Web analytics and metrics

What is web analytics?

How a web analytics helps
business grow?
What can we track?
MBA-740 Web Design and Development
 What is web analytics?
• Analytics is the act of distinguishing categories within
recorded stats, and analyzing for patterns (Miller 2011). The
process of analytics means, literally, taking apart the whole
of something in order to study its component parts
• Web Analytics It is the process of measuring, collecting,
analyzing and reporting on internet data for the purpose of
understanding how website is used by audience.

To determine its success:

• Study of visitor.
• Navigation.
• Traffic Pattern.

MBA-740 Web Design and Development

The value of web
analytics
• Make smarter business decisions
• Increase revenue online.
• Decrease costs
• Optimized marketing investment.
• Effective site design & content
management.
• Improved customer self-service.
• Maximize return on insight
• Decrease acquisition costs
• Increase conversion rates
• Improve customer retention
MBA-740 Web Design and Development
How a web analytics
helps business grow?
• Web Analytics is a great thing which helps you to take some
important business decisions (Clifton 2012) .
—Web site analytics is a continuous and repetitive process
comprised of five major steps:
—Collect, measure, report, analyze and optimize.
—These are:
→Set Goals - Identify clients' goals and objectives
→Measure - Use web analytics software to collect relevant data
→Report - Compile data in relevant, human-readable reports tied into KPI's
→Analyze - Define web site or landing page changes based on report
analysis
→Optimize - Test and implement modifications and repeat

MBA-740 Web Design and Development

What can we track?
• Things like:
—How people arrive at website?
—How they navigate a website?
—How they find information on a website?
—How they value website content?
—How they respond to call-to-action?

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Tracking variables
• With Tracking Variables, you can present important, business-
specific data that will help increase customer retention and
chase flaws of our site (Ledford 2010).
• Any web-accessible information from your Web Site or
databases can be used as tracking variable for e.g. user logins,
Unique Id , marketing campaign data.
• Theses also helps in indentify visitors coming from your online
marketing campaigns.
• Business Reports are also available to generate comprehensive
analysis of Tracking Variable.
• There are three different types of Scope:
• Visitor, Session and Page.
•Visitor scope: value associated with unique visitors.
•Session scope: Value associated with session.
•Page scope: value associated with specific page in navigation
sequence. E.g. keyword search MBA-740 Web Design and Development
R.A.D.A.R. model
Measurable Improvement Cycle :It is a simple process to improve
your website that will help focus your benchmarks (Miller 2011).
Reaction Reporting
With every action, Report on the key
there’s a reaction metrics per your
from your visitors site objectives
to the change
you’ve made

Analysis
Action Analyse the data
Take action! to identify trends
Make a change and areas that
and monitor the need
reaction it triggers improvement
Decision Source: (Miller 2011)
Decide which area of
MBA-740 Web Design and Development the site to focus on now
Types of websites &
metrics used
• Commerce • Returning visitor ratio
• Bounce Rates • Visit depth
• Conversion Rates • Lead generation
• Customer Loyalty • Cost per lead
• Average Visit value • Traffic concentration
• Content/Media Sites • Support/Self Service
• New Visitor Rate • Internal Search phrases
• Page depth • Customer satisfaction

MBA-740 Web Design and Development

What are the web
metrics?
• Metrics
—The metrics of web metrics refers to measurement, the science of
measuring websites. Specifically measuring websites events, and
extracting trends.

User supplied Transactions

data Web
Metrics
Site Usability
performance
Financial
analysis (ROI)
MBA-740 Web Design and Development
Metrics goals and result

The Goal of Web Metrics is to show you how to :

• Drive improvements.
• Increase Conversion.
• Increase Customer Retention.
• Evaluation of how site performs.
• Improve your search engine marketing (SEM)
campaigns and website performance
Hence Results are Happy customers and Higher ROI

MBA-740 Web Design and Development

Key performance
indicators
• Key Performance Indicators, also known as KPI or Key Success
Indicators (KSI), help an organization define and measure
progress toward organizational goals
• Whatever, the performance indicators are there they must key to
success and they must be quantifiable(measurable),actionable.
• These are long term indicators.
• Usability in KPI:
• Increases Revenue
• Reduces Cost
• Improve Customer Loyalty and Satisfaction

MBA-740 Web Design and Development

Hits
• Hit in Web analytics is: "any request for a file from a Web
server“ Or Total number of server requests serviced by the
server
• This means that every request that is made to a Web server
can be considered a hit.
• Every time an image is downloaded for display on a Web
page is a hit. For example, a simple Web page with seven
images would result in eight hits to the server.
• Requesting auxiliary files like CSS or JavaScript are all counted
as hits.
• They are only really useful if you're a Web server
administrator and you want to find out why a page is slow to
load.
MBA-740 Web Design and Development
 Sessions
• A period of activity (all hits) for one user of a website. A
unique user is determined by the IP address or cookie.

