Metrics are important for measuring the success of websites and social media strategies. Choosing the right metrics involves articulating goals, determining strategies and tactics, and selecting meaningful metrics to track. Common metrics include basic "quantity" metrics like followers and likes, as well as more advanced metrics like conversation rate and amplification rate that provide more actionable insights. Benchmarking against peers is also important for understanding what results are normal. Case studies demonstrated how organizations like the Smithsonian Archives applied this process to achieve their specific goals.
Metrics for Measuring Website and Social Media Success
1. Metrics, Metrics, Everywhere!
Choosing the Right Ones for
Your Website and Social Media
or
"I Got 20 Retweets! Wait - Is That Good?"
Brian Alpert
Web Analytics and SEM Analyst
Smithsonian Institution
@balpert
Elena Villaespesa
Digital Analyst
Tate
@elenustika
2. 2
Outline
• Intro to Web analytics
• Segmentation
• Social Disruption
• Step-by-step process
• Benchmarking social
• Case Study I – Effie – Women’s History Month
• Exercise
• Selecting social media metrics
• Avinash Kaushik / TrueSocial
• Social media framework
• SM @ SI – Tools & Survey highlights
• What’s going on at Tate?
• GA dashboards (examples)
• Steps to create a GA dashboard
• Social and your website – Dashboard-SMDG
• Interpreting the dashboard - examples
• Discussion – attendee dashboards
• GA Social Reports
• Case Study II – Erin/Muppets
• Case Study III – Turner Prize
• Case study IV – Weather forecast
• GA Best Practices/ Tips and Tricks
• Resources
3. 3
Search Engines
SEO (keywords, Google
rules)
SEM (PPC campaigns)
Optimization
Referring sites
Usual
Unusual
Trends / Insights
Create relationships
Direct / Other
Email
Banners
Audience
Visits
Demographics
Behaviour (time on
site, new vs.
returning, bounce
rate, loyalty,
recency,,)
Technology (browser,
mobile…)
Segmentation
Where are they coming
from?
Who they are? What are they
visiting?
Content
Page views
Top landing pages
Key content areas
Click path
Internal search…
Test, customise
How are they
converting/engaging?
Conversion (shop, tickets,
membership, donations…)
Email subscription
Comments
Sharing content
Downloads
Registration
Optimise processes
(funnels, page
optimisation)
What can we do with Google Analytics?
8. 8
Once upon a time…
We just had websites…
Website measurement
tools were getting better
and better…
Some of the best ones
were even free!
We thought we had it all
figured out…
And then one day…
Source: Seattle Municipal Archives
9. 9
Social media disrupted everything
Today's landscape is a splintered
collection of
New channels
Sublimely-named yet inscrutable metrics
A dizzying array of tools both free and paid
Breathing new life into old questions
"Why is this important?
“How do we know it’s working?“
"What do I measure?“
"What does that have to do with our program?“
BUT – the good news is…
Source: http://rosemia.wordpress.com/2012/02/
10. There is a systematic, step-by-step process
Articulate your program’s goals.
Decide strategies to achieve
those goals.
Decide tactics to pursue the
strategies.
Decide what and how to measure.
Benchmark to get a sense of
what’s normal.
10
Source: http://www.homedit.com
Slide 26
11. 11
Articulating your goals is the hard part
Sometimes your institutional goals:
Aren’t precisely articulated.
Aren’t articulated at all (!)
Are too broad to meaningfully measure.
“An institution for the increase and
diffusion of knowledge."
-- James Smithson
Source: Smithsonian Institution Archives
12. 12
Your goal: storyteller
Use data to tell a story.
Management loves stories.
They turn “So what?” into
something that makes sense:
What was happening.
What it meant.
What you did.
What’s happening now.
Source: http://www.squidoo.com
13. Start by articulating specific goals
Not too many!
Express what your institution is
trying to accomplish.
Distill high-level goals into more
specific sub-goals:
“Increase influence” >> “Become the
definitive source on Smithsonian
history.”
This makes it easier to identify
strategies and tactics.
Articulate goals & next steps on
your own.
Work with management to redefine
and finalize.
