Recently Omniture, makers of web analytics product SiteCatalyst, created a multivariate testing campaign for their new white paper offering. The challenge was to attain 1000 qualified leads.

Mikel Chertudi, Director of Online Marketing ran 3 tests. The first was for Banners advertising a webinar which included A/B testing of:

• Image Art (generic images vs. images of webinar presenters)
• Short vs. Long benefit List
• Call to action buttons

Secondly he tested Landing Page Templates where he modified calls to action, navigation links, layout and images.

Finally he looked at the registration process to analyze abandonment rates based on the types of information the form requested.

The results of the test turned out excellent, he hit the 1000 lead mark easily and is now going for more. This just further proves what A/B testing can do for campaigns in terms of driving traffic and increasing conversion rates.

Marketing Sherpa’s summary can be found here:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=27441

Budget, especially for smaller organizations, is often a major factor when researching which Analytics package to implement on a given website. There are business owners who continually push off the purchase of analytics until their company is financially ready to make the leap and online commitment; or until over inflated marketing projections prove to be just that, and mistakes need to be quantified. Something that the majority of business doesn’t seem to realize is the immense insight and knowledge they are missing out on by waiting.

It’s the same old argument: spend a dollar today or two dollars tomorrow. Put that simply, the answer seems obvious; yet everyday, another person throws his hat into the e-commerce ring, purely on the speculation of Google-like fortunes, some great M&A buy-out, or that mythical IPO of triple digit shares, without considering the concept of “checks and balances”….Having analytics on your site is something that doesn’t take long to pay itself off. In fact, I’m pretty confident in saying that by delaying implementation, you’re probably losing more money through your site in lost revenue opportunities than you’re “saving” by putting it off. So smarten up, and start paying attention.

All site owners should be aware that there are options available to them, free ones! Google Analytics, StatCounter, and now ClickTracks all provide an analytics solution that users can employ without any outside cost and minimal internal IT resources, especially if the analytics are implemented right from the design stage of the site and built right into the site templates. After a reasonably simple setup, users can view real data and start using numbers to make educated marketing decisions instead of flying blindly into the wind.

In the rest of this article I will be talking about analytics solutions that are available for free, their features/limitations, and how you can begin collecting the right data.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics became available late last year and quickly became the hottest thing on the internet. Because of its immense popularity, users have to sign-up and wait in a queue until they receive an invitation to download. On average it takes anywhere from several weeks to months to get an invitation. Everybody wants to be popular, and Google’s inability to meet demand is the biggest con for its analytics software.

I was granted access about a month ago and was very impressed by the depth of the reporting available. Some standard reports are Campaign/Conversion Tracking, Visitor/Geo Segmentation and executive dashboards. Google loves to integrate all their products, and as a result users have the ability to see metrics for their Adwords accounts inside their analytics suite. Other cool features include an administration area, which is built on top of a very intuitive user interface that allows for the management of users, websites, IP filters, and accounts. The report data is not up-to-the-minute and can sometimes take up to a couple of hours to update, which for most users, is accurate enough.

Google Analytics can be set-up and running within a couple of minutes. Google generates a block of JavaScript that you have to copy and paste onto all the pages of your website. Conversion tracking requires users to specify each step in their conversion process by entering in a corresponding URL. E-commerce tracking gets more advanced, but there is sufficient documentation to walk you through it.

StatCounter

StatCounter was one of the original online analytics packages, maybe that’s why the home page has a PageRank of 10. Although it has fewer bells and whistles than Google Analytics, it still provides a simple interface with useful reports. The biggest drawback of StatCounter’s free version is that it has a log size of 100; this means that detailed statistics such as path analysis and referrals (as well as other metrics) are limited to a small number of a user’s latest pageloads. This means that if you website is already getting a large volume of visitors, StatCounter’s free download may not be the right product for you, but if you are already getting those kind of numbers, you should be able to pony up for the full StatCounter package.

StatCounter’s report suite includes the usual page views report, repeat and first-time visitor tracking, but really kicks it up a notch with its detailed analysis of Visitor’s Path and Visitor Activity. The reports lack a visual punch, but for a user who is looking strictly for the data, it does the trick.

Similar to Google, StatCounter generates a block of JavaScript for users to paste onto the pages of their entire website. However, in the free version, there is no way to set up additional tracking for conversions, campaigns, or e-commerce. In other words, StatCounter’s free version is an ample beginner analytics package, but as your online activity escalates and you start to make some real money, you are probably going to want to upgrade in order to keep your competitive advantage.

ClickTracks

ClickTracks’ free version was recently released, but has definitely created some buzz in the industry. The analytics software is targeted towards helping users understand their visitors in order to increase ROI.

This Version, known as ClickTracks Appetizer, comes with a standard interface, but also includes behavioral segmentation, campaign tracking (including PPC), and conversion tracking in order to help users make the best decisions for their search marketing campaigns. A cool perk they’ve started is the announcement of “Web Analytics Day” where they turn on advanced features such as funnel reporting and advanced visitor segmentation. I think this is a great way to entice users to upgrade to advanced versions of ClickTracks, and its showing in their increasing market share.

