For decades, companies have been paying lip service to the idea of delighting customers, while disappointing them in every channel. That tactic won’t cut it anymore. Why not? We’ve entered a new era that Forrester calls the age of the customer — a time when customer experience matters more than any other strategic imperative.

For most companies, customer experience is the single greatest predictor of whether they’ll get another purchase from their customers — or see them defect to a competitor.  It’s so critical that even virtual monopolies like cable providers and health insurers suffer when they fail at it.

Customer experience goes to the heart of everything you do — the value you provide, how you conduct business, and the way your people behave when they interact with customers and each other. You can’t afford to ignore it because your customers take it personally each and every time they touch your products, your services, and
your support.

This year, Forrester’s Customer Experience Forum will feature case studies, data, business models, and tools from its upcoming book, Outside In: The Power of Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business. It will show you how leaders in industries like financial services, retail, media, and telecommunications take control of the factors that make or break customer experience at their organizations with tools including ecosystem maps and the six disciplines of customer experience.

In addition to its outstanding industry guests, it will deliver consumer data, analysis, one-on-one meetings with Forrester analysts, plus peer networking. These will give you the actionable insights needed to transform your company so that you can reap the full business benefits of the customer experience revolution.

Click here for event information and pricing.

Brands within the hospitality industry are constantly evolving as they respond to consumer needs, market conditions and changes in the competitive landscape.  In response to years of a struggling economy, many of these brands aimed to increase their value proposition by offering more services to their guests, lower rates or more loyalty program benefits. However, in order to stay competitive, brands need to constantly strive to understand their customers, what motivates them to include them in the consideration set, and ultimately, what it takes for them to return and develop loyalty. 

Websites are often the first experience consumers have with a hotel brand and become a frequent interaction point for return customers. Thus, the website experience can serve as a strategic tool for gathering information about your customers’ perceptions based on their overall experience with the brand. With this in mind, it’s important to retain a brand’s DNA – or raison d’être – as the underpinning of any customer feedback strategy in order to foster and sustain longer term brand impressions.  Just as important is making sure that websites are an integrated component of the full marketing platform and delivering on visitor expectations, which is critical for brand building and customer retention today.

How can you turn online customer experiences into brand building?

Create synergy between channels

A brand’s website has evolved from being an extension of the marketing mix to a central component that is often the primary source of revenue generation. However, regardless of where the website sits in the brand’s overall strategy, synergy across all communications channels is key. This means that the creative elements and the brand essence it conveys must be the same as with what is being delivered through other media such as television, print, and social networks, so that consumers receive one consistent message and impression that they associate with the brand. A uniform strategy across all platforms facilitates brand recognition and ensures that consumers understand the brand benefits, which ultimately helps drive brand loyalty.

Align what they see with what you’ve got

The online channel is an excellent way to showcase what your visitors can expect if they book with you. Consequently, the copy and images used on your website should reflect your brand personality and quality. For example, if you are a luxury brand, using cartoons will likely not align with your brand image; if you are a midscale brand, you might want to communicate the value you provide by highlighting the services you offer in a clear and compelling way. Regardless of where your brand sits in the spectrum, however, remember that your visitors will judge you by what they see on your website. Therefore, it is worthwhile to invest in quality images and multimedia in order to “put your best face forward” so as to bolster the image that your brand projects.

Strike the right balance between information and clicks

The majority of visitors to a hospitality website are Lookers – they are information seekers. Therefore, focus on providing sufficient content to meet visitors’ needs. The good news is that most hospitality brands excel in this area, relevant content often surfaces as the highest scoring element of a website, according to the Q4 2011 iPerceptions’ Hospitality and Tourism Industry Report.  But many hospitality websites struggle when it comes to supplying the additional layer of more detailed content that the visitor is looking for, such as information on hotel services, room amenities, and so on. This is because there is a fine line between providing enough and too much information, such that the latter could result in a cluttered page view, thus overwhelming the visitor and making their online experience less pleasant. Therefore, it is important to understand the kind of information your visitors are looking for, and to display that prominently or make it easy to access. At the same time, brands must understand that no one likes to have to click through layers and sub-layers of menus to find what they need; however, this will be somewhat inevitable due to the architecture of a website as well as available real estate. Ensuring that navigating to this information is intuitive goes a long way to meeting visitor expectations, and ultimately, promoting likelihood to return to the website.     

Another important point to consider is how well the website responds to the needs of the visitor .In the same report, responsiveness, which involves aspects of the experience such as searching properties and availability, progressing through the booking funnel, website functionality and performance – is the lowest rated and most influential driver of the visitor’s overall experience. Further, the research shows that technical difficulties encountered when using a website are the leading catalysts for pushing visitors to a competitive site. Therefore, ensuring that the website is functioning optimally, room inventory is up to date and that all features are working smoothly are key to maximizing website satisfaction and boosting chances of conversion, and in the longer term, brand loyalty.    

 Let your website visitors be your consultants

Hospitality brands are always striving to understand what is important to their customers and what they can do to meet their needs. There are many ways to gather this information, but the most reliable and expedient method is to simply ask your customers what makes them tick, and online Voice of Customer (VoC) research is a great way to accomplish this initiative.

The advantage of online VoC research allows brands to interact directly with their customers – or potential customers, in the context of their current website experience. With the website experience fresh in their minds, the feedback they give will be accurate and not based on memory from an experience they had with your brand some time ago. Keeping the benefits of online voice of customer feedback in mind, however, there are some best practices in terms of what kinds of solutions to implement and questions to ask (as well as how to ask them) in order to get the information you want.

1) Understand your objective: It is important to understand that the type of solution you put in place plays a large role in the type of feedback you will get. For example, if you are looking to inform the site strategy, a representative sample of study participants will most accurately measure the consumer experience so that you can understand strengths and opportunities for improvement. If you want to address a particular issue or business need (ex. evaluate a microsite, new property page, feature usage, etc.) targeted sampling delivers a focused audience so as to optimize site initiatives.  This can be approached survey style or feedback style depending on objectives. Finally, if you want to know what needs to be fixed immediately on your website, comment cards (page level feedback) are the way to go as the bias is more negative since website visitors use them as a sounding board to share what is bothering them. Different VoC solutions serve specific purposes, and each plays a role in telling you what is happening on your website to help you build a stronger brand.

2) Respect your customers’ time: Once you have decided which VoC approach you want to use, the most important rule of thumb is to keep your online research as short as possible. This is true when website visitors fill out a survey on their desktop computer, and even more critical when responding to a mobile survey.  Research shows that after about 40 screen interactions, respondent drop off from a survey is exponential. (Source: iPerceptions Online Research and Predictive Modeling; Solicitation, Data Collection, Methodology and Supporting Numbers, 2006)

If the survey is too long, respondents are more than happy to let you know through the feedback mechanism itself, and this not only compromises the results you are trying to gather, but leaves a negative brand impression as well. Therefore, when it comes to the initial structure of the research, less is more; get the answers to the most burning questions first, and replace them with others as needed.

