I did a guest post over at the Affiliate Management Days blog regarding using web analytics to grow you affiliate program.
Why Web Analytics Matters in Affiliate Marketing
I’m very much looking forward to the event.
Feb 02
New Article Published for Not For Profits
I was fortunate enough to have an article published on ReveNews.org yesterday. It’s the arm of ReveNews that focuses on utilizing the internet to build a not for profit or charitable organization. In this case, I discuss the basic beginning steps for using web analytics to understand your audience. Measuring the Success of Your Nonprofit Website with Google Analytics.
Enjoy!
Jan 06
3 Great Reads if You’re Starting a Fitness Program in 2012
If you’re like me, you’re getting older. So yeah, you’re like me.
I know that it’s cliché to resolve to be healthier every New Years. We all do it, and most of us fail. We may all fail again this year. One thing is for certain though. If you’re discerning in what you read, the internet has made it FAR easier to at least plan for success.
Granted, you still have to deliver and execute. Your body and your health are on you.
In my pursuit to drop 25 pounds+ this year, I went out searching for a source of quality information on how to choose a gym, what to ask of the trainers, and generally, what should I be doing as a guy rapidly approaching 40 years old.
What I already knew is that my only real form of exercise now is kayak fishing. I likely paddle hundreds of miles every summer, and I tend to lose weight then. Being a Western New Yorker however, at some point my “gym” freezes over, and bad things happen to my body.
Enter Shari Fitness, a wonderful human being from a far warmer climate. I met her through Facebook in a private group. She was giving advice to us desk jockeys. Turns out I can really relate to her and her writing style. Here’s three articles she wrote that I think are must reads for anyone considering investing money in becoming healthier and more physically fit. Continue reading “3 Great Reads if You’re Starting a Fitness Program in 2012” »
Dec 05
Speaking at Affiliate Management Days
Happy to announce that I will be speaking on web analytics and its relation to affiliate program management at Affiliate Management Days. It will be an honor to speak at an event that features Jason Spievak of RingRevenue.com and Ben Edelman as the keynote speakers.
Essentially, I plan on discussing using deep analytics segments to:
- Understand affiliate traffic quality
- Grow affiliate programs
- Open conversation channels with key affiliates
- Drive conversions
It will also be my first visit to San Francisco, so I’m excited for that as well. Further, this conference is all part of Data Driven Business Week, so there will be many bright, bright people in town.
Hope to see many of my affiliate manager friends there! Pricing and Registration Information can be found on the Affiliate Management Days website.
Dec 01
Google Webmaster Reports and SSL (not provided) Search
The Horror. Precious data taken from our fingertips.
On the 16th of October, Google launched secure search for anyone logged in to their Google accounts, which mean analysts everywhere started seeing (not provided) as a keyword in their reports, even though we clearly hadn’t SEO’d for it (yet).
A full discussion on it, and some ways to analyze its impact can be found on Avinash Kaushik’s blog. So read that first, and report back here when you’re done. The post below is the results of a thought process I came up with after reading his post, so it’s important to get his background. He’s also a lot smarter than me, so that’s a second good reason to read his first.
But I digress.
Google Webmaster Tools and SSL Search
As soon as the option became available in Google Analytics to connect to my Google Webmaster tools account, I took advantage. And I think it was fortuitous in this particular instance. What I propose here is that we use the new SEO Reports as a benchmark to check for changes in our incoming keyword volume that might be hidden in (not provided).
Continue reading “Google Webmaster Reports and SSL (not provided) Search” »
Nov 30
What Is Web Analytics These Days?
I sent out a tweet last night about my upcoming e-book on local business web analytics, and I happened to see an interesting response this morning from a well respected member of the web analytics community. Jacques Warren ( blog, twitter) pointed out through an image that my book landing page showed the book title, Web Analytics for Brick and Mortar, but that the actual text of the page explained simply that it was a guide to Google Analytics for small, local business.
His tweet asked if semantically, these days, was Google Analytics = Web Analytics. And when he says EQAUL TO, he essentially means the end all and be all, as my web page text accidentally indicated.
I responded back saying of course that I didn’t feel that way, and that in fact the book covers other things. The exchange got me thinking though. What IS web analytics these days?
An Understanding of the Web as it Relates To Us
That’s what it means to me, anyways.
Web Analytics is no longer (and hasn’t been for a while now) a pretty, soft edged graph version of our web logs.
Web analytics instead has become a serious and massive aggregation of available information about the living, breathing web, and a subsequent dissection and understanding of where our website and brand fits into that biosphere.
We no longer limit ourselves to worrying about Page Hits, or Bounce Rates, or even ultimate conversions.
We now look at how social media perceives us, and what different sets of people, from different sets of places do with our content, our products, and ultimately us as an organization.
We may even agree that we can learn more about our customers by how they talk about us in social media than what they buy, or do, or ask us about on our own web pages.
I think we can DEFINITELY agree that analytics, especially for large organization, changed instantly and dramatically the moment we stopped putting our own URLs at the bottom of our television commercials, and instead started advertising our Facebook pages.
The venue for customer interaction had changed, and web analytics had to grow and change with it.
So in the final analysis, it’s not ever safe to say that web analytics is equal to Google Analytics, despite it’s popularity. In fact, it’s no longer safe to say that web analytics is any one piece of software, web service, or funnel.
Web analytics is indeed an understanding of the web and how it relates to our business. I may now have to re-think how I position the book. That, or more accurately describe its contents, which indeed heavily Google Analytics related.
Nov 28
IBM CoreMetrics Black Friday Study 2011
Thanks to Geno Prussakov, I happened upon the IBM CoreMetrics study on Black Friday Sales Results for 2011.
If you’re an online small business owner, I think there’s a few things worth noting in it.
Mobile Online Shopping is Way Up
If you look at the Mobile Summary Metrics, you’ll see that not only was there a 209% increase in the percentage of e-commerce transactions compared to Black Friday 2010, but that there was a 32% increase in Conversion Rate. That’s a huge jump, and it may show that more consumers have confidence/trust in mobile security.
Social Media Failed to Grow on Black Friday
Across platforms (wireless, PC, etc), Social Media had less of an impact in actual conversions. While there was a modest increase in Social as a percentage of total web traffic (up 4.6%), it actually figured in a smaller percentage of actual sales by order number ( down almost 4%).
Takeaways
As a small business, I think we need to be paying more attention to Mobile. And generally, mobile is closely related to local. Ignore those two segments at your own peril.
For e-commerce sites and consumer goods brick and mortars, Social is still an important venue. It’s interesting that it played less of a role in actual hard dollars.
Did you find your results to be similar? Let us know below!
Nov 22
Complete Local Web Analytics
I’m very excited to be publishing my first Kindle book, or Barnes and Noble book, or e-book… whatever format you prefer, in December 2011.
The book will focus on web analytics for local brick and mortar businesses. From what I can tell, it will be amongst the first (if not the first) of its kind.
With the importance of local search and local SEO these days (not to mention geo targeted AdWords/PPC spending), I felt the time was right to publish a book on how to use Google Analytics to study the results of your hard work.
So please, visit my book’s page and sign up for launch information here: Web Analytics for Brick and Mortar Businesses
I look forward to you reading it and learning from it.
Oct 25
Web Analytics Podcast
I was fortunate enough to join Eric Nagel and Daniel Clark for a 1 hour podcast discussing web analytics this past Thursday. You can listen here:
Affiliate Management Days San Francisco 2012
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