1. Overview of web analytics
for nonprofit news organizations
Dana Chinn
1. What is web analytics?
2. Defining goals
3. Basic site metrics
4. Social media metrics
5. Mobile metrics
November 2011

2. Improving a site starts
with identifying what needs to change
Start here
not here
2

3. Three types of decision-making
HIghest Paid Person’s Opinion
-- Avinash Kaushik Google
Kaushik,
Decision-making with bad data, too much data
data
and/or no goals
Decision-making
Decision making with data in a
continuous improvement
process
3

4. Web analytics is the analysis of data
“to drive a continual improvement of the online experience…
which translates into your desired outcomes.”
y
Just one
part of
web
analytics
4
from Web Analytics 2.0 by Avinash Kaushik

5. Is this site successful?
Our site has 5,000 monthly unique visitors.
Last Tuesday that story got 20,000 page
views.
Our iPhone app was downloaded 10 000 times.
10,000 times
We have 2,000 Likes on Facebook.
We have 5,000 Twitter followers
5 000 followers.
It depends.
Not all traffic is equal
q
5

6. Questions for a e-commerce company
Who came to our site?
e.g., previous vs. new; high vs. low potential
How did they get here?
What did they look at?
Were they successful in getting what they wanted?
A simple e-commerce data story
“Current and potential customers who typed in “t-shirts”
in Google arrived on our t-shirts landing page.
1.5% of them made a purchase.”
6
-- Corey Koberg, Cardinal Path

7. The questions for a news organization are the same…
Who came to our site?
e.g., previous vs. new; high vs. low potential
How did they get here?
What did they look at?
Were they successful in getting what they wanted?
…so why i the typical story usually something lik this?
h is h i l ll hi like hi
Our site has 5,000 monthly unique visitors.
Last Tuesday that story got 20,000 page views.
y yg , p g
The average time spent on our site last week
was 24 minutes.
Our iPhone app was downloaded 10,000 times.
We have 2,000 fans on our Facebook page.
We have 5,000 Twitter followers
5 000 followers.
7

8. Traditional mass media business model:
Eyeballs to advertisers
Advertisers pay to spray their messages to everyone…
p y p y g y
….and pray it reaches the right people
The metrics used to define success are based on
The total number of people reached
The percent of people reached in a specific geographic area
Market share vs other radio competitors
vs.
Everyone in the audience is equally important.

9. Internet business model:
People can get news whenever they want,
wherever th
h they want, and on multiple devices
t d lti l d i
Advertisers pay to reach only the people they want
want…
…and only the people they can’t reach directly themselves
d l h l h ’ h di l h l
or through other targeted ways
The metrics used to define success are based on
the percent of people reached in a specific interest group
and
whether those people were engaged enough to deliver
the results the advertiser wants - sales, sales leads, sign-ups, etc.
“The more insight a publisher has into its audience, the more it can charge advertisers.”
Alan Pearlstein, Cross-Pixel Media, Ad Age, 8/8/11

10. Questions for a nonprofit news organization
Is Alhambra Source reaching people in
Alhambra?
How many?
Population: 85,000
How often?
Is it reaching people of all types?
Businesses?
Is it growing?
Do people need it? Value it? Like it?
Does i h
D it have influence?
i fl ?
What’s working? What’s not?
What would it take for Alhambra Source
to be successful?
10

11. Defining success starts with defining a target audience
Everyone Alhambra Source could serve: 85,000
-- adults and children
-- Asian, Latino, Caucasian/other
-- Languages: Cantonese, Mandarin, Spanish,
English, other
Who Alhambra Source can serve NOW with
current resources* - less than 85,000
-- adults
-- English-speaking
-- Internet access
* One FT journalist, volunteer community contributors, web only. Does not have
the staffing to produce everything in three languages. 11

12. Is Alhambra Source successful? Could it be?
Who Is Alhambra Source reaching people in
Alhambra?
How many? in its target audience of xx,xxx
How often?
in its target audience
Is it reaching people of all types? Businesses?
How engaged are they?
Is it growing? in its target audience
in its target audience
Do people need it? Value it? Like it?
Does it have influence? in its target audience
in its target audience
What’s working? What’s not?
What are its audience goals if it gets more funding? Less?
Is its business plan achievable?
Does it have what it will take?
12

13. A site for a traditional news organization needs different audience
goals, definitions of success – and metrics
Is WBUR.org (Boston public radio)
A site that’s a supplement to its radio programming?
or
A stand-alone news site that competes against
other 24/7 Boston news organizations?
Can WBUR attract the new
Boston-area audiences it
needs for donations and
sponsorships if its site is
focused on serving its current
radio audiences with
nonexclusive NPR and non non-
Boston content?
13