When designing an online survey, keep questions short and easy to digest – your website visitors don’t want to have to pull out a dictionary in order to understand what they are being asked. Moreover, if you talk over your visitors’ heads, they’ll not only abandon the survey, they’ll abandon your brand because they’ll think that you don’t understand them.

It’s best to keep the number of answer choices to a minimum. When your visitors have to scroll through a long list of possible answers, they become overwhelmed and impatient and simply choose the first option on the list. This pollutes the quality of your data, and also annoys your visitor.

3) It’s about them, not you: With this in mind, make sure to ask your customers questions that will help enhance their online experience so that they will want to not only book with you, but return to your website in the future and refer it on to others.  Understanding all areas of their experience is important to build your brand impression, because any snags your customers hit along the way can lead to frustration and thwart chances of booking in the short term, and repeat visits in the long term, which carries the risk of negatively affecting their brand opinion.

Therefore, iPerceptions developed a practical and intuitive strategic framework designed specifically for evaluating various elements of the online experience. Dissecting the experience through this model helps pinpoint website strengths and opportunities, and identifies which parts of the experience have the strongest influence on those longer term outcome measures that lead to website adoption and brand loyalty.    

Website feedback can keep you ahead of the curve

The increasing competitiveness within the hospitality industry is here to stay, making customer loyalty to any one brand that much more difficult to secure. Since brand experiences occur within the online channel – often primarily – this medium represents an excellent portal through which brand impressions can be nurtured, as well as a vehicle to listen to customer needs in order to stay ahead of the curve and promote brand growth.

• Have a Private Suite (#425) - to meet with and demonstrate our latest solutions to prospects and clients
• Host a Learning Lab entitled “Master the Art of Listening and Watch your Business Thrive”
• Participate in a Cornell Research Panel, alongside some of the biggest names in the industry

From April 23-26, online marketers and web developers will converge in Toronto for the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit. This is a wonderful event for anyone in online sales, marketing, or communications interested in advancing their knowledge of marketing optimization and web analytics.

iPerceptions is a silver sponsor of the event and will be exhibiting its wares at booth #120.

Check out the complete lis of session here. 

Get a 20% discount off the registration price by entering code IPERTO1220 when you register online. 

Next week is the Adobe Digital Marketing Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah, and iPerceptions is a proud sponsor of the event. If you happen to be attending, our team would love to meet you at booth #119, and discuss the benefits of new solutions such as iPerceptions’ innovative Mobile Website Feedback.

In addition to giving website traffic a voice, iPerceptions offers session-level integration with Adobe, Tealeaf, and other best of-breed web analytics solutions. Drop by and also meet a strong advocate of such integration in Jim Parker, Director of Global Online Analytical Tools & Infrastructure at Dell, whose team has leveraged iPerceptions webValidator solution and integration capabilities with Adobe and Tealeaf, to help them increase conversion, reduce operational costs and lift brand experience.

Jim will be available to discuss Dell’s success and share advice with you at our booth on:

• March 21, from 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm
• March 22, from 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm

Even if you miss Jim, you can still stop by our booth to say hi and get complementary USB flash drive bracelets and Fernwood mint chocolate sandwiches (a famous Salt Lake City treat)!

The iPerceptions team hopes to see you at the event!

With the proliferation of browser-enabled phones and tablets, an increasing share of online traffic is viewing the web using smaller screens and their fingers. This not only presents challenges to website owners and administrators, but to web marketers and researchers as well. To ensure that our mobile research platform was robust enough to deal with this unique, ever-growing demographic, iPerceptions conducted a pilot study in partnership with a large multinational online retailer during a one-month period.

Giving mobile traffic a voice

Marketers value the ability to understand their website traffic. While they may infer much from observing visitor behavior, sometimes it’s more effective to ask the visitors directly. The mobile space requires the same insights in order to improve strategy, design conversion tactics and cater to the diverse needs of the mobile market.

Mobile visitors respond to surveys at the same rate

An initial concern was that visitors would not respond the same to random invitations on arrival served via mobile platforms as they do to traditional website invitations, which garner a 2-5% response rate. However, it turns out that mobile invitations yield results within the same range, meaning marketers can attach the same confidence to their mobile VoC analytics as they do to their traditional VoC analytics.

Note that we used and recommend a more succinct mobile survey; the average completion time on mobile was 2.2 minutes versus 4.8 for the traditional site survey.

Over two thirds of mobile visitors are “first-timers”

In our sample case, the majority of mobile visitors self-identify as “first-time” visitors, the opposite of what we find on the traditional site. While the new/returning ratio is reversed, we continue to find that new visitors produce slightly higher Overall Satisfaction ratings compared to returning visitors. This can be attributed to the larger share of new visitors coming to learn about products, which is typically a higher rated purpose of visit.

First-Time Visit

Visitors hesitant to purchase on mobile devices

iPerceptions maintains that the key to properly interpreting website results is understanding visitors’ intentions. This perspective has helped us optimize the visitor experience for thousands of websites. 

Our sample case demonstrates that the main purpose of visit (i.e. learn about products) is platform agnostic. This is advantageous as it gives marketers the ability to implement similar strategies for both traditional and mobile platforms. Further, the outcome metrics and KPIs by which these strategies are measured can be similar, if not identical. However, the share of visitors who came to purchase on the mobile site is lower than on the traditional site, demonstrating a reluctance to purchase via mobile. That, or “faster” tasks lend themselves better to mobile, while more involved tasks are reserved for the traditional web. These differences may ease over time, as more consumers acclimatize themselves to the notion of mobile purchasing. It should be noted that this slower adoption mirrors the online purchasing behavior seen during the infancy of online shopping, a condition that has since resolved itself.

Purpose of Visit

Traditional website visitors still more successful

Where our sample case displays significant differences between traditional and mobile is in the success rate of visitors completing their stated purpose of visit. Traditional site visitors are performing much better than their mobile counterparts across all purposes of visit. The traditional web allows “learners” to complete their purpose at a much higher rate, and mobile browsers seeking “support” are falling significantly behind their traditional web peers.

Task Completion

These results can be attributed to one, or a combination, of three things: First, content is insufficient to meet mobile visitors’ needs, which may have been misjudged to begin with. Second, poor mobile design fails to meet mobile visitors’ usability requirements. Finally, the technical limitations of the mobile platform are forcing designers to create new designs that do not meet the expectations set by the traditional web platform.

Visitors accept new mobile platform shortcomings

It is interesting to note that, despite lower Task Completion scores for mobile, and the typical correlation between Satisfaction and Task Completion, mobile visitors produce higher satisfaction scores than traditional web users. This suggests that mobile visitors may be more accepting of weaknesses in the newer mobile platforms, giving mobile designers sufficient time to respond and optimize their design to meet expanding user demands.

