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THIS ISSUE:
Moving on...
As you will have no doubt noticed, Visitor Intelligence
News has changed. We continue to bring you news
and views from Site Intelligence and the wider website
visitor intelligence industry.
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The Dangers of relying on simplistic statistics
Simplistic statistics, such as those provided free
by many business ISPs, can be misleading and even
downright dangerous when it comes to helping you
make important decisions on the management of websites.
Really useful or just interesting?
Most website management teams make do with simple
performance measures. For example:
- How many visitors the site receives in total
each month
- The daily breakdown of the total number of
hits on the server
- The most popular pages on the site as measured
by the number of page impressions
But there are dangers in using these simple numbers
in your e-commerce decision making. What are they?
Simplistic statistics, such
as the total number of visitors a site receives
each month, have the advantage that they are easy
to measure. Indeed, many business ISPs provide a
free report containing this level of information.
The numbers help to give a general impression of
site usage and sometimes show intriguing patterns
("Why is our site 35% busier on Tuesday and Wednesday
than on Thursday and Friday?" "Who are all these
visitors from Delaware?"). But are they really useful
as management information?
The stark truth is that 'simplistic statistics'
are of little help in management decision-making
about a website. In some cases they can be dangerously
misleading. To see why, let's think about a specific
example.
Introducing conversions4u.co.uk
http://www.conversions4u.co.uk/ is a (fictitious)
website selling home improvement services. It's
a consumer-oriented site selling direct via e-commerce.
Part of the site is a news section, updated every
week, containing the latest updates from the UK
home improvement industry. The intention of the
news section is to attract new visitors to the site
and to tempt existing registered users to visit
more frequently, thus leading to more e-commerce
sales.
How much news is good news?
The marketing manager of conversions4u has proposed
that the news area should be expanded to include
more graphical material and to be updated daily,
not weekly. The new format has been tried for the
month of June using a freelance web author.
To continue with the new format for the long term,
conversions4u will need to employ an extra full-time
web editor. To decide whether to approve the increase
in headcount, the management team have asked for
a report on how the new area is performing.
You decide
Using the statistics provided by conversions4u's
ISP, the marketing manager produces the following
report:
|
Measure |
May
(old format) |
June
(new format) |
Change |
| Hits
on the news area |
9,560 |
28,294 |
196% |
| Visits
per month to the news area |
2,943 |
5,415 |
84% |
Put yourself in the position of the management
team. Based on these numbers, would you approve
the increase in headcount to maintain the new
format?
Bigger numbers don't equal better performances
In fact, the reported numbers provide no help
at all in reaching a decision. Although the percentage
changes look very impressive, there is no evidence
that the new design of the news area is of any
benefit to conversions4u's business. To see why,
let's consider the two numbers separately.
Hits and misses
In technical terms, a 'hit' is a single action
by the webserver. Each time a visitor views a
page, several 'hits' will be generated - one for
the HTML of the page itself, one for each graphic
on the page, and sometimes extra hits for more
complex parts of the page (e.g. style sheets).
What this means in business terms is that when
an area of a site is redesigned, the number of
hits will change even if the number of visitors
stays the same.
In conversions4u's case, the new news area has
a lot more graphics than the old one. This by
itself may explain the dramatically increased
number of hits.
To sum up: you cannot rely on 'hits' as a measure
of performance. So the 296% increase in hits for
conversions4u does not demonstrate any improvement
in the effectiveness of the news area as a marketing
tool.
Robot visitors
For many sites, a lot of activity is due to 'robots'
- automatic monitoring programs used by search
engine operators, amongst others, to keep track
of changes to your website.
Most simple website reporting packages are unreliable
in distinguishing between visits from search engine
robots and those from real people. To make matters
worse, some packages count each request from a
search engine robot as a separate 'visit' - so
if, for example, a robot indexed ten pages, that
would be counted as ten visits.
Because the conversions4u news area is now being
updated on a daily basis, many search engine robots
will detect this and will visit more frequently
in order to keep their search pages up to date.
So it is quite possible that the reported 184%
increase in visits per month is simply due to
search engine robots making more visits to this
part of the site.
