Thanks to Mashable and all their amazing reporting on all things social media, I found out that this is International Technology Upgrade Week.They posted an article on research conducted by Skype, Norton by Symantec and TomTom.
The survey commissioned by Skype indicates that nearly 40% of consumers in America, Britain and Germany don't update their software when first prompted. According to the press release, "...approximately one quarter of those surveyed said they don’t clearly
understand what software updates do and an equal percentage of consumers
don’t understand the benefits of updating regularly."
Check out the infographic below featuring all of the results from the Skype survey.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Monday, July 9, 2012
PUMA Uses Google Analytics to Kick Up Orders
Web analytics, as we know it, is part of every digital
marketer’s arsenal of tools. If it’s not, then s/he is not a real digital
marketer. Companies are investing more resources – both human and technological
– to get actionable information from web data.
According
to eConsultancy, roughly 48 percent of companies who responded to the Online
Measurement and Strategy Report 2010 are planning to increase the number of
employees they have dedicated to web data analysis ("Companies spending
more," 2010).
What’s even more assuring is that “87% of companies surveyed are using Google
Analytics for online measurement. Of these firms, 38% are now
using this tool exclusively, while 49% are using it alongside along with
another measurement tool” ("Companies spending more," 2010).
That said, I thought it would prove useful to review how a
big name brand leverages Google Analytics (GA) for its insight. Thankfully,
Google provides a repository of case studies on some of the biggest name brands
on the market.
PUMA Integrates Google Analytics, Increases Order Rate by 7 Percent
According to the Puma
case study provided by Google, the brand’s goals were simply (Puma kicks
up, 2011):
- Gain insights into content and product popularity to drive strategy
- Understand which content is engaging customers and contributing to sales within each region
- Improve conversion and customer experience online by optimizing the web site
Puma’s primary challenge was to keep up with an evolving
market just as fast as its products are evolving across various product
categories. Its global reach also presented a challenge since engagement varies
depending on the geographic region. In other words, they want to keep a unified
and distinct web presence no matter what part of the world visitors are viewing
the website from, or what product categories visitors are interested in (i.e.,
PUMA Running, Golf, Football).
PUMA Overcomes Challenges With Google Analytics, Viget
It doesn’t take long for brands as big as PUMA to make a
change and see results. With the help of Viget, an agency that develops digital
products, they created the right formula for success.
Through Custom Variables in GA, which segmented visitors
based on test variations, PUMA compared “how each test variation affected
visitor ability to complete a variety of goals and the micro-conversions along
the way”.
But the web analysis didn’t stop there. The brand used
profiles and filters to create a 360-degree picture of PUMA.com as well as
separate, targeted views of each category site. To gather further insight into
the behaviors visitors were having with the site, PUMA developed Event Tracking
to measure interactions with dynamic page elements (i.e., social sharing
widgets, search boxes, multimedia) and Advanced Segments to track how visitors
from various regions interact with the PUMA site.
Making Something Out of Web Metrics
The data digital marketers gather is only useful when put into
use. Through testing various website elements, a variation was found that “increased
online orders by 7.1 percent”, according to the case study. When coupled with
other insights from GA that led to changes to the website, the results have led
to more than twice the amount of time visitors spend interacting with PUMA
brand content (news, videos, images, etc.). PUMA has also experienced “47% more
traffic from growing regions such as China and India.”
What About Social Media Metrics?
Every marketer faces a challenging question on a daily
basis: What else can I do? In truth, there’s always something. Without knowing
the full details of what other tools and metrics Viget provided PUMA with, I
recommend applying a variety of social media monitoring tools that can be
coupled with its current website analytics monitoring efforts.
I will be the first to say that I love it when Google comes
up with new tools to track even more aspects of the behavior between a website
and its audience. The following is a slew of features Google has given us,
known as Social
Interaction Analytics, which can be found on GA.
- Tracking Social Actions: Through the use of simple code, every social action (likes, tweets, shares, pins, +1, etc.) can be tracked in order to measure and compare what social actions PUMA’s audience prefers, as well as which pages receives the most social actions.
- Monetizing Social Actions: Of course, every brand wants to see the “ROI of social media”. GA provides conversion reports that enable social media marketing accountability. In other words, the report shows conversion rates and monetary value of conversions that occurred due to visits from social networks.
- Knowing Which Social Networks Provides High-Quality Traffic: Inclusive of the aforementioned are other components of tracking social with GA. is the ability to see the number of social platforms refer the highest quality traffic to the brand’s website. GA has broken down social into its own referral traffic source, thereby giving digital marketers the ability to: see which networks send traffic; visualize visitor flow from social networks through the site; and identify which content is popular
- How Social Media Affects Conversions: The power of social media lies in its ability to influence a conversion. Google’s Assisted Conversions and Assisted Conversion Value track sales and conversions where the social network assisted. In other words, you can see when someone visits your site, leaves without converting, and then returns later to convert.
But What is Social Media Saying About Us?
While every effort to measure online activities – both within
a website and around its brand in social media – is important, we can’t forget
about how the general public views the brand.
Social Media monitoring is an important part of every
digital marketer. If a brand’s general influence is low or negative, then no
amount of advertising will help gain business. Platforms like Radian6 or Sysomos
measure a brand’s online health and position against its competitors.
These listening tools measure how people engage with one
another when mentioning your brand, your competitors and/or your industry. With
this information, brands can paint a clear picture of what their audience looks
like, what they’re saying about you and more importantly, how you can tailor
your integrated marketing efforts.