Overall Satisfaction

The following information is based on immediate post-experience feedback from 87,273 mobile and traditional site visitors between January 23 and February 21, 2012.

This blog post was written by Lane Cochrane, Christopher Pam and Erin Polka.

From March 20-23, digital marketers and advertisers will converge in Salt Lake City, Utah, for the Adobe Digital Marketing Summit.  This is a great event to learn about and share key strategies for driving marketing innovation.  

iPerceptions is a Showcase Sponsor of the event and will be exhibiting at booth #119, where we will be giving out:

• 4 GB USB Flash Drive Bracelets
• 2 OZ Boxes of Fernwood Mint Chocolate Sandwiches 

Come for the free gifts, and stay to learn how iPerceptions integrates with Adobe solutions, providing enhanced analysis and insight. 

For more information about the Summit, click here.

iPerceptions has compiled the very first report analyzing the differences in mobile website feedback versus traditional website feedback – using representative sampling.

The reuslts support everyone’s “gut feeling” that mobile visitors have different expectations and experiences than traditional visitors. However, the extent of these differences will surprise you.

Curious to see the results? Stop by the iPerceptions booth (#100) and pick up a copy of the report.

But don’t wait! The report will only be available in-print at eMetrics San Francisco, and only while quantities last!

Wishing you an educational and inspiring conference.

From March 4-9, online marketers and web developers will converge in San Francisco for the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit. This is a wonderful event for anyone in online sales, marketing, or communications interested in advancing their knowledge of marketing optimization and web analytics.

iPerceptions is a silver sponsor of the event and will exhibiting its wares at booth #100.

Check out the complete lis of session here.

Get a 20% discount off the registration price by entering code IPERSF1220 when you register online. 

Nobody knows what customers need and want better than the customers themselves. Why, then, do the vast majority of online businesses choose to infer customer wants and needs, instead of simply asking the customers directly?

For the past 10 years, Voice of Customer (VoC) analytics has been helping businesses to do just that. VoC is a branch of analytics that allows the visitor, in their own words, to propose, guide and help measure online initiatives. Visitor feedback has lead to improved site operation, increased conversion, decreased abandonment, higher customer loyalty and successful site redesigns.

Following are several “mini case studies” that highlight the advantages a robust VoC program brings to a company. While company names have been purposely omitted, each case clearly demonstrates that listening to the voice of your customers is always the right move.

Company: One of the world’s leading automakers

Challenge: The company conducted a website redesign based on industry best practices; the result was a site that relied heavily on Flash-based applications and emphasized the “bells and whistles”. Almost immediately, user satisfaction began to wane.

Solution: VoC data revealed that the site needed to be more user-friendly with a simpler design. In particular, visitors wanted more and better-quality vehicle photos and easier access to vehicle information. Additional data showed that people were turned off by the extensive Flash on the site, which contributed to slow page load times.

Results: Based on this feedback, the company re-launched their site. Within a month, they experienced a 40% increase in site traffic and a 16% increase in site satisfaction.

Company: A leading provider of business and financial management solutions

Challenge: The company was experiencing high shopping cart abandonment rates. Their clickstream analytics determined that it was related to password retrieval, but was unable to determine why it was happening.

Solution: VoC data revealed that when users went through the password retrieval process, they landed on a page that didn’t allow them to easily navigate back to the site. Customer feedback also showed that visitors were not aware of the tabs on the product pages.

Results: Since making changes based on the feedback, the company improved conversion by 15% and boosted site satisfaction scores by over 10%. Tab clicks went up 30% after making them more visible.

Company: A worldwide leader in the development and manufacture of electronic products

Challenge: Clickstream data revealed a high abandonment rate, but the company could not pinpoint why.

Solution: VoC data identified key visitor segments and the problems that plagued each one: Learners found the ease of navigation less than optimal, Shoppers found the product information too vague, and those who came for technical support required more self-help materials.

Results: Upon redesigning the site with initiatives targeted at each segment, the company saw a reduced abandonment rate, an increase in site traffic and improved site satisfaction.

Company: A Canadian post-secondary institution

Challenge: The company sought to redesign the website with a strategic focus on prospective students, but had no way to isolate the thoughts and experiences of these visitors.

Solution: VoC analytics allowed the company to see what was working and what was not at audience level, and target improvements accordingly.

Result: The site redesign showed a 15% increase in site satisfaction for prospective students and a 279% increase in a key conversion metric during the same period.

Company: A global manufacturer and marketer of office materials

Challenge: The company suspected that their search functionality was deficient and prevented visitors from finding desired products.

Solution: VoC analysis determined that the most common keywords used by customers did not optimally correspond to back-end terms used by the search engine to generate results. The data also revealed that the pre-set categories corresponded to those most commonly found, rather than those most commonly searched.

Results: After honing the search categories for maximum clarity and intuitiveness, the company saw a 7% increase in task completion and a 6% increase in likelihood to return.

The internet is a dynamic, ever changing environment. As users become more web-savvy, current online standards quickly become obsolete. A strong VoC solution can not only diagnose current website shortcomings, but open a dialogue between businesses and customers that can reduce abandonment, increase customer loyalty and ensure continued online success in the years to come.

We may be a little late for Christmas, but we don’t think you’ll mind when you hear what we have in store for you!

We are proud to announce the addition of Concept Clouds to the webValidator and 4Q Suite feature sets, offering advanced text analysis capabilities at the mere push of a button.

Word Clouds are already a valuable part of webValidator and 4Q Suite, providing a quick and easy way to visually quantify open-ended feedback. However, Word Clouds do not group together common misspellings, typos and synomyms, and as a result, words with similar meanings appear separately. For example, the words “info”, “information” and “informative” appear as three separate words within the Word Cloud. This seperation can hide the importance of larger concepts and result in erroneous analysis.

Our solution is both simple and elegant. Using concept libraries, words that belong to similar concepts are grouped together. With Concept Clouds, the words “info”, “information” and “informative” appear under the concept “INFORMATION”, giving appropriate weight to the themes within the feedback.

All webValidator, 4Q Plus and 4Q Premium users now have Concept Clouds included in their subscription, with no increase to the standard rates or fees. What’s more, the Concept Clouds are loaded with 3 months of historic data (going back to October 1^st). If your account hasn’t been updated yet, check back in the next day or so.

Happy New Year everybody… 2012 is starting off great!

For the past 6 months, iPerceptions has been distributing its 4Q Suite Newsletter, which includes a section dedicated to ‘Tips and Tricks’ to improve survey collection and analysis. Below is a compilation of all of the suggestions we have dispensed thus far, with links to the 4Q Support & Community Forum where more detailed explanations can be found.

Manage your survey invitation rate:

Managing your invitation rate is half art and half science. Set your rate too high and you’ll hit your collection limit too early in the month; set it too low and you might not meet your sample needs.

