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The use of web analytics to evaluate the success of web sites is rapidly evolving. A wide range of tools has become available that provide a very detailed look at who users are, and what they are doing online. These tools have become the acid test of the success of any type of user interface design, from web sites to applications to kiosks to mobile devices.
Usography has experience with a number of web analytics tools, including Omniture, CoreMetrics, WebTrends, and Google Analytics. We’ve helped large corporations with up to half a million visitors per day to better understand their customers’ needs through analysis and interpretation of detailed web analytics reports. Usography has combined quantitative analytics data with user archetypes derived from qualitative research to produce a composite model that identifies the demographic, psychographic, and technographic characteristics of an e-commerce site’s most valuable customers.
Web analytics can be used to measure any aspect of interactive media that customers or employees use. For example, web analytics are often used to measure the effectiveness of:
- Steps within a transaction funnel
- User interface design variations
- E-mail marketing campaigns
- Product merchandising
- Site navigation
- Self-service methods
- Affiliate programs
- Interaction sequences
- Product knowledge media
- Help content
- Cross-promotions
- Loyalty programs
- Edutainment
Measuring Key Performance Indicators
For any type of information system, there are typically three ways to measure success:
- Conversion – The percentage of people who complete actions that are valuable to the sponsor organization
- Adoption – The relative number of people who use the online channel instead of more traditional (read “more expensive”) channels
- Usability – Ease of use and efficiency of interactions
Usography helps clients identify the user actions associated with these three key success factors. On an e-commerce site, basic conversion events and key performance indicators (KPI’s) are relatively straightforward to identify. However, on other types of sites, it isn’t as easy. Usography can help pinpoint the most important actions for non-commerce sites, such as submission of opt-in forms, access to content pages, number of media plays, downloads, qualified leads, etc., and develop a program for tracking these KPI’s.
After identifying KPI’s, Usography defines specific metrics that should be monitored on a regular basis, and assembles them into a success scorecard. This scorecard is typically set up in the web analytics tool’s reporting as a KPI dashboard, or as an automatically generated report that is emailed to stakeholders.
Usography provides expertise beyond the creation and monitoring of success metrics. Additional steps depend on the analytics engine the client is using; the type of data that is being monitored; and the stage of development that web analytics reporting has reached within the company. Some common additional support services are described below.
A/B or Multivariate Testing
When a client has new graphic or functional design work that has been completed, Usography can test the work before the client launches it to the world at large. A relatively small percentage of users are presented the new design work, while the remainder of the users sees the existing version. The conversion rates of the old and new designs are then compared to determine the value of one design solution over the other.
Optimized Site Interactions
Multi-step interactions are not always designed in such a way that web analytics demonstrate clear fallout patterns from successive steps in the conversion funnel. Usography can help clients design landing pages and intermediate steps that result in actionable analytics at each stage of the interaction. This makes it easier to catch and address specific design issues.
Customer Segmentation
Web analytics are helpful for defining customer segments that behave in a given, measurable way. This approach to segmentation doesn’t replace qualitative research on user archetypes, but it does provide quantitative evidence that can be used to flesh out or corroborate user profiles that represent customer segments.
Path Analysis
Usography has designed many interaction paths, and understands the importance of paths to interactive systems. Some web analytics engines have sophisticated means of capturing and measuring user paths that have special significance beyond basic page-based conversion ratios. The usage statistics for a path can reveal invisible barriers to completion of important tasks, or may reveal the relative strength of different types of navigational methods or different methods of highlighting content.
Traffic to Sections or Groups of Pages
Several web analytics tools allow pages and sections to be grouped, so that reporting shows aggregated statistics for visitors viewing any of a series of related pages or interaction steps. This is valuable because clients not only want to monitor results of individual pages, but want to know the volume of traffic reaching any single page within a key group of pages, such as number of unique visitors to any page within the customer service section.
Analytics Based on Search
Usography analyzes search term results to determine key metrics for metadata and indexing performance. Top search terms, exits from search results pages, and percentage of searches with zero results are all key indicators of search barriers and opportunities.
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