Greater Returns // Aaron Gray

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Maximize the Value of Your Website to Your Business

March 3, 2010 • 12:31 am 0

Hear Me Speak at SearchFest 2010 (& Use My Discount Code)

I’m speaking on a panel next week at Portland’s SearchFest 2010, put on by SEMpdx.  Joining me on the panel will be Eric Peterson, of Web Analytics Demystified.  Together, we’ll present on measuring success online, from the top down and bottom up.  Eric will present the management perspective (top down), and I will present an “in the trenches” perspective (bottom up). Following will be questions and answers with the audience.  Expect a lively discussion.

SearchFest is happening on March 9th, at the Governor Hotel in Portland.  I’ve you haven’t registered yet, go register now!  And don’t forget to use my discount code (save $30!): SPKR-SEMPDXSF1020. While you’re there, you can check out Todd Mintz’s mini-interview of me on a/b testing.

Hope to see you there!  As usual, see my Plancast stream to see where else you can find me.

Filed under: Events, Web Analytics

February 10, 2010 • 12:41 am 0

Tracking Google Universal Search

Next week I’ll be on the panel again for Portland State University’s Quarterly Digital Marketing Breakfast. The event is put on by the University’s Multimedia Professional Program and features panelists from the Digital Marketing Strategies certificate program, in which I am an instructor.

If you want to register, hurry.  Registration closes in two days (2/12).  To find me at other events, subscribe to my Plancast feed.

On the upcoming panel, I’ll be talking about how you can better track search results in Google’s Universal Search results page, allowing you to understand not only what search terms drive traffic to your site and/or or value for your business, but which type of result (blog, image, etc.) is working best for you so you can optimize for the specific words and result types that best benefit your business.

Join me and the other panelists from PSU’s Digital Marketing Strategies certificate program for a lively and informative discussion about Google Universal Search.

Update:

If you were at the panel discussion and didn’t get a chance to jot down the blog posts I mentioned here they are…

This post, by Martijn Beijk at SearchCowboys.com explains how to set up Google Analytics to track which type of search result was clicked on the Google search engine results page.

This post, by Mike Belasco at seOverflow explains how to set up Google Analytics to track clicks on local search results on the Google search engine results page.

Filed under: Events, Tools, Web Analytics

December 2, 2009 • 12:09 pm 0

Web Measurement Should be Goal Directed

I think it is well understood now by most managers that web sites should be goal directed.  That is to say, the web site should have a set of goals that are tied back the goals of the overall organization. Every organization has some kind of goals – the reasons it operates.  The web site should exist and operate in support of this set of goals.  Even if the goals are not well documented, many people will have a strong intuitive sense of what they are.  (And if intuition is all you’ve got – listen to it.  It’s better to act based on an internal understanding than to fail to act because of insufficient information.)

Goals are pretty simple, and need to be stated in simple terms.  Sure, there’s lots of complexity underneath the goals, but don’t worry about the complexity until you understand the goals in a simply stated form.  Goals are measurable things you want people to do, like Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Web Analytics

October 21, 2009 • 2:21 pm 5

Why the Omniture Adobe Deal May be Brilliant

Like many in the industry, I’ve been mulling over the reasons behind the deal announced by Adobe and Omniture for the former to acquire the latter.  My initial reaction was that of many observers — it makes no sense.

If finally dawned on me, though, that this deal isn’t about advancing how analytics is used in the enterprise.  Much more simply, it’s a business development dream come true.  For Omniture, it is simply about gaining access to more page views.  The more Adobe assets that can be tagged automatically upon creation (or delivery), the more revenue can be generated through the Omniture business.

Adobe benefits from this too, as any incremental revenue to Omniture benefits Adobe overall.  But, for Adobe, the deal is not about owning an analytics solution provider.  Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Industry Observation, Web Analytics

October 16, 2009 • 1:45 pm 0

Maybe You Need a Web Analytics Turnaround, Not a New Vendor

The Problem

Many companies have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in web analytics tools and talent, and still find themselves frustrated by a lack of demonstrable value — a lack of real, calculable return on that investment.

It’s not a good situation to be in.  It’s bad personally for the managers and executives who have overseen the investment.  It’s bad for the vendors who take the blame for providing no value.  And it’s bad for the business which, unless corrective action is taken, will continue to throw good money after bad.

What to Do?

Typically, the response to this situation is to blame the vendor and put out an RFP.  It’s a natural response.  But is it the right response?  Most of the time, it isn’t.  Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: People, Process, Tools, Web Analytics

October 12, 2009 • 4:50 pm 1

5 Things You Can Do to Reduce eCommerce Friction

Friction is the enemy of conversion and, ultimately, the enemy of your success online.  Friction is cognitive dissonance.  Friction is interactions that produce results that are counter-intuitive or, worse yet, useless.  Friction is site features that stumble to keep up with the pace at which people want to interact — whose responsiveness doesn’t allow the speed of interaction necessary to match the expectation set by the very presence of the feature.  Friction is anything that gets in the way of an effortless and enjoyable shopping experience.

In my experience, friction is often introduced by the very features that were intended to reduce friction and drive conversion and revenue performance improvements.  The result?  As friction goes up, return on investment tanks, and so, too, does revenue.  That’s why, to maximize success, it’s critical to isolate and understand the bottom-line impact of any new site feature and to eliminate (or modify and retest) any features that drag down performance of the site.

