Web Analytics and Optimization

Google Trends and Insights for Search

2012-01-19T17:49:00.003+01:00

GOOGLE TRENDS

Google Trends is a public web facility of Google Inc., based on Google Search, that shows how often a particular search-term is entered relative to the total search-volume across various regions of the world, and in various languages.

The horizontal axis of the main graph represents time, and the vertical is how often a term is searched for relative to the total number of searches, globally.Below the main graph, popularity is broken down by region, city and language. It is possible to refine the main graph by region and time period.

Video tutorial on Google Trends:

GOOGLE INSIGHTS FOR SEARCH

Google Insights for Search is a service by Google similar to Google Trends, providing insights into the search terms people have been entering into the Google search engine.

Unlike Google Trends, Google Insights for Search provides a visual representation of regional interest on a country's map. It displays top searches and rising searches that may help with keyword research. Results can be narrowed down with categories that are displayed for each search terms.

Ecommerce statistics - 2011

2012-01-06T12:56:00.004+01:00

Some more statistics in the followind document by Econsultancy:

Sample internet-statistics-compendium

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Plista

2012-01-06T12:33:00.002+01:00

Plista is one of Germany’s leading advertising networks now successfully expanding across Europe.

Text & Image

Text/image advertisements surrounded by reading recommendations.

35 % higher conversion rate compared to classical text/image formats
No interruption of the reading flow – for a positive brand perception
High attention ratings due to placement among content
Powered by behavioral targeting technology
Branding orientated

Video

VideoAds are unique in that branding returns are significantly higher than with other formats. plista’s user-specific targeting and comprehensive tracking puts you in control of your engagement with different audiences.

Plista takes care of producing the ad and of preparing it for your approval prior to launching the campaign.

Optionally, the creative can also be handled by plista.

Provides high interaction between consumer and brand
Power to reach defined audiences with advanced targeting technology
Positive brand perception assured by non-intrusive ad functionality
Better ROI by combining branding with performance
Success-based billing (available in CPE or CPC)

Video on Plista

Six Ways to Save the Internet

2011-12-28T13:06:00.004+01:00

You can attend to the conference performed by Roger McNamee on "Six Ways to Save the Internet" by watching the following video.

Enjoy it!

Roger McNamee (born May 2, 1956) is a founding partner of the venture capital firm Elevation Partners. Prior to co-founding the firm McNamee co-founded private equity firm Silver Lake Partners and headed the T. Rowe Price Science and Technology Fund.

McNamee is also a touring musician, first as a founding member of the Flying Other Brothers, and more recently in that group's follow-on band, Moonalice. Between the two groups, McNamee estimated in April 2009 that he has played 800 shows.

Google in a Quantum Network

2011-12-18T03:09:00.003+01:00

Two Madrid scientists from The Complutense University think they have an
algorithm that may impact the nature of the world's leading search engine. In essence, they are saying Hey, world, Google This. "We have found an instance of this class of quantum protocols that outperforms its classical counterpart and may break the classical hierarchy of web pages depending on the topology of the web," say the researchers.

Google's PageRank algorithm represents of the idea that the importance of a webpage is measured by the number of important papers that point towards it. PageRank from Google not only measures a web page's popularity by how many sites, but the authority of the sites linking to the page.

Giuseppe Paparo and Miguel Martín-Delgado at The Complutense University in Madrid are taking the Google approach a step further. They have revealed a quantum version of the algorithm, and they have presented their findings in a paper dated December 9, "Google in a Quantum Network."

The distinguishing feature is speed. Quantum algorithms produce results "extremely rapidly," note reports, faster than a so called "classical" algorithm.

In their research using a tree graph, the quantum algorithm outperformed the classical algorithm in ranking the root page. They achieved similar results using a directed graph. The quantum algorithm identified the highest ranking page faster than a classical algorithm.

In quantum networks, information is routed as quantum bits, or qubits, rather than classical.

Technologists familiar with quantum computing believe that the classical web will be replaced, or enhanced, by a network of quantum nodes. Nonetheless, the recent research can be seen as an early step.

The paper from the scientist:

Google in Quantum Network

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Online Sharing in 2011

2011-12-15T13:22:00.002+01:00

Facebook controls up 52.1 percent of all sharing on the web for the year 2011 to date.

An infographic on online sharing in 2011:

Card Sorting

2011-12-15T12:50:00.005+01:00

Definition

Card sorting is a simple technique in user experience design and usability testing where a group of subject experts or "users", however inexperienced with design, are guided to generate a category tree or folksonomy.

Card sorting has a characteristically low-tech approach. The concepts are first identified and written onto simple index cards or Post-it notes. The user group then arranges these to represent the groups or structures they are familiar with.

Groups may either be organised as collaborative groups (focus groups) or as repeated individual sorts.

A card sort is commonly undertaken when designing a navigation structure for an environment that offers an interesting variety of content and functionality, such as a web site.In that context, the items to be organized are those that are significant in the environment. The way that the items are organized should make sense to the target audience and cannot be determined from first principles.

Card sorting is applied when:

The variety in the items to be organized is so great that no existing taxonomy is accepted as organizing the items.
The similarities among the items make them difficult to divide clearly into categories.
Members of the audience that uses the environment may differ significantly in how they view the similarities among items and the appropriate groupings of items.

Basic methodology

To perform a card sort

A person representative of the audience is given a set of index cards with terms already written on them.
This person puts the terms into logical groupings, and finds a category name for each grouping.
This process is repeated across a population of test subjects.
The results are later analyzed to reveal patterns.

The following are some of the tools that can help you do card-sorting studies.

	OptimalSort	A web-based service. One of several UX-related tools developed by Optimal Usability, a consulting company in New Zealand. Includes a variety of analysis features. Free version allows for up to 10 participants per project, 30 cards per project, and 3 projects. Licenses available for unlimited use. Also see the free tool for analysis of OptimalSort data by Aapo Puskala.
	UserZoom	A web-based service. One of several UX-related tools provided by UserZoom. Supports up to 100 items to sort and up to 12 categories. Supports both open and closed card-sorts. Analysis tools include an interactive dendogram.
	uzCardSort	Runs on Windows, Macintosh, and Linux versions of Mozilla. Provides basic browsing of the data. All data is saved in XML files. Open Source.
	WebSort	A web-based service. Supports sorting of images as well as textual cards. Developed by Larry and Jed Wood of Parallax LLC. Provides a variety of data analysis options. Free version supports one study with 10 participants. Licenses available for unlimited use.
	xSort	A Macintosh application. Developed by EnoughPepper, a company in Lisbon, Portugal. Provides a variety of reports and analysis tools, including hierarchical cluster analysis. Free.
	UsabiliTest Card-Sorting	A web-based service. Provides online data analysis and visualization features, including hierarchical cluster analysis. Provides a free 3-day trial, or unlimited-use paid subscriptions for one month or one year.
	Simple Card Sort	A web-based service. Supports open, closed, and hybrid card-sorts. Provides online data analysis. Provides a free demo account or unlimited-use paid subscriptions for one month or one year.

A video explaining the benefits of usability testing:

Multivariate Testing - Buyer´s guide - Download

2011-12-14T11:47:00.003+01:00

You can download this Guide for free, just pay with a tweet.

Multivariate testing - Buyers Guide

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YouTube Analytics

2011-12-01T09:10:00.005+01:00

YouTube Analytics reports are generated using the same data that users are used to seeing in Insight, and much more. The data is presented in a way that is designed to be more useful and interactive.

The following video provides a good introduction in YouTube Analytics:

Insights

The Insight Summary page provides snapshot metrics about the performance and demographic reach of your videos, a table of your top ten videos over the selected time period, and links to reports with more in depth data on the left column.

The different type of reports you can see in YouTube Insights:

Views report

The Views report captures data about your video playbacks, providing chronological and geographic breakdowns, as well as the relative popularity of your videos across different regions. Views data is updated in real time up until your total views reaches 300, at which point it may take up to 24 hours for this data to update in Insight.

Discovery report

The Discovery report shows how viewers got to your video - in other words, traffic sources. There are many ways people find videos: they search for them on YouTube, click Related Videos thumbnails, follow links from social networking websites like Twitter or Facebook, etc.

Demographics report

The Demographics report helps you understand the age and gender of your audience. You can adjust the time and geographic region to see how the breakdown of your audience varies. You can also select a particular gender to view more specifics about the age of viewers within that gender’s population.

Community report

The Community report allows you to track how viewers are engaging with your videos through ratings, commenting, sharing, and favoriting. You can see total number of events per day in a given time period and region, engagement per 100 views, and in which countries users have engaged with your content the most.

Subscribers report

The Subscribers report contains details about how you’ve gained and lost subscribers across different regions and over time. Subscribers are consistently more engaged with your content and watch your videos on a regular basis; this section helps you understand your effectiveness at building a base of subscribers, and spot regions where your channel is particularly popular.

