How to create a webtrends custom report

the webtrends menu in my old company login, new one isn’t as nice.

First off I am going toclarify that I am working in WebTrends self hosted software version 8 and that I have administrator access to do this. Without those factors you won’t neccissarily have the same experience setting up custom reports.

I have already had the developers add tags to the site to track custom events (SDC tags, DCS MultiTrack events) and I don’t work with the actuall tagging on the website so I will not address those concerns here.

I’m starting from the point where the tags are live on the site and I need to set up this custom report so we can start gathering data. If you need retroactive data because the tags were placed on the site months ago and you didn’t create the report, it is only possible if you create the report and re-process all the data from scratch for that time period and this is usually done in a new profile. This takes a long time (sometimes weeks if you have years of data) and the people maintaining the servers and data for your webtrends setup usually hate you if you ask. So, let’s stay out of that area and go build a report that will collect data in a table from this point forward.

One of the most frustrating thing about WebTrends is that nothing is connected and it is a bunch of database tables. Nobody in Marketing thinks that way or interacts with a system like this so it is completley foregin. (‘m getting the feeling that the developers feel the same way too) You have to go into several tables in the database behind the webtrends software and create the structure for the report. It sucks but that is the way it works.

For every custom report you need at least three things. A Measure, A Dimension and A Report. (you may also want a filter but that isn’t required).

1. Testing - Some people (webtrends actually advises this) like to create a copy of the profile to test the reports (or any changes to the profile) before they add or change anything for real. This reduces the probablility that you will have some change corrupt or crash your data. If you depend on this data and have a lot of custom reports and data already set in the profile you’re working with, start with a copy profile first and don’t endanger the main data set. Work in that sandbox until you find the right combination of settings, write them down and then go back to the main profile when you’re sure the report exports the right data in the right format. There is a one day waiting period to collect data to test in most cases unless you’re running on-demand (of which most of my advice may not apply to) or you have updates and processing every few hours. Also only select the most recent month’s data in the copy profile, you don’t need all the data to run a test.

2. A Dimension is what most people would call a metric name. It is the data being collected from those custom tags. Just because the tags are in the WebTrends format and live on the site doesn’t mean that the WebTrends software knows that they are there or what to do with that data. You need to create a dimension to name this data and create a table to collect it in. Go to Dimensions in the admin menu. (some systems show custom report menus under reports & profiles others in Admin, check both) Select new on the upper right corner. Name it. Give it a column name for reports. Use the navigation to go through the process steps to finish creating this measure. You will need the actual tag names for this. In my case it is WT.it. Not terribly descriptive but hopefully functional. Do not select to activate across all profiles because you also need to go into the profiles (the main one and the copy) you are working with and enable this dimension there so it knows which profile it is working with. You don’t want to affect everyone elses profiles with this extra data, just yours. They need a drop down within the dimension setup to allow you to select this all at once but of course that doesn’t exist to confuse us more.

3. A Measure is another function you need to set up manually (in a database table?) and tell WebTrends that along with the Dimension you just created a table for, should you count or sum this data? In a system like DART, this is so simple it is a drop down choice on an export menu, here you have to configure the backend system of the millennium falcon to get it set. Silly but true. Go to Measures on the custom reports menu. Select new on the upper right corner. Name it. Give it a column name for reports. Use the navigation to go through the process steps to finish creating this measure. You will need the actual tag names for this. You must also go into the profiles (the main one and the copy) you are working with and enable this measure there so it is activated. Ditto about not selecting all profiles on the measure setup so that this works. For my purposes I had the WT.ti (page title tag) and 4 parameters that were possible when that tag was used. (ShareThis: Facebook, Twitter, Email & MySpace) and they all got created as additional measures also. This will give us more granularity in the data showing us not only which pages had share this activity but which site it was shared to.

4. The Custom Report finally! – After about 4 hours of setup for the setup you can finally go do what you originally set out to do. Go to the reports link under custom reports.

