Web analytics, web metrics, and how to use them to track and improve conversions

In a  way, hearing that GigaOm Buys A Mobile Blog - One Less Independent Blog In The World highlights a trend of larger blogs buying smaller ones to roll them up, according to Michael Arrington at TechCrunch:

"...the rollup of the better blogs (subjectively defined) as the space gets hyper-competitive (you gotta love zero barriers to entry)."

".. I predict that this is just the beginning of the process that will accelerate over the next 12-18 months. Larger blogs lacking the stomach for competition will sell to large media corporations. The more competitive large blogs who want to see this thing through will start to acquire the smaller ones and group by topic areas. Whoever builds the network of the most interesting and prodigious voices will eventually “win.” Or perhaps everyone will win, but to different degrees."

Was Arrington talking about himself selling TechCrunch to AOL?  My understanding is that there's a deal being discussed which I wrote about in

AOL TechCrunch - ugh, but if so, Arrington is cashing in

The only problem I have with this information - that TechCrunch isn't aquiring other blogs and is itself, shopping aroud to be aquired.

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On another note, I just want to remind readers that "other news" today - 200 dollar Web Tablet and ....... some other news that I'm more confident  Webmetrisguru.com will continue - though it will have to be moved to another location - more of that information as details flow in.

 

I wanted to write about a new $200 Web Tablet proposed by TechCrunch - TechCrunch Dreams-Up a $200 Web Tablet Device but first ... i need everyone who reads this post do something for me first.

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1. Go to www.theanalyticsguru.com and subscribe to my RSS Feed 

  .................... Why?

Know More Media, the publisher of this blog, is ceasing operation after July 31st, 2008 (why that is happening is a story for another day and place).   Webmetricsguru.com blog will still be up for a while ... but I need you all to do this for me today, or ASAP.

I do plan to keep this blog going - Still, I want to ensure -whatever happens, my readers go to The Analytics Guru, and follow me there.

In fact, that's why I created The Analytics Guru - again, I won't write about that here, follow me at The Analytics Guru if you want to know more of what I think about all of this.

Eventually, I plan to merge both domains into one - but for now, make sure you subscribe to The Analytics Guru' RSS Feed and start reading my blog there -as that will be the eventual place I will place my thoughts on Web Analytics, regardless of weather it ends up being called Webmetricsguru.com or TheAnalyticsGuru.com or both.

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Ok,about the $200 tablet -

 

According to TechCrunch, who may be in the process of selling itself to AOL, as I wrote about in The Analytics Guru -

AOL TechCrunch - ugh, but if so, Arrington is cashing in

Maybe .... Maybe this is why Arrington would sell TechCrunch ...... instead of a blog or blog network just writing about news and developments that other Tech Companies come up with - what if TechCrunch made a revolutionary product or service, itself?

I think that's what this is all about, if you ask me.  According to Michael Arrignton:

 "...

I’m tired of waiting - I want a dead simple and dirt cheap touch screen web tablet to surf the web. Nothing fancy like the Dell latitude XT, which costs $2,500. Just a Macbook Air-thin touch screen machine that runs Firefox and possibly Skype on top of a Linux kernel. It doesn’t exist today, and as far as we can tell no one is creating one. So let’s design it, build a few and then open source the specs so anyone can create them.

Here’s the basic idea: The machine is as thin as possible, runs low end hardware and has a single button for powering it on and off, headphone jacks, a built in camera for video, low end speakers, and a microphone. It will have Wifi, maybe one USB port, a built in battery, half a Gigabyte of RAM, a 4-Gigabyte solid state hard drive. Data input is primarily through an iPhone-like touch screen keyboard. It runs on linux and Firefox. It would be great to have it be built entirely on open source hardware, but including Skype for VOIP and video calls may be a nice touch, too."

Think about - Bloggers can, in some cases, go beyond covering news and opinion in an alternative, transparent way ... they can  compete and in some cases, surpass mainstream media and even beat Tech Companies to innovation.