14. WBUR should segment audiences by channel behavior
to understand how to target them effectively
Level of
engagement
- Listen to live stream
- Listen to radio podcasts
- Use web content
- Listen to live stream/radio programming and
use web content
- Interact due to radio content
- Interact due to radio and web content
14

15. Metrics are for decision-making, not marketing
g g
You had to cut one reporter. How
reporter
should the others re-arrange their
time?
You got new funding! What
should be covered –
something new or
something more?
Should you partner with another
organization?
Nonprofit news orgs with clearly defined,
targeted local audience goals probably will
not find much worth in partnering with a
traditional mainstream news org.
g
15

16. Internal metrics External metrics
for for
Strategic Planning Marketing, Advertising
• Census data • Panel, toolbar data
100% of all visitors, visits, page Activity from a sample of self-
views, etc. in a site selected people. Usually not
relevant for small sites.
• Analysis, decisions, • Marketing, trending,
actions, evaluation competitive analysis
• Omniture • comScore
Google Analytics Nielsen
WebTrends Compete
etc.
etc etc.
• Web Analytics • Interactive Advertising
Association Bureau
16

17. Step 1: Understand the clickstream,
or every action relevant to site goals
Behavioral research
What people did
when they came to your site,
h h
as captured by
an action taken on a keyboard or
mouse
17

18. What actions indicate engagement?
Visit
Vi it , regularly
l l
Read/view content, a l
R d/ i lot
Interact,
Interact often
-- rate, print, vote, take a poll, click on an ad
-- share, e-mail, comment, contribute
18

19. Story count vs. traffic by topic gives
info on what content is working or not
given how resources are allocated Any info input by a user gives
y p y g
invaluable information on what
people want – and what it expects
the site to have
19

20. Ask people for info that allows you to engage them on ONLY
the topics they want…
…and which can be used
for targeting
advertisers/sponsors
and allocating news
resources
20

21. Basic site metrics
Unique visitors
U i i it
visit sites
and generate
page views
21

22. Total visits:
One indicator of overall site performance
A visit i counted
i it is o ted
every time
someone comes to a site
Visits: the strongest metric available
An increase in visits is always good.
-- More people are coming to your site.
-- Returning people are coming more often.
A decrease in visits? Always bad.
22

23. Strong vs. weak metrics
g
Strong metrics are useful tools
that give clear indications
of what’s successful or not
c. Kyle Taylor
Weak metrics…
-- are conceptually flawed
“so what?” counts of things
-- are technically flawed
metrics calculated by
web analytics systems c. Kyle Taylor
in ways that give unclear indications
…could be so misleading
they could lead to bad decisions
23

24. Really weak metric #1: Unique visitors
A unique visitor is really a unique computer.
Unique visitors are either over-counted…
…or under-counted.
library,
school,
Internet
I t t
cafe
You’ll never know which or by how much.*
* It doesn’t matter anyway….better to measure outcomes (did people do what you wanted?) than
the number of people who came to your site.
24

25. Really weak metric #2: Page views
An increase in page views can be good - or bad *
bad.*
Bad design navigation site architecture?
design, navigation,
Lots of page views, annoyed users
A redesign improved usability?
?
Fewer page views happier users
views,
Content that should be there but isn’t?
Lots of page views, annoyed users
Dynamic content?
Fewer page views, happier users (probably)
* It doesn’t matter anyway….better to measure outcomes (d d people d what you wanted?) than
d ’ b (did l do h d ) h
the number of pages people went to when they came to your site.
25

26. Really weak metric #3: Time spent on site
An increase in average time spent on site can be good –
or bad.*
Bad design, navigation, site architecture?
g , g ,
?
Lots of time spent, annoyed users
A redesign improved usability?
Less time spent, happier users
p , pp
* It doesn’t matter anyway….better to measure outcomes (d d people d what you wanted?) than
d ’ b (did l do h d ) h
how much time people spent on your site.
26

27. Systems only measure the time spent
in between pages on a site so
site, so…
?
The time spent of a user who g
p goes only to one
y
page is NOT included in the average time spent
calculation.
Time spent = 0
and not included in average calculations
1
minute The time spent on the last page
of a site isn’t counted at all.
10
Time spent =
minutes 1 minute
Site
X
27

