team, talks with Redfin about their experiences using new Google Analytics for mobile features.

As with websites, there are two basic categories of user interaction you can track: pageviews and events. Since mobile apps don't contain HTML pages, developers simply determine when their apps should trigger pageview requests. Google Analytics then aggregates this data in the Content reports to display the number of visits, session length and bounce rates. The data gives insight into how your users interacted with the app.

Google Analytics vs. Yahoo Analytics by Insightr

mjasra@gmail.com (Manoj Jasra) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:31:40 PST

In case you missed it last week, the Insightr team put together a very in-depth comparison between Yahoo Analytics and Google Analytics which covered 27 different components. Some of the components that were compared included: User Management, Layout, Data Collection, Dashboards and Campaign Management.

Google Analytics Mashup with SVG, App Engine and GData

mjasra@gmail.com (Manoj Jasra) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:37:24 PST

A screencast showing a mashup using Google Analytics, Protovis, SVG, JQuery, Google App Engine, and GData. Done by Nick Mihailovski.

The goal of this example was to teach people how to use the Google Analytics API on App Engine in Java, as well as to demonstrate how to use both OAuth and AuthSub along with the App Engine's various services. The code looked great, but the output was a boring HTML table. So we used some open source tools to transform the table into a pretty tree map visualization, which is also useful in noticing interesting metrics.

Social Media Innovation Summit Less than 2 Weeks Away!

mjasra@gmail.com (Manoj Jasra) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:14:47 PST

West17media presents Calgary's 1st "Social Media Innovation Summit" on Thursday, November 12th, an event aimed at addressing high-level information planning, a key concern which many other conferences neglect.

Four experts will speak to their experience from PR to Web Analytics. You will learn how to use social media to support your campaigns, connect with your customers, manage your brand identity, measure your results and achieve your objectives.

Roger Kondrat of West17Media Introduces the Social Media Innovation Summit:

Twitter Lists, Follow Web Analytics

mjasra@gmail.com (Manoj Jasra) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:35:52 PDT

Twitter Lists are quickly rolling out to its 25 million+ users and we have already noticed some great Web Analytics lists that are worth following, here are a few good ones (and the number of members followed within the list):

Rand Fishkin on PPC vs. SEO and Blackhat vs. Whitehat

mjasra@gmail.com (Manoj Jasra) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:46:12 PDT

SES Chicago is a little over a month away and will feature a very well respected online marketing veteran, Rand Fishkin. Rand is the CEO of SEO Moz and is a regular speaker in the international conference circuit. Earlier this week I caught up with Rand to get his insight on his sessions at Search Engine Strategies Chicago, read our chat below:

[Manoj]: Tell our audience a little bit about the sessions you'll be participating in at SES Chicago and why attendees should drop by.

[Rand Fishkin]: I'll be involved in two sessions - PPC or SEO? The Ultimate Search Marketing Battle and Black Hat, White Hat: Does it Really Matter Anymore?

I think both of these touch on relatively sensitive issues in the field of search marketing and the exchanges will contain a lot of substance and style between the panelists. The value of the debate should come in the form of the data presented and the arguments employed. I suspect that many practitioners face these same challenges in their day-to-day roles with clients and internal management, and can find a handful of good takeaways to help support their perspectives.

[Manoj]: Is SEO vs. PPC a cut and dry decision? - it's really about your business and what your analytics tells you, correct?

[Rand Fishkin]: Yeah - definitely. PPC is so easy to get started with and simple to track that if you're earning a positive ROI, there's no reason not to make the investment. The only drawback is when PPC optimization takes up a great deal of time and attention that could be focused elsewhere. I've seen organizations that have multiple people devoted to PPC management on a full time basis, and if they could just take a couple weeks of their time and put them towards SEO, they'd likely generate massive amounts more traffic with an even higher positive return. SEO is an investment, but it's almost always worthwhile.

[Manoj]: Are black hat tactics still employed by individuals/organizations. If so, can you give us some examples?

[Rand Fishkin]: Certainly it is, but no I can't share examples :-) There's a small but vocal minority in the SEO field who feels it is far more immoral to reveal those employing black hat tactics than to perform spam, so let's talk in generalities instead. There are plenty of firms, large and small, who engage in link buying, cloaking, keyword stuffing, link injection, etc. In my opinion, the vast majority of these are doing nothing illegal, immoral, unethical or wrong, they're simply operating outside the boundaries of what the search engines recommend. Although we don't use these tactics at SEOmoz and don't recommend them to our clients, I see no problem with those who choose a different path, so long as they're honest with themselves about the risks and open with their clients/mangagers. Personally, I just feel that there's (almost) always a better white hat solution to any problem you're trying to solve with black hat SEO (exceptions might be in highly aggressive fields like gaming, porn & pharmaceuticals).

