MoneySpyder Blog

What's in your Cookie Jar?

2011-05-26T12:41:00.000+01:00

Having reviewed the documentation from the EU Information Commissioner's Office, MoneySpyder have concluded the following, with regard to their new Web Cookie Policy.

(This advice is subject to change dependant on what the UK legislator determines later in 2011 or 2012.)

In our view all cookies will have to be consensual. Such that if the cookies are used in relation to the basket or login, it could be considered that a customer clicking on the 'Checkout' button to be consent.

Similarly, yet to be tested, that clicking links in marketing emails or on affiliate sites could also be considered to be implying consent.

There are still a lot of questions surrounding how best to get consent for cookies that do not have any form of implied consent, these include analytics measurement, behavioural marketing and re-targeting use.

The report makes it clear, however, that the concern is with cookies that allow companies to follow users across different sites.

It also states that privacy neutral cookies, are fairly benign and will not require the same level of overt consent to be obtained.

MoneySpyder recommend that changes be made to your 'Terms & Conditions' pages, that explain which cookies are used as well as giving the user the option to opt-out of using cookies (which would disable the site that they are on!).

A further action that could be taken is to set up a dedicated 'Cookie Policy' page and link to it in your sites footer. This would make it clear to anyone official reviewing that steps have been taken to address the new legislation.

MoneySpyder have drafted a suggested Cookie Policy page, that explains to users how cookies are used on a web platform, please contact us if you would like to get a copy.

Email campaign tracking with Silverpop

2010-05-05T19:48:00.001+01:00

SilverPop offer themselves to the world as an "Engagement marketing solution". They provide click-stream and conversion tracking based on your email marketing campaigns, by putting unique identifiers in the links of your mailings (which they can send out in bulk). If you store these IDs and ping them back to SilverPop's click-stream and conversion-tracking servelets, this means you can get complete conversion analysis based on your email marketing campaigns.

@ Moneyspyder, one of our clients has signed up for a Silverpop account - which means we need a way to easily integrate with SilverPop - and the examples they give are all in php (and a little less than dynamic). So here's our Ruby-on-Rails solution.

1) Cookify the IDs

When a customer clicks on a link in one of the SilverPop emails - Silverpop has cleverly adding tracking IDs to identify the mailing-job and individual customer. When we send tracking information back to SilverPop - we need to send back these ids so the click-tracking is stored against the correct campaign and individual.

Of course, the parameters will disappear after the first time the user clicks another link, and we need to persist the data - to keep tracking all the pages they click on until they eventually convert!

The easiest way to keep track of this to stick it all into the session - then we can just check if it's there and send it each time we want to ping to SilverPop... and of course the best place to do session-wrangling is in a before_filter. So stick the following into something like application.rb

before_filter :save_silverpop_data_in_session

# This method does the storing of the ids from the URL into a session
# cookie for later sending.
# It will replace any existing values in the cookie - which represents the
# user having returned to the site after viewing (and clicking on) another
# link from a different email campaign.
def save_silverpop_data_in_session
if %w{spMailingID spUserID spJobID spReportID}.all? {|f| params.has_key?(f) }
session[:silverpop] = {:m => params[:spMailingID], :r => params[:spUserID],
:j => params[:spJobID], :rj => params[:spReportID]}
end
end

2) Configure your pod

SilverPop calls it's servers "pods" - and you could be using any one of them. This works better as a configuration option than hard-coded in your code - and lets you set up a link to the test-server on your dev/test environments. but in environment.rb you'll have something like this:

# SilverPop URL = mailing list manager/ClickStream Analysis
SILVERPOP_SITE_URL = "recp.rm05.net"

3) Helping hands

Next up is to figure out how to ping SilverPop... which they helpfully give us an img tag example of how to build up the correct url with all the requisite values.

SilverPop has two servelets - one for accepting pings for click-stream tracking and one for the conversions. But they're almost identical, just taking different parameters... and I'm lazy and don't want to have to remember all the common details of how to do this in each place in the site. Thus: helpers to the rescue!

# This method generates the code that calls the ClickStream tracking
# servelet - we pass in the page name and page URL, along with the values
# passed through from the last silverpop email - saved in the session
def silverpop_click_stream_ping(page_name, page_url)
silverpop_link('cst', :name => page_name, :s => page_url)
end

# This method generates the code that calls the Conversion Tracking
# servelet - we pass in the "action", "detail" and "value" flags -
# eg "silverpop_conversion_ping 'CompletedOrder', order.id, order.grand_total"
# along with the values passed through from the last silverpop email -
# saved in the session
def silverpop_conversion_ping(action,detail,value = nil)
silverpop_link('cot', :action => action, :detail => detail, :value => value)
end

# generate the SilverPop ping-image based on required servelet and parameters
def silverpop_link(servelet, options)
# skip out early if this user hasn't come through a silverpop email
return nil unless session[:silverpop].present?

image_tag "http://#{SILVERPOP_SITE_URL}/#{servelet}?#{session[:silverpop].merge(options).to_query}",
:height => 1, :width => 1, :alt => "Silverpop #{servelet.upcase} Servelet Ping"
end

4) Click-stream - analyse!

So, now it's time to get down and dirty with the click-stream analysis. This couldn't be more simple. Just use the helper to pop a link into your main layout. eg:

>
<%= silverpop_click_stream_ping(@page_title, url_for(:only_path => false)) -%>

Now, as you can see, this mainly works by using our dynamic page-title and a link to the current-page (using the empty url_for trick). Note that if you leave off the "only_path=false" option it won't provide the hostname. This may be what you want if you want to roll up multiple mirrored domains. You'll also have to adjust the page-name parameter as necessary for the way you generate the page-title... but otherwise you're good to go and this means every page-click gets tracked back to SilverPop from now on.

With one caveat... if you have AJAX-updating, you may need to figure out a neato trick of putting the ping-link into the newly-generated page-pieces or these "clicks" won't get tracked as the layout won't see them as new pages. I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader as it's very site-specific.
5) Mine your conversion gold

Now only the final, and most important, part is left - tracking actual conversions.

A lot has already been written about what constitutes an important conversion for your site. I won't repeat it all here as you can track heaps, and it's really down to what is important for your business. So I'll pretend we only care about when a customer completes an order - which we know because they land on the "thank you" page.

Which means we need to pop a link to the COT servelet there and pass in the important details... nothing easier:

>
<%= silverpop_conversion_ping("Order Complete", @order.id, @order.grand_total) -%>

Now SilverPop will monitor our marketing mails from go to whoa - and even know which order they completed and, most important, how much money they ended up spending ... Gold!

Taryn East

Analytics in Real Time - What IS A.R.T.?

2010-02-15T12:14:00.000Z

Web Analytics in Real Time delivering functionality and value.

It is widely known that the percentage of websites using Google's or Yahoo's free Web Analytics is growing massively. With this explosive growth, the methodology of the typical analytics ninja has to change at an equally frenetic rate.

Eric Peterson blogged recently (The Coming Bifurcation in Web Analytics Tools) - Google Analytics alone is simply not enough for truly sophisticated web analytics.

Indeed, any analytics ninja worth their money employs a number of tools to deliver actionable insight and therefore value to businesses.