The menu for setting up the report asks for the info about the dimensions and measures you just set up as well as how you want the data compiled. I always allow for sorting ability but you don’t have to if you want to save space and if you just export it all anyway it may not matter.

The setup for the report makes more sense having seen everything we’ve already talked through. It is also worth noting that if your template for webtrends software doesn’t have a left nav bar location for the custom reports you have to find the template being used now for your back-end-interface then you have to go into that version of template and add custom reports to that list. I found mine under report configuration, report designer in the report and profiles section of the menu. See screen shot at left. Click the top line of the left nav in the template to deselect the chapters already there and add a new report and list it in a new chapter for custom reports.

You also need to enable the report in the profile itself. Each version of WebTrends has a slightly different menu, but in the edit-report menu of the profile there is a reports tab that lists all the custom reports set up in the system and you select the ones you want to enable.

After this your data in the test copy profile should work, then the trick is repeating it all over again in the main profile and remembering all the steps.

Top 5 Web Analytics Metrics

I’ve been working with (Google/WebTrends/Omniture) Analytics data for 4 years now and the requests for Analytics data usually come in 2 styles.

1. The super basic: just tell me my site is still running, whatever everyone else looks at.

2. The super detailed auditors: tell me each of 180 customer segment’s data sliced and diced 10 ways and the month to month change, YOY change and a dozen other things the software doesn’t calculate for you. This could take months to implement and most of the time they have lost interest in it by the time you get it working properly.

I get frustrated with both. The super simple manager needs to look at more than just visits from month to month. The uber detailed guy needs to hire a developer to implement all that and not make changes each month to how they want data tracked and processed because all the time is spent on implementation and none on analysis and most of the time nobody even looks at all the 180 segments of reports.

They also need to realize that all the systems take the data and summarize it or cut off tracking at a max number of log files, web pages or analysis processes to maintain the integrity and size of the database tables. Try and do a full audit of every page view and click and you will crash WebTrends and re-processing it can take months. Google Analytics doesn’t even give you options to do more than what they summarize. Omniture really tries, but its a slow slow process.

Instead I am supporting the idea that web analytics data is really about trends and not audits. These numbers will never match your server logs perfectly nor your clicks from campaigns and that is OK. I also have listed here 5 metrics to look at and why they are important for your online site. One caveat is that I do not work for an e-commerce website so that has not been our focus. The focus is on conversion to application for recruitment purposes for companies. 

1. Visits - yes month over month traffic is important. What is more important is to look at the difference in traffic and drill down into what gained or lost traffic in the way of pages/content on the site and what sources changed in their contribution of the total traffic. This is actionable where as just visits aren’t. Also check back with the costs for each of these budget areas and compare the cost per visit provided by each.

2. Referrers - in a nutshell you should know how much traffic is coming from search, direct and your advertising/marketing plans online and offline. Within those groups you can drill down further but the direct category is always problematic because many analytics packages track page pop-up forms as new visits as well as returning to the site after a conversion process. Also remember that a session is usually 30 min, after that its reset as new.

3. Implementation - no this isn’t a metric but it is a focus you should have on a monthly basis to make sure new sites, pages get tracking added, new campaigns get tracked and that you keep researching new technology developments with your analytics package that may change everything. Having a good web developer along that has access to the servers and can make these changes is key if you’re not a developer (and no developers don’t make good analysts, a best case scenario is a dynamic duo where they are paired up and both work on projects together and learn from eachother) and the helpdesk type services available through Google are non-existent so good luck there interpreting the overly simplified online tutorials that don’t match what your clients want or answer your client’s specific needs/questions. WebTrends and Omniture are slightly better with web support but they expect you to pay a lot for it. A good independent consultant may be the fastest most reliable way to go here.

4. What people search for on your site. This can be tricky to implement but if you get this data it can be very telling. if people can’t find something on your site and search for it, you get a window into what they were thinking. this may tell you that the content you have isn’t what they want or that it isn’t as navigable as you thought. New product ideas also come from this data.

