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Tracking usersAnalyzing how people use your site

by Dylan Tweney www.tweney.com [email protected]

Dylan Tweneywww.tweney.com

From Web logs to customer databases Web servers record massive

amounts of data Making that data usable is another

thing altogether! Web data is an integral part of e-

business intelligence -- learn to love it

If a Web site goes down and there’s no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?


A sample web traffic log


Log file details net124.infoworld.com - -

[15/May/2000:13:54:50 -0400] "GET /weblog.shtml HTTP/1.1" 200 21583 "http://www.tweney.com/" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 98; DigExt)"

j101.inktomi.com - - [15/May/2000:13:54:59 -0400] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 17931 "-" "Slurp/si ([email protected]; http://www.inktomi.com/slurp.html)"


Finding useful information

Forget “hits” Concentrate on pageviews and

unique visitors Examine paths through site Relative page analysis (home page

vs. other pages; top pages on site)


Referer log data

How do surfers find your site? Search engine query terms -

what’s working? Who’s linking to your site?


Other important metrics

Click-throughs (on banners, product offers, etc.)

Conversion rates (sales!) Other business metrics: Cost per

customer, cost per sale, repeat customer rate, average transaction size, etc….


Software that can help

WebTrends Accrue Hit List (formerly

Marketwave) Macromedia Aria (formerly

Andromedia)


Outsourcing options

I/Pro Service Metrics Keynote WebCriteria


Traffic analysis demo

Sample WebTrends report click here


Slicing and dicing

Page views by section of your site Page views by day / hour Host domains / companies (AOL,

etc.) Browsers / operating systems used Visiting robots


Design / implementation / analysis loop Design for your customers Build and deploy -- then examine

usage data Make sure data finds its way back

to site builders! “A/B testing” (per Jeff Bezos)


Demographics: the holy grail of Web analysis (It’s arduous to find, only the pure

in heart can bring it home, and it usually arrives too late to help)

More specifically: Moving technical metrics to business context

Integrating customer information with Web behavior

Accrue Insight net.Genesis


Specific customer behavior Identify your best customers—and

treat them accordingly! Requires some kind of user

identification: registration, login, cookies, unique URLs


Security and privacy issues Don’t do a DoubleClick Privacy statement: Draft, and post Let users decide whether or not to

share their data


How to capture more valuable data Surveys

and, as bait: contests and giveaways Incentive programs for frequent

customers / visitors (CyberGold, Beenz, Flooz)

Search engine logs Email newsletters User registration Personalization


Survey services/software

Zoomerang CoolSurveys PinPoint


Analyze your own search engine logs What are people searching for on

your site? What searches turn up zero

results? What searches turn up more than

2 screens of results? Close the loop with enhanced

metatags, manually-crafted search results, “jump” keywords


Using email to track usage

A “page view” doesn’t have to happen through a Web browser

Opt-in newsletters are a terrific indication of interest

Use unique URLs to track click-throughs on mailings

HTML e-mail lets you count who’s actually opening the messages


User registration strategies Deliver real value in exchange for

personal information / registration Cookies -- simplify subsequent

identification / login Follow up with registered users

after sale -- or non-sale -- via email survey

Track registered users’ traffic vs. known data (e.g. purchase history, ZIP code)


Personalization!

Let your customers tell you what they want

Completes the design/implement loop with customer-specific feedback -- automatically

Example: Amazon.com Recommendations (demo)


Benchmarking

Compare your site to the rest of the Web -- and your competitors

Media Metrix BizRate.com Keynote Systems


Conclusions

The best designed-site in the world still needs real-world testing

Listen to your users -- and watch them. They’ll tell you what’s working -- and what needs to be fixed.

Continue enhancing your site based on feedback & traffic analysis.

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