Endress|Analytics LLC | Blog

#ACCELERATE Conference Review

By Gabriele on November 23, 2011

Last week I attended the #ACCELERATE conference in San Francisco, California. It was the first type of conference of it’s kind and it was amazing how much they packed into a single day. They promised a “fire hose of learning” and they delivered!

The main presenters each had 20 minutes to provide 10 tips on whichever topic they were presenting on. All the presenters finished on-time and provided a ton of great tips across a wide variety of topics including:

Social Analytics
Monetizing Facebook
Building an Integrated Listening Environment
Mobile Strategy
Tag Management Systems
Creating a Data Driven Organization
Turning Around your Web Analytics Program
Improving your Vendor Relationship
Building a Great Digital Measurement Team

After the main speakers concluded, it was time for the Super Accelerator session. Each Super Accelerator had 5 minutes to focus on one point/topic. The final one of the day was the best (and the speaker won a prize) by doing his entire presentation in rhyme. Some of the topics covered by the Super Accelerators included:

Stop Being a Report Monkey
The Rarity of a True Web Analyst
Sharing the Story Behind the Data
Competitive Facebook Analytics
Web Analytics Career Development
Learning to Say No
Having Unconditional Love for Customers, Co-Workers and Vendors
Media Fragmentation
Benefits of “Freemium” Analytics Tools
Mobile Analytics
Tracking User Behavior while Respecting their Privacy

Here are my top five learnings from the fire-hose of data I was doused with at this conference:

It’s not just about web analytics anymore, it’s about digital measurement (web, mobile, social media, who knows what’s next?)
When marketing on Facebook, use ads, not the wall on your company page. The wall is for engaging with your followers.
Data is dirty. Get over it!
When working with vendors, do not assume they can read your mind!
As consumption of digital content via mobile devices increases, mobile analytics is becoming increasingly critical.

Posted in Analytics, Events, Mobile Analytics, SEM, SEO, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Usability, Web Analytics | Leave a response

Endress|Analytics LLC Celebrates 3-Year Anniversary!

By Gabriele on November 11, 2011

Three years ago today I sat in my home office and received confirmation on the successful launching of my new LLC. At the time I wasn’t sure if I’d have any success, but focusing on building business was better than moping around at home and sending out resumes hoping for a full-time position. It gave me a purpose. A reason to get up every morning and reach out, and network with others in my industry – both locally and online.

Success did not come immediately – it took me 5 months to find my first real client. That was the break-through moment for me, when I landed that 8-month project. It was then that I had an inkling that maybe I might be able to make it independently. Then it took another 5 months to find the next client, which led to my doubting that remaining independent would work out.

However, when I landed that client in April, 2010 – that is when I went full-steam ahead with no looking back. That client was an agency who put me on an open-ended contract and as of today is still my primary client. I am very grateful to them as they have helped me sustain my business.

In 2011 my goal was to add a 2nd long-term client, and I am happy to report that I have done just that. Throughout 2011 I’ve had other clients come and go with small projects, but finally in August I signed a long-term contract with another agency who will be able to provide me an endless array of projects.

My goal, looking at 2012, will be to increase my average weekly billable hours. Not that I’m unhappy with the current amount of billable hours I currently average, however I have some personal goals I need to reach and increasing my billable hours with my clients will help me achieve them.

Happy 11-11-11 everyone! I feel almost like the entire world is today celebrating my success!

Posted in Analytics, Consulting, Endress|Analytics, Web Analytics | 1 Response

The Benefits of Being Process Oriented in Web Analytics

By Gabriele on October 28, 2011

When it comes to my work, I have always been a very process oriented person. I find that this serves me very well when it comes to Web Analytics projects, especially in the implementation and testing phases. I’m not alone in finding processes helpful to keep all the complex steps in implementing web analytics getting completed. I know of at least one enterprise analytics company that has developed a very thorough process, and it’s not dissimilar to the process I personally use with my clients.