In the dark
The impressive-looking numbers in the conversions4u
report are actually of no value in reaching a
business decision. Because the site has been redesigned
and the content update frequency changed, we would
expect both hits and visits to increase for reasons
quite unrelated to the marketing objectives of
the news area.
The management team of conversions4u are still
in the dark as to whether the increase in headcount
is justified. At worst, the increase in cost may
even lead to a reduction in sales through the
website!
Not all bad news
The good news is that, by going beyond 'simplistic
statistics' it is possible for conversions4u to
obtain relevant, accurate management information
which will allow the correct expenditure decision
to be made. We'll see how this can be done in
the next edition of the newsletter.
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See
for yourself at our Executive Briefing
If you want to find out more about website visitor
intelligence techniques and how they can improve
your online business activities, why not come along
to the Site Intelligence Executive Briefing at the
Institute of Directors in London on 15 August
At the Briefing we will explain:
- what the business case for website measurement
is
- how real visitor intelligence can transform
your website and marketing activities
- why simplistic website statistics are inadequate
and even dangerously misleading
- how to implement a visitor intelligence solution
quickly and with minimum risk
An in-depth understanding of
the relationship between web visitor actions and
website structure and content is key to the success
of online marketing activities.
Using case study material from various industry
sectors, the Site Intelligence Executive Briefing
on 15 August is designed to give you the information
you need to enable your website to deliver real
ROI and business benefits.
Everyone who attends will receive free copies of
the presentation materials and the new Site Intelligence
'Guide to Website Measurement'.
Briefing agenda As well as an overview of website
measurement and analysis, the Briefing will show
you how advanced visitor intelligence techniques
can:
- provide you with concise, relevant management
information on website performance
- deliver new insights into customer behaviour,
improving returns from both online and offline
marketing
- reduce the costs and improve the efficiency
of website operations
- diagnose and fix problems in navigation and
design
- track and optimise online advertising, email
marketing and other promotional activities
Who should attend?
e-business marketing directors, heads of e-commerce
and other senior managers will all find something
of value and interest.
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Visualising the future of web analytics
A recent report by the IT market analysis firm,
Aberdeen Group - 'Web Analytics: making business
sense of online behaviour' - concluded that companies
need products with better visualisation, integration
and scalability to cope with future demands.
Other key Aberdeen findings:
- during 2001, enterprises spent $372 million
on web analytics solutions
- spending on web analytics in Europe rose by
12.4% between 2000 and 2001 in spite of the
dot-com downturn
- of the 150 IT executives surveyed , 43% were
intending to buy a web analytics package within
the next year
- given a choice of 35 areas of interest, IT
executives put web analytics as second in importance,
after content/document management applications
and ahead of customer service/support, sales
force automation and supply chain management
The Aberdeen report pinpoints
a philosophical shift which took place in web analytics
during 2001.
According to 'Web Analytics: making business sense
of online behaviour', this was the year when organisations
began to realise they needed more from their web
analytics than simple statistics on page impressions
and churn rates. They needed an in-depth understanding
of what their website visitors are trying to do.
This was the defining moment when websites changed
from just 'eye candy' into functional places where
employees, partners and customers come to work and
do business.
The report profiles 47 web analytics providers,
including Site Intelligence. The authors describe
Site Intelligence's VBIS software as, 'this year's
'must see' web analytics product.' They outline
how, using Site Viewer within the VBIS (Visitor
Behaviour Information System) product, end-users
can configure a graphical view of their site, including
information on topics such as active and popular
links, number and type of visitors, conversion rates
and referral sites in a single page view.
The result is an all-encompassing view of the entire
website's traffic pattern over a period of time
ranging from days to months. Users can then drill
down into particular sections, zooming in on small
but significant segments, such as visitors who made
two or more purchases.
Praising VBIS' second generation software, the report
calls the visualisation tool 'not only eye-catching
but, more importantly, thought-catching. Using a
single view, a savvy marketing executive can spot
potential problems and opportunities at a glance,
rather than having to sift through dozens of reports.'
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VBIS
now available in US
VBIS web analytics service and software is now available
throughout North America via Site Intelligence's
distributor NetLiance Inc.
Based in Rochester, New York, NetLiance is a full
service web technologies provider. The company's
primary focus is on integrating technology and marketing
to enable clients to achieve their web-based business
goals.
www.netliancecorp.com
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