28. Three types of site metrics that can be used
to segment visitors by behavior
1. Visitor acquisition: How did people get to the site? Is your marketing working?
Trafffic sources: direct, referrals, search engines, campaigns (e.g., e-mail
newsletters, ads)
2. Site behavior: What did they do once they got to the site? “I came. I saw. I puked.”
-- Avinash Kaushik on bounce rate
Bounce rate of a landing page – did people leave after seeing only one page?
Visits that included internal search
Visits that went to a particular type of content
3. Outcomes: Did people take the actions essential to the organization’s success?
Visit frequency and recency
Sign-up for an e-mail newsletter
Buy a benefit dinner ticket
Donate; sign up for membership

29. The bounce rate of a landing page is much more actionable than the
bounce rate of the entire site
Start by looking at the top landing page, or the page where most visits start
100%
51%
8,331
Home page bounce rate: 43%
16,304 visits
visits started
on
content
pages
49%
7,973 57% 43% left the site
4,547 3,426 without going
visits went to
started at least to another
on the
one page
other
home page
page
Action: Let’s try
Week of Sept. 11, 2011 changing the home
page
29

30. The percent of entrances to the top landing pages indicates
WBUR.org may be seen more as a radio supplement
than as a stand-alone news source
OnPoint
Home page: wbur.org
radio show site
15% Percent of entrances to
Radio
Radio-
26% related
Live stream pop-up pages
7% 28%
Listening center And bounce
rates to radio-
related landing
pages are higher
3%
Here and Now
radio show site
di h it
3%
Not actual WBUR numbers

31. If WBUR’s goal is to be a 24/7 news site,
it should also calculate bounce rate based on those who bounce
from the live stream page.
p g
A visit that enters the site through the home page…
…and
goes only to the
live stream and
radio content…
…is not counted as a “bounce” in web analytics systems.
BUT it should be interpreted as a visit that’s not
interested or engaged with web content.
31

32. Visitor site behavior metrics – landing page, topics visited,
pages per visit, bounce rate, etc. – vary based on how people
entered the site
Percent of visits that left immediately after coming
75% A high
bounce rate
to the site, by traffic source
site from search
engines may
indicate you
55% don’t have
the right
A low bounce
rate from content
referring
sites usually
A high indicates you
bounce rate have a good
from direct
o d ect link strategy
traffic may
indicate your 20%
current
audiences
aren’t
engaging
with you
Direct Referrals Search
32

33. To understand what content is working, categorize each story with
multiple classifications by content topic, geography, type (text, video)
and source (staff, wire)
( , )
Elections
Crime
Sports
Staff-
Staff Opinion
O i i
produced Schools Editorial
Health about Cambridge
school lunch nutrition
Not staff- Boston
produced Cambridge
Newton
New Hampshire
Most news orgs use traditional media content categorizations that are too
broad t truly understand visitor i t
b d to t l d t d i it interests and intent
t di t t
33

34. Attitudinal research is essential for nonprofit
organizations to assess site success and other
program goals such as the level of civic
engagement
“What was the purpose of your visit today? Did you find what you wanted?”
Use it
U site or page-level
l l
pop-up surveys to
calculate task completion
rates
Market Motive/Avinash Kaushik

35. Social
media
Not only are the technologies new,
but the metrics are as well.
--Online Media and Marketing Association Metrics and Measurement program, June 2009
35

36. We know about “spray and pray” business models…
The social media ‘provide and pray’ model
Not having a purpose for social media efforts “….often leads to a worst
practice we call ‘provide and pray.’
Leaders and managers provide access to a social technology, and
then pray that a community forms
and that community interactions
somehow lead to business value.
In most cases, adoption never really
materializes; communities may
form, but their activity is not
considered valuable to the
organization.”
“Social Media Success Is About Purpose (Not Technology),” by Anthony J. Bradley and Mark P. McDonald, Harvard Business Review,
Nov. 1, 2011

37. Why should news
and nonprofit
organizations…
…have a Facebook page?
…tweet?
“Effectively measuring social media,” Susan Etlinger, Altimeter Group webinar, April 2011
How important are either in achieving their goals?
Are either of them essential, given
--a large part of the target audience may not be
on Facebook and/or Twitter?
--extremely limited resources?
Social media metrics are just as important as site metrics.