5. Where people exit from your site. This is classic application drop off analysis within any online linear process. But guess what? People don’t always think linear-ly. Expect some of this data to drop off in chunks but a small amount to drop off at all points for unknown reasons.  Its more actionable to focus on the large chunks and look at each page and the click maps for them but sometimes only so much optimization is possible here without doing real life usability testing with 5-10 people.

I’m sure there are more things that people can look into with geographic data and time on site but sometimes I think those are less actionable because you have little control over where your ads run because geo-targeting doesn’t always work well (excluding more than it includes) and time on site can be good or bad at short and long times. The content/pages that are popular on your site are also important but this is one of those custom setups that each division will need tracking by their geo-location and they never admit that so much traffic cross pollinated from each other’s campaigns. You have to read into the specific needs of your client to see if these apply and how to evaluate them without over complicating the reports. I really believe you should look at 5 key metrics or less in a report, more than that is not actionable and is distracting from your purpose/process of improvement. 

There is also a difference between researching a question/metric once, and doing it monthly when it never changes. I don’t believe its a good use of time to report on time on site if its been consistent month over month for the last 2 years. Check in once a year and leave the other data to be reported monthly, save the analyst’s energy for the new questions that need answering and trust your site.

What else do you think is applicable? Any feedback?

Bounce Rates on Google Analytics

I was just discussing what Bounce Rates were in Google Analytics and thought this could be a potentially confusing term and would be helpful to blog about. I also work with WebTrends .

We have a client that has a site with us that had a high bounce rate and a high exit rate. (50% for some pages) Anything above 20% would be something worth looking into in my opinion, but the differences change depending on the site, product, sales process and design so everyone has their owne level of normal as a benchmark and you try and improve from there.

They wondered if this Bounce Rate was an issue, as many clients would.

The thing is, it may not be an issue to have a high Bounce Rate because if people land on a product description page and then click to buy (or in our case, apply) is this really bad?

Well the qualifier for a Bounce Rate is that they viewed that one page and left. This does not include someone clicking on a link on the page to buy/apply. That would be an exit. They would not have viewed any other page on the site or interacted (clicked) anything else either. This bounce would be from hitting the back button or clicking the x button on the browser.

Exits from the site are considered people who have viewed more than one page and finished their visit. They may click to apply/buy or they may x-out of the window or they may reload the home page. (just a few of many examples) One tricky thing is when someone gets a site that launches a new window for a page you click on. That is typically an exit and new site visit. 

So, is this good or bad? For this client I think it is ok, because they are very stringent about who they are looking to hire and when people see the extensive requirements I am pretty sure most people would realize whether they had a shot at the job or not very quickly and either click forwards in the path to apply (on an Applicant Tracking System application site, (don’t ask, too many sites linked with too many processes)) or back out. It is very straight forward and very few other options are on the page.

How do you reduce bounce rates?

I never hear people talk about strategies to get more qualified traffic to these pages, I just hear about providing more info on the page to help them convert. That is a great strategy and if you can link exact search terms to the appropriate products/jobs with a page designed for one clear desired action then you are doing well. If you can suggest other related alternatives on the same page, maybe on the right sidebar, you are doing even better. If you have an email sign-up that says, not what you are looking for? Sign up here and we’ll email you when new ones come up. Great. But if you have a lot of traffic bouncing even then, you may want to look at the source. What words are your pages optimized for and why do those keywords not match what you’re providing or asking people to do? Maybe search is also not the right medium to find people based on the Google Insights search volume for that term and you are getting similar searches/clicks but not for what you offer. Maybe reel in the search efforts and go for more qualified means of finding these specific people like email, targeted display ads (by content/interest, behavior or location) or offline communication. (gasp!)

Remember Google Analytics (or any analytics package) is not just about a bunch of numbers and bunk. If you can’t figure out what the human behavior is behind the numbers or what the actual user/customer wants they don’t mean much of anything except that your site is up and running.

Engagement Marketing Metrics, ROI & Open ID

I have been reading a lot about how conversion tracking isn’t enough data to make the best decisions and engagement is the new black. It is frustrating because no one defines engagement in the same way and no one can really tell you what it is.

