Wakoopa (NL)

Trailspot Case Study: Netflix Launches in the Netherlands

Tue, 17 Sep 2013 06:58:00 -0400

Netflix is finally available in the Netherlands. In this case study, we assess the impact of the launch during the first five days of operation. The massive online ad campaign of the service is already beginning to shake the local video consumption business, where up until recently, Pirate Bay ruled supreme.

Netflix entered the Dutch market with all guns blazing and dominated the online ad landscape in the country. In terms of unique exposures, 30.5% of the panelists in Wakoopa’s consumer panel Trailspot (4746 active during the period) saw Netflix-themed ads. The commercial activities prompted 12,3% of those exposed to the ads to visit the Netflix website. As a result, Netflix outperformed not only Pathe-Thuis and Videoland, but also a collection of Pirate Bay Proxies.

The good traffic figures come alongside an impressive conversion rate – on average 14,4% of the Trailspot panelists that visited the Netflix website in the last five days have opted to sign-up and give the monthly trial of the service a go. Currently, the only problem that the tech giant appears to be experiencing is gaining traction on mobile, as the Android app of the local competitor Ziggo is significantly outperforming the Netflix Android app.

The actual impact of the launch, however, will only become evident next month, when the initial trials are over and Netflix measures up against the Pirate Proxies in providing access to the autumn TV show programming in the US. If Netflix cannot keep up, torrent downloading will continue to flourish.

It is basic economics – the torrents are free, Netflix, albeit quite competitively priced, is not. To warrant its subscription fee (7.99-11.99 per month), Netflix must be offering a performance premium over the proxies. The beautiful and user friendly design of the site is a good start, but it will not be enough as many members of the online streaming market have already noticed how limited Netflix’s content library in the Netherlands is.

Here, Netflix cannot simply rely on having the moral high ground in content delivery as it does in the United States. In Europe, torrents are not frowned upon and Netflix has an interesting autumn to attempt to change the mentality of many Dutch consumers that are still not used to paying for video.

State of the Web and Mobile 2012

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 08:24:00 -0500

Do you know on which day people snooze the most? Check out Wakoopa’s annual study – State of the Web and Mobile 2012!

Today we, at Wakoopa, are proud to present to you our annual study The State of the Web and Mobile 2012! It will give you insight in people’s digital life while diving deeper than just numbers. We define behavior, preferences and much more.

With the help of our passive tracking software, and in collaboration with TNS Gallup, ICM UK and Ipsos Germany, we’ve managed to track the online behavior of 29,304 users from the Netherlands, Germany, UK and Norway. We delved into these mountains of data, and our designer turned them into a shiny, well rounded infographic. In total we measured an astonishing amount of 322,020 days, 16 hours, 7 minutes and 31 seconds of online behavior, and discovered that 20 % of all this time is spent on Facebook!

By reading our State of the Web and Mobile 2012 you will be able to familiarize yourself with the most exciting events of 2012. Can you guess what news made it to the top 4 of online users? And if you can, we are sure that you will be surprised to learn in what countries they were most popular! When you go through the pages of the infographic you will spot the trends in online banking and its fast mobile growth. One interesting fact is for example that Android users check their accounts twice as much as iOS users. We also dived into your leisure time to discover some interesting trends in holiday bookings and found the favorite city trips.

One of the most unique parts of our Infographic is the data on mobile usage. We are proud to present you with the information we gathered through our mobile pilot in October 2012. In this section you’ll get to know on what day Android users snooze the most, and you will acquire valuable insights on the MB usage of iPhone users. Therefor we are also proud to announce that in January we started our ongoing mobile panel, making it possible to monitor these and many other insights every day of the year!

You want to know these fascinating facts and get insight in the digital live of people? Read the State of the Web and Mobile 2012 or download it here!

Ten tips for successful online passive measurements

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 04:08:00 -0400

Mark Schiefelbein has written an article for the German magazine Planung & Analyse, offering the 10 essential tips for online passive measurement. Of course we can not exclude you from this precious information, so here’s the english version! (The original version can be found at the website of Planung & Analyse, and also in print version in their magazine)

1. Provide incentives for installation and activity
Participating in online passive measurement requires the respondent to install a small application on their PC or smartphone. It only takes a minute, but is potentially sensitive and needs to remain active. The best incentives therefore provide both an installation premium as well as a monthly payout to assure the tracking application is kept active.

2. Be clear about privacy
Respondents will rightly be concerned about privacy. Instead of avoiding the subject, be up front about what is being tracked and for how long, and put the respondent in control by giving them the possibility to pause or end tracking when needed.

