2010 is shaping up to have a number of tight political races.  The Wisconsin Governor’s race will likely be one of them.  A very important component of any political campaign these days is how well the web is utilized.

In this post, I take a look at the websites of each of the three candidates, Scott Walker, Mark Neumann, and Tom Barrett, and evaluate them based on their homepage performance, promoting email signups, usage of video, and available supporter tools and resources.

First, a quick overview of the candidates’ domains:

• Scott Walker: ScottWalker.org – Has held and used this domain since 1999.  Announced run on April 28, 2009
• Mark Neumann: MarkForGov.com – Announced run on September 8, 2009 with traffic data for the site showing as starting in July of 2009.
• Tom Barrett:  BarrettForWisconsin.com – Launched February 18th, 2010 (very late) – Announced run on November 15, 2009.

Compete.com Data

Barrett clearly has some catching up to do, however the data indicates the race (at least in terms of site unique visitors) is narrowing.

Unique visitors in month of January

• Walker: 4,052
• Neumann: 3,651
• Barrett: 1,251

HOMEPAGE
In this section I take a look at the homepage of each site and outline positives and negatives.

Walker

Positives

• On entry, an overlay prompts the user to sign up for email updates.  A cookie is placed on your computer and the site remembers you so you aren’t bothered every time you visit the site with the signup form.
• High up on the page is a list of the ways a supporter can take action and a call to create your own “spot” (more on supporter tools and resources below).
• The “What’s Your Take?” section highlights recent comments from site visitors.  This is a good way to grab the attention of site visitors.  See the “Negatives” section below for more.

Negatives

• The prominence and size of the callout for “MyScottSpot.org” does not match its importance.  This is one of, if not the most important call to action of the site.
• Within the video/presentation area, there are only three frames and each includes a quote and a photo of a citizen with a concern.  Upon clicking these, a page merely reiterates the quote and presents you with another link to “See what Scott says about [topic].”  One would think that there is a video associated with these callouts featuring the citizens concerns.  The actual content is a bit underwhelming.
• There is a video player integrated within the homepage, however it is too small to expect someone to watch the video in this space.  It would make more sense to incorporate the videos in the main presentation area above.
• The “What’s Your Take” section only displays three handpicked comments.  It initially appears as if your comment may immediately be submitted to the site, however this is not the case.  It’s understandable why the campaign wouldn’t want comments posted directly, but the site shouldn’t give the impression that it accommodates this action.
• There’s a “Breaking News” section, however it’s very far down the page in small font.  Easy to miss.

Neumann

Positives

• The site elevates where you can find the candidate across the major social media properties very high on the page.  They take the most prominent position of all the candidates’ sites.
• The main presentation area on the homepage is well-designed and does a great job of calling out the key areas of the site and the tools available to supporters.  A much better job is done here than on the Walker site.
• Next to the presentation area, the site includes a photo of the candidate and a quick summary of why he’s running.  The Barrett site takes a similar approach.  More effective than the hand/card graphic on the Walker site.
• The “How Can I Help?” section in the right column clearly and succinctly summarizes available features coupled with recognizable icons.
• Instead of a pseudo comments section, Neumann showcases the latest from his blog.  This is a good approach, however see the Negatives section below.

Negatives

• The sign-in form for the user account area should be much higher on the page, perhaps as a permanent spot in the header.  Yes, there is a “Login” link up there, but it’s easily missed.
• Even though “Contribute Now” belongs in a prominent place, it should be preceded by at least a sentence or two enticing the user to take that step.  Clickthrough rates would likely increase.
• The blog section shows the entirety of each post.  This limits the ability of the user to scan the posts, read a quick summary and then decide which is worth clicking through to.  It’s easy for other posts pushed far lower on the page to be overlooked.
• Perhaps it was decided to show the full content of each blog post so some content was alongside the overly long series of callouts in the right column (8 in all).  If the blog posts were reduced to a title and summary, more room would be available to present these callouts in a more effective grid form.  Removal of redundancies would also help such as the “Endorse Mark Neumann,” which could be integrated within the “How Can I Help?” section.

