Archive for the ‘Implementation’ Category

The numbers I’m getting from different websites are all telling me that Firefox’s marketshare is booming. It been a trend for a long time, but the last month it has exploded. From 12-13% to 20% and more… I was wondering why, and then suddenly… I bought an Asus mini PC with linux… and Firefox installed.
That’s probably the main reason right now.

Then while surfing with my new little darling… some pages did not look very good.

People it’s about time to test your websites from a PC with Firefox.

Or when missing basic feature serves the editor.

Webtrends is one of the editor providing his web analytics software in both ASP and software mode. If a majority of companies chooses today the ASP service, for some others it is more interesting to have the software installed in house (sometimes for privacy control on data, always to save money).
Now, everybody having worked on Webtrends web analytics tool could have noticed a big weakness in user permissions management. The user access management is really basic and to be honest not satisfactory. If you can setup “view” access rights to reports quite correctly, it is not the same for “modification” permissions.
If you want somebody to be able to modify a report, you can do nothing but give him/her modification rights on all the reports of every profiles.

When you are in ASP mode, you can easily by-pass this issue because you have an additional level (account) you don’t have in software mode but when you have a group platform (software mode) running the tool for dozens of websites and profiles dispatched all over the world, you can’t give full access to each individual markets, especially when people working on the tool come from consulting agencies.

Amazingly, this missing basic feature is not a disadvantage for Webtrends, on the contrary, when clients are told things won’t change in next releases it is not rare they give the management of the reports, dashboards and other filters to Webtrends (Enterprise Proactive Services) as companies prefer to trust the editor than taking risk to give full access to several consulting companies.

Good measurements on a good campaign are determined before the campaign is executed. As with all other preparations for a web campaign. At dnbnor.no/bedrift we’ve found that 80% of the work is before the campaign, and only 10 percent during and another 10 percent after the campaign.

Of course, if you forget this and start working after the campaign (has happened to me a lot, because of late involvement) you have to spend 200-300% more time and if you’re lucky you get 50% of the findings you could have with just a little bit more preparation.

But perhaps the biggest loss is that you miss out on the opportunity to alter your campaign while running. That could easily cost you a 100% improvement in campaign results…

Most analytics problems come from basic errors in the information architecture and limitations in the CMS, not from lack of analytical capacity or software. Know your site, know your URL’s and your parameters. For years and years I’ve heard marketing people and technical people complain that they can’t find the answers to their questions in the web statistics. In 9 out of 10 cases it’s a matter of “garbage in – garbage out”. If you don’t measure what you’re looking for, then you will not find the answers either.

Sem Angel has his way of solving this challenge.
Read his article: “Resolving to have a Plan”

Feel free to give your hints as to how best adapt to the challenges you meet while facing these stereotypes.

Technical people
They seem to think that anything they program will automatically be measured. They often don’t think about the information architecture or the catalog structure or the impact of parameters or meta tags. Even if you tell them that metrics are important they do not automatically recognize the needs of the analytics software or an analyst’s needs, although the appearance of software APIs and parameter specifications have certainly helped in the right direction. The APIs speak the same language as that of programmers.

Marketing people
They seem to think that you can have a campaign, and ask questions afterwards. They don’t understand that you have to prepare before the campaign is launched. What you need to measure has to be specified before you launch, as you build your web site and landing pages. They tend to forget that on the Internet you can optimize and rearrange your campaign on the fly… if you have prepared for it. It’s not like the old newspaper ads that has to be set well before the campaign and then cannot be changed. That was the golden old days (three to five years ago), in which most marketers were taught.

Then you have the sales people
They just want volume and short term profits… If it was up to them, every customer would be spammed every day. Sales people tend to forget that total picture and the potential of the market, in favour of the closed sale of today. If you only read income statements and balance sheets, they look outstanding… It’s an illusion. Yes, it would yield results, good results for a very short time, but not good relations and not a good brand image, and in a short while you risk bankrupcy because nobody wants to return to your site or product.

90% is good enough when it comes to the click-stream analysis. Don’t look for perfection. Use surveys, user testing and other resources to see the whole picture.

For more on “the whole picture” look for good insights on:
Avinash Kaushik’s blog called Occam’s Razor.

I also recommend his book “Web analytics - an hour a day”.