13
Reuters: Toru Hanai
14. 14
Determine strategies & tactics
Strategies – the plans you make to achieve the goals.
Employing social media is a strategy.
Tactics – the things you do to advance the strategy.
Producing a specific type of content is a tactic.
Individual channels (facebook, twitter) are tactics.
Per the example:
Goal: “Become the definitive source on Smithsonian history.”
Strategy: Increase engagement with history of the Smithsonian
content.
Tactic: Make SI-history content more findable and measureable.
15. 15
Decide how to measure your tactics
Choose a few measurements.
Trend them over time.
Per the example:
Measure: segment history-specific content in GA
Directories (site.edu/history)
Dedicated content (site.edu/historyblog)
Google Analytics custom variables.
Apply history-content engagement metrics
Visit frequency
Visit depth
Bounce rate for history pages
16. 16
What’s "normal," anyway?
You can’t set targets w/o benchmarks
You need at least six months of data.
Data fluctuates; is often seasonal.
Six months is just an opinion.
It also depends on how much traffic your site gets.
Peer data is valuable, but hard to come by.
Balance your targets with factors beyond your control:
Are the improvements you’re seeking known to be difficult to achieve?
What is the current status of your program (i.e., brand new, mature)?
How much resources will you have to devote to implementing tactics?
17. 17
"I Got 20 Retweets! Wait - Is That Good?"
Regular benchmarking is especially important if you use
free tools.
Pull data regularly, or you may be out of luck.
Twitter and Flickr API’s limits 3rd party tools to 28 days of data.
Listen to Dana!
Twitter for Museums: Measuring, Analyzing, Reporting
Start with baseline data: Followers, Replies, RTs, Clickthroughs.
Identify 3-5 peer institutions.
Track at regular intervals.
Some tools can generate these reports automatically, but
compiling/trending them is still up to you.
18. 18
Keep it simple!
Don’t do too much.
Once you’ve selected your strategies
and tactics, minimize the number of
measurements.
If they turn-out to be inconclusive,
refine or change them!
It’s an ongoing process.
19. 19
Case study: Smithsonian Archives
Tweet your questions to Effie Kapsalis – @digitaleffie
Head of Smithsonian Archives (SIA) web and new media
SIA is a smaller Smithsonian unit with a big mission:
“The Archives’ mission is to document the goals and activities
of the whole Smithsonian in its pursuit of increasing and
diffusing knowledge, and exciting learning in everyone.”
“The Archives is also responsible for ensuring institutional
accountability, and for enhancing access to the rich and
diverse resources in its care.”
20. 20
Effie worked with Mgt. on Goals
– Become the definitive source of Smithsonian
history
– Illuminate the Institution as a research and
educational catalyst
– Expand audience awareness of, use of, and
access to SIA collections and resources
– Increase understanding of the diversity and
relevance of resources and collections
20
21. 21
They moved on to strategies and tactics
21
• Become the definitive source of Smithsonian history
– Increase engagement with SI history content.
• Make history content more measureable on new website.
• Create content about the Smithsonian’s history that’s easily repurposed
by other units.
• Illuminate the Institution as a research and educational catalyst
– Tell stories that highlight the Smithsonian’s role in education and research.
• Expand audience awareness of, use of, and access to SIA collections
and resources
– Increase representation of SIA Collections & Resources on popular resource
websites.
• Make content more shareable and accessible
• Wikipedian-in-Residence.
• Flickr Commons Crowdsourcing.
• History Pin.
• Increase understanding of the diversity and relevance of resources and
collections
– Increase share and quality of conversation about SIA collections and
resources.
22. 22
They chose measurements (a.k.a. KPI’s)
22
– Website engagement metrics for ‘history’ content
• Visit frequency
• Visit depth
• Bounce rate
– Visit frequency for blog
– Number of Wikipedia pages with SIA references
– Number of monthly favorites and comments on Flickr
– Facebook Insights engagement metrics
– Number of blog comments and shares
23. 23
“Definitive Source of SI History”
Strategy: increase
engagement with SI
history website content.
Tactic: make website
history content more
measureable.
