Web Analytics

Avinash Kaushik, Web Analytics: An Hour a Day

 The Analytics Trade-Off

Cost

Accuracy Speed
 Online Marketing Research

• Research conducted online

• Research conducted about the online consumer

• Data sources can be internal or external

 Online Marketing Research

• Secondary Research
– Data collected for purposes that are not specific to the study at
hand
– Secondary sources of data
• E.g., External databases

• Primary Research
– Data collected for the purposes of the study at hand
 External Secondary Data
• Search Engines
– Economic Data – Global Insight

• Other Websites
– E.g., blogs

• Databases
– News Aggregators – LexisXexis
– Company Financial Information – D&B
– Legal, Tax & Regulatory – Thomson
– Market Research – Mintel

• Newsgroups
 Internal Data via Web Metrics
(Primary or Secondary)
• Sales per visitor
• Cost per visitor
• Conversion rates
• Length of site visits
• Pages visited
• Numbers failing to complete shopping cart to checkout
processes
• Responses to campaigns and incentives
 Some Strengths & Weaknesses in
Online Marketing Research
Strengths
• Speed of accessing
information
• Cost effective
• Quality and quantity of
information is evolving
• Growing consumer confidence
online is improving response
and completion rates
• Multimedia formats provide
greater creativity and flexibility
Weaknesses
• Sample populations are not
representative
– Self selection bias
• Online sources maybe of
dubious reliability
• Some survey methods e.g.
Pop-ups, cause irritation
• Problems of reach due to
issues like changing e-mail
addresses
 Common Online
Primary Research Activities
• Advertising Research (incl. Content Analysis, Banner
Ads etc.)
• All aspects of web site evaluation
• Partner and Reseller satisfaction surveys
• Online Focus Groups
• Usability Testing
 Stages in the Marketing Research
Process
• Define the research required
• Identify research objectives
• Design the research
• Gather Data
– Internal Secondary Data
– External Secondary Data
• Analyze Data
• Present Findings
Primary Data

• Quantitative

• Qualitative
Quantitative
 Hits
• One of the earliest metrics
• Captures the number of times people access a page or its graphics in
a specified period of time
• Simple to track and interpret

• Weaknesses
– the number of hits on a website can be misleading
– the number of people visiting a website is a fraction of the hits
registered
– do not capture the demographics of the user population
– do not capture the nature of users’ online experience
– do not capture anything about purchase decisions
 Clickstream

• Captures the path a visitor takes when navigating a website

– What pages are visited and in what order
– How long it takes for a page to load
– How often a user hits the back button of the computer
– Which page serves as the exit point in the navigation of the Website

• Captures entry and exit points, shopping cart activity, conversion activity
– What items are moved to the cart and back
– What items are purchased
– How much time is spent on each activity
 Click Through

• Click through measures how many visitors select a banner ad and visit the
subsequent page
– click rate captures the number of times an online banner ad is clicked
and divides it by number of times the ad is posted
– conversion rate takes the number of product purchasers and divides it
by the number of online advertisement viewers

• Weaknesses
– do not reveal information about demographics and purchasing decisions
– clickstream data or related measures rarely correlate with purchase rates
– does little to investigate the factors influencing someone to move beyond
exposure to actual purchase
 Consumer Behaviors
• “User Concern” analysis:
– To provide information for managerial decision-making
– Understand viewers’ needs

• Website Records Analysis

– Web Log
– Visitors
– Page-views
 Impressions

• Captures the number of times an advertising banner is

seen
– These are usually tracked via server log files

• Weaknesses
– there is no industry standard for counting impressions
– a single web page can contain multiple ads, a site might register
more impressions per unit of time than web pages viewed per
unit of time
– cached pages
 Visits
• Visits measure the total number of people visiting a website in a specified
period of time
– visitor’s server name, IP address, type of web browser, and visit length
– where visitors come from, their flow through a website (i.e.,
clickstream), and note the links through which they leave the site
– Unique visitors (e.g., through cookies)

• Weaknesses
– is that if someone visits a web page multiple times during the given
period, each one is counted as a separate visitor, potentially biasing
estimates
– no purchase information
 Stickiness

• Stickiness measures total amount of time a customer spends on a single

site
– is meant to measure website attractiveness
– rationale for stickiness is that the time spent on the site is directly
proportional to a website's appeal
– average minutes per month visitors spend at a site

• Weaknesses
– a consumer might spend a lot of time on a site because he/she cannot
figure out how the site is arranged or how to discover his/her desired
information
 Registration
• Registration is a way in which to track user demographics
– this method can create data for a customer database that can be used
to generate interface/content personalization and facilitate purchase
(cf., Amazon.com's one-click shopping feature)
– free access to content for personal information

• Weaknesses
– the same user can use different user names and log-in ids
– masque identities
– misleading data
 Web Surveys
• Respondent participation is solicited
– E-mail questionnaires
– Web questionnaires
– pop-up surveys
– can reach a limitless number of respondents within a few hours at a
significantly lower cost than the traditional mail approach