3. Recruit a quality panel
Passive online measurement deals with large amounts of data. A panel size of 10.000 and up, tracked 24x7 is not uncommon. It’s therefore tempting to assume that you will always be able to filter out the right data. Don’t! Get the basics right, stats don’t make up for a skewed panel.

4. Play around with the data
One of the strengths of passive measurement is the enormous wealth of objective data. Unlike surveys, every user action is tracked without the respondent having been led down a certain path by questions. This leads to many hidden gems in the data that are waiting for you to uncover. So have fun with the data, try multiple approaches and play different angles.

5. Expect the expected
When boiled down to the top level, many results of passive online measurement confirm what you already know. This simply proves that the method is accurate and valuable as the results have now been proven correct.

6. But also be flexible
In passive online measurement, it is not always very clear from the get-go where to look. So have a starting point, but don’t hold on to this too tight. Different metrics will tell different stories. Results vary over time and target audiences. And every additional insight can be valuable for your customer.

7. Reserve enough budget for analysis
With passive online measurement you can collect vast amounts of data at low costs. Extensive analysis is required to unlock the full potential of the data. Make sure you nudge the budget more towards analysis.

8. Include some quantitative and also some qualitative analyses
Passive online measurement provides a wealth of data. One strength is the sheer volume, which leads to interesting conclusions when looked at from a quantitative perspective. The data also contains an unheard of level of detail, which is invaluable for qualitative approaches like profiling, personas or storytelling.

9. Choose the right classification
Online data is vast and needs to be classified carefully to be meaningful. So think through which sites to assign to which category, which search terms to relate to which interest or which campaigns to count against which vertical.

10. Have a geek on the team
Running an online survey does not require technology skills. You can always get someone to do the implementation for you. Analysing passive online data does. You therefore need someone with a firm grasp of online infrastructure as part of the core analysis team.

The Case for Passive Measurement of Online Behavior

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 07:59:00 -0400

In a world that is becoming more and more online, the Wakoopa tracking technology is a valuable addition to the traditional research tools that are used to get insight in the behavior of people. The software enables companies to truly fathom their target audience. Our colleague Mark Schiefelbein has written a whitepaper on the subject of passive measurement of online behavior in practice. Today it got published on the German DGOF website.

Image from the Wired Intelligence Briefing on Prezi

In this paper Mark offers several examples of how this actually works. For instance how did Wired use our software to get insight in their advertisement space? And how did Synovate use it to analyze a path to purchase of consumer electronics online? These examples and more can be found in this white paper, which shows that passive measurement of online behavior is an incredible valuable addition for almost everyone.

Download the English version here or read the German one on the website of DGOF.

Opening one door means closing another

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 07:06:00 -0400

tl;dr: Wakoopa Social is closing down, see the timeline here. Six years ago we decided to build the ʻlast.fm for softwareʼ; to make discovering software social. A few months and a lot of development hours later, Wakoopa was launched. In the starting weeks over 17.000 Wakoopians signed up for the service and a dream became reality

Today this part of Wakoopa comes to an end.

Here we are, ﬁve years after the launch, the team has doubled in size, three ofﬁce buildings have passed, many friends have been made, but much more has changed. In 2010, we decided to make a switch and started focussing on the corporate research community. We made products such as Trailspot and QD to bring online research to the next level. This new turn was a success. Each day more clients are interested in our product and we are becoming more innovative in optimizing research solutions.

The downside, however, is that this new part of Wakoopa is becoming more and more time consuming. This meant that last year we had to decide that supporting the social platform became a lower priority. We didnʼt want to close it down yet, because we still loved it very much and some of our Wakoopians were still enjoying its possibilities. However, slowly seeing the platform deteriorate, was not how Wakoopa Social should go down.

That is why today we have decided that the time has come to ʻkill your darlingsʼ; we are closing down Wakoopa Social. This means Wakoopa will continue to exist, only now focussing entirely on the corporate research community.

First of all we want to thank all Wakoopians for all the time and effort they have put into our product. Together we truly made discovering software social. Of course we are not closing down at once, we want to give you something in return for using our products for so many years. This means that:

June 23rd, 2012
We will stop tracking your data, which gives us the time to generate exports. These exports will contain your own application usage, both on the web and on the desktop, length of usage and the name and category of the application. These exports are only available for you.
June 30th, 2012
Wakoopa Social will be closed deﬁnitively.
July 1st, 2012
You get the possibility to download an export of your own Wakoopa data. This possibility will be around for at least three months, after that the data will be destroyed. You will receive an email with the download information.

Wakoopa will continue to make cool products for the research market and we’re even thinking about something more consumer oriented. You will hear about that soon enough!

