DEVELOPING A WEB ANALYTICS STRATEGY FOR YOUR LIBRARY: USING DATA TO MEASURE SUCCESS

Tabatha Farney & Nina McHaleLITA Forum 2012October 4-5 Columbus, Ohio #lita2012wa

Our Agenda: Day 1• Introductions• WA Limitations and Caveats• Web analytics strategy: what is it, and how do I get one?• Core Concepts: • Basic Metrics• Goals, KPIs, and Conversions• Segmenting versus Filtering• Benchmarking• Event Tracking

• Know thy WA tool• Homework Assignment

Our Agenda: Day 2• Re-welcome/homework follow-up• Understanding your Website: Taking Inventory• Converting Purpose into Analytics goals• Best practices: 5 (or probably more?) things to start doing

TODAY (like, literally, we mean here, now, TODAY! Well, tomorrow if it’s still Thursday…)

Preconference Survey Results• 21 responses• 17 are using Google Analytics• 5 have an existing web site strategy; several others have one in

the works• How often everyone checks analytics:• Never: 2 (and a lot of blanks…)• Once or twice a month: 9• Once in a blue moon: 7

• We’ll have a round robin session at the end of the second day to answer all of the questions you shared with us (and any others!)

Introductions• Meet your neighbor! Introduce yourself, and ask the following

questions:• Name, position, POW• What are you currently doing with web analytics?• What would you like to be doing with web analytics?

• Introduce your neighbor back to all of us

Web Analytics Strategy: I Want One!• Google Analytics, or AWStats, or Piwik—or use of any of these

individual tools—is NOT a web analytics strategy.• A monthly or quarterly report of visits and page views sent to

the director or the board is NOT a web analytics strategy.

A web analytics strategy is the structured process of identifying and evaluating your key performance

indicators on the basis of an organization’s objectives and website goals—the desired outcomes, or what you want people to do on the website.

Some WA Limitations and Caveats, 1/2• Avinash Kaushik: “It’s like reading tea leaves.”• Issues surrounding the use of IP addresses as identifiers:• Geographical location by ISPs (and DHCP)• Library/campus network architecture (also including DHCP)• Information about specific, individual users not available

• Privacy: while most tools don’t collect personally identifying information (PII), it’s a good idea to have a policy and make a statement to your users about what you’re collecting.• Web analytics tools are designed with commercial sites in

mind; we’ll hit library-specific pitfalls to watch out for throughout!

Some WA Limitations and Caveats, 2/2• Different analytics tools will use different terms to describe

similar concepts (The Digital Analytics Association provides “official” non-proprietary definitions—see “More Info” slide.)• …but most importantly:

Don’t shy away from these limitations! Understand them and explain them to others and make the best effort to

know what exactly web analytics can (and cannot) reveal about the use of your site(s).

Before we get started…• Log in to your web analytics tool, if you are able to access it,

AND • Log in to this generic account Google Analytics account at

googleanalytics.com:• user ID: litawa2012• Password: wamonkey

Core Concepts and Metrics• Visits vs. Unique Visits vs. Page Views• Visitor Types: New and Returning• User Technology• Geographic Data• Entry and Exit Pages• Referral Sources• Bounce Rate• Engagement Metrics

Visits• Visits are interactions on a website from an individual browser

over a specified period of time. • Watch for typical patterns; what does a “normal” day or week

look like for your library?• Are there typical heavy/light use days?• Do busy hours mirror busy hours of the physical library?• Is there an “after dinner” spike in evenings?

• Physical library analogy: gate counts (more on this shortly…)

Visitors• Individuals who come to your web site(s) via a web browser.• As we discussed earlier, no personally identifying information is

collected about visitors; data collected is largely anonymous.• Physical library analogy: people who activate your gate by

passing through it.

Source: www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/newsitems/porter_security.html

Unique Visitors• Unique visitors are visitors who are counted only once,

regardless of how many times they access your website in a specific period of time. • To determine unique visitors, your web analytics tool tracks all

your visitors by either tracking their IP address or installing a cookie on a visitor’s computer the first time that person visits your site. • Back to our gate count analogy: a person would be a unique

visitor to a physical library if s/he were somehow “tagged” on arrival for the first time today, and NOT counted when re-entering on the same day.

Which to Use: Visitors or Unique Visitors?

• It depends: which metric you choose will depend on what you’re trying to accomplish with your data• Using “Unique Visitors” will likely give you a more accurate

count of “How many people?” are using your site• Using “Visitors” will likely give you a higher count*• Example: If you chose ALL visitors as a base metric for

conversions (more on those later!), you’ll get a more accurate picture of total web site use; however, if you’re concerned about success of individuals on given tasks, unique visitors would be a better bet.

