29

Jun

By Dennis R. Mortensen
29 comments
Yahoo Web Analytics in 30 minutes (VIDEO)

I recorded a 30+ minute DEMO (screencast) of YWA version 9.5 the other day – and am publishing the outcome below. The tone of the Video is less advert-like and much more educational; or this is at least something I tried to capture.

I believe the video is a great appetizer for how we approach web analytics from a feature point of view – and if you are not yet fully comfortable with YWA, I am most confident this video will shine some light on the product. Enjoy :-)

The above screencast is reduced in size, simply to fit this blog page, but you can click through to the original sized (990*938) screenscast, should you want the full experience. :-)

Yahoo Web Analytics in 30 minutes (VIDEO – HD)

ywa-in-half-an-hour

If you made it through the video, and were pleased, you might be happy to hear that we plan to do a number of 3 min. videos focused on insight – not features.

Cheers :-)
/ Dennis Mortensen (@dennismortensen)

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  • Jen

    Great video! I am surprised that I am in such a minority here, actually – I always perceived analytics as being a pretty balanced discipline gender-wise and expected blog readership to be same. Although I realize that is not the thrust of the video, I just wanted to mention I found that interesting!

    I look forward to the 3 minute videos – please get them out quickly so I can use them for my WAA Championship submission ;D

  • http://visualrevenue.com/blog Dennis R. Mortensen

    Thanks Jen,

    he he.. We’ll work on those snippets of video insights as fast as we can.
    Thank you for the thumbs up!

    cheers
    d. :-)

  • http://www.e-servus.com Eric Porter

    Hello,

    I have to admit that YWA is a great webanalytics tool and the movie explains the features in a good way. Nevertheless, I have a remark concerning the campaign tracking possibilities. Unfortunately the YWA intelligent campaign tracking feature attributes a sale to campaign visitor if that visitor visited the site via a search engine or other campaign source up to 1 year before the sale was actually made. In google and other webanalytics tools this is 1 month, so it is difficult to compare google results with YWA results. Is is not possible to have the same 1 month period or give the user the possibility to set this interval himself?

    Keep up the good work.

  • http://visualrevenue.com/blog Dennis R. Mortensen

    Hey Eric,

    As you’ve probably noticed by now, Yahoo! Web Analytics provides three distinct traffic attribution filters:

    - Direct
    - Intelligent
    - Original

    These are not unique filters by themselves but a way of attributing credit to a given completion. The following example is provided by my good friend Tami Dalley:

    Imagine a game of football… The quarterback throws the ball to the receiver in a perfect pass. The receiver runs like the wind all the way to the 5-yard line before running into the defense. Before he is tackled he gives the ball to another player who dodges the defense and takes it into the end zone to score a touchdown. The crowd goes wild! The quarterback’s mother thinks, “My son is a star! Without his excellent pass there would be no touchdown at all!” The receiver’s mother is there also and says to her friends, “Without that brilliant 80-yard run from my son there would have been no touchdown.” Then the girlfriend of the scorer says, “Wait a minute, it was my boyfriend who scored the touchdown—the full credit belongs to him!” So who does deserve the credit?

    And this is what traffic attribution is all about (which I am sure you are all aware about Eric), but for a lot of people it might not. So before I answer your question let me provide the fact about the three “models” in YWA:

    Although the available attribution models are simple, Yahoo! should indeed receive some praise for providing more than one model. Many tools available on the Internet use only one attribution model, the last-click model (Direct).

    The Direct attribution model attributes everything to the last click of the source in question. The Original attribution model attributes everything to the first original click of the source in question.

    The Intelligent model that Yahoo! provides and that you question Eric, essentially translates to the Original (first) paid for (campaign) click on your own.

    >>In google and other webanalytics tools this is 1 month, so it is difficult to compare google results with YWA results.

    It is indeed one year in YWA, BUT if you were to compare with Google you should probably use the Direct Attribution Model and not the intelligent (still one year though).

    >>Is is not possible to have the same 1 month period or give the user the possibility to set this interval himself?

    Unfortunately it is not. BUT this problem (attribution) is something we are working very hard on – making it more flexible.

    Thanks you for the thumbs up and have a great 4th of July holiday

    Cheers
    Dennis

  • http://www.finn.no Bente Lønnquist

    Hi Dennis,
    Great demonstration, and I really like the possibilities that you can get from the flexibility and functionality in YWA. I am a heavy user of Webtrends, and I am curious about other tools. I am particularly interested in features for segmentation, like age, gender and interests. How exactly does YWA gather that kind of data? Will the quality of that data be affected by the fact that I work for a Norwegian website, where more than 85% of the traffic comes from users located in Norway?

    Bente : )

  • http://visualrevenue.com/blog Dennis R. Mortensen

    Hej Bente,

    >>How exactly does YWA gather that kind of data? Will the quality of that data be affected by the fact that I work for a Norwegian website, where more than 85% of the traffic comes from users located in Norway?