So there you have it, three good options to help you make educated decisions for your website. So don’t let your website sit untracked as time passes by, do yourself and your business a favor and sign-up for an Analytics package right away, even if you’re blindly holding out for a more “robust” package and freer budgets in the future.

Analyzing something as simple as “Top Exit Pages” can help you pinpoint why users are dropping off your website. By tweaking these pages and keeping visitors on your site, you can help increase things like revenue and conversion rate (I think this is the primary goal for every businessperson). Keeping track of the right metrics through Analytics software will make all the difference in your future online success, because, as any marketer will tell you, understanding your customer is tantamount to making any money in business.

Tags: Google Internet Web Analytics

Attending Omniture’s Web Analytics Summit has made me realize the extent of segmentation and analysis an analytics suite can provide for an organization. As stated in a previous article, about half of search marketers use analytics. This is a surprisingly low figure; however, of this 50%, how many online marketers are aware of the advanced features that can help focus and drive their overall search marketing strategies? Having analytics in place is just half of the solution, actually using them and tailoring them to provide solid information and reasoning is what separates those on the leading edge from those on the bleeding edge.

In this article I will provide some insight into some of the complex analytics features that are not readily apparent to many of the marketing professionals in the search industry. (Please note that the topics discussed are a little advanced, but continue reading because they can be applied to any search marketing strategy, large or small, and will undoubtedly lead to you making the right decisions more often than not.)

Testing

Finding the best solution doesn’t always happen right out of the gate; if that were the case, having a career .300 batting average wouldn’t be a sure way into Cooperstown. What does separate the winners from the losers is the constant re-evaluation of the norm and never being satisfied with the status quo. A/B and Multivariate testing can be crucial in helping you find better ways to engage your customers so that they spend more time on your site, increasing conversion and retention rates.

Take for instance; introducing a new landing page in a sponsored campaign. A/B testing, or running the two landing pages concurrently, can quantify user’s preferences and help you choose the best landing page for any given ad title or description.

But what about a new homepage design? Without using multivariate testing, how can you ever truly know the best layout, design, or content? Nobody has the time to conduct A/B testing on these scenarios, making minor adjustments with each iteration and waiting for the traffic or lack of traffic to come rolling in; because in the online medium, timeliness is too much of a necessity to be wasting it waiting too long for the numbers necessary to make informed decisions. That’s probably why so many online marketers blindly jump into new designs when things go stale, crossing their fingers and hoping for the best. But reconfiguring your analytics can make it possible to run multiple homepage designs at the same time, each getting the same amount of traffic, in order to quantify and determine the optimum design choice. (Once the tests are complete, I highly recommend that you run some confirmations on how these changes affect the rest of your site, to see if there were any side effects [i.e.: decreased conversions, visitors, page views] in different site sections.)

Too many online marketers fail to quantify user behavior patterns, but the fact of the matter is that by utilizing the advanced features in your Analytics you can put numbers to user preferences – and numbers very rarely lie or lead you astray. In short, A/B and Multivariate testing can help you deliver the right experience for your customers and the best and timeliest return for you, but only if you are tracking all the key variables properly with your Analytics software.

Tracking Media Content

Media content such as audio, video, Flash, and AJAX are quickly becoming the most popular features on websites. Although less search engine friendly than plain text, these media variations play a key role in enticing users to stay and interact with your website. But is the benefit worth the cost? How can you ever know without using Analytics? Search marketers can use their Analytics to track KPIs like impressions, time spent on page, and percent completion to lend “real” numbers to the decision making process. By developing custom media players and using analytics software such as SiteCatalyst, site owners and marketers have the ability to track abandonment rates within the audio or video files by running pathing reports. Wouldn’t it be useful to determine that of all the visitors who listen or watch your media file, half of them drop out at 30% completion and only 2% of those finish it entirely? Previously, when tracking Flash, we used to only be able to see the number of page views the container page had; however, with recent Analytics software updates and the increased demand of users, we are now able to track various functions within Flash like the popularity of links, video, and other form elements.

Using Internal Search as a Marketing Tool

Internal search is another common feature on many websites today. But internal search is as much a marketing tool as it is a navigation alternative for users, all you need to do is use your Analytics. Capturing internal search terms is an excellent way to determine how users perceive your website. By understanding what users are searching for or associating your website with, site owners should be able to establish site adaptations or re-workings that give their target market exactly what they are looking for. For example, if you have a research website, and after analyzing your site’s search terms you determine 1,200 visitors searched for “whitepapers” you can simultaneously modify conversion paths so that the whitepapers are more easily accessible from the most popular point of entry. Imagine that, being able to retrofit your website based on actual user preference instead of what focus groups or consultants think you need. From an implementation perspective, capturing internal search terms is relatively easy so there is no reason why you shouldn’t be tracking them and using that information to guide any site redesigns or content improvements.

Every individual Analytics program is a little bit different in how it is set-up or configured, but most have advanced features that offer so much more than you are probably using. With a little investigation and work, you too can start to get the most “bang” out of your Analytics and start making the right decision more often. In other words, these advanced features are the surest way for any online marketer or site owner to get into the online equivalent of Cooperstown: larger returns.

Try to remember, every good search marketing campaign is powered by intensive Analytics analysis..

Tags: Internet Opinion PPC Research SEO Web Analytics