"....we’ll spec out the hardware and get people to help write the customized Linux and Firefox code. Once we’ve completed the design we’ll start to work with the supply chain company to get an idea on the cost of the machine (the goal is $200), and hopefully build a few prototypes. Anyone who contributes significantly to the project would get one of those first prototypes. If everything works well, we’d then open source the design and software and let anyone build one that wants to.

The goal is to keep the machine very simple and very cheap. I think this will be a lot of fun, and it may just turn into an actual product that we can use to surf the web and talk to our friends."

It'll be interesting to see where this story will be a year from now.

BTW, just a reminder - as I close this vert important post ... signup for my RSS Feed at The Analytics Guru - that's the best support you can give me in what I hope will be easy negoation with Know More Media - but you never know .... I hold myself back from saying more... as much as I'd love to say it all.

 

 

 

I wrote a long post on Social Media Czar - a job I would not mind being because I see it as an extension of Web Analytics - in other words, I think a Web Analyst could be very well be the perfect person to head up, or at least, be part of such a role.

As I mentioned, there aren't many corporations that even have someone dedicated to Social Media, much less a Social Media Czar, and a team dedicated to that - going cross organization.

But to me, the real issue is ownership and budget - without the concept of a "Czar" it's hard to see how most corporations are going to buy into Social Media in an effective manner.

which gets back to why corporations aren't doing much with Social Media up till now ... there was no proven ROI and there was a fear it was not scalable enough (ie: buy blog advertising - but could you get enough impressions and visitors to matter - up till now, probably not - unless you were just interested in Branding or WOM).

However, I believe within the next 3 years, Social Media will occupy a position in Corporations much as Search Marketing and Web Analytics does now (and Web Analytics will, in some cases - hopefully - get merged into Social Media).

And now I'll answer why Web Analysts would make good Social Media Czars .... ROI Measurement ...that's why. I wrote a post about it at The Analytics Guru a few weeks ago titled

I think I just figured out where the Future of Marketing is going

Ok, talk about strategy - yes, PR people might have a better understanding of how to generate BUZZ and Marketing people might have a better understanding of how to SELL ... but do either have much luck measuring anything in a meaningful way .... no, they don't.

When you put a marketing or PR person in charge of Social Media .... there's the possibility you won't have good analysis, good measurement - good ROI metrics - but that would never be the case if you put a Web Analyst in charge - or, at least, as a key member of the Social Media Czar's team.

BTW, as a Board Director in charge of Social Media for the Web Analytics Association - I've found a curious thing - or at least, realized it - Social Media is a "state of being" not an activity - it permeates all marketing and communication channels - it's not just a channel - it's part of everything.

IN that spirit -here's a recent meeting I had with a few of my Community and Social Media  members - my committee, which I started from scratch a little more than a year ago, now has 73 members, more than double the size of any other committee of the WAA - and we're looking at various options to harness the talent and knowledge within the committee - Social Media Lunch on 7-17-08 in Lower Manhattan.

If your interested, btw, anyone can join WAASOCIAL, the Web Analytics Association's own Social Network - 

I was thinking about this glitzy presentation that is going around explaining Social Media - I usually find myself getting brain freeze when I look at this kind of stuff because it's good, but it doesn't really tell you how to adapt those ideas to your purposes (not that it's meant to do that) or how to measure the effect of it (Social Media).

 

Looking at Paul Krugman's blog post about Oil Outlook reminds me about something I've been wanting to write about here for a while - most of the time I put these observations into The Analytics Guru - but my work is more widely read here than there (for now).

