18 most popular Web Analytics blog posts of 2007

Summary:
The 3 most popular blog posts from the 6 most influential Web Analytics bloggers around – All in all the 18 most popular Web Analytics post of 2007!

I am jam-packed on Muffins, Marzipan and Scandinavian Glogg. Nonetheless, I managed to stumble into the living room - in my new Santa underwear - Barely able to turn on my Laptop, I decided to do my general 2007 Web Analytics status using Avinash’s Top Ten Web Analytics Blogs: July 2007 as a foundation (Since most of them happen to be friends of mine anyway) and ask them to provide me with their 3 most popular posts of the year. Find the result below; which is simply a minimum MUST READ list – if you are working in the Web Analytics industry.


Occam’s Razor
by Avinash Kaushik

1. I Got No Ecommerce. How Do I Measure Success?
2. Rethink Web Analytics: Introducing Web Analytics 2.0
3. Excellent Analytics Tip #10: How Thick is Your Head and How Long is Your Tail?

Web Analytics Demystified
by Eric T. Peterson

1. Damn you Steve Jobs, damn you, damn you, damn you
2. EXCLUSIVE Microsoft Gatineau presentation and screen shots
3. Is Google Analytics the Killer App? No.

Visual Revenue
by Dennis R. Mortensen

1. What and how to measure Social Networking websites
2. The Long Tail ... and how to calculate missing Revenue
3. Tracking RSS subscribers via the IMG tag - a quick Web Analytics HACK

Web Analytics World
by Manoj Jasra

1. Ultimate Web Analytics Comparison Resources
2. 21 Reasons Why You Do NOT Need Web Analytics
3. Web Analytics Implementation: Items Overlooked

Increasing Your Website’s Conversion Rate
by Robbin Steif

1. Criticize Google Analytics. Win Prizes
2. How to Set Up the new GA Site Search
3. Answers to your Top 10 Google Analytics Questions

Web Metrics Guru
by Marshall Sponder

1. Cloverfield Trailer - JJ Abrams Buzz - Cloverfield Movie, updated (talks about tracking Viral Marketing using Web Analytics)
2. 1 18 08 Online and Google Analytics traffic stats on Cloverfield Movie Trailer
3. Locational Buzz using Google HotTrends - Donda West's passing
   
   

My intensions was actually to include the following blogs and their most popular posts into the list as well:


Extras:

GrokDotCom
By Bryan Eisenberg and co.

1. Web Marketing and Analytics: Process, Talent & Tools
2. Measuring Visitor Engagement: Tools + Tips
3. Web Analytics is Like Eating an Artichoke…
   (Update: added top 3 on 31st December)

WebAnalytics.be Blog
by Aurelie Pols and co.

1. Interactive Agencies and Web Analytics
2. Google Analytics, Microsoft Gatineau & OX2’s Web Analytics Code of Ethics
3. Web Analytics Day Brussels: a European shock therapy in Web Analytics
   (Update: added top 3 on 31st December)

Analytics Talk
by Justin Cutroni

Lies, Damned Lies…
by Ian Thomas

1. Microsoft 'Gatineau' sneak peek
2. The rumors are true: Microsoft 'Gatineau' exists
3. It's here
   (Update: added top 3 on 6th January)

Advanced Web Metrics
by Brian Clifton

But I did not get a reply before posting this (it is Christmas). So Ian, Justin, Brian, Bryan and Aurelie – do send me your top 3 – and I will append it to the post.

Cheers.. and Happy New Year
Dennis :-)

The Online Business Measurement Quadrant

It is somewhat naive to believe that controlled on-site measurement is all that’s needed in this brave new world of User Generated Content (or if you want; Consumer Generated Media) – And I am happy to see that my good friend Avinash continuously preach that web analysis is not a thing you do in a silo.

I was trying to simplify this fact to a client not that long ago and ended up creating a structure that you might find useful. For the purpose of this post I named it the “Online Business Measurement Quadrant” .. .. which is kind of catchy.. heh? :-)


The Online Business Measurement Quadrant structure, try to shed some light on what we have to measure and in particular the very different environments we have to measure it in. The 4 quadrants represents:

• Controlled On site Content
• Controlled Off site Content
• Uncontrolled On site Content
• Uncontrolled Off site Content

Let me try to exemplify this by providing a set of content types.



Where I think it becomes obvious that even something as supposedly simple as collecting the activity becomes an obstacle. It is still fairly easy to collect good click stream data (Controlled On site Content), but I think you (as me) can see the difficulty in figuring out what to collect when somebody comments on your brand on some random blog (Uncontrolled Off site Content) - not even considering HOW we would want to analyze it and even more exciting HOW we would like to relate it to the data collected in other Online Business Measurement Quadrants.

Types of content

Controlled On site Content
Traditional marketing messages published on the corporate website, micro websites etc.

Controlled Off site Content
Traditional marketing messages published on third party website sites, widgets etc.

Uncontrolled On site Content
Brand commentary, Ratings and other User Generated Content published on the corporate website, micro websites etc.