On average, about 1-2% of visitors who receive the invitation go on to complete the survey. If you require 250 respondents per month and you assume a completion rate of 1%, you will need to invite 25,000 people. If your monthly (unique) traffic is 50,000, then you should set your invitation rate at 50% (25,000/50,000).

However, website visitor behavior differs from one site to the next. Lower engagement sites generally have a lower completion rate, whereas sites with a more engaged audience will have a higher completion rate. You will need to monitor your survey for the first few days to see if you’re over or under sampling. Once you’ve established the average completion rate for your site, you should be able to set your invitation rate such that your sample is evenly distributed across the month.

Link to this tip.

Include the email question:

Choosing to include the email question in your survey can provide a fantastic opportunity to build brand loyalty and really connect with your visitors.

There are many changes and suggestions made by your site visitors than can be accomplished in a very short time. From adding a couple of extra links on a landing page that help visitors locate previously hard to find content, to making an action button more obvious, “low hanging fruit” should be a development priority.

Everyone wants to feel like a consultant, and an email check-in when changes are made will help make your visitors feel valued and important; both positive emotions that will be directly associated with you and your site.

Link to this tip.

A red upside down triangle:

A red upside down triangle where the online /offline button would normally be (on the My Surveys page) means that you have reached your collection limit for the month. The system automatically stops sending out new survey invitations when the limit is reached, essentially setting the invite rate to 0%.

You can choose to simply wait until the next month rolls around – the collection counter will get reset and you’ll have a fresh quota of survey responses for that month. Or you can choose to upgrade your 4Q Plan and take advantage of the higher collection limits.

Link to this tip.

Consider flash heavy pages:

Depending on the website, it is possible that the 4Q Suite invitation may conflict with flash elements on a given page. To avoid these conflicts, visit your survey’s “Publish” section, then click into the “Get Survey Code” subsection.

Ensure the box marked “Flash” is checked off, then grab the updated script from the box on the page and paste this new version of the script onto your website.

Now, when an invitation is served on a page with flash, the flash elements are disabled. When a user responds to the invitation and the invite disappears, the page will reload with the flash elements re-enabled.

Link to this tip.

Modify your cookie settings:

Depending on the type of website you have, your surveying needs will vary widely. Sites where content changes more frequently will require visitors to be surveyed more frequently – but perhaps you don’t want to increase your invitation rate.

One option is to reduce the cookie settings on your invitation scripts. Visit the “Get Survey Code” page in the “Publish” section and toggle the “Cookie Expiration” box. You can then modify the cookie expiration length from the 90-day default and survey your visitors more often, without increasing your invitation rate.

Please note, however, that you will need to replace the old scripts on your site with the new, shorter-cookie script. If you change the cookie length but don’t replace the scripts currently on your site, no change will take place.

Link to this tip.

Keep your Purpose of Visit choices relevant:

The Purpose of Visit (PoV) question is a great way to identify and profile your website visitors. However, determining which choices to include in your PoV question may take some trial and error.

If one of your current choices is less than 3-4%, consider modifying or replacing it. For hints on what to replace it with, download your datafile and review the answers to your ‘Other, please specify’ choice. Consider those answers that keep getting repeated, but end up “lost” in the aggregation of the ‘Other’ choice.  

It may also make sense to get more granular on broader groupings or to combine smaller groupings into larger ones. For example, if one of your choices is ‘Learn about products and services’ and represents 60% of your traffic, it might make sense to break it into two groupings: ‘Learn about products’ and ‘Learn about services’. Conversely, if ‘Sign up for the weekly newsletter’ and ‘Sign up for the monthly newsletter’ are both at 1-2%, perhaps rolling them up into ‘Sign up for a newsletter’ is the best option.

Link to this tip.

Add Satisfaction and Task Completion to your Google Analytics:

Follow these simple steps to create a 4Q-based widget on your Google Analytics dashboard.

1. Click on “Home” in Google Analytics, and then the “+ Add Widget” button.
2. Create a “metric” widget, as opposed to a “pie chart”
3. In the “add a metric” space, select “Avg. Value”
4. Click on “Add a filter”, and in the green “Dimension” box, select “Event Action”
5. In the field following “Exactly matching” write “IPESAT” to display the satisfaction score, or “IPETask” to display the task completion rate. Note that this part is case-sensitive.
6. Name your widget accordingly… i.e. “Satisfaction Score” if you chose to use IPESAT in the previous step.
7. Check out the “Add a Widget” screenshot, located below, for the final product of steps 2-6.
8. Satisfaction scores will display as a number between 0.00 and 10.00, in accordance with the 0-10 satisfaction scale in the survey.
9. Task Completion scores will show as a number between 0.00 and 1.00, and can be referred to as a percentage. In other words, Task Completion of 0.68 can be referred to as 68%.

Link to this tip.

Share your success:

You work hard on your business and your website, so why not toot your own horn?

Use the positive feedback from your 4Q Suite survey to help your social marketing campaign by posting choice comments to your Twitter or Facebook accounts.  Just add “via @4qsurvey” at the end of your tweets to help identify that your tweet comes from your users, and let the positive feedback you receive contribute to the betterment of your brand.

Link to this tip.

Use 4Q Suite with your A/B testing:

A+B testing is a powerful web optimization tool, where two versions of the same page, feature or site are run in parallel with the most successful alternative being selected.

Include 4Q Suite in your A+B testing program by creating a second identical survey within your account. Each survey will have its own invitation script, and you’ll have data for each option kept in separate and secure databases. Use Satisfaction and Task Completion scores, along with data from providers like Google Analytics, to help you choose the winner.

Link to this tip.

Every month, we provide additional tips and tricks in our 4Q Suite Newsletter. Sign up for the 4Q Shite Newsletter for fresh tips, along with new product announcements, limited-time promotions, upcoming webinars, industry events, and more.

A short time ago I was contacted by Software Advice regarding a blog by Jaime Brugueras, discussing what he feels is lacking in the current crop of Business Intelligence (BI) tools. I was asked to provide my feedback via blog post and hopefully start up a discussion.

Everything which Brugueras describes in his blog would comprise the ultimate BI tool. He clearly highlights key pain points felt by all levels of user and creates the framework by which these could be addressed. In spite of his observations, I feel that the nature of the market and current BI tool landscape prevents these recommendations from being realized.

The core argument of Brugueras’ blog can be summed up as follows: Business Intelligence tools need to be easier to use, more comprehensive in nature, predictive of future outcomes and cheap enough that even the smallest businesses can afford it. He goes on to advocate for tools that are more sophisticated than a team of IT professionals could program, but simple enough for a lay person to configure.

He notes that “tools available today are relatively complex and require some level of programming”, yet a few lines later declares that “an effective BI tool allows for seamless integration of data across… CRM, accounting and point-of-sale software”. He laments, however, that current BI tools are “unable to integrate data from all sources”.

