ZeroDash1 Partners with IndexTools

ZeroDash1, a Web Analytics, Optimization and SEM consulting company and my employer, has partnered with IndexTools, a leader among online marketing analytics platforms.

I am very excited about this partnership. Our customers rely on us to provide them deeper insights into their visitors' online behaviors and to increase their return on online marketing spend. They look to us to provide recommendations for a tool that can supply the data they require to make strategic decisions. After looking at the IndexTools' functionality and after sale support we concluded that IndexTools is an enterprise level web analytics solution that will be perfect for a lot of our clients. The functionality that IndexTools provides makes it easier to analyze the data and allows us to focus more on taking actions based on the insights we gain.

In the words of IndexToools COO Dennis R. Mortensen "I cannot overstate the timeliness and utility this partnership brings. With the impressive number of enterprise level clients that have come to us with online analytics needs in recent months, we needed a new partner with Fortune 500 experience. By joining forces with us, ZeroDash1 adds to a select group of highly qualified partners that will help us bring analysis and optimization services to both new and established IndexTools clients in North America."

About ZeroDash1
A data-driven online marketing company based in Seattle, Washington that specializes in Data Reporting, Web Analytics, Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, and Behavioral Targeting. The ZeroDash1 team brings its 35 years of business and technical experience to make clients happy by providing creative and money saving solutions to their problems.

About IndexTools
IndexTools offers a highly customizable and scalable analytics platform for companies' online marketing activity in each phase of the customer lifecycle. With IndexTools Web Analytics and Bid Management, businesses gain accurate, insightful and timely intelligence about the effectiveness of their online marketing. IndexTools' services have boosted the online performance of more than 3500 clients worldwide, including Tesco, Vodafone, PriceRunner, and John Deere.IndexTools serves its worldwide client base directly and through a network of more than 200 local partners in over 25 countries around the globe. IndexTools was founded in 2000, and operates from three offices: IndexTools Americas - New York, USIndexTools Germany, Austria & Switzerland - Frankfurt, GermanyIndexTools EMEA, Asia Pacific - Budapest, Hungary.

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Web Analytics Seminar: Building the Right Foundation

I am conducting a Free Web Analytics Seminar in Bellevue, WA on Wed. 12th March from 12:00 ? 1:30 PM.

?Web Analytics ? Building the Right Foundation? will cover topics that you should think about before you spend any money on online marketing. The seminar will help you build the right Web Analytics framework so that you can concentrate on improving the bottom line. If the word ?web? comes in any part of your job title or responsibilities then this seminar is for you.
Topics that will be covered are:

• Determining the business goals - "Where do you want to go today??


• Developing the Right KPIs and Presentation of Web Analytics Data - ?Less is more?


• Tool Selection and Implementation - "Tool selection process is like dating...Think marriage..Think long term relationship"


• Building a culture of ongoing analysis and optimization - "Show me the money!!!"

?Web Analytics ? Building the Right Foundation? is part of an ongoing series covering topics such as Web Analytics, SEO, SEM and Behavioral Targeting.

The lunch will be provided, but seats are limited so signup today to reserve a seat.

Location: Bellevue Place Boardroom, 10500 NE 8th St, Bellevue, WA 98004-4345
Date: 3/12/2008
Time: 12:00 Noon ? 1:30 PM
Please visit ZeroDash1 to register for this event.

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Typical Bounce Rates: Survey Results

Bounce rate has become one of the most talked about web metrics, and a lot has been written about what this metrics means and how it should be interpreted and used. I also wrote about Bounce Rate in my post called Bounce Rate Demystified.

This post is about the follow-up question "Ok, I understand what bounce rate is and see the importance of it, now tell me, What is the typical Bounce Rate?"
To answer this very question, I conducted a survey to understand what Bounce Rates to expect for various types of sites. The sites were classified under 6 categories, ecommerce, Product Information, Lead Generation, News/Media, Branding and Other. Other was a bucket for sites that did not fit other 5 categories, some of the sites included in ?Other? where social networking, online gaming, travel search engine, tool/utility, bank and training, customer support. Since most of the sites have more than one purpose, respondents were asked to select only one category to classify theirs sites based on the main purpose of the site.

Let?s jump into the results.

Bounce Rate Range

The table below shows the minimum and maximum bounce rates for the six categories. Bounce Rates ranged from 3.24% ? 85%.



Average Bounce Rate

Average bounce rate of 80 sites who responded was 40.58%.



Average bounce rates were above 30% of all the six categories. News/Media sites had highest average bounce rates. This is what I had expected too, considering how users consume or reach media sites. A lot of visitors reach a news/media site via a link from another site, blog post etc. Once they read the article/news they go back to the sources that lead them there.

Bounce Rates on Top Entry Page

Top entry page is the page where majority of the visitors enter the site. The following chart shows the bounce rates on the top entry pages of various types of sites.



For all the site categories, average bounce rate on the top entry page was lower than the average bounce rate. News/Media had the highest bounce rate on their top entry pages. Again, as I said above, visitors enter news/media site via link from another site, blog post etc and go back to the source after reading the news/story.

Bounce Rate on the Home Page

Before the proliferation of the search engines there used be one entry page to the site and that was called home page. Almost all of the visitors entered the site though the home page. Today visitors enter the site via various pages and a lot of them might not even see the home page during their visit as I saw with some of my clients and wrote in my blog post "Homepage ? How critical is it".
The following chart shows the percentage of sites that have Home page as the top entry page. The survey showed that Homepage is still the top entry page for majority of the sites.





Except News/Media site other categories of sites had a higher Bounce Rate when the home page was the top entry page. I think when user enter a News/Media site via home page they know the brand name and are coming to look at what is currently available and use home page to dive deeper into the site.

One of the possible reasons for a higher bounce rate, when home page is the top entry page, is that the home page in most of the cases is very generic and shows up in search engine results pages for keywords that might not be on the home page any more. For example an eCommerce site might have showcased an iPhone on the homepage when the site was indexed. A user searches on iPhone and lands on the sites homepage. Guess what? The site is no longer showcasing iPhone and now the product that they are showing on homepage is a Blackberry instead. What does the user, who is looking for iPhone, do? Most likely, Bounces, resulting in higher bounce rate. Considering this very impact, I had written an article called Follow the Search. Check it for a tip on how to lower the bounce rate on home page.

Search and Bounce Rate



Search, paid or organic, is one of the top traffic drivers for most of the sites. The bounce rate on Paid Search was higher for all the categories except for News/Media. This is alarming considering you are paying for all the visitors. The worst of all were Branding sites. I am sure when you talk to the marketing (or campaign managers) they will say that mission was accomplished since the user did come to the site even if they left without going any further. I agree that a visitors was exposed to brand but there is more that a marketers needs to think about than just getting visitors on the site (this is a topic for another post so I won?t go in details in this article).