Hot Stops

Hot Spots shows the ups-and-downs of viewership at each segment of your video compared to videos of similar length. If the line is above the Average line, your video has a higher percentage of viewers still watching your video and/or more people rewinding to re-watch that part of your video than other videos of similar length. The higher the graph, the hotter your video at that point in time. If it’s lower than average, a higher percentage of people are dropping off of or fast-forwarding through your video.

Call-to-action report

The Insight Call-to-Action report helps you understand the performance of Call-to-Action overlays for particular videos. You can can view the following statistics by selecting any of the these options from the dropdown at the top of the Call-to-Action graph:

Clicks (also called clickthroughs) occur when a user sees your Call to Action overlay and clicks on it, at which point they are redirected to the destination site.
Impressions is the number of times the Call to Action appears on YouTube. Every time your Call to Action is shown to a user, an impression will be recorded.
Click through rate (also called CTR) is the number of clicks the Call to Action receives divided by the number of times it appears (impressions).

Once you select the category of data that you want to view, you can use the Date and Region Selectors at the top of the page to get more specific statistics. Additionally, the chart below the Call-to-Action graphs displays the most commonly clicked URL’s from your overlays, and the key performance data about each.

Analytics

In YouTube Analytics, the Summary report shows a high-level summary of the main reports in YouTube Analytics. Here, you can quickly see some top-level performance metrics for your content on YouTube. Clicking on the title of each widget will take you to that specific report where you can view additional information. Click the links on the left to explore the other reports in YouTube Analytics.

What’s new in Analytics?

1.All reports are unified with a Data Filter, which is a key tool displayed at the top of each report. The Data Filter allows you filter byContent, Geography, and Date. You can select from a predetermined date range, or create a custom range.

2.Most reports have a Line Chart by default, which captures the distribution of a metric over the specified date range, with the following options:

Date granularity: charts can be displayed with data points in daily, weekly, or monthly increments.
Compare metric: select a second metric for comparison, which will displayed on the graph. For example, you can chart Viewersnext to Unique Viewers.

3.Most reports have an interactive Map, which captures the geographic distribution (limited to the Geography selection on the content picker) of the metric reported over the specified date range. Hover with your mouse over one of the countries to see the data for this particular country. The distribution is also visually indicated by the darkness of the shade of a particular country. For example, the map indicates that this particular user receives a high proportion of views in the United States and Germany.

4.Download report will now download the data on the report displayed rather than all data. Even changing the parameters in the View by button affects what data is downloaded.

Lessons Learned from Top 10 Converting Websites

2011-11-30T08:42:00.002+01:00

Interesting document providing real examples of how to make websites successful in terms of conversion.

If you want to download it just click the button and send a tweet:

Lessons learned from top10 converting websites

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Google History

2011-11-25T14:21:00.008+01:00

Beginning in 1996, Stanford University graduate students Larry Page and Sergey Brin built a search engine called “BackRub” that used links to determine the importance of individual web pages. By 1998 they had formalized their work, creating the company you know today as Google.

Since then, Google has grown by leaps and bounds. From offering search in a single language we now offer dozens of products and services—including various forms of advertising and web applications for all kinds of tasks—in scores of languages. And starting from two computer science students in a university dorm room, Google has now thousands of employees and offices around the world.

How everything started? How they made Google Search ? Whatch the following video to know how it works...

Another video, this one more about Google History:

Real-Time Google Analytics

2011-11-25T09:35:00.002+01:00

You can visualize real time data in Google Analytics. Google Analytics Real-Time is a set of new reports that show what’s happening on your site as it happens.

Measuring social media impact
Example: one way to use these reports is to measure the immediate impact of social media. When a new blog post is published and a tweet, with Real-Time it is possible to see the immediate impact in the site traffic.

Campaign measurement
Another way to use Real-Time is to make sure campaign tracking is correctly implemented before launching a campaign. When getting ready to launch a new campaign it’s critical to make sure your measurement plan is working before you start driving visitors to the page. With the Real-Time reports you can find out in seconds whether you’re getting the data you want in Google Analytics.

Accessing Real-Time

You’ll find the Real-Time reports only in the new version of Google Analytics. If you’re not already using the new version, you can start by clicking the “New Version” link in the top right of Google Analytics.

Video Tutorial

Watch the following video to know more about Real Time Google Analytics:

Alternative to Google Adwords

2011-11-22T18:27:00.004+01:00

The Spanish online media companies have come together to create a platform capable of linking texts with the most appropriate advertising. This is what has made Google for years and has become their main source of income.

The agreement of MediosOn (on this association there the are the major media companies of the country) will facilitate the insertion of personalized and contextualized advertising to the content you are currently reading, listening or watching. For a couple of years a similar system operates already in the Italian media, thus trying to bypass the only effective option until then, the Google Adwords.

The association has chosen the technology cXense , a Norwegian technology company that operates in the global market with a proven intelligent tool, with which the editors hope to formalize the Spanish legal framework of the agreement, defining and implementing business equipment tool among partners who join voluntarily in the project.

MediosOn born in February 2009 to promote and represent the interests of online media publishing companies in the market, the various players in the digital industry and public institutions, promoting the process of ongoing relationship between partners, and promoting the development of the Information Society in Spain. MediosOn represents over a hundred Spanish online media with a global audience of more than 20 million users.

SEO Starter Guide

2011-11-21T15:05:00.004+01:00

You can download this nice SEO (Search Engine Optimization) guide for beginners made by Google.

Please, just make a little Tweet to start downloading it.

Search Engine Starter Guide

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Google AdWords - Advertising Fundamentals Book

2011-11-09T13:25:00.002+01:00

I have compiled in the following book the information on Google AdWords "Advertising Fundamentals".

I hope you enjoy it:

Google AdWords Advertising Fundamentals

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Growing Your Business With Adwords - Free Book

2011-11-07T12:27:00.002+01:00

You can download this book for free, just pay with a tweet.

Growing Your Business With Adwords

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Flow Visualization - Google Analytics

2011-10-20T12:07:00.009+02:00

Google has recently launched “Flow Visualization” in Google Analytics, a tool that allows you to analyze site insights graphically, and instantly understand how visitors flow across pages on your site

The new Flow Visualization Feature provides a much clearer picture of how website visitors actually flow through a site with regards to your

goals.

Visitors Flow

The Visitors Flow view provides a graphical representation of visitors’ flow through the site by traffic source (or any other dimensions) so you can se

e their

journey, as well as where they dropped off. You’ll find this visuali

zer on the left hand navigation menu, where you’ll see a new “Visitors Flow” link under the Visitors section.

Nodes are automatically clustered according to an intelligence algorithm that groups together the most likely visitor flow through a site.

The visualization highly interactive. You can interact with the graph to highlight different pathways, and to see information about specific nodes and connections. For example, if you want to dive deeper into your “specials” set of pages, you can hover over the node to see more at a glance.

Let's say you just launched a new promotion, and you want to see how the promotional page is doing with regards to conversions. With the new Visitors Flow report, you can click on your promotional page to see how much traffic is coming to it, where it came from and how many people "drop-off" the page altogether.

To take this a step further, you can drill down into an

y node by “exploring the traffic” through the node. In this case, you can see how visitors coming specifically from Google search journeyed across your site.

Goal Flow

Goal Flow provides a graphical representation for how visitors flow through your goal steps and where they dropped off. Because the goal steps are defined by the site owner, they should reflect the important steps and page groups of interest to the site. In this first iteration, we’re supporting only URL goals, but we’ll soon be adding events and possibly other goal types.

You can find the Goal Flow visualizer in the Conversions > Goals section of the “Standard Reporting Tab.” Goal Flow helps you understand:

The relative volume of visits to your site by the dimension you choose (e.g. traffic source, campaign, browser)
The rates at which visitors abandon different pathways
Where and how visitors navigate each of the steps that you defined
How the visitors interacted with your site, including backtracking to previous goal steps

You can also apply any advanced segments to a Flow Visualizer. In addition, for those who want to see how visitors arrive at a page (or pages) of interest, they can select that page (or pages) and visualize “backward”. Such “reverse paths” could help site owners identify suboptimal placement of content. Similarly, “forward” paths from a page (or pages) can be visualized to understand most visited pages or to see visitor flow leakages that a site owner might be unaware of.

Pages before and after the node of interest are automatically grouped based on the most common “visitor” flows, and we’re building continued improvements to help group together sensible visitor paths and page nodes.

If you don’t have goals or goal funnels already set up, don’t worry. You can create a new goal or goal funnel from your profile settings and check it out right away - it works backwards on your historical data.

These two views are our first step in tackling flow visualization for visitors through a site, and we look forward to hearing your feedback as all users begin experiencing it in the coming weeks. We’re excited to bring useful and beautiful tools like these to help you understand your site, so stayed tuned for more!

How to use it

Please have a look to the following videos to know more on GA Flow Visualization:

Video 1

Video 2 (continuation)

Google Analytics Book - Free

2011-10-18T09:38:00.003+02:00

Now you can download my book on Google Analytics just by paying with a single Tweet.

