Archive for the ‘Analytics management’ Category

Top 3 Tips for Improving Your Display Ad CTR

Posted by Josh on February 29, 2012 - 4:12 pm
CTR Analytics

Make sure your graphs are going in the right direction.

We’ve stated in past posts that the difference between success and failure often times comes down to being able to squeeze every last drop of performance out of your campaigns. This means knowing how to read your analytics and then adjusting accordingly. One analytic that we are all familiar with is the Click Through Rate (CTR). Your CTR is the first indication of whether you have a winner or a dud of a campaign on your hands. Here are a couple of tips to getting all you can out of you Display Ads.

Picking the Right Placement

To start, there is a chance you could improve your CTR by 50% by just moving your ad above the fold. Heat Map Analytics studies have shown that as much as half of the visitors of a website don’t scroll past the fold. So, if you aren’t experiencing the CTR you would like, first look at where it’s found on the page.

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Inographic: Why SeeVolution is the Tumblr of Analytics

Posted by Chris on January 11, 2012 - 3:39 pm

SeeVolution Simplifies Web Analytics

5 Traits That Will Turn You Into A Web Analytics Samurai

Posted by Chris on December 15, 2011 - 3:52 pm

According to Wikipedia, the word trait is defined as a distinguishing characteristic or quality, especially of one’s personal nature. At SeeVolution we have come up with five analytics superior analytics traits. If you can master any one of these you will be well on your way to increasing your conversion rates and maximizing your bottom line.

1. Curiosity

Curiousity

“Why are more people clicking here? Will I get more sign ups if I move this button there?” Measuring analytics is an ongoing process that will never end. Those who are compelled to play around with their layout, colors, buttons, and product offerings will do much better than those who are content with just throwing a website up and hoping people click buy. If you are someone who enjoyed high school science classes than you will probably enjoy tinkering with your website.

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45 Activities That Heatmaps Give You More Time For

Posted by Chris on November 14, 2011 - 12:15 pm
Spending Time With Family

Family First

Heatmaps save you a lot of time. Here are 45 activities that you could be doing instead of measuring analytics the old fashioned way.

 Family

  1. Taking your kids to school
  2. Spending more time with your spouse
  3. Calling Mom, Dad, Sisters, or Brothers
  4. Remodeling the house
  5. Mowing the lawn
  6. Painting the garage
  7. Helping your kids with their homework
  8. Going to bed on time
  9. Waking up on time
  10. Not doing any work on the weekends
  11. Getting to your kids’ sporting events
  12. Playing house with your daughter (is that normal?)
  13. Family game night
  14. Family movie night
  15. Just being there

    16. Read More

What Construction Workers Taught Me About Time Management

Posted by Chris on November 01, 2011 - 10:12 am
Men at Work

Work Hard. Be Happy

Right now there is a building being built right next to my apartment. I don’t know how many stories it will be, but from the looks of things it will be pretty big. Currently they are in a deep hole (about three stories), which I am guessing will be for parking.

Sometimes I envy the construction workers because they can’t take their work home with them. It is impossible. Nowadays our work can follow us to the furthest corners of the world as long as there is Wi-Fi.

The point is that no one will ever build a building in one day. It is impossible. There are many phases that go into a building project like architecture, engineering, and construction. It is a grand process. But once it’s completed the building looks pretty cool, and all the construction workers can stand there, look at it for a little while and quietly think to themselves: “I built that thing.”

The trick for us geeks and nerds who are glued to our computer screens and smart phones all day is to remember that we can’t build it in a day. We can’t get 50 new clients, beef up SEO, measure analytics, and get a new blog post up all while documenting the entire thing via Facebook and Twitter. Its not scalable. If you try (and many have) you will just burn yourself out and live an unfulfilled life.

Variety is the spice of life. You will be amazed at how much your productivity will increase if you turn off the computer once and a while and actually live. Do something fun; get a hobby,  join a league.

Be like a construction worker.

5 Tips to Help You Read Analytics Like the Pros

Posted by Chris on October 18, 2011 - 6:19 pm

Tips on the Train Tracks

 

Repetition is the father of learning and analytics are no exception. Remember, the numbers represented by analytics are people. By reading your analytics everyday you are really reading your users everyday. So you are actually forcing yourself to read your users and what they really like, dislike, and crave.

2. Measure Your Progress

If you are not recording your progress then what is the point of making changes at all? Recording your progress is extremely important for a successful analytics campaign. We have a whiteboard that lists the dates we want something completed by and records the progress we have made in between those dates.

3. Set Goals

Setting goals is just as important as measuring your progress. There is no better feeling than reaching a goal or milestone that you set for yourself. You have set goals in all other areas of your life, so why not set them with analytics?

4. Tactfully Stay Up to Date with Analytics News and Features

I say tactfully because it can be easy to get overwhelmed with the daily tech news. Web analytics are constantly changing so you should be changing with it. Just be careful not to spend an overt amount of time here.

SeeVolution

5. Read Successful Analytics Case Studies

This is probably the easiest way to become an analytics pro. Find case studies with what has worked for other people and try them with your own site. A great resource for this is marketingexperiments.com, which is bursting with insightful, free case studies.

 

What do Magic Eye Books and Analytics Have in Common?