[Manoj]: If you were to pinpont a couple SEO tactics which are more important to consider now vs. a few years ago - what would they be?

[Rand Fishkin]: There's quite a number of tactics that have gained in prominence and value over the last few years, some of which hardly existed in the early days of Google SEO. A few that fit that category include creation and optimization of XML sitemaps, canonicalization of duplicate URLs, social media marketing via social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.), viral content creation and promotion via social media, social media profile adoption/linkbuilding and optimization for popular search verticals like Google Local/Maps and Google News. A few of these have been around as long as 5-6 years, but many are new (or gaining prominence) even in the last 2-3.

[Manoj]: In a scenario where you are given 25K to spend for a client who has a brand new business/website, how would you spend it (in regards to Online Marketing)?

[Rand Fishkin]: I'd probably recommend they engage with a talented in-house marketer for 4-6 months (depending on their rate). Getting someone internal working full time on projects, having responsibility to the bottom line and being able to see the company metrics with a incented stake is, in my opinion, the best way to go. As for their tasks, I'd go in this order:

Content quality and value on the website (this could include things like a blog or UGC, but may just means top notch editorial content)
Web analytics - ensure that a good system for recording progress and traffic is installed on every page of the site
Conversion rate optimization and setup of a testing platform (assuming it's a transactional-focused site)
SEO - confirm that all content is crawlable, that important keywords are targeted properly and that all best practices are followed (XML Sitemaps, good internal linking, page structure, etc.)
Viral Marketing - look at opportunities to help draw large quantities of traffic for branding/awareness of the site as well as attract links
Email Marketing - engage with the audience through at least an email newsletter and possibly more personalized/direct kinds of email marketing

After those, I might look into link building, paid search, display ads and other channels in tests, but those would be the first steps I'd recommend.

Apple Gaining Smartphone Market Share in US

mjasra@gmail.com (Manoj Jasra) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:22:05 PDT

According to recent survey results from ChangeWave Research, Apple continues to grow its market share in the US, now representing roughly 30% of all smartphones. Blackberry still sits at the top of the list 40% with Palm dwindling down to 7%.

With RIM's BlackBerry slowing losing market share, this begs the question, what does BlackBerry need to change? Is it the model of the phone (which is quite different than other smartphones), Is it the fact that apps are quite difficult to develop for a marketplace which is less than 5% the size of Apple's? A blog post over at Toktumi leads us to believe that Blackberry is doomed.

Distomo, an app store analytics company that tracks iPhone App Store, RIM App World, and Android Market activity, recently released a report on the average price per app across all three stores that revealed BlackBerry apps are three times more expensive on average than their iPhone App Store and Android Market versions.

Unica Unifies Web Analytics, Email Marketing, and Personalization

mjasra@gmail.com (Manoj Jasra) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:21:40 PDT

Unica today unveiled Unica Interactive Marketing OnDemand, the Industry’s first and only solution to unify web analytics, customer analytics, email marketing, and web personalization in a single application. Interactive Marketing OnDemand eliminates the need to integrate separate vendors or systems. In one interface, marketers can analyze visitor behavior, and then immediately use that insight to design and deliver effective email and personalize their web sites, improving customer experiences and driving revenue growth.

Today’s marketers face difficulty maintaining or increasing conversion rates in the face of growing competition for search terms and the attention of email readers. Marketers struggle to deliver timely and relevant marketing content, manage a growing number of online channels and affiliates, and cope with a flood of sometimes conflicting data and reports. Rather than helping marketers manage these challenges, disparate web analytics, email marketing, web personalization, and other tools often exacerbate them by making it difficult, expensive, and slow to share data and work across vendors. Marketers, often dealing with frequent change, are hamstrung by the need for constant support from IT, vendor services, or other technical resources.

