I try to expand my knowledge of non-enterprise web analytics tools through this site. I’ve been using ClickTale and BTBuckets for awhile, Woopra for about a week. ClickTale is an analytics tool for seeing how users interact with pages, BTBuckets is a user segmentation and targeting tool, and Woopra is a real-time analytics tool.

Did I mention they are all free? (Note: with some limitations on free accounts.) I didn’t immediately see the advantage of using real-time analytics unless you were making real-time changes (here’s Woopra’s take on real-time analytics), and I challenged myself to use these tools together to do something cool.

1. ClickTale

In ClickTale I can see scrolling, clicking, and hovering behavior on my blog homepage (but not for other pages).  I noticed that although users scroll, attention is focused on the top 1/3 of the page. This reinforces ideas of user reading patterns noted by Jakob Nielsen and CX Partners. I also noticed a higher hover and clickthrough rate on my top-level navigation.

ClickTale scrolling heatmap

2. Woopra

Woopra dashboard

First, I really like Woopra’s dashboard. Features like seeing your top keywords in a word cloud help give a quick overview of user preferences on that day. You can set up alert notifications for different behaviors, referring URLs, and visitor types. Based on ClickTale data, I set up alerts for pages in the navigation.  At one point my About page was getting increased traffic compared to other pages.

3. BT Buckets

Previously I set up “buckets” that users were sorted into based on actions, referrers, or characteristics–i.e. user segmentation.  Because this was an experiment, I created a test page to do behavioral targeting and generate content tailored to a user segment.

Since a lot of users went from my blog, a landing page, to the about section, I wanted to continue engaging them. BTBuckets has built-in options for what you can change on the page when users from buckets see that page. I chose a shadowbox to appear on the test About page, to greet return visitors with a different message from new visitors…and it worked! (Note: I’m not planning on doing major debugging, so apologies if it stops working for some reason.)

Try the behavioral targeting test page here–you should get a custom message based on if you are a new or returning visitor.

Also try out these tools–they are really great additions to offerings like Google Analytics. I tried doing this for Twitter refers, but that didn’t work for some reason. Next time I would also speed up the process so changes were installed in a shorter timeframe. Overall I just want to make people think about how to combine free tools like these.

BTBuckets buckets

As promised, my troubleshooting is done (with Wordpress and GA and Website Optimizer), so I can write about the latest attempt at optimizing something not really worth optimizing.  I was encouraged by a couple people to take the plunge with multi-variate optimization, and I finally did. Granted, its just the work section on this site, so there’s very little conversion, but it works! The steps are not too difficult or different compared to A/B testing, and I liked having the ability to test out a wider variety of combinations.

I kept things relatively simple, and tested 2 variations for the control and test. But I also wanted to go beyond having a pageview as the conversion tested, and instead, I set it up so that time spent on page was the conversion.  I figured if this page were actually getting lots of views, what I would want to test is if they are reading the content there.  Oh so fancy.

ClickTale scrollmap: I want to use this with optimization data

I also liked that I could enter in variation code directly into the Google Website Optimizer UI. Later I realized I should add event tracking to the links, but I could still do that by revising and copying the experiment. I was disappointed that follow-up experiments only allow you to compare 1 combination to the original, so its like going back to A/B testing. That seemed lame, but maybe there’s some secret way around that.

Ideally I would then combine the data from this experiment with other metrics like exit % and pathing to see what that tells me. And maybe scrolling data from ClickTale. Now I want to try these things out on a site with more data! Or on a more robust tool. Hopefully soon-ish.

Thanks to those who participated in the poll! I took a 2-week hiatus from writing in the blog because I kind of just got lazy. So there is a tie between writing a post about optimization and data visualization. When my sister found out that her puppy was on the ballot, the puppy faction mysteriously got a lot of votes within 1 hour. She pretty much openly admitted that she voted a few times for Bentley, but on the off chance that someone else voted for Bentley, I’ll dedicate a picture or 2 to him. First, is a comparison of 2 data visualization tools: Tableau and Swivel.

Data Visualization Tools: Swivel and Tableau

I decided to try Swivel mainly because I could access it without having to download anything, it’s free, and seemed like it had an easy-to-use UI.  Those are also the main benefits to using this tool, overall I didn’t think it was a huge step above using Excel. I guess I was expecting more utilization of Flash or interesting visualizations instead of standard charts and graphs because it was in a web environment. Basically you just upload the data, and then you have to “clean it up” so that Swivel can work with the data, and then choose colors and font/pixel sizes. I tried to take out some of the words in my chart so that I could use a readable font size and not have overlap, but now they are overlapping again. They did have a lot of options for embedding and sharing, so that was a plus. Overall it was a “meh” experience. Here’s the final chart that’s supposed to be of Browsers and OS:

Tableau is a software application you can download (I’m using a 2-week free trial), that does cost money. For personal use its a bit pricey, but maybe if all you did for fun was manipulate data into different graphs and charts it would be worth it. I thought they had some interesting visualization options, like heatmaps and text graphs with corresponding color and size variations. For me there was a steep learning curve, and a lot of options for customization that I wasn’t sure would be useful to me. Its a fairly simple drag and drop action to set up the axes, but I found myself performing actions by clicking on things and not really being sure of what I had just done to change the graph. It would have been nice to have a history of actions for people like me who just click on stuff. Still, I wasn’t blown away by the graphical representations in Tableau either. I guess its hard to be impressed by these visualizations when I read about innovations like this.