While multiple tools may output into similarly-formatted CSV files, the database from where these exports originate don’t all have the same schema. There exists no universal key to link multiple data sources, and few companies are willing turn themselves into information providers by facilitating others usage of their data.

Many would rebut my previous statement by calling my attention to APIs; how companies like Google, foursquare and Twitter make their data available to the outside world. They would be correct, save for one key point: the user accommodates, as opposed to dictates, the format of the API. If you don’t like how Twitter has named a particular variable, then too bad for you. A company like Google isn’t going to change their data structure simply because you ask nicely.

When you consider that every company out there has their own special flavor of API, the dream of “an effective BI tool (that) allows for seamless integration of data” simply goes up in smoke. Every time a provider comes along, you will either need to adapt your BI tool to accept their data, or ask them to conform to your standard. The former is far more likely than the latter, but doing the former requires programmers and programmers cost money.

It is not difficult to see the relationship between cost and compatibility. Being more compatible requires a larger programmer base, which in turn requires more capital. The resulting tool would have to be heavily ad-supported, or sell at a price point sufficient to cover ongoing development costs. Very quickly you enter into the realm of enterprise-level solutions, where even the traditionally free Google Analytics has started charging $150,000/year for a Premium service level. This price point is clearly far outside the realm of affordability for the majority of small businesses.

The author advocates for an all encompassing, low-cost solution aimed at the SMB market. He wants a tool that is user friendly, inexpensive and easy to use, featuring automatic integration with multiple data sources that is predictive of future outcomes. He acknowledges that end-users “are not likely to be able to program their needs”, yet advocates the development of modular software in anticipation of every possible need. These BI tools must be action oriented, distilling complicated tasks like customer retention, inventory management and social media communication down to the simple click of a button. While wonderful in concept, I don’t believe that all will ever be within a single tool.

Apple products, be it the iPhone, iPad or iPod, are famous for working well together. Apple accomplishes this by controlling every step of the process, and knowing exactly what goes into every piece of hardware. They can then perfectly tailor their software to work within the hardware’s specifications, producing a very attractive product offering. However, a Mac falls flat when trying to run software originally written for a PC. With Apple reticent to license out their iOS to third party developers, don’t expect to see this product-line unity augmented or replicated anytime soon.

There are only two ways that Brugueras’ ideal BI tool could come to pass: A unifying open-source project of unprecedented scope or one single (for profit) company willing to take users cradle-to-grave for all their business software needs.

While I don’t think that a massive open-source project could appear, I make a point to never say never. The cynic in me just doesn’t see it, though. A single company creating a full-feature, A-to-Z Business Intelligence tool isn’t very likely, either. The barrier to entry isn’t so high that somebody wouldn’t try and come up with a “me too” product offering.

I’m not here to preach about what my ideal Business Intelligence tool would be, because I don’t believe that there can ever be a one-size-fits-all tool. You’ll never get enterprise-level features in a cheap/free product, either because of the associated development costs or due to the simple inability for small businesses to devote the required time to such a far reaching tool.

Take your prototypical small business as an example, where employees generally wear more than one hat. It’s likely that your “web guy” will not only be responsible for website design and SEO, but also for PPC and SEM and possibly copy writing for both the online channel and traditional corporate communications. Ask yourself, will this overworked individual be able to devote the time required to use a highly-sophisticated BI tool?

Much like clothing, creating something that is one-size-fits-all typically results in a garment which is a poor fit for 99% of the population. When you buy a suit, most people require that the pants be hemmed or the jacket taken in. Few people are truly “off the rack”, so why do we expect the same from our BI tools?

There exist tools that work very well for small business, which scale well and can accommodate the business as it grows. They don’t have the features of an enterprise-level tool, but small businesses don’t have the bandwidth to use all those features anyway. Rather than devote time to chasing the dream of the perfect tool, end-users should focus on better expressing their BI tool needs. The corporate world has been quite successful at recognizing needs and designing products to meet them. I have every confidence that several different vendors will step up and provide targeted solutions, provided the requirements are clear and properly documented by the eventual end-users.

Orignally posted on Digital Soapbox – Christopher Pam’s personal blog.

Most online visitors to e-commerce sites categorize themselves as shoppers not buyers. Online shoppers are no different than retail shoppers – significantly interested but obviously not willing to purchase every item at every store they visit. Shopping is the precursor to buying, before product specifics or emotional reactions (or both) dictate conversion. Online shopping requires the same patience as retail shopping with the same opportunity for finding the perfect item at the perfect price (including shipping). However, it is less about crowds and renewing energy at the food court and more about organizing a vast array of information wearing comfortable slippers.

Online is a deal hunters’ paradise and for the last three Black Fridays online sales growth has exceeded retail results. Compared to 2009, online sales have increased by 9% on Black Friday vs. an increase of just 0.3% for retail sales*. With easier access to deal information, competitive comparisons, selection comparisons, product specifications, and product reviews, online shoppers are better equipped to maximize their dollars either directly online or during their retail excursions. Sites are clearly responding. Online shoppers claiming to have completed their purposes of visit are in much greater proportion than in November 2009. This increased usability, availability, functionality and sensitivity to shoppers needs will continue to drive online shopping and buying. 

For many online shoppers, the shopping process begins before the big day, with shoppers driving up online traffic up to a month in advance and representing over half the traffic on Black Friday (2010 results). Looking at stated purposes of visit in the 2010 lead up to Black Friday, the proportion of shoppers grows steadily, with a peak on the Saturday prior, and then dominating the traffic on Black Friday itself. For etailers and retailers alike, this supports an information strategy focused on creating buzz on the days when shoppers are online. Properly sequenced trailers and teasers will build the pre-shopping momentum, driving increased online conversion and/or a greater push to retail stores with consumers sporting strong purchase intents.

* http://www.comscore.com, http://www.bloomberg.com

Written by Lane Cochrane

For many years, eCommerce took a mass market, broad strokes approach. Marketers would throw idea after idea against the wall, just to see what would stick. Black hat SEO teams would abuse meta tags, keyword stuff by using white text on a white background, and generally try to game the search engines that were bringing them traffic. More “uniques” contributed to your eEgo, and all levels of the organization focused obsessively on traffic numbers.

In short, internet marketing was taking a telemarketing approach. Conversion percentages were low, but if you called (or served) enough people, eventually you would make a sale. With the ever expanding internet frontier, combined with relatively few businesses selling in the online space, this dragnet or mass-market approach seemed like the best way to go.

Then things changed. Not only did search engines begin to smack down the black hat SEO practices, but the online marketplace became just as crowded as brick-and-mortar. Shortly thereafter, online quickly surpassed brick-and-mortar as the costs of maintaining a digital storefront are significantly lower than even a single physical location. And thanks to the world-shrinking nature of the digital domain, businesses now faced stiff competition from relative no-names half a world away.

