B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®

B2B Marketing views, news and interviews.

Session: Web Analytics & Measuring Success

Analytics is a big part of a website’s success, However, even though analytics software is getting better and cheaper, website owners still don’t really know what to do with it.

Matt Bailey with Site Logic is an excellent speaker on this topic. He talks about how analytics is more than just hits, it’s about segmenting and tracking and learning how your visitors are using the site. Tracking things like page views, top 10 entry pages, keywords and hits are just scraping the surface. There is so much more that should be happening. What are the KPIs? Analytics numbers are just numbers with no action and figuring out what they mean is the key to success.


Session: Web Analytics & Measuring Success

Morning Sessions: Analytics

My morning track has been all about analytics this morning. The first was Web Analytics & Measuring. With two presenters, they both had a good amount of time to cover their topics. The second was Vendor Chat on Measuring Success where there were six presenters talking about analytics in very short 10 minute presentations. Some takeaways included:

  • Track organic, paid and referral traffic separately to see who is increasing or decreasing.
  • Keep an eye on exit rates and how they compare to entrance keywords.
  • Track new vs return traffic rates.
  • Setup goals to track what you want to measure.
  • Latency is a big thing as someone may look today, but not buy for a few weeks or months if the purchase is large.

Morning Sessions: Analytics

Session – Drive Traffic with Google

This was more of a speed intro to some of Google’s newer services. Topics included Google Analytics, Google Gadgets, Webmaster Tools and Personalized Search. Each presenter gave a quick 10 minute overview of their topic and it was hardly enough to really get to know much about each service. The real value of this session was in the question answer portion. I learned that Google’s personalized search is going to offer analytics in the upcoming weeks so that you can see what people are looking for in your custom search. Customized Google Analytics reports are also being discussed, however it’s hard to say when that may become a reality.


Session – Drive Traffic with Google

ClickTracks at Pubcon

One vendor you’re sure to see at virtually every SES and Pubcon conference is web analytics company, ClickTracks. I had the pleasure of speaking at a few DMA conferences at the same time as ClickTracks founder John Marshall and found him to be one of the most enthusiastic evangelists for web analytics in the industry. On top of that he’s really a very good guy.

John and his VP of Marketing, Michael Stebbins took out a few ClickTracks’ freinds for dinner on Tuesday night and it proved to be some of the best conversation. I cannot emphasize enough, the importance of networking after the daytime sessions are over.


ClickTracks at Pubcon

ad:tech Chicago – Waiting for Your Cat to Bark

The last installment of Online Marketing Blog coverage of the Chicago ad:tech 2006 conference gathered together a good number of Eisenberg fans as well as those interested in learning more about conversions.

This session, “Waiting for Your Cat to Bark – Persuasion Architecture – Persuading Customers When they Ignore Marketing” with Bryan Eisenberg of Future Now is titled after the book of the same name. Basically this session was about marketers getting poor results because they are using old Pavolovian rules of marketing and that consumers buy differently than in the past. Customers are less like compliant dogs and more like finicky cats. Hence the title.

Marketers are concerned customers ignore marketing. Mass market media are under performing. Marketing execs are burning out. Not getting results. They’re using outdated formulas. Current marketing models are simply not working.


ad:tech Chicago – Waiting for Your Cat to Bark

Web Analytics Demystified – Interview with Eric T. Peterson

Spotlight on Search – Interview with Eric T. Peterson

When you think of authorities on web analytics, one person that should be on your list is Eric T. Peterson. Eric is currently Vice President with the Visual Sciences division of web analytics firm, WebSideStory, is the author of several books on web measurement and moderates several popular discussion lists on analytics. He also manages an excellent site on web analytics called Web Analytics Demystified. He previously worked as an analyst with JupiterResearch and has been cited in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, Business 2.0 and others as an expert on the topic.
Eric will be speaking at a MIMA event tomorrow evening here in Minneapolis so I thought I would check in with him and do a little interview.