Part of me enjoys seeing the stock prices go down - at least, I understand what motivates that - the Sub Prime Mortgage Meltdown is in full swing and banks are writing off a lot of debt ( New York Times has two comprehensive articles on the current and future economic situation today Uncomfortable Answers to Questions on the Economy and Graphic on How Bad Could Things Get? that tell us most of the pain is ahead of us - and when I see the stock market go down - at least, the world seems to make sense - and I like reading Paul Krugman because he seems to understand the essence of the financial situation better than anyone - and I trust him and have been reading his OP-ED for several years --his estimation on Oil Prices is helpful in forecasting that the prices aren't going to meaningfully change - even if our demand for Oil goes down - which is must because the United States is running on Empty - we're running out of gas and we are running out of the ability to buy more - credit is tighter and tighter.

 

 

But then I see the Dow going up, as it did on Friday, and I wonder if anything in the Financial Sector really makes any sense, any longer - if it ever did - not that I'm a financial analyst (I'm not) - I'm a Web Analyst.

But why are stocks going up so much just because oil is 10 dollars cheaper today than yesterday (because we're broke and can't fly as much and or fill up our cars) - nothing much has fundamentally changed - we're still in an awful situation that's getting worse, and will continue to degrade.

So why does the market go up?   What is really mean to see a couple of hundred points more?  Nothing - it's meaningless - I've concluded.  

You can't judge the health of this economy by most of the stats that are currently be collected and shown us - that is what I fundamentally believe - we're looking for answers in the wrong place.

 

The answer is not in the Dow / S&P or anything else we see in papers - I'm not even sure what the metrics should be ..... but these aren't it.

Because the situation keeps getting worse and if you just looked at this chart - you'd see some confidence coming back - but it's all being driven by OIL PRICES.  Nothing has fundamentally changed ..... it's garbage info that leads to misleading conclusions useful if your into stocks, but not otherwise.

What the chart does tell - and knowing all of the change that happened this week was driven by lower consumption of OIL is that prices will drop for a short time, but not much and then any kind of conflagrations in the Mideast (I predicted an October Surprise (see Using Radian6 to predict the Presidential Election - Part 2) - I very much expect one to happen) and any kind of weather disruption or terrorist attack on a oil refinery will drive the prices right back up again, even worse than before.

The fact that OIL PRICES are driving the economy and not anything else, much - is the real story here - the world is addicted to OIL - we need it for everything - there's no way out - no stability that's possible, long term, because the price of OIL will change on any kind of news of a problem in the supply chain, and that can happen in several ways.

So I see no real confidence in the numbers ... and no real story here - except we're on our way down, and we only think it got better for a couple of days - till the next crisis drives prices even higher.

But here's how it ties into Web Analytics - I've noticed data I pull for my corporate work, at times, tell a very two dimensional story - one that often is not the story that should be told - but the metrics we are asked to pull (and I say .. all of us) are asked to pull - OFTEN DON'T TELL THE REAL STORY.

We need to come up with more stuff than Unique Visitors from Panel Data - or traffic volume data that is almost meaningless - just like this garbage stock data that is being fed us - it's meaningless - fundamentals haven't changed - the rise in the Dow just confirmed our addiction to OIL ... it's actually worse - because now we realize just how dependent the world economy is on the price of OIL - and how easy it is disrupt it.

We should not be happy the Dow went up this week - we should be sad that the only thing driving anything up now is OIL PRICES declining - the rest of the economy is in the gutter - and going down fast.

What we need is New Metrics - that tell a better story - and lets face it - there's a bunch of good stuff our current metrics, both financial and web analytics don't catch at all.

We need to focus on that more - let the Dow go up or down - it means nothing if all that is driving it is OIL PRICES.

In fact, closing out this long post - when I worked at IBM.com, last year I was asked to provide metrics showing the success / or not, of the new website re-design.

It turned out, most of the effects were invisible - the metrics didn't even capture them - no hooks were put into the AJAX and FLASH in most cases and most of what we measured showed us that little had fundamentally changed.  

The lesson - similar to what I wrote  at TAG -

I think I just figured out where the Future of Marketing is going

is Metrics baked into the beginning of anything - we need to look for ways to hook up what is meaningful and measure that - not use some overblown statistic that is no longer that meaningful, like the Dow.

