ONA Parachute Training, February 2010

1. Basic web analytics
for news organizations
Dana Chinn #ONAFL
@danachinn
February 2010

2. • Local news audiences then vs. now
• Why measure, what, how
• Metrics for advertising vs. site improvement
• Basic metrics in Google Analytics
• Social media metrics
www.slideshare.net/danachinn
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3. Local news then vs. now
A traditional news org A news service
has content serves participants
that it distributes who
to people -- group
-- have themselves
who are the same
in the same interests -- contribute
geography content
-- have
conversations
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4. Mass audience metrics
A traditional news org
delivers the same content,
advertising to everyone It sells advertising
based on total audience
in a one-way info stream
when, how it wants
Total audience counts
(subscriptions, weekly viewers)
define success.
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5. Online or niche audience behavior
Groups of audiences of one do more than read or watch.
They
-- get content in pieces (or not)
-- on irregular days, times
-- in multiple formats (video, audio, databases)
-- from myriad places (links, embeds, widgets, mobile),
sources (search, e-mail, campaigns). They also
rate, comment, share, tag, download, vote, buy, converse
The audiences define your success
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6. Some “famous” metrics
--The ”famous metrics” term comes from web analytics guru Avinash Kaushik 6

7. “Famous” metrics aren’t useful
for decision-making
“After the disaster in Haiti, [our site] hit
168.6 million pageviews
in the month of January. A new record.”
“We are the go-to source for California
12.2 million
news....[our site had]
CALIFORNIANS....For the
month, we received 24,449,693
--From an internal communication of a
media organization, February 2010
visits.”
--The ”famous metrics” term comes from web analytics guru Avinash Kaushik 7

8. Internal vs. external metrics
Newsroom Advertising, marketing
• Census data • Panel data
100% of all visitors, visits, page Activity from a sample of self-
views for all sections selected people. Only total site
data for a limited number of sites.
• Analysis, decisions, • Marketing, trending,
actions, evaluation external comparisons
• Omniture
• comScore
Google Analytics Nielsen
WebTrends Compete
etc. etc.
• Web Analytics • Interactive
Association Advertising Bureau
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9. 9

10. -- ratings
-- in pieces ratings
--
-- content content in pieces
-- comments -- comments
-- days, -- days, times
times
-- times shared
-- formats formats times shared
-- --
-- tags
-- places places -- tags
-- Data, data everywhere
-- downloads
-- sources sources downloads
-- --
-- votes
-- sales -- sales -- votes I think I could sink
-- conversations -- conversations
Data, data everywhere
-- ratings Will someone please
-- content in pieces
-- ratings -- comments
-- days, times content in pieces help me think.
--
-- comments -- times shared
-- formats -- days, times
-- times shared tags
-- Rishad Tobaccowalla, CEO, Denuo
-- places -- formats at OMMA Metrics & Measurement, June 2009
-- tags -- downloads
-- sources -- places
-- downloads-- votes
-- sales -- sources
-- votes -- conversations
-- sales
-- conversations
“Dutch boats in a squall” by J.M.W Turner 10

11. Measuring is for decision-making
To define success - or failure
To decide what to expand - or quit
To set priorities,
to allocate enough people, money
to activities so they’ll be successful -
or to cut or shift resources
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12. Measure only what you need
• What needs to get done, what you want to
do, what is impact you want? “What is it
that we want to change, improve,
accomplish, incite?”
--”The Maturation of Social Media ROI,” by Brian Solis, Mashable, Jan. 26, 2010
• Who are the target audiences?
• What activities will reach the target No. of podcasts
subscribed to/
audiences, get them to take the desired downloaded
actions? Over what time periods? vs.
No. of podcasts
• What are the measurable elements - the -- put on iPod
-- played
Key Performance Indicators - that will tell -- listened to
you whether you’ve succeeded or failed? the end
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13. Defining success starts with
defining distinct audiences, characteristics
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14. What are the site’s goals, top priorities?
Map measurable elements/metrics to goals
Which audiences are
the top priorities, or
essential to the
success of the site?
What elements are
essential to attracting
and retaining the top
priority audiences?
What are the metrics
to these elements?
What are the
benchmarks/starting
points for each
metric?
What is the goal for
each metric? When do
you want (or need) to
reach each goal?
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15. Two types of web analytics metrics
What people do (behavioral)
Who they are, what they think (attitudinal)
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16. Unique visitors
visit websites,
generate page views.
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17. A “unique visitor” is actually a “unique computer”
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18. Unique visitors may be over- or undercounted
Work =33 unique visitors
= unique visitors
Hotel
Home
= 1 unique visitor
Work
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19. The no. of unique visitors is based on the time period you specify.
S M T W Th F S
1 2 3 4 5
July 6-12
July 13-19
July 20-26
July 27-31
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The number of “daily unique visitors”
...on Tuesday, July 1, is six
...on Friday, July 4, is three
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20. S M T W Th F S
1
July 6-12
July 13-19
July 20-26
July 27-31
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The number of “weekly unique visitors”
...for the week of July 6-12 is six
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21. S M T W Th F S
1 2 3 4 5
July 6-12
July 13-19
July 20-26
July 27-31
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The number of “monthly unique visitors”
...for the month of July is seven
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22. Daily UV counts can’t make weekly UVs,
weekly UVs can’t make monthly UVs, etc.
S
M
T
W
Th
F
Sa
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23. The math of visits
A visit is a period of activity separated by
at least 30 minutes of inactivity.
A visitor clicks into your site at 1 p.m., surfs for 20 minutes, then clicks into CNN.com.
One visit
A visitor clicks into your site at 1 p.m., surfs for 45 minutes, talks
on the phone for 30 minutes without touching the keyboard, then
hangs up and goes back to your site for 20 minutes before
clicking into CNN.com.
Visit 1: 45 minutes Visit 2: 20 minutes
Two visits
A visitor clicks into your site at 1 p.m., surfs for one hour, leaves
his computer for 29 minutes, and then comes back and surfs for
another hour before clicking into CNN.com.
Visit time: 2 hours, 29 minutes
One visit
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24. Three basic engagement KPIs
Two ratios
Text
visits per unique visitor page views per visit
One the bounce rate
proportion of the page where
people enter your
Example: 50%
site most often
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25. Visits
per weekly unique visitor
Example
2.5 visits per week
Are visitors coming to your site
with the frequency you need to
build loyal, satisfied audiences ?
If you update your site 24/7,
is your content engaging enough
to compel someone
to visit more than two or three
times a week?
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26. Page views
per visit, by week
Example
3.6 page views per visit
When visitors do come to your site,
are they engaging with its content?
Does a high number suggest
visitors can’t find what they want?
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27. Bounce rate of top entry pages
One visit with
one page view
to the home page
= 1 bounce
No. of bounces
+
No. of visits that started with the
home page and had 2+ page views
= 100% of visits 27

