Making an Analytics Choice

There is a saying that you cannot improve what you don't measure. This tome is the foundation for online marketing analytics. If you don't really know how your work is performing, do you really expect those efforts to do more for you?

Over the next few weeks, I am going to be writing about how to use analytics to help you measure and improve your online marketing efforts. From choosing an analytics tool, to setting goals and understanding how to make improvements, there are a lot of different aspects of analytics.

Let's start from the beginning - the analytics tool. If you are not measuring, start now. If you are measuring, make sure you can get enough detail to make decisions. There are several analytics packages available with multitude of price ranges and complexities. Avanish Kaushik, the current Google Analytics Evangalist, put together a great web analytics tool comparison.

If you are just starting out, I would recommend Google Analytics as a solution. Google does not charge you for an account, you only need to have an gmail account to sign up.

One of the benefits of the Google Analytics platform is that is gives you a good view of basic information out of the box, but it allows you to build a high level of complexity as you want to get deeper into the data of your online marketing campaigns.

Contrary to popular thinking, analytics is not only for your website. It can be attached to any of your online marketing in order to measure campaign effectiveness. For example, you can add parameters to the end of the URLS in your email, online display or paid search ads.

In my next post, I am going to cover how to set up Google Analytics on your website and configuring your profile. It isn't a huge task, but it is one you want to do correctly.

Until then . . . keep measuring!

Getting Visual Feedback from Online Users

Sometimes is hard to see what people are doing from looking at Web Paralytics. There are people who can look at the numbers and understand the user experience picture. Even if you are one of those people, my guess is that your manager or your client isn't.

It can be really compelling to take a look at what users are doing on a page. Recently, we started making some information architecture changes based on analytics. However, we wanted to have a more visual proof for the client to see that the parts of the site that were strongly active were the ones we knew should be kept prominent. It also allowed us to see other activity on the site.

The strong button clicking was an ah-ha moment because none of the headlines were linked - robbing users of the common activity of clicking headlines.

When you work on a site over a long period of time, you get used to how it works and have the "curse of knowledge" regarding its use. Even as a usability practitioner, there is a certain interpretation of what users are doing.

For this project, we used Crazy Egg to capture the click heatmaps. For $19 a month, we got invaluable insight into the user experience of the site. By installing javascript code on the key pages we wanted to test, Crazy Egg will render these click maps and will also do scatter maps that allow you to filter by new and returning visitor, search terms and geography.

Being able to slice the date in multiple ways is very powerful, but in general the master heatmap is more than enough for management.

Social Media has buzz but Email delivers

There can be no debate that social media has captured the imagination of the online world. Companies are jumping headlong into the space in hopes of riding the conversational wave and reep the rewards of the 'good vibrations' on these social networks.

SocialTwist did a recent study on Social Media Sharing Trends for 2009. The study found that 59% of respondents preferred email as their channel for sharing. Making the 14% for social networks and 25% for IM pale in comparison.

Even more telling is a recent "Social Influence Benchmark Report" put out by StrongMail. The best platform converter for sharing online content is email. Strangely enough embedded badges came in a distant second with 20.5%. Facebook and Twitter were left in the dregs with only 3.2% and 0.4% respectively.

Can you blame people? Email is like your car. A private little space in the public world. I have friended far more people on facebook than I would EVER give me email address.

In 2009 and for 2010, it might be social media getting all the buzz, but email still delivers.

Non-Latin Domain Names

It isn't breaking news, but it is important news. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which oversees the Internet's naming and numbering systems, opened registration today for non-Latin-character domain names through its ccTLD Fast Track Process.

It will most definitely make the global SEO world more complex, but it will also be amazingly impactful for foreign marketers who want to use native languages for their URLs.

You no longer need to have an english domain of www.lunch.com - you can have 昼食. This change gives foreign marketers the power to harness marketing in the URL and create a great shift into search engines to really understand the content natively instead of through translation.

Imagine trying to communicate the structure of your website (which is part of the function of a URL), but having to translate its meaning.

It will be interesting to see what domains emerge out of ICANN's Fast Track program and how that starts to change the face of global online marketing. My guess is that in-country translation and local market understanding is going to take on more relevance, and companies not creating that market competence are going to be left in the cold by local companies who will win the search war.

SEO consulting is NOT a game

A friend recently forwarded me a blog post about SEO consultants. It makes the premise that SEO people are evil, scammers and opportunists. In the post, the blogger claims:

Search Engine Optimization is not a legitimate form of marketing. It should not be undertaken by people with brains or souls. If someone charges you for SEO, you have been conned.

Ok - so I don't agree because if you hire a good SEO company, they can help you understand your opportunity. For example, you might have a great product and call it a kid toy. What you don't realize is that moms out there call them toddler toys. If you don't put that word in any of your content, you are NEVER going to rank well for the term, and there are going to be thousands of people who will never ever consider your product.

Another point - not all marketers grew up in the internet age. Some of them are very uncomfortable with the web. It also means they probably don't understand how a website should be coded in order for the Search engines to successfully crawl through your site. If you are not coding your site correctly, you might as well be whispering your message on the internet. It is like you have an amazing house, but there is a ton of string tied around everything so you can't see what is underneath (also know as javascript).

It is true, you don't want to game the search engines, but you do need to know the playing field. Some people don't have the time, talent or desire to do all of the research and technical lifting it takes, so they hire SEO companies.

Monday Links - On Tuesday - Scheduling

Sometimes it is really hard to keep track of all the things you need to do at work, at home or for organizations that you belong to. I have actually reverted to using a paper calendar, while some people use their BlackBerry, Android or iPhone.

It got me thinking, what tools are available online that can help me organize my life if I am not using MS Outlook or some enterprise level tool? Here are a few I found:

• Google Calendar - kind of a no brainer, but super easy to use, especially if you have an existing Google account. I guess Google Wave will be the next contender .
• Backpack - from 37 signals. It helps you corral all of the information you need including schedules, docs, discussions.
• GoToMyPC - is brilliant for accessing multiple computers - like work from home and home from work. Access it from any connected web browser.
• Remember The Milk - this tool has got the smart phones covered with an iPhone, Android, gmail, BlackBerry and Window Mobile app. They even have a sync up with Twitter.

I guess it doesn't matter which tools you use to help manage your life. The real challenge is using one until you find something that fits the needs of your daily life and will help you to save yourself the embarrassment of having to do Monday Links on Tuesday.

Monday Links - Arts Focused

There is so much focus about the online community and the different ways people can connect to each other. I had previously written about online tools for Entrepreneurs. There are so many ways to evaluate the usefulness of new website and the tool set they create.

This week, I thought I would take a look at art-focused websites and the ways they can help that community collaborate online.

• Reel Clever - an online shape where filmmakers can create, managed and collaborate with other on their reel or other projects
• Book Oven - the online space allows writers to make their work available for comment, collaborate with other writers or share it with their closest confidants. It also allows you to review snippets of other works so you don't have to review an entire work.
• Society6 - probably the best know platform for visual artist that has a system of small grants that can be in the form of money or opportunity.
• Build A Jam - this platform for musicians helps users build a fan base or help musicians living in more remote areas with less musical talent to connect to other to help create music

I am sure there are a ton more arts focused online tools and communities. Any good ones that you belong to or have seen lately?