This blog post is going to describe a new offering from Moneyspyder that is being used in conjunction with Google Analytics (equally suitable for use with a whole suite of analytical tools) to deliver high value actionable insight but in real time!

Gasps of shock and horror! Is real time worth it? Is real time action possible from real time insight? Back in 2006, Avinash Kaushik blogged (Is Real-Time Really Relevant?):

The greatest gift the web gives you is the ability to fail faster.

So how fast is fast? Now? How does now sound? You can Tweet now...send 10,000 emails now....up your bid on a range of keywords now. Don't you need to measure and understand the performance of these measures now? Consider Avinash's take on real time insight actionability from 2006:

...is getting real-time data really relevant? Do you really need it?

Fair question but as mentioned above, given that we're marketing to our customers and our customers are responding to emails and searching in real time, real time actionability is now strongly relevant and necessary. The act of using websites isn't after all an asynchronous activity!

The FUD (Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt) issues can be summarised:
- Do we need more data?
- Is actionable insight delivered in real time or are we just setting up another
useless reporting stream?
- Our current choice of analytics solution doesn't do real-time so what is the business case for changing to a potentially inferior real-time capable solution?
- Surely more powerful resource is required to provide the real-time capability?
- Don't we need more business processes to handle real-time action?
- A culture of reporting rather than analysis is going to be created!

Thus the gnashing of teeth seeks to extinguish the real time flame. In response:

Current free analytics solutions are not geared up to deliver actionable insights at the same velocity as our marketing efforts. That is not to say throw your current solution in the trash – far from it. Using the right tool for the right job is why we are using a suite of tools already:

- Analysis of click stream data
- Competitive Intelligence
- Voice of customer

None of which are geared to enable you to respond as quickly as you should be able to so another weapon is required in our armoury. One that is easy to use. One that is benign, safe, secure, scalable, value for money, fits with our current processes but above all, delivers actionable insights not just reports!
So, enter A.R.T...Analytics in Real Time.

A.R.T. makes no apologies for it's operation being based on existing great engineering ideas. These simple building blocks deliver a hugely functional product that is an utter no-brainer to use. The out-of-the-box setup requires a javascript include line in the page header and nothing else. It is benign in operation. It won't mess with your pages or affect your site speed.

Outcome-centric
A.R.T. is outcome-centric. The insights stem from the focus on measuring your website's ability to do what you wanted it to

- measure sign ups
- basket/cart actions
- searches
- posting comments
- form completion
- scrolling or any other dom event
- all things selling!
- Sales AND revenue

A.R.T. is not just any old reporting tool spouting vanity metrics. Real value stems from seeing a return on your investment. A.R.T. is the frontline tool that enables you tune finely tune your business to respond to realtime demands. A.R.T. doesn't try to replace your current analytics solution, although it is a great companion. We are quite strict on the amount of data that is held and for how long. The insights that A.R.T. yields can be extracted from your current analytics tools so A.R.T. will only ever hold a rolling 24 hour window of your clickstream and outcome data. Need more? Go to Yahoo/Omniture/Google/other weapon of choice.

Flexible & Customisable
Flexibility and customisability stem from the small number of moving parts in the system. A.R.T can be as sophisticated or vanilla as you need or want. Your challenge is to engage A.R.T. system in valuable insight revealing metric gathering endeavours.

Scalable infrastructure
A.R.T. is built using Ruby on Rails and is hosted on highly scalable cloud based infrastructure.

Processes to support change and build a test driven culture
Marketing in realtime clearly requires processes to support realtime action based on realtime results. Clearly, given we have processes in place in our organisations that enable marketing in realtime, we have the ability to act in realtime already! The necessary change that allows action and capitalisation on realtime insight is a cultural shift towards test driven optimisation. Contemporary software development methodology promotes rapid action and optimisation based on measured results – think Agile. A.R.T. Provides a feedback loop that enables rapid optimisation in a similar fashion. Consider firing out 3 variations of an email – 3 small batches at the time of known peak traffic levels. A small, low cost, low risk (due to small numbers) test like this would generate real-time actionable insight into which version of the email works best in terms of the desired outcome. Obviously, statistical significance is required before committing to a more risky or expensive course of action but this caveat exists for the current marketing/analytics process. So, having engaged in a cycle of 'release and refactor' we have what looks like a process that could deliver optimised value from future campaigns.

Rinse and repeat. Thanks A.R.T. ;-)

A summary of A.R.T.:

What does it do?
• Visit, visitor and pageview metrics - Who, What, Where, When and How?
• Outcome metrics with hourly breakdown - What is really important and really happening?
• Definable - YOU decide what your site is supposed to do and measure it!
• Revenue metrics with hourly breakdown
• 24 hour rolling window of data - need more? Go to your current analytics provider
• Traffic source data - Measure marketing in Real Time!
◦ campaign awareness through utm tagging
◦ Search engine metrics & keywords
◦ Referring sites - who loves you baby?!
• Individual customer identification, technical, loyalty & recency data - Love your top customers - personally
• Clickstream capture, analysis and replay
• Flexible page event definition – pageview, scroll, add to basket
• Filterable data – exclude/hide internal clickstream data
• Mobile interface – iPhone and Android - Real-Time and on-the-go!

Who is it for?
• Marketeers
• C level execs
• Technicians
• Content managers
• Business Owners

What does it cost?
The basic unit of currency for A.R.T. is the page view, hence, the fairest, most scalable pricing model is based on the number of pageviews per month and the length of the contract.

There is no limit on the number of pageviews with A.R.T. The infrastructure and costs scale according to your usage.

There is no advertising in the pricing model. The focus is on delivering insight, not just data or reports but real actionable insight to help you improve your business.

Moneyspyder exceeds targets in 2009.

2010-01-04T09:20:00.000Z

Happy New Year!

Last year was certainly a good one - 2010 is set to be even better. It'll be Spring soon - warmer weather, more daylight and more records to break.

Moneyspyder exceeded many targets last year. We were delighted with the resilience and scalability of all our clients' sites during the festive period (as were our clients!). The run up to Christmas saw new ground broken in terms of scalability, performance and transactional throughput.

Overall, 2009 saw 99.96% uptime across all our clients. Bearing in mind that the majority of that miserly amount of downtime was planned. Our twice monthly scheduled upgrades of sites are timed and performed with precision so as to maximise effect and return whilst minising interruption and downtime. We don't miss opportunities to introduce new A/B and Multivariate tests with Google Website Optimiser based on our deep dive analytics.

It has to be said that our infrastructure partners played a huge part in our success during 2009. A 'big shout out' to Site Confidence for the monitoring and uptime reporting and especially Engine Yard for the AWESOME Rails hosting. We're delighted to be part of Engine Yard's Select Partner Programme and look forward to moving onwards an upwards with all our client's and partners in 2010!

Google Analytics report bookmarking hacks

2009-12-16T09:09:00.000Z

Help HiPPOs!
Even though Moneyspyder is firmly behind the anti-HiPPO movement we recognise it is still important to help HiPPOs. After all, they do rule the business world.

Generally speaking it is best to deliver insight to HiPPOs. Make the news - don't just deliver the news! However, there is merit (on occasion) to furnish them with 'vanity metrics' or 'outcome proxies' as we tend to think of them via the medium of 'the dashboard'.