Let me walk you through a typical implementation from a high-level and you will clearly see why having a detailed process in place before the project begins, will ensure everything is completed on-time.

Requirements Gathering

With any web project, the first step must be gathering requirements from the client. Before I can determine the best KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to track, I need to first understand what the clients’ goals are for the site. Many of the sites I have worked on have been micro-sites with a very clear, specific goal (contact an agent, download a PDF, sign-up for a newsletter). However on larger, more complex sites, there may be multiple goals, and therefore more complex KPIs. I do try and keep the KPIs to 5 or less, no matter how large or complex the site is. If this isn’t possible, I try and consider breaking the site up into sections, and identifying 1-2 KPIs per section.

Since I work with agencies, they often do this part of the process without me and just send me the documented requirements.

Tracking Manifest

Once the requirements have been gathered and the KPIs have been determined, the next phase I always do is put together a detailed tracking manifest. This is a spreadsheet with a list of every page/screen of a site, and every track-able action. I often go through and list every single action and then trim out the detail that isn’t needed. I feel it’s better to list too many actions, than to accidentally miss a few critical ones. Within the manifest I detail out things like the page names, type of action (onLoad, onClick, onSubmit) to be tracked, and any and all custom variables it makes sense to set for each.

Code Implementation

Depending on the client, either I go ahead and do the implementation myself, or I work closely with a developer who will be doing the actual code implementation. In either case the detailed tracking manifest becomes very critical at this stage. Many sites are complex and it can be easy to miss adding the code for a specific custom variable if there isn’t a detailed check-list to help guide you page-per-page. This ensures all the necessary code and code snippets are not missed.

Quality-Assurance (QA) Testing

The final part of the process is doing a thorough round of QA testing. I use my tracking manifest as a test plan as well, and go through every page and action to make sure each step is being tracked originally intended. This requires the site to live in a staging server that is tied into the analytics tool. I like to use a combination of tools to test the implementation. I have a variety of FireFox plugins, a couple of stand-alone code debuggers (Charles and Fiddler 2) and the analytics tool itself that I look at during a QA test.

So as you can tell any analytics implementation can be quite complex, and without a detailed process in place, things can quickly go wrong and delay or even derail the project. Make sure you have your ducks in a row ahead of time and you will increase your chance of a smooth and successful implementation.

Posted in Analytics, Consulting, Endress|Analytics, Web Analytics | Leave a response

Campaign Analytics 101

By Gabriele on July 26, 2011

One of the most traditional ways to get the word out about a company, product or service is advertising. It started with print, then radio, television and finally the web. Each of these media are still being used today as advertising vehicles, and tracking the various ways ads are presented to the consumer can be daunting, especially to analysts who have no experience with offline media.

To that end I want to provide a few simple things that I feel are essential for any campaign you want to track, online or offline.

Unique URLs

It doesn’t matter which analytics tool you use, unique URLs are bottom-line the most important way to track any campaign. With online campaigns this is fairly simple – just add a unique ID to the URL from the banner ad, PPC campaign, etc. A common way to do this is:

http://www.yoursite.com/landing.html?uid=google_ppc_july2011

The unique string after the ?uid= can be anything, and can even be as cryptic as “40z782osp” if you want. This can always be deciphered later by your analytics tool.

If you are running an offline campaign (print, radio, TV), you really don’t want to use such an awkward URL, but you do want to track any traffic that comes in from the ad so you can measure the effectiveness and the ROI from your campaign. The best way to do this is either through a unique domain name (www.yourcampaignsite.com), or a subdomain (campaignsite.yoursite.com).

Your offline campaigns need a URL, that while unique, is easy for your target audience to remember. If not they may use search to find the company, product or service you were advertising about instead.