If you have any questions concerning the closing down, please email us at social@wakoopa.com.

And so, with a heavy heart, we salute all Newbies, Novices, Enthusiasts, Devotees, Experts, Fanatics and Overlords, and hope that you keep wearing your software reputation with pride!

- Wouter Broekhof, Founder & CTO

New metric available

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 06:20:00 -0400

Last week we made the Visitor rate available as a metric in all of our dashboards. In this post I’ll explain to you why we decided to add this feature and how you could use it in your analysis.

Combining two metrics
Earlier this year we implemented the Panel activity graph which is used to track the movement of your panel over time. This data is used by panelmanagers who need to keep their panel at a steady size. But it is also a valuable tool when doing analyses in the dashboard.

For example when you are looking at a graph for unique visitors over time and you see a sudden spike in the number of unique visitors. To explain this spike, first thing you should check is whether there was also a spike in active participants at that time. If there is no spike you can do further analysis to find another explanation for the spike in traffic.

To simplify this usecase we’ve combined the unique visitors and active participants into one metric called Visitor rate. For each period we calculate the visitor rate by taking the unique visitors as a percentage of the active participants. This results in a relative metric that will stay stable when the panel size changes in size.

Why not reach?
For some of you this may sound as a familiar metric: reach. However we realized that to measure actual reach you need to correct the data for biases and other factors.

First of all the number of active trackers in a period may not accurately represent the panel size at that time. For instance, participants may be on holiday for a week and would not use a computer. Technically they are still part of the panel but they are not counted as active participants for that week.

Secondly you’d want to apply some kind of weigthing model when you want to report on the entire online population. Commonly you would want to correct for socio-demographics, but with our data it is also possible to correct for heavy- or light-internet-users.

Currently we are doing research on what’s the best way to project results in the dashboard to the total online population. If we have any news on this subject we will of course let you know about our findings.

Menno van der Sman – Developer

C for Celerity

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 06:47:00 -0400

Speed is not just a trait: on the web it is a feature. An important feature. All too often do we find that the web application we are depending on in order to finish that document or meet that deadline is too sluggish to be workable.

At Wakoopa, we strive to make our products a joy and a breeze to use. This encompasses all our software (including the trackers to be installed on panelists’ computers), but most affected is our research dashboard, which is used by our clients.

In this article, I would like to shed some light on a development process that we went through earlier this year and that allowed us to greatly increase the speed of certain operations in the dashboard (as you may, hopefully, have noticed). Bear with me, as we will dive straight into some technical aspects (with accompanying mumbo-jumbo).

Our backend software, hosted on Amazon’s AWS, is mostly written in Ruby and uses the excellent Ruby on Rails framework. This makes our developers, and ultimately you too, very happy, as they can focus on the features they want to implement for you instead of building every minute detail from the ground up.

However, it turns out that in some cases we do want to obsess over details. Early this year we noticed that the real-time processing of data to be shown and graphed in the dashboard was growing out of hand. Our Ruby software, while elegant and functional, was struggling with the vast torrents of data that were thrown at it when calculating channel- or domain-metrics. Under the hood, we used standard JSON libraries to fetch data out of a database and perform calculations on the resulting data. At a certain point, the data will just not fit anymore. Furthermore, the JSON data was only using a tiny subset of JSON syntax, so using a full-blown parser is like using a monster truck to go grocery shopping. An Aygo will do (better).

Enter Go. This new language by Google caught our eye as being a promising new low-level language for developing high-performance server-based software in. It is a statically typed language that should appeal to programmers who love C and Python and would like to work with something in between. Essentially, it is poised to be a modern C.

We implemented all necessary features: fetching data from the database, decompressing it, parsing it using our custom linear JSON-parser and calculating metrics. And, of course, a handful of unit tests. Already, we were seeing huge performance gains over the previous solution. Unfortunately, however, the garbage collector of Go proved to be too immature at the time and we still kept running into memory problems.

After some consideration we decided to reimplement the Go code in C. As many batteries are not included with C this required us to write some more code (for strings and other data structures), but the fine-grained control over memory allocation and code execution were completely worth the investment. We now see performance of at least an order of magnitude over our initial solution and memory use is minimal. In other words, we went from calculations taking 20 seconds to 2.

Kamek - Mario Character, via Mariowiki.com

Continuing in the tradition of Super Mario-characters, we call our new software Kamek for its wizardry. Many features are gradually being brought into it and you should see constant improvements in the performance of various parts of the dashboard. We trust that you are as happy as we are with the payoff of this project and are looking forward to even greater returns in the future!

