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It’s a New Year which means… resolutions!  I’m trying to skip the meaningless, aspirational goals that I usually dream up.  Instead, I’m digging down into the things that I can really commit to.  I’m making 8 resolutions for Digital Alex and ClickEquations.com (which I’m responsible for).

1. I will integrate my data.  People come to my site.  Then, they become leads, customers and retained customers.  I really want to make decisions about where to spend my money based on who is the most valuable.  That means I have to connect the clicks to the customers with extra site and campaign tagging.
2. I will QA my data at least once a month.  I’m going to totally level with you here.  I’m guilty of some web analytics sloth.  Sometimes I’ll QA data once, make the fixes and only deal with spot issues.  We all know data is dirty and I just can’t assume it’s right.  Bad data happens!  This is especially true on B2B sites (see above).  I resolve to do a more thorough review at least monthly and act swiftly.
3. I won’t have an ego about my website. In the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, I concede that I do not know everything.  That’s why it’s probably better for me to rely on what customers care about what the data says.  Multivariate testing and voice of customer, here I come!
4. I will prioritize speed over perfection.  I’ve been accused of a “shoot first, aim later” style and, frankly, I’ll embrace the label.  In my opinion, it’s better to ask forgiveness instead of permission.  To me, it’s all about speed.  The same is true in online marketing, design and analytics.  It’s easy to obsess to the point of inaction.  I’m not saying to be sloppy, but I am say that something launched at 80% is better than nothing launched at 95%.  Speed has a tremendous value.  I will analyze until the answers are good enough and then correct.

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I’m spending the holiday with my family, but much of my time is spend with my digital family — the folks who keep me informed online.  I’m creating a Twitter Wreath — a ring of links to some great people I follow on Twitter with the hopes that they’ll share their favorite Tweeters (twits?) as well.

I’ve listed some of the savvy professionals whose updates I track through Twitter. Am I missing you or someone good?  Please comment with a link to your/their Twitter profile!  Better yet, make your own Twitter Wreath.

Happy Holidays,

-Alex (aka @digitalalex)

• @clickequations - http://twitter.com/clickequations | www.clickequations.com/blog
• @kintecap - http://twitter.com/kineticap
• @johnleeclark - http://twitter.com/jonleeclark | http://www.ppcforhire.com/
• @eelco_van_kuik - http://twitter.com/eelco_van_kuik
• @kittygux - http://twitter.com/kittygux
• @ppchero - http://twitter.com/ppchero | http://www.ppchero.com/
• @dylanlewis - http://twitter.com/dylanlewis
• @webmetricsguru - http://twitter.com/webmetricsguru | http://www.webmetricsguru.com/
• @bobpage - http://twitter.com/bobpage | http://bobpage.net/
• @tealeaf - http://twitter.com/tealeaf | http://tealeaf.com/
• @semoe - http://twitter.com/SEMOE | http://www.semoe.com/
• @avinashkaushik - http://twitter.com/avinashkaushik | http://kaushik.net/avinash
• @ivinay - http://twitter.com/iVinay | http://www.juretic.com/
• @lucindadh - http://twitter.com/LucindaDH | www.clickequations.com 
• @billysblog - http://twitter.com/billysblog | http://testingblog.widemile.com/
• @dennismortensen - http://twitter.com/DennisMortensen | http://visualrevenue.com/blog
• @TheGrok - http://twitter.com/TheGrok | http://www.grokdotcom.com/
• @randfish - http://twitter.com/randfish | http://www.seomoz.org/
• @erictpeterson - http://twitter.com/erictpeterson | http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com/
• @greggorio - http://twitter.com/greggorio | http://www.semgeek.com/
• @cgrantski - http://twitter.com/cgrantski
• @jdersh - http://twitter.com/jdersh | http://june.typepad.com/
• @jenniferlaycock - http://twitter.com/JenniferLaycock | http://www.searchengineguide.com/
• @dannysullivan - http://twitter.com/dannysullivan | http://daggle.com/
• @skellie - http://twitter.com/skellie | http://skelliewag.org/
• @mjasra - http://twitter.com/mjasra | http://www.webanalyticsworld.net/
• @storyspinner - http://twitter.com/storyspinner | http://www.searchmarketinggurus.com/
• @jimsterne - http://twitter.com/jimsterne | http://www.emetrics.org/

Every year, I go back to Villanova University to give a presentaiton at the same class I taught.  This year, I gave a web analytics presentation titled “Web Analytics 101″.  It’s an extremely basic introduction to web analytics with a heavy emphasis on how to break into the industry.  The presentation is available on this page after the “read more…” link (to keep load time down) and on Slideshare.

web analytics presentation

I recommend a few web analytics websites and resources in the tool, which I’ll list here too :-)