News/Media site showed higher bounce rate for organic search then paid and lower than paid search. Again, as mentioned above possible reason is that when visitors find a new or story via search they come to a specific story and then leave after reading it, while visitors coming by paid search are either driven to home page or a landing page and expect to dive into at least another page.

Landing Pages and Bounce Rate

The question is do landing pages affect the bounce rate? Should you have a landing page? Except for lead generation sites, majority of all other site categories did not have unique landing pages for their campaigns.





As most of the sites have a Paid Search Campaigns (PPC), I used PPC to understand if Landing pages have an impact on the bounce rates. All three categories that answered the question about landing page and PPC campaigns showed that having a unique landing page for each campaign dramatically decreased the bounce rate. There was a drop of over 25 percentage points in bounce rate when unique landing pages were used as compared to when no unique landing pages were used. I hope this gives you are reason to start thinking about having unique landing pages for your campaigns.

Summary

• Remember every site is unique so will have a unique bounce rate. Bounce rates ranged from 3.24% - 85%
• Paid search has higher bounce rate than organic search, unless you have a news/media site.
• If you top entry page is Home page then you can expect to have higher bounce rate. Using Behavioral Targeting can make your homepage a unique landing page on the fly and hence result in reducing bounce rates.
• Landing page make a significant impact on the bounce rate. Consider having a unique landing page for every campaign you run.

Questions? Comments? or to get a PDF of this article, email me at batraonline@gmail.com

Sponsored Message: Reduce Bounce Rate and Increase Conversion Optizent UnBounce. Convert any page into a unique landing page on the fly.

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Skills required for a Web Analyst – Part II

Over the past year or so I interviewed a few web analytics professionals. In the interviews one of the questions I asked them was about the skills that they think are important for a web analyst. In this 2 part series I have compiled their responses to that question.
If you are a hiring manager looking for web analyst or somebody who wants to start a career in web analytics then this article is for you.

This is the second part in the two part series of "Skills required for a Web Analyst". You can read the first part at http://webanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/02/skills-required-for-web-analyst.html.

So here are some of the responses:

"To me, the Web needs three ingredients: clear business objectives, a communication strategy and the technology to support them. The best web analyst would be savvy and top of the line in all three... which is probably impossible to find. But everyone can rate himself on a virtual scale and see where they stand and where they want to be."
Stephane Hamel, Web Analytics freelancer and creator of WASP tool

Curiosity and enthusiasm. I know these aren't skills so much as innate qualities, but I believe if you can go a long way as a web analyst with curiosity and enthusiasm. If you are genuinely interested in what you're doing, it shows."
June Dershewitz, Vice President Semphonic

"Analysts work at various levels -- the most fundamental level requires some understanding of basic statistics, such as linear regression, seasonality, and simple trend forecasting, combined with an understanding of how the web "works." In other words, what do we know about browsing behavior, combined with cookie deletion probabilities, web server caching, and other artifacts of the web experience, to put our data into a reasonable context, from which we can draw useful conclusions?

Beyond that basic level, though, is an understanding of organizational politics, and some fluency in "managing your message" so that the analysis you've worked hard at creating actually influences managers in making better decisions. Otherwise, you're just creating "doorstop reports," that don't help your organization, and don't really justify your efforts."
WDave Rhee, Analytics Country Manager, Germany, OX2 / LBi Group

"I think 2 of the biggest skills required to be a web analyst is to be able combine technical skills along with business/marketing skills in order to understand your customer?s goals and provide value to them. Secondly you have to be passionate about what you do, if you don?t like what you?re doing you will not give 100% effort."
Manoj Jasra, Director of Technology at Enquiro

Do you agree with these Web Analytics professionals? What skills do you think are important? Let me know and I will add them to my next post.

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ISP Based Behavioral Targeting under Fire

Last month I wrote about 3 British ISPs getting into Behavioral Targeting using technology from a company called Phorm. In my blog post, I raised my concerns about Privacy with this kind of Behavioral Targeting. I wrote ?However, ISP based ad networks also pose a bigger privacy threat than traditional BT networks, ?. Phorm promises the same level of anonymity but I still think that the chances of privacy leaks are more in an ISP based network than they are in a traditional BT network.

Phorm also says that consumers are in control, they can switch relevance 'off' or 'on' at any time at a site called Webwise.com, site that educates users on how ISP based advertising works.?
Well, according to TheRegister.co.uk BT (British Teleco) is under fire from its customer for illegal use of their data. According to the news BT used its customers? data to test Behavioral Targeting offering, without the customers? consent.

BT and Phorm maintain that no personally identifiable data was used in this test. They said "We conducted a very small scale technical test of a prototype advertising platform on one exchange in June 2007. The test was specifically conducted to evaluate the functional and technical performance of the platform.
"Absolutely no personally identifiable information was processed, stored or disclosed during this trial. As with all service providers, it is important for BT to ensure that, before any potential new technologies are employed, they are robust and fit for purpose."

In my first post on ISP based targeting, I raised a concern about ISPs collecting and using data without website owners permission. Echoing the same sentiments, some authorities on RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000) have argued that ISPs would need permission from website owners to profile the content of their pages

As Behavioral Targeting become omnipresent, the question still remains ?Who does the data belong to?

• Visitors (User or Customer)?


• Site Owner where data is collected


• Internet Service Provider (ISP)


• 3rd Party Behavioral Targeting network? Like Tacoda, Revenue Science etc.


• 3rd Part Ad servers? Some server ads on behalf of publisher or Behavioral Targeting networks


• 3rd party tools like toolbars etc.


• Government


• Anybody else?

In an interview for BBC, Sir Tim Berners-Lee said "I myself feel that it is very important that my ISP supplies internet to my house like the water company supplies water to my house. It supplies connectivity with no strings attached. My ISP doesn't control which websites I go to, it doesn't monitor which websites I go to."
He also said that his data and web history belonged to him.
He said "It's mine - you can't have it. If you want to use it for something, then you have to negotiate with me. I have to agree, I have to understand what I'm getting in return."

Which means that the data belongs to the visitors. That also means that anybody engaging in targeting based on user behavior or user provided data should seek users permission before using their data to target. Use Opt-in model instead of opt-out currently used by Behavioral Targeting networks. This is exactly what I have been advocating too.

Now, I am not sure how all this will affect on-site behavioral targeting. The kind now Omniture is pushing with its ?Test&Target? offering. I will write my views in a future post.

What do you think? Chime-in.

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Google Analytics: Tips and Tricks - Show Visitor Behavior from Specific Countries

Problem:
We need to see the online behaviors of visitors from USA and Canada using Google Analytics. In other words we need a profile which only has traffic from USA and Canada.

Solution:

1. Create a profile in Google Analytics in which you would like to capture visits from USA and Canada.
2. Create a filter that includes visits from USA and Canada only (described below).
3. 
   
4. Apply the filter to the profile that you would like to show the data in. (The filter is automatically applied to the profile that you use to create the filter).