In addition to eliminating the cost, complexity, and delays associated with integrating analytics with email and web personalization, Unica Interactive Marketing OnDemand:

Unlocks the value of online behavioral data: marketers can execute more personalized and effective email marketing and web personalization by leveraging the wealth of detailed behavioral data that visitors and customers generate as they react to a company’s marketing programs and interact with its web site
Empowers marketers to execute programs end-to-end: Interactive Marketing OnDemand puts all of the tools, data and content at marketing’s fingertips, empowering them to author and execute email, landing pages, and web personalization without a constant need for IT support
Makes web personalization as easy as email marketing: marketers can create rules to target customers or anonymous visitors, assemble content, and execute web personalization campaigns in the same simple manner used for email marketing, without burdening IT
Liberates marketers from the dependencies of complex IT infrastructure: marketers no longer have to rely on IT, which frees up both financial and personnel resources

The Entire Google Story in 2 Minutes

mjasra@gmail.com (Manoj Jasra) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:26:10 PDT

A very quick look back at the Google story over the last 11 years. From Stanford to Mountain View and around the world, featuring many different products, starting with BackRub (Search) up to Google Wave, StreetView and Chrome.

Sramana Mitra: How To Test, Validate and Bring Your Idea To Market

mjasra@gmail.com (Manoj Jasra) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 21:14:43 PDT

Late last week, I sat down with Sramana Mitra to discuss the latest book in her Entrepreneur Journeys series: How To Test, Validate and Bring Your Idea To Market. In this third volume, Mitra confirms that clarity is the ultimate tool in building a successful business. But such clarity cannot be purchased or assumed – it requires asking the right questions. The book is available on Amazon for purchase - read the details of our chat below.

[Manoj]: How does this book, transition from your earlier book: "Bootstrapping: Weapon of Mass Destruction":

[Sramana Mitra]: Positioning: How To Test, Validate and Bring Your Idea To Market is a strategy book, and focuses on precisely what the title states. It helps entrepreneurs understand the nuances of a clear and concise go to market strategy, a due diligence exercise so to speak.

[Manoj]: What are the major benefits of entrepreneurship using the bootstrap route vs. the venture capital route?

[Sramana Mitra]: Bootstrapping allows you to keep control of your equity, while venture capital is designed for investors to gradually take control of more and more of your company's equity. Also, bootstrapping is appropriate for businesses that don't necessarily have to be going after very large market opportunities, whereas, venture capital is only appropriate for businesses that have the potential to get very large.

[Manoj]: What are a couple of strong methods of testing the viability of your idea?

[Sramana Mitra]: Speak with 100 prospective customers. And use the appendix of the Positioning book, which gives a thorough due diligence framework.

[Manoj]: How important are relationships during the entrepreneur's journey - being able to bounce ideas off of colleagues/mentors and to validate your thoughts?

[Sramana Mitra]: Mentors, the right ones, can be extremely valuable. Especially for first time entrepreneurs, mentors can make a huge difference. But note that I said the "right" mentors. The wrong mentors can also screw things up in a big way. So what's a right mentor? Greg Gianforte discusses that in the Bootstrapping volume.

[Manoj]: At the end of your book you have an appendix which is a detailed list of questions to help "clarify your story" tell us the importance of being able to answer any one of those questions before you take an idea to market?

[Sramana Mitra]: I cannot over-emphasize the importance of addressing those detailed questions. In entrepreneurship, the proverbial devil lies entirely in those details. Gaining clarity of those issues, pain, value proposition, TAM, channel, messaging, buying cycle, sales cycle that's what will determine whether you can build a scalable business or not. Otherwise, you end up with a spray and pray situation which is entirely undesirable.

This Weeks Must Reads in Internet Marketing

mjasra@gmail.com (Manoj Jasra) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:52:15 PDT

Close to 1 week left until Halloween and for some organizations in the world, Halloween is the biggest event of the year. I am still thinking about going as Coach Hines from Mad TV. Regardless of the mad rush to find a costume, there was still a lot of good content worth reading this week:

5 Social Media Lessons For Paid Search Landing Pages - Search Engine Land
BART Promos on Foursquare: Free Tickets for Check-Ins Read Write Web
Google & Bing Annouce Real Time Search Deals With Twitter - SEO Book
All Links Are Not Created Equal - Search Engine Watch
Search Engine History: Top 10 Moments in Search Engine Evolution - Marketing Jive
The Library of Human Behavior: 11 More Titles for your Reading List - Ask Enquiro
Smarter Google Analytics To Track Significant Traffic Changes - Google Blogoscoped
When The PageRank Toolbar Goes Dark - Dave Naylor

Social Media Innovation Summit in Calgary Alberta

mjasra@gmail.com (Manoj Jasra) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:30:03 PDT

Calgary, Alberta is set to host the first annual Social Media Innovation Summit on November 12th. The Calgary Social Media scene is more active than ever before and this is why West17Media has decided to produce a conference which will not only engage attendees with different aspects of Social Media but leave them with highly actionable and strategic takeaways they can apply to their business.