Barrett

Positives

• The main navigation on this site is large, clear, and obvious.  Each button feels like a call to action in itself.  A strong point for a political candidate’s site.
• An email list is the lifeblood of any candidate, and the Barrett site calls out the signup form most prominently of the three sites.
• The initial frame of the presentation window includes a welcome video from the candidate.  Unlike the other two sites, you can watch this video right from the homepage in a window large enough for comfortable viewing.
• The presentation window’s frames are easily navigated and each includes a summary of call to action destination.
• The blog area lower on the page features each post’s title and summary, with a link to the detail.  This is better for presentation’s sake as well as for tracking of most popular posts.
• In general, the site is well-organized and easy to scan.  The homepage doesn’t attempt to cram in every conceivable callout.

Negatives

• Similar to Neumann’s site, the “Contribute” button would be more effective moved underneath the candidate’s photo and intro paragraph giving the user more of a reason to take action.
• The site does not summarize or callout the ways a supporter can get involved.  This may be because in general the options are limited compared to the other candidates (a rather big negative).  More on this in “Supporter Tools & Features” section below).

EMAIL MARKETING

Each candidate site is relatively similar in that they prominently call out the email signup form.  The Walker site is the most up front about this as mentioned previously, by greeting first-time users with an overlay.

After entering your email address, however, each takes a different approach in terms of gathering more information.

Walker

The Walker site requires confirmation of your email address in order to start receiving updates.  Obviously this was implemented to limit the amount of junk accounts created, but it creates an unnecessary level of friction for the user.  A better practice would allow the user to finalize their subscription and begin receiving messages right away.  The campaign could utilize behavioral targeting to force those who never open emails to validate their address later on.

Neumann

• Neumann smartly combines the email signup process with the ability to create an account at the same time.  The screen reiterates the email address.  The email address functions as the user name and a password can be selected and confirmed to create an account.
• It may not be clear to some however, what the, “publicly support and endorse” checkbox is actually for.  What will the campaign do with your information should you check this box?  A simple “What’s this?” which reveals an explanation would be helpful.
• After submitting the form, you’re directed straight to your account dashboard.  An email is sent to your address asking you to validate your email address; however this doesn’t prevent you from using the system.
• From the user account, you can specify in-depth the types of emails you want to receive. These range from general campaign updates to specific activity within the community such as friend requests, event and blog postings, and comments.

Barrett

The Barrett site unfortunately doesn’t prompt you to create an account, however it does introduce one feature the others don’t.  A check box at the bottom of the form reads, “Sign me up to receive text messages on my phone.”  Surprisingly, this is the only campaign utilizing mobile notifications.

VIDEO
Some observations regarding the candidates’ use of video:

Walker

• The tiny homepage video mentioned previously, is definitely a negative, and the main video page isn’t much better.  This page is simply a scrolling list of embedded YouTube players with a .wmv file at the bottom.  There is no way to share to easily share or bookmark individual videos other than the default embed/URL YouTube features.  The entire page can be shared via email but this is only moderately useful.
• Despite being able to boast the longest-lived website, there are only five videos.

Neumann

• Best practice dictates publishing videos on your site directly and integrating the content within the user account area.  When not possible, a fully-branded YouTube channel is a good second choice.
• The Neumann campaign’s YouTube channel integrates the website’s graphics as well as key calls to action such as to contribute or visit other social media profiles.  The channel’s profile information is filled out in detail and includes a “Why I’m Running for Governor” intro.  Well done overall.

Barrett

The Barrett site is sort of a hybrid between the other two in terms of video.   A single page on the site highlights only three videos with many of the same faults as the Walker site.  They do have a YouTube channel (pictured above), however little thought was given to integration of brand or overall look and feel.  The channel lacks an overview statement and calls to action.

SUPPORTER TOOLS & FEATURES
Each site featured tools and resources for supporters; however these differed significantly from site to site.

Walker

The Walker site offers tools both outside and inside the login.  Outside the login there are a series of universally accessible pages on the site under “Get Involved.”

• Volunteer: A simple signup form with check boxes for ways to help
• Social Networks: Basic directory of the social media profiles the campaign maintains
• Attend Events: This is a great feature which offers a detail page for each event and often a link to registration or more details.  Each event can be mailed to yourself or a friend
• Scott Walker Store:  Not a bad idea to make it easy to buy T-shirts, stickers, signs, and other merchandise to show your support.  This ecommerce store even handles paid event registration

The ability to create a “MyScottSpot.org” also exists and offers a very full-featured experience with innovative tools.

