Web site monitoring and traffic data analysis
Any company, large or small, gains invaluable benefits from accessing data and statistics about its target market and analyzing data about its business activities.
An enterprise that makes business decisions based on market surveys, sales statistics, competitive analysis, and so on, has a much better chance of success than an enterprise that goes about its business in the dark, all focused on its own activities, with little openness to new things.
Today the Internet offers the opportunity to collect and analyze data with a precision that no other environment before has allowed. Thanks to the Web, companies, in addition to market surveys and industry studies, can collect and process their own data regarding the users of their sites and social channels. The information thus obtained can be leveraged as business levers to improve communication, refine web marketing strategies, adjust offerings to consumer preferences, improve after-sales relationship management, and more.
Implementing Internet traffic monitoring and tracking tools, at least for SMEs, requires modest investments that ensure the availability of useful data to improve one’s business operations. Of course, someone is needed to support the enterprise in extracting expendable information from the accumulated data set.
This collection of web traffic data and statistics meets three primary needs:
- Monitor site access and analyze user visits (web analytics);
- On-site analysis. Measures the number and behavior of visitors, analyzes interaction with the brand, interprets responses to marketing strategies;
- Off-site analysis. Focuses on off-site Internet traffic. Measures potential audience and opportunities in the online marketplace.
- Analyze the traffic generated by social channels (social analytics);
- Carry out online sentiment and reputation analysis (market sentiment and brand reputation).
Web analytics: monitor site access and analyze user visits
Before configuring the online data monitoring tool, the company, assisted by the web marketing consultant, should accurately identify at least 4 elements:
These are the business objectives, the goals to which the entire online marketing strategy must strive: increased revenue, more leads from the web, more user participation and engagement, and so on.
These are the intermediate goals necessary for the realization of the macro goals: increase in the number of sales, increase in site visitors, increase in newsletter subscriptions, more downloads of marketing materials, etc.
In English they are called KPIs (Key Performance Indicators): these are the metrics, the data that measure success in achieving business goals. Each micro-goal has a set of metrics that measure its degree of achievement.
In order to evaluate the success of web marketing activity, one must first establish quantitatively measurable results, from which the initiative deployed can be considered worthwhile. Defining a challenging but realistic target audience is perhaps the most complex operation.
- Number of visits or sessions. A site visit is generally considered finished when the user does not perform any operations for more than half an hour;
- Number of visitors or users. Each user can make more than one visit, in which case unique users of a site are counted regardless of how many visits or sessions they have made;
- Number of page views. The total number of page views is measured;
- Views per page. That is, how many times a single page was visited;
- Bounce rate. The percentage of visits that end with a single page view;
- Number of pages per visit. How many pages are used on average by visitors;
- Average visit duration. Calculated on all visits to the site in a given time frame;
- Events. These are those user interactions with site content that contribute to the achievement of business goals; the amount of occurrences is measured;
- Conversions. They are the completion of activities that lead to the realization of the objectives of the online marketing campaign. Each type of conversion can be associated with a numerical value. The set of conversions translates into quantifiable value.
These are just a few of the most important metrics that help weigh the success of marketing activities and draw, from the analysis of web data, useful insights to refine the strategy employed.
From the interpretation of these data, it is possible to identify room for improvement in at least three areas:
A low value of average time on the site could be due to the use of colors or fonts that tire reading. A page with a much higher than average bounce rate could have layout defects. [Insight into graphics and design].
Some sections may receive few visits because they are difficult to reach or poorly visible. There may be few contacts via forms because of insufficient distribution of site decoys. [Insight into accessibility and usability].
It turns out that many people stop the purchase process at a step that presents unclear or disempowering information. Analysis of conversion data shows that beautiful photos positively influence the propensity to purchase by increasing the conversion rate.
Online advertisements can also be tracked to obtain performance statistics. Some of the metrics available for this purpose are:
- Impressions. Number of publications of an advertisement or banner ad;
- CTR (Click Through Rate). Click-through rate on advertisements;
- Conversions. Completion of actions that the user is expected to take after clicking on the ad and accessing the site;
- CR (Conversion Rate). Conversion rate as a result of clicks on ads.
This data can form the basis for A/B testing and multivariate testing, that is, experiments in which two or more versions of the same Web page are created and shown alternately to different samples of users to measure performance and choose the most effective version.
Finally, in addition to individual data that offer information on site access, visits and user interactions, analytics software makes it possible to track the so-called “customer lifecycle” through the analysis of the marketing funnel, whether it is a buying process or a path that leads the visitor to produce an action to which value is attributed. The information thus obtained becomes insights to optimize the website and adjust the SEO strategy, or to make changes to the adwords campaign.