Here are 5 things you can do to reduce friction on your site. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Process, Web Analytics, eCommerce

July 24, 2009 • 12:25 pm 2

Launched: Web Analytics Strategy Consulting at Greater Returns

I’m very excited to announce that I have begun offering Web Analytics consulting services under the name Greater Returns, and that I have launched Greater Returns first service: Analytics Strategy Consulting.

I’m happy to be back on the ground as an analytics practitioner and strategist again as I love working directly with clients and seeing the positive business results that come from a well conceived, well executed, and well run web analytics strategy.  Prior to my last role as head of Open Exchange partnerships and programs at Webtrends, I was in various services management and consulting positions for Webtrends, Coremetrics, and a smaller niche player (WebCriteria) that was acquired by Coremetrics, so this is really a return to roots for me.  I’ve been in this space for ten years.  You can read more about the work I’ve done on my credentials page.

I’m launching the strategy offering first because it’s really the foundation for everything else, and yet, so often, it is overlooked as a part of the web analytics process.  The good news is, though, that it’s never too late to go back and develop a strategy. Even if you’ve already deployed analytics in your organization in the absence of a cohesive strategy, it is better to go back and develop a strategy and a roadmap for coming into compliance with your strategy than it is to simply let it languish.  There’s always time to start heading in the right direction – I can help you crystallize a vision of what the right direction with analytics is, and I can help you get there.

Read the full offering description, and please contact me if you have any questions or want to talk about your particular situation.

Filed under: Web Analytics , , , ,

June 11, 2008 • 10:28 pm 1

X Change 2008 – Be There!

I’m very happy to be able to say that I’ll be attending the X Change 2008 conference in San Francisco this August. In my book it is the best web analytics conference running due to its intimate, participatory, and conversational format. If you did not attend the inaugural X Change conference last year in Napa, you really missed something special.

Special kudos to Eric T. Peterson and Web Analytics Demystified for sponsoring this year’s event, too.

I’m really excited for this year’s X Change. It’s shaping up to be even better than last year, if that’s possible. I’ll blog more about it soon.

Filed under: Web Analytics

April 18, 2008 • 11:46 am 3

Eric T. Peterson Doubts the Importance of Twitter

Eric Peterson spoke at Web Analytics Wednesday last night at WebTrends HQ in Portland. As usual, he was engaging and animated. I’d say there were about 30 people in attendance, and Eric kept the attention of every one of them. The question and answer session went on for 20 to 30 minutes.

Afterwards, a smaller group of us, including Eric, went to Dragonfish for beer and sushi (Eric’s treat — thanks Eric!). Eventually the conversation turned to Twitter. I found myself in the unexpected position of being the only one in the room who a) uses Twitter; and b) actually understood what Twitter is, how it is used, and it’s potential value to the marketing organization.

Eric actually went on record with this statement (paraphrasing here): “Twitter has no value. You can’t measure it. It’s just a bunch of people talking.” (Cue uproarious laughter.) Eric’s a friend of mine, so I’m poking fun at him here. But seriously, I think he’s missing the boat.

I can think of a way that Twitter is immediately measurable with web analytics, and some ways that it can be measured or support future measurement outside of traditional web analytics.

Use it as a viral or direct marketing tool. Use a URL minimizer (or smallerizer, as I like to call them) such as Twurl for all embedded links. Twurl has built in measurement, allowing you to see click-throughs on all your links. It’s just an experimental tool at this point, but there are a lot of things it’s creator, Rick Turoczy, could do with it. Of course, you could put a web analytics campaign tracking code on the redirect URL to track response and subsequent site behavior, too. Seems pretty measurable.

Use it to mine past or monitor for present conversations occurring about your brand. Track those conversations across the social mediasphere as they start on blogs, move to Twitter, and then end up back on the blog again. Use this as a component of buzz measurement. Go a step further and score sentiment. Are people talking positively about your brand or negatively about your brand. Identify the influencers and model the conversations. Are you trending in a negative sentiment direction? Does a negative comment from an influencer change the sentiment of those in their sphere of influence? Twitter’s APIs provide access to a massively rich source of data about conversations about your brand, and even provide the FULL TEXT of the conversation. We’re not too much engineering effort away from being able to mine that data, follow the conversations to other social platforms, map out who’s influencing who, and get notified who you who you should be engaging and why.

As I write this Chris Grant and John Hawbaker are having a conversation on Twitter about the the engagement model Eric Peterson has proposed.

Regardless of measurement, though. Twitter is important for the same reason that blogs you don’t write are important. Your brand has an online community whether you choose to participate in it or not. (I read that somewhere, but I don’t remember who said it. Citation, anyone?) Participating allows you to impact the conversation.

Update: Forgot to mention, Eric did create a twitter account from his iPhone last night while he was arguing its unimportance. Welcome aboard, Eric. ;-)

Filed under: Social Measurement, Social Media, Web Analytics

April 16, 2008 • 3:05 pm 0

Web Analytics Wednesday (as in Thursday) at WebTrends HQ tomorrow.

Web Analytics Wednesday in Portland will be held tomorrow (Thursday) at WebTrends HQ. Eric Peterson will be presenting on The Future of Web Analytics. If you are in Portland, please plan to attend.

More info and RSVP here: http://twurl.cc/t2

Filed under: Web Analytics

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