Jim Does Analytics

If I have learned anything from studying data analytics, it’s that information is the best friend a marketer can have. Just inside Google Analytics, there’s a tremendous amount of information that can give you a better look at your website and how it’s performing. Who’s clicking on what? How much time are users spending looking at your content? Did your users end up signing up for your newsletter? Where are the people located who are looking at your website? Unfortunately, one of the things that Google Analytics does not provide is a sufficient explanation of who your audience is. In marketing, targeting an audience is of the utmost importance. If nothing else, understanding your audience is the key to formulating a successful communications strategy. Let’s say, for example, your website is extremely successful among men aged 30 to 45. Wouldn’t you want to start tailoring content specifically for that market? Unfortunately, Google Analytics does not give us any indication of...

Having spent just a little bit of time with Google Analytics, I must admit that I am impressed with the offerings that the site can provide. However, surely, there must be other analytics software out there, and it would be be negligent on our part as a data analytics team to ignore these other options to, at the very least, see how they compare to Google Analytics.   To begin this journey, I searched for analytics software for measuring traffic on, ironically enough, Google. Upon observing the staggering amount of options available, I began to tailor my search a bit more. I began to think about what I wanted to actually observe, and the solution became clear: I want to be able to better monitor my readership’s activities. With that in mind, I came across Chartbeat, an analytics tool that is used by the New York Times, Vice, and the Harvard Business review. If it’s good enough for them, I could probably use it for my little blog.   Of course, as I began to sign u...

Social media is an invaluable piece of the puzzle for any worthwhile marketing team. After all, with social media, a brand can directly address their customer base, creating lasting impressions that will lead directly to a better relationship between customers and a company.   However, with that knowledge, there is an issue of where, precisely, one should expend their efforts. Should a brand focus on one main platform for social media interactions, creating a more tailored approach, or should they try to cast a wide net, allowing them to reach as many people as possible? Before that discussion, it is worthwhile to think about what companies are really trying to achieve with their social media platforms. Ultimately, as the writer Chris Lake puts it, we are trying to “[drive] engagement and interaction. The goal of any social optimisation strategy is to provide the right tools so that people can engage with your brand / people / products / services onsite and offsite” (Lake 2009...

What’s a good visit to a website?   Knowing how users spend time on your site is of the utmost importance for marketers. This is, broadly speaking, what is known as “engagement.” As Avinash Kaushik notes, “we should all try to create website experiences that draw favorable attention or interest” (Kaushik 2010). However, there is an open question how, exactly, one can or should measure such a thing. Ultimately, it becomes a question of attempting to measure how individuals interact with your site. Are they clicking links? Are they downloading materials? Are they commenting?   To put it in real terms, consider the case of Visit Alexandria, which is Alexandria, Virginia’s tourism bureau. The bureau’s website, visitalexandriava.com receives nearly 2 million visits a year which is, certainly, nothing to sneeze at. However, there’s an open question of what constitutes an “engaged” visitor. Therefore, the bureau’s marketers had to make up a definition for positive engage...

First, a story. After watching the news about the Hurricane barreling down on Houston, Texas, I became obsessed with helping out in one way or another. I regularly give blood, so that seemed like a simple way to help people in need in this time of crisis. I opened up my Red Cross app and started to schedule an appointment. As I was scheduling the appointment, however, I got a phone call. After finishing the phone call, I went back to something else, forgetting that I was in the middle of scheduling an appointment. Luckily, a few minutes later, my phone buzzed. All of a sudden, a reminder popped up, asking me if I still wanted to give blood.   What’s the point of this story? To talk about the concept of conversion rates. As the Kaushik text argues, this is perhaps the most important web metric that one can measure. After all, “We are investing in our websites, so we should measure what comes of them” (Kaushik 2010).   So this leads me back to my initial discussion o...