A Copy for Your Records

By Adam McArdell, Consultant, Stratigent

A common complaint I have heard from clients regarding Google Analytics involves losing one’s data to Google’s chasm-sized storage bins, never to be seen again. Sure, Google does provide a healthy API and a nice array of reporting, but what if you want to use log files to upload web data into a home-grown data warehouse? Also, what if unique analytics are being performed from old tools tying web data to offline metrics gathered from other systems?

As it turns out, Google provides a very simple way for anyone to collect and store his or her own copies of the image requests created using the base tag. Two additional function calls are required within the page tagging to collect these requests.

• _setLocalGifPath(newLocalGifPath) - Sets the path for the image that will be requested from the local server.
• _setLocalRemoteServerMode() - Tells the tag to fire an image request both to Google’s remote server and the path specified in _setLocalGifPath().

The following two functions need to be called on the pageTracker object before the _trackPageview() call, as displayed below.

Voila! Every page on your website will now be sending an image request to http://www.domain.com/path/to/image.gif, in addition to the utm.gif image request sent to Google’s servers. Once your excitement simmers down to a slow boil, one decision still remains; how and where will you host the image? The following two options exist with their own set of pros and cons.

1. Host the image on the main web server with all the other web files. In this situation, it should be very simple to request a 1x1 transparent pixel to be added anywhere on the server. The downside to including this method is that the analytics log entries will be intertwined with the rest of the image requests for the server, many times requiring some form of pre-processing before storage or back-end analysis.

2. Host the image on a new, unique web server instance. In this case, additional resources or technical know-how will be required to enable the tracking. However, once hosted properly, the web server instance will log all requests made to the image in their own neat file, removing the necessity for any processing on the logs to parse out the analytics data.

Additionally, following the base tag modifications, your new log files will be ready for any method of data warehousing or offline conversion analysis. If you need to bring additional data into your local logs, whether it be meta tag data used with other tools, or pieces of information scraped from the page and loaded into custom parameters, you can leverage Google’s custom variables to store all manner of information for internal use. Custom JavaScript can be employed to perform any number of automated tasks, reducing a multi-step overhaul of several site parameters to a quick-and-easy file inclusion - but I’ll save that for another post. Happy coding!

If you have any questions about Stratigent’s approach to Google tagging, or if you have general comments or feedback, please feel free to email me at Adam.McArdell@stratigent.com.

Adam McArdell is a Consultant and guest blogger at Stratigent.

Save Time and Money with Effective Education

By Erin Cropper, Senior Consultant, Stratigent

One of the most common pain points that I run across when dealing with strategy for organizations of any size is a lack of education amongst web analytics users. A lack of education in an organization can cause a great deal of pain and frustration, and can pose significant challenges to growing the analytics program and making data-driven decisions. When I interview stakeholders, I am frequently presented with the following education-related issues:

1. Limited access. Only a few users in the organization actually know anything about web analytics, and as a result, few people have access to their web analytics tool.

2. Limited expertise. Most users do not know enough about the tool or the data that they are working with to perform in-depth analysis.

3. Limited resources. Users with a high-level of knowledge about web analytics are constantly pulled in different directions to field requests for analysis and training.

4. Limited retention. Users who were previously educated often don’t retain enough information to be self-sufficient.

While there is no “smoking gun” approach to educating your users, approaching education as a business process can help to mitigate some of the issues that are commonly associated with one-off and ad hoc training. Education requires a substantial investment of both time and money, so for most organizations, launching a program for continuous learning is often a phased approach. It is important to remember that, as with any other process, creating an education program often requires many small steps and subsequent iterations in order to succeed. Some important tips for launching an educational program in your organization are as follows:

1. Target your training. Users are most interested in content that pertains to them directly; separate your training efforts based on the roles and interests of your users. For instance, administrators and power users/experts might be most interested in advanced functionality, tagging, and configuration, and are usually not interested in rehashing the fundamentals. Meanwhile, casual users and stakeholders who consume reports typically need more basic information, such as terminology and definitions, interface walk-throughs, and hands-on exercises.

2. Avoid fatigue. Long days of intense training make many users feel as though they are “drinking from a fire hose” – consider splitting your efforts into manageable chunks to allow users a chance to absorb and process the information that they have learned.

3. Train on your dataset. Training on your dataset makes it easy for users to apply what they have learned to their everyday activities, and increases retention. Try to avoid training on “dummy” data whenever possible.