Better Dashboards
The dashboard in the context of Google Analytics will likely take the form of a custom report. Custom reports rock. F.A.C.T. A custom report based dashboard can lift the value of the deliverable. You can move from report 'puking' to actually delivering insight by placing the report in context. You can do this in a few simple ways:

Multi-tabbed

Use advanced segments

Use relevant date ranges

Use comparison date ranges

Express delivery!
Okay, you have the dashboard setup - it offers context as well as just raw numbers. It yields actionable insight (so go do some insightful actions already!).

You'll probably want to schedule the delivery of this report via a monthly PDF attachment in an email. Simple in Google Analytics.

I suggest dropping a note in with the email via the description:

The note should start delivering context for the HiPPO. Help them already before they open the attachment! Now, the real meat of this post. Provide a link to the report.

Scary controversial opinion alert!

Invite the HiPPO into Google Analytics...Give them a specific read-only login to one profile that contains the dashboard/custom report.

Use the options in the report URL to customise and control what they see.

Here is a standard custom report link:

https://www.google.com/analytics/reporting/setup_email?id=4867638&seg0=-1&pdr=20091201-20091216&cmp=date_range&trows=50&gdfmt=nth_day&rpt=CustomReport&segkey=medium&tchcol=1&tst=0&tscol=v0&tsdir=0&mdet=WORLD&midx=0&gidx=0&cid=26&afs=false&seg=1&fmt=0

Here is the link with some easily customisable options in the URI:

https://www.google.com/analytics/reporting/custom?id=profile id&pdr=primary date range&cmp=advanced segments&trows=50&gdfmt=nth_day&cdr=comparison date range&segsegment number=-segment number&rpt=CustomReport&segkey=medium&tab=tab number&tchcol=1&tst=0&tscol=v0&tsdir=0&mdet=WORLD&midx=0&gidx=0&cid=Custom report id&afs=false

So, what are the customisable options? this is not an exhaustive list - these are just the ones I find useful right now - this list may grow.

Custom report id
Open your custom report. Write down the id in the url. Use it.

Primary date range
This is the date range that you want to look at. It's optional. If absent, the report will show the default last 30 days. It is in the format: yyyymmdd-yyyymmdd (eg. 20091101-20091116) where the first date must obviously be before the last... ;-)

Comparison date range
This is the date range to compare with - great context. Look at 'the same period last week/month'

Advanced Segments
How cool! Load a report showing only the segments you want to see! The format for the NVP is segn=-m. So, the default will show 'all users' would be ....&seg0=-1&...the default advanced segments follow the order in the drop down list so 'Non-bounce visits; would be seg0=-12. You can show multiple segments in the format: ...&seg0=-3&seg1=-5&seg2=-12&...which would show 'Direct Traffic','Visits with Conversions' and 'Non-bounce Visits'.

Tab number
Have you got a multi tab report? Do you want to default to a tab other than the first? Specify the default tab number here. Simples ;-)

Statistical significance in A/B testing - a little tool to help

2009-12-02T17:10:00.000Z

Rationale

I read a tweet recently by @tclaiborne about a great blog post on the subject of Easy Statistics For Adwords AB Testing And Hamsters. With a title like that, how could I not take a peek?

It so happened that I was working on a small project to build a tool in Javascript to enable easy analysis of two data sets to compare them for statisticaly significant differences, specifically in the context of A/B and MV Testing.

This post is introducing the prototype of that tool. Just to be clear, this tool is a mash up of Javascript snippets that have been published. I didn't write the whole thing so I'm not taking credit here - I'm just looking to share a cool tool!

A Simple Test to Introduce The Tool

Let's say we've run a test using Google Website Optimiser. We made a change to a page to increase the number of outcomes. We have 6 days worth of data. Here are the conversion rations for the 6 days for the original and the test variation:

Test	1	2	3	4	5	6
Original	6%	6%	5%	6%	7%	6%
Test Page	9%	6%	7%	6%	9%	8%

So, from 5 days worth of data, can we see if the difference in the conversion rates are significant? It's a small data set...the numbers seem to be different but as the blog post referred to earlier says, we humans are really bad at looking at data sets and making accurate judgements.

We need some stats. Enter jsstat.

So, we can drop in our two samples of data as comma separated values. They don't have to be the same size or integer values. Let's hit that 'oh-so-tempting' import button to see what wonders we can find:

Ah, such insights, knowledge and power are ours! We can deliver meaning and value to our clients! Ahem, enough whimsy - what the heck does this mean?

I'm going to keep this high level:

The differences could have happened by chance.

The green text tells us the truth

The results are conclusive.

The new page converts 1.5% better than the old on average

Try the test yourself using '1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9' as both data sets. NOT SIGNIFICANT!

Moving swiftly on

It's a prototype okay? It might not work in crufty old browsers. Stick with a later version Chrome or FireFox to be safe. The graphing is adding little value right now but box plots are coming!

I'd really like a direct export from Google analytics or Website Optimiser into something like this...Hmmm.

Now, the new Google Analytics Intelligence functionality is very similar to this. It's great, don't get me wrong! Different in some ways but based on the same theory...mostly.

We are looking at taking this tool a lot further to supplement Multi-Variate testing results analysis and click stream data analysis.

I'll keep you posted.

First/last click campaign attribution and onsite purchase trigger analysis techniques.

2009-11-20T15:16:00.000Z

Overview
Understanding which traffic sources contribute to successful outcomes on your website is crucial to maximising Return On Investment. By default Google Analytics supports last click attribution. This means a customer who starts a session with a click on the Adwords Campaign 1 (see below) and then starts a new session with a click on Referrer 1 and ends in the purchase of four products will result in Referrer 1 being attributed with the 'credit' for all four sales.

See the Google Conversion University for more details.

We can add the utm_nooverride=1 parameter to the links in our campaigns to ensure the first campaign that is clicked is credited for sales and goal outcomes:

So, we can measure which marketing initiatives incentivise users to visit our sites but we can't so easily see what motivated a user to complete a goal or purchase while on the site – what is driving positive outcomes from user journeys during their visit? We can't easily see this with default techniques.

You can have your cake or eat it...but not both.

Moneyspyder has developed a technique that couples first or last click attribution data to measure brand engagement with last-click-before-purchase triggers on a 'per basket item' basis to reveal purchase or goal completion triggers.

We say you should have your cake, eat it and have extra sprinkles too!

Technique
We modified the Moneyspyder ecommerce engine such that the purchase trigger (last click before adding to basket/cart) is recorded in the Google Analytics clickstream data as well as being recorded against each order item in the basket such that the value can be used in the 'Category' field on the Google Analytics ecommerce tracking code.

Purchase triggers may include clicking on a feature product on the homepage, clicking on products in on-site search results, related product clicks, products in category listings, product clicks in email campaigns, organic search results and of course 'direct' visits from bookmarks. The limit here is your imagination!

Recording product clicks from on-site or external search engine results generates great purchase trigger data. Using the search term to supplement the data is a golden opportunity not to be missed. Likewise, related product clicks should record the product that was related to the purchased product and category list clicks should record the category.

This modification to our ecommerce engine was straightforward – it should simple be on your software too.

By now you will get a clear picture as to what extra data is being recorded. Now, what can you do with it?