The one day summit features 4 experts in Social Media and Internet Marketing:

Roger Kondrat, Principal and Founder of West17Media – A social media consultancy
Brian Singh, Managing Director of Zinc Research – Market Research firm
Lyn Cadence, Founder of CadencePR – PR firm
Manoj Jasra (Yours Truly), Founder of Jasra Inc – Analytics and SEO specialist

Tickets for the event can be purchased here. For more information visit the Social Media Innovation Summit website.

Interview: Michael Sikorsky of Robots & Pencils

mjasra@gmail.com (Manoj Jasra) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:46:00 PDT

Earlier this week I attended an iPhone Dev Camp in Calgary, Alberta and got a chance to meet up with the organizers, Michael and Camille Sikorsky. Michael is the CEO of Robots & Pencils, a programmer, an investor and an entrepreneur. I was able to sit down with him to get his insight on the iPhone, the app store and even Android.

[Manoj]: Tell us a little bit about Robots & Pencils and what you guys do?

[Michael]: Our name comes from the fact that I'm a programmer - hence the "robot" and Camille is the artist / designer - hence the "pencil".

Robots and Pencils is a multi-faceted mom and pop operation. We create software, consult, teach and angel invest and we're inspired by the 37signals ethos, doing more with less, maintaining your independence and doing what you love. Read more here.

[Manoj]: You recently held an iPhone Dev Camp in Calgary, tell us about your experience with that and the importance of creating a community locally?

[Michael]: The DevCamp (iPhoneDevCamp 1) was really an honor to be a part of. It takes a village to make a great DevCamp and the people who came out really put their heart into it.

Camille and I believe in the importance of the community for many reasons, but the I think that inspiration and learning are the two we try to cultivate the most. It was amazing to see the transparency of the presentations. People gave away sales figures, tips of how to get into the Top 100... basically, everything. We left inspired to do more and thankful for all that came out!

[Manoj]: You've developed numerous apps now, which one stands out the most for you and why?

[Michael]: For us, it is still CrushFactor. It is has held it's 4-star rating and every time we get an email telling us how it helped them meet someone we're always super proud. The comments on the art / design have also been over the top and super kind.
On Itunes: http://itunes.com/apps/crushfactor/
On R&P: http://hq.robotsandpencils.com/factory/crushfactor/

[Manoj]: What types of iPhone apps do really well in regards to downloads/sales?

[Michael]: Well, the games & entertainment space is about half the iPhone monthly sales in the AppStore, but it also means you have the most competition. We think the most important aspect is to build something people want and failing that, scratch your own itches :)

[Manoj]: What are 2 or 3 good tips that help in getting your app approved by Apple?

[Michael]: Tip #1:- Follow the interface guidelines. If you use the 'lookup contact' icon for adding a new row, you will be rejected :) See details here.

Tip #2:- Don't use foul language :) CrushFactor originally used the word 'bum', but we had to change it to 'bottom' to get accepted.

Tip #3:- Don't try to mimic a feature of the iPhone. Re: Google Voice.

Tip #4: Read this: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/28551/tips-for-a-successful-appstore-submission :)

[Manoj]: One non iPhone question, how will Android influence the mobile/app market in the next 1-2 years?

[Michael]: Our crystal ball is blurry at best, but... what we think is really amazing about Android is the openness of the platform. By definition, that makes it something to keep a really close eye on.

p.s. we're google super fans :)

Google Analytics Adds: Goal Types, Enhanced Mobile Tracking

mjasra@gmail.com (Manoj Jasra) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:31:54 PDT

Looks like Google Analytics is at it again - announcing brand new features in the midst of eMetrics Washington DC. Two of the new features that caught our attention included new Engagement Goals and Expanded Mobile Reporting:

New Goals and More of them!

Google Analytics now allows you to define goals by length of time on your site and the number of pages per visit. See video below for all the details.

Mobile Reporting

Google Analytics has added more accurate mobile analytics tracking by introducing a new server side script you can install. This will capture data from all web-enabled devices (with our without JavaScript).

Additionally you can now add Google Analytics into your mobile apps:

iPhone and Android mobile application developers can now also track how users engage with apps, just as with tracking engagement on a website. What's more, for apps on Android devices, usage can be tied back to ad campaigns: from ad to marketplace to download to engagement.