Uncontrolled Off site Content
Brand commentary, Ratings and other User Generated Content created and published on third party websites.


JUST concluding that it is difficult moving beyond traditional web analytics measurement is hardly any help :-)
Let me provide you with a Random selection of vendors playing in each Online Business Measurement Quadrants and their typical measurement tool naming.



Find the list from the picture above expanded with links and markings (bold and a *) on some of the tools I use for this petite analytics blog.


Web Analytics - (Controlled On site Content)
(Measurement typically provided by your traditional enterprise Web Analytics Vendor)

- www.omniture.com
- www.webtrends.com
- www.indextools.com (*)
- ...

Audience Measurement - (Controlled Off site Content)
(Measurement provided by both large sample data vendors, but also channel specific vendors)

- www.nielsen-netratings.com
- www.comscore.com/
- www.feedburner.com (*)
- www.indextools.com (*)
- ...

Community Measurement - (Uncontrolled On site Content)
(Measurement typically provided by CMS, Blog or other community application)

- www.wordpress.org
- www.blogger.com (*)
- www.indextools.com (*)
- ...

Buzz Measurement - (Uncontrolled Off site Content)
(Measurement provided by a set of relatively new tools working specifically around Sentiment )

- www.umbrialistens.com

- www.buzzlogic.com
- www.buzzmetrics.com
- www.google.com/alerts (*)
- www.technorati.com (*)
- ...

N.B. I sent a request to http://www.scoutlabs.com/ for a private DEMO. Guys; if you are reading this, do send over that access as a Christmas Present :-)

As you can see, I added my traditional Web Analytics tool into the mix in other quadrants that the one we named “WEB” – and the reasoning is that enterprise analytics systems today CAN do a bit of data collection amongst other quadrants – just not as perfect as we would want to. A subjective and personal attitude on how much we can do would be visualized as follows:



This whole Online Business Measurement Quadrants chat is a work in progress – so please do email or comment so I can refine this to something even better :-)

Happy holidays to anybody actually reading this over Christmas..

Cheers
Dennis

What and how to measure Online Finance websites

In today’s competitive marketplace, the Finance and Banking industry is bound to establish a strong online presence and to conduct marketing activities that will enhance customer experience and support lead generation and cross-selling activities.

But as always - there MUST be a set of measurable KPI’s that are strongly aligned to ones business objectives, like any other organisation that operates with the web being a channel of theirs. Hereby concluding that KPI’s are meant to be acted on and not just reported on. Therefore I suggest optimizing towards the following two business objectives.


Online Finance business objectives:

• Customer Acquisition
• Reduce Interactions Cost
  

Success in customer acquisition can be calculated by considering the number of accounts applied for by new customers. In addition, existing registered customers may add new account types to their profiles – perhaps as the result of a specific campaign. The number of loan / credit card / account application forms downloaded (if this is the means of registration as opposed to a fully online application) will also indicate customer interest. Loan / credit card pre-approvals can also be a means to evaluate the success of a campaign or a site content update. Finally, interest in products and services can be gauged by the number of visitors searching for agent information or bank branch locations

For tactical decision-making, you need to break these strategic indicators down into manageable segments and analyze their performance by - for example - geography or property, in order to understand how well each is contributing to the overall result; or, assess them by traffic sources and marketing channels to see where you should direct your marketing budget.

But, let me outline a set of leading KPIs which will enable us to gauge the effectiveness of online initiatives and help us steer a Online Finance website in the right direction:


Online Finance Customer Acquisition KPI’s:

• Account sign-up
• Addition of new accounts
• Application downloads
• Pre-approvals
• Locate an agent

Online Finance Interaction Cost KPI’s:

• Average cost per interaction
• Self-service visits
• Response (Emails, Calls etc.)
• Web % of customer interactions

Making the above objectives the core of your Web Analytics strategy and paying attention to these KPIs will give you an advanced level of insight and trigger the most effective changes to your web property.

You can find a complete and in-depth PDF version of our inputs for Best Practices for Online Finance industry here:

DOWNLOAD GUIDE (4 page commercial version 617K PDF)

N.B.
This is the fourth post in a series on “What and how to..” measure a specific industry. You might find the previous posts interesting:

- What and how to measure Online Travel and Hospitality websites
- What and how to measure Social Networking websites
- What and how to measure Media and Content websites

ad:tech New York, IMC Stockholm and SES Chicago

Low priority post! It’s Christmas and I have been at world's end another 3 times – attending ad:tech New York, IMC Stockholm and SES Chicago - and in two days, I will be back in Budapest for Holidays (more or less + - 10 working days)... No rest for the wicked heh? ;-) But first, the Bulls play the Celtics tonight. (and that is not Red Bulls)

I moderated the Social Media Panel in Stockholm, but I also had the wonderful opportunity to sit in on the Web Analytics Panel.

Fulton Yancy, Visual Sciences
Dennis R. Mortensen, IndexTools
Sean Burton, Foviance

Vicky Brock, Highland Business Research

Steve Jackson, Satama

 

Happy holidays

Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Dennis