Measurement: “High Visit
Depth”
Percentage of HISTORY
visits was 94% higher than
ALL visits
1.21% average for ALL visits
2.35% average for HISTORY
visits
History-related
visits
All visits
24. 24
“Increase understanding of the diversity and
relevance of resources and collections”
Strategy: Increase share and quality
of conversation about SIA collections
and resources.
Tactic: Woman’s History Month
Social Media Campaign.
Facebook
Pinterest
Tumblr
Measurements
Visit Frequency for all visits vs. “WHM
social” visits
SM referrals compared to previous year.
Facebook Insights engagement metrics.
Number of blog comments and shares.
The “Women in Science” campaign
ran daily for a month, now
continues, weekly.
25. SIA Women’s History Month Campaign
Social media website visits are
"streaky" – they reflect daily
activity
WHM segment exhibited higher
percentages of moderate (2-9)
and high (10+) visit frequency
Peaks as much as 2-4X higher
Referral traffic from the targeted
social media sites increased by
52%
WHM ‘social’
visits
All visits
WHM ‘social’
visits
All visits
26. 26
Exercise – 40 minutes
Split into four groups
Each group picks a site / project
Go through the steps, articulate pieces – 15 minutes
Discuss – 20 mins (5 mins each)
Slide 10
28. 28
Selecting social media metrics
Available time and resources affect what metrics you
choose.
Social Media metrics tend to fall into three categories:
“Quantity of Stuff” metrics
“Quantity-Plus” metrics
More advanced, trendable metrics
29. 29
“Quantity of Stuff” metrics
No actionable data
Scope and context
Growth / acquisition strategy
Number of Followers
FB
TW
Instagram
Pinterest
Number of ‘Likes’
FB Pages
FB Content
Instagram
Pinterest
FB post views
Source:http://janicesyearinsunderland.blogspot.com
30. 30
“Quantity-Plus” metrics
Still about quantity, but more meaningful
Show the type of content your audience
responds to
Basic
Reach (FB)
Post-Clicks (FB)
Website visits referred by social
properties
Better - “mini-conversions”
Retweets (TW)
Favorites (TW)
Comments (FB)
Shares (FB)
Source:http://socialmediatoday.com
31. A classic blog post…
Avinash Kaushik’s Best Social Media Metrics
Conversation Rate
# of Audience Comments (or Replies) Per Post
Amplification Rate
# of Retweets Per Tweet
# of Shares Per Post
# of “Share Clicks” Per Post (or Video)
Applause Rate
# of Favorite Clicks Per Post (TW)
# of Likes Per Post (FB)
# of #1s Per Post (Goog+)
# of +1s and Likes Per Post (or video) (Blog / YouTube)
Economic Value
For revenue-driven businesses
Sum of Short and Long Term Revenue and Cost Savings
Goal is to identify macro and micro conversions and then compute economic
value.
A manual spreadsheet is available, here, or…
Source: Occam's Razor
“All data in
aggregate is crap.”
32. 32
Trendable social metrics – YAY!
TrueSocialMetrics offers an automated solution.
http://www.truesocialmetrics.com/
Free / $30 per month / $100 per month / $350/month plans
33. 33
Conversation rate
# of Audience Comments (or Replies) Per Post
“We can get a very
good sense for
who is following /
friending /
subscribing to us.
We can measure if
what we are
saying connects to
them.”
34. 34
Amplification rate
# of Retweets Per Tweet
# of Shares Per Post
# of Share Clicks Per Post (or Video)
“Measure what
types of content
cause amplification
– they allow your
social contributions
to spread to your
2nd, or even 3rd,
level network.”
35. 35
Applause rate
# of Favorite Clicks Per Post
# of Likes Per Post
# of +1s Per Post
# of +1s and Likes Per Post (or video)
“You get a much
deeper
understanding of
what your
audience likes.”
36. 36
Here is the bottom line!
On a campaign by campaign
basis, you can use “quantity-
plus” metrics to tell your story.
“Here was the goal. We did
this. That happened. It was
the best EVER!
But to improve your entire
social media program, you
need more refined, trendable
metrics.
Source: NY Daily News
39. 39
What’s going on at SI? Social media tools!
The free flow of unlimited federal money has allowed
Smithsonian a full complement of the cream of the
crop of the most expensive and powerful social media
measurement tools.