• Typically, a user session is terminated when a user is inactive

for more than 30 minutes which is the default time-out value
of any web application (can be changed)

• Session Tracking
• This mechanism which helps the servers to maintain the
state to track the series of requests from the same user
across some period of time.

MBA-740 Web Design and Development

Pageviews
• A pageview is each time a visitor views a page on your website,
regardless of how many hits are generated or request made to
the server for a page.
• Pageviews are the successful loading of a document from a
Web server by a visitor.
• Page views are an attempt to measure how many documents
were viewed by customers on your Website. This includes
images, scripts, CSS, and sometimes sound and video files.
• Pageviews are used to convey the popularity of your Web site or
page.
• What Pageviews generally do not include:
➢error pages
➢views by robots
➢Files that are generally considered "part" of a Web page, but not
the complete content segment themselves are not usually
considered a pageview. MBA-740 Web Design and Development
 Visitor
A visitor is a unique individual user of a web Site
➢ Tracking methods vary

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Visits or sessions or user
sessions
• A visit is a collection of documents viewed by a given user and
IP address combination (or if you have logins, the actual
customer logged in) during a pre-defined unit of time.
• This is the Activity for one visitor also default 30 minutes
of inactivity also called a visit.
• A visit is an interaction with the website for a specified period
of time. It is how a user wanders over your website.
• For example: If a visitor visits your website considered as one
visits and if he goes for a 30 minutes break ,then he’ll be
terminated considering as left the site. Again Wandering after
specified time (30 min.) then considered as two visits.
MBA-740 Web Design and Development
Visits or sessions or user
sessions

New Visitors: The number of Unique Visitors who is visting the

site for first time.
Returning Visitors A returning visitor is a visitor who visits your
site with a 24 hour period in between
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 Unique visitors
• UV is the Interaction of a single user has with a website
over time.
• A unique visitor is a person (usually defined by user-agent
and IP) who has come to your Web site within a pre-
defined period of time. These are the actual people visiting
your site and they can only be counted once during your
time frame.

• For Example:
• If I visit your site once today and again two days from
now and your measurement timeframe is 1 week, then
I would be counted once. If your measurement were
daily, then I would be counted for each day I viewed
your site.

MBA-740 Web Design and Development

 Clickstream analysis
• A clickstream is a series of page requests, every page
requested generates a signal.
• It is recording of what a user clicks on web browsing.
• Clickstream Analysis is a tracking system which gives
webmasters insight into what visitors on their site are doing.
These are presented in order they were viewed.
• Also called ”succession of mouse clicks”.

• This Analysis helps further to:

• Obtain Quality traffic.
• These convert visitor to Customer.
• Creates action that generates revenue.

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Conversion
• Conversion: An action that signifies a completion of a
specified activity. For many sites, a user converts to
customer if they buy a product, sign up for a newsletter, or
download a file.
• Cookie deletion can have an impact on your conversion rate
because if a cookie is being systematically deleted, repeat
visitor rates will be under-counted and new visitor rates will be
over-counted, thus skewing the conversion rate metric by which
you analyze your site's overall effectiveness.
• Conversion Rate: The relationship between visitors to a web site
and actions considered to be a "conversion," such as a sale or
request to receive more information. The conversion rate is the
percentage of visitors who do convert.

MBA-740 Web Design and Development

Click through rate
• Clickthrough rate or CTR is typically defined as number of clicks
on an ad divided by number of ad impressions for a given time
period.
• It is a way of measuring the success of an online advertising
campaign. A CTR is obtained by dividing the "number of users
who clicked on an ad" on a web page by the "number of times
the ad was delivered" (impressions).
• For example, if a banner ad was delivered 100 times
(impressions delivered) and 1 person clicked on it (clicks
recorded), then the resulting CTR would be 1 percent.
• The more successful the campaign, the higher the CTR.
• Calculating click-through rate
CTR = (clicks / impressions) × 100
MBA-740 Web Design and Development
Bounce rate
• The percentage of entrances on a web page that result in an
immediate exit from the web site.
• A bounce occurs when a web site visitor only views a single page
on a website and he leaves a site without visiting any other pages
before a specified session-timeout occurs.
• Calculation
Bounce rate = total number of visits that left one page / total
number of web visits
A visitor can bounce by:
• Clicking on a link to a page on a different web site
• Closing an open window or tab
• Typing a new URL.
• Clicking the "Back" button to leave the site
• Session timeout. MBA-740 Web Design and Development
Return on investment -
ROI
• What Does Return On Investment - ROI Mean?
• It is the ratio of money gained or lost on an investment relative
to the amount of money invested.
• To calculate ROI, the benefit (return) of an investment is
divided by the cost of the investment; the result is expressed
as a percentage or a ratio. The return formula:

• In the above formula "gains from investment", refers to the

proceeds obtained from selling the investment of interest.
Return on investment is a very popular metric because of its
versatility and simplicity. That is, if an investment does not have
a positive ROI, or if there are other opportunities with a higher
ROI, then the investment should be not be undertaken.
MBA-740 Web Design and Development
Impressions
• The number of times an advertisement has been displayed
is referred to as the number of impressions.
• An impression is each time an advertisement loads on a user's
screen.
• The display of an online advertisement (usually a banner ad) to
a web site visitor.

