Event Tracking Basics

Event Tracking

            Another foundational metric to web analytics is Events.  Events are “any logged or recorded action that has a specific date and time assigned to it by the web browser or the server” (Reed College of Media, 2015).  According to Kaushik, new event tracking tools “provide next-generation collection models to capture data from [user’s] rich experience” (Kaushik, 2010).  Adding to a user’s experience, events are now being built with new technologies that “embed pieces of rich content such as videos, widgets and so on” (Kaushik, 2010).  These websites that “understand rich-media experiences” can use event tracking to collect a great deal of data about their user’s experiences.  Kaushik states “the sky is the limit” as to what can be collected. 

            How so?  Event tracking “works by giving you empty containers for storing data” (Kaushik, 2010).  Google Analytics’ containers provide the following information: Category, Action, Label and Value.  Website owners can then determine how and what users choose as popular features or elements in each container. (Kaushik, 2010).   Kaushik suggests that page views are something of the past and event tracking is the future. 

           

Pratt & Lambert Paints

            Case in point, Pratt & Lambert Paints is a paint company that dates back to 1849.  According to the website:

Pratt & Lambert is the unsurpassed, uncompromising paint choice for designers, architects, professional painters and discerning consumers who insist on a flawless finish, beautiful, trend-right colors and true color accuracy.

The author had personal experience recently with Pratt & Lambert Paints’ website.  Pratt & Lambert Paints’ website has an ideal feature on its website for event tracking.  Pratt & Lambert uses a color visualizer on its website (see picture).  The tool is easy and fun to use. An individual can select a scene, select a color, upload the scene with the selected color and then can even save the scene in a user created account.  The color visualizer not only collects data for Pratt & Lambert Paints but is most helpful for customers.  The data created allows a company to put its “own spin on it” (Kaushik, 2010).  Not only can Pratt & Lambert find out which may be popular colors but for what rooms.  The company can “dive deeper into its data” to conclude favorites by even by geography (Kaushik, 2010).  

Pratt & Lambert Paints’ website, from personal experience, does accomplish an intended goal of a website of “Why does your website exist?” in the first place.  Pratt & Lambert Paints’ website gives customers’ an engaging and helpful experience.  According to RankW, “the number of unique users visiting Pratt & Lambert Paints website every day is 500. Each individual visits 4.8 unique pages per day. Approximate time spent on a web site 04:19. It has an average of 2,540 pages indexed in major search engines like Google™” (RankW, 2015).  A time of 4:19 on the web site is much more than the average of 15 seconds that 55 percent of the visitors spend on a web site (Soskey, 2014).  Is the color visualizer keeping visitor on the website longer?  The author’s answer to this question is yes. Of course Pratt & Lambert Paints is not the only paint company to use a color visualizer tool. Most paint companies do offer something similar on their website.  Just one final note, when a company chooses to use this type of technology, the company needs to remember to make these pages easy to load.  In Pratt & Lambert case the page loads easily. 

References:

Kaushik, A. (2010). Web analytics 2.0: The art of online accountability & science of customer centricity. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing. ISBN# 978-0470529393

RankW. (2015). http://rankw.org/site/prattandlambert.com

Reed College of Media. (2015). Web Metrics and SEO. Lesson 2: Basic Web Analytics.

Soskey, G. (2014).  55% of visitors spend fewer than 15 seconds on your website should you care? Retrieved November 1, 2015 from:  http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/chartbeat-website-engagement-data-nj

Unique Visitors and Cookies

Unique Visitors and Cookies

            People new to web analytics hear the terms Visitors, Time on Page and Time on Site, Bounce Rates, Exit Rates, Conversion Rates, and Engagement.  These are all important metrics in evaluating the actions of visitors to a web site.  To start and as a novice to web metrics, this post will explore one metric, Unique Visitors.  This is complicated and tough subject to explore for several reasons described below.  “Traffic, as represented by unique visitors, will always be estimated under the current technological regime” (Dean, 2015).  Despite this, marketers count on the number unique visitors to give them an idea of the ‘who’ that is visiting the website.  Unique visitors count is one of the four foundational web metrics.  The other three include Visit/Sessions, Page Views and Events.   Unique visitors count is defined as the amount of individual people during a time period that visit a site.  Each individual is counted only once for that particular time.  More specifically, marketers when using this as a metric need to remember that “it is likely, but not always true, that each unique visitor is a unique person; and, 2) The unique visitors metric can be influenced by browsers that don’t accept cookies” (Kaushik, 2010).  Unique visitor count cannot be done without the use of Cookies.  Cookies are sometimes considered the topic of “fear, uncertainty and doubt” (Kaushik, 2010).    Despite these stipulations, “Unique visitors metric continues to be a superior approximation of the number of people visiting a website” (Kaushik, 2010).  