Marten Klencke - Desktop Engineer

Another Dashboard Development Update

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 09:51:00 -0400

Just like my colleague Menno did at the beginning of this month, I would like to share some of the latest improvements to the Wakoopa dashboard with you today. All of these improvements have been made available to you automatically.

A complete overview of all our dashboard updates can be found in the Changelog on our Knowledge Base.

1. Improved Channels grid

When we introduced our dashboard redesign last year we started using grids to display your data. These grids allow us to render large data sets (e.g. all channels on your Channels page) without impacting your browser’s performance.

Today we’ve improved the Channels grid in two ways. First of all we’ve made the Title column of the grid resizable. This makes it easier to distinguish between multiple channels with a long title.

Secondly we’ve added hovering title boxes to each of the cells in the grid. When you place your mouse cursor on the truncated title of a channel, the full title will appear in the hovering box.

2. Improved grid filters

Each grid in the dashboard comes with a filter. Previously this filter would only filter one grid column at the same time. However, this appeared to be inconvenient for large data sets.

Therefore we’ve taken the filters a step further: it is now possible to filter multiple columns at once. To achieve this the filter uses OR logic.

For example: the filter text “john travel” on the Channels page will match the channel “Christmas” by “John Doe” and the channel “Airline Travel” by “Jane Doe”.

This enhanced filtering works for all grids in the dashboard.

3. Creating a Web Pages channel from a Profile

A common way to create a new channel is to base it on a selection of URL’s that were first profiled in the Profile tool. To make this process easier we’ve added a Create Channel button to the Profile page.

Clicking this button after having profiled a selection of URL’s will take you directly to the New Channel pop-up on the Channels page. Your URL’s are pre-filled. Just enter a name for your new channel and hit Save.

4. More detailed information about Streams

We’ve added three more attributes to the table on the Streams detail page: Conversion channel, Conversion channel URL’s, and Analysis channels. The Conversion channel is the target of the stream. The Analysis channels are the sources from which a participant can reach a URL in the target channel. The Conversion channel URL’s are all URL’s that are part of your target channel.

By adding these three attributes to the stream you’ve got all the information you need on one page.

We hope these changes will benefit you in working with your dashboard. As always: feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

Marcel de Graaf - Developer

Wakoopa supports Bits of Freedom

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 04:14:07 -0400

Bits of Freedom is a Dutch organization that advocates freedom and privacy on the internet. They show that you can be sucessful by having a targeted strategy, being fully transparent and using plain common sense.

As a proud supporter of Bits of Freedom, Wakoopa also supports an open internet, where the right of sharing information and the right on privacy should be top priorities.

At Wakoopa, we understand that we handle privacy sensitive data on a daily basis. Our experiences teach us that, also in the research industry, transparency and openness will give the safest feeling with panelists using our software.

Because we would like to see this idea of transparency and openness on the internet as well, we support Bits of Freedom.

Do you support them as well?

Dashboard development update

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 09:25:00 -0500

The dashboard we offer to our customers is in constant development. A lot of work is done behind the screens to make the dashboard run faster or lay the groundwork for new exciting features. Normally you can find these changes on our changelog on the knowledge base but today I wanted to highlight a couple of features that are directly visible in the dashboard.

Improvements in audience-analysis
A lot of customers are doing a lot of channel-comparisons on different segments and want to include the audience-results in their presentations. That was often hard to do if a certain property was not represented in the channel-comparison; the audience-export would then contain a different number of rows, making it hard to stitch the exports together. We fixed this by making sure every value of your audience-property is always included in the audience-overview, even if the number of participants for that value is zero.

Insight into the size of your panel
Every panel has to deal with new participants that start or stop tracking. We also steadily implement better browser support and add adtracking-capabilities for more browsers. These factors affect the actual size of the panel over time. Researchers should take this into account when comparing absolute metrics like unique visitors at different points in time. To help with this we’ve made a new page available where you can view and export the number of active users for any period. You can find this page at Panel > Activity.

Search grids quickly with keyboard-shortcuts
With the last redesign we introduced grids to easily handle large lists of channels in your dashboard. These grids also included a search box to quickly find channels or properties by filtering the grid. We decided to make this even more easier by providing a keyboard-shortcut to access the filter directly. Now if you press the ALT + S combination or just the ‘/’-key the filter is immediately selected and you can start typing to search. We plan on adding more shortcuts to let advanced users quickly navigate the dashboard.

We are always interested in your ideas and feedback for our dashboard. Feel free to get in contact.

Menno van der Sman – Developer

Google inspired by Wakoopa?

