Crepuscular Light » yahoo web analytics

WAWOAFNOLAJULY222011

Exxx — Fri, 27 May 2011 03:35:49 +0000

Are you making plans for the rest of the year? Perhaps deciding on what jolly web analytics events to attend? Well, be the hokey, look no further! Web Analytics Wednesday takes to Friday on July 22nd 2011 in the city of New Orleans. Now, I know what you’re thinking – it’s a combination of “Why should I go to this?” and “I like soup”. Now, I don’t want you to hurt yourself by thinking, so I’ve created a short quiz to help make the decision for you. Don’t worry, you can thank me later – perhaps in Nawlins.

Question 1: Have you ever heard of New Orleans?
A: No
B: Yes

Question 2: What is a Hurricane?
A: It’s an intense, rotating oceanic weather system
B: It’s a drink

Question 3: Do you like to manipulate data?
A: Well, I do like to twist its words and make it apologise when I’m in the wrong.
B: Yes, I like to slice and dice data like it’s chicken on a sizzling Teppanyaki grill!

Qustion 4: Do you like to meet colleagues in the same industry?
A: No, they smell like feet.
B: Yes, they amuse me – I like to make them dance like puppets on a string! (Or talk to them. Talking’s good too)

Count up the As and Bs of your responses. For each answer A, you get a cherry. For each answer B, you get a t-shirt. If you have more cherries than t-shirts, perhaps this isn’t for you. How did you even get here? Do I need to call security?

If you have more t-shirts than cherries, register below, book your flight, book your hotel, dust off your favourite smock and I’ll see you in NOLA, cherie!

This Web Analytics Wednesday (on a Friday) is being hosted by the fabulous Jennifer Day and the far less fabulous Emer Kirrane. It is very kindly sponsored by Yahoo! Web Analytics, Web Analytics Demystified and IQ Workforce.

You know you want to, right? Go on, it’s ok, you’re safe here – we won’t judge.

The Details

The Venue: Gordon Biersche, 200 Poydras Street, New Orleans Louisiana

The Date: July 22 2011

Register: http://bit.ly/kwpOlB

Matt Lillig – Strategy Man

Exxx — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 09:00:03 +0000

This is the Silly Series. It’s not about apples. It’s not about clowns. It’s not even about belly-button fluff. It’s about the people in and around the web analytics industry.

It’s time to talk to a fellow Yahoo! chap – a man who could sell you weight-loss advice - Matt Lillig.

Who is Matt Lillig?

“Trying to get through life without looking stupid” guy

35 yr. old who’s spent over 1/3 of his life growing up in the web analytics space. Husband to my beautiful wife, father to an awesome 6 month old boy, brother to four brilliant siblings, and son to two amazing parents. Former guitar player for a small rock band. Has lived all over California but currently resides in Temecula, CA (southern California’s newest wine country). A sports fanatic who lives and dies with every Raiders, Lakers, and Dodgers, win or loss.

Exactly what did you do when you worked at Jenny Craig?

I was a weight loss consultant….duh! After the dot bomb crash, I was grouped in with the 25% that loss their jobs at WebSideStory. I was scrambling around looking for work (good luck finding an internet job in 2001 with two years of experience) when a buddy told me that I should come work for Jenny Craig (where he was working as a consultant). Somehow I got hired and I was trained for a group called Jenny Direct that did consultations and meal plan sales over the phone. Best sales experience I ever got! I realized that if I (refer to my picture), a male, could successfully sell weight loss advice to women, then I could sell anything! In my short time there I helped 40 men and women reach their goal weights for a combined loss of over 800lbs. And thanks to that sales experience it helped get my next job….selling IndexTools (now Yahoo! Web Analytics) for a firm called EngineReady.

If you could go back in time and change one part of web analytics history, what would it be? And would you be able to resist gaming the lottery while you were back there?