• Similar to LinkedIn’s “profile completeness” MyScottSpot measures “impact points” and plots where you are on the scale from being a new “Recruit” to becoming an “Operative.”  A page summarizes how their “Personal Impact Engine” is calculated.
• Your to-do items are summarized on the dashboard with each one displaying its potential score getting you closer to “Operative” status.
• Recent blog posts are summarized neatly in the right column.  The main site would benefit from this approach as well.
• Lower on the dashboard are recent comments separated by official comments and user comments.  You can post a comment any time, however there is a 500 character limit.
• You can form or join a team (by county) or recruit friends or create groups (no groups at time of review).
• You can RSVP for events or invite others (import contacts from your email system or select friends on Facebook).
• Repository of all media including documents, images, videos and audio
• Built-in feedback submission form available on any page

Neumann

The Neumann “Personal Dashboard” area is also very advanced and similar to the offerings of the Walker campaign.  From here a supporter can manage their profile, interact with other supporters, and learn of ways to get involved.  Features include:

• Invite friends: Includes pre-populated verbiage to make it easy to send.  Contacts can be selected via your own online email account, uploaded file, or manually added.
• Full profile management and summary including your recent blogs and events, groups you belong to, a summary statement of why you support the candidate and important issues.
• The ability to create a blog, share your posts, read others’, and search.
• Events are integrated within the account area along with RSVP capability, social media sharing tools, and even Google Maps integration!
• Groups:  None exist yet, however the system allows you to create one based on a variety of issues and start inviting your friends. (UPDATE: Some groups do exist however I missed this in the interface.  See comment thread below to read my recommendations for improvement.)
• Send and receive messages to/from the campaign and other supporters
• Fundraising: Create your own fundraising page, set financial goals and manage its content.  From there you can choose friends to invite and ask for their support.  Very impressive.
• Ability to search blog posts, team members and groups separately

Barrett

The Barrett campaign doesn’t offer an actual account, however there are dedicated pages under, “Take Action.”

• Contribute: A succinct and well-designed form allowing a supporter to quickly donate in pre-set amounts or “other.”
• A basic volunteer form which actually lacks suggestions for ways to participate.  Not good for those who want to help but need some specific ideas in order to convert.
• A separate “Join Our Campaign” form which doesn’t explain itself and is too similar to the “Volunteer” form.
• “Intern With the Campaign”:  A lot of details are provide here in terms of responsibilities.  This much thought should have been given to the “Volunteer” and “Join the Campaign” forms as well.

MY PICKS

Each of the three sites has strengths and weaknesses; some subtle, some glaring.  Of course, there are a number of other criteria one could review the sites by but are beyond the scope of a single blog post.  Here’s my take at scoring the sites based on the criteria discussed above (1-5 with 5 being highest):

YOUR THOUGHTS

As always, comments are encouraged.  In what ways do you think these sites excel or fail?  Please play nice, and keep the discussion focused on digital features and tactics, not politics.

Expert Review, Interactive Industry News & Events, Internet Marketing, Social Media Competitive Analysis, Internet Marketing, Mark Neumann, Political Website, Scott Walker, Social Media, Tom Barrett, User Interface Design, Wisconsin Governor's Race

By now, you’ve probably seen all the top-rated ads either during the game itself or afterward online and picked your favorites.  Most of the ads had some sort of mention of their web address, but not all of those sites greeted you with anything special upon arrival.  Here are four that went the extra mile to create experiences to make the most out of their massive Super Bowl ad expenditure.

Boost Mobile - boostmobile.com/shuffle

Right or wrong, Boost brings back the 1985 Bears in an odd (to put it mildly) spot featuring McMahon in a motorized chair getting a spray tan and other antics.  The site is in all Flash for which it loses some points from an analytics perspective, but at least it’s a unique URL which makes it easy to segment their traffic.  There’s also an ever-present banner that calls out Boost’s unlimited mobile plan so users can take the next step toward conversion.

Among the fun features are:

• An extended version of the ad as well as behind the scenes clips.
• Downloads and Fun Stuff including wallpapers, ringtones and a Ditka-shaped waffle currently for sale on Ebay!
• McMahon’s Headband: links to McMahon’s Twitter accounts
• Mike Singletary Party Police:  During the game and soon after you could rat out your friends for their faux pas during the game (asking what the score is, touching all the wings, etc.).  You pick a message and a recorded Mike Singletary would call their number (after the friend approves this via an email link).  The feature is no longer live, but here’s a screenshot.

