Can Web Analytics InformOff-Line Decisions?January 15, 2010

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  User Experience Design and Information Architecture Consultation

We all know that Google Analytics can tell you how many visitors your site has, where they’ve come from, and what they did while they were there. But you may not have realized that insights uncovered through web analytics can help your team make better decisions – even outside of web marketing.

Learn 10 ways that web analytics have sharpened decisions in product design, marketing strategy and offline marketing communications.

Today

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Why would I care about web analytics?

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Understand your customers better

Collect more feedback

Design better products &

stronger marketing

I’m an independent UX consultant who helps teams design, test and optimize sites and applications. I specialize in usability, information architecture and interaction design.

I’ve worked for a wide variety of clients including UPS, Motorola, Charles Schwab, Microsoft, the U.S. Dept of Education, JCPenney, Ritz-Carlton and Chase.

Learn more at erinlynnyoung.com.

Who is Erin Lynn Young?

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Users can be remarkably unreliable at predicting their own behavior – but A/B & multivariate optimization remove all doubt.

Subtle customer preferences can influence the bottom line – dramatically.

Google Optimizer and Optimizely are each tools that enable webmasters to test variations in web pages to uncover the most successful combination.

The Obama Campaign estimates that a simple experiment amounted to $60 million in donations over the life of the campaign.

Intrigued by test data? You’ll love:- abtests.com- whichtestwon.com- blog.optimizely.com

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Combined with data about what’s happening on the phone or in the field, web analytics can give you a complete picture of how your marketing activities perform.

Web analytics can tell you whether that recent blast worked – or not.

▲ Bump in traffic ≠ bump in conversions Some activities may driven empty traffic. Learn which by tracking goal completions. Measure what matters!

► Life imitating art? The success online promotions may inspire retail merchandising decisions.

Mapping user behavior through a variety of pre-sales calls-to-actions can tell you which ones are working hardest, which could impact your communications strategy across channels.

What if a certain behavior upped the odds of purchase by 50%?

Google Analytics offers goal tracking to map users through the conversion funnel.

Demos, product builders and quotes are just a few examples of CTAs that are frequently found to drive higher-than-average conversion.

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Customers are telling you exactly what they are looking for.

Searching chase.com for ipad yields noresults.

Your site’s search field is like an open- ended survey asking users, “What are you here for today?”

Pay attention to top and emergent inquiries to know where your products and marketing should head. 9

What if you saw a user skip through pages 1-9 of your 10 pg brochure?

Retailers invest millions – if not billions – in printed catalogs and brochures every year. How might decisions be made differently with more data at hand?

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Wanna see what the competition is missing? Google away.

Google Trends is a free tool which enables you to let two keywords duke it

out >

Working with a local lawyer, we found AdWord research to be a great tool for understanding the marketing plans of other Austin lawyers.

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The social web offersus fresh ways to monitor what typesof content engageaudiences most – aninsight which should certainly can be tested in the offline realm.

Imagine if creating engaging content was as easy as Facebook-ing.

Tweets, likes, shares, and comments are all social benchmarks

This post on the JCPenney Facebook page garnered 500+ likes, while other posts showed less than 300.

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Is opportunity knocking at your door your website?

“The nearest Taco Bueno is 16 hours west.”

If I didn’t love Austin so much, analytics tell me that San Francisco would be an excellent second choice.

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Are there regions “where

everybody knows your name”?

Web analytics is less about one-time reportsthan it is about trendsover time.

The sooner you notice a change, the sooner you can react to it.

Is it still a “reaction” if it happens almost instantly?

Harrah’s text program targets users via MMS during their stay.

Increase in Mobile Visits to NZS.com from Mobile Phone Browsers from May-Nov 2010

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Trends in user behavior on your site can be indicative of what matters most to your target.

Your users’ interests should be top of mind as you design your product or marketing.

Would you ignore a customer who said “Here’s what really matters to me…”?

Crazy Egg is a service that helps you visualize user behavior.

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In Summary:Get To Know Customers

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Understand your customers better

Collect more feedback

Design better products &

stronger marketing