Privacy concerns. What part of “anonymous data collection” do some people still not understand? And even if I was able to go back and game the lottery, I’d still lose with my horrible luck!

If someone puts two and two together and makes five, how much force will you need to exert to slap them, assuming the mass of the earth is 6 x 10²⁴kilograms?

Are you referring to those people who reach out to you claiming that they have data discrepancies and that there must be something wrong with YOUR web analytics product only to realize later that the discrepancies are because of their own improper implementations? Those cases can be upsetting but thanks to my great customer service skills, I happily inform them of what their issue is and send them on their way. I still cringe though when I hear the term “data discrepancy”.

Who is your superhero-sans-cape in the web analytics community and why?

The first manager who hired me at WebSideStory. I graduated with a degree in Marketing and knew absolutely nothing about web analytics. He asked me a ton of questions during my interview and many of my answers went like this, “I have no idea but I’m willing to learn and work hard”. Why he hired me, I don’t know. Who knows where I’d be today without him taking a chance on me.

You enjoy taking photographs. What is the best photo you’ve ever taken? And the worst?

Best: I didn’t take this one but it is my favorite of my son Grayson:

Worst: What was I thinking wearing that shiny shirt in public?

What is your wish for the remainder of 2011?

For the Oakland Raiders to win another Super Bowl so I don’t have to live another year in Raiders fan hell. Chargers fans are brutal!!

If web analytics was a person, what kind of lonely heart ad would it post on a singles website?

Name: Anonymous

Ad Content: A people watcher who loves sitting in traffic. Looking for a companion who enjoys taking a breather on weekends, who can handle a lot of input, and has a nice looking inter’face’. Preferably somebody with a low relationship bounce rate who doesn’t measure a person’s personality after the first impression. Yodel “Yahoo!” if you’re searching for the funnel of love.

You and your wife recently had a baby. Would you be happy for your son to follow in your career footsteps?

Absolutely! Well, if he breaks down my career via a path analysis report, he’ll find some roadblocks (layoffs) and most likely will choose another path. But of course I’m going to support him 100% in whatever he wants to do….unless he gets offered a position at any company that starts with a ‘G’.

What do you see as the greatest threat to the future of web analytics?

Probably these web analytics player profiles you’re doing. How could any clients take us seriously after reading these?!?!

Check out the full list of interviews in the Silly Series here!

But don’t you want to know WHY???

Exxx — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 09:42:39 +0000

So, you have a web analytics tool. You’ve done your research and you’re happy with the solution you’ve chosen. And you’re using your lovely web analytics tool as a campaign tracker. Only. That’s your one use. To see how well your campaigns are performing. But you don’t look at why their performance is at its current level. You just track them so that you have figures for Upstairs. Why?

This is a pet peeve of my own; people using web analytics solutions to track one landing page or to look at one report. Obviously, if that’s what someone would like to do, then more power to their elbow, but the vast amount of data and insight that is possibly being wasted by this under-usage seems like a tragedy.

What you don’t know if you track one landing page:
- what visitors did next (unless you have an exit link on the page to track)
- how to segment based on behaviour
- how to target based on behaviour
- how to improve your acquisition strategy
- WHY

Small-picture tracking is wasting opportunities – granted, this may be a usage dictated by a lack of resources, parcelled web properties, teams in silos and so on, but looking at campaigns in isolation, without looking at other influences and impacts is squandering optimisation prospects.

To be fair, working for an analytics vendor as I do, there is sometimes an in-house disconnect between the usage we had in mind when creating a feature/function/report capability and the actual way in which a customer will use it.
For example, we have a lovely array of out-of-the-box reports of which we’re very proud. We once had a customer ask if we could add an option to remove all of them as they just took up real estate in the UI after they’d created all of the custom reports they actually wanted.
We have a report called Last Visitor Details (shows individual visit paths) that we never considered to be incredibly useful because it can’t be used for trending or statistical analysis. We have customers who ONLY use this report. Therefore, I am aware that my bias may be unfounded and that if any part of a tool’s usefulness can be exploited, there are wins but..but..don’t you want to know WHY?