• Weaknesses
– the data rely primarily on recall of past experience
– fails to capture consumer behavior as it occurs in real time
– consumers often confuse pop-up surveys with advertising
– pop-up surveys may disrupt the purchasing process
 WebQual

• Website

• Quality

• Various Dimensions
 WebQual

• EASE OF USE
– Ease of Understanding
– Intuitive Operations

• USEFULNESS
– Informational Fit-to-task
– Interactivity
– Trust
– Response Time
 WebQual

• ENTERTAINMENT
– Visual Appeal
– Innovativeness
– Flow – Emotional Appeal

• COMPLEMENTARY RELATIONSHIP
– Consistent Image
– Online Completeness
– Better than Alternative Channels
 Service Quality
• Tangibles:
– Appearance of the physical facilities, equipment, personnel
and communication materials.
• Reliability:
– Ability to perform the promised service dependably and
accurately.
• Responsiveness:
– Willingness to help customers and provide prompt service.
• Assurance:
– Knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to
convey trust and confidence.
• Empathy:
– Caring, individualized attention the firm provides its
customers.
 E-ServQual

• E-Commerce

• Service

• Quality
 E-ServQual

• EFFICIENCY
– Easy to Find
– Easy to Navigate
– Organized

• SYSTEM AVAILABILITY
– Available for Business
– Does not Crash
 E-ServQual

• FULFILLMENT
– Delivers Orders
– Availability of items
– Truthfulness

• RESPONSIVENESS
– Return Policy
– FAQ
– Compensation
– Contact Information
 Marketing Implications of Different
Levels of Involvement (Online and Offline)

High-Involvement Purchase and Consumption

– Complex purchase process by highly involved consumers
– Attention is increased and more importance is attached to the
stimulus object.

Low-Involvement Purchase and Consumption

– Minimal decision making for low-involvement products
– Attention is low and less importance is attached to the stimulus
object
 Involvement as a Segmentation Variable
(Online and Offline)
• Brand loyalists
• Those who are highly involved both with the product category
and with particular brands.
• Information seekers
• Those who are highly involved with a product category but
who do not have a preferred brand.
• Routine brand buyers
• Those who are not highly involved with the product category
but are involved with a particular brand in that category.
• Brand switchers
• Those who are not involved with the product category or with
particular brands.
 Survey Errors

• Coverage error
• Sampling Error
• Non-Response Error
• Measurement Error
Qualitative
 Netnography

• Netnography adapts traditional, anthropological ethnographic research

techniques
– study of cultures and communities emerging in computer-mediated
communications
– study of cyberculture, which is defined as "the shared patterns of
behavior and their associated symbolic meanings expressed through
computer mediated communications
– Web questionnaires
– data include research field notes and cultural artifacts, such as
newsgroup postings, emails, and digital photographs
– less expensive than traditional ethnographic techniques, and behavior
that is specific to the medium is obtained
 Focus Groups

• Respondent participation is solicited

– Unstructured
– Reach (i.e., location of the respondent is not an issue)
– Easy to set up
– Cost-effective and a potential source for rich data
– Saves time (and provides ready transcript)

• Weaknesses
– Difficult to moderate and control
– No access to respondent facial expressions and body language
– Few respondents may dominate the session
 Blogs and Chat-rooms

• Blog
• Public Chat rooms
• Discussion Groups
 Usability Studies

• Usability studies examine consumers' actual usage of a product

– a useful technique for measuring the quality of a consumer's
experience when interacting with a website
– learn about consumer experiences for improving website design
– compare a firm's website against its competitors‘

• Weaknesses
– costly
– slow and time-consuming
– requires highly trained personnel
 Other Consumer Behaviors

• Viewers’ Browsing Behavior

– Viewers’ behavior model
– Effectiveness of ads
– Relationship between groups and products

• Membership statistics
– Basis for the decisions
– Critical activity analysis
 Discover the “Whys”
• These reasons hold the key to future actions

• E.g., A company experienced a significant change in their

e-mail bounce rates
– The reason was that one ISP was rejecting any e-mail messages of a
certain size that were sent in bulk
– The company started dispatching e-mails at intervals instead of in
bulk
 Test Alternatives
• Let’s say you are the marketing manager at the B2C company, and
you are tasked with bringing in incremental revenue by acquiring
more new customers and generating greater revenue from all
customers

• Your baseline success hurdle is an average order value of $100

per customer

• you know that one of the programs that worked best for you in the
past was a “buy one, get one free offer” to a segment of your
customers. Now try to better that result.

• Change the offer – perhaps to a 50% off coupon. Run an A/B split
test to the same audience to see which offer fares better.
 Test Alternatives
• Create A/B test cells for your customer segment
– The “A” group gets the “buy one, get one free” offer and
– The “B” group gets the “50% off” coupon
– All other variables – the creative, the timing, the “From” line, etc. – will
remain constant across both cells

• When you get your results, look specifically at your key data
point:
– Average order value (AOV) per customer

• Which offer achieved the higher AOV? How about the highest
revenue?
More Questions?