I do agree though that engagement is the next evolutionary step in tracking onlinemedia for ROI purposes. I think the trouble people will have will be in customizing it rather than standardizing it. I think the meaningful parts of the process will be totally different depending on the company, the media, the process and the product.

What I consider the next thing for my own tracking purposes is prior ad exposures. This is an engagement metric for the ads leading up to conversion rather than site visitors for our own site. I don’t work with analytics usually or determine how to get someone to engage with a process over and over again. I do try and figure out ways to advertise affordably and get people to complete the conversion process. This prior exposures report should provide more insight into how many, where, when and how people come to the conversion site. I am thinking it should provide us information we won’t anticipate as well as show some information we knew would be there.

I am also a bit pissed off with this stupid marketing sherpa execuitive summary report. Pretty much everything written in it is complete bunk since there are a ton of caveats to each graph and I would bet more is according to how people track and assess results than how the media actually performs. If people would track media post impression they would see the value of banners rather than just for clicks. This is so frustrating until you see the data. Then it just makes sense.

People are influenced by banners (branding) and that whole banner blindness thing had to do with the crap companies that were allowed to buy ads with spammy business practices and scams.  They are still out there and as long as they are allowed because of corporate greed, people will keep ignoring some of the good ads for things they really do want and need. Targeting is part of the equation, but as far as targeting goes, we are still in the dark ages.

This brings me to another beef I have with the online ad industry right now. Everyone LOVES behavioral targeting, even if they don’t know what that means. (It has nothing to do with your behavior most of the time by the way.) It is a tracking of people who have been selected as a target by their profile info (Yahoo) or by visiting your site before and the ads follow you around on the web. The latter is the better way to do this (indicating actual interest rather than categorical inclusion) although we don’t know nearly enough about our target customers to really be able to target them online.

I am always asked why someone targeted for one category converts in an opposite one. Why? I have no F-ing clue dude! People are multi-faceted. They can belong to more than one interest or category even if marketers feel it shouldn’t be allowed. People have many aspects to their life and interests and they will always be that way. We won’t know all that data about them or how to process it for a long long long time.

That is what this stupid open ID thing will eventually lead to. A one stop shop for all your profiles and data so marketers can target you on hundreds of variables like what you do for fun, what you do for work and where you shop and live. (they have to sell out sometime) It would take literally hundreds of actual customer profiles to understand the marketability of each of these demographics, and then targeted messages to serve specifically to each profile type. It will take a few years to get there but I think it will get there sooner than I am personally ready for. I don’t know how to collect, assess or value those metrics about customers nor do I really want them targeting me like that.

Oy! Anyway, I am most interested in the overlapping cloud of ads that all influence someone to buy or sign up for something rather than I am in trying to figure out how to track a million personal profiles and target them with individual ads. Also, contrary to that stupid exec summary, pop-ups and unders still suck ass and you know it.

Even More Business Confusion

I work in metrics so I see a lot of new data and have to decide what it means and how it can help us, but I was hearing someone talk about a business intelligence position here today and I realized I don’t exactly know what that is. It’s not what I do but I am not sure what it really is either. So like we need any more confusion about what the strategy is here and what data is used to make decisions. Some day I would like to be involved in some of these decisions but I am not sure that will ever happen.

In the mean time though I looked up Business Intelligence on Wikipedia and it says that its about the use of data about the key performance indicators for your business that should be driving what you are doing with planning for your business. Some people like to hire outside Business Objects Consultants with fancy predictive modeling software to tell you what to do next. There seems to be an entire industry devoted to this type of work. Other people likeo get down and dirty and get into their own accounting books and metrics data of their own business and make decisions that way. I have to say that I think the latter is the better position to go with. Sometimes software can help but your business has to have multiple key performance indicators and conversion metrics to need that kind of package.  And you have to have some big huge savings from this analysis to justify the cost of it in the first place. So, I guess that by hiring someone internally to do this here they are doing the right thing. I should be glad then that we won’t be over run by a gagle of consultants any time soon.