4. Implement ongoing education. Continual education is critical in allowing your users to retain the knowledge that they have gained. Consider adding in regular seminars or “brown bags” that are targeted toward specific topics, such as interface walkthroughs, campaigns reporting, industry updates, and data automation. In a pinch, asking your users for topic suggestions can provide a wealth of ideas and can shift some of the burden from those who are organizing these sessions.

5. Get feedback. Make sure to get feedback from your users. Patricia Kendall, one of our Senior Consultants, mentioned in a previous blog post while feedback can be intimidating, it is key to making any process work in the long term. It is important to get feedback from your users about what is working and what isn’t in order to make your program truly sustainable.

6. Educate everyone. Remember that everyone who touches analytics needs some sort of education, even if they don’t necessarily log into the tool themselves. In general, I find that many organizations struggle to move forward because experts are consistently fielding the same questions day in and day out. The addition of basic training for new report consumers can really cut down on the amount of time that experts spend on these sorts of activities. Documentation of frequently asked questions or the addition of a wiki can also help to ease some of that pain by providing users a consistent resource.

7. Take ownership. Education can be a tough process to get moving because of how many resources it requires. Having a specific resource (or resources) take responsibility for the advancement of your education program provides a sense of ownership, and prevents a lot of back-and-forth that often stalls the development of such a program.

Taking a process-based approach to education will be highly beneficial to your organization. While I find that it is sometimes difficult to get companies to initiate their investment in education, once you get the process started , education can be a powerful medium for change and can really increase the value and momentum of your web analytics program. I hope that you can apply some of these “quick wins” to your educational program to make the best use of your web analytics solution. If you have any questions about Stratigent’s approach to education, or if you have general comments or feedback, please feel free to email me at erin.cropper@stratigent.com.

Erin Cropper is a Senior Consultant and guest blogger at Stratigent. She can also be found on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Tackling Cross-Channel Attribution

By Kevin Wysocki, Consultant, Stratigent

After working with dozens of clients across virtually all sectors, two of the biggest pain points I hear are (1.) how to calculate the impact each online channel has on the other, and if they have extra budget, (2.) what channel should they invest in to give them the highest overall ROI. I’m sure you or your boss has asked either or both of these questions at one time or another. Getting high-level insight into how display ads, email, SEM, SEO, and media (among many other channels) combine to attract and motivate visitors to act is extremely valuable. This type of information can be used to calculate the real cost per order for each channel, actual channel ROI and real revenue impact.

Imagine this scenario, a visitor sees your banner ad on a partner site but doesn’t click on it. Two days later the same visitor clicks a SEM banner and lands on your site and browses around, but doesn’t purchase or convert. The next day they come directly to your site and complete a purchase and/or make a conversion. How do you calculate the impact each marketing channel had on this purchase and what the real cost per channel is? If you’re using a pre-defined allocation method that comes out of the box from most web analytics tools (i.e. most recent value, initial value, expire after X days), it’s nearly impossible to truly calculate this for your business’ unique set of parameters. My example above only addresses three touch points, but we can see that as those touch points grow the challenge of allocating them correctly becomes more difficult.

After hearing this countless times, I thought it was time that we come up with a solution that didn’t involve numerous integrations and a large investment from our clients. After a few brainstorming sessions and feedback from my very talented team of colleagues, we came up with a very easy way to bring this data into any of the web analytics tools out there. Please keep in mind the business objective is to get a high-level view of each channel, not necessarily to focus on specific campaigns in each channel. The following general steps will guide you through deciphering the values of customer touch points.

Step 1: Configure Web Server
The basic idea in this step is to configure a web server to set a cookie on your domain (.example.com) based on a query parameter in the URL. When the server receives the request with a specific parameter, it checks to see if the cookie exists. If it doesn’t, it creates a new cookie and sets the value to the contents of the query parameter. If the cookie exists, it appends the value in the parameter to the existing value of the cookie.

Step 2: Define Channels
The next step includes defining the channels you wish to track and assigning a single character value to each. For example, use “s” for SEO, “d” for direct and “e” for email. These values will be used to determine the channel and interaction method with visitors. The type of interaction is defined by a lower-case letter designation for impression and upper-case letter designation for click where applicable. Once these values are outlined, go back to your web server configuration and implement the logic needed for your server to handle impressions versus clicks.

Step 3: Implement Business Processes
Now that you have a way to collect the data, it’s time to implement this new business process into each online channel. I know this is easier said than done, but you have to find a way to do it. The basic implementation goes something like this:

1. For each channel, add a static image call to a transparent image hosted on your web server. In the case of a HTML email, embed the following:
   
   


2. For all links in the email pointing to your domain, make sure you include the “ch=E” parameter in the destination URL. (Notice the upper case “E” to denote a click.) Similar logic should be applied to your remaining channels as well.