Business Intelligence began to transition away from the raw “visits” data, delving into more sophisticated metrics like CPC, Keywords, and Impressions. The available toolset expanded, with seemingly every consulting agency publishing their very own SEO guide. Landing Page and Keyword assessment tools began cropping up left and right, and “examining your funnel for leaks” became more than something you did before a university kegger.

The adoption curve for all of these new metrics was relatively flat. Business people understand fractions and ratios, and metrics provide easy ways to measure the performance not only of your website, but also of the staff you hire to manage and market your website. Everything is neat, tidy, and fits nicely on a dashboard.

However, these formerly “advanced” analytics and marketing practices are being adopted by the masses, and I’ve no doubt that “SEO for Dummies” can be found on many digital marketing bookshelves. The next frontier of web marketing focuses less on the macro and more on the micro, and while the masses bring themselves up to speed on the “advanced” analytics, industry leaders are taking things a step further.

The entire purpose of a website, the only reason that a company has a digital presence, is to meet the needs of their customer. Be it a product, a service or simply content (i.e. Wikipedia), customers visit websites to have their needs met. The next major metric for business to measure online success has to be Needs Fulfillment.

Current business intelligence doesn’t do very well at measuring this. You can figure out where they came from, how many pages they viewed and how they interacted with your site… but you can only infer the motivation (the “why”) behind their visit.  The only way to get at Needs Fulfillment is to ask.

It is here many businesses shy away from measuring. The second you start asking people for their feedback, you get away from the comfortable realm of facts and figures. Verbatim feedback doesn’t easily fit on a dashboard, and too often requires a significant investment in manpower or hardware/software. Businesses see it as “soft science”, or simply too complicated.

What is just seeping into the collective consciousness is something that the thought leaders have known for a few years now – Needs Fulfillment is directly linked to Loyalty. Put plainly… why would anyone go to a competitor when their needs are being met on your site?

The future of business intelligence is not one of action, but of thought and feeling. The company that is best able to understand the thoughts and address the feelings of their target audience will be the one that is best positioned to succeed in their specific domain. Dashboards won’t ever go away, but I think that you’d be surprised as to how they’ll change as the importance of Needs Fulfillment spreads from the thought leaders to the web at large.

Re-posted from Digital Soapbox, Christopher Pam’s personal blog.

We’re thrilled to have won the Google Analytics Partner Summit ‘Third-Party Application’ competition this past September, but we realize that a 5-minute presentation may not have provided you with sufficient information to aquire 4Q Suite.

To this end, we would like to invite you to attend a 30-minute webinar where we’ll review some of the top-rated features and functions of 4Q Suite, including: 

• Google Analytics integration for advanced analysis and understanding
• Automatic alerts of significant changes in 4Q and Google Analytics data
• Scheduled email reports of alerts and open-ended feedback
• And more!

Register for the webinar.

One of Avinash‘s favorite expressions is “data puke’, which goes a long way to describing the vast majority of charts, tables and graphs that I’ve seen over my relatively short (but I like to think illustrious) career in web analytics. I’m no “PowerPoint Picasso”, but I believe that I can put together slides in a manner that imparts knowledge, disseminates data and tells a coherent story.

Evidence indicates that I and my colleagues are in the minority. Perhaps this accounts for why many big corporations seem so very keen on the concept of web analytics, yet so very reticent to actually do anything with their data. They’ve either paid big money for an analytics suite that comes with a consultant, or they’ve used a free solution like GA or 4Q and hired someone as a web analyst. You’d figure that they would take advantage of all the available data, considering the money they’ve spent gathering it.

Personally, I think this corporate inaction can be tracked back to three key things.

Data Overload

Collecting a database of all your visitors’ on-site activities generates a pile of records that is nigh on impossible to parse through, even with highly-paid analysts dissecting every keystroke. Even when you think you’ve reached a conclusion, a simple re-segmenting of the data can show you something different. Everyone thinks that all this data will highlight the Yellow Brick Road that the company should follow, but more often than not you simply end up standing at a 4 way crossroads, spinning in place and wondering which way to go.

Quicksand

Related to the above, all this data keeps everyone stuck in the same place, unable to move in on direction or another. You’ll get everyone in the company agreeing that something has to be done, but all the time will be spent trying to figure out what. Typically, you’ll end up with two camps, each with opposing conclusions that are backed up from data drawn from the same source. The net result is that decisions take forever, if they come at all.

Corporate Concrete

Certain things in the corporate world are set in stone. Deployment schedules are one of those things. While they may have been put in place to keep the company running smoothly, they typically ensure that all the company does is play catch-up. When you receive feedback, you have a very short time to respond – yesterday’s news is old news, and if you are forced to wait 2 months for the next release date, an opportunity will pass you by.

Whether its too much data, indecision or corporate procedures, data obtained from various web analytics sources is not acted on quickly enough. Delayed action results in reduced returns and the perception from many corporate higher-ups that web analytics just isn’t worth it.

Deployment schedules need to be thrown out the window for smaller items – with releases coming weekly, if not daily. Quicker turnaround will offer greater rewards, and increased ROI isn’t something that needs to be explained to the HiPPOs upstairs.

This is a repost from Christopher Pam’s blog. The original can be located here.

Looking back across the last ten years working with analysts in a variety of industries, I realize how much has changed in the environment. As with any evolutionary process, this change in the environment means analysts have had to adapt accordingly. Three changes in my mind have had the biggest impact.

More data! Despite the increased strategic importance of analysts, there is a lot more data to contend with. Like doctors who loathe the internet due to the increased time they must spend un-diagnosing for their patients what a clever online algorithm proclaimed, analysts must fend off misinterpretations of myriad data points brought to them by those perhaps unaware of the pitfalls of a lack of research rigor. Data is now everywhere, in various formats, of various types. This provides analysts with much more data with which to create their stories, and it doesn’t always line up. This can be paralyzing for the perfectionist trying to back up every implications or forces analysts to put some value on their inclination which is not something condoned by the industry accepted analyst personae. This glut of data also has a lot of analysts tied up in complex integration projects that continuously chase a moving target and don’t represent what analysts love to do, which is draw mighty implications that change the world (or at least the department). However, analysts complained for decades they wanted more data, so perhaps a lesson in being careful what you wish for.  Today’s analysts don’t want data, but more tools to consolidate and integrate to make interpretation simpler and faster, due to the next point.

Less time! Whereas it is debatable whether some data needs to be real-time, it is a cool marketing stamp that data suppliers love, so real-time data is growing in volume. Consequently, real-time implications are becoming expected. Systems to create real-time data are rampant, but systems to process and interpret them have not quite caught up. Not so long ago, analysts could spend months as part of the strategic planning cycle making sure their implications and recommendations were thought through, reviewed, stakeholder approved, and even polished for beautiful presentation by artistic graphic artists. Today, yesterday’s results require interpretation today so implications can be presented tomorrow and action plans can be executed by end of week. Statistical models are flourishing, algorithms are flooding, and sexy BI tools are growing in the market, but they are still trying to catch up with all the data.  And like all wonder drugs, they seem to come with that warning to check with your analyst first before believing all the automated conclusions.