You might have the shuffle song stuck in your head along with some weird imagery for a while, but it’s still a fun and engaging site and does a good job of integrating the brand.

Dove Men Care - DoveMenCare.com

While not as entertaining as the Boost Mobile campaign, a vanity URL directs you to a well-designed, targeted site which features the ability to play the ad along side prominent links to product, overview information, and special offers.  The site is a nice blend of Flash and XHTML/CSS to maximize both look and feel yet still provide quick page load times and easier tracking of key metrics such as product pages view, social media sharing, and offer signups.  It’s clear you’re in the right place if you visit the site as a result of seeing the ad, but the Dove smartly doesn’t allow the ad to take up all of the valuable screen real estate.  There’s also a nicely done shower curtain effect and a Drew Brees cameo.

Volkswagen PunchDub – VW.com

The automaker’s call to action in the ad is to play PunchDub on VW.com.  Sending  traffic straight to VW.com/PunchDub would have helped them with entry page analysis to segment ad-driven traffic, but that’s a minor negative compared with the overall quality of the site’s execution.  Upon arriving at VW.com, the normal site remains intact, but the presentation/branding area showcases the PunchDub game and a video player to watch the commercial.  VW dealers are getting into the act with “PunchDub Days” special offers and deals that are “So good it hurts.” Ouch.

In a new twist on share with a friend, the game lets you “punch” a friend by selecting a model, choosing a photo, and then picking your attack type and reaction sound.  You then connect with Facebook and send the pain on to one of your friends.  Give it a try, it’s well done, and you might find yourself up on the “Leaderboard” which is a stock ticker-style run down of the most punches, weekly winners, and top vehicles.

For back story you can learn from Sluggy Paterson, the outspoken man who started the whole punching tradition (it was initially the face, not the shoulder!) and even follow him on Twitter.

Overall, VW offers a seamless integration and a great user experience.

HomeAway - HomeAway.com

Everyone remembers the Griswolds and HomeAway brings them back with gusto.  A prominent callout on the homepage leads to an immersive experience that still keeps the site’s main navigation easily accessible.  You could spend half a day watching videos and playing with all the features but here are some of the highlights:

• Of course, the ad itself, but also a newly-created, 2-part short film (with smartly-placed quick 10-second pre-roll ads from HomeAway), as well as clips from the classic films.
• Win a Dream Vacation contest by submitting your own hotel vacation stories.  Entries from others are featured on the site which can be rated.
• Impressively designed Flash video game featuring the Griswold’s Truxter station wagon.

These are just a few examples of good executions tied to the Big Game.  Which ads do you feel were best supported on the web and took customer engagement to the next level, or were just plain fun?

Expert Review, Flash, Interactive Industry News & Events, Internet Marketing, Social Media, User Interface Design, Web Analytics Flash, Internet Marketing, Social Media, Super Bowl, User Interface Design, Web Analytics, Web Graphic Design

Martha Coakley’s failed Senate run has led many to review the key differences in strategy between her campaign and Scott Brown’s.  It’s pretty clear that Brown took the web seriously and Coakley seemed to largely ignore many of the social media and web analytics strategies and tactics that swept Obama into office.

Ad Age and Social Media Today have taken a look at (and criticized) Coakley’s overall digital and social media’s approaches.  This post narrows in and serves as a reminder of web analytics best practices which can mean the difference between coming in first or a distant second.

The Obama campaign tracked digital metrics obsessively yet ingeniously with great success.  The techniques they used are just as applicable today as they were over a year ago.

Dan Siroker was a Google employee, who in December of 2007 decided to take a leave from Google and assist the Obama campaign in setting up a web analytics methodology.  He was there for a month, came back to Google for a stint, then in July quit permanently to join the campaign full time through to the general election as director of web analytics.

As a measure of their success, of the $656 million raised by the Obama campaign, $500 million of that was raised online compared to $201 million the McCain campaign raised overall. ($201 million does not include the federal campaign funds McCain accepted).

In November of 2009, Siroker gave a presentation at Google about his experiences and the campaign’s web analytics wins.  In it, he outlined five key lessons learned, which are excellent guidelines for any web analytics initiative be it for a political campaign or business marketing.