Social Analytics: Analyzing traffic generated by social channels
Major social networks provide statistics regarding traffic on the profiles created, as well as native tools for monitoring and analyzing interactions. From Facebook to GooglePlus, from Twitter to Pinterest or Youtube, in all cases it is possible to obtain precise information on user engagement with the content posted and the degree of interaction with the brand.
For social networks, too, there are metrics that measure the volume of interactions generated by published posts and the following of each channel as a whole. The data for the various social profiles vary depending on the type of actions and activities they have, but we can identify four basic metrics that are found across almost all channels:
- Subscriptions. The number of users subscribed to the corporate channel;
- Conversations. The number of user messages or responses to published posts;
- Shares. The amount of published posts turned over by users to their contacts;
- Likes. “Likes” expressed in different ways depending on the social channel.
Whether it is “likes” or “+1s,” retweets or repins, it is always possible to quantify the reach and effect on the audience of the content produced by the brand.
The data described so far tell us what is happening within social media; to relate what is happening within these channels to visits to the company website we need to go back to the website monitoring platform and query it about traffic sources, of which social networks are one.
Google Analytics, for example, identifies all referral sites that bring traffic to the site. Similarly, it allows us to monitor access to the site from banner ads within social networks.
Market sentiment and Web Reputation: conducting an analysis of online sentiment and reputation
Sentiment refers to the level of liking that Internet users as a whole show around a brand, product or service.Sentiment analysis, whether manual or using software, consists of cataloging and analyzing opinions, quotes and ratings expressed by users in order to improve the marketing strategy adopted or to be adopted.
Similarly,brand reputation analysis involves identifying and interpreting conversations about the company and its services. Especially for b2c brands, which are highly exposed on the Web, it has become important to monitor what is being said on blogs, forums, and online communities.
Listening to customers/consumers provides indispensable data to identify areas for optimizing online communication. Reputation analysis, through the evaluation of the judgments and expressions used by users, also allows to check the distance existing between projected image and perceived image.
Even companies that are small in size but vibrant on the Web scene should allocate a minimum budget for orderly network monitoring. In cases where there is no need to invest on continuous monitoring, it is still desirable to plan periodic circumscribed and targeted analyses.
Web data analysis for eCommerce sites
Online stores have access to a whole range of data through eCommerce platforms (Magento and PrestaShop for example) that manage the online purchasing process. In order to associate sales data with user behavior on the site, it is always necessary to implement a web analytics tool as well.
Google Analytics, once configured to communicate properly with the eCommerce platform, allows us to collect online store sales data and visit data by relating them to each other. Again, we have various metrics and statistics at our disposal, the most important of which include:
- Conversions. Number of visits that produced at least one purchase;
- Conversion Rate. Percentage of visits converted to sales;
- Average receipt. Average value of transactions made;
- Value per visit. The average value of each visit to the site, derived from the ratio of number of visits to revenue;
- Cart abandonment rate during the purchase process;
- Traffic sources.
The set of these data correlated with the data we discussed above provide fundamental information for improving the effectiveness of the online store. They serve to understand what are the sources of the most profitable visits. Why users abandon the shopping cart without completing the purchase transaction, or why they buy only one product and do not repeat the purchase in subsequent visits to the store. Or what relationship exists between graphical elements and propensity to purchase.
Valid web data analysis software provides an opportunity to enhance one’s ecommerce by implementing a clearly measurable continuous improvement cycle.
Google Analytics consulting and monitoring with Google WebMaster Tools
There are several excellent website analysis tools: Omniture SiteCatalyst, WebTrends, CoreMetrics. Compared to these Google Analytics has two advantages that make it preferable especially for small and medium-sized companies: it is free and it integrates seamlessly with Google Adwords and the other tools in the Google galaxy.
Since it is free, the only costs that need to be considered are those of implementation and configuration: costs within the reach of any company or professional. Once the software is installed, it is necessary to have internal resources or external consultants who, on an ongoing or periodic basis as needed, analyze the data and translate it into strategic recommendations.
If the complexity of the traces you wish to enable is significant, you may need a developer who can put customizations into the analysis tool. Nothing particularly expensive in any case. In the case of large portals and eCommerce stores, developers work with marketers on a more ongoing basis to implement changes and customizations whenever the need arises.
Even in the absence of the immediate possibility of devoting a budget to the analysis and interpretation of traffic data, it is strongly recommended to start collecting it as soon as possible so that it will be available when the conditions are there to convert it into useful information.
Google WebMaster Tools is a panel of site monitoring and optimization tools that, when activated, offers detailed reports on how the search engine analyzes the site, provides useful data for optimization and diagnostic tools for indexing web pages.
It should always be implemented together with Google Analytics because the two tools complement each other and form the information base on which to develop web marketing campaigns.