Creating the filter to include US and Canada Traffic Only

1. Filter Name: Give a Name to your Filter.
   


2. Filter Type: Select ?Custom Filter? and select ?Include? in the radio button. We are creating a custom filter to include US and Canada Traffic Only.
   


3. Filter Field: Select ?Visitor Country? as the filter field. Visitor country is populated based on the IP address of the visitors.
   
   
4. Filter Pattern: This is where you enter the country names. The small trick is with the format and finding out what to enter as the country names. In this case where I needed the visitor behavior from US and Canada, I used United States and Canada as the countries and my filter was
   (Canada|United States). () is required to group all the values together and | is used as on OR.
   So what this filter patter is telling is to match either one of the 2 values (Canada and United States) in the Filter Field (Visitor Country).
   
   
   Here is the final view
   
   
   

   Now the question is why did I enter United Sates and Not United States of America of USA or US?
   You need to enter what Google Analytics captures the country name as. To find out what you should enter in the country name, go to a profile that does not have any country filters. Go to Visitors --> Map Overlay and scroll down to see the names of the countries. Use the name exactly as it shows in this list.
   
   
   

More Google Analytics Tips.

Comments? Questions?

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User Data and Behavioral Targeting

One New York assemblyman, Richard L. Brodsky, has drafted a bill that would make it a crime ? punishable by a fine to be determined ? for certain Web companies to use personal information about consumers for advertising without their consent.
There are essentially two main things in this bill

1. Opt-out for anonymous user behavior: It will force Web sites to give consumers obvious ways to opt out of advertising based on their browsing history and Web actions.


2. Opt-in for using PII data : Users would also have to give explicit permission before these companies could link the anonymous searching and surfing data from around the Web to information like their name, address or phone number.

My prediction about Behavioral targeting and privacy is coming true. Earlier this year, in my yearly predictions I said that this is year we will see a greater push for consumer?s privacy.
Here is what I said
"Behavioral Targeting will continue to grow this year; however, there will be greater push for protecting consumer privacy. The privacy concerns will result in:

1. Clear instructions (or links) on Behaviorally Targeted Ads that will allow behaviorally targeted visitors to opt-out of Behaviorally Targeted advertising
2. Opt-in system ? Some networks (maybe new ones) will move towards opt-in rather than opt-out (I favor opt-in over opt-out as I wrote in past. So I am making this prediction that this year networks will pay attention to it). A new types of networks or services might come up which will allow users to be an active participant in BT and control who can use their online behavioral data and how they can use it."

Use of customer?s data without their consent created an uproar in UK last week. In response to the mess created by Phorm and British telecom, Sir Tim Berners-Lee said that his data and web history belonged to him.
He said "It's mine - you can't have it. If you want to use it for something, then you have to negotiate with me. I have to agree, I have to understand what I'm getting in return."

This is just the beginning; I think, we will see greater push for consumer privacy as consumers become educated about how their data is being used to target them. I think it is time for publishers and ad networks to be proactive about educating customers on how their data is being used and give them clear options to opt-out (or better opt-in) of any targeting.

I am big proponent of Behavioral Targeting and Personalization but it has to be with user?s consent.

Comments? Questions?

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Google Analytics Benchmarking Review

About a month ago, Google Analytics rolled out a new feature called ?Benchmarking?.
This service shows how your website's statistics compare against other sites. The data used for this service is collected via Google Analytics from the sites that opt-in to use this service. In the beta release of this service, you are able to compare your site's Visits, Pageviews, Pages per Visit, Bounce Rate, Average Time on Site, and New Visits data against benchmark data from categories of other participating websites.

After a wait of few weeks, last week I was able to see the benchmarking data for the first time.

Benchmarking data is available under ?Visitors? section of Google Analytics (See below).




As you can see above, this site rocked it had 386% more visits then the benchmark data. Actually most of the stats were better than the comparable sites. Does that mean we can open Champagne and celebrate??? Not so fast. Let?s look at what I was comparing to?

According to Google Analytics, I was comparing to ?All sites of similar size?.

So what does ?All sites of similar size? mean?

All sites are grouped together under three classifications: small, medium, and large based on number of visits each site receives. You can compare yourself to other similarly sized sites but not to sites in other size classifications.
I did not find it very useful since I don?t know what the range of the stats was. If the site I was looking was being compared to one or two page personal sites then sure this site will rock compared to the other site, not very helpful comparison though. I needed to compare to my industry vertical.

Comparing to a vertical

Google provide a list of site categories that are available for the site size (based on visits) your site falls into. However I was not sure which vertical to pick for this particular site. Some sites fall perfectly in one vertical but a lot of them do not fall into any one vertical, as was the case with the site that I was looking the data for. It would have been nice if Google had allowed me to see which vertical it was categorizing my site in so that I could have picked the same vertical.



I know this is only beta release and it will get better with new releases so now I am eagerly waiting for the next release so that I can get some meaningful stats.

What are your thoughts on this service?

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Video Analytics by YouTube

YouTube launches analytics for the video providers (user, partners and advertisers). According to Google Blog, this tool (service) called Insight will initially allow video providers statistics such as

• How often videos are viewed in different geographic regions


• How popular a video is relative to all videos in that market over a given period of time


• Data on lifecycle of the videos, like how long it takes for a video to become popular, and what happens to video views as popularity peaks

According to YouTube blog,
"We'll be making new features and additional information available fairly quickly -- like a specific breakdown of how viewers discovered the video"

YouTube videos are embedded in several sites and blogs, so it will also be nice to see what sites, blogs etc. are embedded the video on their site and on what pages.
Some bloggers, TV news and news sites are claiming that YouTube will track and show at individual level i.e. show the name, IP of an individual who watched the video. I believe that YouTube has such data (when you consider tying Google Accounts with YouTube) but I do not believe that YouTube will reveal that kind of information in the Video Analytics, as it could result in all sorts of privacy issues.

I expect Google (who owns YouTube) to integrate these services with Google Analytics. Not only will video providers able to see the stats mentioned above in one interface but all see the impact of videos and visitors driven by these videos on their site and hence make better decision for future video productions and promotions.

Thoughts? Comments?

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Interview with Kathleen Brush, Chief Marketing Officer, WebTrends

Anil: Thank you for taking the time for this interview, let's start with a brief overview of your background.

Kathleen: I have been in executive management in the software industry in the United States and abroad since 1988. During this time, I have held several CMO positions, including positions at Stamps.com and Websense. I have also been CEO and president of a few companies, including Rogue Wave Software and a division of Seagate Software. I have a Ph.D. in Management and International Studies and have taught international marketing at the graduate and undergraduate level. I have written two marketing and business-related books and have authored published articles on marketing and strategy.

Anil: What are the names of the books that you wrote and tell me a little about those books.

