Web Analytics Conversion

Web analytics “is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of Internet data for the purposes of understanding and optimizing Web usage” (Web Analytics Association, n.d).  Web analytics provides organizations insight into what is going on inside its website.  Web analytics answers important questions, such as how many visitors there are each day, week or month, what a visitor is doing once they are on the website, how easily they can maneuver through the website and if they are completing a desired action.

There are numerous metrics that can be used to determine the success of a website and to answer those important questions.  Here is a list of metrics grouped by category according to Avinash Kaushik.

1. Category:  Building Block Terms or Foundational
• Metrics: Page, Page Views, Visits, Unique Visitors, Event 
2. Category: Visit Characterization
• Metrics: Entry Page, Landing Page, Exit Page, Visit Duration, Referrer, Page Referrer, Internal Referrer, Session Referrer, Visit Referrer, Click-through, Click-through Rate/Ratio, New Visitor, Returning Visitor, Repeat Visitor, Visits Per Visitor, Recency, Frequency
3. Category: Visitor Characterization
• Metrics: New Visitor, Returning Visitor, Repeat Visitor, Visits Per Visitor, Recency, Frequency
4. Category: Engagement 
• Metrics: Page Exit Ratio, Single-Page Visits (Bounces), Bounce Rate, Page Views Per Visit
5. Category: Conversion 
• Metrics: Conversion, Conversion Ratio
6. Category: Miscellaneous
• Metrics: Hit/Server Request, Impressions 

Utilizing these metrics can provide an immense amount of data and information into how well a marketer’s website is working.  However, for the purpose of this discussion we will focus on one metric in particular: conversion.  

What is a conversion? The Web Analytics Association defines conversion as a representation of important business outcomes, such as completing a purchase or requesting a quote.   They are also known as goals, outcomes and success events.    Conversions "are sometimes chosen because they indicate potential for future behavior, such as clicking on an advertisement, registering for more information or starting a checkout process" (Web Analytics, 2008).

Knowing the conversions of a user is important in that it tells the marketer which customers are performing the desired outcome.  Also, once the organization has this information it can track back where the users are coming from, what their behavior is, letting them target more of the top converters.

As an example, Nature Air had 17 separate landing pages. They did a single A/B test on each landing page and the conversions went from 2.78% to about 19%. The control did not make the call to action prominent:

Then they put the CTA in the content area:

Metrics gives businesses the opportunity to figure out what is working and what is not working to improve engagement with the audience. However, the problem is that most businesses do not know how these metrics work and how they are beneficial. Kaushik makes a valid point, “you worked hard to get them to the site, if they did not convert did you accomplish nothing”. Many companies assume that if the customer didn’t buy then, it didn’t work, but that’s not regularly the case. Getting someone to open an email is a conversion. Having them click on the call-to-action link inside that email is another conversion. Going to the landing page and filling out a registration form to read your content is a conversion. And, of course, buying your product is the ultimate conversion.





References:
Kuashik, A. (n.d). Web Analytics Standards: 26 New Metrics Definitions. Retrieved from: http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/web-analytics-standards-26-new-metrics-definitions/

Kaushik, A. (n.d). Web Analytics 101: Definitions: Goals, Metrics, KPIs, Dimensions, Targets Retrieved from http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/web-analytics-101-definitions-goals-metrics-kpis-dimensions-targets/

KissMetrics, (n.d). 100 Conversion Optimization Case Studies. Retrieved from https://blog.kissmetrics.com/100-conversion-optimization-case-studies/

Web Analytics Association (2008). Web Analytics Definitions. Retrieved from http://www.digitalanalyticsassociation.org/Files/PDF_standards/WebAnalyticsDefinitions.pdf

Kirkpatrick, D. (2012). Marketing 101: What is conversion?  Retrieved from http://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/marketing/conversion-defined/

Web Analytics Unique Visitors

The Web Analytics Association defines unique visitors as “the number of inferred individual people (filtered for spiders and robots), within a designated reporting timeframe, with activity consisting of one or more visits to a site. Each individual is counted only once in the unique visitor measure for the reporting period” (Web Analytics Association Definitions, 2008).