At least, that's my opinion - and I have to add, I'm not a Financial Analyst, I'm a Web Analyst.

 

Sure looks like iRing lets you be married to Apple - actually, I'm not even sure this product is for real, but it cought my eye while reading FriendFeed:

 

http://www.behance.net/Gallery/iRing-UPDATED/40678

 

I have to admit, stuff like this - I find hard to fantom - control volume of an Apple Device?   Here's what I was reading ... I guess it's the wisdom of crowds - what my friends like and notice ... I do?

Ring UPDATED on the Behance Network

 

I guess if we're going to have a Meet the Bloggers Cable show for Political Blogs/Bloggers then we also must have equal representation - with Playboy Asking Which Female Blogger we'd Like To See Sans Clothing

Interesting... I didn't think Blogging was THAT Sexy ... then again ...

"...Playboy has published profiles of nine women bloggers (loosely defined) - Xeni Jardin, Violet Blue, Julie Alexandria, Veronica Belmont, Amanda Congdon, Brigitte Dale, Sarah Lacy, Sarah Austin and Natali Del Conte - and asked readers to vote on which one is “sexiest.” The winner will be asked to pose for Playboy."

Hmm .. now who'd would I like to see (one can always dream of ) ..... Violet Blue (kinda already there, if you ask me) or .... Veronica Belmont  or .....

 

 

I think How Does Facebook Know I'm Jewish? post by David Berkowitz was pretty amusing and interesting - I've meet David at several conferences and events in New York over the last 3 years or so, most recently, last week.

David saw this ad

 

I'm Jewish too, but I've never seen that ad, and I'm on Facebook, alot. David was intrigued - was this some new targeting capability that Facebook turned on and he didn't know about yet?  He wrote in his blog post:

"...But how? How did it do it? I don't list my religion (or my politics) on my Facebook profile. I don't even have those Israeli flag Facebook apps.

Some plausible theories are that the marketer used some combination of targeting around my city (New York), alma mater (Binghamton) and entertainment interests (The Daily Show, Seinfeld, Everything Is Illuminated).

Some less plausible theories: top secret Jew-havioral targeting algorithms... perhaps that's what'll be unleashed at Facebook's F8 next week.

Or it's just targeting people who look Jewish. I tried calling and emailing Katan Adventures, which ran the ad."

 

Turns out the answer was less complicated than one would have supposed - but via the power of Social Media - the targeting worked more powerfully than if it had reached David via some other way, I feel.  According to his blog:

"..Here's what Katan wrote back:

Hey David -

I assume you are from NY?  In order to reach Jews who haven't listed their religion on Facebook (which, by the way, is the vast majority) we run ads in metro areas with large Jewish populations and try to grab their attention with ridiculous lines such as "hey jew" but we obviously get a lot of wasted clicks with this strategy as well.   And some angry emails.

Seinfeld fans is a good idea though.  And maybe Zabar's fans, but I'm sure that is a small group.

Thanks for your interest and if you ever want to pass along any online marketing ideas, we'd love to hear them.

 

So ... just by using an established way of targeting, along with Social Networks - the result became more powerful and more personal.

That reminds me - I wrote a post about just how powerful Social Media can be in

Nikki Shannon LIVE @ The Cutting Room - Social Media Worked!

 

 

To be perfectly honest, I've been pretty critical of Google in the majority of posts I've written here over the last two years - but this one post I'm going to write about today is 180 degrees different.

First of all, Google's new, "experimental" "Digg like" Search Interface is not only the future of Search, it's also a lot of fun and a 100 times more interesting, in my opinion, than anything else they've come up with in the last 4 years.  The new search interface is also a "logical" evolution of Social Media, Social Networks and Search Technology and what I've seen in the movie below is almost exactly the vision I have for the Future of Search - and it can't come fast enough because the search of today, on Google, or any other Search Engine, sucks compared to what it could and someday, will be.

