Author Archives: Seiche

TwitClicks drops Twitter user feature?

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TwitClicks is a good URL shortening and analytics service. At free it is hard to complain too much.

However, there has been a noticeable absence of a key and unique qualitative reporting feature of TwitClicks – “Who Visited – See Best Guess”. While the domain of the traffic source shows up (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN even Ning show up fine) since March or April 2009 there is no more data on specific Twitter users. Previously, this worked great and revealed which users were responding to which messages – essential for understanding response and viral propagation.

A simple test was performed on a recent post on this very blog to determine the source of the problem. A TwitClicks shortened URL was posted on Twitter and functioned fine.

TwitClicks results.

However, when it came to reporting the previously available user name feature TwitClicks consistently provides no data over several more tests. More specificlly, there are absolutely no user names of Twitter clickers anymore. Possibly, related to this it was determined after a referral monitoring test that Google Analytics was being used on a redirected TwitClicks page – basically in the middle between Twitter and the target landing page. While the redirect process is essential, it unclear what value the JavScript-based Google Analytics system brings in the context of TwitClicks.

With all the compeition for URL-shortners and Twitter analytics tools, it is odd that this feature was dropped at this time. Inquiries to TwitClicks have not been successful – would love to hear from other measurement-oriented folks if they are having the same experience.

Well, How did they Get Here?

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For those who know me, the notion of online media measurement and Internet ad performance has been an interest since the Web 1.0 days. With the 1995 launch of Lilypad by my old firm, Streams Online Media Development, we set out to offer the industry and our clients tracking software that could tell just how people were finding their Web site. Heck, I wrote what we found in the Lilypad White Paper.
Good News
I recently saw a demo of a very promising service that tracks latent branding (viewthrough) from online publicity sources. The methodology makes sense and that means it is now possible to see, how they got there. It is also patent-pending.
Using this novel approach, accountability and quantifiable results is no longer then domain of paid online media. Earned and social media can be monitored and probably in your existing site metrics tool, too. Yes, you read correctly: view-through from unpaid mentions – regardless of source and sans le click. Whether from news stories, Facebook, Twitter, long-tail blogs or YouTube video AND without the user clicking on a parameter-embedded hyperlink (old 80% reliable). The same methodology could also validate paid media placement in some situations.
End-to-End Attribution?
With this novel and unprecedented solution, the most measurable and accountable medium will better allow apples-apples comparison’s of media effectiveness spanning paid marketing channels: affiliates, search, display email and of course offline measure engagement, conversion events, etc…It then becomes potentially possible to view the various touchpoints and even optimal sequence that bring consumers to make purchase or other tangible decisions.
Predictions
The Winners will be savvy public relations/media relations firms with an online bent and corporate PR departments and even the cottage industry of social media experts…assuming they are delivering results. The Losers will be ineffective providers and probably search gurus.
Why? The real rainmakers will finally have definitive quantitative proof of the value of their efforts…those living off the last click…not so much.
Analytics teams should brace themselves for having more on their plate.

Chicago Analytics?

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I’m always interested in connecting (and reconnecting) with colleagues in the Chicago area; especially those working in the crazy field of online measurement. The other day I received an urgent request from Meetup.com, warning that the Chicago Data and Strategy Consortium meet-up was about to be canceled! So, I volunteered myself to prevent that from happening…

Lincoln Park Lagoon looking southeast.

Why? I personally, would like to see an informal group of professionals working in this nascent field that isn’t always served by other local groups like Chicago AMA, CIMA, national groups like IAB, OPA and the more software-oriented or social/networking groups. Ideally, less drinking and more learning. Thin overhead and easy to manage…maybe even invitation-only?

In what areas of analytics and research are people interested?

Contact me and let me know what you think…we’re all busy people and all at different stages of our respective careers.

http://www.chicagoanalytics.org

How to convert hh:mm:ss to decimal minutes in Excel

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Let’s say you are using Google Analytics and want to run some statistics against the Average Time Spent (why you may want to do this will be the subject of a forthcoming blog post). First, you’re naturally going to export the data into Excel since GA offers only the basics. Next, you are going to find yourself stuck and staring at one or more columns of hh:mm:ss time.

Why? Unless you convert this time format data into to integers with decimals you will not be able to analyze the data for any revealing statistics. Seems simple enough to do in Excel, just convert the time into a decimal format…but no.

Alas, I was shocked that there is no formula-level function that does essentially the opposite of the CONCATENATE function in Excel. Curiously, it is much easier to covert the decimal back to hh:mm:ss format. Thanks to the many folks that pointed me in the right direction.

  • Many folks suggested the Data>>Text-to-Columns function in Excel but this would have blasted away many other columns of data and there were several of these time columns that needed this.
  • Others suggested converting the time figure using the format feature; that also didn’t work.

The solution was using the HOUR, MINUTE and SECOND commands in Excel. It worked like this:

=((HOUR(A1)*60)+MINUTE(A1)+(SECOND(A1)/60))
01:32:56 (1 Hour , 32 Minutes and 56 Seconds) = 92.93 Minutes
[Yes, you can cut and paste the above formula!]

