Analytics Anyone?

Analytics. The word doesn’t show up in any spell checker, and dictionary.com barely even knows what it means. Then why does every client want it? Better question : why does every client buy them only to not use them? Website Analytics is akin to life insurance and here’s why…

Life Insurance – Something you buy but never use

Every client wants the basic information that analytics provides. They want to know who’s coming, from where, and how long they stayed. All great information for sure, but merely the tip of the data heap. What needs to be examined here is a deeper understanding of interactive metrics. As I said, typically sites are measured in broad wide swath terms such as traffic, or time spent on site. These two numbers are often deemed enough information to base a site success or failure determination. This is a mistake. The determining figures are those metrics that directly relate to a sites goal, such as quality of traffic and the interactions that take place once engaged in the experience. Let’s consider the following scenario: Two sites successes are determined solely in terms of time spent on the site. One is an e-card site and the other is a social media network. The e-card site clocks in averaging :45 seconds per visit, and the social media network averages 3:00 per visit. It is determined that the social media network is clearly a more effective site. This argument would be incorrect because it is incomplete. What needs to be factored into examination are the goals of the two sites. The e-card goal is to have someone watch a short 20 second video, customize it and send it to a friend. Therefore, the appropriate metric to keep an eye on would be those statistics related to it’s goal. ie : How many people sent out an e-card? How many people who received an e-card came back to watch it? More plenary: Of the traffic coming to the e-card site: which referring site or campaign drove the most e-cards sent. The amount of time spent on the site is of course going to be low due to the goal of the site. By contrast, the social media network has a high length per visit because users are there filling out blogs, forums, and other time intensive applications. The metric goals should be tailored to these interactions. Therefore, using length of visit is arbitrary and wholly dependent on site content and goal. Furthermore, the raw amount of traffic is not an indicator of a successful site, instead it should be used to measure the success of a media buy, banner buy, virility of the site or advertising campaign promoting the site. This metric should then be broken down into quality of said traffic by measuring in detail said traffics interactions within the site. ie: What did users actually do after they landed there.

“it’s not in the budget”

Great, so we’ve determined that clients should be looking at much more data than they are. However, this is only half the battle, the remaining is actually doing something with that data. The fact is : no clients use analytics data for campaign improvement (wide sweeping generalization used despite the fact I called it a fact. But, its close). What is the reason for this? Why do clients purchase analytics packages, that we as interactive studios sell, only to never put the statistical data to use? The answer is simple : “it’s not in the budget”.

Clients budget money for an interactive campaign from concept to launch. The End. There is no budget set aside for improvements once the campaign is live. The interactive shop works feverishly to concept a grandiose idea, they pitch it, they sell it, they build it and bam! both client and agency claim the site as a major success. Portfolios are padded, corporate managers satiated and all is good. This is extremely bizarre to me. Like, idiotically bizarre. Nobody bothers to check if the campaign actually worked. Furthermore, if they are an advanced client they may check. But, if bad news is found it is a moot point for there is no budget for improvement.

An Opportunity

So, how do we as interactive agency/shop/think tanks solve this? The answer is akin to a sea change in interactive on the whole. It requires placing just as much importance on the post launch part of a campaign as it does the pre. It involves staying invested mentally and financially in a campaign after you’ve built it. It involves both client and agency to set aside ego and admit when a campaign went wrong. To embrace the wrongness as a tool for improvement. It involves educating clients on this topic. It may even be impossible.

There is an opportunity here for our industry. I do believe an entire company could be sustained in such an endeavor. Perhaps there are entire companies being sustained by this very idea. I wouldn’t know as I write these posts blindly without any research whatsoever. However, if you are out there, why haven’t we seen you in our analytics data?