More importance! You will hear everywhere that corporations are putting more of a focus on fact-based decision making. This nomenclature must be anathema to the ageing baby boomer, making it seem like decisions back in the day were based on gut and emotions. However, there is an increased expectation that decisions be defended with rigorous metrics and that all goals and objectives have clear measures attached to them that must be monitored often. This dramatically increases the power of the owner and manipulator of the data (the analyst), who is the expert at assembling the data into an implication that ideally drives action.

Overall the opportunities for analysts to influence important decisions are growing. And what every analyst wants is to influence decisions based on sound interpretation of solid data.  Analysts can now find themselves in the middle of the big show, often holding the balance of power by being the owner and interpreter of the facts.  But like dynamic orators skilled in the art of rhetoric back in the first senates, all analysts know that the selection and presentation of the data can easily lead to many different conclusions based on what is chosen to show or not show. With great power comes great responsibility. The opportunities are better than ever, but a need to stay objective, as unbiased as we can, and to consider all strong challenges is paramount.  We must be ready for the hard debates and not become that expert witness ready to defend any point for a fee.

This blog was produced as part of the very first Analytics Blogarama – a one day event where bloggers share their individual views on a common theme.  

Today’s theme is The Emerging Role of the Analyst. To read other viewpoints, please visit the blogarama navigation page.

Written by Lane Cochrane

At iPerceptions, we live and breathe web analytics. The conferences and trade shows we attend all have an analytics focus. We position our analytics solution against other similar solutions. We partner with other analytics providers and interact with our clients’ analytics teams. It seems like everyone has analytics on the brain. But when you take a step back, you realize we’re all just drinking the same Kool-Aid.

In reality, web analytics hasn’t permeated the greater corporate culture. It is still a niche discipline that very few companies have truly embraced. Sure, most companies have that one guy (or gal) generating reports based on clickstream data, but the reports don’t end up on the CEO’s desk and the results don’t often inform business decisions. It’s a cyclical process whereby analysts try to make sense of ambiguous numbers, end up producing limited insight, and consequently don’t receive the financial resources to acquire the sophisticated tools that could really make a difference.

The majority of analysts recognize the potential benefits of various tools such as Voice of Customer (VoC) analytics, session-replay data, multivariate testing, and the power of integrating these datasets, but they end up at the mercy of cautious executives and “more tangible investments”. Too many analysts see their role reduced to piecing together disparate data points, putting forward either too-broad or unsubstantiated conclusions, all the while trying to prove the value that analytics can bring to the company.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that most analysts don’t have it easy. There are the few that happen to work for a company that has come to realize to what extent a thorough web analytics program can boost conversion, build engagement, increase sales, lower costs and help them stay ahead of the competition. But for the most part, they are fighting traditional metrics and the status quo, which can be a daunting endeavor.

This blog was produced as part of the very first Analytics Blogarama – a one day event where bloggers share their individual views on a common theme.  

Today’s theme is The Emerging Role of the Analyst. To read other viewpoints, please visit the blogarama navigation page.

When you say the word loyalty in the context of online business, many people automati­cally think loyalty programs. While loyalty programs are indeed a popular and effective way to encourage repeat business, there are myriad other ways to ensure that visitors come back to your site.

Loyalty is a direct function of customer satisfaction, which is built on a lot more than points or rewards. Customers care about, and react to, the goods and services available on a site, the ease with which they can accomplish their purpose, and the type of service they receive, etc. Below is a list of activities, by no means comprehensive, which will significantly increase customer loyalty.

Make your site navigation simple and intuitive: Online shopping is about saving time and money. If visitors have to struggle to find the goods/services they are looking for, then your site hasn’t accomplished its goal. Incorporate the navigation basics: an effective search tool, categories and sub-categories, and a site map so that visitors are never more than three clicks away from the home page.

Fix the bugs: A reliably glitch-free ex­perience is essential to building loyalty. Customers want to know that when they come to your site, they don’t have to worry about technical malfunctions, which not only erode trust, but end up wasting their time. Commit to monitoring the website and network performance and fixing the bugs on a regular basis.

Create an engaging experience: Beyond site usefulness, many visitors are seeking enjoyment when they shop. Top websites recognize this and aim to incorporate a mix of photos, videos, and community aspects such as comments, ratings and reviews, to make visitors feel connected to the site and to the brand.

Charge a fair price: New visitors shop around; loyal visitors know where they can get a fair price without shopping around. Keep a close eye on your competitors and how much they’re charging for the same or similar items. Highlight the differences between similar items and don’t shy away from competitive comparisons.

Maintain your inventory: There is noth­ing more frustrating than visiting a site only to discover that they are out of stock on the item(s) you wanted. Insufficient inventory will drive away visitors, who may never return.

Offer customer support during and after: Timely customer support during the purchase process is critical in retaining customers. Live support is best. If your site doesn’t have the answers to customers’ questions, they will quickly seek them somewhere else. After sales support is equally important as it dem­onstrates to visitors that you are invested in keeping them happy.

Invest in mobile technology: Mobile shop­ping is exploding. Companies that don’t have an accessible and convenient mobile site are losing potential new customers. But what’s worse is that current customers are abandoning their once-favorite sites in favor of mobile-friendly ones.

Integrate social media: While research has shown that social media sites don’t lead to direct sales, they certainly keep your site top of mind among customers. By integrating the most popular social media outlets, including Facebook and Twitter, you can keep many of your customers up-to-date on new products, promotions, etc., and they will be more likely to develop loyalty in the long run.

Solicit and act on visitor feedback: There is no point in guessing what your visitors want. Customer satisfaction and loyalty are achieved by asking visitors directly—pro-active survey solicitation works well—and responding to their needs.

Strive for continuous improvement: Customer needs and expectations evolve with the competitive landscape. Keeping your site effective and relevant is essential in to­day’s online business world. But don’t do anything drastic. Radical changes will often confuse visitors and make them reluctant to return.

It isn’t always about earning points or receiving a free gift with purchase. Often, the best tactics to increase customer loy­alty to your site involve getting to know your visitors and offering them a useful, easy, and pleasant experience. Customer abandonment is an unfortunate, often avoidable occurrence, but the more of these loyalty-boosting activities you manage to incorporate, the better off your site and your brand will be.

If you are me 2 days ago, you are asking yourself, “What the heck is a Klout Score?”

While still in Beta, the Klout Score measures influence based on your ability to drive action, as opposed to potentially misleading metrics like follower or friend count. Every time you create content or engage, you influence others. The Klout Score uses data from social networks in order to measure:

• How many people you influence (True Reach)
• How much you influence them (Amplification)
• How influential they are (Network Score)

Your True Reach is the number of people you influence. It filters out spam and bots and focuses on the people who are acting on your content. When you post a message, these people tend to respond or share it.