Tableau Heatmap

Forgive me for the continued alliterative titles.  So I have a bunch of things I’d like to write about at the moment but not much overlap.  I’ve had Tableau recommended as a tool to use for data visualization, Avinash posted on trying out other web analytics tools on your own blog, and I just want to try out optimization for fun. My sister’s puppy is adorable, but not totally related to most topics on this blog.

For those of you kind enough to read and/or participate, what would be more interesting:

As you may have noticed, I’ve talked about the new beta from WebTrends before, but I wasn’t able to really talk about it until today now that its been publicly released! I’m posting the press release below for those who are interested, as well as screenshots.

I spent a loooong time playing with the beta and overall I was really pleased with the user experience. Its leaps and bounds beyond what it used to be, and is employing lots of the things I like most about Google Analytics in terms of ease of use and flexibility.  My initial impressions are mainly focused on the UI and UX, and some things might be nitpicky, but I automatically do heuristic evaluations. Blame the iSchool. So in no particular order:

1. The main dashboard for profiles within accounts is great because a) it has a bunch of commonly used metrics (pageviews, visits, BOUNCE RATE (finally!!), avg. time on site), and b) you can easily compare across profiles for these metrics, which is immensely useful!
2. My one complaint about the account profiles dashboard is that the columns have a fixed width, and a lot of the profiles I work with have longer names, which makes it slightly difficult to scan for the correct profile. Maybe I’m just getting a Web 2.0-ish feel and wanting everything to have dragging capabilities?
3. I really liked the default graph for viewing a particular profile (with the same common metrics); being able to see data for any date in the selected time period at a glance is a nice feature. Sadly, you can’t use the same visualization for the secondary metrics.
4. The user can choose between the default line graph, RSS overlay (which I don’t entirely understand yet), table view, and “story” view. I like that there are more choices for data output within WebTrends, and I think the “story” part was intended to make data more accessible, but some people I spoke with worried that the “story” could become an excuse for lazy analysis.
5. Overall, navigation is easy to figure out and to switch between modes/options. In an interesting IA choice, the rest of the metrics are listed below the main div in a flat navigation, but still in a secondary location to the more common metrics. It might be because the less prominent metrics need more space because they involve less numbers and more words?
6. Minor detail, but when looking at a report in detail, or when there is pagination, things look clickable when they should not be, i.e. being able to click on “previous” when viewing the 1st page in a series.
7. I think I was happiest when I could export a report in 2 clicks in either CSV or REST URI. I am always getting errors normally when exporting in the current version of WebTrends, so this was refreshing. I wasn’t clear on why you would use REST URIs (even after looking up what that is) or why you would choose Excel vs. XML vs. JSON?
8. My biggest complaint is with the bugs (expected in a beta) that led to numerous error pages, and no real help for explaining how to do things or why errors were happening. This feels like the bane of my existence the past couple days, but in a new system it seems so necessary to have help documentation easily accessible versus just a brief overview of the tool.

Despite the minor complaints, I think WebTrends is becoming more of a happy medium between the power of enterprise analytics tools and great UX in tools like GA. You can tell that they have spent a lot of time thinking about how web analysts (and non-web analysts) will be using their tool, and I think it has paid off in a great product. I look forward to seeing the beta work out its kinks. Apologies for the lengthy post, but its probably an easier read if you can try out the beta!

Official Screenshots

*I’m too lazy right now to make these photos align correctly. Sorry.

RSS Overlay: Add external RSS feeds and items will group by date snapping to any of the key metrics, providing unique correlation opportunities.

profile dashboard rss

Share to Web Services: Easily generate web service URI’s to embed in applications, widgets, and Excel (for live dashboards).

profile dashboard story

Story View: View data in a whole new way with story view.  This narrative flow with embedded metrics allows for quick comprehension and with a quick copy and paste, a user can embed these descriptions right into an email, presentation, or document.

exporting files

WT Press release

Webtrends Analytics 9 Sets New Standard in Enterprise Customer Intelligence

New On Demand version simply, powerfully uncovers customer insight with a click-to-crunch interface, data-in/data-out API and the industry’s most powerful core analytics

PORTLAND, Ore., – Aug. 4, 2009 – Webtrends, the enterprise customer intelligence company that started the web analytics industry, today introduced its most significant advances in user experience and data integration in its 15+ year history.