Insights
First of all, let's take a look at the pure clickstream data:

From the standard content report in analytics we can see how clicks on the 'sky-lantern' product came from a multitude of different sources:

search for lights

email campaign

linked from other products

category links

direct

We can see unique page views required for conversion metrics, average time on page, bounce rate, exit % and the super insightful $index. If the scope of this technique stopped here, we'd be pretty happy already with the extra insight we have on customer journeys. The extra sprinkles arrive when we consider the magical 'outcomes'.

As described above, of vital importance to getting maximum value from this technique is to record the last click before 'add to basket' in the clickstream data AND the transaction 'category' data. These sets of related data enable amazingly fine grained conversion metrics to be retrieved. For example, we can dig into the search listed above for 'lights' (the bottom row in the table). That's a pretty handy $index! Looking deeper we can see this search generated some pretty handy revenue over a short period of time:

Applying classic analytical techniques yields further insight:

If you're not convinced as to the merits of this technique by now, and indeed, you can get a lot of this data from the onsite search report then we shall take a mighty leap and look at category conversion metrics for the 'Best Sellers' category based on the landing page.

In the Google Analytics report below (Ecommerce → Product Performance → Categories), it looks at first glance that using the homepage as a landing page work pretty well. Sure, lots of revenue but that's not all!

When we take unique pageviews into account we can see the conversion rate for the best Sellers category when the homepage is the landing page is a respectable 4.8%. However, the Sale and Festive Season (Christmas) categories both out perform the homepage as landing pages at 5.4% conversion and the Best Seller category page as a landing page converts at 5.6%.

It's worth bearing in mind at this point exactly what this data means. A customer entered the site on a particular landing page, found their way to the Best Sellers category and put a product in their basket that they bought – the Best Sellers category page was a trigger to purchase. They liked the page and the products so much that they bought – just what site owners want to see and hear.

Conclusion
Through simple modification to our ecommerce engine, Moneyspyder has revealed finer grained, segmentable insights into the aspects of customer journeys that trigger positive outcomes – goal completions or purchases that include first and last click attribution.

This functionality is a great facility for conversion professionals to identify optimal customer journey paths and focus optimisation efforts with greater accuracy and effectiveness.

The modifications required for this technique are entirely portable and are in no way specific to the Moneyspyder ecommerce platform – we really encourage you to explore this technique.

Moneyspyder Biog:
We are a Google Conversion Professional and develop and host state-of-the-art ecommerce solutions using Ruby on Rails. We continuously improve customer experience using web analytics, split-testing and regular site enhancements based on web analytics data.

Google Analytics: Expanded Mobile Tracking for Mobile Rails sites

2009-11-02T14:28:00.000Z

Expanded Mobile Reporting - Introduction
Google recently announced expanded tracking for mobile apps using server side code. PHP, Perl, ASPX and JSP are supported as standard. As a dedicated 'Rails house' Moneyspyder has published a sample application for Mobile sites using Rails to broaden the usage of the product.

The need for this sample app is driven by the current use of javascript for tracking clickstream data. There are still a fair number of mobile devices out there that do not support client side javascript which can leave a sizable hole in your clickstream data. Using serverside code to reproduce the behaviour caters for these devices.

Preamble and cavets
The sample app is available for download. This is just a skeletal sample app and requires more thorough testing if deployed in the wild. We'd be keen to hear feedback of course as this is just a starting point....it ain't production ready!

Moneyspyder accepts no responsibility for loss or harm to data caused by using this sample app yadda yadda...

With that out of the way, some details.

Details

Download the app

Files

routes.rb

environment.rb

ga_helper.rb

ga_controller.rb

index.html

Two routes are used, only one is really required. The utm_gif action (served by the ga_controller.rb controller) is responsible for sending basic request info to the action and the action builds the remainder of the request details and sends them to ga, returning a 1px transparent gif.

The GA Account idientifer is saved in environment.rb. You might want to store it in a configuration yml file, the db or whatever your favourite place is...

The utm_gif_url helper method builds the utm_gif request. This is used in index.html for demonstration purposes.

ga_controller.rb rquires cgi, digest and open-uri. CGI is used for urlencoding strings. digest is used for the MD5 stuff. open-uri is used to send the request to Google analytics.

utm_gif is the only public method needed. response headers are set appropriately and send_data is used to return the transparent gif image. Requesting the gif through the private track_pageview method is where the magic happens.

In summary, all the usual name value pairs that are appended to the _utm.gif request to Google Analytics by ga.js are collected and then sent to Google Analytics using the private send_request_to_ga method. open-uri allows us to send this request programmatically. This might well be a nice plave to build in some error handling...

Once the request is done, the gif data is returned and the page is rendered - sweet.

You should be able to spin upthis little rails app easily enough using webrick on your local machine i the standard rails way and hit http://localhost:3000. (no support is offered by Moneyspyder for this setup - it's pretty standard stuff)

You'll see something like:

Gotcha and thoughts
If bots are hitting your mobile site or you use this tracking code technique insteaqd of ga.js (Hmmm?!) then you'll likely get a lot of traffic from bots - better filter the requests that get tracked.

Easier Website Optimiser tagging

2009-10-26T14:12:00.000Z

Overview
In my previous posts I introduced the idea of externalised javascript libraries to abstract over Google Analytics page tracking and ecommerce transaction tracking.

This idea also transfers nicely into Google Website Optimiser where you can experience some interesting scripts on your first visit!

Caveat
These articles assume you are at least familiar with the concept of multivariate testing, javascript, Google Analytics tracking and the Live HTTP Headers plugin in FireFox.

As with the last posts - use these scripts at your own risk. Don't link to the script libraries directly, copy and tune to your own needs!

A Simple MV Test made simpler

A normal website optimiser multivariate (mv) test requires a control script, tracking script and goal script to be placed on your pages. The control script decides which experiment variation to show. The tracking script records which test variation was shown and the goal script records the experiment conversion.

Two cookies are also used in combination with the standard GA cookies.

Standard cookies
utma
utmb
utmc
utmv
.
.
.
etc (there are quite a few!)

Website Optimiser cookies
umtx
utmxx

The nature of the standard cookies is not the subject of this article. In summary, the utmx and utmxx cookies are used to remember which test variation a users sees.

If you inspect the cookies you have in your browser right now you probably won't have any utmx cookies for the moneyspyder.co.uk domain. If you go to the example page for this article and recheck your cookies, you should now see a utmx and utmxx cookie for the moneyspyder.co.uk domain.

You've just been tested!

You will have equal chances of seeing a very simple page with one of three different pieces of text and two links:

Original page
Test 1
Test 2

(and two links to goal and purchase)

Delete the utmx and utmxx cookies and reload the page to see different variations. This is standard Website Optimiser type development/testing/debugging.

You should also inspect the HTTP Headers output. Notice the request for siteopt.js? Notice the utmx and utmxx values? If you don't see these - it's broken. Simple. Check for javascript errors.

The source of the html page will reveal the how the test is rendered. As with the page tracking example we are including Moneyspyder javascript libraries:

<script src="/javascripts/ms_ga.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="/javascripts/ms_wo.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

ms_wo.js gives us three methods to use:

ms_wo_ctrl
ms_wo_tracking
ms_wo_goal

All three methods take the experiment id as a parameter 'k'. You can get this value from the supplied script snippets when you set up your test.