Your Amplification is how much you influence people. When you post a message, how many people respond to it or spread it further? If people often act upon your content you have a high Amplification score.

And finally, your Network indicates the influence of the people in your True Reach. How often do top Influencers share and respond to your content? When they do so, they are increasing your Network score.

It makes sense. And big name companies are buying into it. Klout has analyzed over 85 million people on major social networks, and is used by over 3000 brands and applications, including Nike, Audi, HP, Disney, P&G, Subway, Fox and Paramount.

So how did iPerceptions do? Check it out:  

Score Analysis (You are effectively using social media to influence your network across a variety of topics) 

True Reach (You have built a good size network that is highly engaged)

Amplification Probability (You are more likely to have your message amplified than the average person)

Network Influence (You engage with a good mix of influencers and friends)  

But the real question is… is a Klout Score of 34 any good? And the answer is, it depends. In the social media sphere, your reach, or “clout” is dependent on the reach or clout of your closest competitors. If the other VoC analytics providers out there have Klout Scores in the 20′s, we’re in good shape; if they are producing scores in the 50′s and 60′s, we’ve got some work to do.

Another thing Klout tells you is what topics you are most influential about. In our case, they were, in order of influence: Branding, Web Analytics, Journalism, Magazine, YouTube, E-Commerce, Search Advertising, Agencies, Dell and Social Media Measurement.

Although the list seems a bit disjointed, when you click on a topic, you can see the top influencers for that topic. Since Web Analytics is the topic that iPerceptions identifies with the most, I wanted to see who (or what) was leading the way in this area.

In the past 90 days, the top ten influencers in the web analytics space were:

Avinash Kaushik – Klout Score: 78

Google Analytics – Klout Score: 63

Stephane Hamel – Klout Score: 58

Jim Sterne – Klout Score: 52

Dennis Mortensen – Klout Score: 50

Emer Kirrane – Klout Score: 48

Anil Baltra – Klout Score: 47

Web Analytics Association – Klout Score: 45

Adam Greco – Klout Score: 44

Yahoo! Web Analytics – Klout Score: 43

It was interesting to note that only two of the top influencers provide web analytics services. All of the others were authors, bloggers and associations. And ones that we associate with! Avinash Kaushik collaborated with us on our 4Q survey solution, both our webValidator and 4Q survey solutions are fully integrated with Google Analytics, Stephane Hamel created WASP – a product we now own, and Jim Sterne is the organizer of eMetrics – a global conference that we sponsor every year.

All in all, I’d say we’re doing alright.

And we have some major social media initiatives lined up for 2012, so it will be exciting to see what our Klout Score is 12 months from now! 

Want to calculate your Klout Score? Do what I did! Visit their website at www.klout.com and provide your Facebook and Twitter login information to generate a report in seconds! You’ll be shown your Klout Score, as well as what topics you influence, who you influence the most, and who are the top influencers by topic. You can also see your Klout Style (we’re a “Conversationalist”), create lists and earn achievements. And, like any good metric, you can trend your results over time.

What is GAUGE?

GAUGE is a two-day event, featuring a Google Analytics User Conference on the first day and Google Analytics Training Workshops on the second day. The User Conference day of GAUGE is designed to connect people who love Google Analytics. The day is filled with ample time for attendees to network as well as choose from a dozen sessions on various Google Analytics topics.  

This year’s event is taking place in New York City, on October 17 & 18.

What Makes GAUGE Unique?

The event provides valuable insights through expert-led, user-to-user collaborative sessions that are insanely practical. This is not a “come and be spoken to” conference but rather an opportunity to learn from Google Analytics pros and peers and share your experience and knowledge.

The action-packed agenda include a morning keynote, learning sessions and a 1-on-1 expert Helpdesk throughout the day, an afternoon Q&A session with the Google Analytics team and an evening reception. A bonus training day will follow with classroom-style instruction for those interested in basic, intermediate and advanced Google Analytics training.

Key Benefits

• Meet Google Analytics pros and peers
• Share your experiences with Google Analytics – get help and help others
• Meet and interact with members of the Google Analytics team and certified Google Analytics partners
• Improve your skill with Google Analytics through learning practical knowledge from other GA users that you can put to use immediately
• Deepen knowledge with the bonus GA training day
• Raise professional credibility with the Google Analytics Qualified Individual test – test vouchers will be provided to each attendee

What Past Attendees Have to Say

“Loved having the whole GA team on-site. Very cool & valuable.”

“The best part was networking – being able to ask questions and get real answers.”

“I learned something from every event I attended. The presenters were very knowledgeable and give points everyone could take away. It was a welcome change to see knowledge vs. sponsorship/sales pitch.”

“Day 1 was great! I learned several actionable tactics I can take back to my job to improve performance!”

“Great place to get tips from the experts – under roof.”

“Excellent from those who want the content in Google Analytics and state-of-the-art apps and add-ons.”

“The speakers knocked it out of the park. Excellent content, fun presentation style, and contagious enthusiasm.”

For more information, visit http://gaugecon.com/

Brafton News, an online publisher of news, blogs and articles, picked up on iPerceptions’ Retail / E-Commerce Industry Report for Q2 2011, which found that 26% of people visit an e-commerce website to learn about a business before making a purchase. This finding prompted the following thought piece suggesting that businesses ought to re-focus their online initiatives.

Market research firm iPerceptions recently released its Retail / E-Commerce Industry Report for Q2 2011 and found lack of site information can hinder buying. This suggests that brand journalism has an increasingly large role in the success of ecommerce websites.

With the growing number of purchase options available for consumers on the web, information is emerging as a clear differentiator for effective ecommerce websites. According to the study, 26% of people visit ecommerce websites to learn about companies and their products before making any purchases. As this trend continues to evolve, businesses should assess their current web content and alter their strategies accordingly.

The study also demonstrated that web visitors who go to an ecommerce website and leave without making a purchase often cite a lack of product information as the motivation – especially those who eventually buy the same product from another site. Other factors certainly contribute to failed purchase completion. However, a quality content marketing strategy that weighs both timeliness and accuracy is an easy way for businesses to improve sales completion, according to iPerceptions.

Content writing can also help businesses with SEO, which is especially useful as iPerceptions found that the amount of website visitors who land on a given page from a search engine remains strong at 21%. From there, 66% of page visitors end up converting, iPerceptions found in its study.

Aside from brand journalism, websites often provide users with the ability to leave reviews regarding products and services on their website. User-generated content, paired with branded content marketing, can help businesses ensure their website remains timely and dynamic.

David Meerman Scott, marketing author and industry expert, delivered the keynote address on Wednesday morning at Content Marketing World, and named real-time, up-to-date info as a key component of any content marketing strategy.