Kathleen: High-Tech Strategies in the Internet Era is an A ? Z guide for strategy development for high tech products. It has been used at a couple of technical colleges. The book starts with helpful advice on how to go about the research process to identify new products. It then moves to validation, getting buy-in and execution through a technique called strategy deployment.

Watch Your Back is a book of fiction. I know how tedious it can be to read business books, so I decided to try to convey teachings about some of areas of business ? most specifically, organizational behavior and the functioning of a board, which are not regularly taught ? using a fictional approach.

Anil: Cool. Tell me about your new role at WebTrends?

Kathleen: I have quite a few objectives. I hope to position the WebTrends marketing organization as a showcase for optimizing digital marketing by using our products and those of our partners. The development of a new product strategy will include validating requirements for our current product portfolio and evaluating complementary additions that simplify the life of today's online and offline marketer.

I'd like to see the company increase communications that provide helpful advice for translating the data customers receive from our products into actionable changes to their marketing campaigns. I will also lead an effort to build up our presence in international markets, and an overall refresh of the WebTrends brand.

Anil: Tell me more about "I'd like to see the company increase communications that provide helpful advice for translating the data customers receive from our products into actionable changes to their marketing campaigns." Do you mean building strategic consulting practice or expanding partnership with strategic consulting companies like us or something else?

Kathleen: Something else. WebTrends wants to share our expertise with our customers. We will be putting together seminars, articles and white papers with the aim of helping clients and others to maximize the use of the data they receive from our products to improve the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns.

Anil: What are the challenges you see at WebTrends today?

Kathleen: The WebTrends brand is globally recognized as the pioneer of, and leader in, website analytics, but many do not equate WebTrends as being a leader and innovator in the broader industry of Enterprise Marketing Software (EMS). The process of refreshing our brand to be an innovative global EMS vendor is a challenge the entire company is enjoying.

Anil: What is your plan for overcoming this challenge?

Kathleen: We have developed a comprehensive strategy surrounding new product deliverables, the development of deeper domain experience, the creation of informative communications, the continuous improvement on the execution of world class online and offline marketing programs and building our international presence.

Anil: Where do you see web analytics market heading? What does future look like?

Kathleen: We see web analytics market advancing on a number of fronts: (1) Delivering in-depth, visitor-level intelligence that moves marketers closer to the ideal of one-to-one marketing; (2) Being able to more precisely measure customer engagement; (3) Going beyond analysis and reporting to delivering recommendations that improve results; (4) Being a central and foundational component to an integrated EMS solution; (5) Being a significant component in our customers' plans for company-wide business intelligence.

Anil: How is WebTrends positioning itself for the changing market?

Kathleen: By preparing product, marketing and company strategies that are in line with the evolution of the new EMS industry (as noted above) and that focus primarily on meeting the needs of WebTrends' current and future customers.

Anil: The theme of last year's WebTrends conference was customer engagement and WebTrends' Score product was showcased as the solution to measure visitor engagement. How are the customers embracing the WebTrends Score Product? Do you have any case studies that you can share?

Kathleen: Interest in the product has been very high. It is a brilliant solution for measuring customer engagement and permitting the segmentation of visitors into product/service preference areas that permit finely targeted follow-on campaigns. We do not have any published case studies for Score yet, but look forward to sharing those with you soon.

Anil: What is going to be the theme of this year's conference?

Kathleen: We're still finalizing the theme, but we will be sure to give you an update when it is finalized.

Anil: Finally, what do you think about Omniture? Their market position and all the acquisitions they are doing?

Kathleen: I have taught about the difficulties of acquiring companies and products: such as integrating disparate technologies and merging companies with varying cultures and processes. I think it is unlikely that Omniture will escape easily from many of the inherent problems in company acquisitions. Now, like most, I think integrated marketing software suites are something the market is looking for, but the key will be, as it always is, in the integrity of the integration. It's a question of marketecture vs. architecture. Can Omniture truly integrate the products they have acquired to deliver the synergistic value customers are really looking for? Or will this require an open architecture that easily permits exchanging data among EMS applications?

Anil: Great, I think true integration of the solutions is not going to happen. It will be more around creating an easy exchange of data. Thank you for your time.

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Google Analytics: Tips and Tricks – Why do some search keywords show 0 visits

Question 1: A visitor goes to Google searches for a keyword, come to my site views few pages then goes back to Google does another search and comes back to my site all within 30 minutes (same visit). Which keyword will get credit for the visitors activity?

Question 2: I see a lot of keywords with 0 visits and 0 page views in my Google Analytics keyword report. What does that mean?

Answer:
Google Analytics, assigns the visitors activity to the first keyword that drove visitor to the site and assigns only those pages to the keyword that were a direct result of the first keyword. Note: This test was done on Organic results only, I will look at the impact of paid search (PPC) in my future tests.
Let?s look at an example. I used SeattleIndian.com for this test.
Here are the steps that I took

1. Did a search on ?SeattleIndian.com 0 pages? and landed on SeattleIndian.com via a click on search results.


2. Bounced back (viewed only 1 page) and went to Google (by typing in Google.com)
3. Did a search on ?SeattleIndian.com 1 pages? and landed again on SeattleIndian.com via a click on search results.
   
4. Again bounced back (viewed only 1 page) to Google (by again typing in Google.com)
   
5. Did a search on ?SeattleIndian.com 4 pages? and landed again on SeattleIndian.com via a click on search results


6. Viewed 4 pages and left.

Below is the Google Analytics report showing the activity.



As you can see one page that I viewed from 1st keyword ?SeattleIndian.com 0 pages? get assigned to that keyword and it also gets the credit for visit. The other 2 keywords do not get the credit for the visit or the pages views. The other 2 keywords will show 0 visit and 0 page views.

So where do the page views associated with the other keyword go? Well, I don?t have an answer for that yet. I am still researching and will blog once I have an answer.

In next article I will discuss which keyword gets the credit for conversion if a visitor uses multiple keywords to come to the site and converts with one of the keywords. Is it the first keyword, 2nd keyword or the 3rd keyword that gets credit? (Assuming visitors used 3 keywords).

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Consumer Awareness and Attitudes about Behavioral Targeting

TRUSTe conducted a study regarding American Internet users' knowledge, attitudes and concerns about behavioral targeting and its implications on their online privacy.

Here are the highlights of the study

• There is high level of awareness that internet activities are being tracked for purposes of targeting advertising.


• High level of concern associated with that tracking, even when it isn't associated with personally identifiable information.


• 71 percent of online consumers are aware that their browsing information may be collected by a third party for advertising purposes, but only 40 percent are familiar with the term "behavioral targeting."


• 57 percent of respondents say they are not comfortable with advertisers using that browsing history to serve relevant ads, even when that information cannot be tied to their names or any other personal information.


• 91 percent of respondents expressed willingness to take necessary steps to assure increased privacy online when presented with the tools to control their internet tracking and advertising experience.


• Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) would choose to see online ads only from online stores and brands that they know and trust and 44 percent of respondents would click buttons or icons to make that happen.


• To the contrary, 42 percent of the respondents say they would sign up for an online registry to ensure that advertisers are not able to track browsing behaviors, even if it meant that they would receive more ads that are less relevant to their interests.

What do these results mean for Behavioral Targeting?

1. As I have written before there needs to be education about what Behavioral Targeting is and how it impacts consumers.


2. A Brand has to build trust with consumers and then only can they venture into behavioral targeting. Amazon.com is a perfect example. I have talked to several people who don?t mind targeting by Amazon, though recognize that Amazon needs to improve on what criteria it uses for targeting.


3. 91 percent indicated willingness to take steps to control their tracking and advertising experience indicates a strong preference towards an opt-in model which I have advocated several times in previous blog posts.

So if you want to enagage in Behavioral Targeting, online advertising or On-Site, here is my quick 5 steps process

1. First build a trust with your consumers.


2. Educate them what Behavioral Targeting is and how you collect the data and use it.


3. Provide them a compelling reason to allow you to collect their data.


4. Build an opt-in model allowing users to control what data they want you to use.


5. Give users a way to easily opt-out of Behavioral Targeting.
   

Comments?

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Web Analytics Industry - Consolidation Continues

Last month I wrote about ZeroDash1 and IndexTools getting into partnership. Few days later we (ZeroDash1) were acquired by Ascentium, a marketing an technology company based in Bellevue, WA.

Now IndexTool has been acquired by Yahoo.

"Yahoo! believes that the ability to generate the most valuable and relevant insights is essential to seizing market opportunities and creating successful campaigns," said Bassel Ojjeh "We expect that the IndexTools' technology platform will provide our customers the opportunity to more quickly uncover and act on these insights, enhancing Yahoo!'s status as a partner of choice in online marketing and the must buy for the world's advertisers."

I am not sure if IndexTools will continue to offer its tool for a fee (as it is today) or become a free webanalytics tool like Google Analytics. I think that Yahoo will take the route of Google Analytics and Microsoft Gatineau and make it a free tool. IndexTool is, however, a better tool in terms of functionality it offers compared to Google and Microsoft?s tool.

A free offering from Yahoo will change the Web Analytics landscape. If yahoo is smart they will make index tool available for free as soon as possible. I will replace GA with IndexTool in a heartbeat (as I don?t tie my Adwords to GA).

So what?s next?

Here are few scenarios

Scenario 1

1. Google Analytics, Microsoft Analytics (and some other tools) will not be able to compete with IndexTools free offering.


2. Microsoft will need to step up its offering quite a bit (considering the deal with Yahoo is not happening), they should buy WebTrends. Webtrends is built on MS technology and provides far more functionality than IndexTools (Let?s call it Yahoo Analytics). Which will make Microsoft the leader, Yahoo second and Google third in web analytics capability.


3. Now, Google won?t stand still. They will use their stock power to buy Omniture and replace Google Analytics with Omniture.


4. Which will make Google the leader once again, Microsoft second and Yahoo Third


5. Microsoft then buys Yahoo and it will be down to two Google and Microsoft. We won?t have one clear leader as both will be close.

Scenario 2

1. Google Analytics, Microsoft Analytics (and some other tools) will not be able to compete with IndexTools free offering.


2. Considering Microsoft?s intent to buy Yahoo, Google will spring into action and buy Webtrends and Omniture.


3. Which will make Google the leader once again, Microsoft second and Yahoo Third


4. Microsoft then buys Yahoo and it will be down to two Google and Microsoft. We won?t have one clear leader as both will be close.

Scenario 3:

1. Google Analytics, Microsoft Analytics (and some other tools) will not be able to compete with IndexTools free offering.


2. Microsoft will need to step up its offering quite a bit (considering the deal with Yahoo is not happening), they should buy WebTrends. Webtrends is built on MS technology and provides far more functionality than IndexTools (Let?s call it Yahoo Analytics). Which will make Microsoft the leader, Yahoo second and Google third in web analytics capability.


3. Oracle, which is on the sidelines but one Web analytics company recently, jumps into action and buys Omniture and makes it free.


4. Which will make Oracle the leader once again, Microsoft second and Yahoo Third and Google the fourth.
   
5. Microsoft then buys Yahoo and it will be down to three Oracle, Microsoft and Google.

Some other combinations of the above are also possible. Also, there is a possibility of AOL and some agencies getting into the action but you get the idea that the consolidation will continue.

If any one of the above scenarios happen then Ian Thomas will be proven right, when he said in 5 years web analytics will be everywhere and all web analytics software will be free. I disagreed with Ian in my response to his prediction, but I also did not deny the possibility of web analytics vendor aggregating the user data across sites and then using that to provide targeted advertising and in return providing the tool for free.

What do you think? Comments?


Side Note: The interesting thing is that IndexTool will become part of Yahoo!'s Strategic Data Solutions. Bassel was one of the co-founders of my ex-company digiMine (which is now called Revenue Science).

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Move over Google Analytics here comes Yahoo Analytics

I am sure a lot of you heard last week that Yahoo got into the analytics field with purchase of IndexTools. At that time it was not clear if Yahoo will continue selling IndexTools for a fee or will give away the tool for free like Google Analytics and Microsoft Analytics (Gatineau or what ever they are calling it these days).

I speculated, in my blog post, that Yahoo will (or should) give away this tool for free. In my mind the advantage of giving away this tool was clear. IndexTools is superior in functionality to Google Analytics, it is far more advanced and rivals tools like Omniture and Webtrends. A free offering from Yahoo would put them in the driving seat of the web analytics world. This free tool will also help them sway marketing dollars that would have otherwise gone to Google.

Another huge benefit that Yahoo will have is the ability to put their pixels (data collection mechanism) around the web and hence collect data. Which, in turn, will help their Behavioral Targeting efforts, which are currently limited to Yahoo portal only. This is huge!!! and something that might be of interest to both Bassel and Usama of the Strategic Data Solutions group of Yahoo (the group that IndexTools will roll into).

(Sidenote: Both Bassel and Usama were founders of digiMine, the company I used to work for, which rebranded to Revenue Science, one of the leading Behavioral Targeting networks. It could be there opportunity to build a huge Behavioral targeting network which could easily be bigger than Revenue Science.)

In my opinion giving the free tool was the way to go.

Well, this morning Dennis R. Mortensen, COO of IndexTools wrote on his blog that Yahoo will indeed offer IndexTools for free.
He also claims that IndexTools offers 80% of Omnitures functionality. So you get 80% of the functionality for Free.
I am sure executives at Omniture, WebTrends, Google Analytics, MS Analytics are scrambling right now to figure out what this all means to their business.
Let?s just say this for now ? It will have an impact.

I also had some speculations about web analytics market consolidations in my last blog post. This move by Yahoo and IndexTools is a huge step toward making my speculations a reality.