The control script normally sits at the top of your content - ms_wo_ctrl replaces this script and so, sits in the same place. Feed it the test id to setup the test. Directly beneath the ms_wo_ctrl script, call the ms_wo_tracking method. Feed it the test id and Website Optimiser ua account value to track the test view.

Now, normal test scripting applies for a moment. Wrap the content you are testing with your utmx section and noscript tags as normal. At Moneyspyder, we are considering implementing later versions of this script library with the ability to 'document.write' the utmx sections based on matching dom elements by id or class. We'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this. Less code is better, right?

So, assuming your test is set up you should now have a page that mirrors the format of http://moneyspyder.co.uk/ms_ga.html:

Viewing this page and inspecting the HTTP Headers output will reveal the following requests:

ga.js (Google analytics script library from Google)
siteopt.js (Website Optimiser script library from Google)
utm.gif requests

The request to siteopt.js will pass in values of your utmx and utmxx cookies if you have them so that you can see the same test variation you saw last time or, if you don't have the cookies, your test variation and utmx values will be set.

Having displayed the test variation content, your page will track the test view with a utm.gif request to the Website Optimiser UA account and the utmp value of the test id follwed by the string 'test':


utmp=%2F0102111525%2Ftest&utmac=UA-11-56683-1

The goal page follows a very similar format but just calls ms_wo_goal in the same way as ms_wo_tracking with the UA and k values:


ms_wo_goal(['UA-11056683-1'],0102111525);

And so the page is tracked as you will see by inspecting the HTTP Headers output for the utmp and utmac values.

Wrap up
So, we have seen how the javascript supplied by Google for page tracking, transaction tracking and website optimiser testing is totally 100% fit for purpose and great to use. But with a little thought we can afford ourselves a little more power, maintainability and ease of use. We have cleaner pages and can handle change a little better.

If these articles help you implement good quality Google product integrations then we have a success. If you want to take this work further for your own sites, great but remember it's good to share! If you want to challenge this work, feel free to leave comments or drop us a line at info@moneyspyder.co.uk - we'd be happy to exchange ideas!

Google analytics: easier transaction tracking

2009-10-26T14:10:00.000Z

Overview
In my previous posts I introduced the idea of externalised javascript libraries to abstract over Google Analytics page tracking.

This idea also transfers nicely into Google Analytics transaction tracking where, it seems, most people seem to come unstuck.

We'll try and get you stuck back together!

Caveat
These articles assume you are at least familiar with the concept of javascript, Google Analytics tracking and the Live HTTP Headers plugin in FireFox.

As with the last posts - use these scripts at your own risk. Don't link to the script libraries directly, copy and tune to your own needs!

Simple transaction tracking made simpler

Take a peek at the transaction tracking example

Thanks for buying stuff! No, seriously, even though the page looks as unspectacular as the Page Tracking Example you have actually registered a (fake) transaction with Google Analytics for a t-shirt and an indoor frisbee.

Take a look at the page source. We're using ms_ga.js again. The method we are interested here is ms_ga_trans.

Notice the source does not track a page view! That'll be taken care of for us by the method.

ms_ga_trans takes three parameters: an array of UA accounts, a URL and a data structure representing the transaction.

The array of UA accounts enables us to track the transaction in any number of Google Analytics accounts. The URL is nullable so we can track the transaction page as a specific URI or just use the default. The transaction data structure mirrors the structure set out in the Google Analytics Transaction tracking documentation.

A transaction requires:

an order id
an affiliation
a shipping value
a tax value
a total value
a country, city and state

Clearly an order also requires one or more order items. Each item consists of:

the order id
a sku code
a name
optionally, a category (very useful)
a unit price (how much for one?!)
a quantity

Now, I'll stress this point about numerical values here. Do not include currency symbols. It is really important that when specifying a price or tax value or shipping value that you specify the value as a number to two decimal places. That is all. Not:

$45.00c

or

£345.567

or

[£9.99p]

or similar.

Just go for the simplest option which is (for example),

9.99

and stick it in quotes - everything is a string. Simple. No fuss. No complexity. If something is free, list it as 0. Don't miss out fields. You'll miss the wrong field and the script will fall over. With abstracted/externalised scripts and method calls you can build in more error handling and checking - handy!

So, inside the guts os ms_ga_trans we see a similar format to ms_ga_pagetrack where we iterate through the array of UA account values to track against:


 ms_ga_trans(['UA-7862117-1'],'skeleton/thankyou', 
  {"order_id": "666666", "shipping": "5.95", "web": "moneyspyder.co.uk", "tax": "1.79", "total": "21.74", "country": "UK", "items": [
   {"price": "6.00", "category": null, "name": "t-shirt", "sku": "t-1", "quantity": 1}, 
   {"price": "8.00", "category": "home", "name": "indoor frisbee", "sku": "f-1", "quantity": 1}
   ]
  }
 );

We see that the page view is tracked here to - hence, we do not track the page separately. It is important to track the page view before recording the transaction.

The transaction is then added using the ga.js addTrans method. Each item in the transaction is then added and finally the transaction is tracked.

So, there isn't that much that is simplified here other than the order in which the steps happen and the opportunity to build in more error checking and handling. If you've got these basics right - well done. You want to know the transaction has registered though, right? Real time? Right, thought so.

Debugging/Checking/Testing
Reload the page with our new best friend Live HTTP Headers looking over our shoulder so we can review what happened under the hood.

First of all, no surprises, ga.js loaded.

Then we track the pageview with utm.gif

Take note of the third section in the HTTP Headers output - there is a new utm value called utmtid and it has our transaction id, '666666'. Cool - transaction being tracked with expected values! Okay, so we can see the total in utmtto, the tax in utmtx, shipping in utmtsp etc.

Each follwing section details each order item. utmut=item, utmipn for the item name, utmiqt for the quantity. Real self explanatroy stuff when you know where to look and what to look for.

Never have a transaction fail to track ever again!

Thats should do for this article - next time we Optimiser our website with Google Website Optimiser - but simpler. ;-)

Google Analytics: easier page tracking

2009-10-26T11:37:00.000Z

Overview
Google Analytics is great. It's free and super powerful but... there is always a but!

Sometimes the tracking tags can be tough to understand. They can be tricky to implement if your CMS doesn't directly support them. Debugging can be 'gnarly'. Mix in Google Website Optimiser tests and you might end up biting of more than you can chew.

Moneyspyder has written two small skeletal javascript libraries that you can copy and use to make Google Analytics page tracking, transaction tracking and Website Optimiser implementation a bit easier.

We're trying to lower the bar to entry. We're not saying YOU MUST DO IT THIS WAY but we think this is one good way to start doing simple tracking and testing and we want to share some techniques with you. We're not saying the existing Google code is wrong or bad but if you want slightly cleaner pages and to get some extra value by abstracting out javascript code then this might be useful and it might even make managing your site easier.

The next few articles will cover smarter:

Page Tracking
Transaction Tracking
Website Optimiser tagging
All three together

Caveat
Feel free to take a copy of the scripts used in this article. Don't link to them - they will change over time and your tracking might break. Moneyspyder accepts no responsibility for harm to or loss of data if these scripts are used 'as is' or linked directly from the Moneyspyder server. You have been warned - so now let's inspire!