You can download this book by clicking this button:

Google analytics training book

You can download this book by clicking this button:

Google Analytics Premium

2011-10-14T14:45:00.002+02:00

On 30 September 2011, Google announced announced the immediate availability of the Google Analytics Premium service.

GA Premium is a much enhanced version of the hugely popular and free-to-use Google Analytics, tailored to meet the needs of enterprises who demand particular levels of performance, security and service beyond those which the standard version is designed to provide.

Google has developed Google Analytics Premium around these pillars: more data, advanced tools, dedicated support and guarantees.

Here’s a summary of what that covers:

Extra processing power - increased data collection, more custom variables and downloadable, unsampled reports
Advanced analysis - attribution modeling tools that allow you to test different models for assigning credit to conversions
Service and support - experts to guide customized installation, and dedicated account management on call - all backed by 24/7 support
Guarantees - service level agreements for data collection, processing and reporting

You can get now Google Analytics Premium or more information just contacting Kwantic.

A cool video on Google Analytics Premium:

Facebook Timeline

2011-09-26T12:28:00.003+02:00

Facebook has just announced a new version of its profile called the Timeline at the F8 developer conference. Facebook Timeline is a new layout for your facebook profile.

The new layout is meant to be a central location for your stories, apps, and for you to express who you are, utilizing a chronological timeline to highlight the most important content you share on Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg explained it as a way to “share the story of your life on a single page.”

Watch the following video to know more about Facebook Timeline:

The Timeline will allow you to post about “stories,” rather than relying completely on chronology for all shared content and Facebook activity. Stories can be starred or hidden, and there are inline privacy controls to control exactly who sees what.

Apps will be able to hook into the Timeline as well, sharing things that you like to do on your personal page.

Timeline is meant to be completely customizable and mobile-friendly as well.

It’s available now for Facebook developers, but will be rolling out to users in the next few weeks.

Test&Target - How it works

2011-09-14T11:15:00.010+02:00

Test&Target information flow

The following diagram shows the flow of information when you use Test&Target to determine which targeted offers to display to your site visitors:

A customer requests a page from your server and it displays in the browser.
A first party cookie is set in the customer's browser to store customer behavior.
The mbox on the page calls Test&Target.
Test&Target displays offers based on the rules of your campaign.

Mboxes

Omniture Test&Target technology is based on "mboxes". Mboxes are wrappers that go around the content to be tested.

Mboxes are the area on your Web page where content is displayed.

One key to understanding Test&Target and what it can do for you is understanding mboxes. An mbox is a "marketing box," a portion of your Web page that can be configured to show different content in different situations. An mbox can also log the behavior of visitors to your site.

Mboxes are defined in the code for each Web page and are controlled with the Test&Target admin interface.

Mboxes are essential to campaigns and tests. You decide whether any mbox can do one, both, or none of the following:

Display and swap content for visitors.
Log visitor behavior in real-time.

Test&Target architecture

With mboxes in place, pages that are rendered allow Test and Target to apply new content to be shown in that wrapper and displays it to the user when appropriate. Every T&T request on the page will trigger a call to Omniture, which will look for the content variations tied to that specific wrapper ID and then serve the content by dynamically inserting it into the wrapper, overwriting the default content.

The following diagram shows the different elements of the Test&Target system:

A call to mbox.js is added to the page after the body tag.
Mbox wrappers are added around the content you are targeting along with a javascript call: mboxCreate.
When the page is rendered, the javascript call fires. This javascript call sends a request to Omniture’s servers.
Omniture’s servers look up the mbox that initiated the call. They find the content associated with that mbox, then return it to the user.
The new content renders in the mbox wrapper, overwriting the default content.
Test and Target drops a cookie on the user’s computer to track the test they saw and their later behavior reporting the findings back to T&T.

Brief explanatory video on Test&Target:

Test&Target Geo-Targeting

2011-09-09T11:54:00.014+02:00

Geo-targeting is the ability to target marketing, advertising or testing campaigns at a limited set of visitors based on their physical location. This capability allows to control where your content is displayed based on users location parameters like country, state, city, or even geographical position parameters like longitude or latitude.

Test&Target allows to target users based on their geographical location using Geo-location targeting feature.

Geo-location parameters allow you to target campaigns and experiences based on visitors' geography.

You can include or exclude visitors in campaigns based on their location.
You can show specific variants to users based on their location.
You can make segmentation of your campaign results based on users geographical location

You can target based on one or more of the following geographical units:

Country
City
State
Longitude
Latitude

This data is sent to Test&Target and is based on the visitor's IP address. Select these parameters just like any targeting values.

The following table shows the accuracy of IP-based geographical information in Test&Target.

SiteCatalyst 15

2011-09-08T08:41:00.004+02:00

SiteCatalyst 15 is a major upgrade of the tool.

Platform & Productivity Enhancements

New Segmentation Capabilities: SiteCatalyst users can apply segmentation right from the newly redesigned interface and – with as little as two clicks – apply segments to any report in real-time. For instance, if you want to segment your social media visitors in real-time – say purchasers from Facebook vs. purchasers from Twitter – you can quickly and easily see how these segments are performing and interacting with your site.
Suite Level Segmentation: Because the new platform facilitates improved integration and data sharing across the Online Marketing Suite, segment sharing is now available between SiteCatalyst, Discover, and Adobe Test&Target.
Redesigned User Interface: SiteCatalyst 15 introduces an enhanced user interface and intuitive design that displays customizable, interactive overview dashboard reports immediately upon logging in. Additionally, new search functionality enables SiteCatalyst users to quickly find a specific report by name or type without sorting through the menu system.
Reporting Improvements: The new platform makes it possible for SiteCatalyst, Discover, and Adobe DataWarehouse to now have consistent metrics and breakdowns. Additionally, Visits, Visitors, and Page Views are now available on all reports and full sub-relations are now enabled by default.
Adobe DigitalPulse Updated for SiteCatalyst 15: The latest version of DigitalPulse has been updated to validate all new SiteCatalyst 15 features, furthering its role as the leading implementation auditing solution.

Analytics:

New, interactive iPad Application: This app takes advantage of the unique capabilities of the iPad, such as data manipulation with the touch screen interface. Users can scroll, swipe, and zoom into a specific time period, as well as add new metrics with a simple touch. Users can even email reports that they create, directly from the app. If you’re a mobile SiteCatalyst user, this app is a must-have.

Improved Data Collection & Processing:

Processing Rules: Control numerous aspects of your implementation such as populating reports and setting success events based on a wide range of customizable criteria without the need to involve IT.

List Variables: With list variables, you can capture any data dimension that can occur multiple times on a page, such as ad impressions or criteria in a guided search. Conversion can then be tied back to those variables to give a more complete picture of how individual elements drive success on a site.

In the following video you will get additional information on the new features coming with SiteCatalyst 15.

Test&Target in iPhone

2011-09-07T10:54:00.005+02:00

I really like to have Test&Target application in my iPhone.

Test&Target for iPhone gives you on-the-go access to your Test&Target account.

I can watch the active campaigns and how are going the results. With one simple click I can see the CR (Conversion Rate) and number of visitors that every variant is getting, and which is the current winner CR lift compared to the control.

With the Test&Target iPhone application you can:

-Approve and deactivate campaigns right on your phone
-View real-time campaign reports with lift and confidence calculations
-See campaign setup details

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later

Please Note: You must be an existing Adobe Test&Target customer with valid login privileges to use this application.

VWO Asynchronous

2011-09-05T13:06:00.005+02:00

Wingify, the company producing Visual Website Optimizer (VWO) tool, has recently developed a new "Asynchronous" tagging code to be used in websites that are tested using VWO.

An asynhronous tagging code snippet is just like the regular Visual Website OPtimizer tracking code. However it has some benefits over the old one.

Faster tracking code load times for your web pages
Enhanced data collection & accuracy
Elimination of tracking errors from dependencies when the JavaScript hasn't fully loaded

This also means that if you are using asynchronous code then your website will not be having loading issue due to the Visual Website Optimizer tracking code. The new asynchronous version of Visual Website Optimizer code reduces page load time as the VWO code is downloaded in parallel to site code.

It also ensures that your site is never slowed down even if VWO servers are inaccessible.

Wingify have extensively tested the asynchronous code across variety of browsers (including IE7) and it works perfectly. Though they are keeping this code currently in beta until they get feedback from users that it is indeed a significant improvement over existing Synchronous code.

Multi-channel funnels in Google Analytics

2011-08-25T14:08:00.003+02:00

Multi-channel funnels is a new feature in Google Analytics, allowing to see how different marketing channels interact to create sales and conversions.

For example, many people may purchase on your site after searching for your brand on Google. However, they may have been introduced to your brand via a blog or while searching for specific products and services. The Multi-Channel Funnels reports show how previous referrals, searches, and exposure to other channels contributed to your sales.