Webtrends Analytics 9 makes data the interface. Uncovering customer trends is as simple as clicking on numbers on the screen.  Cross-channel insight emerges from RSS-enabled overlays of company news, sales and other business data on top of trended web metrics.  Key web metrics are automatically translated to plain English text, shared throughout an organization and viewed in any interface.

“Webtrends has created an entirely new user experience that makes it remarkably easy for us to quickly retrieve and provide key decision makers with necessary web analytics data. This sleek new design will provide better top-line perspective while allowing us to think about and leverage this data more effectively,” said Kate Johnson, Digital Relationship Marketing Manager, Kimberly-Clark. “Many analytic providers are lacking in this need so we’re very excited to see the direction Webtrends is going with this powerful new visual interface.”

Webtrends Analytics 9 is comprised of three primary components:

Insight Interface: No Instructions Necessary

The new Analytics 9 Insight interface offers breakthroughs in data exploration and visualization, including:

· RSS Overlays. Quickly determine how other marketing investments are influencing your  web site by visually overlaying data from any RSS feed on top of trending web metrics.  Overlays from Webtrends Social Measurement, for example, provide direct insight into the relationships between web site traffic and activity on enthusiast blogs, video channels and other interactive media.

· Story View. Automatically convert data and metrics into non-technical narratives that offer  written context that graphs and charts can’t. The text can be downloaded and shared as PowerPoint, Word, and other formats.

Data-in, No Restrictions. Data-out, No Fees

Webtrends’ industry leading application programming interface (API) provides self-service access and integration of online and offline data without any added charges:

· Live spreadsheets. Review web site metrics throughout the day in live spreadsheets that anyone can access. Create Excel dashboards with live data in three easy steps.

· Data collection. Uncover cross-channel trends and business opportunities by programmatically sending data from mobile applications, devices and any other standards-based source to Webtrends hosted collection service for processing and analysis alongside your web site traffic and other data.

· Data Extraction. Populate widgets, dashboards and other applications with Webtrends data using reliable, no-cost Webtrends Web Services, built with Representational State Transfer (REST) URLs and other web standards. Or  combine data from Webtrends and other business intelligence tools to create best-of-breeds solutions catered to your business.

Powerful to the Core

Analytics 9 provides all of the core analytics features customers depend on with Webtrends On Demand, including:

· Unlimited scale, capacity. Distinct and fully redundant data collection, analysis and rendering help absorb even the largest spikes in traffic without system outages or lost data.

· Unmatched data flexibility. Unlimited dimensions and measures based on any attribute or parameter let you explore your data without restrictions or incurring extra charges.

Analytics 9 is available for purchase beginning today. Current Webtrends On Demand customers have access to Analytics 9 at http://Insight.Webtrends.com.

“I am enormously proud of this release.  It represents a commitment we made to our customers just last April at our Engage conference —we are the most Powerful, we are the most Open and we will be the most Elegant solution in the market.” said Alex Yoder, CEO of Webtrends.  “Analytics 9 turns the page for an entire industry that has just been focused on reporting and brings the depth of the data that Webtrends uniquely collects to life for the entire enterprise to analyze and take action with.”

Learn more about the breakthrough features of Analytics 9 (including screenshots)

About Webtrends Inc.

Webtrends is an enterprise customer intelligence company that turns online and offline data into understanding. Webtrends delivers the industry’s most recognized search engine marketing, visitor intelligence, and analytics solutions to enable companies to understand their customers, drive engagement, and enhance marketing and brand awareness. Thousands of global organizations, including Microsoft, Reuters, General Mills and Ticketmaster have chosen Webtrends business solutions and client services expertise to optimize their customers’ online experiences. You can learn more about Webtrends products and services at http://www.webtrends.com/ or call 1.877.932.8736.

Last week I kept saving links on del.icio.us to different tools, so I thought I would post something about some of the ones that looked interesting.

Sorting terms on WebSort

1. WebSort is an online card sorting tool that is free (for up to 10 participants) and very intuitive. You create a list of the words that would typically be on cards for figuring out a taxonomy, and then the user drags and drops to sort the words into categories. You can view the results in Excel or see them as a tree chart or broken down by participant. I think its really useful if you don’t have the money to pay participants, or you can work remotely.
2. Pixlr has been around for awhile, but I never tried it until recently when I was on a computer *gasp* without Illustrator or Fireworks or Photoshop on it and I needed to make a heatmap. It took me probably 5 minutes or less to take a screenshot, crop the image and save as a PNG; which was much faster than it usually takes for some of the Adobe programs to open. I vote yes.
3. Notable is an application that helps people give direct asynchronous feedback on websites by taking screenshots and annotating them with comments. It stores and organizes the feedback online, and looks like a great way to get quick feedback from people on a team. The only drawback might be having less of a dialogue because its remote, but overall I think its a good way to involve busy people. Right now you have to sign up to get an invite and it looks like its fee-based.