MBA-740 Web Design and Development

Campaign
Pay per click (PPC) is an Internet advertising model used on
websites, where advertisers pay their host only when their ad is
clicked.
• The Advertising campaign is a series
of advertisement messages that share a single idea and
which make integrated marketing communication.
• Tracking PPC campaigns is absolutely necessary to ensure that
your pay per click ads are effective and attractive enough to
bring more and more visitors to your site
• You can use ga.js for tracking in Google analytics

MBA-740 Web Design and Development

Referrer and direct
traffic
• Referrer or referring URL’s
• Referrer is the page on another web site that linked visitors
to your site. Referring URLs tell you where your visitors came
from to get to your site. You can use this information to
determine which external sites are the best ones to place
links on, or ads for, your site.
• Where does our traffic come from? These are external web
pages that brought traffic to our site.
• No Referrer - Direct Traffic
• No Referrer or Direct Traffic represents direct traffic to the web
site as the result of one of the following:
• Visitors who type the domain name directly into the browser
• Visitors who bookmark the site
• Visitors who have the page set as their home page
• Visitors who click on an email link, shortcut, or other direct link
MBA-740 Web Design and Development
Landing pages, exit
and entry pages
• Landing Page, is the page that appears when a potential
customer clicks on an advertisement. A page intended to
identify the beginning of the user experience resulting from
a defined marketing effort
• There are two types of landing pages:
1) A reference landing page presents information that is relevant to
the visitor. These can display text, images, dynamic compilations
of relevant links, or other elements
2) A transactional landing page seeks to persuade a visitor to
complete a transaction such as filling out a form or interacting
with advertisements or other objects on the landing page, with
the goal being the immediate sale of a product or service.
• Entry Page: The first page of a visit.
• Exit Page: The last page on a site accessed during a visit,
signifying the end of a visit/session.
• Page Exit Ratio (Page Exits/Page Visits)
MBA-740 Web Design and Development
Landing pages, exit
and entry pages
• Exits — The departure of a visitor from the site, signifying
the end of a visit or session or Site exits, counted by site
inactivity for more than 30 minutes.
• Top Pages- The Pages that receive the most traffic Visitor
Path- The route visitor uses to navigate through the
website.
• Visit Length – The total amount of time the visitor
spends on website.
• Keyword Analysis- which keywords are visitors using to
find website.

MBA-740 Web Design and Development

Time on site
• How long a visitor stays on your website has long been
considered a key indication of how successful that site
is in attracting relevant visitors

True time on site:

Average Time on Site / (1 - Bounce Rate)

MBA-740 Web Design and Development

Advertisement metrics
• banner ad - a graphical web advertising unit, typically measuring 468
pixels wide and 60 pixels tall (i.e. 468x60).
• button ad - a graphical advertising unit, smaller than a banner ad.
• cost-per-action (CPA) - Online advertising payment model in which payment
is based solely on qualifying actions such as sales or registrations.
• cost-per-click (CPC) - the cost or cost-equivalent paid per click-through.
• customer acquisition cost - the cost associated with acquiring a new
customer.
• Web site traffic - The amount of visitors and visits a Web site receives.
• text ad - advertisement using text-based hyperlinks.
• surround session - advertising sequence in which a visitor receives ads from
one advertiser throughout an entire site visit.
• pay per lead (PPL) - online advertising payment model in which payment
is based solely based on qualifying leads.
• pay per sale (PPS) - online advertising payment model in which payment
is based solely based on qualifying sales.

MBA-740 Web Design and Development

Tools for web analytics
• AWStats
• Elogic
• Google Analytics
• Unica
• Web Trends
• StatCounter
• Core Metrics
• W3Perl
• Webalizer
• Omniture

MBA-740 Web Design and Development

References
1. M. Miller (2011), “The ultimate web marketing guide” (1st
Edition), Indianapolis, United States, Pearson, CHAPTER 9.
2. B. Clifton (2012), “Advanced Web Metrics with Google
Analytics” 3rd Edition, United States, John Wiley, CHAPTER 1.
3. J. Ledford (2010), “Google Analytics” 3rd Edition, United
States, John Wiley, CHAPTER 2.
4. J. Ledford (2010), “Google Analytics” 3rd Edition, United
States, John Wiley, CHAPTER 7.

MBA-740 Web Design and Development