Website Analytics vs. The Myth of 100% Accuracy
Let’s get this out of the way. 100% accuracy does not exist in website analytics. Repeat. 100% accuracy does not exist in analytics.
What does exist in analytics is data – lots of it – and with this comes dread.
Dread of looking at the incorrect data. Dread of where to start. Dread of analytics failure.
This dread will only dissipate with knowledge. Knowing that analytics will never be perfect is a critical first step and a cornerstone mutual during the session ‘Deep Dive Into Analytics’ at SES San Francisco.
Bryan Eisenberg, SES Advisory Board and NY Era bestselling instigator, moderated this session which included on its panel:
- Tami Dalley, Director, User Experience Optimization, ROI Labs
- Marty Weintraub, President, aimClear
- Matthew Bailey, SES Advisory Board & President, Site Logic Marketing
The beauty of an analytics session at SES is that those on the panel may sometimes be analysts or they may sometimes be statisticians, but they are always marketers. And a excellent marketing analyst knows that it’s the facts that tell and the tales that sell.
As such, Bailey shaped his presentation around four key points that make up the bulk head of the website analytics tale:
- Intent
Every visitor that lands on your website is there for a reason. Bailey offers the example of a jewelry store pulling traffic for ‘watch’ based keywords. Within this segment, some will be looking to ‘buy a rolex’ while some will be looking to ‘fix a watch + san francisco.’ Based on the keywords this segment used to find your site, did content match intent? - Expectancy
Similar to intent, but expanded to include referring sites ranging from forums to blogs. Did the source that referred the segment, say a forum about watch renovate stores in San Francisco, shape user segment expectations accurately in regards to what they found on your site? - Reaction
What ultimately happened when the segment of users arrived on your site? Did they bounce immediately? Exchange? Did they do what you intended them to do? - Behavior
Whether the user bounced, exited or converted, what behavioral clues did they drop along the way? Did they bounce after a mere ten seconds? Exit after visiting multiple pages? Exchange frankly from where they landed or within just one step?
Remove these items from a numbered list, and add context, and this becomes an actionable tale:
Users arriving at my site by San Francisco watch renovate related keywords, or coming from local websites geared towards watch renovate services, are bouncing at a rate of 85% and converting at a rate of 4%. But, those that land on my Rolex renovate services page from this same segment bounce at a rate of 60% and exchange at a rate of 10%. If I optimize my Rolex renovate page for ‘rolex renovate + san francisco’, I may capture more conversions.
Of course, the answer is never quite so simple. Dalley and Weintraub illustrate this as they share meticulous real world case studies and conversion intelligence, respectively.
Dalley’s case studies detail how the slightest change, from a page’s design to a customer’s location, can drastically shape results. The key to making an actionable change is to start with an educated hypothesis before backing it up with the right data for proof points.
And this means overcoming a dread of data and digging in, as repeated by Bailey.
Since Weintraub is truly misrepresented in this post, primarily because nearly any written word would be a brutal injustice to the energy level he brings to his presentation, below find potential conversion intelligence or data ‘dig-in points.’ These are intelligence that you can pull from your analytics to make a choice from today. The list below was both leveraged from and inspired by a list of deeply ‘unsexy’ (Weintraub’s words, not mine) doable conversion intelligence mutual during this session:
- Conversion by time of day
- Conversions by rural Pennsylvania city
- Conversions by mobile device
- Conversions by web browser
- Conversions by keywords containing the keyword ‘green dress’
Please add your own unsexy, or even sexy, conversion intelligence or analytics tales via a comment below.
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