• Books
  • Web Analytics: An Hour a Day
  • Website Measurement Hacks
  • The Big Book of KPIs
• Starting a Web Analytics Blog
  • Wordpress
  • Typepad
  • Blogger
• Web Analytics Community
  • Yahoo Web Analytics Forum
  • Occam’s Razor
  • Web Analytics Demystified
  • ClickEquations Paid Search Blog
  • GrokDotCom by FutureNow
  • Digital Alex
• Networking with Web Analysts
  • Web Analytics Wednesday
  • Philadelphia Interactive Marketing Association
• Web Analytics Training
  • Web Analytics Association
  • WAA Basecamp
  • Vendors like Omniture and WebTrends
  • Web Analytics Videos on YouTube
  • Articles by Marketing Sherpa and training by Market Motive
  • UBC Web Analytics Certificate
• Web Analytics Recruiters
  • Aquent
  • IQ Workforce
• Web Analytics Job Sites
  • Indeed
  • Web Analytics Demystified
  • WAA Job Board
• Philadelphia Area Internet Marketing Jobs
  • Commerce360 / ClickEquations
  • Razorfish
  • Comcast Interactive Media
  • G2
  • EmpathyLab
  • Cadient
  • Digitas Health
  • GSI Commerce
  • TMX Interactive
  • Red Tettemer
  • Ascentive
  • NetPlus

Full presentation after the link!

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As part of the worldwide series of Global Entrepreneurship Week events, I presented at Princeton University to a room of entrepreneurs and small business owners.

My presentation, “Fast + Furious: How to Use Internet Marketing to Launch Your Business” highlighted how internet marketing, specifically paid search advertising, web analytics and website testing, can save startup time and money.  Take a look:

princeton university entrepreneurship

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: web analytics)

Here a list of the free tools I highlighted at the end of the presentation.  Please feel free to download and share!

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I’m here in San Francisco for X Change, the practitioner’s web analytics conference. It’s an intimate gathering of measurement professionals to share stories, brainstorm and talk shop.

You can get live updates from the ClickEquations twitter account. I may have a few on my twitter account as well.

Also, check out the X Change tweme, marked as #xchange.

Joining me at the conference are:

• Craig Danuloff, ClickEquations
• Jacques Warren, WAO Analytics
• Eric Peterson, Web Analytics Demystified
• Jim Sterne, eMetrics
• Gary Angel, SEMPhonic
• June Dershewitz, SEMPhonic
• Marshall Sponder, WebMetricsGuru
• Judah Phillips, Reed Business
• Bob Page, Yahoo!
• Aaron Gray, WebTrends
• Bill Gassman, Gartner Analyst

Those are just a few of the people at the conference. Leave a comment if you’re there and I missed you.

Search Engine Optimizers do it.

Paid search managers do it.

So, why aren’t you doing it?

I’m talking about looking at search query volume, of course. As you plot out your search marketing strategy, you’re looking for the intersection of high volume, low competition and strong user intent.

Getting at the volume part of that estimate can be tricky business. Typically, this involves using any number of keyword discovery tools, such as Trellian. 3rd party tools pull from an amalgamation of sources and the absolute number you get is dubious at best. Relationships, however, still hold true.

Better Search Query Volume Estimates

Now, Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool has finally pulled back the curtain and included search query volume in their reports (it used to be a graphical scale). Take a look at this example for web analytics phrases.

Just a couple quick things to keep in mind:

1. You can change your match type. I used exact in that image.
2. Hide and unhide the columns you need. I think the search trends is really great for understanding seasonality:

Ideas for Using the Data

From a paid search marketing perspective, more exact volume data will help you plan budgets and campaigns better (especially for larger projects where volume can be tricky within constraints).

SEO’s now have another sources of search query (aka keyword) volume data. I’m sure there are weaknesses associated with these data as well, but it does come straight from the source. It’s also much more granular than Google Trends.

For the web analysts in the audience, this will help you:

1. Gauge your search query/keyword share for targeted terms
2. Analyze whether trends in search results are due to seasonality
3. Complement your web analytics and internal site search data to help see how well your site users your customers’ language.

Which tools do you prefer?

Okay, we’ve talked about return policies, shipping policies, landing pages, improving your sales copy, and getting rid of registration pages.

By now, you might be thinking about changes, maybe even a redesign. It’s important, however, to use all the tools at your disposal to make sure your changes are right for your customer and business.

I was reading June’s Twitter feed to follow her coverage of eMetrics. I was struck by her Tweet that eBay uses qualitative data to plan a redesign and quantitative to confirm.

That got me thinking about…

Ecommerce Tip #6 - Test Your Redesigns

In a magical marketing world, we’d have all the info about what our customers want/need to purchase and ego would never be a part of the design process.