Here comes the science bit – upgraded your YWA tracking code?

Exxx — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 10:54:07 +0000

Do you use Yahoo! Web Analytics? Yes? How clever of you! (me? biased? pfff!)

Have you been using it since the days of IndexTools? Yes? How loyal of you!

Have you upgraded your tracking code to the latest version? No? Not sure? Well, let me help you out a little.

When IndexTools became Yahoo! Web Analytics in 2008 and completed the rebranding process in 2009, the tracking code was overhauled. So, the current version is version 5 and the previous version is version 4. Support for version 4 ends on July 30th 2010, so if you want to continue to benefit from support and updates, then you might want to think about upgrading.

Not sure which version you have? The difference is that Yahoo! now hosts the .js file for tracking and version 5 uses setter functions as opposed to global variables.

I.e. Old looks something like:

So, log in to your account, go to the Installation section and copy the code there to get started, get the Installation Guide and away you go!

If we track them, do they not tremble? Advocating “Vempathy”

Exxx — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 10:23:24 +0000

I’m, naturally enough, a believer in visitor tracking. I think it’s perfectly fair to try to understand the visitor experience in order to work on both improving that experience and to maximise a website’s profit/message potential. When I first began working in the industry and fully understood what kind of data could be collected, I remember finding it quite ominous and unsettling. Now that I know how the data is used, I don’t bat an eyelid. However, I think it is important to remember that the vast majority of visitors we track are those outside the industry – if you put yourself in their shoes, you see a much darker picture of targeting and analysis. But if education is all that stands between distrust and acceptance, why are we not trying to teach? Perhaps we should try a little visitor empathy, or “vempathy”.

I interviewed and surveyed a number of people recently to ascertain how they felt about tracking generally. This was spawned by the fact that when someone asks me what I do (which results in explaining what my company does), I generally find them to be both bored and terrified – a very remarkable combination and one which illustrates the fact that many visitors who claim to distrust tracking will very seldom do anything to counter it. Lethargic horror is probably the most exploited aspect of website visitors.

Most of those I spoke to were shocked to discover what could be learned about them in a single visit and described themselves as suspicious, paranoid and manipulated as a result. I then asked if they would feel differently if this was a site they visited often.
No.
Would they feel differently if they knew that the data was being used to improve their experience on the website?
No.
Would they feel differently if they knew the data would be used to generate tailored advertising?
No.
Would they feel differently if they knew that personally identifiable information (PII) was not being collected and used?
And this was the turning point. There is an assumption that if “I” am being tracked, then “MY” information is being collected. This seems to be the point that needs clarification.

After that, all hell broke loose. Those I spoke to wanted their permission to be sought before tracking was done, but didn’t want a pop-up or to go to a specific page on the site.

The other feeling, from the remainder of the interviewees, was “indifference”, a sense of fairness that if I go to a “free” website, I should “sell something”. Which, I felt, illustrated a belief that “the data is probably used for something sinister, but who cares”? To my mind, this is just as unwelcome a feeling as one of paranoia. It still paints us as the bad guys, but gives us permission to quietly commit our sins.

In Yahoo! Web Analytics, you can see the “interest categories” of your visitors, based on the Yahoo! properties they visit. Eric Peterson, in a fascinating post, has outlined a browser history hack! With tools like these, it is therefore possible to begin building a profile of your visitors as users of the internet, not just as visitors to your website. And this can surely give you incredible insight. But even I, while finding these possibilities dance-in-my-pants exciting, also sometimes find them dance-in-my-pants disturbing. It’s a reflex and I can settle the little voice inside with my knowledge and understanding of the industry. The general site visitor may not have that luxury. If you look up “website tracking” with a search engine, you will see thousands of results from vendors and analysts, but little (outside of from tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorists) along the lines of “Dear Visitor – here are the reasons, without the fancy blurb, why we track your visit and this is what we use the information for”.