Here is what I wrote in my previous blog post:

A free offering from Yahoo will change the Web Analytics landscape. If yahoo is smart they will make index tool available for free as soon as possible. I will replace GA with IndexTool in a heartbeat (as I don?t tie my Adwords to GA).

So what?s next?

Here are few scenarios

Scenario 1

1. Google Analytics, Microsoft Analytics (and some other tools) will not be able to compete with IndexTools free offering.


2. Microsoft will need to step up its offering quite a bit (considering the deal with Yahoo is not happening), they should buy WebTrends. Webtrends is built on MS technology and provides far more functionality than IndexTools (Let?s call it Yahoo Analytics). Which will make Microsoft the leader, Yahoo second and Google third in web analytics capability.


3. Now, Google won?t stand still. They will use their stock power to buy Omniture and replace Google Analytics with Omniture.


4. Which will make Google the leader once again, Microsoft second and Yahoo Third


5. Microsoft then buys Yahoo and it will be down to two Google and Microsoft. We won?t have one clear leader as both will be close.

Scenario 2

1. Google Analytics, Microsoft Analytics (and some other tools) will not be able to compete with IndexTools free offering.


2. Considering Microsoft?s intent to buy Yahoo, Google will spring into action and buy Webtrends and Omniture.


3. Which will make Google the leader once again, Microsoft second and Yahoo Third


4. Microsoft then buys Yahoo and it will be down to two Google and Microsoft. We won?t have one clear leader as both will be close.

Scenario 3:

1. Google Analytics, Microsoft Analytics (and some other tools) will not be able to compete with IndexTools free offering.


2. Microsoft will need to step up its offering quite a bit (considering the deal with Yahoo is not happening), they should buy WebTrends. Webtrends is built on MS technology and provides far more functionality than IndexTools (Let?s call it Yahoo Analytics). Which will make Microsoft the leader, Yahoo second and Google third in web analytics capability.


3. Oracle, which is on the sidelines but one Web analytics company recently, jumps into action and buys Omniture and makes it free.


4. Which will make Oracle the leader once again, Microsoft second and Yahoo Third and Google the fourth.
   
5. Microsoft then buys Yahoo and it will be down to three Oracle, Microsoft and Google.

Some other combinations of the above are also possible. Also, there is a possibility of AOL and some agencies getting into the action but you get the idea that the consolidation will continue.


What do you think?

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Google Analytics Data Sharing

Google Analytics has an option to allow you to share your analytics data with Google in return for services like Google Benchmarking and enhanced ad features that will be released in future. Google provides following two options for data sharing.

1. With Google products only
   
   What do you get with this option? Enable enhanced ad features and an improved experience with AdWords, AdSense and other Google products by sharing your website's Google Analytics data with other Google services. Only Google services (no third parties) will be able to access your data.
   


2. Anonymously with Google products and the benchmarking service
   
   What do you get with this option? Enable benchmarking within Google Analytics by sharing your website data in an anonymous form. Google will remove all identifiable information about your website, combine the data with hundreds of other anonymous sites in comparable industries and report aggregate trends in the benchmarking service. Google will also use this data in anonymous form to improve our products and services.

Since companies are concerned about their data, the first question that most of them are asking is ?Should we share data with Google and how will the data be used??
In this post I will provide my views on Google Analytics data sharing service. Please note that I am not associated with Google or any Google entity and have not worked with them in any capacity. These are my views only, based on my past experience with Analytics , Online Adverting and Behavioral Targeting companies and services.

So what do I think?

As I had written in past, Google will be entering the Behavioral Targeting space. For it to realize full power of Behavioral Targeting it will need to aggregate the data it collects from sites across the web via its various services such as Google Toolbar, Adsense, Adwords, Google Analytics, YouTube, Google Checkout, Google Optimizer etc. Since there is so much concern about privacy and data usage by Companies like Google, it will create a lot of problem for Google if they just start aggregating all this data. To make sure Google is easing these concerns about how Google can use the data it collects from its services, in particular data from its business oriented services such Google Analytics, Adword etc , it has to seek permission from the site owners (and visitors).
Google is starting this with Google Analytics. It is asking your permission to allow them to aggregate your Google Analytics data in return for some free services such as Benchmarking and others services yet to come.

Option 1

Let?s start with Option 1 ?With Google products only?. The description of this option can be interpreted in the following two ways

1. If you chose this option your Analytics data will be shared by other Google services that you use. This data will only be used to enhance Google products, Adwords, Adsense etc. used by you using your Google Analytics data. So they are asking you to opt-in into tighter integration of these products (sort of like Omniture genesis). Your data will not be shared with any other company or used to enhance Adwords or Adsense for any other company.


Or it could also mean


2. Your data will be used at an aggregated level to enhance Adwords, Adsense or other Google products to help Google. This is along the lines of Behavioral Targeting. Say you operate an online golf store. You have some buyer who frequently come and buy products from you. Google knows a lot about those users (e.g. they buy golf balls on regular basis and hence are avid golfers). When these users goes on another sites that serves Adsense ads, Google can serve ads about Golf balls or other Golf products even though that site might have nothing to do with Golf, but it knows that these visitors are avid golfers and are more likely to click on golf ads. Now these ads could be yours or of your competitors, you won?t know. Also Google will be able to charge more as they will allow advertisers to reach the right target customers, a great deal for the advertiser and Google. This raises 2 main questions (and maybe a lot more).
   
   
   
   1. Why should you allow Google to use your data to power your competitors? ads and hence loose customers?
   
   
   2. Why should you allow Google to charge more for targeting based on the data that was collected on your site? Shouldn?t you get a piece of it?
   
   

Option 2

?Anonymously with Google products and the benchmarking service? has the following two components

1. Benchmarking: Most of the companies want to benchmark and see how they are doing compared to other companies in their vertical, size etc. This sort of data is usually available from companies like Nielsen Net Ratings, Comscore, Hitwise, Compete for a fee. Realizing the needs of consumers Google Analytics is providing this service as an option in Google Analytics. The data is anonymous and aggregated so I don?t have a problem with letting them use my data and provide me free benchmarking data. (Note: I had talked about them entering this space in my blog post, on April 13 , 2007 ( ?Google and Behavioral Targeting? , way before they released the data sharing services).



2. Google Products: Even tough Google is saying that it will make the data ?anonymous?, what it really is saying is that it will remove information about your site from the data (the site where data is collected). In nutshell, I think this still refers to the same type of data sharing as mentioned in point number 2 of Option 1 (above) so I have same concerns as I already mentioned.

So what should you do?

It depends on your situation.

Option Number 1: If it is really to help you better your ads and optimize your site and conversion then you should opt-in. At this time it is not clear. I would say opt-in for a less strategic site (if you have multiple) and see how it works then you can always opt-out if it is not what you expect. I will of course blog about it in future on how they actually use the data.