Pretty neat, eh? However, still haven’t found a way to do this with some kind of delimiter like a “SPLIT” in Perl.

File under Mismanagement

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Wow. At first, I didn’t believe this but there is an actual official-looking scanned 36-page Sabotage Manual online! It closely resembles field manuals that I’d seen back at Military Channel.

  1. Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
  2. Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of per­ sonal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate “patriotic” comments.
  3. When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and considera­tion.” Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five.
  4. Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
  5. Haggle over precise wordings of com­munications, minutes, resolutions.
  6. Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
  7. Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reason­able” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
  8. Be worried about the propriety of any decision — raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the juris­ diction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.

OSS Simple Sabotage Manual OSS Simple Sabotage Manual PHILLIP MCCREVICE

Sabotage thru Obfuscation…?

Skip to page 32, Section 11: General Interference with Organisations and Production.

Like many other business professionals, I studied organizational behavior (college and B-School) this is quite damning on several levels. Should definitely be used as a teaching tool!

Thx to Jason DeFillippo…

[Reposted from 6/11/08 for your Friday Stimulation Package enjoyment.]

Advanced Segments in Google Analytics…Advanced turns out to be a Relative Term

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Some caveats if you are contemplating using the free Google Analytics tool (and free advice to the product manager). Before bringing you down, there are some positives of this tool and feature:

Pluses:

  • It’s FREE.
  • Better than filters which are not retroactive.

Minuses (in no particular order):

  • Buried deep in the tool, several tedious clicks to get to them
  • No way to suppress GA’s canned segments
  • No way to export or import segments or filters (get a piece of paper and pen out)
  • Cumbersome drag and drop interface; it feels like a toy
  • Limit of 20 criteria per segment (are you kidding?)
  • Inability to join or combine segments themselves using Boolean operators
  • Segments are tied to you, the user and your GA account; in practice this means that all of your segments follow you across site profiles (no way to manage them) but not across GA accounts.
  • No way to categorize the segments you have
  • Cannot be used with Absolute Unique Visitors (why is this?)
  • Of course it is subject to the limitations that all JS-based site metrics tools have, i.e. ignores all of these accesses. See my other post on the subject.

This post is subject to update…afterall Google Analytics is still in Beta!

Measurement Gobbledygook

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With the proliferation of analytics, there has also been a boom in jargon, semantic-driven miscues and misuse of terminology essential to business management.

Goal – the singular and primary winning state that is desired.

Objective – the measurable milestones that contribute and define the goal.

Strategy – the actions, tasks and/or steps needed to realize the goal.

Tactic – the tools or implements used to support execution of the strategy and reach the objectives.

SM (Success Metric) A subset of metrics or KPIs that communicate the efficacy

KPI (Key Performance Indicator) An important measure that should be tracked and reported.

MVA (Most Valued Action) Like an SM, but generic enough to include clicks or other non-page serving activity.

Precision Exactness of a measurement, e.g. 1.2 Page Views/Visit versus 1 vs 1.2109.

Accuracy Indication of how close a measure is to the generally accepted; it is about the relative difference.

Efficiency Measure of how well desired outcome is achieved per given unit of input, often expressed as a ratio

Efficacy Measure of the ability to produce a avery specific outcome, often a binary determination under given conditions.

Effectiveness Measure of the capability to produce the desired outcome, used more generally and as a relative measure.

25 Hottest Articles from Business Horizons

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A great resource for business and management research.

25 Hottest Articles from Business Horizons

  1. Corporate social responsibility, corporate governance, and financial performance: Lessons from finance • Discussion

  2. The market within: A marketing approach to creating and developing high-value employment relationships

  3. China’s outward foreign direct investment

  4. The evolution of corporate social responsibility • Discussion

  5. The power of business models

  6. What leads to cultural intelligence?

  7. Social entrepreneurship: Key issues and concepts • Discussion

  8. Blogging: A new play in your marketing game plan

  9. Socially responsible entrepreneurs: What do they do to create and build their companies?

  10. Global leadership success through emotional and cultural intelligences

  11. Building a capable organization: The eight levers of strategy implementation

  12. Corporate social responsibility: Doing well by doing good

  13. Lean, take two! Reflections from the second attempt at lean implementation

  14. Strategic corporate social responsibility as global brand insurance

  15. MIRR: A better measure

  16. Positioning Southwest Airlines through employee branding

  17. Innovation and efficiency: It is possible to have it all

  18. Saying it like it isn’t: The pros and cons of 360-degree feedback

  19. Lessons learned from renewable electricity marketing attempts: A case study

  20. Unprofitable customers and their management

  21. The value of human resource management for organizational performance

  22. The landscape of social entrepreneurship • Discussion

  23. Using product design strategically to create deeper consumer connections

  24. Ownership structure and the diversification and performance of publicly-listed companies in China

  25. The new value imperative for privately held companies: The why, what, and how of value management strategy