40. 40
What’s going on at SI? Social media tools!
Ok, that was a joke. But we do have one paid tool.
41. 41
What’s going on at SI? Social media tools!
We also use the platform-provided tools:
Facebook Insights
Twitter Analytics
And the free versions of these popular tools:
Topsy http://topsy.com/
Simply Measured http://simplymeasured.com/
TrueSocialMetrics http://www.truesocialmetrics.com/
Tweetreach http://tweetreach.com/
Tweet Archivist http://www.tweetarchivist.com/
Statigram http://statigr.am/
Others…
Hand-built spreadsheets are still in use.
42. 42
What’s going on at SI? Survey highlights
Practitioners seem to be expressing the view that while free and
platform-provided tools have improved, there is still a need for
more power and sophistication.
That could be addressed by improvements in platform-provided
tools, or social media budgets for more powerful commercial
tools.
43. 43
What’s going on at SI? Survey highlights
The fact that 71% of respondents feel their organizational goals
are sometimes reflected in their metrics is an improvement from a
few years ago.
The notion that no one said always may be reflected in the next
highlight…
44. 44
What’s going on at SI? Survey highlights
The same percentage (71%) are required to track the least-useful
“quantity of stuff” metrics.
The next highlight also presents an interesting, (possibly)
connected datapoint…
45. 45
What’s going on at SI? Survey highlights
78% of respondents have not, or weren’t sure, if they had used
social media metrics to tell their story.
This demonstrates the enduring power of the need to track
quantity, BUT…
The 21% who said “yes” also represent a positive shift forward.
55. 55
Integrating social into web measurement
Your website (and thus) GA are still critically important.
Use GA to understand your social media traffic
Advanced segment of social media referrals
‘Social’ reports section
Google Analytics Custom Dashboard
Enables segmentation and trending.
Datapoints mostly relate to ‘engagement.’
Supermetrics Data Grabber
Flexible, Excel-based GA automation tool.
Enables you to see trends better than in the GA U-I.
56. 56
Supermetrics Data Grabber
Extracts data from the
Google Analytics API.
Easy-to-use and customize.
Exceptional charting
capabilities.
14 days free.
$348 per year.
Limited documentation and
support.
Excel for Windows
2003/2007/2010/2011.
Excel 2011 for Mac (slow!)
http://supermetrics.com
57. 57
Supermetrics Custom Dashboard
Store in same folder with
Supermetrics.xlsx
‘Engagement’ oriented metrics
Visit Frequency
Visit Length
Visit Depth
New vs. Returning Visits
Bounce Rate
Conversion Rate
Search Engines
A foundation to make data
actionable
“Key Trends and Insights”
“Impact on Site/Museum”
“Steps Being Taken”
The easily updated, trended data is
what makes the dashboard powerful.
58. Dashboard pages are designed:
1) To help orient you toward action
2) To communicate with management
58
Summary defines
and puts the
metric in context
Chart shows
segmented data
tracked and
trended over time.
Suggestions for
Possible
Additional
Segments.
Red/Yellow/Green
statusmarkershow
s at-a-glance each
metric’s status.
‘Action’ section answers
the question “So what?”
• Key Trends and Insights
• Impact on Website / Unit
• Steps Being Taken
Profile data pulls
automatically from
GADG; shows
metrics at-a-glance.
GADG
Instructions; show
how to create the
reports from
scratch.
