Every organization wants to achieve success in digital marketing. There is nothing better than reporting a 300% increase in conversion. In order to get there, you need to take the necessary steps. It starts with an approach towards web analytics that is designed for success.

Let me first define web analytics: it’s the collaboration between analysts, web developers and management on the collection of web data for the purpose of analysis and optimization.

Having experience in implementing some of the best web analytics platforms such as Omniture, Google Analytics, WebTrends and Coremetrics, I know that no out-of-box solution fits your exact business model. All web analytics platforms will start collecting data when implemented, but that data isn’t necessarily reflective of your company’s business goals or online KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). This is why web analytics is a collaboration between multiple teams, to measure the KPIs that matter to your business. It is valuable to have a consulting partner who is able to suggest the best way to obtain the KPIs that matter to your company’s bottom line.

Once you start obtaining data from your site, it is time to analyze and make a hypothesis. It is important to collect the most fact-based data from your web analytics platform, otherwise your analysis and hypothesis are going to fail. This is by far the most important job of the web developer and the analyst, making sure your data is accurate. No analytics platform data will match a competitor’s system, as they collect data differently. However, conversions should match 97%-99% accuracy of your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system or database.
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In “marketer” terms, attribution modeling is determining which marketing channels contributed to the overall goal of a campaign, and how those channels work together to produce the optimal marketing mix for whatever your website or campaign goals are. Marketers have typically used last click attribution to determine vehicle effectiveness without considering what other customer touchpoints contributed to that goal. In “simple” terms, you may be able to contribute an online purchase directly to a Paid Search ad, but do you know what prompted that search or what other channels were exposed to that visitor? Did they first read about you in their favorite magazine, then search for your company name in Google to learn more, but then come back to your site by clicking on a paid ad with a specific promotion? Until now, it has been very hard for marketers to track that path.

Recently, Google Analytics launched a new tool set for being able to determine which channels contribute to an online purchase, email signup, or pdf download. The image below shows a path in their new reporting structure and an example of what value each attribution path brings to this particular website.

On the heels of this new release in Google Analytics, Forrester has recently come out with a new study on user behavior as it relates to the path of an online buyer. Some key highlights of the study, which included purchase data from 15 retailers during the 2010 holiday season:
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• Nearly 1/2 of purchases followed multiple exposures to web marketing efforts.
• Search and Email proved to be the most effective tactics in driving sales, but Display and Affiliate Marketing were also crucial in early steps of the research phase.

A couple weeks ago we talked about utilizing the Google +1 button to stand out amongst your competitors, and this week’s post highlights some extra benefits wrapped in with using the Google +1, along with all the other social share buttons (like, tweet, stumble, linkedin, etc.)

Google’s released some new features in Analytics  and Webmaster Tools that allow you to better track the social activity on your website.

Google Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster tools now has a “+1 Metrics” section that shows the amount of people that +1 your pages, and how +1’s affect your Click Through Rate (CTR). The new tool shows the CTR of people with +1 annotations and CTR without +1 annotations. So you can see if those little +1 buttons are really improving the traffic to your site.

They have also added an activity report (number of  +1’s) and an Audience report (demographic and geographic data of your  +1’s). The Audience report can be extremely beneficial, as you can see EXACTLY what demographic you are attracting to your site and market towards them effectively and accordingly.

Google Analytics

A HUGE addition to Google Analytics is the brand spanking new Social Plugin Tracking tool. This tool allows you to track +1’s, Facebook likes, Facebook sends, Tweets, and various other social actions users take while on your site.

The Social Plugin Tracking tool also generates 3 different reports:

Social Engagement — Tracks behavior changes for visits from social plugins (time on site, pageviews, bounce rate, etc..)

Social Actions – Tracks the number of social actions users take while on site (share buttons, likes, +1’s, etc..)

Social Pages – Compares the number of pages to the number of social interactions each page is receiving
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For those of you in charge of your website analytics, you may have noticed that “new version/old version” tab up in the top right hand corner of Google Analytics. Maybe you’ve clicked it, maybe you haven’t. I know myself, when Google announces a new release to their software platforms, it can be a little daunting – the data you you are used to seeing may have been moved, there are new metrics in place, more info to report on – I know, it can be overwhelming. When AdWords was released (2 versions ago) and forced us all to get used to their new interface, I went into panic/hysteria mode…. that being said, I thought I’d write this week’s post on some of the new features of Google Analytics, and hopefully decrease that anxiety that comes over clicking “new version.”
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• While you can no longer see metrics right from Account Home, new links have made it easier to jump to different reports in each of your profiles. For example, from Account Home you can jump right into your Conversions tab.
• You now have the ability to create multiple Dashboards that contain any set of graphs. These can now be set by hierarchy, department, interest, or any rule to allow different departments in your organizations to view what is important to them.
• If you’re looking for some of your typical reports, the names have changed. Network Properties and browser capabilities is now under Technology, Top Content is now Pages, Goals are now Conversions, and Visit Duration and Page depth are now Engagement.
• The UI has changed a bit – you are now going to see somewhat of a cleaner look and feel, though it doesn’t differ much from the previous version.

The team at Google Analytics provides weekly videos, answering questions from users around the world. This week’s post was 36 minutes long ?!?! and knowing how valuable your time is, we thought we’d watch the video for you and report back on the latest news. You’re welcome.

• What is the best way to track social media referrals? Through an advanced, custom segment in Google Analytics. Re-writing your URLs to track these referrals can actually hinder your data, not help it. Also use custom alerts to proactively know right away when major increases from social media channels occur.


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