38. Two different types of communities
yp
A traditional news org website A social media service
has content serves participants
who
that it distributes
to people
-- group themselves
-- have the
same
who are interests
in the same geography -- contribute content
-- have conversations
38

39. Understand how to measure Twitter,
and you’ll understand how to measure social media
Content
Followers
not demographics or other typical mass
media audience metrics 39

40. User- Tweet-
centric centric
metrics metrics
“Twitalyzer and TweetReach – A Symbiotic Pairing for Twitter Analysis,” by Tim Wilson, March 8, 2011

41. Measurable tweets have
have…
1. A call to action
Go here…look…tell me
2.
2 A link that you track with link (e g bit y)
(e.g., bit.y)
and web analytics tools
RT - retweet
MT – modified tweet
3. #Hashtags and/or keywords Via or HT – heard through
Favorite
Lists
4. Topic or person-specific handles
…120 or fewer characters, not 140!
120 characters
41

42. Tweetreach gives some understanding of the importance of a
topic and a news org’s reach through Twitter vs. other users
Is th
I the news org an
influencer in the
conversation?

43. Topsy can help identify if influencers by topic

44. Twitalyzer assesses whether an org should cultivate an influencer
Impact: number of followers, unique references and citations, frequency of unique retweets,
update frequency
Engagement: R i of people referenced by the user to the number of people
E Ratio f l f d b h h b f l
referencing the user
Influence: Likelihood that a Twitter user will retweet what this user has written or reference
this user.

45. Are each of this journalist’s followers worth $2.50?
PhoneDog claims it was damaged because its former editor
didn t
didn’t transfer his Twitter handle after he quit.
It says each of its Twitter followers were worth $2.50.
“Can a Twitter Account Be a Company Trade Secret?” by Jeff Roberts, PaidContent.org, Nov. 2011

46. On his own, he’s
still “influential”
And PhoneDog is not

47. “Using Facebook Insights…is complicated by poor
documentation,
documentation unclear definitions inconsistent naming and
definitions,
frequent updates.” --Nestor Archival Jr., Stratigent
Facebook I i ht
F b k Insights
No. of active users
No. of likes
No.
No of comments
“Facebook Page Analytics: Using and Integrating Data from Facebook Insights,” by Nestor Archival Jr., Stratigent,
May 2011 47

48. Be honest with the metrics
Do 538 people
REALLY “Like”
this?
Or do h
O d they jjust
want another
sweepstakes
entry?
48

49. Nov.
Nov election
Encourage lots of active
users to avoid dominant
commentators who might
constrict interaction
Have different pages by topic
to encourage participation,
understand which topics
Higher education generate the most comments
All 3 comments on these
two subjects are from the
same person
49

51. “What matters is everything that happens after you post / tweet /
participate….The ‘so what’ matters!”
1. Conversation: “Social means
talk and listen and discuss. So
why not measure that?”
2. Amplification: “The rate at
which your followers take your
co te t a d s a e t t oug t e
content and share it through their
network.”
3.
3 Applause: “What does your audience like?
What like?”
“Best Social Media Metrics,” by Avinash Kaushik, Oct. 10, 2011. Chart designed by Erik Ohlen

52. Mobile is more than apps
Mobile web Augmented
reality
y
Mobile applications
Near-field
Mobile commerce communication
SMS or text Mobile barcodes / Quick
Response (Q ) codes
p (QR)
Location-based
services
Proximity marketing
Greg Dowling, Semphonic, Oct. 2011
52

53. “Mobile…metrics are nascent at best.”
Some mobile web metrics
--Page views, visits, visitors, new/repeating
--Length of visit, bounce rate, depth of visit
--Sources: search, referrers, keywords
, , y Some mobile app metrics
--Campaigns: responses, goal completion
--Downloads
--Geographic location
--Active user rate
etc. --App starts and closes
--In app events
In
--Sessions
--Trial to paid upgrade
etc.
And everything differs by
--Device (screen size, audio/video capabilities, etc.)
--Manufacturer
--Operating system
etc.
Greg Dowling, Semphonic, Oct. 2011

54. Audiences and actions differ by channel…
…so there are completely different metrics for each!
And you need to report them all separately – you can’t add
them up to get a total audience number
SOCIAL
SITES MEDIA MOBILE
Totals
1. Who? How many?
In target audience? ? ? ? ? ? ?
2. No. of visits?
2 f i i ?
How often? ? ? ? ? ? ?
3. What did they see? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Did they get want
they wanted?
4. Did they interact?
y ? ? ? ? ? ?
What did they do?
How much?
54

55. Using data for decision-making
1. Define a measurable audience.
2. Set specific goals across all channels;
Measure
map metrics to goals.
Optimize
Act Web Report
Analytics 3. Set up your site to measure
actions that indicate
engagement
Analyze
Don’t forget about Voice of
Customer
55