Multi-Channel Funnels reports are generated from conversion paths, the sequences of interactions (i.e. clicks/referrals from channels) during the 30 days that led up to each conversion and transaction. Conversion path data include interactions with virtually all digital channels.

Channels

These channels include, but are not limited to:

paid and organic search (on all search engines along with the specific keywords searched)
referral sites
affiliates
social networks
email newsletters
display ads
custom campaigns that you’ve created, including offline campaigns that send traffic to vanity URLs

Reports

The multi-channels funnels reports include the following information:

Summary: Number of conversions and channels that have been involved
Main routes: Sequence of interactions that carried out a conversion. The data can be organized according to "source" (myweb.com, google, bind,...), "medium" (organic, referral, cpc, none,...), "keyword" (visitor search phrase) or "campaign".
Assisted conversions: Performance of traffic sources based on the number of times they have intervened in a conversion
Time Lapse: How slow have been your users to convert
Path Length: How many sources have interacted with users before making a conversion

The following video by Google provides an introduction to Multi-channel funnels:

Web browsers technical overview

2011-08-19T09:53:00.006+02:00

I would like to give some short overview on the architecture of web browsers in general.

Browser functionality

The browser main functionality is to present the web resource you choose, by requesting it from the server and displaying it on the browser window. The resource is usually an HTML document, but may also be a PDF, image, or other type. The location of the resource is specified by the user using a URI (Uniform resource Identifier).

The way the browser interprets and displays HTML files is specified in the HTML and CSS specifications. These specifications are maintained by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) organization, which is the standards organization for the web.
For years browsers conformed to only a part of the specifications and developed their own extensions. That caused serious compatibility issues for web authors. Today most of the browsers more or less conform to the specifications.

Browsers' user interface have a lot in common with each other. Among the common user interface elements are:

Address bar for inserting the URI
Back and forward buttons
Bookmarking options
A refresh and stop buttons for refreshing and stopping the loading of current documents
Home button that gets you to your home page

Strangely enough, the browser's user interface is not specified in any formal specification, it just comes from good practices shaped over years of experience and by browsers imitating each other. The HTML5 specification doesn't define UI elements a browser must have, but lists some common elements. Among those are the address bar, status bar and tool bar. There are, of course, features unique to a specific browser like Firefox's downloads manager.

The browser's high level structure

The browser's main components are:

The user interface - this includes the address bar, back/forward button, bookmarking menu etc. Every part of the browser display except the main window where you see the requested page.
The browser engine - marshalls the actions between the UI and the rendering engine.
The rendering engine - responsible for displaying the requested content. For example if the requested content is HTML, it is responsible for parsing the HTML and CSS and displaying the parsed content on the screen.
Networking - used for network calls, like HTTP requests. It has platform independent interface and underneath implementations for each platform.
UI backend - used for drawing basic widgets like combo boxes and windows. It exposes a generic interface that is not platform specific. Underneath it uses the operating system user interface methods.
JavaScript interpreter. Used to parse and execute the JavaScript code.
Data storage. This is a persistence layer. The browser needs to save all sorts of data on the hard disk, for examples, cookies. The new HTML specification (HTML5) defines 'web database' which is a complete (although light) database in the browser.

Figure : Browser main components.

It is important to note that Chrome, unlike most browsers, holds multiple instances of the rendering engine - one for each tab. Each tab is a separate process.

The responsibility of the rendering engine is well... Rendering, that is display of the requested contents on the browser screen.

By default the rendering engine can display HTML and XML documents and images. It can display other types through a plug-in (or browser extension); for example, displaying PDF using a PDF viewer plug-in. However, in this chapter we will focus on the main use case: displaying HTML and images that are formatted using CSS.

The rendering engine will start getting the contents of the requested document from the networking layer. This will usually be done in 8K chunks.

After that this is the basic flow of the rendering engine:

Figure : Rendering engine basic flow.

The rendering engine will start parsing the HTML document and turn the tags to DOM nodes in a tree called the "content tree". It will parse the style data, both in external CSS files and in style elements. The styling information together with visual instructions in the HTML will be used to create another tree - the render tree.

The render tree contains rectangles with visual attributes like color and dimensions. The rectangles are in the right order to be displayed on the screen.

After the construction of the render tree it goes through a "layout" process. This means giving each node the exact coordinates where it should appear on the screen. The next stage is painting - the render tree will be traversed and each node will be painted using the UI backend layer.

It's important to understand that this is a gradual process. For better user experience, the rendering engine will try to display contents on the screen as soon as possible. It will not wait until all HTML is parsed before starting to build and layout the render tree. Parts of the content will be parsed and displayed, while the process continues with the rest of the contents that keeps coming from the network.

Main flow examples

Figure : Webkit main flow

Figure : Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine main flow

From figures 3 and 4 you can see that although Webkit and Gecko use slightly different terminology, the flow is basically the same.

Gecko calls the tree of visually formatted elements a "Frame tree". Each element is a frame. Webkit uses the term "Render Tree" and it consists of "Render Objects". Webkit uses the term "layout" for the placing of elements, while Gecko calls it "Reflow". "Attachment" is Webkit's term for connecting DOM nodes and visual information to create the render tree. A minor non-semantic difference is that Gecko has an extra layer between the HTML and the DOM tree. It is called the "content sink" and is a factory for making DOM elements.

You can find more information in the following tutorial.

NFC - Near Field Communication

2011-07-26T13:20:00.005+02:00

NFC definition

Near field communication, or NFC, permits quick exchange of small amounts of data between mobile devices, personal computers, and smart objects. A smartphone or tablet with an NFC chip could make a credit card payment or serve as keycard or ID card. NFC devices can read NFC tags on a museum or retail display to get more information or an audio or video presentation. NFC can share a contact, photo, song, application, or video or pair Bluetooth devices.

The technology allows wireless communications over a small distance (10 cm or almost 4 inches). In practice, this means that when a user brings an NFC-enabled device in proximity to an object containing an NFC-sensitive device (i.e., an NFC tag or another NFC-enabled device), the user can retrieve information about that object and in some cases, share information.

The following video contains examples on the use of NFC:

NFC can be used for:

Card Emulation: The NFC device acts as a card, such as a credit card or gift card.
Reader Mode: The NFC device can read certain coding to make the device do or display something. This is often used for interactive advertising.
Peer-to-Peer Mode: Two NFC devices can communicate and share information with each other.
Mobile Ticketing: Public transportation tickets are stored on your device. You then hold your device next to the NFC initiator and it will recognize your ticket.
Smart poster: Similar to Reader Mode. The device can grab information from an outdoor billboard while you are driving.
Bluetooth pairing: NFC can make bluetooth pairing very simple. Just hold the two devices right next to each other and they will automatically pair and connect via Bluetooth.

Here are some more uses that could be developed in the future:

Electronic Ticketing: Similar to Mobile Ticketing, which is used for public transportation. Instead of transportation, Electronic Ticketing will allow tickets for concerts, events, and even airlines to be stored on your device and recognized by the NFC initiator.
Electronic money: Similar to Card Emulation where the device acts as a credit card. However, Electronic money will allow the device to act as a wallet with actual cash. The device will hold a certain cash balance and when you use Electronic money, the payment will be subtracted from the cash balance on the device. This balance can sync to a bank account, PayPal, and other like services.
Identity documents: Drivers licenses, green cards, and other identity documents can be stored on the device and recognized by an NFC initiator. This could be useful when places ask for an ID. Instead of handing them your ID, you can just hold your phone next to the NFC initiator.
Electronic Keys: Some newer cars have special keys that, when close enough to the car, will automatically unlock the car without ever having to take the key out of your pocket. NFC can replace these keys and do this same function with your phone. It can replace car keys, house/office keys, hotel keys, and other keys.
Initiate Wireless Connections: Similar to Bluetooth pairing. NFC can automatically initiate a Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or Ultra-wideband connection between two devices when they are held next to each other.

NFC tags

NFC tags are passive devices that can be used to communicate with active NFC devices (an active NFC reader/writer). The NFC tags can be used within applications such as posters, and other areas where small amounts of data can be stored and transferred to active NFC devices. Within the poster the live area can be used as a touch point for the active NFC device.

The stored data on the NFC tag may contain any form of data, but common applications are for storing URLs from where the NFC device may find further information. In view of this only small amounts of data may be required. NFC tags may also be used.

There is currently different opinions regarding the possible replacement of QR codes by NFC tags. In a recent Ad Age article, Dave Wieneke argued that QR codes are a dead-end, transitional technology, to be quickly replaced by Near Field Communication (NFC).

NFC Forum

Formed in 2004, the Near Field Communication Forum (NFC Forum) promotes sharing, pairing, and transactions between NFC devices and develops and certifies device compliance with NFC standards. The 140 NFC Forum members include LG, Nokia, Huawei, HTC, Motorola, NEC, RIM, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba, AT&T, Sprint, Rogers, SK, Google, Microsoft, PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Intel, TI, Qualcomm, and NXP.