Can Using Real-Time, Raw Data Be Cost Effective?

mjasra@gmail.com (Manoj Jasra) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 08:28:16 PDT

Guest Post: Cecily Robyn Lough

Web Analytics Guru Avinash Kaushik has outlined in his book that the ROI you can get from leveraging real-time, raw data is so low it does not make sense for most companies to implement it or care about it. His conclusions are not based on the inherent inutility of using real-time, raw data but rather the cost and complexity hurdles that have to be surmounted in order to get the kind of ROI that would make an analytics solutions justifiable.

And since most of us are fans and students of his book Web Analytics: An Hour a Day (I include myself in both of these categories) we do not take issue with this idea; also we do not take issue with it because his book is so chock full of pearls of wisdom that everyone gleans some insights from it regardless of their level of experience.

However I want to open up for discussion on how working with real time raw data can be cost effective. And, it can provide greater ROI if and only if the analytics product´s surrounding eco-system is set up in a way that enables the data to be leveraged effectively. In fact, my theory is that:

• Real Time Data Can be Leveraged Effectively
• Both Real Time and Raw Data have Beneficial Repercussions throughout every Analysis
• Both Real Time and Raw Data Create Actionable Metrics
• Real Time Raw Data Ensures Greater Accuracy (no caching) and Timeliness
• Real Time Raw Data Future-Proofs Your Analytics Solution

I absolutely agree with Avinash Kaushik that real-time data does not matter to a company unless they will actually take action on the reports; that is what in the long run drives the ROI of the tool.

In general however the ROI on any analytics tool will be greater if each person on every team that touches the website has the power and the understanding to create little frequent changes; i.e the power of crowd-sourcing for managing a large, dispersed multi-national website is immensely greater than having one smart analyst in one location interpreting all the data. No matter how smart they are, one analyst can never react in a timely enough manner, nor in a localized enough manner, nor even be able to digest all the complex statistics fast enough to glean the insights that create the actions that drive the ROI.

Therefore, if each person on each team can react daily to even just one real time data point, you will be creating a competitive advantage over those that have one analyst in a lagged time frame. The actions will be created by those that are familiar with the data and in a time frame that provides real monetary value (think of the rapid changes that create additional revenue in eCommerce, Travel, News Content, etc.)

Therefore the tool you choose needs to complement the real time data with an easy to use interface and unique user management so that each marketing person can have the metrics that matter to them provided to them on a daily basis. If each person is responsible for certain KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and the tool provides an intuitive enough interface or an export capability so that these people will potentially not even have to learn how to use the tool, then you have a winning combination. Real time data with unique user management and easy to understand reporting is very effective and can drive the ROI required. However, you have to have the complete eco-system in one tool and at a reasonable price point in order to make implementing it worthwhile.

And, even more importantly, I would agree with Avinash that you need to also ask yourself whether your website gets enough visitors exhibiting the right behavior to ensure that the real time data choices you make will result in statistically significant outcomes. He does confirm that “..statistical significance is not just about raw numbers..” but more about the impact of the changes you can make in real time. However, if it is clear that your business can impact the ROI by leveraging real time data, then you should also be looking for a tool that can handle significant volumes of data in real time with ease (i.e. as much as 1B page impressions a month) If you have a large amount of data that you are processing then even smaller changes you make can have quite a large monetary impact.

The same idea is pervasive about leveraging raw data for analytics – i.e. it might be great in theory, but provides poor ROI because it is too costly.

However, having the raw data enables complete flexibility in every analysis, as well as future proofs your analytics solution – increasing the tools´ long term value and again providing more effective ROI.

When all data can be correlated in any way in all time periods, this enables much more detailed views, segmentation, and most importantly, retro-active on-the-fly queries. In other tools you need to know ahead of time what sort of analysis you think will be important in the future; with the raw data you can slice and dice the data any way you would like at any moment. You can add any special unique metrics in any time frame. Therefore leveraging raw data becomes imperative as you compare and contrast different campaign success metrics in different time periods ( Even Avinash Kaushik cites that as your “..strategic objectives evolve [y]ou should expect a 20% churn in your main KPIs every six months…if they are not changing at least that much, either not a single dimension of your business has changed on the Web in that time (highly unlikely) or your KPI's are stale.. ” p.349.)

In addition, raw data´s ability to provide a granular enough view so that you will get user level data also makes the ROI on the tool much higher than those tools giving you aggregated information. Who wouldn´t want to receive a timely email with a special discount coupon for a pair of pants that you had just put in your shopping cart but then abandoned because they were too expensive?