References:
Companies spending more on web analytics: survey.
(2010, June 09). Retrieved from http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/6045-companies-spending-more-on-web-analytics-survey
(2011). Puma kicks up order rate 7% with insights from
google analytics and viget. Google Analytics. DOI: PUMA Kicks Up Order Rate
7% with Insights from Google Analytics and Viget
Using google analytics social reports to measure your
website content and engagement in google [Web log message]. (2012, April 23).
Retrieved from
http://analytics.blogspot.com/2012/04/using-google-analytics-social-reports.html
Monday, July 2, 2012
Goals, Funnels and Filters: Interpreting Key Measurement Tools
As digital marketers, one of our pain-staking jobs is to report, measure, analyze and provide insight on the successes of websites. And
one of our biggest tools of the trade, Google Analytics (GA), provides the
various components to measuring that success.
This week, I explored the various ways of segmenting traffic
and how their behavior is affected by the various tactics being implemented.
Some key tools are Goals, Funnels and Filters.
In case you didn’t know, here are brief descriptions of the
various components of GA I will be discussing:
- Goals: Web site page that helps generate conversions for your site (a ‘thank you page’, purchase confirmation page, an ‘about us’ page, etc.) (Wells, 2012)
- Funnel: This represents the path you expect visitors to take on their way to converting to the goal (Wells, 2012).
- Filters: These are applied to the information coming into your GA platform. This allows users to manipulate data so you can breakdown and segment your audience based on a variety of parameters (traffic from domains; traffic from IP addresses; etc.).
Now that we’ve
discussed the components, let’s get down to business. Since the blog is meant
to function as a channel to disseminate content, goals were developed to
account for traffic visiting any blog post for a given timeframe. As you can
see from the screenshot below, the blog has had 76 pageviews with visitors
spending well over four minutes during each visit, leading to a zero percent
bounce rate. This, of course, is due to the small number of visitors the page
has reached (17 visits).
For the blog, the following goals were set:
- Visit Duration: two goals were set measuring time on site – one minute and three minutes
- Pages/Visit: a goal was set to measure a goal met when a visit accounts for viewing more than 2 pages
Since the blog’s purpose is not to generate sales
(eCommerce), a value was not given to these goals. This doesn’t mean that a
blog has to sell products/services to have a value.
Measuring ROI can benefit some bloggers greatly in how they sell their blog to media, PR professionals, etc. Case in point, a popular blogger wants to sell content space on his blog and must show that there is value in his content, which generates traffic, to get advertisers to buy media space.
Measuring ROI can benefit some bloggers greatly in how they sell their blog to media, PR professionals, etc. Case in point, a popular blogger wants to sell content space on his blog and must show that there is value in his content, which generates traffic, to get advertisers to buy media space.
Evaluating Goal Conversions
Based on the data
accounting for the last 30 days, the blog only converted two goals a total of
four times. This largely correlates to the goal’s standards being set too high
for a blog with little traffic and fewer than 10 blog posts. It is unlikely for
the average consumer of digital media to spend more than three minutes on a
site, given the average length of the blog posts. Further, since the blog has
fewer than 10 blog posts, it is unlikely for the average visitor to view more
than two pages.
As you can see from the Goal Flow, visits came to the blog
and of the total visits, only 5 managed to stay on the blog for longer than
three minutes (both returning and unique visitors). Of this 5, they managed to
view two pages: the index page (homepage of the blog) and a blog
post about referral sources.
The benefit of measuring goals is to set actions you want
people to take and identify areas of improvement. “Every time your user takes
one of these actions, it’s a conversion. A visitor becomes a subscriber, a
subscriber becomes a customer (sometimes, a visitor becomes a customer), and so
on ("Tracking your blog," 2012). And various goals can be created,
from newsletter sign-ups and downloads, to blog comments or RSS Feed followers.
With that said, I added another goal to track completions
after one minute. This should increase the quantity of goals being converted
without giving up quality. This will also give me a better picture of how
people are interacting with the blog, and if traffic is coming from other
sources where I share my content on (i.e., social media sites).
Tracking Conversions through the Funnel
That’s right; there is a funnel in GA. As mentioned earlier,
the funnel breaks down the path visitors took to convert a goal. Since the
goals were set rather high, the funnel has little depth. Less than 12 percent
of visits converted goals. With the creation of the new goal mentioned above,
an improvement in goals will likely occur.
Another key takeaway of goals is to track events occurring on
a site. Events represent important actions on a website – in this case, my
blog. Events are directly tied to elements on the blog and not reaching a
certain page. So on my blog, I would be tracking sign-ups to RSS Feeds and/or
downloads of any documents posted on the blog.
To date, my priority has only been to track various pages
being viewed and from where those interactions are coming from. As traffic and
overall audience size grows, I will add specific events to track key interactions
that will further align my efforts.
References:
Tracking your blog goals with google analytics. (2012). Retrieved from
http://unstuckdigital.com/tracking-goals-with-google-analytics/
Wells, M. (2012, May 21). Lesson 6: Successful approaches
in google analytics . Retrieved from
https://ecampus.wvu.edu/webct/urw/tp0.lc5116001/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct
Labels:
Bounce Rate,
events,
filters,
funnel,
goals,
Google Analytics,
page visits
Location:
Miami, FL, USA
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