Using Web Analytics data to understand the user behavior

There is a lot of data available in the web analytics platforms like Omniture, Webtrends etc. One of the key reports is the click-stream report. Having access to raw data can help understand the differences in the site browsing behavior in the first visit vs. the second vs. subsequent visits.

Analyzing the above mentioned data can help understand the patterns where in the process do the users' drop-off the website before converting. Also, how different is the behavior from first to the second to subsequent. This information can be used in multiple ways:

1. Optimize the site content – make the content more easily accessible that the users are reading in the later visits
   
2. Using cookie tracking – optimize how the site is presented to the users in the first visit vs. subsequent visits
   

These small changes can definitely lead to high conversions rates especially for e-commerce sites.

This technique can also be used in the way how ads are served to users who have dropped off the process before converting. Dynamic ad serving companies like Tumri and Teracent can be used to change the color, messaging to first visit vs. a user who has been to the web site.

Promoted Tweets – Twitter Paid Ads

Twitter just announced today it will be starting advertising in form of paid tweets. These tweets will be known as Promoted Tweets.

From a targeting perspective, it is a great opportunity for Twitter to start text mining the current tweets or conversations and then serve the ads. This can become a very well targeted advertising network based on conversations, user profiles etc.

For example: Many companies have twitter handles which promote/provide information about their products. Thus, profiling the users based on their interest and posts will be a great way to target ads.

Instead of relying on any 3^rd or 4^th party database to profile users, Twitter has the ability to segment users based on its in house data – the past and current tweets.

It will be interesting from a measurement perspective, to measure how these ads will work.

I hope to see some webinars or research papers coming up soon on Twitter ads.

Audience Segments

A lot of technology companies like Bizo, Audience Science are helping advertisers target the valuable user segments. These companies have access to huge databases containing information about these users. This information can be used to target B2B users for example – industry segment, functional area, size of companies.

Information to these companies comes from registration information at various places over the internet. Based on the cookie tracking, these users can then later be found & targeted with the ads on other sites throughout the internet like Yahoo!, MSN etc.

It does seem like a simple ad network but with what I will like to stress is that these networks have the information about these users. Of course, this information might not be a 100% accurate but it is still better than using an ad network to target users with no information except their behavior a.k.a. BT (behavior targeting).

Increasing acquistion share from Online Channel

I bumped into a marketing professional and he mentioned that one of the objectives of his product was to increase online use of the tool on his website. My first question was - how are you driving traffic to the website i.e. display vs. search vs. others. His response was - "We are not driving traffic to the website via any online advertising". My jaw dropped....

I thought how is he planning to achieve his goal? By asking the current users who use the tool to use it more OR by asking them to sign-in with a differnet name everyday? None of these are going to help achieve his objective.

I drew a funnel and explained you need more people to enter the funnel, that is how your usage with increase i.e. new customers. Your current customers can help increase by word of mouth efforts but that might not be enough to reach your goal.

Thus, if you are trying to increase usage of online tools or increase sign-ups on you website - have a strong marketing program which drives users to the website that is easy to navigate.

Please do not overuse rich media – it might not perform

Lately, there has been a lot of innovation in the rich media industry. It started with expandable banners, moved to dancing, jumping banners, then we got peel overs and now it seems like we have microsites built into the banners. Building microsites within the banners is an innovative concept to capture the user's attention in the banner, however, is that too much information in the banner?

Some of the banners have next buttons within them which move from one frame to the other, it is critical to evaluate the number of frames within the banner which is still keep the user engaged.

If the rich media technology is overused with the intention to capture user's attention, it should be tested within a focus group (usability testing) to understand the user's likes and dislikes.

It is the job of creative agency to ensure the banner load times and user likability to help achieve the purpose of advertising.

Ever heard of <1 Pageview?

Yes, you read it correctly, have you ever heard of <1 pageview? Mr. Google Analytics reports that in their depth of visit report.

I really am looking for someone (Mr. Google Analytics) to provide me a definition of <1 pageview.

If someone knows about it, please let me know.

Power of Contextual Advertising

We all have heard about Vibrant, Kontera contextual ads. The ads that are based on the text in an article, the keywords are double underlined and once rolled over, the ad pops up.

I have been analyzing and measuring a lot of media plans globally with contextual advertising and it seems to pay off a lot. I have seen differences in response rates (CTR) and post-click engagement of upto 200%. Prior to being able to get post-click engagement data, I always used to question the viability of the high number of clicks on these ads. But with the post-click data, I feel that these ads really work in capturing the audience.

It is very interesting that they work for almost all lines of business – B2C, B2B and continue to provide increased response.

One more thing that I have noticed recently is that placing ads on a homepage vs. a targeted page with relevant creative also helps a lot. For example: placing a creative which connects with the audience on the publisher's website also drives higher engagement.

Thus, it is very critical to use contextual advertising for higher response rates and improved ROI.