Visual Website Optimizer (VWO)

2011-06-21T08:43:00.002+02:00

Visual Website Optimizer (VWO) is a very good tool for A/B testing. In my opinion, it is a bit more limited in features than for example Test&Target but, on the other hand, it is much cheaper and easy to use.

VWO is a good tool to start making A/B tests or Multivariate tests in a website when you don´t have too much money to invest on this type of activity. There is even a cheaper option, like Google Website Optimizer, but still VWO I think it is easier to use and provides better features, so it is worth the small cost.

An introductory video on VWO:

Here I provide some information, coming from VWO guys, where it is compared VWO tool against Test&Target and Google Website Optimizer.

	Visual Website Optimizer	Omniture Test & Target	Google Website Optimizer
Core Features:
A/B testing ?
Multivariate testing ?
Visual WYSIWYG editor ?
Easy tag-less integration ?
Multiple conversion goals ?
Realtime reports ?
Heatmaps & clickmaps ?
Advanced Features:
Visitor segmentation & targeting ?
Revenue Tracking ?
Integration with Google Analytics ?
Cross-domain tracking ?
Wordpress, Joomla plugins ?
Automatic test monitoring & optimization ?
HTML, CSS and JQuery based tests ?
API to fetch test results ?
Collaboration Features:
Multiple permission-based logins ?
Client or project sub-accounts ?
Support	From product developers	Support team	Through forums
Pricing	Starts $49 per month	Annual contract of $10,000+	Free

Test&Target

2011-06-20T11:43:00.004+02:00

Test&Target from Adobe (previously from Omniture) is probably the best tool in the market for testing and optimizing websites.

Here are listed some of the key features of T&T tool.

A/B, Multivariate Testing

Test content on site, in email and in display ads
A/B testing facilitates fast and accurate design selection
Multivariate testing allows for testing many elements and variations with smaller traffic requirements and fewer combinations
In-depth reporting reveals the combination of elements that leads to the greatest lift in conversion
"Push winner" functionality converts winning test scenarios with a single click to standard content for all audience segments

Ad Testing

Track ad impressions and their impact on conversion
Optimize ad content and compare multiple creative options, adjust to serve more of the winning creative
Track clicks to monitor ad performance in real time, from first click to final conversion
Coordinate ad tests across multiple ad networks or publishers
Track view-throughs
Combine ad testing with cost and revenue tracking to quickly see real-time revenue for a given ad

Visual Application Management

Design tests directly on the site just as visitors will experience them
Immediately visualize how customers experience a test, giving real-time insight for increasing content relevance
Onsite testing capabilities work without any special configuration or implementation

Effective Targeting

Target content to different groups of visitors based on marketer-defined segments
Target audience segments based on URL, geography, profile and visitor behavior
Maintain consistency of targeted offers from offsite exposure (display ads, email) through to onsite activity
Flexibility to market broadly to a segment of visitors or to define parameters for stricter targeting to a very specific visitor set
Break out conversion data per targeted group with reporting segment filters
"Targeting groups" allow marketers to reuse commonly created targeting rules—reducing rework

Automated Predictive Learning

Each visitor and click is scored individually, so targeted offers can be served based on a visitor's unique interests
Create extensible customer profiles that include offline data, such as product holdings, credit score, time on file and other non-personally identifiable information
Import external customer profiles in real time for heightened relevance

Automated Campaign Management

Automatically direct site traffic in response to visitor behavior, factoring in variables such as time of day, email communications or product promotions
Self-optimizing campaigns ensure that the most effective targeting scenarios are shown more often, accounting for environmental or seasonal changes
Automatically promote the best performing scenarios to improve conversions for specific audience segments or across the site

If you are using Test&Target you may find useful the following User Guide Book on Test&Target:

Test and target book

You can have now Test&Target for your iPhone

Mobile webs vs. Mobile apps

2011-06-09T12:15:00.013+02:00

With the continued advancement of HTML5 technology, marketers and publishers are beginning to debate the necessity of investing in mobile applications, as mobile websites become increasingly sophisticated. Why develop for numerous platforms - such as Android, iPhone and BlackBerry, for example - when you can develop just once in HTML5?

Let´s have a look first to how mobile technology has developed from the very beginning and how it looks the future:

In my opinion, the majority of the cases businesses and individuals will gain more from taking the mobile web approach. The development costs will be lower, the potential market size will be bigger and it will be much easier for people to find your site by using any search engine.

Before making a decision several criteria should be considered. Below a summary of some of the main points to help you make the right decision for your business.

	Mobile App Application designed to run on a specific mobile device – download and installation required	Mobile Website Website created specifically for mobile devices – accessible through mobile browsers, no download or installation required
Portability	Needs to be developed for each platform (iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Palm and the list goes on…)	Common platform – some solutions enable you to develop once and run on all web-enabled mobile devices
Hyper Links	It is possible to link to an app but since most users will not have the app installed, the most effective way is to link to the download page for this app. It is possible to link from an app externally to other websites	Possible to provide links to different pages on your mobile site and to link from your mobile site to other websites
Discoverability	Most apps don’t achieve critical success and fade into the world of anonymity. You will need a very well defined strategy to break into the top list for your category in order to make it	People can find your site by using any of the search engines and via links from other websites, blogs, Twitter and links embedded in emails. A good marketing strategy can definitely increase the number of visitors, especially if it is viral.
Distribution & Market Size	For example with iPhone, you are at the mercy of the App Store police in regards to availability of your app and approvals to get it in. Requires users to download – huge barrier to entry. Limited to the number of users on the released platform	Anyone on the web has access to your mobile site
Usage of Device Capabilities	Able to use all device capabilities (GPS, camera, voice, RFID, address book, calendar, etc.)	It is possible to use features like GPS, offline data storage and video from within mobile websites using the latest mobile browsers which support HTML5. Access from the web to some native capabilities of mobile devices is still limited due to security and privacy concerns (e.g. access to address book or calendar)
Supportability & Upgradeability	Difficult to support and maintain after app is downloaded. Every new release with bug fixes requires to go through the entire approval process of the app store. After new version of application is placed in the store, it requires all existing users to upgrade in order to get it- big barrier	Easier to support and maintain as developer has complete access to the site No need to upgrade, all users see the latest version
Entry Costs	some app stores charge extra fees for publishing or certifying your app	None
Revenue Share	Need to share sales revenue with the app stores	It’s all yours
User Experience	Full control of User Interface	Limited to the capabilities of HTML/CSS. User experience will largely depend on how the mobile website is designed
Performance	Able to achieve high performance through app code that runs locally on the device	Performance will largely depend on how the mobile website is designed and the network connection speed.
Offline Browsing	Possible	HTML5 enables it to some extent, but is supported only on selected devices

Web Usability

2011-06-07T11:49:00.011+02:00

Definition

Web usability is an approach to make web sites easy to use for an end-user, without the requirement that any specialized training be undertaken.

The user should be able to intuitively relate the actions he needs to perform on the web page, with other interactions he sees in the general domain of life e.g. press of a button leads to some action. The broad goal of usability can be:

Present the information to the user in a clear and concise way.
To give the correct choices to the users, in a very obvious way.
To remove any ambiguity regarding the consequences of an action e.g. clicking on delete/remove/purchase.
Put the most important thing in the right place on a web page or a web application.

In the context of eCommerce websites, the meaning of web-usability is narrowed down to efficiency: triggering sales and/or performing other transactions valuable to the business.

Web usability tips

There are infinite choices when designing a good web in terms of usability and in every case will depend on the goals you want to reach with your site and the content displayed. Some tips that could apply normally to the design of webs:

1. Structure your website design around update frequency

If you’ll post new content less often, have a more static and feature-focused design. If you’ll post more often, go for a blog-style design.

2. Put the logo in the top-left, menu to the right or below

Place your logo in the top-left, and put the menu either to the right of or below it – and make sure the logo is clickable and takes the visitor back to your home page. The reason for these? Accepted conventions – it’s what most web users expect, so there’s no need to get creative deciding where to place the steering wheel in your car design, so to speak.

3. Have the search in the upper left or right

Include the search bar in the upper left or right (if applicable of course ie. you have enough content to warrant search). Also, include the word “Search” in-form so people know what that type-able bar is for.

4. Make your contact info or form easy to find

Either have the contact info or form as separate page with a dedicated link in the menu or footer, or include the contact info in the sidebar or footer.

5. Make help page easy to find

Have your help page(s) – things like FAQ, technical support, documentation – easy to find, either in the menu or most likely in the footer.

6. Have as few menu items as possible

The more choices your new visitors have, the greater the indecision-paralysis they’ll have (ie. the more likely they won’t click on any navigation menu items and instead will bounce out.)

7. Include state-changes in links and buttons

You increase the likeliness of your visitors clicking on desired links and buttons – as well as making them feel less lost – when you reinforce the click-ability and actionable-ness of things. Do that by including state-changes in links and buttons ie. change the appearances when hovering and clicking.