TechCrunch's post by Michael Arrington Is This The Future Of Search? has the most detail, yet, of this fairly new development in Search - that has just hit the blogosphere over the last day or so.

 

What excites me is not, so much, the "Digg" part, which is probably going to end up being "gamed" by "Google gangs" just like "Digg Gangs" did/do now - though it's still an improvement over what we have now, and this new "Digg like voting" is much more "democratic" than Google's current Search Engine which gives all the power of ranking and determining what gets into the search results to the computer engineers and scientists who program the search engine.

 

What excites me is the "FriendFeed/Twitter" part of this new Search Interface and ranking system, which allows the wisdom of Searchers to mix in, rate, and comment on the Search Results - this is truly the future of search - and it allows the users the control and transparency that Google and the other Search Engines have deliberately withheld. 

But now, all the Search Results, in all the Search Engines, are so lousy, overall, that even Google, spending all it's time now patching up it's failed Pagerank system, it's failed back link, it's failed spam filtering, and everything else that has evolved, finally, is ready, to share control of the search results with the users of it's search engine.

We're not talking about some dials - the stuff they gave us a few years ago (both Google and Yahoo had versions of this feature), we're talking about Personalized and Social Search merged in one interface that will allow anyone to see comments on the Search Results (and I guess, Google will study those comments and re-rank the results - using their "semantic" technology - perhaps the right place for automation, at this point - since there's going to be so much commentary on the search results, no army of humans could possibly  read it all in time to act on it - before a ton more comments are made.

In my follow up post on The Analytics Guru -

Future of Search Engine Optimization - Google’s New Search Interface

I'll envision the future of Search Engine Optimization once the new Search Interface is fully rolled out, probably anytime between the 18 months from now, and five years (it'll depend on how "aggressive" Google wants to be here - setting this new interface as a Google Experiment is OK for now, but to get the full interaction, at some point, they will need to take the plunge and make this new innovation, the default interface for Google Search - the sooner the better, in my book).

 

 

Just saw that my head shot is being included in next month's Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose - the email has been sent out, and I was grinning when I saw it - and wrote about at The Analytics Guru - Search Engine Strategies - I’m grinning - and there's also an interview I taped when I spoke at the first Semphonic XChange Conference in Napa Valley last year.

If anyone is going to either conference, and reads my blogs, please say hello - I'll even buy you a drink.

And if your not going to SES San Jose but want to - here's a post in Search Engine Watch Blog on how to build a case to get your boss/company to send you - Building the business case for going to SES San Jose:

"...A quick look at the conference at a glance will tell you why. There are a total of 77 conference sessions, strategic development workshops, Orion panels, and keynote presentations crammed into the four-day Search Engine Strategies conference. And on the fifth day, there are an additional six SEM training workshops.

Since there are five concurrent tracks during the SEM conference and three concurrent workshops during the SEM training, no one can attend everything – unless, of course, you bring a team of five or more people to SES San Jose.

And deciding which sessions to attend isn’t just daunting for the first-time attendee. It’s also a challenge to SES Alumni.

If you compare last year’s conference at a glance with this year’s conference at a glance, you see that only 12 of the sessions and two of the workshops are repeats. And four of the “repeat sessions” are Site Clinics or the Organic Listings Forum, which examine new web sites or issues every year. This means almost 88% of the content at Search Engine Strategies San Jose 2008 will be brand new!"

The new content (my sessions are "new content", btw) is making it much more worthwhile to attend now - and the stuff I'm talking about is targeted to be useful, to go beyond informational - hopefully it will take someone to the next level - that's what I'm aiming for.

And, if that doesn't convince your boss - read about 15 Things Not to Miss at SES San Jose 2008 on Online Marketing Blog

1. Your flight there. Ha!

2. Universal and Blended Search Session, Day 1 - Dana is anxious to hear what is new in universal and blended search since last years’ session.

3. Igniting Viral Campaigns session, Day 1 - This session promises to unveil the secrets of Web 2.0 techniques and technologies to help small and mid-size businesses stand out amongst the crowd.