28. Example
Home page bounce rate
= over 50%
Over half of the visits to the CNN.com home page
left CNN.com without clicking into any other pages
Best (?) cases: Came only to get the headlines
Home page has dynamic content
not captured with page views
(check your business model)
Worst cases: Couldn’t find what they wanted
Didn’t like what they saw
Source: “Can CNN, the Go-To Site, Get You to Stay?” by Brian Stetler, New York Times, Jan. 17, 2009
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29. Example
What bounce rate should you calculate?
The home page is the most popular page on the site.
Its content, design and navigation has to attract and retain multiple and diverse
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30. Example
Home page bounce rate
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31. Don’t waste time
on “average time spent on site”
Methodology: The total time in between
a visitor’s first pageview and his/her last pageview
The amount of time a visitor spent on the last pageview isn’t included
Averages don’t allow analysis of visits of either short or long duration
You really don’t know the time truly spent. If a visit is
counted at 29 minutes, you don’t know if the person was
truly on the site for all 29 minutes or if he/she walked away
between minutes 1 and 28.
Bounces are included as zero, or no time - you don’t know
whether someone was indeed actively looking at the page
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32. Basic metrics in Google Analytics
Use weekly stats,
not monthly
This is the
bounce rate for
the total site, not
a top entry page
Has methodology
issues. Is an
average, so is
Needs more detail, skewed
comparative analysis to
be useful
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33. Use weekly metrics, full-week time periods
so you can identify unusual movement quickly
5-week period
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34. Looking at data in segments
gives you actionable info
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35. Segmentation: New vs. returning visitors
Are we building audiences?
KPI: Visits from new vs. returning visitors
GA focuses on visits
rather than UVs
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36. Segmentation: New vs. returning visitors
When new visitors come to our site, are they staying?
KPI: PVs per visit, new vs. returning
There were 4,807 visits
to our site during the
week of Jan. 10.
Of those 4,807 visits,
2,190, or 46%, went to
two pages.
Of those 2,190 visits,
1,357 were from new
visitors, and 833 were
from returning visitors.
Question: Only TWO?
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37. Types of social media channels
Sharing
Networking
News
Bookmarking
Reviews
-- “Five essentials for social media marketing,” by Lisa Wehr, CEO/Oneupweb, iMedia Connection, July 17, 2009
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38. Social media rules
1. Listen
2. Engage
3. Measure
• Audience
• Engagement
• Loyalty
• Influence
• Action
Metrics should map to goals. Period.
From “What the **** is Social Media - One Year Later,” Marta Kagan, Espresso|Brand Infiltration, July 16, 2009. Some explicit words.
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39. Always define the R
R OI eturn n nvestment
and
R OO eturn n bjectve
“What is it that we want
to change, improve, accomplish, incite....?”
--”The Maturation of Social Media ROI,” by Brian Solis, Mashable, Jan. 26, 2010
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40. Understand Twitter’s simple complexity,
understand how social media is measured
Content
Followers
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41. Followers
Look for influencers
Review reach, churn,
following/follower ratio
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42. The perfect (measurable) Tweet
• A call to action to participate, engage with you
Look at this. Go here. What do you think?
• A link
To get news, information
Tweets are now a primary news source,
the new home page
To respond to the call to action
• A #hashtag and/or keywords
• Handle specific to person/topic
• A comment
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43. Analyze content
Review hashtags,
keywords, sentiment,
problems, conversations
that connect people
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44. Attitudinal research
Do you know the people behind the clicks?
1. What was the purpose of your visit today?
2. Were you able to
complete your task today?
3. If not, why not?
4. If you did complete your task,
what did you enjoy most about our site?
Caution: Pop-up survey data is a truth but not the
complete truth. Pop-ups are only completed by those
who feel like it...it’s not a representative sample.
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45. Web analytics is not easy...
• Have clearly defined, accountable goals, objectives
on which everyone agrees
each of which is someone’s responsibility
• Know the limitations of your data, metrics
It’s better to guess than to make decisions
based on bad data and/or inappropriate metrics
• Analytics is not about technology, software
It’s people, processes
• If you make decisions solely on judgment,
don’t waste time, resources on metrics
HIghest Paid Person’s Opinion
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46. Dana Chinn Blog
http://www.newsnumbers.com
Lecturer
chinn@usc.edu
213-821-6259
Analytics for news orgs bookmarks
http://www.delicious.com/
danachinn
Presentations
http://www.slideshare.net/
danachinn
Twitter: DanaChinn
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