8. Highlight the active form field

When a visitor clicks inside of a form field, highlight it to reinforce that when the visitor starts typing, that’s where text will be inputed or an action will result.

9. Make link colors as noticeable as possible

Make link colors stand out so that it’s obvious that that piece of text is clickable. This is especially important and usable for those with accessibility issues (ie. have a hard time with low contrast items.)

10. Keep everything as consistent as possible

Eliminate surprises for your visitors by avoiding inconsistency. Keep the following and anything else as consistent as possible (and that includes full-width pages vs. sidebar-included pages): colors, link colors, structure, interface, and where the elements are.

Usability testing

Usabitlity testing focuses on measuring web's capacity to meet its intended purpose. Usability testing measures the usability, or ease of use, of websites.

Usability testing may sound daunting, but in reality, a small investment can yield large gains. Jacob Nielsen, one of the best-known usability gurus, says:

“The best results come from testing no more than 5 users and running as many small tests as you can afford.”

Just 5 users will provide enough results to help you make effective updates to your website. While you could test with 15 users to find most or all problem areas on your site, testing with just 5 will uncover 85% of issues, which gives you the most value for your money.

Other trouble spots can be identified by testing a subsequent round of users, and with each additional test, the number of issues uncovered will decrease.

It’s important to note that the very first usability test offers the greatest insight. Even a small amount of testing can yield significant results and reveal big issues and problem areas early on. This means that you don’t need to spend a lot of time or money to benefit from usability testing.

Some tools used for web usability:

Userfly
Feedback Army
Five Second Test
UserTesting
ClickTale
ClickHeat
Chalmark
Simple Mouse Tracking
Silverback

And, if you want, not only to measure but also to test different variants and check which one provides better results, then you may use some testing tools like:

Test&Target
Visual Website Optimizer
Google Website Optimizer

Neuro Web Design

2011-06-06T09:12:00.003+02:00

I found very interesting the book "Neuro Web Design: What makes them click?" by Dr. Susan Weinschenk about our brain behavior when browsing and interacting with websites and how important is the unconscious part of our brain.

We think that we are reasoning, rational people and that our decisions are made by careful thinking. But the reality is that the website we pick, what we decide to do while there, and whether we buy or not, are decisions and actions that we make in a largely unconscious way.

Although some of our decisions on what to buy, and where to buy it from, might come from the rational part of our brain, many of our decisions and actions are based on emotion, and many are based on automatic triggers that we react to from something at the website.

In her entertaining and engaging sessions, Dr . Susan Weinschenk explores and demonstrates research on the brain and neuroscience and applies what scientists have been discovering about the unconscious to the design of web sites so that they are persuasive.

About Dr . Susan Weinschenk
Susan has a Ph.D. in Psychology from Pennsylvania State University , and has been a Fortune 500 consultant for 30 years. Her clients include Target Stores, American Express, and NASA among many others.
A popular international speaker and presenter she definitely “walks the walk” during her powerful presentations. Her nickname is “The Brain Lady” because of her knowledge about the latest research on brain science. Dr. W einschenk’s newest book, Neuro Web Design: What makes them click? , published by New Riders, applies that research to the design of web sites
(www.neurowebbook.com).

Website Performance Optimization

2011-05-28T19:17:00.002+02:00

Web optimization is a vital part of web development and maintenance but also something often overlooked by webmasters. Just think of the money you can save, and how it can potentially help increase your readership and traffic when they are properly done.

Users expect your website to be fast. They are more likely to buy or explore your products and services when you meet their performance expectations. Faster websites have happier, more engaged and more numerous users, and generate more revenue than slower sites. Better web performance reduces your bounce rates and increases the number of pages viewed per visit. Additionally, site speed is a factor in Google’s ranking of your site in its search results.

If you have a slow website, much of the time and money you spend getting people to visit it is being wasted. For example, Amazon.com revealed that for every 100ms (just a tenth of a second) delay in page load time, they experienced a 1% drop in revenue!

In the following conference you can find ideas on how to optimize the performance of your website:

Some tools that can help in the optimization of your website:

Google’s Page Speed Tool

This tool sets the benchmark in finding many of your website speed problems. All issues are clearly detailed and it’s scoring system allows you to assess the impact of changes quickly. It’s available as browser plugins and through an version of the tool.
Visit the tool >>

Web Page Analyzer

This handy tool calculates page size, composition, and download time. The script calculates the size of individual elements and sums up each type of web page component. Based on these page characteristics the script then offers advice on how to improve page load time. It lacks of the sizzle of newer tools, but provides a simple no nonsense insight into your websites performance.
Visit the tool >>

Yottaa

One of the newer tools on the market, Yottaa offers a range of data points on your sites performance including page speed, its global reachability, how well optimized it is and how easily a browser can render its contents. The best part is they offer an ongoing monitoring service so you can analyse your performance over time.
Visit the tool >>

Social Media Demographics

2011-05-27T14:55:00.008+02:00

Some more statistics on type of people using Social Media sites, specially Facebook and Twitter, as well as more active countries:

1) Facebook.com average user figures and facts:

Average user has 130 friends on the site
Average user sends 8 friend requests per month
Average user spends an average 15 hours and 33 minutes on Facebook per month
Average user visits the site 40 times per month
Average user spends an 23 minutes (23:20 to be precise) on each visit
Average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events
Average user creates 90 pieces of content each month
200 million people access Facebook via a mobile device each day
More than 30 billion pieces of content are shared each day
Users than access Facebook on mobile devices are twice as active on Facebook compared to non-mobile users
Facebook generates a staggering 770 billion page views per month

2) Breakdown by country: More than 70% of Facebook users come from outside the United States

Global User Population: 629,982,480

3) Global User Demographics: The global breakdown of users on Facebook by gender and age

Online Coupons

2011-05-02T10:07:00.005+02:00

It´s now becoming very popular, specially in U.S., social sites focused in offering coupons, discounts and best deals to buy anything from shops, malls,... . I briefly describe about the most popular ones at the moment, and the recent alternative presented by Google.

Groupon

Groupon is the most popular and well known daily deal coupon site. Groupon serves over 150 cities in North American and over 100 cities in Europe, Asia and South America. Each day, Groupon features an unbeatable deal on the best stuff to do, see, eat, and buy in your city. Just click "BUY" before the offer ends at midnight and the Groupon will be yours!

Living Social

Just like Groupon, LivingSocial sends you a deal each day to use at a local business. You purchase the deals, and then receive a link to your voucher within the next business day. After you buy the deal, you'll get a unique link to share. Then, if three people buy the deal using your link, your deal is free. Deals vary widely in category, from restaurant discounts, to spa treatments, to pottery painting.

BuyWithMe

BuyWithMe is along the same lines as Groupon or Living Social, but unlike those two sites, BuyWithMe isn't necessarily a one-day-only type of deal. You usually have a few days to buy the deal, which is nice since you don't have to make snap decisions. The site is unique in that each deal requires a minimum number of people to sign up before the deal expires in order for it to go through for everyone. So, if the minimum isn't reached, you're not charged for the deal that you're not getting.

Google Offers

Google launched their Local deals program called ‘Google Offers’ Beta program this week. Google is entering into the Social Coupon race after their failed bid to buy the one year old Local deal giant Goupon for an amazing $6 Billion this past Fall.

Google will be offering their own Local deals to people that “subscribe” to their Google Offers program. They will be rolling out Google Offers Beta in Portland, Oregon to start followed by other cities soon after.

Online coupons are growing faster than online ads

"The percentage of local advertising that is not digital – and that's most of it – will change because the cost of advertising online is really low," says Frank Mulhern, associate dean of research at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism in Evanston, Ill.

How quickly the online companies will succeed is another matter. In U.S. local online ad spending will grow nearly 18 percent this year, according to Borrell Associates Inc. Online coupons are growing faster in U.S. – up 50 percent between 2009 and 2010 – and worth more than $10 billion, Gordon Borrell says.

Small businesses represent a special challenge for online ad companies. Groupon and other daily-deal sites advertise discounts to millions of subscribers, via e-mail. The site keeps up to 50 percent of the coupon and the business gets a surge of customers, sometimes an onslaught.

"The sites offer great deals to the consumers at the expense of the small businesses," says Utpal Dholakia, a marketing professor at Rice University's business school in Houston, and author of a recent study on Groupon. He found that 32 percent of the businesses surveyed said their Groupon promotion was unprofitable. More than 40 percent of the respondents said they would not run the promotion again.

"It's like dynamite," says Jay Goltz, a Chicago business owner and blogger for The New York Times. He had 900 customers respond to his Groupon ad, but is unsure how many were already customers. In addition, he questions how many people will return to his stores as repeat customers. "It's a great invention, but it could blow up your house," he adds. "I wouldn't predict the end of the bulletin board."

