Amazing Tools

Amazing Analytic Tools

            Web Analytics tools available to marketers today are amazing.  However, the amount of data obtainable from these tools can be overwhelming.  “The importance of Web analytic tools is that they give companies more clarity about the results of their advertising campaigns” (Reed College of Media, 2015).  What is even more remarkable is how much these tools are constantly updating reporting measures.  “A wide variety of emerging tools are being used to measure Web analytics” (Reed College of Media, 2015).  For the most part these tools can be divided into two main categories:

• ·         Traditional Analytics Tools (e.g. Google Analytics, WebTrends, Omniture).  These tools are used to track site activity and ROI. (Reed College of Media, 2015)
• ·         Social Analytic Tools (e.g., Radian6, Hootsuite, ArgyleSocial).  These are only three of the vast amount of tools available to monitor social media results.  (Reed College of Media, 2015)

            This blog is going to concentrate on two traditional analytic tools, Google Analytics (GA) and WebTrends (WT).   Google Analytics and WebTrends are similar in the collection of web metrics data that track visitors’ activity. “With digital channels stretching from customer portals and emails to mobile apps and social media, analytics is necessary for improving the way customers engage” (Webtrends.com, 2015). 

Similarities - Google Analytics and WebTrends  

            Both GA and WT use Web profile or view that “is a set of rules that define the reports that [site owners] see” (Reed College of Media, 2015).  One Web site view corresponds with a domain. (Reed College of Media, 2015)  Site owners can set up filters in these analytics to find information out about subdomains.  “Assigning users to the appropriate view will ensure that site owners are viewing reports that apply to that set of users” (Reed College of Media, 2015). 

           Both GA and WT produce an Overview report that essentially contain the same foundational metrics.  These metrics are particularly valuable and would be for most businesses. 

WebTrends' Overview Report

Overview reports produced by both  “provide information on the characteristics of the audience that is visiting a site” (Reed College of Media, 2015).  Basically both vendors’ reports include sessions, pages/session, users, average session duration, pageviews and bounce rates.  In 2014, GA changed “Visits” into “Sessions” and “Unique Visitors” into “Users” (Alhlou, 2014).  What are and how do site owners interpret the findings of these valued metrics?

• ·         “Visits represent the number of individual sessions initiated by all the visitors to a site” (Reed College of Media, 2015).  “The initial session by a user during any given date range is considered to be an additional visit and an added visitor” (Reed College of Media, 2015).  Important to note, visitors coming back will be counted towards the number of sessions but not as additional users. (Reed College of Media, 2015).  Sessions increase from new visitors and returning visitors if the site gains popularity.  If gaining popularity is goal this could one way to measure this. WT adds a metric of average visitors per day.

  

  Google Analytics Overview Report

• ·         “A Pageview is defined as a view of a page on the site that is being tracked using the tracking code…and is the view of a page on a site that is being tracked” (Reed College of Media, 2015).  In this case pageviews matched session, which make sense because the blog does not have other pages.  This would be important if pages were added to the site to track so see which pages have more traffic.           
• ·         Bounce rate is defined as “the percentage of sessions on your website with only one page view” (Kaushik, 2010).  For this blog, it makes sense that the bounce rate is high since there is only one page to the blog.   This does not mean the user did not read the page.  “A bounce means “when someone comes to a site and leaves without engaging with other pages” (Cleary, 2015).   Adding more pages would decrease the bounce rate.  “The more pages visitors go to during a session, the more engaged they might be. It means they are following your internal links and exploring more of your sites” (Cleary, 2015).  If a blog has internal links on its website this would be a good thing to measure to see if the visitor is staying on the website.  Also, this may help in knowing what pages a visitor finds interesting if the site had other pages.

            “Because Analytics attempts to answer a variety of questions about user behavior, it sues different calculations types or attribution models to arrive at data site visitors wan in the reports” (Google.com, 2015).  An example of particular importance to site owner would be “Which internal search terms contributed to a transactions [really conversions to purchases]?” (Google.com, 2015).  Both GA and WT have capabilities of producing customized report and have the ability to produce more metrics than site owners can absorb. 

Google Analytics – Overview

            Google Analytics (GA) is free and provides complex reports about traffic on a Web site. (Reed College of Media, 2015) Because GA is free, businesses, especially small to medium size business, “can invest in optimizing their website layout, rolling out an internal site search solution or search engine marketing” as opposed to spending money to hire an outside firm that can produce Web analytic reports. (Reed College of Media, 2015)  By placing a tracking code on the web site, site owners can use GA to “configure profiles and utilize more advanced features” such as dashboard reporting. (Reed College of Media, 2015) 

            “Every report in Google Analytics is made up of dimensions and metrics” (Google.com, 2015).  Google defines dimension as the “characteristics of users, their sessions and action” (Google.com).  For instance dimensions includes city from where the session was initiated.  Metrics are “quantitative measurements” such as the number of session and/or pages/session.   The amount of information GA provides is almost endless.  GA is an amazing free tool.

WebTrends - Overview

            WebTrends is private company as oppose to Google, a public company, headquartered in Portland, Oregon.  Similarly to GA, as mentioned above, WT has many reporting that provide solutions to digital marketing efforts .  But the difference, in the author’s opinion, is WT goes beyond what may be considered basic reporting.  WT “Analytics are no longer limited to visitor counts and website hits” (Webtrends.com, 2015).  The author is under the impression that WT provides individualized, customize reports for businesses using customer support which GA does not.  WT describes their reporting structure as a way to:

Perfect your customer journey with WT

Don’t rely on your gut to design your brand’s customer journey. With Webtrends Optimize, you can build a foundation of behavioral data, optimize the customer journey through A/B and multivariate testing and develop targeted experiences. Don’t know where to start? Our expert team of Optimization Consultants can manage an end-to-end program for you or help develop your team’s expertise, so you can build tests and targeted experiences yourself. (WebTrends.com, 2015).

            WT advertises that their “portfolio of cross-channel, real-time, individualized and actionable solutions pairs superior technology with a team of experts who ensure your unique goals are met at every step” (Webtrends, 2015).  WT is not free and even notes its value by reminding customers that “data collected via analytics solutions belong to the customer” (Webtrend.com, 2015).  “Vendors who offer so-called ‘free’ solutions today actually make use of that collected data to drive their ad revenue” (Webtrends.com, 2015).  This remark is directly aimed at combating GA’s free tools.

            To conclude, Kaushik, author of Web Analytics 2.0, “compares buying a Web analytics tool to buying car – you can do all the online research you want, but you have to take the car for a test to see

how you really feel about it” (Reed College of Media, 2015).  Unfortunately, the author could not test drive the WT car.  Given Microsoft and several larger business noted on the web site, WT maybe a company better suited for larger ecommerce business that have the money to invest.  Rather than hire the expertise in-house, in the author’s opinion for these larger companies, it may be wiser to hire company with tremendous knowledge in this complex, constantly changing environment.

References:

Google.com (2015).  Dimensions and metrics.  Retrieved November 21, 2015 from: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033861?hl=en&vid=1-635783780143482033-594387579

Cleary, I. (2015).  How to use Google Analytics to measure engagement on your blog.  Retrieved November 12, 2015 from: http://www.razorsocial.com/google-analytics-measuring-engagement/

Reed College of Media. (2015). 642 – Lesson 4: Tools Introduction and Selection

Reed College of Media. (2015).  642- Lesson 5: Google Analytics

WebTrends. (2015). Retrieved November 21, 2015 from: http://www.webtrends.com/