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Nad Balata 2:06 pm on Jun 15, 2011 Reply
Tags: audit   

Do not start a Web Analytics Audit without considering this…

Why do audits happen?

Web Analytics Audits often happen because of mistrust of, or confusion in, the report data. Often organizations invest considerable resources in their web analytics system, only to find out that there are problems with the numbers. Numbers may not make sense, or can be awkward to justify. Let’s review what should happen for an audit to be effective and handle all problems.

What happens in an audit?

On the technical side:

  • A review of tags are done
    • All pages are reviewed to ensure that each page contains a tag and that intermediary or third-party pages are tagged with their template.
    • Verification is done to ensure that the tags are correctly configured so that JavaScript errors or other situational problems do no cause problems with tracking.
  • Session tracking verification
    • We first determine that cross domain tracking is working and not breaking valid sessions.  Attribution tracking is reviewed and verified for all entry points.
    • We check the results across other web analytics tools which may be installed to ensure that the session data matches up.
    • Verification of first/third-party cookie tracking is then done to ensure that data is not being lost or incorrectly categorized.  We also check that tags are writing cookies properly both individually and on aggregate.
  • If multiple analytics tools are installed, we will verify the magnitude of metrics across multiple tools.  This includes systematic review of certain key dimensions across their associated metrics between the two tools.
  • Of the analytics tool, we review the following details
    • Verify table limits – is data being cut off or discarded?
    • Verify Query parameters – are we rebuilding the correct parameters to best describe our dimensional data?
    • Custom reporting configurations – Are the custom reports setup correctly and answering the correct question?
    • Segmentation and filter review – Are the filters correct and do they represent the correct segments?  Review the content and configuration of the segments to determine that the filters are not contradicting or breaking expectations.
    • Tool specific customizations – based on the selected analytics tool, we will review the advanced configuration to ensure that each of the items are configured to support goals and expectations.

On the business side:

  • Are all critical metrics being reported on?
  • How are new reporting requirements managed?
  • Is the information organized and accessible to decision makers?
  • Does the data allow decisions to be made?
  • Can the impact of those decisions be measured?

What are the results?

Once the audit is completed, we compile a list of our findings, completed configuration changes, future configuration changes, code changes, and other expectations.  The results of the audit set the stage for next step recommendations, governance updates and overall strategy for future initiatives.

Nad Balata 7:05 am on May 27, 2011 Reply
Tags: , optimization, seminar, Unilytics,   

Analytics Seminar, Toronto

Another week and another great seminar!  This time we were in our hometown, Toronto….thanks to our Toronto attendees for an enjoyable seminar filled with great questions and ideas!  The audience was quite diverse with folks from finance, travel, government, media, technology and a few others.  For those who couldn’t make it, you can access our slides with the link below.  Peder, Unilytics president, started the talk by professing our mantra for 2011 – web analytics is not about reporting but OPTIMIZATION!

Unilytics has been taking the message of optimization on the road to eMetrics in San Francisco and Toronto, Webtrends Engage, Unilytics’ seminar last week in Ottawa, and our seminar yesterday in Toronto… finally we are turning some heads!  The inspiration for our new mantra is the result of too many organizations who are merely collecting simple out-of-the-box reporting. These are the same organizations that invest a great deal of financial and internal resources on their analytics but make no business decisions, website design enhancements or marketing improvements based on their web analytics results. Paradoxically, they’ll quickly admit that online marketing is highly strategic and corporately paramount.

For those who think optimization is daunting, it really isn’t.  The first step is to build a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) that address your organization’s web and business goals and objectives.  The next step is to configure your analytics reports to leverage your KPIs and to train the consumers of said reports how to apply the knowledge derived to make effective business decisions.  This step – report interpretation – is the biggest gain in successful analytics. Ongoing web optimization will require continual monitoring of your reports to ensure you are meeting your KPIs.

You can find some of this info in our slides, or you can feel free to reach out to me and I’d be glad to have a conversation with you.

The link to our slide presentations is here: http://www.unilytics.com/slides/TorontoSeminar2011-Slides.pdf

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter:  @unilytics

Nad Balata 8:05 am on May 23, 2011 Reply
Tags: , mobile, , Ottawa   

Another successful analytics seminar in Ottawa!

Thanks to all who joined us for yet another exciting analytics seminar in Ottawa! Our customers have asked us for a while now to do another one of these educational sessions; the last one we did was 18 months ago but with software development schedules, a full consulting calendar and other attention grabbing tasks we just didn’t have the time.

The good news for our attendees is we amassed a wealth of experience and knowledge in digital analytics and we were able to impart that to them. The good news for us is that we got to meet a lot of very passionate people and a highly mature audience about analytics. Analytics is growing! Our talk included an overview of the state of web analytics, log file management, SharePoint analytics, improving 1:1 marketing, social and a demo of Webtrends 10. We also discussed automated dashboards and that still grabs all analytics producer’s ears; the need to automate the collection of data from disparate sources and significantly, view all analytics KPIs in one place so they can determine how well (or not) their digital marketing is performing within 30-60s is heavily sought after. And we have an app for that!