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 09:25:57 -0500

Search giant dives into passive audience measurement

Classical advertising research was all about the audience: did my ad reach the audience? Did they like it? Were they engaged? Did it have impact? With online advertisement, we forgot about researching the audience. We had a shortcut! If they clicked on it, it had impact.

At Wakoopa, we believe that we can deliver better service to the advertiser. By doing ‘classical’ audience measurement, in a modern way. Our passive audience measurement technology registers all online behaviour of the individuals that have installed our tracker-app.

We know their sociodemo’s (because we have asked for it), their online ad-exposure and their browsing and searching behaviour on the web. We can help you build single source panels, for doing in depth research on your target audience and their media consumption.

In 2009, the introduction of our technology in market research led to critical questions. Do people really want to download a tracker-app? How much do we need to pay as incentive or compensation? Does it really add value above server-side and cookie-based data?

The recent launch of Google’s Screenwise panel in the US shows that we were right in our approach.

The new panel is built ‘to learn more about how everyday people use the Internet’. It ‘is similar to those used by many market research companies’, works with a user-side browser extension (Chrome) and is used by Google to ‘improve products and services and make a better online experience for everyone’.

And yes, people do want to download a tracker-app and be a part of a panel. Within a day, Google received over 8000 applications and closed the subscriptions due to panel size limitations.

And yes, the economical value of the exchange of someone’s internet statistics are confirmed by the Google panel: Screenwise offers a $5-Amazon gift card as incentive for installation and for each quarter continuation. Wakoopa’s guideline is $12 per panelist per year.

And yes, the added value of audience research seems to be acknowledged. According to Google, the anonymous Screenwise data are to be shared with advertisers, academics, publishers and broadcasting networks.

We believe that individuals become - more and more - aware that their internet statistics are valuable. They are – more and more - willing to exchange these against something which is valuable for them. Wakoopa will cater this exchange. We will continue optimizing it for the individual and we give corporations true insights on the digital lives of all our fellow planet inhabitants. By the coolest possible technology.

I’m happy to see that we’re no longer alone in this.

- Piet Hein van Dam, CEO

The importance of the privacy description

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 11:01:00 -0500

Wakoopa’s software is quite different from the traditional panel research. That’s why introducing the tracker sometimes seems hard. We get a lot of questions from people wondering what the best way is to do so. At Wakoopa we were wondering the same; what would be the best approach for the highest conversion? That’s why we have conducted a research last year to find out the best practice for our tracker. In this blog post we want to show you the outline of it.

The research
In preparation for the research we read almost every relevant study conducted on invitations and incentives in traditional panel research, plus quite some studies about online privacy. After examining the current invitations and conversions of the tracker, it appeared that there was a relationship between the height of the incentive and the extensiveness of the privacy description. We decided to find out more about this relation in an a/b test.

Before we continue we must explain that there are certain factors we can never influence, like the history of the panel. When the tracker is introduced the panel is already conditioned by previous rewards and questionnaires. This means that for some panels the conversion will be structurally lower (or higher) than for others. Next to this there is also the positive effect of reputation. People are more likely to disclose privacy sensitive information when they trust the concerning company. This is partly the reason why some of the conversions deviate substantially from the average.

Privacy and incentive
The a-b testing revealed that the privacy description is actually the most important part of the invitation. This has such a degree of importance, that when the privacy description is not good enough, heightening the incentive will have no significant effect. A good privacy description can be based on taking away the four cost concerns people have, based on the social exchange theory. These are: collection, unauthorised secondary use, improper access and errors. These concerns should be clearly addressed in the privacy statement, for example by telling the panellists where there information goes to and what exactly is collected. An example invite has been added to our knowledge base.

Picture by Matt Niemi on Flickr.com

We didn’t test the different forms of incentives, but our research did show that increasing the incentive has a significant effect on the conversion. We heightened the incentive with a factor ten from €0,50 to €5,00, which increased the overall conversion with 50%, to 11.9%. Concerning the form of the incentive, scientific studies in traditional panel research show that monetary incentives are more effective than non-monetary. Next to this, from the conversions of our tracker it appears that a periodic incentive has a positive effect on the dropout rate. A good incentive would for example be an incentive after installation, combined with a monthly reward.

Concluding
So to conclude all this, our research showed that it is important to pay close attention to the privacy description you send out with the tracker. A higher incentive will work, however only when the privacy description is extensive enough. For the dropout rate it is advisable to use a periodic incentive. If you want to read the best practice or see the example invite, you can find them in our knowledge base. We hope this will help you with the introduction of our tracker and of course if you have any more questions after reading this, don’t hesitate to contact us!