60. All Visits data tells a nice story...
60
Minimal loyalty
group (purple)
downward trend
indicates
improving content
engagement
High loyalty
group (blue)
upward trend
indicates same
Impact of this Data on the Site or Program
• This good-looking chart may indicate high content engagement and/or perceived value
• This data may correlate to increasing conversion behaviors
Acting on this Data
• Identify moderate and high loyalty pages as a means of duplicating, or improving others
• Examining conversion behaviors of these segments may yield add'l insights
• Correlating high bounce rate pages to one-time visits may yield add'l insights
• Test different content types in an attempt to move 'minimal' visitors into 'moderate' group
Key Trends
and Insights
61. 61
This Impact of this Data on the Site or Program
• Organic search listings are driving poorly-targeted traffic
• Will result in decreased organic search performance over time
Acting on this Data
• Refocus title tags, meta-description tags and page content for important pages
• Perform link analysis to see where other SEO improvements can be made
Minimal
frequency group
upward trend
indicates organic
listings are not
appropriately
targeted
Moderate
frequency group
downward trend
indicates same
High frequency
group trending
slightly downward,
in contrast to
previous chart’s
upward slope
Key Trends
and Insights
…But applying segmentation tells a different story
62. 62
“Social Media Visits” advanced segment
Regular expression:
bit.ly|bitly|blogfaves.com|blogger|bloglines|blogspot|delicious|digg|facebook|feedburner|flickr|f
oursquare|goo.gl|groups.google|groups.yahoo.com|hootsuite|instagram|linkedin|m.facebook.
com|newsgator|ow.ly|pinterest|plus.google|plus.url.google.com|reddit|stumbleupon|t.co|techn
orati|tweetdeck|twitter|typepad|tumblr|wordpress|youtube
The Regex can be edited to include smaller groups, or types of sites, i.e., facebook, twitter.
63. 63
Frequency of Visits – Social Media Visits
Key Trends
and Insights
Segmented
group trends are
‘streaky,’
indicating interest
correlating to
social media
program activity.
Moderate loyalty
group trend is
flat but in the
same % range as
other segments.
High loyalty
group share is
much higher than
either of the other
segments
analyzed,
indicating strong
relationship
between OP
content and this
audience.
Impact
• Social media visitors visiting the site erratically over time could impede the project goals of fostering a
desire to learn more, to continually share and to move visitors along a continuum of learning toward
action.
Recommended Steps
• If social media/blog efforts are coming in spurts, consider ways to execute a more consistent schedule.
•Engage qualitative effort to gauge possible U-I or search issues, and/or uncover other engagement-
related characteristics.
64. 64
GA’s “Social” reports
Make data-driven decisions for social media
programs:
Identify the value of traffic coming from social sites.
Measure how they lead to direct or “assisted”
conversions.
Understand social activities happening on / off site.
Some of the reports require programming goals
and assigning values
Understanding ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ involves tagging
with the _trackSocial tag
Google’s ‘social analytics’ guide
65. 65
Social conversions
Requires programming Goals into GA
“Social performance at a glance and its impact on conversions.”
“Which goals are being impacted by social media.”
66. 66
“Network Referrals”
“Find out how visitors from different sources behave.”
This is similar to the custom advanced segment.
Other reports:
• “Trackbacks” (backlinks)
• “Data Hub" (lacks
facebook & twitter)
68. 68
Case Study: Nat’l Museum of American History
On the anniversary
of Jim Henson's 77th
birthday, NMAH
received more than
20 Henson puppets
and props.
Characters from The Muppet Show, Sesame Street,
and Fraggle Rock were donated to Smithsonian.
69. 69
Case Study: Nat’l Museum of American History
Tweet your questions to
NMAH’s Erin Blasco
(@erinblasco)
Erin told a complete story
based on a balanced mix
of metrics, benchmarks,
photos and anecdotes.
Here’s Miss Piggy wearing the Hope
Diamond. (Yes, that Hope Diamond!)
Source: Smithsonian Magazine
70. 70
Case Study: Nat’l Museum of American History
Goals:
Spark excitement about the donation and Henson puppet history.
Include lesser-known objects such as the Fraggles (as well as
the most popular objects i.e., Miss Piggy).
Inspire reflection on the importance of Henson puppets in American
history and culture, on Henson’s birthday.
Clearly communicate that the puppets would not be on immediate
display.
Hint that a future display would include puppetry collections.
71. 71
“Spark excitement about the whole donation”
Strategy
Focus first on the Fraggles
Tactic
Pre-launch – “tease” the donation
Posted two close-up images
Asked followers to guess which 1980’s
pop culture objects these might be.
Measurements
Comments
Clicks The first clue:
Fraggle hair
Source: Facebook
72. 72
Adding to the story w/benchmarks & anecdotes
“The second clue received 797 clicks on
Twitter alone, which is a huge number
considering that our most popular tweets
each month receive between 200-300
clicks.”