Lesson 1: Define Success with QUANTIFIABLE Success Metrics

Setting goals such as, “drive traffic via PPC” or “use the email channel to maintain a dialogue with our audiences” are not specific enough to gauge success.

Instead, Siroker’s team set quantifiable goals related to cost per click, signup rates, money raised per email recipient, and many more.  He said, “We always had more to do than we had man hours to do it.”  As such, having very targeted goals was essential to ensure time expenditures could be justified.

Lesson 2: Question Assumptions

The team utilized Google Website Optimizer to determine which landing pages and creative content pulled its weight.  As an ad-hoc survey, Siroker asked the audience of a series of images and calls to action, which combination they thought was best received by splash page viewers and resulted in the most sign ups.  It turns out the audience’s assumptions were wrong (so were the analytics team’s originally) and it required multivariate testing to get to the truth (“Learn more” and the “Family Image” were the winners).

Getting the version right meant over 4 million more people signed up for the email list between the time they ran the experiment and the election!

Lesson 3: Divide & Conquer

This lesson demonstrates the power of segmentation.  As Avinash Kaushik puts it, segment or die!  Data takes on a whole new meaning when you can know as much as possible about the people who generated it.

This was illustrated by the team’s donation button experiment.  In it, they sent donation solicitations and tested different donation button verbiage (Donate Now, Please Donate, Why Donate, Donate and Get a Gift, and Contribute) with each audience (never signed up, signed up but never donated, previously donated). The results varied significantly based on who the visitor was when they got there.

Winning combinations:

• Never signed up: Donate and Get a Gift
• Signed up, never donated: Please Donate
• Previously donated: Contribute

Monetary results: tens of millions of dollars in additional donations.

Lesson 4: Don’t Reinvent the Wheel

This lesson goes to show that it’s not how much you spend on technology; it’s how much you invest in talent.  One would think that a presidential campaign which broke all sorts of war chest records would use its means to select the most robust and most expensive analytics tools on the market.  In fact, Siroker’s team used many free and open source tools.  These included Google Analytics, Website Optimizer, Trends, and App Engine, TextMate, Open Reports, and DbVisualizer.

Lesson 5: Take Advantage of Circumstances

After Sarah Palin made a remark at the Republican National Convention in an attempt to undermine the perceived value of being a community organizer, the Obama campaign immediately sent out an email to their list protesting this notion.

The recipients responded.  From that one email the campaign raised $10 million.

Think of your own organization.  How close are you to putting these lessons into practice?  Do you have examples of challenges or success stories?

Don’t pull a “Choke-ley” and underestimate the power and benefits of digital marketing, social media, and web analytics.  Know where you stand before you’re passed up by a Brown blur.

Interactive Industry News & Events, Internet Marketing, Social Media, Uncategorized, Web Analytics, Web Strategy Consulting Email Marketing, Google Analytics, Google Website Optimizer, Internet Marketing, Social Media, Web Analytics, Website Testing

You may have used a screencast tool in the past, but if you haven’t tried Jing from TechSmith, you’re missing out on one of the easiest ways to share your screen activity quickly, easily, and for free.

Screencasting is essentially the process of recording and broadcasting the activity on your computer screen and in most cases, accompanying the video with a vocal narration.

Jing’s user experience is top notch, and the system allows you to immediately send your screencasts up to Screencast.com, save the file on your computer, or FTP it to your own server.

Recording time is limited to 5 minutes per screencast. This is actually a good thing, since it keeps you on task and makes your screencasts more likely to be viewed. It also helps keep the file sizes manageable. Break a larger topic into “chapters” and create separate screencasts for each. You can easily link to each one and paste all into an email or a blog post. Be sure to give meaningful titles to each one so they’re easy to find in your directory and on Screencast.com.

Jing Pro (only $14.95 per year) allows for instant upload to YouTube and other video sites, smaller file sizes, premium video format, and a white labeled experience without Jing branding.

Of course, it’s better to see it than read about it, so check out this overview video.

The Benefits of Screencasting

The possibilities are endless, but here are some of ways I use it.