- Marilou de Haan, Product Manager

Introducing the Wakoopa Knowledge Base

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 05:53:00 -0500

Last year the redesign of the Wakoopa dashboard was released. Since then we’ve been working on a way to better help our customers in working with the dashboard. Today we’re proud to announce the Wakoopa Knowledge Base.

The Knowledge Base is a collection of articles we’ve written to help you get the most from your Wakoopa dashboard. The articles are aimed both at those who are just getting started with their dashboard, and those who are looking for an in-depth explanation of all our features.
Our most important features are explained in short videos, walking you through various bits of the Wakoopa dashboard.

Visit the Wakoopa Knowledge Base

The General section contains articles on getting started, setting a password and logging in. There’s also a “changelog” where we’ll inform you of updates we deploy to the Wakoopa dashboard.

In the Panel, Analysis and Reports sections you’ll find articles on the three corresponding main sections of the Wakoopa dashboard. Each page in the Wakoopa dashboard has its own article in the Knowledge Base, making it easy to quickly find what you’re looking for.

Under Examples you’ll find helpful examples on how to interpret the data in your dashboard. We’re planning to expand this section in the near future.

The Advanced information section is made up of technical background information about the way Wakoopa looks at data. This section is really helpful if you’re interested in understanding the logic behind the data in your Wakoopa dashboard.

Lastly, the Sales section helps your sales department sell your products based on the Wakoopa dashboard.

We hope the Wakoopa Knowledge Base will help you in getting more out of the dashboard. We’re aiming to keep expanding the Knowledge Base with useful articles. If you think we’ve missed something, or if you have other questions regarding the Knowledge Base or your dashboard, don’t hesitate to contact us.

- Marcel de Graaf, Developer

Plugging Wakoopa Into Web Browsers

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:01:58 -0500

At Wakoopa, we develop technology to follow the digital lives of our panelists and present that data to our customers in a powerful and beautiful way. Currently, the central functionality of our products is tracking browsing behavior by looking at the websites a panelist visits (of course, with explicit consent). Although we derive complex information such as visitor paths, the central nugget of data that we collect continuously is a website address and the amount of time a panelist spends on the associated site.

We feel it is extremely important to collect this data as transparently as possible, which means that the panelist should almost never need to interact with our software. The technology we have developed in order to achieve this extracts addresses from the location bars of most major browsers in use today: Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Safari. As long as a browser is running on the panelist’s computer, our software monitors the addresses and combines them with data such as the current time and whether the panelist is actively using the computer or passively viewing, e.g., a YouTube video.

Last year, however, we implemented advanced features that challenge the unobtrusive nature of our software. From the (market research) industry, the interest in measuring online advertising impact rose considerably. Tools to assist (or even initially enable) this research in a novel way would be a natural extension of our existing solutions. This was an opportunity that we had to act upon. Unfortunately, data about display ads can not be extracted from the browser location bar, so it was necessary to develop an entirely new set of software modules.

After painstaking research, browser extensions proved to be the way to push forward. Chrome, Firefox and Safari can all be extended by writing JavaScript code. The notable exception is Internet Explorer, which is still the most prevalent browser among our panelists (although its usage is steadily declining). Unlike the other browsers, its extension mechanism is rooted in archaic technology from the 1990s, which posed a whole set of challenges on its own. Nothing that could not be overcome by a good investment of time and stroopwafels, however.

With all browsers, there are two major issues when trying to use extensions: (1) how will we keep the extensions (specifically, the code that finds advertisements) up-to-date and (2) how do we minimize the interaction that is required of the panelist when installing the extensions. The former is a technical challenge that we have solved by building a framework for dynamically distributing new extension code to our panelists on the fly. The turnover time for this distribution is very low and is transparent, enabling us to continuously adapt to the changing landscape of online advertising.

Minimizing user interaction during the installation process requires more insight into panelist behavior. Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer, for example, require users to explicitly accept each new extension. Our tracker tries to maximize the conversion rate for this interaction by guiding the panelists using pop-up windows that explain why the extension is required and urging them to accept the installation. Chrome requires no such user interaction. Careful monitoring of conversion rates proves that these screens are effective in increasing the number of successful extension installations.

Today, our software can monitor website usage as well as detect online display ads. Our software is actively maintained and we dynamically adapt it to changes in browsers and the web. We believe that, with the development of browser extensions that strike a nice balance between functionality and user interaction, we have laid the foundations for many more advanced features and research tools to come in 2012 and beyond. Of course, the basic software requiring no interaction always remains an option for our customers that are interested mainly in gaining insight into website visitation paths.