“Followers shared messages of excitement,
congratulations, and spontaneously told us
their memories”
"My son and I used to sing the song from
time to time. What a hoot!"
The second clue:
Traveling Matt’s
moustache!
Source: Facebook
73. 73
“Inspire reflection on the importance of Henson’s puppets”
Strategy
Promote the complicated conservation process
Tactic
Behind the scenes blog post
Flickr photo set of conservation efforts
Measurements
Blog pageviews
Flickr photo-views
74. 74
More benchmarks and anecdotes
“The blog post was exceedingly
popular, receiving 3,162 pageviews
in the first 24 hours, a record
breaking amount of traffic.”
“Many people responded that the
blog post’s focus on conservation
sparked their interest. One tweeted:
“There are days when I really want
to be a #conservator.””
“Almost finished with Grover.”
Source: Flickr
83. 83
Unfiltered backup profile
Create a profile that has no filtering of any kind
Leave this profile alone – it serves as a backup
Protection against unintended consequence
Possible names:
Website/view name (backup)
Website/view name (unfiltered data)
84. 84
Filter-out internal-traffic
If you want to exclude visitors surfing from within your network
Account >> Admin >> View (Profile) >> Filters >> +New Filter >> External Traffic Only
85. 85
Measure only traffic taking place on your site
Scraping and re-publishing website content is a common practice.
Those sites exist to serve Google Adsense ads and make money.
Unfortunately they also
scrape your GA “UA”
account number.
Their traffic goes into GA
as your traffic!
Include all your domains,
Filter pattern:
domain.com
domain1.com|domain2.com
86. 86
Use annotations
Super easy – a great way to know at-a-glance what
happened on your site, launches, promos, etc.
You think you’re gonna remember – you’re not!
87. 87
Custom segment: social media visits
Regular expression:
bit.ly|bitly|blogfaves.com|blogger|bloglines|blogspot|delicious|digg|facebook|feedburner|flickr|f
oursquare|goo.gl|groups.google|groups.yahoo.com|hootsuite|instagram|linkedin|m.facebook.
com|newsgator|ow.ly|pinterest|plus.google|plus.url.google.com|reddit|stumbleupon|t.co|techn
orati|tweetdeck|twitter|typepad|tumblr|wordpress|youtube
The regular
expression
(“regex”) can
also be edited to
include smaller
groups, or types
of social sites,
i.e., facebook
and twitter.
88. 88
Custom segment: engaged visits
These visits:
Were
deeper
than three
pages.
Were
longer than
three
minutes.
89. 89
Custom segment: highly-engaged visits
These visits:
Were deeper than
four pages.
Were in frequency
more than two
times in the
measured period.
Were longer than
two minutes.
These values can be
tweaked for your site,
of course!
A nice blog post on
this topic is here.
90. 90
Resources
Supermetrics Data Grabber
http://supermetrics.com/
Automate Analytics Google Group
http://groups.google.com/group/automateanalytics/topics
Avinash Kaushik’s “Occam’s Razor”
http://kaushik.net/avinash
Lunametrics blog
http://www.lunametrics.com/blog
Google Analytics Blog
http://analytics.blogspot.com/
http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/digital-marketing-and-measurement-model/“Your Objectives should be DUMB; Doable, Understandable, Manageable, and Beneficial.”Work with executive management to come up with these.
How I spread the love inside my organisation…Hub and spokeIn order to get more insights and dig deeper into the data, we are working from the digital hub with other Tate departments to create other dashboards, mainly on Google Analytics, so they can monitor their own activities. GA training:Intro to analyticsEcommerceDashboards (how to create, edit and share GA dashboards) Interns coming to training sessionsDashboard examplesExhibitions Shop - metrics: revenue, avg. value returning vs. new visitor, revenue by location, revenue traffic sources, most sold products by quantity and revenuMembersSocial mediaTate Papers – visits, pageviews, where people come from, most read papers, device used (eg. Tablet) Art & artists – visits to the online collection, pages/visit, most visited artists and artworks, terms searched on these pagesPPC Eat & drinkPromosVisit sectionWhat’s on section Tate KidsTate Collectives