Landing Pages

When you are running a campaign, you may be tempted to send people to your site’s home page or another existing page on your site. This is not necessarily a bad practice, but I would recommend designing a special landing page for your campaign visitors to go to. The landing page will be relevant to the ad and include a single call-to-action. The call-to-action should be to send the customer to the primary goal of the campaign (print a coupon, buy a book, download a whitepaper, contact a sales agent, etc.).

This will help focus your customer on the conversion you wish to achieve with the campaign. If they just go to a normal page on your site they can easily be distracted by all the other content and navigation, and never make it to the part of the site you really wanted to drive them to.

There are many more theories and best practices that can be employed to make your campaigns a success, but these are the top things I always make sure are part of any campaign I’m helping to set up and/or analyze.

Differentiating Campaign from Organic Traffic

Naturally there will always be some customers who will be driven to the site by the campaign, but opt to use search instead anyway. During an on-going campaign you should see if there is any increase in organic search or direct traffic to your site. The percentage of increase there may also be considered part of your campaign traffic.

Tracking from your unique URL should also have been set up ahead of time to go into it’s own campaign report. The way this is set up differs between each analytics tool, but they can all recognize any of the mentioned unique URL methods.

Posted in Analytics, Online Marketing | Leave a response

Website Owners, Check Your Mobile Stats!

By Gabriele on July 17, 2011

As a tablet computer owner I am finding some sites difficult to use. Not because they use Flash (I have an Android tablet), but because they insist on forcing me to view the “mobile” version of their site. Some sites do offer the option to swithc to their “full” or “desktop” version, but often I have to re-select this on every page. Other sites never even give me this option, and I find the mobile versions of their sites both unattractive, and limited, when using my tablet.

Mobile optimized web sites are awesome when I am browsing with my phone, but once you use a 10.1″ tablet, they really are less than ideal. Tablet optimized may also be an option depending on how whiz-bang your site is, but often my tablet can handle the full version of most sites.

When looking at the mobile stats for my clients over the past two quarters I noticed a significant increase in tablet traffic to their sites. To that end I have begun reporting on those stats so they are aware and can make the appropriate business decisions for those users. I am recommending to all of them to either serve the full versions of their sites to anyone running Android 3.0 or higher, developing a tablet optimized version, or at the very least including the option to switch to the full site if they wish. In addition I am recommending if they choose the 3rd option, to place a cookie to remember that option, so as the user navigates the site, they are not brought back to the mobile version with every click to a new page.

I highly recommend anyone reading this post to check the mobile stats for your site, if you are not already doing so, and start thinking about options for the tablet computer users who visit your site.

Posted in Analytics, Mobile Analytics, Recommendations, Web Analytics | 1 Response

Why I Like Being an Independent Consultant

By Gabriele on June 14, 2011

Not to sound immodest, but one of my biggest flaws when it comes to the business world is that I’m too nice. Too many times I’ve been told “Gabi, you are too nice!” My clients over the years (including the “internal clients” I had at my old job) found that niceness to be in their favor. However on more than one occasion my “niceness” has been misinterpreted/misunderstood by folks who, while outwardly appearing very nice, apparently harbored deep insecurities about either their skills or job in general. Without going into any specifics let’s just say I’ve found myself on the receiving end of such insecurities by being manipulated and/or lied to, and on more than one occasion I found myself having to defend myself of false accusations. A few times I was out right fired due to such false accusations – all because someone felt threatened by nice little old me (many times the truths came out well after the fact, but as truths are wont to do, they do eventually come out).

At the end of the day, all I ever have tried to do is do my job, to the best of my abilities. I work hard, I enjoy what I do, and I try to make sure I do it well. That’s all. I am not busy scheming how to steal someone else’s job (even if that’s all they ever spend their time on, and somehow think that’s all I ever do as well). I guess some people just can’t understand it when some people act nice, they actually mean it.