- Marten Klencke, Desktop Engineer

State of the Web 2011

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 09:01:01 -0500

Vandaag publiceren wij de eerste editie van The State of the Web! Het rapport focust zich op trends in de digitale levens van consumenten in de Nederlandse markt. Hierbij komen onderwerpen aan bod zoals zoeken, nieuws, e-commerce, en sociale media.

Naast globale trends rapporteren wij ook kleine, opmerkelijke feitjes. De data hebben wij verzameld met behulp van onze unieke onderzoekstechnologie en een panel van ongeveer 10.000 Nederlandse consumenten die wij in 2011 hebben gevolgd.

- Download het rapport hier -

Wil je ook ons volgende rapport ontvangen? Vul je e-mail adres in:

Veel plezier met het bestuderen van de rapportage en laat ons vooral weten hoe het jou heeft geholpen.

- Simon van Duivenvoorde

Wij wensen je een schitterend 2012

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 10:08:12 -0500

Vanuit hartje Amsterdam wensen wij van Wakoopa jullie allen een zeer prettig nieuwjaar toe. Al onze vrienden, fans, klanten en relaties bedanken wij graag voor hun support, energie en business in 2011. We zijn trots dat wij - wederom - bijna verviervoudigd zijn dit afgelopen jaar. Momenteel inventariseren wij de digitale levens van meer dan 40.000 individuen in 20 landen. Onze technologie bruist en er staat nog veel meer op stapel voor 2012. Blijf ons daarom ook zeker volgen. Wij zullen zorgen dat het de moeite waard is!

- Piet Hein van Dam

Update van een fan

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 05:08:00 -0500

"Ik zie dat het goed gaat met Wakoopa!" Telkens als iemand me dit vertelt krijg ik kippenvel. Hoewel ik geloof dat we nog maar net begonnen zijn, kan ik ook ontzettend trots zijn op waar we naar toe gaan. Alle lijnen gaan naar boven en naar rechts. Goed!

Met dat in het achterhoofd heb ik besloten om Wakoopa te verlaten vanaf januari 2012. Ik ben jong en zit vol met nieuwe ideeën waar ik me op wil richten. Met onze huidige exponentiële groei en geweldige leiderschap kan ik dat doen. Als ondernemer ben ik erg enthousiast. Als lid van het Wakoopa team vind ik het enorm jammer om niet meer met zulke fantastische mensen te werken. Mijn mede-oprichter en CTO Wouter en onze CEO Piet Hein zullen de leiding van onze visie van het transparant maken van digitale levens doorzetten. Ik zal advies blijven geven en op reguliere basis helpen. Ik zal ook Wakoopa’s nummer 1 fan blijven.

Bedankt aan al mijn super collega’s, klanten en partners. Jullie zijn geweldig!

Mocht je vragen hebben, neem contact op.

- Robert Gaal

Entry & Exit Analyse

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 10:12:59 -0500

De laatste maanden hebben wij gewerkt aan een nieuwe functionaliteit voor ons dashboard; de entry & exit analyse.

De entry & exit analyse zet uiteen waar het verkeer vandaan komt, en naartoe gaat wanneer een site is bezocht. Deze informatie leveren wij niet alleen over jouw site, maar over alle sites. Dit maakt het mogelijk om jouw statistieken te benchmarken tegen de concurrentie en andere industrieën. Wij verwachten dat deze statistieken enorm kunnen helpen bij het optimaliseren van de marketing.

Wat wordt er gemeten?
De metric is gebaseerd op het totaal aantal pageviews. Naast sites zijn er drie andere categorieën van traffic-bronnen die zijn opgenomen in de uiteenzetting:

- Internal is traffic binnen het eigen domein,
- Direct, opgenomen onder entry, zijn de pageviews die worden gegenereerd door het typen van de URL in een nieuwe tab of browser (dus zonder voorgaande site),
- Unknown, opgenomen onder exit, is het percentage van browsers of tabs dat wordt gesloten nadat een site is bezocht.

Hier een voorbeeld:

De entry & exit analyse is opgenomen in elke site-analyse en toont hier de top 10 bronnen direct. Een export van de data levert de statistieken op van de top 50 domeinen.

De lijst kan zeer interessant en uniek zijn. Deze bevat niet enkel verwijzende sites, maar ook met direct ingevoerde URL’s en consumenten die van tab switchen. Op deze manier meten wij het daadwerkelijk gedrag op verschillende domeinen en kunnen wij inzicht geven in de diverse paden van de bezoeker.

Samenvattend; de entry & exit analyse is een fantastische manier om zicht te krijgen op hoe consumenten zich online bewegen.