    It is based off of yahoo sampled visitor data (not just search, which some think is the only source), and it is applied to your data set at a (customizable) confidence level. AND should we not have enough information on your (and I do agree that we have better data in the US than in Norway) data, we simply say so in the reporting. When and if this happens you can always expand the reporting period to get more data.

    Cheers
    d.

  • http://www.webstrategy360.com Kamal

    Hi Dennis,
    thank you for the really good walkthrough. I have a few questions though:

    1) You’ve got email addresses within the individual visitors report. Isn’t this considered as violation of privacy? What’s Yahoo’s take on sharing PII with analytics users?
    2) Are there plans to allow for the import of member/customer data into YWA so that the demographic information is more accurate? This would be more useful for sites that are based outside the US.
    3) Regarding the topic of attribution in the comments above, I realise that this is a hot topic within the WA community. However, don’t Omniture have something that solves this where they show all the campaigns that resulted in conversions (I believe they call them “Touchpoints”)?

    Cheers
    Kamal

  • http://visualrevenue.com/blog Dennis R. Mortensen

    Hey Kamal.

    1. DEMO Data :-)
    2. Not as of today.
    3. Yes. They do indeed have this and you are very likely to see something like this end up in tools like YWA

    Thank you very much for the input Kamal

    cheers
    d.

  • http://www.webstrategy360.com Kamal

    Hi Dennis,
    thank you for the answers on 2 and 3.

    Regarding 1, I wasn’t actually referring to those specific emails in the video :)

    I am just comparing against Google who don’t allow us analysts to view the IP addresses of visitors to our sites. But it looks like Yahoo allow this. Is there a need to note this within a privacy policy if a website is using YWA? I’m just wondering about the legal issues.

    There must’ve been a reason why Google aren’t doing it that way (unless it’s because they’re going to be scrutinised more due to their size in comparison to other search engines).

    Just wanted to know your thoughts about that. Let me know if this is a conversation I should be having with a more “corporate” person within Yahoo :)

    Cheers
    Kamal

  • Dave V

    Very interested in learning more about YWA — this site is very helpful. Quick question I can’t find an answer for: how does YWA handle cross-domain and sub-domain linkage? We’ve had a hellacious time trying to make GA work (requires awful javascripting for ALL cross-domain links), and I’m hoping that YWA would be an saner alternative. (If it is, it might be worth signing up for Yahoo account status just to get the Analytics….) All I find on the docs is that it requires some “easy javascript customizations”. But if it, like GA, requires that all links back and forth between all domains be handled via javascript coding, that may be “easy”, but it’s not practical. Any help much appreciated!

  • http://visualrevenue.com/blog Dennis R. Mortensen

    Hey Dave,

    >>how does YWA handle cross-domain and sub-domain linkage

    No need to set this on every link. You set the following on every page that holds an exit link to a second domain which you are tracking as part of your project.

    YWATracker.setDomains(“dennis.com”);

    Essentially making sure that you track this as a single session and don’t see exit links and the likes. AND dennis.com is whatever domain you need it to be.

    >>..that may be “easy”, but it’s not practical. Any help much appreciated!

    Whether the above is easy; is for you decide of course :-)

    Cheers
    dennis

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  • http://visualrevenue.com/blog Dennis R. Mortensen

    Hey Kamal.

    Sent you a positive email to answer your questions.

    Cheers
    d. :-)

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  • http://eystudios.com Darren Keel

    Great video Dennis,

    This is just what I needed to get to the next level.

    Thanks,

  • http://visualrevenue.com/blog Dennis R. Mortensen

    Hey Darren

    You are most welcome.

    cheers
    d. :-)

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  • Claes

    Hi Dennis,

    Thanks for the link to your YWA video. It gave great insight, and took away teh fear of contact with the tech stuff. :)

    Your old friend :)
    Claes

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  • http://www.brighthub.com Nick Taylor

    Great video, thanks for posting this! By the way – at 34:24 when you’re choosing the “organic” segment, you actually hit “Direct” by accident. That would explain the strange revenue results you came across. :)

  • http://visualrevenue.com/blog Dennis R. Mortensen

    Hey Nick,

    >>By the way – at 34:24 when you’re choosing the “organic” segment, you actually hit “Direct” by accident. That would explain the strange revenue results you came across.

    I would usually blame it on my Quentin Tarantino editors cut skill-set (the movie was too long and I had to leave some insights on the “cutting floor”, making the movie 30 min. all in all).

    BUT in the above case (having a second look at it) – it actually seems like everything is just OK. :-)
    I choose a Direct traffic attribution model and then the Organic Search subset. But the interface is not reflecting this very well, I agree.

    Cheers
    d.

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  • Martin

    hmmmmmmmm, good old 404 aggain?

    Not Found
    Apologies, but the page you requested could not be found. Perhaps searching will help.

  • http://visualrevenue.com/ Dennis R. Mortensen

    Hey Martin,

    Bugger. AND fixed! :-)

    d.