• Get proposals accepted faster by going over the main points in a screencast. No need to wait for multiple stakeholder schedules to synch up.
• Offer an explanation of a complex service offering to a prospective client that they can watch on their own time
• Conduct a user experience assessment of a web presence
• Walk through a defined strategy for a sitemap or wireframes, or review web analytics findings and recommendations
• Offer feedback on design or development iterations
• Demonstrate how to use a particular tool or application

If you’ve got lots to say, and five minutes at a shot isn’t enough for you (although in most cases it ought to be), there’s always Camtasia Studio (also from TechSmith) which comes with detailed editing features and much more.

Whichever tool you use, incorporating screencasts into your project communication will save you time and make you more effective. Screen…Microphone…Action!

Web Project Management, Web Strategy Consulting Jing, Online Collaboration, Screencasting, Web Project Management

With all that can be learned from clickstream web analytics tools such as Google Analytics, Yahoo! Web Analytics, and Omniture Site Catalyst, it’s important to remember those tools reveal the “what” of your site visitor sessions, but not much about the “why.” Did your visitors see the pages they wanted to see? Were they able to complete their tasks? Is a high page-per-visit rate a result of an engaged visit, or visitors unsuccessfully browsing through pages not finding what they’re looking for? Voice of customer tools are an important component to any website and web analytics initiative and can provide valuable “Aha!” moments.

In this post we’ll take a look at some of the most popular tools and the best ways to utilize them.

SURVEYS

We’re all familiar with surveys, however they come in all shapes and sizes and selecting the right one can be challenging. Some do a great job of collecting and segmenting results, others are annoying and drive your visitors crazy! It’s very important to evaluate not only the technical capabilities of your survey tool, but its user experience as well.

When redesigning a site, ensure survey integration is part of the overall technology set. The benefits of making surveys readily available include:

• They can be always on and serve as a continuous listening methodology. Surveys don’t always need to be sent out. They can be prominently featured on the site so visitors know they can leave feedback if they’re so inclined.
• Both qualitative and quantitative data can be collected
• Feedback can come in real-time so you can evaluate the positive or negative impact of newly-added site features or content
• A small sample size of responses can still yield valuable insights
• Surveys have evolved beyond the simple pop up to use cookies and conditional logic as well as integrate with clickstream data

Site-Level Surveys

You’ve likely come across these types of surveys that often fall under the “annoying” category. They are presented either as a popup, or pop under window and ask general questions about your overall experience using the site. Another option is the permission based survey. Upon entering a site, you’re presented with an invitation to take a short survey at the end of your visit.

If you use this approach, be sure to select a vendor that utilizes cookies so that repeat visitors are not invited each time they come to the site. For instance, visitors should only be invited to take the survey once every three months.

iPerceptions offers a great free site-level survey tool called 4Q which asks only the following four crucial questions:

1. What is the purpose of your visit to our website today?
2. Were you able to complete your task?
3. If you were not able to complete your task today, why not?
4. Based on today’s visit how would you rate your site experience overall?

With answers to these questions, you get a great macro-level view of your site’s performance. Also, you can calculate a valuable metric: Task Completion Rate by Purpose of Visit. There’s almost no clearer indication of whether your site’s doing what it’s supposed to do.

Also, consider prompting users to take the survey from locations other than just the homepage. Be contextual and get segmented data by creating surveys for specific sections of the site. You’ll be more likely to get responses from visitors who have a vested interest in the quality of content and/or features that they use regularly. Used this way, site-level surveys can function closer to (often preferable) page-level surveys.

Other great site-level survey tools include:

• Survey Monkey
• CRM Metrix
• ForeSee

Page-Level Surveys

Page-level surveys courteously sit in not-too-obtrusive places waiting for a user to take advantage of them. They often sit at the end of a browser, either on the right or left side or in a bottom corner. They are less likely to annoy visitors and provide the excellent benefit of highly contextual feedback which is the key to actionable data. You’ll hear from your most engaged or upset visitors and will be able to directly attribute their comments to specific elements of your website. This is a great compliment to A/B and Multivariate testing (another form of “what”).

An important thing to remember whether you’re using site-level or page-level surveys is to keep them short! The longer your survey, the less likely your visitors will complete it. Value your users’ time and only ask the questions they need in order to submit feedback.

Great page-level tools include UserVoice and Kampyle.