Posted by Chris on October 12, 2011 - 10:26 am
Magic Eye Book

Magic Eye and Web Analytics

Remember those Magic Eye books that were really popular in the 90’s? The first few times you tried, it seemed really confusing, even frustrating, especially since all your friends could see it. Then one day there it was, staring you in the face and you couldn’t believe that you did not see it the entire time. Once you got over the hump of understanding your first Magic Eye image, the ensuing ones got easier and more fun to read because that “I’ll never get it” mentality disappeared.

Analytics are the same way. To the untrained eye they can seem complex and confusing. People often have the “I’ll never understand this” mentality when dealing with analytics. But once it clicks and you finally get it, analytics don’t seem that confusing at all.

Learning how to read analytics is no different from learning a subject in school. Some people can pick it up right away and it takes others a while to comprehend. Some people can learn by reading “How To” articles and others do better with a webinar or even a friend or colleague sitting down with them to explain them in detail.

Whenever you get discouraged when trying to learn analytics just think back to the Magic Eye example and how easy it was after you got it the first time.

Why Managing Analytics is like Coaching in the NFL

Posted by Chris on October 07, 2011 - 8:42 am
Methodical Coaching and Site Management Go Hand in Hand

Mike McCarthy Coaching his Star Quarterback Aaron Rodgers

I have always felt like being a head coach of any sport is a lot like being the C.E.O. of a company. They’re both in charge and they both have to manage not only people, but money and publicity as well. They are the face of their respective organizations.

When a football coach trots his team out onto the gridiron every Sunday he is marching his best performing players that, in the coaches opinion, give his team the best chance to win.

When I was in middle school we used to have athletes from the University of Wisconsin come and talk to us as part of a community outreach program. One stuck out in my mind when he told us that the top 1% of high school athletes get to play in college and the top 1% of college athletes get to play at the professional level.

If you have ever seen the NFL draft, you know how much these players are measured and tested before pro teams make a decision to invest their time and money in them.

In order to start and actually play, these athletes have to go through months of grueling two-a-day practices. Each position, from quarterback to kicker, is looked at under a microscope before a decision is made. There is competition every week to see who gets to start so now job is ever considered safe.

The same way a head coach measures and tests his players, you should be measuring and testing your website. If it works, keep doing it. If it doesn’t, try something new.

Coaches always test new plays and different combinations of players. You should be trying out new products or services, or different value propositions.

Coaches set goals or milestones for their team to achieve. You can set goals for your conversion rates – keeping in mind that you should always be striving to exceed your previous numbers.

The NFL and Analytics, who would have thought?

(Photo by ESPN)

Technology Marketing Time Management

Posted by Chris on October 05, 2011 - 1:01 pm
Time Management 101

Time Management

We see it all the time: “Five Ways to this and Eight Tips for That” — SeeVolution is no exception, and shame on you for taking time out of your work day to read it. This is content marketing at it’s finest. Through blogging, people write about topics in their industry with the hope of you signing up to their site and eventually buying their product or service. I am fine with that. In fact, I prefer content marketing to banner ads or dare I say it, telemarketing. We have come a long way as marketers. Never before has there been an age with so much free information out there.

This information overload can be easy to be sucked into. Often, your own work pays the price. Ask yourself: Do you spend more time reading about how to implement online marketing strategies or implementing online marketing strategies you have read about?


It wasn’t until long ago, that I was guilty of the ladder. So, I decided to take a break from my online marketing and re-examine my time management strategy; a sort of back to the basics approach to time management.

For my own job, I took the tasks that I needed to complete and prioritized them in order of importance. Here is what my list looked like:

1. Write articles
2. Open up partnerships
3. Design and write an email campaign strategy
4. Schedule speaking engagements
5. Reach out for guest blog posting
6. Managing social media
7. Conduct market research for our infographics

Then I took an 8 hour work day and divvied up the time. Here is what it looked like when I was finished:

2 hours of writing
2 hours composing email campaigns
2 hours for speaking engagements and guest blog posts
1 hour managing social media                                                                      
1 hour of market research

This is what my day would look like in a perfect world, but we know we don’t live in a perfect world so often I find myself doing only one or two of the above activities in a day. But at least I know I am focusing on the right activities to do my best to help SeeVolution grow.

(Photo by Alan Cleaver)

SeeVolution Simplifies Web Analytics

Posted by Chris on September 15, 2011 - 3:03 pm
SeeVolution Levels the Playing Field

Anyone can use SeeVolution

In marketing, measuring and testing is the name of the game. Before the Internet, the only groups that could consistently measure and test new ideas were large corporations.

Whether it was a new flavor, shoe, or feature, the big guys were constantly testing ways to increase their bottom line. Sometimes their tests failed miserably like McDonald’s did with their Arch Deluxe sandwich. Others had great success like the dairy industry with their “Got Milk?” campaign, which took off in 1993.

The point is your business’s sales are directly correlated with how much measuring and testing you conduct on your website. And in the age of the Internet, or more specifically in the age of SeeVolution, it has never been easier to measure and test what works and what doesn’t. We can’t tell you how many times our users have been blown away with ease of use that SeeVolution offers. You no longer need to hire a high priced website expert to optimize your site. With SeeVolution’s real-time analytics and heatmaps software you will enjoy access to all of the valuable statistics that large corporations know about their products and services without the large corporation prices.

(Photo by Phil and Pam)

 

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