QR Codes

2011-04-27T14:50:00.003+02:00

QR codes are not new, they have been around since 1994. The 2 dimensional (Quick Response) bar codes have had practical uses on airline boarding tickets and on product lables for stock tracking purposes. What is relatively new is the use of QR codes in marketing.

These collection of black and white dots can be scanned by a QR reader on your smart phone, decoded, and then interpreted to bring you to a website or any online resource such as a video or social media page. Alternatively on scanning, text can be displayed to the user, or a vCard can be added to the users smart phone.

One example here. Decode it with your smart phone QR reader application:

Advertisers are finding new ways to maintain interest in them and keep people scanning. This includes adding colour to QR codes and designing them so that they include a perceivable image or logo and animated codes are already been discussed by the big players in QR code design.

The use of the QR Code is free of any license. You can also generate your own QR code for free by using one of the many QR code generating websites. The all you need to do is print the code on a poster, business card or your product packaging so it can be scanned by one of your customers. QR codes can also be printed in a magazine or newspaper advert so it has been hailed as the link between print and online marketing. Users can’t click your website address if they set it in print but they can scan a QR code.

In order for QR codes to become mainstream in marketing, there needs to be:

1. Continued increase in the adoption of smart phones

2. Smart phones need to come out of the box with a QR code reader already installed, in the same way that Google maps comes pre installed on the iPhone, for example. Many Android phones comes with the barcode scanner Zxing. The iPhone does not have any native QR scanner, but many are available to download from the iTunes app store for free, just search for QR Scanner.

3. There needs to be an increase in the awareness of the smart phone user population about what QR codes are and how to use them.

4. Companies need to give people a good reason to scan their QR code such as an extra incentive or reward.

Custom QR codes have colour and background images so you can brand them with your company logo.

User Experience

2011-04-08T14:57:00.003+02:00

I find very interesting the blog "What Makes Them Click" by Susan Weinschenk with interesting advices and guidelines on how to design a website with quality user experience.

You can have a look to the following video to know about how a good user experience is also an important factor when optimizing your website and maximizing your revenue.

Social Media statistics

2011-03-29T12:32:00.006+02:00

The following video shows interesting statistics regarding the current usage of Social sites. Have a look:

Some relevant numbers regarding the current use of Facebook:

Every 20 Minutes on Facebook:

2.7 million photographs were uploaded
1 million links were shared
7.6 million pages were “liked”
1.3 million photos were tagged
1.4 million invites were sent out
1.5 million wall posts were made
1.9 million friend requests were accepted
10.2 million comments were made
4.6 million messages were sent

Facebook.com average user figures and facts:

Average user has 130 friends on the site
Average user sends 8 friend requests per month
Average user spends an average 15 hours and 33 minutes on Facebook per month
Average user visits the site 40 times per month
Average user spends an 23 minutes (23:20 to be precise) on each visit
Average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events
Average user creates 90 pieces of content each month
200 million people access Facebook via a mobile device each day
More than 30 billion pieces of content are shared each day
Users that access Facebook on mobile devices are twice as active on Facebook compared to non-mobile users
Facebook generates a staggering 770 billion page views per month

The following videos show you Facebook statistics in a cool way:

Mobile and Social Markets

2011-03-26T07:43:00.006+01:00

In the following diagrams you get the current status and trend of mobile and social markets. This information is from SQ1 agency.

Google Analytics Training Book

2011-03-16T18:50:00.010+01:00

I just got my certification on Google Analytics IQ... with 90% score ... :p

For those interested in learning on Google Analytics I have compiled in the following book all the information available from Google to prepare the exam.

Here you have, I hope you enjoy it:

Google analytics training book

View more documents from Antonio Garcia

Browsers usage statistics

2011-03-13T13:57:00.003+01:00

The following data comes from Statcounter. Statcounter statistics are directly derived from hits (not unique visitors) from 3 million sites using Statcounter totalling more than 15 billion hits per month.


Date	Internet Explorer	Firefox	Chrome	Safari	Opera	Mobile browser
February 2011	45.44%	30.37%	16.54%	5.08%	2.00%	4.45%
January 2011	46.00%	30.68%	15.68%	5.09%	2.00%	4.30%
December 2010	46.94%	30.76%	14.85%	4.79%	2.07%	4.10%
November 2010	48.16%	31.17%	13.35%	4.70%	2.01%	4.02%
October 2010	49.21%	31.24%	12.39%	4.56%	2.00%	3.81%

From View Trends, this is the Web Browser Market Share in February 2011:

Web Browsers
1	Internet Explorer 8	26.35%
2	Firefox 3.6	25.97%
3	Chrome 9	12.01%
4	Internet Explorer 7	9.75%
5	Safari 5	5.08%
6	Internet Explorer 6	3.59%
7	Firefox 3.5	2.35%
8	Chrome 8	2.09%
9	Opera 11	1.17%
10	Firefox 3	1.04%

Other related statistics below.

Operating Systems
1	Windows XP	41.47%
2	Windows 7	28.27%
3	Windows Vista	13.52%
4	Mac OS X	8.75%
5	iPhone OSX	2.02%
6	Linux	1.44%
7	Android	0.59%
8	BlackBerry	0.41%
9	Windows 2003	0.19%
10	Windows 2000	0.18%

Screen Resolutions
1	1024x768	20.10%
2	1280x800	17.50%
3	1366x768	11.42%
4	1280x1024	9.13%
5	1440x900	7.74%
6	1680x1050	4.78%
7	1920x1080	3.59%
8	1600x900	2.47%
9	800x600	2.46%
10	1024x600	2.01%

A/B Tests. Check your intuition

2011-03-10T08:24:00.006+01:00

In the web "Which Test Won?" by Anne Holland you can find interesting A/B Test cases where you can check your intuition.

Basically you will find different real A/B test cases implemented by different companies in websites, and you can choose which variant was the winner. Example:

Once you choose which version you think was the most successful then you get information on what really happened with this test and which variant was generating more conversions. You can also see how many people who voted were wrong or right. So you can feel better knowing that you were not the only one who failed :)

To be honest, I have tried myself in multiple tests and also with my colleagues, people that we have been working already some years doing this type of work, and we were easily failing. So I think this site shows very good demonstrations that, even if you have very good experience deciding what to have in a web page, or how to design it, you still should measure objectively and try different options because you can get a nice surprise about which option is the favorite for your audience or works better for your conversion goals.

Replacing Cookies with Device Fingerprints

2011-03-04T09:21:00.005+01:00

New products from companies like BlueCava and Ringleader Digital will allow advertisers to link and track individual consumers on their mobile phones, desktop PCs, tablet devices, games consoles, TVs - even their cars - and serve them ads based on activity across those devices.

They will do so using a process often referred to as device fingerprinting, an emerging device identification technique which could eventually replace the cornerstone of online measurement and data collection, the cookie.

When a connected device accesses content or services, it transmits bits of information about its properties and settings. For example, a smartphone might communicate details of which operating system and browser versions it's running, its time zone, and which carrier network it’s using, to name but a few.

These individual signals can be collected and pieced together to form a unique, persistent "fingerprint" for that specific device. That fingerprint can then be assigned an identifying number, and used for similar purposes as a cookie, such as ad targeting, frequency capping, and other forms of tracking.

In the following video, the CEO of BlueCava explains this new technology.

Replacing the Cookie

The technology applies not only to mobile devices, however, but also to desktop computers, tablet devices, and potentially any device with a data connection.

"Our ultimate goal is to replace the cookie," David Norris, BlueCava's chairman and CEO, told ClickZ. "Cookies are temporary tattoos that fade away, but [fingerprints] don't fade away. Cookies had their point in time, but we've moved far enough along for a more sophisticated system now."

Because cookies reside on users' machines they are subject to deletion and expiration, and are rendered useless if a user decides to switch to a new browser, for example.

Fingerprints, however, track devices themselves, rather than the cookies placed on them. Even if the characteristics of a device change, its fingerprint is simply updated to reflect those changes. If, for example, a user upgrades his browser, the device can still be uniquely identified using other characteristics, and its fingerprint is simply altered to reflect the changes.

To illustrate the process Norris used an analogy of a person walking into a small grocery store two days in a row. The second time the person visits the store he might have changed his shirt, but the storeowner will still recognize him based on other characteristics such as height, hair color, and numerous other variables. In theory, just as no two shoppers are the same, neither are two devices.

Based on this principle, Norris said BlueCava's technology can uniquely identify a device 99.9 percent of the time using around 50 pieces of data broadcast from a desktop browser.

Mobile Devices, Tracking and Targeting

Besides desktop computers, fingerprinting technology has arguably more potential for mobile and tablet devices, which typically can't be tracked easily using cookies.

In light of that opportunity, Ringleader Digital has developed a similar technology to BlueCava, but is focusing its efforts squarely on the mobile ad market. Dubbing its Media Stamp product "the mobile equivalent of the desktop cookie," it can be used for similar purposes such as frequency capping, conversion tracking, and potentially behavioral and data-driven media buying opportunities also.