*Use for LibQUAL/board reports! ;)

Page Views• Commonly referred to as “hits”• The number of times that visitors access a single web page or

online document on your site.• Analytics provides detailed information for every page that’s

tracked on your site (more about what’s tracked later…) • This data is often the most-requested by non-IT colleagues

and/or web content creators• The “Long tail” of library web site content:• Home page always the highest hit• Hours, databases, popular services, etc. in 2nd-5th place• There is generally a sharp drop—the “long tail”—thereafter

Visitor type: New and Returning• Visited are classified as “new” or “returning,” meaning, quite

simply, whether they have been to your site before or not.• Neither new nor returning is more important or necessarily

better than the other; however, this metric is still useful for tracking trends in use:• A high percentage of new visits indicates that a site is having a great deal

of traffic driven to it, which is a positive. • A high rate of returning visitors also indicates that library users are loyal

and frequently return to engage with web content, which is also desirable.

• What are your new versus returning visitors numbers?

User Technology Information• Browser and Operating System:• Specific versions of browsers and OSs• Screen resolution, screen colors, Flash versions, and Java support

• Network:• Services provider• Host name

• What are your top three OSs and browsers? • Compare to two years ago, or another past date, if you don’t have data

going back that far; what trends do you notice?• Are there any local IT policies or practices that influence this?

A Note about Mobile…• It’s complicated…• JavaScript support in mobile phone browsers historically spotty• Service provider issues: 100% of Blackberry users are in NYC?!

• In October 2009, Google Analytics began providing two mobile-specific metrics: “Overview” (i.e., the number of visitors using mobile) and “Device.” What percent mobile are your users?• While this may seem limited, these metrics can be combined

with others to yield a variety of useful information and reports about mobile use of your site• There are as yet no industry-specific guidelines about

measuring and analyzing mobile use.

Geographic Data• This metric reports the physical location of your users.

(Everyone you ever show this to will love it!)• Analytics tools determine geographical location for users by IP

address.• Why is this problematic?

• Libraries tend to have a regional cluster around a campus or within the city/county• Academics: Do you have remote campuses/overseas students?• Publics: Are there any interesting patterns across the city, county, or area

you serve?

Entry and Exit Pages• Entry (or landing) and exit pages show how users move through

the Internet, arriving at and then departing from library sites.• Entry=the first page a visitor comes to;• Exit=the last page a visitor is on before leaving your site.

• Some notes about exit pages in a library web environment:• Again, library web sites are directories to other sources• While ecommerce sites might view exits as a failure, that’s not

necessarily the case with library sites• We can gauge our success in directing our users to other library

resources by tracking outbound links—more on this later!

Referral Sources• Shows you how your visitors became your visitors by reporting

the URLs of the sites they were on when they clicked to enter your site• Typical referrers for libraries:• Catalog pages• Scheduling software (Evanced)• Subscribed content (article databases, Overdrive)• Parent institutions (college, municipality/county)

• What are your top three referrers? Any surprises in the list?

Bounce Rate• The percentage of visitors who “bounced” from, or left, the site

after viewing only a single page or who stayed on your site for only a short period of time. • A good bounce rate, per Avinash Kaushik, is less than 35%• Library site bounce rates tend to be higher, partially because:• Labs/commons areas that have home pages set as default in web

browsers can have a negative effect on bounce rates;• Library sites, unlike ecommerce sites, typically WANT to send users to

other sites, like the catalog, databases, ebooks, electronic reserves.• What’s your bounce rate? How has it changed in the past

year? If it has, can you think of reasons for the change?

Engagement Metrics• Engagement metrics attempt to provide insight into how far

users are delving into your site• Pages Per Visit• The number of pages in your site viewed by a visitor during a single visit

• Visit Duration/Time on Site• The length of time, typically expressed in minutes, that a visitor spends

on your site for a visit.• While these are handy metrics, any serious qualitative inquiry

about your site should include usability testing with users.

Goals in WA Lingo

Goal [gohl]noun1. The anticipate result or objective; often used in planning and development.

2. A web analytics metric called a conversion.

Conversion = A desired action on a site.

Conversion TypesConversions can be anything, but most tools focus on:

1. URL Destination – Target end/exit page

2. Visit Duration – Length of stay

3. Pages per Visit – Site engagement

4. Event – Target action on site

Macro or Micro Conversions?

Macro Conversions = Measure the

primary purpose of the site.

Micro Conversions = Measure the

secondary purposes of the

site.

Conversion Rate

Desired ActionTotal Visits or Unique Visits

conversion rate

Conversion rates put desired actions in context!They show the percentage of how often the desired action occurs.

=

Total Visits or Unique Visits Debate? Most of the time your tool already decides for you.

Goal Reports

Goal Reports include:• Total number of

conversions• Conversion rate• Assigned value amount

(optional)• Abandonment rate • Funnel (only for URL

Destination URLs)

Goal Reports = Conversion Reports

Why Use Goal Reports?

Your tool does the tracking!

Unfortunately…• Not all tools come with Goal Reports

• Goal Reports can be limiting – think outside the conversion box

What about KPIs?

KPI = Key Performance Indicator

What do they do?Measure outcomes based on your site’s objectives/goals

How do I implement them? Typically, you use conversion rates. So Goal Reports or

however you track conversions.