How are Unique Visitors tracked?

            Important to tracking unique visitors is the use of cookies. As mentioned earlier, cookies are a topic of “fear, uncertainty, and doubt” among users but without them some measures of web analytics would not be the same.  What are cookies?  Simply put “Web cookies give the Web a memory” (Dean, 2015).  The illustration from hongkiat.com.  To further explain, cookies “are small test files containing an anonymous unique identifier that stitches together visits to the website by the same the person” (Kaushik, 2010).  Lou Montulli, inventor of cookies, described cookies as “online loyalty cares, stamped by a website every time you stopped by” (Dean, 2015).  

            Cookies can be transient or persistent. Transient cookies are used just during the time a user visits a site.  The persistent cookie is established when a user first visits a site.  These cookies stay for a period of time and “are the closest thing to tracking a person or unique visitor” (Kaushik, 2010).  Persistent cookies stay on a user’s browser until deleted. 

            Other parameters of cookies are types.  Cookie types are either first party or third party.  First party cookies are used by the web site itself as opposed to third party cookies.  When a visitor comes to the web site, the identifier is attached.  “Email providers such as hotmail.com or gmail.com, ecommerce websites such as amazon.com, banks, or even blogging platforms require you to accept first-party cookies” (Kaushik, 2010).  Third party cookies seem to be declining in use.  

Successful Unique Visitors Counts

            ComScore measures unique visitors similar to Nielsen ratings for TV.  Websites hire comScore or other measurement companies that “embed little one-pixel ‘beacons’ in each of their pages that report back to these measurement companies each time a page is loaded” (Dean, 2015).   This is where internal measurement and unique visitors measurement is complicated.  One web security firm found that ‘bots’ make up some of the unique traffic on website and may be counted in unique visitors counts. 

            One company that seems to be successful at counting is BuzzFeed.  According measurement firm, comScore, BuzzFeed had 74.6 million unique visitors in the month of August, 2015.  The author could not confirm that this is a marketing goal for each.  However, the numbers prove in general terms,  Buzzfeed had set a goal to gain unique visitors and are successful at doing so.  In 2013 BuzzFeed received a huge amount of unique visitors as a result of Facebook pushing users to “quality news” sites such as BuzzFeed (Dean, 2015).   But this may change with because Facebook is now hosting articles on its own serves to keep visitors on its own site.   Why? To change the cookie regime, Facebook knows it users and can use these exact numbers to market advertising opportunities.  Facebook intends to host articles on its servers that will make more people read the articles without leaving.  But what does this mean for BuzzFeed unique visitor count?  Time will tell.

References:

Alpert, B. (2014).  Buzzfeed Crosses $100 Million in Revenue, Staff Memo Says. Retrieved October 31, 2015 from: http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeedpress/buzzfeed-reaches-more-than-130-million-unique-visitors-in-no#.inDR9wR39 

BuzzFeed Press. (2013).  BuzzFeed Reacher More than 130 Million Unique Visitors in November.  Retrieved October 31, 2015 from: http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeedpress/buzzfeed-reaches-more-than-130-million-unique-visitors-in-no#.inDR9wR39

Dean, S. (2015).  It’s 2015 – You’d think we’d have figured out how to measure Web traffic by by now. Retrieved October 31, 2015 from: http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeedpress/buzzfeed-reaches-more-than-130-million-unique-visitors-in-no#.inDR9wR39

Kaushik, A. (2010). Web analytics 2.0: The art of online accountability & science of customer centricity. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing. ISBN# 978-0470529393