Thanks as well to the great questions like Kerry from Irdeto who inquired about social media tracking and strategy– that continues to be a prominent topic. With a new focus on social and mobile, Webtrends 10 will allow for greater social measurement of Facebook such as tracking for pages; enhanced measurement for FB apps; and complete data from Facebook API. Now all you have to worry about is the strategy for which we can offer some helpful ideas about. On the mobile side v10 will measure and compare apps and mobile sites on all mobile platforms with plans for iTunes App Store download reporting.

We’ll be in Toronto on May 26th delivering the same talk so if you are in the area please feel free to join us: http://www.unilytics.com/seminar2011.shtml and if you are not let us know and we’ll send you the slides. Also, we’ll be tweeting from the seminar so check that out (@Unilytics) and feel free to send us your questions!

Until next time….

Nad Balata 1:05 pm on May 5, 2011 Reply
Tags: ,   

I had a great time at eMetrics last week…

I had a great time at eMetrics last week for their annual Toronto Marketing Optimization Summit.  Meeting new people and hearing their issues/challenges really provided some perspective on the marketplace.  There was a lot of discussion on the usual topics including Social and Mobile Metrics, Managing Web Analytics, Site Optimization….and very importantly the food was exceptional especially the Mexican cuisine on Thursday!

During one of the lunches, an attendee named Kerri was relating to me how resonant our sprint – this is the 3 minute talk we delivered right after the keynote speech – was to her, and the way her organization treats web analytics.  In Peder’s sprint, he expounded upon the subpar job the whole industry has done in promoting web analytics tools by selling web analytics as Reporting Tools when they should always be presented as Optimization Tools.

Kerri elaborated that the culture of her company was built around reporting with little or no focus on optimization.  When I asked her what they did with all the valuable data from the reports, she countered with the insurmountable effort of having to read 50-page web analytics reports!  Of course, I was puzzled with their misuse of analytics and presumed that if no one is reading the reports then no one is making any business decisions with their analytics.  While they were dissatisfied with their analytics, they didn’t seem terribly interested in streamlining reports to reflect their exact business objectives and their eventual optimization.  After a conversation with her and her team yesterday, I think they might be on the right track….

Kerri certainly isn’t unique or just a small sample of what other organizations experience.  So what do other companies do about the mountains of useless data to uncover important gems hidden in all those reports?  I was surprised to learn that many web marketers were spending 3-4 days a month accumulating, managing and massaging the data to extract those nuggets of valuable analytics.  Now, think about what the true cost of that is for an organization in matter of 12 months. Let’s assume an average salary of $70k and divide that by the average of 260 work days/year = $270 per day.  Take $270 and multiply by 4, and you uncover that some organizations are spending $1,080 per month or about $13k organizing the reporting data to make sense of it!   Imagine, they could shift $10k to improving the design of their site, remarketing, delivering more self-service options, improving campaigns, being capable of making better and faster business decisions – or OPTIMIZATION!  How, do you ask?  Using customizable dashboards that incorporate web analytics data and information from other business repositories into dashboards can deliver management insight that is actionable.

Many of the attendees were very impressed with the demo of our dashboarding technology called Montage that addresses this specific issue.  If you would like to have a talk on your analytics or a quick demo of Montage, please feel free to drop me a line.

Nader Balata

Nad Balata 4:10 pm on Oct 17, 2010 Reply  

The most important consideration when me…

The most important consideration when measuring the success of a web site is to first know what its purpose is. Most SharePoint applications are used for intranets; in fact fully 92% of intranets are implemented and supported using SharePoint. It can therefore be assumed that user engagement, employee productivity, information sharing and collaboration are top of mind for websites created using SharePoint. The problem is that SharePoint native tools and even off-the-shelf web analytics products don’t effectively deliver user activity reporting. Mostly, this is a limitation of the complexity of the SharePoint software model. But with improved scripting tools, it is possible to deliver this level of reporting.

One of the unique aspects of intranet sites is that they typically require authentication. That delivers the ability to track individual users and report on their site usage. And of course that is what we want to do! This gives the ability to understand how your SharePoint investment is performing by tracking individual user activity for things such as:

  • display of specific Web Parts
  • document activity, such as checkouts, downloads and approvals
  • paths taken and SharePoint breadcrumbs followed
  • business transaction completions
  • search intelligence, such as search terms, results viewed and search refinements

The next consideration for intranets is that because we are measuring mostly internal traffic it may be less appealing to use technology that will store visitor traffic data outside the organization. All effective web analytics products (Webtrends, Omniture and Google Analytics) today use JavaScripts to collect visitor information. But if those systems are hosted, the data will be stored on external  servers. Only Webtrends offers onsite premise software which makes it possible to use JavaScripts but still retain the collected data in-house.

The next potential hazard is that to collect per visitor information, web analytics tool vendors require modification of critical SharePoint files. Most IT departments will not allow those changes. And for clients running SharePoint in a hosted environment, those files are not accessible for modification at all. But there are technologies available to “bridge” between SharePoint and your web analytics package by adding JavaScript which runs between them.

To determine the success of SharePoint sites, you must measure individual visitor traffic to understand how it is being used and fortunately, since users have to log in that is possible. But native reporting doesn’t deliver satisfactory results. By using tools to bridge between SharePoint and web analytics packages, you will be able to measure the success of your site without violating internal IT standards.

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