Simple smarter page tracking

Take a look at our first page - Page tracking example

Spectacular it is not...at least at face value. View the source to see the interesting bits.

1. In the

head

section you will notice a javascript include

<script src="/javascripts/ms_ga.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Take a look at the ms_ga.js source. The section that we are interested in is:


ms_ga_pagetrack(['ua-1','UA-7862117-1'],'/skeleton/tracking');

ms_ga_pagetrack(['ua-1']);

2. In the html, notice we are making two calls to ms_ga_pagetrack
The parameters that are expected are:

An array of one or more strings - 'UA-XXXXXXX-X'

An optional string to use as the page URI

The first parameter as an array enables you to track pageviews in multiple accounts without having to repeat the tracking code. The Google tracking method

pageTracker._trackPageview();

can take a parameter to replace the tracked page url.

Simple.

Additionally, if the Google ga.js javascript (notice the first two lines in ms_ga.js?) changes, you only change the ms_ga.js file and all your site pages remain untouched. This extra 'abstraction' layer has been helpful to Moneyspyder in the past.

Debugging
Debugging Google Analytics page tracking can be a lengthy and frustrating process:

Try a tracking script

Hit a page (along with everyone else who uses your site

See if the page view appears in the GA reports

Fail? Sigh...Rinse and repeat

We prefer to do this in real time. Yup, results while you wait. Go and get the Live HTTP Headers Firefox plugin. Start it up (Tools menu in FireFox). Go to the 'Config' tab and click the 'filter URLs with regexp' checkbox. Then put this string in the corresponding text box:

google-analytics.com

So now the only values you will see in the HTTP headers output will be related to Google Analytics.

Reload http://moneyspyder.co.uk/ms_page_tracking.html. The HTTP Headers output will contain 4 sections of similar format. The first section is the page including ga.js from Google:


http://www.google-analytics.com/ga.js

GET /ga.js HTTP/1.1
Host: www.google-analytics.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-GB; rv:1.9.1.3) Gecko/20090824 Firefox/3.5.3 GTB5 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Accept: */*
Accept-Language: en-gb,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Keep-Alive: 300
Connection: keep-alive
Referer: http://moneyspyder.co.uk/ms_page_tracking.html
If-Modified-Since: Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:39:01 GMT
Cache-Control: max-age=0

HTTP/1.x 304 Not Modified
Last-Modified: Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:39:01 GMT
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:14:29 GMT
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Cache-Control: max-age=604800, public
Server: Golfe
X-XSS-Protection: 0
----------------------------------------------------------

This output tells me first of all, the nature of the request being made - we're asking for ga.js from Google. There is some http header info about the browser I am using, an HTTP response code and not a lot else of anything of interest.
The next section gets more interesting:


  http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?

This request won't appear in the HTML source of the page. This is the output from _trackPageview. The data appended to this gif request is how Google Analytics gets the data into Google Analytics. Some interesting values here:


utmp=%2Fskeleton%2Ftracking
utmac=ua-1

utmp is the page path - remember we set this using the url parameter in our own method call? This is where you see the page path that is being sent to GA. utmac is the GA account being used for reporting. We set two accounts to be used - 'ua-1' and 'UA-7862117-1'.

So, the first request we saw in the HTTP Headers output was the request for ga.js:
http://www.google-analytics.com/ga.js

Second, we reported the pageview using /skeleton/tracking and ua-1:
utmp=%2Fskeleton%2Ftracking&utmac=ua-1
ms_ga_pagetrack(['ua-1','UA-7862117-1'],'/skeleton/tracking');

Third, we reported the pageview using /skeleton/tracking and UA-7862117-1:
utmp=%2Fskeleton%2Ftracking&utmac=UA-7862117-1
ms_ga_pagetrack(['ua-1','UA-7862117-1'],'/skeleton/tracking');

Fourth, we reported the pageview using /ms_page_tracking and ua-1:
utmp=%2Fms_page_tracking.html&utmac=ua-1
ms_ga_pagetrack(['ua-1']);

There are quite a few name value pairs appended to the utm.gif. More than should be discussed right now. We'll use this same debugging technique for transactions and website optimiser tracking and tagging.

Next, we'll do some testing!

new, enterprise class Google Analytics Features

2009-10-20T20:14:00.000+01:00

We're really excited at Moneyspyder about the release today of the new features on Google Analytics.

In summary:

More goals

Intelligence (!)

Custom Alerts

Table filtering

Unique visitor metrics

Sharing custom segments and reports between profiles

Multiple custom variables

If this seems like Greek - we have to talk. Call us and we'll make sure you get value from Google Analytics.

More here from the Google Analytics blog:

Moneyspyder at the Google Global GAAC Summit 2009

2009-10-16T17:02:00.000+01:00

Doug Hall, Moneyspyder's CTO is currently 'recovering' from three fantastic, intense, entertaining and revealing days at the 2009 Google GAAC, WOAC Global Summit at Google's Crittenden Lane campus in San Francisco, California.

'Recovering', yes but not in a negative sense. The breadth and depth of subjects covered was breath taking. A summary of the highlights:

Day 1 - WOAC Day

Dan Siroker described how his team on Braka Obama's election campaign used data to help win the election

Website Optimiser - The current and future of WO and Google's complimentary products. (NDA prevents disclosure at this time)

Tim Ash presented his conversion Ninja;s toolbox

Cocktails and dinner @ Google

Day 2 - GAAC Day 1

The highlight of the day, keynote address by Avinash Kaushik. Blunt, insightful, worrying but overall, truly inspiring

The current state of the art of Google Analytics closely followed by what the (very exciting) future holds for GA

Fellow GAACs presented case studies for tools and techniques that they have pioneered and enabled them to deliver value to their clients. Moneyspyder will be presenting next year!

Day 3 - GAAC Day 2

Google's Chief Economist, Hal Varian described how Google's fantastic body of data can be married to statistical modelling techniques to provide forecasting mechanisms - utterly mind blowing. The equations were just sublime ;-)

Google's Partner Program team described the incredible growth of the GAAC and WOAC program. Moneyspyder has long been pat of these programs and can attest to the value that Google bring to their partners. A truly awesome effort and a well deserved 'honorary GAAC' award for Alan Wrafter!

The GA API subject is a crucial one. A presentation and a breakout session yielded magnificent value. The open forum breakout session was a refreshing change to the powerpoint/QA format and a lively discussion ensued.

Now, this summary is deliberately light on detail. In a short while we will be discussing more about the 2009 GAAC summit content on this blog - NDA prevents further detail but the wait will be worth it - F.A.C.T.

Watch this space!

Moneyspyder blogs on the Google Conversion Room blog

2009-08-11T11:37:00.001+01:00

Moneyspyder has contributed to the Google Conversion Room blog with an article describing our 'Opportunity Analysis' service. This service uses our new tool employing the Google Analytics API - 'The Prophet' - enabling data sensitivity and time series analysis of your bottom line figures in Google Analytics. Money and forecasting = Profit and Prophesy - geddit?

Take a look and get in touch if you'd like to know more!