- Simon van Duivenvoorde

Kenmerken vergelijken, advertenties exporteren en een nieuwe kennisdatabase

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 08:13:00 -0500

Slechts twee maanden nadat wij ons vernieuwde dashboard lanceerden, kondigen wij nu met trots drie nieuwe features aan. Deze features geven meer inzicht in het gedrag en maken het dashboard makkelijker te gebruiken.

Kenmerken vergelijken
Om meer inzicht te geven in de samenstelling van ons panel is het vanaf nu mogelijk om een kruisvergelijking te maken van hun kenmerken (Properties). Zo kan het bijvoorbeeld handig zijn om te weten wat de verdeling is van het geslacht over de verschillende leeftijdsgroepen. Dit wordt hier weergegeven:

Deze feature is te vinden onder Panel -> Properties. Selecteer hier het gewenste kenmerk, gebruik de Compare-knop rechtsboven, en kies het tweede kenmerk die jij wilt gebruiken in de vergelijking. De analyse kan nu worden uitgevoerd of er kan nog worden gekozen voor een specifieke tijdsspanne.

Advertenties exporteren
In ons dashboard zit een ongelofelijke hoeveelheid data, die je wellicht ook wilt gebruiken in je eigen datamining tool. Daarom kan je ook altijd de dashboarddata te exporteren als een CSV-bestand. Dit was al mogelijk voor webpagina’s en zoektermen. Vanaf nu worden hier ook advertenties aan toegevoegd. Ook bij deze export is het mogelijk te filteren op kanalen, participanten of datum.

Kennisdatabase
Wil je meer weten over ons dashboard? Neem dan een kijkje in onze nieuwe kennisdatabase. Hier kan je bijvoorbeeld nalezen hoe de metrics worden berekend, en de nieuwe features en bug fixes die we hebben gelanceerd. Staat het antwoord op jouw vraag hier niet bij? Laat dit ons weten en wij voegen het direct toe.

De kennisdatabase zal blijven groeien door het continu toevoegen van nieuwe informatie, inzichten en inspiratie. Wij zullen ook video’s gaan toevoegen die zullen helpen bij het begrijpen van de functionaliteit en de mogelijkheden van het dashboard.

Nederlandse nieuwssites vergeleken: Nu.nl grootst, Telegraaf bezoeker meest betrokken

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 09:21:00 -0400

Nu.nl is qua bereik de grootste nieuwssite van Nederland, gevolgd door respectievelijk De Telegraaf, Het AD, NOS en De Volkskrant. De Telegraaf heeft echter de meest betrokken bezoekers van deze top 5. Dit blijkt uit onderzoek van Wakoopa, gemeten in de maand augustus onder een panel van 10.000 representatieve Nederlanders.

Betrokkenheid
Een gemiddelde bezoeker van telegraaf.nl brengt gemiddeld ongeveer vier minuten op de site door. Dit in tegenstelling tot nu.nl, nos.nl, en ad.nl, waar het gemiddeld bezoek rond de tweeënhalve minuut ligt. Het AD springt daar relatief bovenuit met een gemiddeld bezoek van 3 minuten en 33 seconden. Ook bezoeken Telegraaf-lezers meer pagina’s per bezoek: gemiddeld 6, in tegenstelling tot de 3 tot 5 pagina’s bij de overige nieuwssites.

Uitschieters
Buiten de periode in dit onderzoek waren ook uitschieters te zien. Zo scoorde de NOS goed in juli dankzij de Tour de France. Hierdoor schoot de gemiddelde tijd die werd doorgebracht op de site omhoog tot boven die van De Telegraaf: 4 minuten en 7 seconden. In augustus daalde dit echter weer naar 2 minuten en 44 seconden gemiddeld. Hetzelfde was te zien bij het AD dankzij een Eredivisie-actie waarmee lezers een Beertender konden winnen. Dit betekende een toename in bezoek, maar niet in de betrokkenheid. Het aantal bezochte pagina’s en de duur van een gemiddeld bezoek bleef nagenoeg gelijk.

Wakoopa
Deze meting is uitgevoerd door Wakoopa (http://wakoopa.nl) onder een panel van 10.000 representatieve Nederlanders, opgezet in samenwerking met Panelclix. Leden van dit panel installeren een programmaatje op hun computer dat anoniem en met toestemming hun online activiteit meet. Wakoopa levert deze diensten ook aan onderzoekinstanties zoals TNS NIPO en Synovate. In 2010 kreeg Wakoopa de Innovation Award uit handen van de MOA, de Nederlandse branchevereniging voor marktonderzoek.