A unique visitor is an individual user who has accessed an organization’s website. It is determined by the internet protocol (IP) address of a device or computer that the user is browsing from, combined with a cookie on the browser they are using.  It doesn’t matter how many visits a visitor makes, if they are on the same device and browser, only one unique visitor is counted.  For example, if you visit rareperson.com, you will be counted as a unique visitor. If you come back to this website five more times, in a defined time set for the site, you are still counted as one unique visitor. If you visit the site from another computer, or it will count you as a new visitor.  Because the website is monitoring the IP address, the downside of unique visitors is that a single user could visit a site from five different IP addresses and be counted as five unique visitors. Also, different users accessing the same machine/same IP address would be counted as one user when accessing a website.

As a side note, an IP address “is a logical numeric address that is assigned to every single computer, printer, switch, router or any other device that is part of a TCP/IP-based network. The IP address is the core component on which the networking architecture is built; no network exists without it. An IP address is a logical address that is used to uniquely identify every node in the network. Because IP addresses are logical, they can change. They are similar to addresses in a town or city because the IP address gives the network node an address so that it can communicate with other nodes or networks, just like mail is sent to friends and relatives” (techopedia.com, n.d).

As a marketer, you want to grow your website and attract new audiences.  When you look at your analytics, a website’s unique visitors is one of the most prominent numbers to analyze. This metric gives you a sense of how many individuals are visiting your website and gives some key information, depending on the type of website.    

If you are an e-commerce website, then you want to get as many visits to your website to make purchases as possible. The number of unique visitors will help you to gauge how many people are coming to your site.  An increase in unique visitors is a good indicator that the website is working.  Marketers can then verify where that traffic is coming from and do more of what’s increasing traffic. There is also the opposite if you see that your unique visitors are decreasing you can pinpoint what led to this occurring.

As an example, Facebook received millions of unique visitors in the United States from April 2011 to July 2015. In those months, "there were approximately 163.69 million US users visiting the social networking site. As of the second quarter of 2015, Facebook's worldwide user's numbers were confirmed to be approximately 1.49 billion, making it the most popular social network worldwide” (Statisa, n.d).

Though social websites may not need users to make purchases, they want as many unique visitors as possible in order to monetize their success.




References:
Web Analytics Association (2008). Web Analytics Definitions. Retrieved from: http://www.digitalanalyticsassociation.org/Files/PDF_standards/WebAnalyticsDefinitions.pdf

Statista (n.d). Number of unique U.S. visitors to Facebook between April 2011 and July 2015. Retrieved from: https://www.statista.com/statistics/265831/number-of-unique-us-visitors-to-facebookcom/

techopedia.com, (n.d). Internet Protocol Address (IP Address). Retrieved from: https://www.techopedia.com/definition/2435/internet-protocol-address-ip-address

Valela, A. (2016). What’s More Important: Page Views or Unique Visitors? (n.d.). Retrieved from http://blog.agilitycms.com/content-managers/what-s-more-important-page-views-or-unique-visitors

Welcome To My Blog!

I’m Josette Franks, a seasoned sales and marketing professional with over 15 years of sales and marketing experience. I’m currently attending WVU Reed School of Journalism, pursuing a graduate degree in integrated marketing and communications.

This blog is for my Web Analytics and SEO class, IMC 642. This course examines  how marketers strategically gather online information to measure traffic, engagement and potential impact on ROI. Explores search engine optimization (SEO) and social media optimization (SMO) strategies used to build an online presence for clients.

In this blog, I will  share, and review web analytics and SEO topics that are old, current and groundbreaking.  Also, examine how these tools work and can help build an online presence.   


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