Blue Dwarf's Blog

Omniture Summit Thoughts

2008-03-06T10:47:00.000-08:00

I was able to attend the Omniture Summit Key-note address on 3/5/08. This was a very interesting meeting because of my technical perspective on life. Many of the people who are using Omniture tools are marketers. Being a techie, I found it interesting the way marketers use Omniture's tools as compared to the way that I use their tools.

The keynote address had two main speakers and both of them tended to direct their speaches to the marketers in the audience. Each of them did was mention the importance of IT in establishing Omniture's tools on their websites, however the main focus was on how to make good use of these new marketing tools.

One of the speakers mentioned how marketing has changed from the emails and surveys, to analyzing the subtle movement of potential customers on web sites.

Another speaker showed a few videos to highlight how the perspective of the audience in the room did not necessarily reflect that of America. This was a really interesting point because it highlighted that often times we are so specialized that when we get a different perspective it throws us off.

As a technical person, I often see technology in one way and have a hard time seeing it from the other person's point of view. Seeing this myopia helped me realized that more often then not when a group of people from the same field get together the focus will be naturally narrower than a diverse group.

Overall I found this kick-off meeting interesting mainly because it introduced a whole different perspective on web analytics that I have never understood before. Yet seeing this diversity really opened my eyes to the potential of web analytics in many different fields.

On a personal note, I think the lunch that was provided after the kick-off meeting was spectacular. Steak and salmon, honestly how much better can it get! The lunch was definitely a perk to the time slot we chose when attending the summit!

Web Analytic Competition

2008-02-26T12:18:00.000-08:00

Recently I participated in a web analytic competition. This is the second time I have participated in this competition. Yet during both experiences I learned a lot about web analytics.

The first time I participated I wanted to organize a diverse team so that we could each look at the problem from a different perspective. In that team we had a computer science major, a supply chain major, and a information systems major. This team worked well together, yet we focused on aspects of web analytics that were not esteemed very highly by the judges. Although we did some good research and functioned as a well designed team, our main focus point was not what the judges were interested in.

The second time I participated in the competition I played more of a team member role, rather than a leadership role. My team had some good objectives and strategies in this competition in that we let the data guide our course. We identified several of the top exit pages and then dove into the data to determine why they are the top exit pages. The information we found highlighted some major problems that the company has with both its web site design, and its persistence of bookmarks.

One lead we pursued dealt with the clearance items. We found that a majority of the people who go to their clearance section leave nearly immediately. we were going to recommend that they change that page. Yet when we were gathering up our last bit of evidence we found that the site changed that page to what we were going to recommend. This was somewhat of a blow to our research because on the one hand we had spent a lot of time and effort making this recommendation which was now obsolete. Yet on the other hand our team decided to turn this tragedy into a success, and we did that by using the little bit of data we had for the last few days to prove that idea was successful.

Originally I wanted to research into correlation between user reviews and orders. I had formed a hypothesis that if a product has more user reviews, it would be more likely to sell and get a higher conversion rate. Yet after running into problem after problem, our team leader suggested that I work on one of the other ideas that we had developed. In some ways I was glad to let that go, but in other ways I wished I would of found some data backing the claim. Yet in the end it was probably wise to drop that and move on to something else.

Overall we found quite a bit of good information, and most of the information we had collected we were able to make solid recommendations. I think we may have done better had we tied financial information directly into the recommendations that we made in order to prove to the judges that the data we found was quite valid and relevant.

Even though my team did not win, this experience has helped me gain a greater appreciation of taking data and turning it into an executive summary report. Lesson learned: Sometimes the path to the data and recommendation for the data is not as important as the results from the recommendations and its expected benefit.

The only question I have remaining actually deals with the hypothesis I formed in the beginning. I would like to know definitively if there is any positive or negative correlation between reviews and orders on the site we examined. I think if I get a chance to talk to one of the professionals who do analytics on that site I will ask them how to go about finding out that information.

That is my take on the web analytic competition.

Blogger Out!

Filters in Google Analytics

2008-01-29T12:25:00.000-08:00

I found a link that talks about using filters in Google Analytics. I haven't tried to use these instructions but they may be useful to some of you.

http://www.vdgraaf.info/filters-in-google-analytics.html

Check it out and hopefully it will be helpful.

Funny Email

2008-01-29T11:54:00.000-08:00

I got a email the other day and I thought it was quite funny. Anyways the email was short so I thought that I would post it.

HOW TO HANDLE IRRITATING SEAT MATES

If you are sitting next to someone who irritates you on a plane or train, follow these instructions:
1. Quietly and calmly open up your laptop case.
2. Remove your laptop.
3. Start it up.
4. Make sure the guy who is annoying you, can see the screen.
5. Close your eyes and tilt your head up to the sky.
6. Then hit this link

Thoughts on Glen's Presentation

2008-01-17T14:34:00.000-08:00

I thought that the presentation that Glen gave was a pretty good overview of marketing. However, most of us have had marketing and a lot of the stuff he covered, such as the four P's, we have learned previously.

I wish he would have covered more specifics about each of our topics for our brain honey assignment. I think his purpose was to give an overview and my expectation was different than his intent, and because of this difference I think I was left wanting something more.

Overall I think he did a good job. I think the review of the basic marketing concepts was good because I had forgotten many of these concepts. He is a good presenter and I hope he can visit our class again.

My Thoughts on Ben Robison's Presentation

2008-01-17T13:55:00.000-08:00

I have known Ben for a few years now. One thing that I really like about Ben is his openness. I liked how he set up his presentation in an open-forum style. He listed a few topics that he thought that might be of interest and then opened up the floor to specific questions.

I was surprised to learn about how Ben got his start at Omniture, and I was glad that he explained his day-to-day responsibilities. I liked the conclusions he drew on some of the analysis metrics. In doing the Web Analytics competition in the past I came to some of the same conclusions.

Overall I thought that the presentation was really good, especially for those who haven't done anything with web analytics.

Pay Per Click Myths

2008-01-17T10:28:00.000-08:00

In doing some of my research about Pay per click, I found several interesting articles. One of such talked about common myths which people believe about pay per click. I was even caught up in some of the misconceptions. This article does a good job explaining what some of the common myths are, and why these myths are false.

enjoy the article.

http://www.ppcblog.co.uk/ppc/13-myths-of-pay-per-click/

Funny Story

2008-01-10T10:57:00.000-08:00

I thought I would share a quick story that is sort of funny. Last week I was walking in the WILK and as I passed a group of people someone said "Hi" to me. I talk to people all the time, so I didn't think this occurrence to be that uncommon. I said "Hi" back and continued on my way. I was trying to remember where I knew this person, but I soon pushed that from my mind because I was on my way to a meeting. Yet seconds after we passed, the kid turned around and said "so you don't even talk to your own cousin?" Feeling rather embarrassed, I looked up at him and realized that he was in fact my cousin.

I didn't recognize him because he had been on a mission for a few years and I hadn't seen him since a year before that.

Anyway I just thought that this was a funny occurrence and it made me chuckle because I didn't recognize my own cousin.

What I want to get out of my web analytic's class?

2008-01-08T14:20:00.000-08:00

I would like to learn more about web traffic and how I can use this information to better my overall web understanding. I believe that the Web Analytics class will further my understanding of web development even further.

I am also taking this class to fulfill a requirement in my major in order to graduate. Honestly this class wasn't my first choice, but after coming to class and hearing the course introduction I am excited to take this class.