Step 4: Capture the Data
When the user lands on your domain, the value of the cookie can be captured in any web analytics tool with some simple JavaScript code. When assigning the cookie value to a parameter in your web analytics tool, make sure the parameter is configured as a visit and/or session parameter.

Step 5: Build Reports
Once the data loaded into your web analytics tool of choice, you can build custom reports with the cookie value as the main dimension along with all of your important KPI’s as metrics (i.e. orders, revenue, leads, conversions, etc). Your report could look something like this:

Step 6: Apply Business Rules

Depending on your objectives, this is the step where you decide how the data should be analyzed. Should you apply cost data, profit margin based on the product, or focus on customer journey? Additionally, what is the value of each impression in relation to clicks? While implementing this logic for an ecommerce client, we helped them define how to weigh impressions against clicks and revenue percentages based on their sales cycle along with other business rules. The beauty of this solution is you have the ability to adopt any allocation method you wish based on your organization’s unique business model.

Step 7: Optimize
Now that you have actionable data, do something with it! Whether that’s adjusting your marketing budget or targeting specific content based on channel patterns, use the information to improve at least one aspect of your business.

I hope this helps your organization take the first steps toward analyzing how your visitors interact with all of your online marketing channels. To get more detailed information around the technical requirements of this solution or if you have general comments and feedback about this post, please email me at kevin.wysocki@stratigent.com.

Kevin Wysocki is a Consultant and guest blogger at Stratigent. He can also be found on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Advocating for Web Analytics

by Nestor Archival, Senior Consultant, Stratigent

Transforming the way clients leverage analytics has never been a uniform process. Sometimes the tactics we use vary from group to group within an organization. Having worked with several enterprise-level clients, I have observed that the techniques we apply depend on where an organization stands on Stratigent’s web analytics maturity model.

Clients who are just starting out generally require a lot of guidance in setting up their data collection techniques and strategy as well as setting clear objectives for their web analytics practice. Others, who are farther along the model, typically express an interest in developing some standard processes to carry out important tasks like defining their KPIs. Still others, who are in the more sophisticated stages of the web analytics maturity model, require assistance on ways to improve and branch out to things like Site Optimization.

I have observed that the most successful of these organizations have at least one web analytics advocate who pulls everything together and pushes for prioritizing their internal web analytics practice. Without allocating a dedicated analytics resource, it is easy to become lackadaisical amidst all the other projects that are going on in the organization.

The following are some of the possible contributions I see the web analytics advocate offering in the different phases of Stratigent’s web analytics maturity model:

1. Early Phase

• Organizing needs from different lines of business
• Creating and implementing clear analytics objectives
• Developing standard reporting

2. Middle Phase

• Developing and expanding the internal team
• Creating standard operating procedures for common processes
• Producing KPI dashboards

3. Advanced Phase

• Conducting surveys seeking feedback for improvement
• Venturing into site optimization and other similarly advanced endeavors

If you have any questions regarding the maturity model or general comments and feedback about this post, feel free to send me a note at nestor.archival@stratigent.com.

Nestor Archival is a Senior Consultant and guest blogger at Stratigent. He can also be found on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Fear of Feedback

by Patricia Kendall, Senior Business Consultant, Stratigent

Feedback - when executed correctly - can improve results and strengthen organizations.

I have recently been thinking a lot about how analytics and the concept of feedback are related. After all, providing analysis is really a form of feedback - when it is positive, it’s usually an easy task to deliver the message. Conversely, when the analysis is less than desirable for the receiver, we’re often apprehensive about providing that feedback to them.

I’ve noticed this fear of feedback in working with clients in analytics engagements over the years. I have had instances where the analytics team and I are ready to present analysis but at the 11th hour, a manager or executive reviews the findings and makes a request to tone something down or even remove some data or findings. The team is left discouraged to say the least. Largely because we all think our findings are great, insightful and in some cases very actionable.

The culture of a company often comes into play when working with clients, so I took some time to think about what really drives executive requests to ‘soften’ the analytics findings. I realized it was not the data or the analysis but rather the fear of how people were going to react. Many organizations have a team that is devoted to analytics serving their ‘customers’, which are comprised of other teams in the organization. In these situations there is often a fear of offending the other teams that rely on the data. I believe this is a false fear and is actually a projection of the individual’s own fear of giving feedback. If you think about the times in your life when someone respectfully gives you feedback good or bad, I bet you were grateful for the information in the end.

Think of it this way - how many times have you gone about your day not realizing your fly was down? Nobody mentioned it for fear of embarrassing you but at the end of the day wouldn’t you have wanted to know your fly was down? I would!