Option Number 2: For now, in my opinion, you are ok with sharing your data to use Benchmarking services. You can always opt-out later when Google starts to use this data to power Adwords and Adsense.

User Privacy

Even though Google is making the data anonymous it is only referring to privacy of the site not of the individual visitors. It is up for debate who owns the data, the visitor, the website where data is collected or third party tool like Google Analytics. They are asking your (site owners) permission by asking you to opt-in to data sharing. To ensure Google covers all it bases when (note I did not say IF) they decide to behavioral targeting based on all the data collected they will seek to get user permission too (or I think they should).

Privacy policies are different in different countries so you should comply with local privacy policies before allowing Google to aggregate data collected on your site. It is always a good idea to clearly mention in your sites? privacy policy how you are allowing 3rd parties to anonymously collect and aggregate the data for Benchmarking and other marketing services.

Comments? Questions?

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eMetrics – Marketing Optimization Summit

I will be at eMetrics ? Marketing Optimization Summit on May 4th and May 5th.

On May 4th I will be leading a Web Analytics Association?s Base camp workshop on "Web Analytics for Site Optimization".

This workshop will give you the tricks, tools and techniques needed to improve navigation, increase engagement and improve conversion rates.

• Building a measurable site


• Designing for navigation vs. conversion


• Improving online persuasion


• KPIs for ecommerce, content sites, and intranets


• Understanding visitor behavior


• A/B & multivariate testing

On May 5th I will be speaking at emetrics. My topic is "Behavioral Targeting Across Ad Networks and on Your Site".
My session will cover the benefits of BT to consumers, publishers (site owners) and advertisers. I will show what vendors are available to help with different types of BT and review various aspects of BT, from the available technologies to the tried and true techniques to the preponderance of privacy pains. Finally I will walk you through a 5 step process to successful Behavioral Targeting and it is not just limited to online advertising but also how these techniques can be used for onsite advertising and content and product targeting as a part of onsite campaign.

If you are going to be at eMetric, email me so that we can get together. I will arrive on Saturday evening.
See you in San Francisco.

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Site Optimization, Behavioral Targeting and eMetrics

I attended eMetrics on May 4th and 5th.
On May 4th, I taught a full day class on Web Analytics for Site Optimization. This class was a part of the WAA base camp series.
This class showed the tricks, tools and techniques needed to improve the websites, increase engagement and improve conversion rates. Some of the topics that were discussed in this class were

• Building a measurable site


• Designing for navigation vs. conversions


• Improving online persuasion


• KPIs for ecommerce, content sites, and intranets


• Understanding visitor behavior


• A/B & multivariate testing


• Using advanced metrics such as frequency, recency and latency to increase customer engagement and conversions.

Next day I took the topic of optimization to next step and talked about Behavioral Targeting and how you can use it to increase your online marketing ROI. The topics I covered in my presentations

• What is Behavioral Targeting?


• How does it work?


• What Determines Behavior?


• What can you target?


• Why should we use it?


• Description and examples of Network and Site-Side Targeting


• 5 Step Process for you to successful Behavioral Targeting


• ROI Model ? Is BT for you?


• Privacy Issue surrounding BT, results from a survey on privacy and a 5 step process to ensure you don?t run into privacy issues

It is clear that the interest in this topic is increasing. It was evident by the use of this term in several other presentations at the conference and the attendance in my session.

If you missed this presentation and are interested in learning about Behavioral Targeting email me. If you attended the session, I would love to hear your comments and questions.

I wish I could have stayed for the all 4 days of the conference but I had to come back to Seattle to take my US citizenship exam. I am happy to announce that I have I successfully completed the citizenship exam.

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Web Analyst Interview: Jacques Warren

Continuing my series of interviews with Web Analysts, here is an interview with Jacques Warren.

What is your current position and the name of the company you work for.

I am an independent consultant in Web Analytics. My company?s name is WAO Marketing, which stands for Web Analytics & Optimization (well, I guess I?m not so good at branding!), but it is in fact a one-man show. I intend it to stay that way.

How long have you been working in this fields.

I have been in Interactive Marketing for 12 years now, and I decided to focus all my time to Web Analytics 6 years ago. I knew then that it was impossible to be a good Web marketer without making use of all that data. I still strongly believe that analytics, not just Web Analytics, will deeply impact marketing, and how we do business in general.

Tell me about you Interactive Marketing experience, prior to web analytics.

I was in interactive marketing, mainly in agencies. I did have a small company in the 90?s specialized in localizing Web sites in Japanese, and promote them to that market. For many years, Japanese was the second most used language on the Web after English. I believe it lost this title to Chinese, but Japan is still by far the second largest economy. It made sense then to use the Web in the context of international business, although what I was doing was too niched to make a living. My academic background is Sociology. I did some graduate studies, but the desire to travel got into the way of my thesis, and I never finished it. However, I believe that background helps me a lot today, having trained my mind on abstract thought, analysis, and synthesis.

Why focus on Web Analytics?

How can you manage it if you don?t measure it? Back in 2002, after getting fired for not selling enough Web development projects (ah! Those darn 2000 ? 2002 years!), I knew that companies could not keep indefinitely throwing money at the Web without starting the hard business questions about the value of all that. It was the beginning of the web normalization; it was time to treat it as another way of doing business. And if it was business, well, then it had to be accountable.

Tell me more about when and why you created your own company?

I actually created my company in April 2007 when I decided to leave Bell Business Solutions, a Bell Canada subsidiary, where I had started the Web Analytics service offer in 2002. We were working with external clients. I had a really good time then, because we were discovering this new field, trying to make it a revenue stream through consulting and reselling WebTrends, and just plainly educating Web managers about the benefits of Web Analytics. So you could say that I have always been on the consulting side of WA. I?m a consultant at heart. I believe I have the required qualities: expertise, communication skills, empathy, and a deep understanding of organizational contexts. If you can?t understand how well (or badly) a company can integrate what you bring it, chances are good that the project will fail. I will confess something to you: getting independent was the best decision I have made professionally in a very long time.

What are you responsibilities? Describe your typical work day.

Well, of course, finding work is, in theory, a good part of what preoccupies me. I say in theory, because my only merit since I left Bell has been to answer the phone. I am amazingly lucky that work comes to me.
So, my main responsibility is to bring maximum value in usually very short time to organizations who need to evolve in Web Analytics. I do a lot of consulting in KPI, dashboard, analysis work, and WebTrends implementation and training. I work with other applications (Google Analytics, Omniture), but only do sophisticated implementations with WebTrends. I was a Premier Reseller at Bell for several years, and although I am not a technical guy, I had to deeply learn
the product. Without my planning it when I started, I turned out to be one of the top WebTrends people here in Canada.

Besides doing the work I am paid for, I spend a good part of my time in meetings, and interacting with managers. Web Analytics is now understood as being crucial, and people want to learn as much as they can, and understand how they can make it a part of their daily practices.