Google Analytics Event Tracking Advanced Segments

2009-07-28T16:01:00.000+01:00

Further to one of our earlier posts about Event Tracking coolness with Google Analytics, Google have just enabled event ware advanced segments:

This is going to be really powerful when reporting on Website Optimiser Experiments.

Twitter live search widget - suggested tweaks for tweeples...

2009-07-24T08:22:00.000+01:00

Take a look at the left hand side of our blog and our 'About Us' page on our site. You'll see we have integrated the new Twitter Live Search Widget. It's quite neat but...the generated code doesn;t work too well. If you go with the standard code, it won't look quite like the example and you'll find the tweats heading of down the page and stomping all over your content.

If you want to use the Twitter Live Search Widget in blogger, add the following line in the head section of yout HTML template:


<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://widgets.twimg.com/j/1/widget.css"></link>

or as we have done on our site, just drop the css ref in with the generated script:


<div id="twtr-search-widget"></div>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://widgets.twimg.com/j/1/widget.css">
<script src="http://widgets.twimg.com/j/1/widget.js"></script>
.
.
.

Tweet on in safety Tweeples...

Addendum
Okay - with the script generated in ie, matters improve slightly.

I maintain, IE is *very* sensitive about script. Perhaps it's a combination of the script & IE.

Proceed with caution.

The style sheet *is* needed though.

Moneyspyder Tweets

2009-07-02T08:45:00.000+01:00

Just a quick note to say that we are tweeting - http://twitter.com/Moneyspyder.

Moneyspyder joins Google Conversion Professional Programme:

2009-07-01T10:08:00.000+01:00

London July 1st 2009: Moneyspyder today announced that is one of the first companies in the UK to join the Google Conversion Professionals Programme. Launched today, Google Conversion Professionals are recognised by Google as experts in increasing conversion: driving qualified traffic to websites and ensuring visitors become customers.

Moneyspyder has completed a rigorous selection process, demonstrating expertise in key Google Products (Google Analytics, Google Website Optimiser & Google Adwords) and delivering high quality products and services to enhance ecommerce website effectiveness. Using Google Adwords, Google Analytics and Google Website Optimiser, Moneyspyder offers clients services and products to identify, prioritise and maximise the opportunities on their site.

James Aston, Managing Director of Moneyspyder said "We are delighted to be recognised by Google as one of the UK's leading consultancy companies in e-commerce conversion enhancement. Although we are well known for our hosted e-commerce platform, fewer people think of us first for improving the performance of their existing web sites. Google's accreditation process was rigorous and tough but getting through it gives us the recognition we think we deserve as the people to talk to if you want to make serious improvements in your e-commerce profitability."

Alan Wrafter, Google Conversion Programme Manager, says "We are delighted to offer our advertisers the services needed to really drive conversions and profitability. Google Conversion Professionals are industry leaders in achieving the best return on investment for online businesses. There is so much room for website improvement that I encourage websites of all sizes to consider a consultation with one of our experts."

About Moneyspyder's Consultancy Services
Moneyspyder offers a full range of e-commerce optimisation services covering acquisition, conversion and retention. Our conversion service vary from fast turn-around audits, based on web analytics and customer journey analysis (last month we identified £100,000/month revenue opportunities from a 2 day audit) through to ongoing, monthly continuous improvement services.

About Google Conversion Professionals Programme:

The ‘Google Conversion Professionals’ program is designed to connect under-performing online companies with tool-agnostic conversion specialists who offer an array of services including:

Marketing Effectiveness (landing page tuning and AdWords ROI improvement)

Tool Installation (custom implementation of analytics & testing tools)

Data driven insights (improving your website based on insights from analytics and testing data)

Systems Integration (merging of your content management systems with analytics data to improve RoI)

Product & Services Consulting (product, service and pricing recommendations)

Enhanced Google Website Optimiser tracking using setVar and Event Tracking

2009-06-22T13:49:00.001+01:00

Moneyspyder has been using Google Analytics and Website Optimiser for some considerable time now. As Google Analytics Authorised Consultants and Website Optimiser Authorised Consultants we are constantly looking for new opportunities for clients to improve the quality of their sites across all their KPIs.

When analysing Website Optimiser test data, we've identified a serious need for more fine grained data to get really crisp results. For example, Website Optimiser will tell you how many visits have occurred to each of your experiment variations and how many visits have converted. The nature of the conversion may change of course as might the secondary and tertiary effects of tests. How can we see whether a test of the on-site search functionality has increased ecommerce conversion? Can we see whether customers engage better with the site if they see more featured products? Website Optimiser data won't necessarily answer these questions out of the box. We've identified a couple of techniques that will help though.

The test(s)

Babyetc.co.uk was about to conduct a couple of tests. I'll gloss over the tests here because this post is more about the how rather than the what'. In a nut shell - are the featured products adding value and can search or newsletter signup perform better sitting next to the logo?

Newsletter signup in the header with no featured products:

Search in the header with featured products:

The tests ran for a couple of weeks and the first result comes in:

No great surprise - search usage is improved by nearly 40%. The other test is still running though. So, were searchers buying more? Are featured products engaging customers? Are test subjects spending longer on the site? Are these changes adding value to the bottom line? We'll consider event tracking first of all:

Google Analytics Event Tracking

Event tracking is currently a beta feature. You'll need to request it to be added to your Google Analytics account. It's a much sweeter mechanism for recording single events than virtual page views especially if you don't want your content report data soiled.

First of all, get your test set up and running normally. Now, you want to record an event firing for each variation and potentially for each conversion. We'll cover variation tracking - goal tracking is a lot easier!

You'll need to find out your experiment number - you can find this in the WO control script provided (it's the variable k):


function utmx_section(){}function utmx(){}
(function(){var k='123456789123',......

Now, before you track your event, let the WO script do the first part of it's magic, then using the experiment number, you can interrogate the __utmx cookie to find out what variation is being served:


 variation = '';
 x=find_utmx('__utmx');
 if(typeof(x) != 'undefined'){
   variation = x.substring(x.length,x.length-1);
 }

Before any further WO scripting - track the event (uacct is the GA account ref used for your given Ga profile):


  var tracker = _gat._getTracker(uacct);
  tracker._initData();
  if(label != ''){
      if(value != null){
        tracker._trackEvent(category,action,label,value);
      }else{
        tracker._trackEvent(category,action,label);
      }      
  }else{
    tracker._trackEvent(category,action);
  }

Bingo - WO variation views are tracked as events, simples! So, how does this look in GA? Head over to your reports, go into Content -> Event Tracking:

In the overview you'll see something like this:

Not that interesting...drill into actions though and you start to see real data treasure. Here's the ecommerce tab:

Row 0 refers to the original, row 1 is the search box in the header and row 2 is the newsletter signup.

We can see that AOV is down - no big deal - not statistically significant. We can also see that conversion rate and overall revenue are up and highly significant. So, the test confirmed more searches were happening but beyond that, we know that searchers convert 2-3 times better than non-searchers so we would hypothesise that revenue and conversion would increase with search usage. This data confirms the hypothesis and tells us by how much!