Web Analytics Demystified – Interview with Eric T. Peterson

MIMA Web Analytics Seminar

Members of the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association and the local interactive community in the Twin Cities will be getting the lowdown on web analytics next week. Eric T. Peterson from the Visual Sciences division of web analytics firm, WebSideStory and author of several books on web measurement will be presenting, “Making Your Web Analytics Work. Hard”.

From the press release:

‚ÄúFew organizations fully realize the potential of their investment in web analytics technology,‚Äù said Peterson. ‚ÄúWeb analytics applications provide truly actionable data that can be used to positively impact an organization‚Äôs bottom-line but companies need to treat web analytics as a business process, not simply an ad hoc endeavor. My work at Visual Sciences, and my MIMA presentation, revolves around how companies can treat web analytics as a business process and dramatically improve the return on investment.”


MIMA Web Analytics Seminar

ClickTracks Appetizer – Free Stats

ClickTracks Appetizer

ClickTracks has jumped on board with free stats. ClickTracks Appetizer gives you several of the popular ClickTracks features. Just enough to make you want to buy more, or so they think.

Included is all the general stats information like top keywords and referrers plus a few popular features.

Visitor Labeling – Through a simple mechanism known as visitor labeling, you can color-code visitors from a PPC campaign; visitors who found each page through a certain keyword; visitors who spent a very long or very short time on a page; and much more.

Visual Interface – See where visitors go, how long they stay and from which page they exit. This is superimposed over your site so you can see exactly where people are going.


ClickTracks Appetizer – Free Stats

Lowdown on Performancing Metrics

Performancing Metrics

Last week, Nick Wilson of Performancing mentioned their new blog metrics service has been in Alpha testing and will be released to public beta soon, as in tomorrow possibly.

I believe there’s a huge opportunity in the blog metrics and analytics space. Many blogs use free programs with limited functionality and some have been able to get into Google Analytics. However, the measurable outcomes for a content publisher, particularly a blog, are different than for an ecommerce site. Therefore Google Analytics and many other stats programs are not the best fit for blog metrics.

What options for blog focused analytics are out there?


Lowdown on Performancing Metrics

Web Marketing Metrics

Measuring success of your online marketing efforts is a critical, but often underutilized in many web marketing initiatives. Recently I took a survey for Jupiter Research and one of the questions got me thinking about the different metrics that companies use:

  • Brand impact (i.e., increased brand awareness, intent or favorability)
  • Number of impressions
  • Position of paid listing
  • Number of clicks
  • Ratio of new to returning visitors
  • Amount of increased website traffic
  • Duration of website visits
  • Amount of increased traffic to physical store
  • Amount of increased volume to call center
  • Number of leads generated for products sold online
  • Number of leads generated for products sold offline
  • Number of immediate sales generated for products sold online

Web Marketing Metrics

Google Measures Up Your Blog Stats

Google has announced the acquisition of blog analytics provider, Measure Map. I signed up for a beta at Measure Map a while ago but nada. So instead, I hooked up with Blogbeat. Which is pretty flippin slick if you ask me. I’d love to review Measure Map and now that Google has acquired them, I’m sure Measure Map will be made freely available to the huge number of blogs out there.

Here’s an idea: Measure Map is Google’s way of relieving pressure off of Google Analytics. Imagine the massive server load from all those bloggers signing up for Google Analytics. It wasn’t too long and then GA shut down. Suprising when you think of the resources Google has.


Google Measures Up Your Blog Stats

Online Marketing Resources

I know many companies that want to engage in search or online marketing for the first time and also those that want to step it up a notch are always on the lookout for better resources. You can spend a lot of time lurking in forums, reading blogs and information sites, reading books, attending conferences and networking and still not be sure of what to do next or what’s right for you. There are a few resources that I’ve found to be consistently effective and high quality that I’ll mention here. This is by no means a comprehensive list – it really represents the resources I find myself using often and/or recently:

Books

  • Winning Results with Google AdWords – Andrew Goodman
  • The Virtual Handshake – David Teten & Scott Allen

Online Marketing Resources