If you have any additional feedback to share, I would love to hear your thoughts. Also, if you would like more information on how Stratigent can help your organization become truly data-driven, feel free to drop me a line at patricia.kendall@stratigent.com.


Patricia Kendall is a Senior Business Consultant and guest blogger at Stratigent. She can also be found on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Two Words to Remember in Analytics

by Shawn C. Reed, Senior Technical Consultant, Stratigent

Throughout my analytics career, I have worked with countless companies around the world; companies of every size, and from every imaginable industry. And yet, despite their differences, many of them forget the two most important words in analytics: “early” and “often”.

To explain, I come from a software development background, specifically web development, where projects and deadlines are controlled by a number of individuals and groups, each with different interests and agendas (i.e. - product management, marketing, IT, etc.). When a new web site or application is being planned, everyone puts a great deal of thought into the various aspects of the application. The two main considerations made during development are:
• Is the interface attractive and easy to use?
• Does the application perform the functions that are required of it?

There’s just one problem: applications are usually designed inside a corporate ‘vacuum’, with a small group of people making all the decisions regarding the two considerations I mentioned above. How, then, can we ensure that the average Internet user who sees your site or application will answer “Yes” to the questions above? The answer, of course, is analytics. Unfortunately, many companies fail to include an analytics implementation as part of their application project until very late in the development cycle – and some fail to include it at all. This results in an incomplete or non-existent picture of how the application is being used, where its strong points are, and where improvements could be made. Launching a new site or application without a strong analytics framework in place is akin to a hearing-impaired person standing in a quiet but crowded room, facing away from everyone and shouting, “Can anyone hear me?” It’s critical to include analytics in the plan for any site or application development project, to clearly understand and document the application’s key performance indicators (KPIs), and to ensure that marketing and IT/development work closely together to build an analytics framework that delivers value to the organization.

Similarly, even the best analytics implementations lose their value over time because – surprise! – the business changes and evolves, but the analytics framework is not updated to reflect these evolutions. Maintaining a good analytics framework does not need to be labor-intensive if it’s planned well, but it is most definitely an ongoing process. In my experience, the companies that are most successful in their use of analytics to make critical business decisions have found that success because they continually review and update their analytics implementation to ensure that it is up to date with current and relevant business objectives.

When working with clients at Stratigent, my goal is to help the client understand their business better and to enable them to make data-driven decisions. By keeping my mantra “early and often” at the front of your mind, I hope that you too will find greater value in your analytics solution. If you would like more information on how Stratigent can help your organization become truly data-driven, feel free to drop me a line at shawn.reed@stratigent.com.

Pimp Your Reports is off and running!

Similar to baseball season, this summer’s Pimp Your Reports Workshop Series is in full swing! We already conducted a successful session in Chicago on May 18th. Attendees walked away with tips and concrete techniques for creating meaningful dashboards and reports while applying strategy to overall design. Next stop – Seattle!

In our recent Chicago session one attendee from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois said “I think she [Jennifer] is an engaging and articulate speaker and she was on target at addressing the audience's needs and level. Overall I thought it was a valuable use of time -- not my typical reaction to corporate conferences and classes. I got lots of ideas for how to improve our own reporting and dashboards. All in all, two thumbs up!” Another attendee from Agency.com stated “Jennifer and her team did a great job and we came away excited about refining our reporting process and “pimping” our reports.”

Maybe you or a colleague could use some tips on creating dashboards and executive reports to engage executives and drive action. Well, you’re in luck because the hands-on workshop on creating meaningful reports is back by popular demand and Jennifer Veesenmeyer, one of the highest-rated speakers of the eMetrics conference, will again guide us though Pimping Your Reports in Seattle on June 15th. Additionally, real-world examples used throughout the workshop demonstrate the power of thinking strategically about what you want to communicate with data and how to do it most effectively.

You too can benefit from attending Pimp your Reports! Followers of our blog Analytic Insights are eligible for a 25% discount for this full-day event. To take advantage of this special offer, go to http://www.stratigent.com/pimp-your-reports/default.html and use discount code: AIPYR25. For more information about the workshop series, please e-mail marketing@stratigent.com.

Also, if you can't attend this session, but would like to attend future Pimp Your Reports events, visit stratigent.com/pimp-your-reports to register. The following are upcoming dates and locations along the tour.

Seattle - 6/15
Minneapolis - 7/20
Boston - 8/10
New York City - 8/24
San Francisco - 9/14
Washington, D.C. - 10/7

Hope to see you there!