"We can uniquely and persistently identify the top 100 U.S. devices 100 percent of the time," Bob Walczak, CEO of Ringleader Digital, told ClickZ. "The issue in mobile has been that third party cookies work on less than 60 percent of devices, based on our testing. This is because the carriers strip them off at the gateway, the devices can't accept them, or they are shipped with third-party cookies turned off. There are so many different, fragmented market standards, so our aim was to create a single, simple solution," he said.

Ringleader has positioned itself as a technology provider, licensing its wares to publishers, ad networks, ad servers, and essentially any party with a use for them. Meanwhile stealth startup TapAd is in the process of developing a similar solution, but plans to focus more heavily on the direct provision of real-time bidded, data-driven opportunities for advertisers.

Future Internet

2011-02-27T18:51:00.002+01:00

WEB 2.0 - TODAY

The current Internet we are experienced is the so called Web 2.0. and referes to a series of technological improvements from the original Internet.

Some examples of features considered to be part of Web 2.0 are listed below:

Blogs - also known as Web logs, these allow users to post thoughts and updates about their life on the Web.
Wikis - sites like Wikipedia and others enable users from around the world to add and update online content.
Social networking - sites like Facebook and MySpace allow users to build and customize their own profile sand communicate with friends.
Web applications - a broad range of new applications make it possible for users to run programs directly in a Web browser, like Google Docs, Gmail, Zoho and many other.
RSS Feeds - pulling information from the web.

The following video explains the benefits of current Internet, the Web 2.0.

WEB 3.0 - TOMORROW

Next future of Internet is Web 3.0 or also called "Semantic Web".

The Semantic Web is a "web of data" that enables machines to understand the semantics, or meaning, of information on the World Wide Web.^[1] . Semantic Web as "a web of data that can be processed directly and indirectly by machines."

The following video explains why is necessary the evolution to Web 3.0 and the future interaction between machines and applications through internet.

WEB 4.0 - AFTER TOMORROW

Web 4.0 is the web that extends to the real world. It’s the web of things. where your house becomes part of the web, and your car. Where your body becomes part of the Internet. Where you use http://twitter.com to turn the heat up because you are home early. Where the refrigerator orders milk when it notices it’s running out. Where your car checks the Google-Calendar of you and your garage to make a service appointment and where your general practitioner is notified of changes in your glucose-levels in your blood automatically and remotely. It’s the web where a seat in a plane is automatically registered when the location in your google calendar is remote and a taxi is already waiting to pick you up, without you even thinking about it.

The following video is illustrative of the current power of Internet in our society and the major role will continue playing in our lifes in the future.

Cloud computing

2011-02-25T19:27:00.007+01:00

Cloud computing is an internet technology that utilizes both central remote servers and internet to manage the data and applications. This technology allows many businesses and users to use the data and applications without an installation. Cloud computing provides much more effective computing by centralized memory, processing, storage and bandwidth.

The most simple and understandable example of cloud application is Gmail application for e-mail. You do not need to have a software installed in your computer or a server to have e-mail service if you are using Gmail. All you need to have an internet connection and a web browser to access to your Gmail account. In this case the e-mail management software and the server are somewhere on the internet (cloud) and completely maintained by various internet service providers. The user can use the application alone and can enjoy its benefits.

The main reasons for cloud computing are:

- It´s more "cost effective". You save costs, since you don´t need to have servers or maintain any software to use applications

- It´s more "green", since with few servers many more users can use the applications, and that means less energy consumpution

- It´s more "innovative". Because the execution of the application is running in a cloud server, the application can be displayed in devices with reduced processing power, like mobile devices. On the other hand, you can access to a huge amount of different services and applications because all of them are in the cloud.

Those three reasons I am talking about are better explained in the following video:

The following video is also very good in my opinion to understand Cloud Computing benefits, and is provided by Salesforce, one cloud computing company headquartered in San Francisco, USA that distributes business software on a subscription basis.

In the following wiki page you can find a list of Cloud Computing service providers:
Cloud Computing service providers

Retail Web Analytics

2011-02-24T08:54:00.002+01:00

The following information comes from a report from Adobe.

There are a number of differences between retail websites and other websites. Technology adoption is one area that is especially poignant. Consider the exhibit on the right.

Does this graph indicate that users have a little desire to purchase on their web-enabled phones? Probably not. What drives the activities listed above? Availability and Usability. Because vendors concentrating on the top categories have made these activities easy to find and easy to use, the masses flock to them. What’s my point? Online retailers could easily make their shopping carts available on mobile phones, but have not. Why? I don’t have all the answers but one reason I believe is because they are apprehensive of to trying try something new, even if it has huge potential .

Adoption Life Cycle
The Rogers Curve below describes the adoption of new technologies. Many of you will be familiar with this figure. I’ve overlaid the curve with a smaller curve that represents the typical retail industry adoption. Notice that most retailers are a bit slower to adopt technology (including web analytics, social media, mobile, video and rich media) than other industries.

I mentioned before that retailers seem apprehensive to try new technologies. Coming late to the game may not necessarily be a bad thing. In fact, maybe we should consider it “fashionably late.” Here are the advantages.

The industry tendency to adopt new methods and technology late ensures that the technology has been tested and proven. This reduces wasted investment by allowing other companies/industries to be the guinea pigs on the bleeding edge.
You’re not the only one who’s late. Your competition from the same industry will likely be late adopters as well.

In essence, being an Innovator or Early Adopter in the retail industry allows for first mover advantage while still reaping the benefits of proven technology.
As you can see, timing here is crucial . Without awareness of new technologies, it will be difficult to gauge where on the adoption life cycle that technology might be. It is crucial to work on technology initiatives while keeping an eye on other innovative industries to see what is coming down the pipe.
As web technology continues to evolve at a blazing pace, keeping up with the trends will become important to more than just the fashion industry. Online retailers are in a uniquely advantageous position because early adoption of technology provides the benefits of being a first mover with the security blanket of tested and proven solutions.

Innovators in Online Retail
So, you want some concrete examples, you say? I am here to please!
In an article for eMarketer in June 2010 (Mobile Shopping From In-Store), Jeffrey Grau cites several examples of retailers who are using the mobile channel as a competitive advantage. Amazon.com launched a mobile app in December 2009. Shoppers will go to other stores to try or examine a product, then order it from Amazon Mobile. This allows Amazon to avoid the overhead of retail space.

Giselle Tsirulnik at Mobile Commerce Daily reports (Sept 13, 2010) that the retailer, Express, recently launched a mobile app that will send visitors discounts and promotions based on their GPS location. Way to think outside the box, Express!

In her article of October 18,2010 (Getting Social Customer Service Right, Forrester), Diane Clarkson describes several ways in which companies are using social media to reduce customer service overhead. One example she uses is Walmart’s online forum as a place where customers can ask and answer questions to each other.

In another example, Xbox is using Twitter as a method for customers to contact a representative. The upside here is that the tweet is also visible to others who may have the same question.

There are limitless options for utilizing technology in your online marketing strategy!
So what are you waiting for?

Analytics tools

2011-02-22T13:07:00.005+01:00

List of some of the most used tools for analytics in the market:

1. Web Analytics Tools

Google Analytics
Yahoo Web Analytics
WebTrends
Omniture SiteCatalyst
CoreMetrics
LyrisHQ

2. Social Media Analytics Tools

Klout
Twitalyzer
Radian6

3. Opinion Tools

OpinionLab
SurveyMonkey
ForeSee Results

4. Mobile Analytics Tools

PercentMobile
Bango Analytics
Mobilytics

5. Experimentation Tools

Google Website
Test & Target
Visual Website Optimizer

Overview on Test&Target

2011-02-22T11:59:00.000+01:00

Omniture® Test&Target™ is now Adobe® Test&Target™, powered by Omniture®. Adobe Test&Target gives marketers the necessary capabilities to continually make their online content and offers more relevant to their customers—yielding greater conversion. Test&Target provides an intuitive interface for designing and executing tests, creating audience segments and targeting content—all from a single application. Adobe Test&Target is part of the Adobe® Online Marketing Suite of applications for online business optimizations.

Adobe Test&Target puts control directly in the hands of marketers to quickly and continually execute multiple A/B and multivariate (MVT) tests, measure effectiveness and relevance of content across any online channel and increase content relevance through segmentation, targeting and automated personalization.

Kwantic

2011-02-16T12:50:00.003+01:00

Kwantic is an online business optimization agency specializing in Analytics, User Research & Marketing. Our business model is based around success fees we charge our clients when their performance levels have improved.

We're currently 20 people who specialize in web analytics, analysis, market research, marketing, sales and usability. You can read about the individuals we have working for us on our LinkedIn Page.

Kwantic’s name is based on the English word “Quantic” which means the rational function of two or more variables. At Kwantic we believe that the result of doing analysis and taking action is likely to be a good business result.

Some words from our Chief Analytics Officer at Web Analytics conference in Helsinki.

You can find more information in www.kwantic.com