Now we can drop this data out and run it through SPSS (enterprise scale stats tool) to run more numbers through at our leisure to gain further insights: not something you can do with WO reports.

superSetVar

User defined variables are a really neat and powerful segmentation mechanism that we can use to provide a facility that allows segmentation of data based on partiular events firing. For many cases, segmentation based on events will not be useful or interesting but coupling event tracking with WO tests does make segmentation worth while. Say I wanted to see on-site search usage stats, ecommerce performance and site engagement data in one custom report based on a user seeing a certain test variation - now segmentation becomes useful. You don't have to use event tracking with user defined variables - I did in order to explore the technique. Say for example you've extracted the variation number as in the event tracking example. Now we can use superSetVar from Lunamaterics to set a user defined value using a similar naming convention to the event tracking:


    unSetVar('/featured-test','<%= ENV['ga_account'] %>');
    superSetVar('/featured-test='+variation,'<%= ENV['ga_account'] %>');

As you can see, we are a Rails shop - feel free to substitute the syntax of your choice to get the right uAcct value in place.

Right now, Website Optimiser has not suggested as clear winner for the featured products test. I wonder how things are shaping up?

If we were to head over to Visitors -> User Defined and take a look at the ecommerce tab we would see the following interesting report:

'featured-test=0' is the original where feature products are shown. 'featured-test=1' is the test where featured products are not shown.

Now, create a custom segment:

And apply this to the report then go look at the ecommerce tab:

You can probably see how you can now look at any report in GA to see how your tests in WO are affecting metrics across your site.

Now, I have to say that these techniques are still in development - if you see any potential issues, it would be great to get your feedback. Likewise, if you use any techniques here, do so at your own risk. When trying out new techniques, do so in safe profiles - not your main data repositories!

I implemented an event tracker and a superSetvar call in a rather dumb way and ended up destroying a days worth of bounce rate data! Hopefully you have been interested by this missive, perhaps even inspired but certainly warned!

Moneyspyder - Agency Focus on SheerB2B.com

2009-06-22T08:12:00.001+01:00

We've been featured on the SheerB2B Agency Focus.

Reads nicely and make interesting reading - especially James' top ten tips for successful ecommerce - Read more...

Some Background on SheerLuxe.com and SheerB2B.com:

SheerLuxe.com was launched in February 2007 to offer high-end online retailers the opportunity to reach a highly focused audience, namely those seeking to purchase the finest (although not always the priciest) goods online.

The B2C site has become the first port of call for online retailers wishing to communicate information concerning their luxury brands, products and designs to a highly relevant target audience of ABC1 women.

Following the success of SheerLuxe (click here for more information), the launch of SheerB2B complete the circle.

The site brings together an online community of niche / high end / independent etailers with the best B2B content on the web, a directory of recommended industry agencies, suppliers & experts as well as advice, tips, case studies and interviews to help them successfully grow their businesses.

Together SheerLuxe & SheerB2B aim to be the first port of call for etailers looking to both market and develop their businesses.

Moneyspyder joins Website Optimiser Accredited Consultant Programme

2009-06-01T14:46:00.000+01:00

This week, Moneyspyder became a Google Website Optimiser Authorised Consultant (WOAC), having proven both to our clients and to Google that we can make e-commerce sites work better and make more money.

Moneyspyder offers a full range of services introducing businesses to the power of on-line split testing all using Google's extremely powerful and free-to-use A/B & Multi-variate testing framework. These services, designed for companies of all sizes and technical abilities, aim to accelerate our clients from simple yet powerful one-off tests to strategic continuous-improvement-testing.

'Efficient sales and cost-effective growth are the key priorities for e-commerce companies, especially in these challenging economic times', suggests James Aston, Managing Director or Moneypsyder. 'For many people this means doing more with what you've already got, rather than buying up competitors or launching new sites, and this is where Google products come into a league of their own. Gaining insights from Google Analytics and then driving improvements through Website Optimiser can sustain growth in even the most stagnant market conditions'.

About Moneyspyder: Moneyspyder develops and hosts state-of-the-art ecommerce solutions and continuously improves the customer experience using web analytics, split-testing and regular site enhancements. Having qualified as Google Analytics Authorised Consultants at the start of 2009, we have continued to demonstrate high quality results using Google products. Now, having also recently added three Adwords Qualified Individuals, we are able to demonstrate consistently high ROI for multiple clients in customer acquisition as well as conversion and analytics.

About Google Website Optimiser:
Website Optimiser, Google’s free website testing and optimisation tool, allows you to increase the value of your existing websites and traffic without spending a penny. Using Website Optimiser to test and optimise site content and design, you can quickly and easily increase revenue and ROI, whether you’re new to marketing or an expert.

Aggregation of marginal gains

2009-05-22T09:49:00.000+01:00

@avinashkaushik: Why do otherwise intelligent people ignore the low hanging fruit and want to eat the whole tree first? - (via twitter of course)

I have no qualms at all about this shameless retweet/re post. The subject matter is something Moneyspyder is a great fan of - the aggregation of marginal gains. In a nutshell:

John Carlzon - "you cannot improve one thing by 1000% but you can improve 1000 little things by 1%"

Feel free to view the webinar below at your leisure. Whilst watching it bear in mind that whilst John Carlzon's quote is very profound and highly relevant, consider these questions:

How do you identify 1000 clearly improvable features on your site?
Having identified these 1000 candidates, what changes should you make?

Having decided what changes to make - how do you accurately and precisely measure the effects of the changes?

How do you translate the effects of the changes into a bottom line ROI?

Think on, watch, call Moneyspyder

Keywords in snippets Google SEO research

2009-05-15T14:11:00.000+01:00

Moneyspyder enjoys a high rate of success regarding Search Engine Optimisation of our client's sites. However, we are aware that success is never final. With the SEO arms race constantly moving forwards, we are always on the lookout for new research, techniques and methodologies to enable us to make sure our client's ecommerce businesses ranked as highly as possible in Google organic search results.

We read an interesting blog post recently regarding the impact of keywords in snippets with respect to clickthroughs in Google organic search results.

Have a read of Dr. Mike Baxter's 'Reflections from the River Bank' blog .

Google Analytics - Can Moneyspyder coin a new term?

2009-05-04T10:21:00.000+01:00

Haruspicy is prediction of the future by cutting open a goat...nice. Tephromancy is the art of divination by inspecting ashes. Cyclomancy is a divination technique using rotating objects.

At Moneyspyder, we prefer to use the science of Google Analytics as a business planning tool. When setup properly, your Google Analytics data will have sufficient precision and accuracy that reliance on entrails, ashes, or badly setup Google Analytics will seem like medieval practices.

Can we coin the phrase "Google-omancy"? Attempting to predict the future of your business using sub-optimal Google Analytics is difficult at best and more-than-likely dangerous in most cases.

Moneyspyder and Engineyard make sweet music

2009-04-30T16:45:00.000+01:00

At Moneyspyder, we started developing our Ruby on Rails Ecommerce system nearly three years ago. As we progressed through the prototyping stage we recognised that we needed a serious hosting partner who had good Rails experience.

We know we are great when it comes to Ecommerce strategy and Ecommerce technology - our clients tell us! We didn't want to divert our attention away from our core business so we needed a fully outsourced infrastructure team. Someone who could support us. Someone who we could work with to grow our product and share in our success.

There was a clear winner in the market place: Engine Yard.

Read more about our partnership and how we grew as a company on the Engineyard Q & A section.