Web Analytics

This article, written by Neil Mason, was originally published on Clickz.com on 18/06/10 and is republished here with permission.

Having looked at some of the fundamentals around web analytics metrics over the past few weeks, this time I turn my attention to survey based data and metrics. Over the past couple of years there has been a growth in the number of organisations that are running on-site survey based voice of the customer programmes. These might range from simple “do it yourself” approaches using free or low cost survey software, to a packaged tool like 4Q or more sophisticated programmes like ForSee Results or iPercpetions. As with all things, you pay your money and you make your choices. Read more…

Catriona Campbell will be speaking at the annual Charities IT Conference with  media celebrity Jackie Brambles. A number of Foviance’s charity clients attended last year and we look forward to seeing them again this year.

Catriona’s session will include:

Web Development & Content Management

Getting your website strategy right
- Optimising your website for maximum interactivity and usability
- Integrating your website and supporter database
- Engaging and embedding a new kind of giving and sharing culture for future generations
- Utilising video resources for an effective call for action

Catriona Campbell – Usability Expert
FOVIANCE

Jackie Brambles – Media & video expert
BROADSTANCE MEDIA

This article, written by Neil Mason, was originally published on Clickz.com on 04/06/10 and is republished here with permission.

In this short series of columns I’m going back to basics of some of the metrics that we typically use in our web analytics tool and highlighting some of the things we need to take on board when we use these metrics to measure online marketing performance. In some cases the issues are about the way that the metrics are constructed in other cases it’s about the way that we interpret them. Read more…

This article, written by Neil Mason, was originally published on Clickz.com on 21/05/10 and is republished here with permission.

In courses and workshops that I run on web analytics these days I often find myself talking about “data governance”. As the amount of data we get exposed to explodes from web analytics systems, voice of the customer programmes, social media listening tracking and so on, we need to know where this data comes from and how it’s created. By understanding how our data is created we are in a much better place when it comes to interpreting it. So I always think its worth going back to “analytical basics” every now and then and reminding ourselves how some of these metrics are created and what that means in terms of the way we use them. Read more…

8th April 2010, London: The Web Analytics Association, the world-wide web analytics professional and standards body, has appointed Matthew Bragg, a Key Account Director at cross-channel customer experience consultancy Foviance, to be it’s UK Country Manager. Bragg, who is well known in the UK web analytics community was offered the influential role in order to raise the profile of the WAA in the UK and to champion the benefits of web analytics to a wider community. Currently working as a Key Account Director for Foviance, Bragg assists a number of big name UK brands to maintain a consistent customer experience and get the most out of their web analytics systems. He is looking forward to the extra challenge of helping to run the WAA operation in the UK. Read more…

This article, written by Neil Mason, was originally published on Clickz.com on 26/03/10 and is republished here with permission.

When working with web analytics data I sometimes think of it as an iceberg. On the surface it all looks fine and we know what we are dealing with. However, most of the data is under the surface and we’re not always sure what dangers are lurking beneath. As tools such as Google Analytics and Yahoo! Analytics have brought web measurement and reporting to the masses, more people are exposed to the part of the iceberg that is above the waterline. Good user interfaces can make access to the data in a web analytics system easy and intuitive but they can also manufacture an impression of quality which may not be appropriate. So it’s important to look beyond the pretty graphs and reports and ensure that you understand the quality of the data that’s being collected and how to interpret it. Read more…

One of the big challenges of providing usability, accessibility and analytics consultancy services to help businesses improve their customer experience, is to ensure that information is digestible and therefore more readily usable and practical.

There is a trend, particularly in the web analytical arena, for some consultancies to simply create more and more metrics for businesses, rather than working on their clarity. Unfortunately, there is also a tendency for many people to suffer from ‘data blindness’ when confronted with rafts of metrics churned out by multiple tools and technologies. Advertising campaign management, web analytics, CRM, and other intelligence tools should enable businesses to interact better with their customers, but for many actually understanding all that information – particularly across wide portfolio websites – proves very frustrating. Read more…

This article, written by Neil Mason, was originally published on Clickz.com on 12/03/10 and is republished here with permission.

In the previous two columns I have been looking at different types of segmentation strategies, mainly dealing with what segmentation is, the different types of segmentation strategies and the role each type can play in building up a core understanding of your customers or prospective customers. So once you’ve decided what to create the segments on, the question then becomes about how to create the segments. Remember with segmentation what we are trying to do is to create groups of people who have something in common. Read more…