In reality, insight is imperfect and sporadic. Creative, marketing and the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion (HiPPO) often cloud the process and lead to sub-optimal sites. Instead, I’d like to propose a new way to plan your website redesign.

I’m breaking this into 4 parts:

1. Assess
2. Listen
3. Redesign
4. Experiment

1. Assess Your Current Website

Knowing where to redesign starts with assessing your current website for weaknesses. Often, this begins with web analytics and business outcomes.

Business outcomes are straightforward: are you meeting your goals or not? If your forecasting and planning are reasonable (and that’s a big if), you can get a quick read of whether you need to reallocate budget among tactics or squeeze more performance out of your site.

Assuming you’ve already audited your acquisition tactics for areas to improve, then the gap could be in the persuasive ability of your site. Traditional web analytics can help you see, among many other things:

• Where people are dropping out in the conversion process
• How far people explore after landing pages (if at all)
• Pages with above and below average contribution to sale, lead, etc.

The goal here is to start to identify some of the major barriers in your site. That will allow you to identify key goals for the redesign.

2. Listen To Your Customers

Assessing your website will help you prioritize the areas you need to redesign, i.e. the “what”. To dig deeper into the source of the trouble, you’ll need some qualitative data. With VOC, you can help uncover the “why” behind barriers to sale. This should help you plan smarter redesigns.

Getting at this data takes time and resources. You can work from readily available local knowledge to more resource intensive external information.

There are 3 good sources of information:

1. Marketing Input
2. Best Practices
3. Custom Qualitative Data

1. Marketing Input

Depending on how large your company is, the marketing team might have access to demographic and pyschographic data about your target customers. Any primary research, such as focus groups, can help you get into the minds of your consumer. Competitive insight, which sites are winning and why, and positioning make it easier to map out where your site is strong and weak.

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If you believe the research, targeted email advertising is hot:

83% of surveyed marketing executives worldwide used email, ahead of display ads, paid search and online video. - The McKinsey Quarterly (2007)

80% of Marketers Report Email Is Strongest Performing Media Buy Ahead of Search and Display. - Datran Media, “Marketing & Media Survey” (2008)

If you want to get the biggest bang for your email advertising bucks, you have to avoid the pitfalls.

If you want to make the most of your email marketing, here’s a simple checklist of ways to boost your results. It covers:

• Rendering
• Landing Pages
• Tracking
• Creative/Merchandising
• Deliverability/Sender Reputation Management
• User Experience
• Testing

Each section is designed you can print it out or bookmark this page and review it before you send out an email.

Checklist for Better Email Marketing

Rendering

If people can’t see or read what you’re trying to say, you’re emails will be ineffective.  Popular email programs like Hotmail and Gmail turn off images by default.   Even if images render, they may appear distorted in one program vs. another.

__ Renders properly in different programs - Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007, Thunderbird, etc.

__ Images render as expected in different providers - AOL, Hotmail, etc.

__ Copy is visible without images

__ Calls to action appear in text

__ Includes a link to view the email online, e.g. “Can see this email?  Click here to view it online.”

Landing pages

Make the email to website transition seamless.  It seems like an obvious recommendation, but by verifying that what people see when they get to your site is what they expect, you can avoid careless mistakes.

__ All product image and text links go to product pages

__ “Click here to see…” links go to relevant category and subcategory pages

__ Header and other navigational links function (ex: Men’s Tops, etc.)

__ Theme or landing pages work as expected and match the look and feel of the email.

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I got an email from an entrepreneur contact of mine. He’s smack in the middle of the process of due diligence for the acquisition of an internet marketing property.

He wanted to include a web analytics as part of his due diligence questionnaire and asked if I had a checklist.

Having not gone through the process, I wrote up a few quick bullet points that I thought I’d share with you.

3 Web Analytics Questions to Ask Before Buying a Company

1.) What tool(s) are you using to measure and optimize your site? What process and personnel are you dedicating to use data to grow your business?

The goal here is to understand their relative dedication or lack thereof to continuous improvement.

There is a range of 7 possible responses here:

1. The analytics ignorant won’t have or know what tool they’re using. Be afraid, be very afraid.
2. The vendor-dependent might simply have reports from their partners, but not invest in site-side tools. That’s can be a problem when you switch vendors or consider campaign attribution.
3. Some might be relying on something in-house or what’s baked into their ecommerce platform or content management system. Tread lightly here, as these will vary wildly in sophistication.
4. An internet unsavvy organization might have slapped up one of the free or inexpensive, but have done little to act on the data.
5. A business with an average level of sophistication will have one or more tools and 1 person for whom part of their job is to use web analytics data.
6. More sophisticated marketers will actually dedicate 0.5+ full-time employees to analysis and likely be using a suite of tools, including one core web analytics package.
7. The most advanced will have great talent, good tools and a process for regularly analyzing and optimizing their site and marketing.

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