Remember KPIs will be unique to the site!

WA Advance Concepts: Segment or Filter?

• Why do either?Helps focus on the data that really matters.

Example: Removing staff computers or focusing on remote users.

• How do they differ?• Filtering removes data

from the collection process.

• Segmentation removes unwanted data at the report level.

WA Advance Concepts: Benchmarking

Benchmark = A measurement to compare change

Why Use Benchmarks?• Gives you a target to reach• Helps identify reachable goals

Two Types of Benchmarks• Internal - compare with previous internal data• External - compare with other similar websites

How to set?• Internal - Use a comparable time range of data.• External -Exchange data with similar libraries or use an outside service

(Alexa, Quantcast, Compete, Hitwise)

WA Advance Concepts: Event Tracking

Event = An action that does not generate a page view.

Events include:• Interactions with Videos/Audio files• Downloading documents (PDFs, anyone?)• Embedded widgets • Outbound Links• Many dynamic elements

Does your tool track events?• Need to track all your data!

How to Track Events?• Typically have to add tracking code to the event

Event Tracking is the process of having your WA tool track identified events.

<img src=“image_name.jpg" alt=“description" onClick="_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'spotlight', 'click', 'Event']);"/>

Break Time!

Activity! The Directions• Form groups of 3-4 members• Your group will assigned a scenario (coming on the next slide)

To finish this activity, be prepared to:

1. Come up with an answer the question/request for data

2. Explain why/how your group came up with that conclusion

Activity! How would you answer these requests?

1. Reference librarians ask: “Where should we implement a chat

reference widget on the web site?”2. Communications/marketing asks: “Is our Facebook presence successful?”3. The library director asks: “What are the busiest hours on our web site?”4. The web developers ask: “We want to develop a mobile app. Which platform should we support?”5. The Web Team asks: “Which pages on the site are the poorest performing, and why?”

Understanding Your WA Tool(The Day 1 Cool Down)

Know Thy WA Tool!• Three types of tools• Choosing the right tool• Beyond Google Analytics: Crazy Egg & Piwik• Finding documentation and getting help

Three Types of Web Analytic Tools• Log file analyzers• JavaScript taggers• Web beacons

Log File Analyzers• Software that is installed locally on the web server; it parses

and analyzes all of the log files and presents the data in more intelligible reports• The “original” old school web stats method!• Examples: AWStats, Webalizer, FireStats• Pros: local installation=more control; a better choice for

large/legacy websites that are not developed in a template or CMS• Cons: sometimes too much information; sometimes it’s not

possible or practical to get this level of access to a web server, especially if your environment is shared; some products lacking in modern features

JavaScript Taggers• JavaScript tagging works by adding a small code snippet to

pages on your web site which then relays data about site use to a reporting interface• Examples: Google Analytics, Piwik• Pros: can be hosted locally or remotely (GA); easily

incorporated to sites using templates or content management systems (CMSs)• Cons: does not work well as a complete mobile tracking

solution; special setup may be required for non-HTML documents (i.e., PDFs or image files)

Google Analytics’ JavaScript Snippet<script type="text/javascript”> var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-3631620-5']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

(function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })();</script>

Web Beacons• Web beacons work by placing a small, transparent 1-pixel

image on the individual pages on your site• Many tools come with JavaScript and web beacon options• Examples: Omniture, Catalyst, Bango Analytics• Pros: great for mobile analytics or other situations where

JavaScript tagging methods do not work• Cons: With the growth of JavaScript mobile browser support

and analytics tools, they are not as popular anymore

Choosing the Right Tool• While Google Analytics has become a go-to due to ease of use

and low cost, there are many other options!• The analytics police will not hunt you down if you use multiple

tools on one or more of your sites.• An analytics tool that works well for one of your web sites

might not work well for another.• Evaluate your needs:• How/where is the data stored? • Do you need to track outbound links?• Do the reporting features meet your needs?• What do you want to find out during usability testing?

Beyond GA: Crazy Egg Vendor: Crazy Egg URL: www.crazyegg.com Pricing: Free trials are available for thirty days, after which monthly subscription is required; basic, standard, plus, and pro plans available, all under $100 per month. Hosting: Remote and/or vendor only Support: Help center, FAQ, email and phone Open source: No Type: JavaScript tagging Features and suggested uses for libraries: Heat map, scroll map, overlay, and “confetti” reports, all highly useful for observing user behavior during the redesign process & beyond

Beyond GA: Piwik Vendor: OpenX URL: piwik.org/ Pricing: Free Hosting: Local only Support: Documentation, FAQs, blog, forum Open source: Yes Type: JavaScript tagging (but requires local download for data storage) Features and suggested uses for libraries: Touted as an open- source response to Google Analytics; provides general-purpose

website data tracking and reporting; mobile app available

Getting Help-Google it!• Official (and non-official) product documentation• Blogs• Ticketing/Bug tracking resources• FAQs/Tutorials

Homework Assignment

How do you define “success” for your website?