High folks… long time no Blog.
Well as you can image things have been crazy.
But I haven’t forgotten all of you out there… pining for more Dougy Goodness.
I dispense said goodness…. now:
The new job is going very well.
I really enjoy the job, the people, and the company over all.
I can’t tell you how great it is to be at a company focused on technology.
I’m finally able to justify spending time learning about all sorts of things I’ve been “meaning” to get educated on.
For instance…
Web Analytics.
It’s terribly interesting stuff.
Now-a-days analyzing your website traffic goes much further than server logs.
Sure any hosting company can provide rudimentary site statistics… and even create fancy graphs based on those logs… but the data is pretty dumb.
It’s just raw data, and it’s not actionable on any significant level.
Websites that REALLY want to make use of web site statistics need to understand visitor behavior, and need to be able to take action on it.
Example:
Say you’ve got a website that sells sporting goods.
You’re going to launch an advertising campaign and put banner ads all over the internet.
At the same time you are going to send out a marketing newsletter to all of your 40,000 opt-in subscribers.
You need to make sure you get every bang for your buck that you can,
Here’s how web analytics can help
You design TWO emails and TWO banner ads.
Then you send each of the emails to 500 people.
You also place each banner ad on a few good sites for a short time.
Your web analytics platform will tell you which of your emails and banner ads generated more revenue.
You can then take the more effective email and send to the rest of your list.
And likewise put the more effective banner ad all over the internet.
Neat huh?
Well wait…there’s more.
Now that you’ve used your web analytics data to create a more productive advertising campaign… you’re going to get some more visitors.
Web analytics can show you how your visitors behaved while at your site. What were they most interested in. Why did the folks who didn’t buy … not buy?
Well by looking at the “conversion funnel” we can see where people dropped out of the buying process.
Did they look at a product? - Yes
Did they add it to the cart? - Yes
Did they click “check out”? - Yes
Did they enter in Billing Info? - Yes
Did they enter in shipping info - NO
Ah… something about the shipping dissuaded them.
NOW THAT’S actionable data.
So you quickly create an email that will be sent to all the folks that dropped out at the shipping stage of the process.
The email uses the web analytics data to generate an offer of FREE SHIPPING on the very product they had in their carts while they were at your site.
“What LUCK” says the giddy consumer! The item they wanted yesterday (but didn’t want pay shipping for) JUST HAPPENS to have a Free Shipping promotion!!
THOSE kinds of emails… targeted, personal, and relevant… they get much increased conversion rates than a “blind” advertisement campaign.
You can make more revenue with an email like that sent to a handful of users than you did with the large scale banner add and email campaign combined!
Really interesting stuff.
Of course there are many web analytics packages out there.
Some bigger and fancier than others.
Some free… some far from it.
So I decided to start using Google Analytics here on DougMeade.com
Google Analytics is free, but surprisingly powerful once you get under the hood.
Of course I’m not selling anything.
So a “conversion” for me isn’t a sale… I decided that a conversion for me is a new registered user.
I’m impressed with the data available already at this early stage.
I haven’t accurately defined the path a user would take through the site in order to register (a conversion) .. so I can’t give you any REAL insight as to where possible members are abandoning the process.
But stay tuned.
Oh and… a big hearty hello to the folks visiting from Bartlett, Tampa, Hattiesburg, Waco, Austin, and Lafayette.