Thus, the level of detail that raw data provides creates action oriented metrics – not vanity metrics. For example, knowing that your conversion rate is increasing is great and makes a website owner proud (vanity metrics) but what are the next steps that one should take to continue to help increase this traffic? High conversion rates could be the result of non-reproduce- able actions, such as moving out a deeply discounted product line. With a raw data based analytics solution, you can drill down to find out exactly how this conversion rate was increased and by which visitor segments on which search engines, thus enabling the online marketer to know exactly what action to take next ( buy more keywords on certain search engines, reach out to certain publishers, etc.)

Thus, granular, extensive, sophisticated data analysis along with the ability to perform any retro-active analysis on the fly is the key to providing better ROI and getting longer term value from your analytics tool.

In sum, real-time raw data can be cost effective if the attributes of the tool enable your team to leverage action-oriented metrics now and any unknown metrics that they may want to leverage in the future at a reasonable price point.

Cecily Robyn Lough is currently Director of International Sales at Webtrekk GmbH in Berlin. She believes that Webtrekk´s current analytics solution does have the ability to make raw, real-time data cost effective for web sites that need up to a billion pieces of data segmented on-the-fly.

Please contact her at Cecily@webtrekk.com or +49 (0) 30 755 415 440 for more information

Google Surpasses 80% Share in Canada - Ask Up 11%

mjasra@gmail.com (Manoj Jasra) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:13:14 PDT

Hitwise announced today that Google search properties accounted for 80.46 percent of all Canadian searches conducted in the 12 weeks ending Oct. 3, 2009. Yahoo! search properties, Bing search properties and Ask search properties received 7.99 percent, 7.65 percent and 3.09 percent, respectively.

Domain	August 2009	September 2009	Month-over-month percent change
www.google.com	79.96%	80.46%	1%
search.yahoo.com	8.38%	7.99%	-5%
www.bing.com*	8.10%	7.65%	-6%
www.ask.com	2.78%	3.09%	11%
Note: Data is based on 12-week rolling periods (ending Oct. 3, 2009, and Aug. 29, 2009) from the Experian Hitwise sample of 100,000 Canadian Internet users. The percentages for the search properties include the .ca and .com domains.
*This includes executed searches on Bing.com, Live.com and MSN Search but does not include searches on Club.Live.com.

Optimize Your Site for the Mobile Web

mjasra@gmail.com (Manoj Jasra) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:35:29 PST

We have obviously moved into the era of mobile now and to help websites transition their content to mobile, Google has put together a great article on how to speed up the mobile web.

Mobile internet usage is skyrocketing worldwide. Throughout 2009, 50% of all new internet connections worldwide are coming from phones (eMarketer, 2008 and 2009). Google internal data shows that as mobile browsers improve, users' browsing habits increase.

Mobile browsers render web pages differently from desktop browsers, so some steps are needed to make them work well on phones. This article contains some basic technical and non-technical tips for making your web content faster and more suitable for consumption on mobile devices.

Below are some of the best practices:

Provide an obvious link to the mobile version from the desktop version.
Use a conventional mobile URL, and advertise it.
Make the user interface work for mobile devices.
Format your website for a range of mobile browsers.
Reduce the number of requests and the amount of data transferred.
Minify your code.
Eliminate redirects.
Load contents lazily.
Use CSS3 instead of images where possible.
Plan for the lowest common denominator.
Test, test, test

Rapid Fire Web Analytics Q&A from Google Analytics Team

mjasra@gmail.com (Manoj Jasra) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:43:14 PDT

A short video that answers questions about Analytics and other Google tools. In this episode Avinash and Nick discuss:

How is bounce rate calculated
Effect of search bots on data collection
Finding a benchmarking category for sites that don't fit into any particular benchmark category
What is the best way to identify landing pages with high bounce rate
How to find new keywords to improve content performance
Effects of private browsing and incognito mode on data collection

Local.com Receives 66 Million Unique Visitors in Q3

mjasra@gmail.com (Manoj Jasra) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:15:04 PDT

Local.com Corporation (NASDAQ: LOCM), today announced record search traffic for the third quarter of 2009, and for the month of September.

The company reached record traffic for the third quarter 2009 with 66 million monthly unique visitors (MUVs) on the Local.com site and network, up 5% from 63 million MUVs for the second quarter of 2009, and up 22% from 54 million MUVs for the third quarter of 2008.

Organic traffic exceeded 28 million MUVs on the Local.com site and network for the third quarter of 2009, up 4% from 27 million for the third quarter of 2008.

The company also reached record traffic of 23 million MUVs on the Local.com site and network during September 2009.