Random Analytics

Web Analytics: The Results of Tabbed Browsing

From Jason Burby at ClickZ

Web browsing behaviors are constantly changing. As a result, analysis of those behaviors must evolve to match those changes. A recent change that has become more prevalent over the past few months is tabbed browsing. The Firefox browser made tabbed browsing much more common, and now Microsoft has added it to Internet Explorer.

Web Analytics Steering Committee: It's All About Governance

From Shane Atchison at ClickZ

In my last column, we saw how a fictional CMO finally aligned his team to improve accountability and get more value from his Web analytics data. As part of that effort, he established a 12-month series of mandates. Mandate one requires the creation of a site analysis steering committee, led by the marketing organization and including members from across the organization.

Sounds easy enough, but how can you ensure such a committee will be successful? I've often noticed that even when organizations establish a site analysis steering committee, it often lacks the people, resources, and influence to make a difference.

Analyzing Unstructured Data

From Neil Mason at ClickZ

In this series, I've been looking at various techniques and methods to get value from visitor and customer data beyond what you might get from a typical Web analytics tool. Techniques we've looked at include...

Customer Feedback, or What I Learned on My Summer Vacation

From Heidi Cohen at ClickZ

As a marketer, you never really go on vacation as everything you do is seen through a marketing lens. Recently, I researched and booked my vacation online. Before confirming reservations, I checked customer reviews. One hotel reservation was based on a stellar guidebook review, but I subsequently discovered the hotel's low ranking on TripAdvisor. Based on these complaints, I canceled the reservation. Later, however, I received an e-mail soliciting feedback.

Web Analytics: Focusing on the Things That Matter

From Jason Burby at ClickZ

As Web analytics tools become more advanced and more companies adopt new data sources, it's easy to get buried in the data and lose focus on what really matters. Over the past six to 12 months, I've noticed many companies are spending the majority of their time creating key performance indicator (KPI) reports, leaving no time to analyze the meaning behind the KPIs. Without thorough KPI analysis, you may be moving in the wrong direction without even realizing it.

Reality Marketing Series, Part 3: Prescription for Better Analytics

From Shane Atchison at ClickZ

In part one and part two of this series, I introduced an e-mail dialogue between several key players within a typical marketing organization. The CMO has challenged the management team to improve accountability and get more value from the wealth of available analytics data. What follows is a string discussing the recap of the team offsite, where previous frustrations shifted toward solutions.

Forecasting Techniques, Part 2: Qualitative Methods

From Neil Mason at ClickZ

Last time, we started to look at forecasting and investigated a set of methods called time-series techniques. Using these techniques, you forecast purely based on the patterns in the historical data of what you're trying to forecast. For example, you forecast the number of visits to the site next week based on the volume of traffic over the past few weeks. These techniques don't take any external factors into account; they rely mainly on identifying underlying trends and seasonality.

The Power of the About Us Page

From Bryan Eisenberg at ClickZ

Does your site have an "About Us" page? Do you have one simply because everyone else does? What's the real value of such a page? Do you know how to maximize its value?

Web Analytics: Getting Marketers to Act

From Jason Burby at ClickZ

Why is it so hard to get marketers to test things and act on analytics data?

Fuel Your Results Revolution with Excel

Dr. Chris Grant conducted a workshop at the Chicago AdTech conference last week. The topic was 8 Ways to Fuel Your Org’s Results Revolution with Microsoft Excel.

Web analytics pros often manipulate the results they get from stats packages, and their main tool is usually Microsoft Excel. They use it to make sense of path analyses, rapidly compare lists of stats from different reports, produce compelling data visualizations, find insights and exceptions and other tricks. In this workshop, Chris Grant from Enlighten demonstrates eight versatile Web analytics reports that supercharge ordinary reporting output, using Excel skills you may already know but haven’t used quite this way.

Dr. Grant, and Enlighten, posted the workshop slides so those of us unable to attend AdTech may still fuel our revolutions. Chris is well-known (and well-respected) within the WebTrends community, which is where I was first exposed to her breadth of knowledge and generous support. I hope you find her slides as interesting as I did.

Enlighten is "an interactive marketing, web development, data analytics, and strategic consulting firm building innovative online experiences for major brands."

The AdTech speaker notes mention that "Dr. Chris Grant's background is in market analysis, human factors, customer satisfaction research and product development research, including a long stint in the product design research department of a high-end office furniture company. She is drawn to measuring the unmeasurable. Her oddest assignment ever was calculating the total number of words printed in North America in one year. Her most difficult assignment was quantifying the productivity of white-collar workers. Her most notorious project involved a new way to predict chair comfort, in which she invented the famous Butt Simulator Instrumentation Technology (B-SIT)(p. pending). She has a Ph.D. from The University of Michigan in Urban, Technological, and Environmental Planning and an undergraduate degree in operant psychology."

Chris Grant was also a speaker at the recent Internet User Experience conference, where the speaker notes mention "An expert at extracting decision-support knowledge from website visitor data, Chris Grant brings a breadth and depth of experience in data analysis to Enlighten. Her outstanding communication and teaching skills bridge the disciplines of marketing and engineering. As senior data analyst at Fry Multimedia, Chris planned and implemented comprehensive, innovative reporting solutions for clients including Newport News, Personal Creations, Barrie Pace, Brookstone, and Spiegel. She also worked with project teams to develop recommendations and strategy for improving online businesses, marketing communications, and CRM initiatives.

As senior data strategist at Enlighten, Chris oversees the collection and analysis of diverse and complex data streams in order to provide unique, market-leading recommendations for all e-Business and e-Marketing initiatives. Chris is a member of the WebTrends Customer Advisory Board, and she has expertise in a wide variety of click stream analysis tools, including WebTrends, Accrue, HitBox, Coremetrics, and Omniture. Chris holds a Ph.D. in urban, technological, and environmental planning from the University of Michigan."