Should we be taking greater responsibility for educating website visitors? Should we work on our “vempathy”?

Free ≠ Bad in Web Analytics Tools

Exxx — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 09:06:45 +0000

I recently (and by recently I mean not very – I’m doing my bit for the environment by recycling) spoke at a Web Analytics Wednesday in Budapest, Hungary on the subject of “Free” web analytics tools and the perception attached to them. This is not new. This is not news. But it is a subject that is quite close to my heart as I have witnessed first-hand the change in perception a change in price brings.

I joined IndexTools in 2007 as a Professional Services Consultant. IndexTools was a mid-tier web analytics tool which was not free. We often said that we had 80% of Omniture’s technology for a fraction of the price and merrily plied our trade across the world. We were then acquired by Yahoo! in May of 2008 and became Yahoo! Web Analytics (after a brief stint as IndexTools, a Yahoo! Service).
At the time of the acquisition, charging for the web analytics tool was instantly discontinued. The reaction to this particular change surprised us. There were no immediate alterations to the tool but we discovered that people were worried by the price point. We had (naively, perhaps) expected customers to be quite excited at the sudden cut in their costs, especially given the looming down-turn in the global economy, but instead we found that many were cynical and distrustful and immediately assumed that the tool was of a lower quality than previously.
Bear in mind that at this point, we had made no major changes.

As time went on, we soon found (and this is something that got us where it hurts – our pride) that we were compared to other tools purely based on price point. You will rarely see comparisons between paid tools based on price alone – they will mention the power of the tool, the many types of reports, the flexibility, and so on. Seldom will you see a comparison between Tool X and Tool Y because they both cost $1000.

We suddenly found ourselves in the same buyer’s basket as any free analytics tool. In the same basket as plug-ins, as hit counters!
Yes, I exaggerate…but only slightly.

It is generally accepted that you get what you pay for – while we were compared in various blog posts and reports with Coremetrics, Webtrends etc when we charged for our tool, the moment we went free, even though the tool was the same, a surprising number of people ceased to see us as viable competition in the web analytics market. It was really quite hurtful.

The Princess Perception

A price tag of $0 can affect the perceived value and therefore importance in a company’s suite of tools.
I like to call this The Princess Perception – the same rule applies with dresses and shoes and perfume etc (if you’re a girl, that is). As the price increases, the perception of quality increases. The uses to which you will put that which you buy tend to be tied to the price paid. If you buy a cheap dress, it’s for wearing in the house where no-one can see you – you may eventually take to dusting the TV with it as you pass. If you spend a lot of money on a dress, you’re going to an event where there will be lots of photos taken – you will spend lots of money on accessories to enhance that original purchase (if boys are losing me in the girly analogy, I’m talking about employing analysts).
There’s a minimum price expected – anywhere between minimum and free, the perception is pretty much the same. After the minimum price, the quality perception grows.
As I said before, this is not a new phenomenon, but it’s new to us and increasingly relevant now that there are more free web analytics tools in the market – tools that are of a relatively high quality and suitable for anything from my mother’s blog to huge sites.

Let’s face it – there’s no such thing as “free”. It is naive to believe otherwise. Philanthropy is a wonderful thing, but I’m not sure how much of it you will find in the web analytics industry. Instead of paying money for a free tool, you simply pay with a different currency, and that currency is data. If you use Google Analytics or Yahoo! Web Analytics, you are in effect still paying – just not with cash.
So, if none of the tools in the market are really free, and we accept that, shouldn’t perceptions change? If you’re paying in one way or another, then comparisons on price alone are heading towards meaningless. We should compare on other factors – the first being “Will this tool do what I need it to do and help me to gain actionable insights?”

A tool just vomits data – you have to have people to interpret it. That’s where your cash should go – it doesn’t HAVE to go into a web analytics tool.