So when I started to work independently, I finally found myself in a situation where I no longer had to “watch my back” for such silly machinations. For 2.5 years now I have worked in blissful peace – doing what I do best – and doing the best job I can doing it. My first priority are the needs of my clients, just as they always have been, and for the first time there is no one around to feel threatened by me. This makes for a much lower-stress existence for me and why I am extremely reluctant to even consider any potential full-time positions.

I’ll admit – I have turned down several very tempting potential full-time, senior positions over the past year. Each one would have been a great career opportunity. However I’ve played the company/corporate game once too often, and lost more often than I care to admit. I am in no hurry to play that political game again. Independence really has brought me a greater sense of peace than I ever imagined. Right now this gig is working for me just fine, and I plan to enjoy it for as long as it lasts.

Posted in Analytics, Consulting, Endress|Analytics, Ethics | Leave a response

Consulting: To Remain Independent or to Expand my Business

By Gabriele on June 13, 2011

I’m getting to a level with my business through Endress|Analytics that I now have had to hire interns to assist me with quarterly reporting I do for my clients. Also more and more companies are contacting me in regards to my availability for either projects or even full-time, permanent positions. While I am not currently accepting any full-time work, I have always been willing to talk to companies about long-term or short-term engagements that take up 10 – 20 hours/week. One client of mine has kept me on a long-term engagement for over a year now, while my other clients come and go with 1-3 month projects. These projects are starting to become more frequent and it’s leading me to debate if I wish to remain completely independent – a sole-proprietor – or if I should consider engaging some help and actually start growing my business beyond just myself.

While I am still debating this, if I do opt to expand, my first inclination is to hire folks as 1099 employees (they would be self-employed, and responsible for paying their own taxes). Doing so saves me a lot of paperwork in the long run. If I went the route of hiring W-2 employees, I would have to change the way my business is currently structured and make sure I file all the appropriate documents, have an actual pay-roll, and all the other paperwork that would come along with having employees. I am a long way from being ready for anything quite that formal at this point.

Another consideration if I do begin to hire folks (in whatever capacity), is that I will most likely have to raise my prices. I think one of the reasons folks are coming to me is that I am still affordable compared to the larger analytics consulting firms out there. Adding staff will add more overhead, and therefore force me to increase my prices significantly.

For now I will make due with hiring “unpaid” interns – swapping hands-on experience in Omniture for their time. However I may be forced to make a decision within the next several months as to which path I will pursue, at least in the near term. If you were in my shoes, which direction would you go in?

Posted in Analytics, Consulting | 1 Response

My Love/Hate Relationship with Analytics Tool UIs

By Gabriele on May 11, 2011

It is probably fairly clear by now that I am a big fan of SiteCatalyst (part of the Adobe Online Marketing Suite, powered by Omniture). However in my role as a consultant, I do remain tool independent. Through my clients I have been exposed to a variety of other analytics tools including Google Analytics, Webtrends and Unica. Now I know a pretty UI (user interface) does not a great tool make – it’s what’s under the hood that really matters.

That being said, I don’t care how fantastic of tool you have, if the UI is lacking in usability, it really frustrates the heck out of me. I won’t pick on any one vendor in particular but when it comes to both having a robust analytics tool, and a usable interface, my pick over all the rest that I’ve work with so far has got to be SiteCatalyst, followed by Google Analytics.

Here’s an example of a UI that’s really lacking in usability – one tool I’ve been working with recently requires you to click a button in order to “apply” any sort of date change. If you want to change between profiles (report suites) the data always resets to the current month. It even resets to the current month when navigating within a profile at times as well. This makes running reports very time consuming, especially if I want to run a report and I need a specific date range (like if I’m running quarterly reports across multiple profiles, for example). Omniture really got this one right – they only reset the date back to the current month if you are logging in or have been away from the tool for an extended period of time. My selected date range remains across reports, and across report suites without having to reset everything each time.

This is but one small example of a UI that’s really lacking in usability, which in the end wastes my time and my clients’ money.

Posted in Analytics, Tools of the Trade, Usability, Web Analytics | Leave a response