4. Expo Hall Opening, Day 2 - Discover the latest products and technologies relevant to online marketing and see what the big names in search are up to by stopping at the many booths for your complimentary branded goods.

5. Landing Page Utopia, Day 2 - A good landing page is key to the success of any paid online advertising campaign. Ensure your pages convert clicks to conversions by attending this session led by a panel of top online marketing experts.

6. Ashley and Dana “getting their groove on” at Google Dance - Don’t miss the social event of the search marketing industry. Bring your dancing shoes and get ready to network!

7. Q & A with Google - See what happens behind the curtain at Google in this exclusive opportunity to ask the insiders how the search giant deals with a variety of issues, from spam to paid links and beyond.

8. Starbucks on the way to the Wednesday morning keynote - Trust us, you’ll need it. And you’ll definitely want to be awake for “Why does search get the credit for everything?”

9. Successful Tactics for Social Media Session, Day 3 - This session covers some popular social media services to leverage for marketing as well as best practices to penetrate them.

10. Black Hat, White Hat: Play Dirty with SEO - Where do you stand on the Black Hat vs. White Hat SEO ethics issue? Learn both sides of the argument by attending this session.

11. Ashley and Dana “getting their groove on” at Webmaster Radio Search Bash - Let loose after a long day of stimulating sessions at this fun bash put on by Webmaster Radio. There is usually plenty to see and do to keep you busy late into the night.

12. Thursday Keynote: Chip Heath, Author of “Made to Stick” - Learn how to produce marketing ideas that translate into results from idea guru Chip Heath.

13. The 3G iPhone Local Search Demos Session, Day 4 - See how companies are using mobile technology like the iPhone to revolutionize local search on the mobile device. What are the odds that Lee will have bought the team iPhones by this time?

14. Best Kept Secrets to Search Session, Day 4 - Top search engine marketers share their go-to tricks and shortcuts for online marketing success in this interactive session.

15. TopRank Blog’s Coverage of SES San Jose - Check out TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog throughout the conference for regularly-updated reports in the form of session summaries, photos and insights from the TopRank team in attendance. You’ll feel like you’re there!

 But they left out two more things - my two sessions at SES:

 Tuesday, August 19th, 11:00AM:

Track: Measuring Success
Measuring Success in a 2.0 World
How do you know if you've been successful with search engines and your website in general? You can check your "rank" at search engines for particular keywords, analyze log files to see the actual terms people used to reach your web site or make the ultimate jump and "close the loop" by measuring sales conversions and return-on-investment (ROI). This panel explores both classical and newer "cutting edge" techniques to measure success, what statistics you should really care about, ways to be more strategically focused, and how to drive increased revenue for your business.

Speakers:

• Jim Sterne, Target Marketing & Chairman, Web Analytics Association
• Matthew Bailey, President, SiteLogic
• Avinash Kaushik, Author, Blogger, Analytics Evangelist, Google
• Marshall Sponder, Senior Web Analyst, Monster.com
• Richard Zwicky, Founder and CEO, Enquisite

 And Wednesday, 2:45-4:00PM, August 20th

Track: Social Media
Social Media Analysis and Tracking
Social Search can be used to drive Traffic, Conversions and Increase ROI by monitoring conversations happening in cyberspace, often in real time. By using Buzz Monitoring tools such as Buzzlogic, search professions can be very effective in finding influencer's within online conversations and reaching out to them. As one example of a few that will be presented, learn how Military.com leverages social media and Buzz Monitoring tools, together with solid understanding of business goals, to increase profitability.

Moderator:

• Marshall Sponder, Senior Web Analyst, Monster.com

Speakers:

• Breanna Wigle, CRM Marketing Manager, Military Advantage
• Adam Lavelle, Chief Strategy Officer, iCrossing
• Todd Parsons, Co-Founder and CPO, BuzzLogic.com
• Rob Key, CEO, Converseon