Color Hunter

4. Color Hunter allows you to upload images and see exactly what colors are in those images, and then you can create new palettes based on that. I wish I had known about this a couple years ago; it would have made my life a lot easier.
5. If you’re a Google Analytics user, take advantage of Erik Vold’s Better GA Firefox Extension, which compiles other GA extensions into one package. You need to a) use Firefox (duh), b) install Greasemonkey, and c) install the extension.  Some things are small but nice features, like skipping that stupid “Access Analytics” button that GA makes you click for entry. It also lets you export into GoogleDocs, includes social media metrics and content searching in the nav bar, and has easier sorting on tables.

Also I really enjoyed the Oregon coast, good weather, and food, and I had to overhear the most ridiculous conversation between a couple from NYC. This was the best quote by far:

Godzilla is full of stoicism. You know, Godzilla was a stoic and noble creature….I think that’s why the Japanese like baseball so much, because its this sport with an aura of solitude.

And sometime soon I’ll be posting again on event tracking/page tagging ideas swirling around in my head at the moment. Until then I’m getting a haircut! w00t!

Omniture

These topics may not be entirely related, but I am making them related because I don’t want to devote an entire post to each one. Between playing with Bentley and watching reality tv on Bravo, I played around with Omniture, an enterprise tool for web analytics.  I read some about page tagging variables in Omniture, but I’m not quite sure I understand when you use eVar versus sProp for every situation. Because my primary experience is with Google Analytics, what I’m noticing so far is the difference between the 2. Main things I’ve noticed:

1. Omniture has way way more metrics that can be measured with a lot of granularity.
2. Google Analytics has a better UI and is more concerned with making things easy for the user (novices especially), so metrics like bounce rate are automatically calculated for you.
3. I like the visualizations better in Google Analytics and the site overlay tool helps to show click maps visually on any page in the site.
4. Omniture might help make more informed decisions because it is drawing so much more data and aggregating it for the user.

Overall I think I will grow to like Omniture more because it is so powerful, but I wish that they would include some of the better visualization tools from Google Analytics, or calculate bounce rate for me. Maybe that is asking too much, but from what I hear, free tools like GA are catching up to Omniture and WebTrends quickly, so they might offer the same things eventually.

Google Fusion Tables

I had never heard of Google Fusion Tables before, but that might be because its in Pre-Alpha right now. It basically takes data sets from things you import (like spreadsheets/csv files) and uses different visualizations like the ones in Google Analytics and Google Maps.  One cool part of this new tool is that it allows collaboration and you can combine other tables if they have the same columns (because its probably treated like tables in a database). They also allow sharing of certain sections (like database views I’m guessing), and easy online publishing of the visualization.  There is a lot of potential to use this in web analytics I think, but so far I found the visualizations and UI to be somewhat confusing to manipulate. Below is a motion chart showing predicted temperature change for the US.

DD4D

Finally to continue the visualization fixation I have, I found a cool blog, information aesthetics, that posted about the DD4D (Data Designed for Decisions) conference. There were some cool things, but what I thought was most interesting was a way to show the overall change in various factors of a problem, which predicted an end result. It would be interesting to try, but I’m not sure how you assign numeric value to subjective things in a meaningful way.

DD4D Sense Change Making Visualization

Wow. Longest post ever. So now I’m going for a run to not think about web things for a little bit.

So if you were ever wondering how to tell what people are doing on your site, how they’re getting there, or where they are going instead…Avinash Kaushik tweeted this ginormous (but valuable) list of 75 resources that are mostly free: http://designm.ag/resources/website-analytics-toolbox/. I’m still in the process of checking some of them out.  There are a couple cool ones that do heat tracking so you can see what areas of your site are “hot” or “cold”, and are getting the most or least attention.

I can think of a number that the Burke Museum should use, such as one of the rank checkers for Google, but chances are no one will have the time or interest when I leave.  I’m not sure which (if any of these outside of Google Analytics) that ZAAZ uses, but I from what Chris Kerns told me, the tools are fairly interchangeable with variations depending on what metrics you are looking for, or the size of the site.

Here is a really good article that I think explains how important web analytics is to understanding the user, and how it integrates with user experience (which is my ultimate goal): http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/web_traffic_analytics_and_user_experience.

Also we lost our indoor soccer game last night. Vacca Patrol has gone way downhill with all the flaky guys not showing up. Now I’m trying to decide if I should play soccer this summer or not? Or do bikram yoga instead?