What, in your opinion, are the skills that you think are important for a web
analyst?

Having an analytical mind? Yes, sure, of course. But a ?synthetical? one too, although that word doesn?t exist. Interpretation resides at that level; the big picture that is constructed through all that slice and dice. You must master your framework, here Web marketing. I believe I am an excellent web analyst because I am first and foremost a great Web marketer. Well, this is not the most humble thing I have muttered in years? But it?s true!

Do I need to stress the importance of communications skills? Analytics is done in such context, politics, ambitious people, P&L obsession, etc., that what you communicate is never purely objective, even though ?I?m not saying it; the numbers are!?. You will expose people, plans, projects. Sure, you will as well demonstrate success, but companies are run by humans, who have a strong tendency to like status quo, and status.

What, if any, education or work experience helped you in your job.

I am of course an avid reader in everything Web Analytics, but also in business, marketing, etc. I also attend training, such as Stephen Few?s workshop on data visualization. That was Stephen first public class last June, and it had a big impact on my work. As for work experience, well, I had dozens of projects done when I decided to fly solo; that of course made the decision way easier, since I was offering deep expertise and experience to the market from day one.

What education is lacking, education or experience that would have helped?

More statistics.

What web analytics/online-marketing books have you read and/or own?

All of them, and most white papers out there. Of course, one needs to read
outside one?s field to find stuff that could be applied. Recent readings are:

The Power to Predict,

Fooled by Randomness,

The Black Swan,

Super Crunchers, and

Competing on Analytics.


What were the major challenges you faced or are facing in this industry?

Adoption, adoption, adoption. I have been at it for six years now, and doing a lot of education here in my market (Province of Quebec in particular, but everywhere I go). Although I am very happy about how much awareness our field is getting these days, I am still amazed at how little still many companies do with the information they get. Acting upon the findings remains what it is all about.

How do you make sure you are learning and growing in this field.

I read a lot of books as I mentioned before. I also read all the blogs (but not always all the posts) in the field. I also watch for conferences and seminar that will help me grow. Paying for all that with my own money, I am very discriminating, and choosey; I wish I could go to more. If you happen to work for a company that gives you a good budget for that, don?t hesitate to use it
all!

Do you have blog? If yes, what kind of article do you write.

I actually have several, Analytics Notes (http://www.waomarketing.com/blog/) in English where I am more interested in the relationships between analytics and marketing culture.
Web Analytique & Optimisation (http://www.waomarketing.com/blogFR/wordpress/) in French, where I discuss the more basic stuff. The Big Integration (http://www.thebigintegration.com/blog/) in English about the data integration stuff. It?s also got a Forum (http://www.thebigintegration.com/forum/) WebKaiseki no Kiso (http://www.waomarketing.com/blogJP/) in Japanese about basic stuff. But I have neglected that one for a while, since writing in that language demands me a lot of time.

What is your advice to aspiring web analysts?

Understand the web and Interactive marketing first and foremost.

Thank you Warren.

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5 Steps to Successful Behavioral Targeting

If you are a reader of this blog then you know what Behavioral Targeting is and how it is the latest (not really) idea that everyone is embracing. Ad network, web analytics tool vendors, agencies etc. all now claim to have behavioral targeting capabilities. Weather they really have the behavioral targeting capabilities or not is a topic of another blog topic. Some other like Google do behavioral targeting but do not talk about it. (You can read my past blog posts on behavioral targeting http://webanalysis.blogspot.com/search/label/behavioral%20targeting)

For all those who want to get into Behavioral Targeting or have been involved with behavioral targeting but not seeing the results or just want to make sure they get the most out of their behavioral targeting efforts, I have put together my 5 step process for successful Behavioral Targeting. (I talked about these steps in detail in my session on Behavioral Targeting at eMetrics). These steps apply to both Behavioral Targeting via ad-networks and on-site behavioral targeting.

5 Steps to Successful Behavioral Targeting

• Define your goals for Behavioral Targeting


• Define your customer segments


• Define Success metrics


• Find the right tools/networks


• Create a culture of continuous Improvement

Define your goals for Behavioral Targeting

This is the first and very important part of your Behavioral Targeting strategy. It is no different than any other campaign that you run, however, it is often not paid due attention to. Unless you know what you want from the Behavioral Targeting you will not be successful or in other words you will always be successful but not the same way that you should be.

While defining your goals for Behavioral Targeting, think about things like why are you even thinking about Behavioral Targeting (BT), are you looking for short term short term ROI or do you have a long term plan, are you trying to engage BT for Branding or direct response, are you just looking to drive traffic, acquire new customer, retarget the customers who have already been to your site? Having clear goals in mind will help you define your customer segments, success measures and set the right expectations among all the stakeholders. It will also keep you vendors in check. Document your goals and make sure all the stakeholders agree on those.

Define Customer Segments

Once you have the understanding of the goal of you Behavioral targeting efforts, think about what customer segment you want reach. How will you define these customer segments? What characteristics or behavior make them the right target. Some of the segments might be very obvious if you have thoroughly thought about your goals and some might need more thinking. Reaching the right segment at the right time and at the right place is the promise of Behavioral Targeting but if your segments are not properly defined then you will not reach the right customers. Notice that I have not talked about any tool or network yet. You should define your segment before you talk about tools because you want the tool/network to work based on your goals and segments and not the other way around.

Define success metrics

Unless you know how to measure success you won?t know if Behavioral Targeting is really working for you. Think clearly about what success means to you? Is it number of visits or is it conversions or something in the middle. Unless you have a predefined action defined you will not know if you are reaching the right customer or not. Also think about ROI, why do you want to pay extra for BT campaigns or engage in on-site BT activities. The ROI model will help you predict the return you will can expect from Behavioral Targeting and if it is worth your time, effort and money. During this process you might find that Behavioral Targeting (based on your goals, segment and success criteria) is not right for you. If that?s the case then it is time to go back to step 1 and rethink why BT.

Find the right tools/networks

Once you are equipped with the goals, segments and the success measures you can make an intelligent decision about a choosing the right Behavioral Targeting vendor (tool or network). As I said above, make sure the tool/network is capable of delivering based on your goals and segments and not the other way around.

Create a culture of continuous Improvement

As you drive users via Behavioral Targeting, you need to make sure that the creative, landing pages and conversion paths are optimal. Even if you reach the right customer, if you ads, landing pages and conversion paths are not persuasive you will not uncover the full potential of behavioral targeting. Conduct A/B or Multivariate testing on ads, landing pages and conversion paths to create the optimal conversion path. Remember that optimization is an ongoing process, it gets better with time. You have to create a culture of continuous improvement. You will never get to 100% conversion but every little improvement can have a huge impact on the bottom line.

Also check out my 5 steps for easing the privacy concerns with Behavioral targeting.

Questions? Comments?

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