Fall Teleseminar Series 2006 – Call 5 of 9 – with John Marshall

Episode 5 of FreshBooks “Build Your Business” Fall Teleseminar Series

Advanced Web Analytics (1 hour, 15 seconds)

Listen using the MP3 player below or download the podcast.

John Marshall, founder and CEO of ClickTracks, talked to Michael about advanced web site analytic techniques. Here are brief notes and timelines of their call:

(0.25) What’s the biggest change you’ve seen in the web analytics field over the last 12 months?

(3.07) Agenda for call: moving beyond the concept of return on investment; internal search; optimizing web site conversion funnels

(4.35) Return on investment: the problem with concentrating on ROI as a metric

(7.48) What ROI cannot measure: the holes in your data

(9.33) Examples of where holes in data could emerge & strategies of how to overcome them

(12.55) Moving beyond ROI: how to measure the degree to which a campaign is successful without using the ROI measurement

(13.57) The metric to use: average time on site

(14.23) Why people don’t like to use average time on site

(15.17) Is shortening the time on site better, because you’re helping people get somewhere faster?

(15.45) Rule one in using the time on site metric: compare numbers across campaigns only within your own site.

(18.42) Internal search – when is it appropriate to use it, and how can it be used?

(19.25) Data mining gives increased visibility into what your customers are looking for

(22.05) About the quality of data you get from internal search

(24.00) Why including internal search on your site is worth it

(28.50) How can I use segmentation and path analysis to determine which visitors are good candidates for popular internal search terms?

(29.17) Clarification of “path analysis” and why this data should be interpreted with caution

(33.56) Where path analysis data does work, and why segmentation is important

(35.34) How to use segmentation to get useful data from exit page data

(38.56) Funnel optimization – how does the notion of segmentation and defining of goals fit into funnel optimization?

(40.05) Background to how funnels and funnel analysis on web sites started out, and why the process inherited some fundamental design flaws

(42.55) An online sales process should not be funnel shaped

(44.19) Another problem with thinking that people visit pages in a predefined path

(46.50) Contact page one of the most important pages that build authenticity and trust

(49.07) What data can be extracted from funnel analysis that is valuable

(51.15) How to define what an influential page is

(52.53) What can a company do when the goal is a page you may not own, so once your user gets to that goal the company cannot track after that point?

(53.39) Choosing a goal for a web site (ecommerce or lead generation)

(55.12) About the 2 methods of data collection – log files and JavaScript

(56.55) What to do if a 3rd party site doesn’t allow you to track your information

Thanks John!

Links:

• John Marshall’s company: ClickTracks

• Read analytics specialist Jason Lucey’s great review of the call with John.

• John spoke with us last week, too. You can listen to or download the podcast from here: Introduction to Web Site Analytics.

• Next week’s teleseminar: An introduction to building traffic to your website, with Jennifer Laycock. Sign up here.