POLLS

Polls are essentially mini page-level surveys. These are great for quickly taking the temperature of your customers and visitors. They can be easily embedded in a sidebar or even within an email. The best polling tools allow someone to see the results of the poll after taking it. For example, a poll can be displayed in a user account area to solicit votes on which potential features would be most appreciated.

Polling tools:

• PollDaddy
• Constant Contact
• MicroPoll

RATING SYSTEMS

While most commonly featured on ecommerce sites in the form of product ratings, these tools can be used on non-transactional sites as well. A simple YES/NO answer to the question, “Did this [article/FAQ/video] help you?” can quickly let you know if certain content isn’t pulling its weight. More sophisticated sites use this information to dynamically sort content so the best rises to the top of lists.

A nice and inexpensive rating tool is RatingSystem.

Whatever tool or approach you select, make sure it’s appropriate for your site visitors and takes users, content, and context into account. Balance the “what” of your data with the “why” for truly actionable insights.

Let your voice be heard here! What tools, methods, and approaches have brought you success or challenges?

Internet Marketing, Social Media, User Interface Design, Web Analytics, Web Development Polls, Surveys, User Interface Design, Voice of Customer, Web Analytics

Continuing to tread on the territory of the major paid analytics vendors, Google Analytics just announced a number of new features that raise it to yet another level. These powerful, time-saving additions allow you to spend more time analyzing and interpreting your site’s performance, and less time foraging though the data.

Among the major additions are; automated and custom alerts based on significant changes in your data, advanced table filtering, expanded mobile reporting, the ability to share advanced segments, and more.

What do these new features mean for your business? Quite a bit. Read on for the details.

Engagement Goals

You’ve always been able to set goals for transactions such as purchases, downloads, leads and so on, and then determine which traffic sources or site content are top performers. However, sometimes a site’s goals are simply to increase engagement with the site and are not transactional in the traditional sense.

Now you can measure the engagement and branding success of your site by setting thresholds for Time on Site and Pages per Visit.

Example: For your software product marketing site you determine that a Page per Visit rate of 10 or more indicates high engagement with your content and significant interest in your product. With this Page per Visit threshold set, you’re now able to monitor whether recent content cross promotion efforts are positively or negatively affecting this new and important metric.

View the Google video:

Expanded Mobile Reporting

With mobile marketing maturing rapidly, and applications growing in number exponentially, this is a very timely addition.

Google Analytics has allowed you to track visits to your main website from mobile operating systems, but now you can track the performance of your mobile-optimized sites on any mobile device regardless of the device’s ability to run JavaScript.

iPhone and Android app developers, rejoice! You’ll be able to use your favorite free analytics tool to gauge your apps performance as well.

Example: You’ve just launched a new location-based app, which makes restaurant recommendations. Until recently, you could only track downloads and general feedback. Now you can uncover usability issues, and the most popular screens and features within the app to guide its improvements.

Advanced Analysis Features

Want to know which organic keywords are your top performers? The introduction of the advanced segments feature made this task easier, but the new Advanced Table Filtering makes narrowing down a lot of data on the fly a snap.

You can now filter any table of data by custom parameters, quickly narrowing down the results and removing the noise.

Example: When viewing the Network Locations reports, you want to see which organizations sent visits but filter out all the telecommunications companies which don’t help your analysis. Further, you want to see which organization showed high engagement and are repeat visitors. While it’s possible to set up an advanced segment to accomplish this, this type of filter can be done on the fly from any list report.

View the Google video:

Unique Visitor Metric

Good news for custom reports. Now “Unique Visitors” has been added so you can see how many actual visitors (people) are represented in each report as opposed to just overall visits.

Sharing Segments and Custom Report Templates

Very convenient new feature! Formerly, if a new advanced segment were created it would only be available via the profile it was originally created for. Now, just click the “Share” button and a URL is generated which you can easily send to a colleague. Advanced segments can also be copied so you can build upon existing ones rather than starting from scratch. This is also a huge plus for agencies, which utilize the same rough segments for multiple clients.

Analytics Intelligence

Here’s the big one that many were waiting for. Google Analytics is now much smarter! It proactively monitors for events that are significant and then issues alerts. The events could include a spike or drop in traffic, or any major change in goals or behavior patterns.

There is even a slider control that lets you adjust the sensitivity. Move it further to the right and more events will be flagged. Move it to the left and events will need to be more significant to register.

Example: Your site experiences a 250% increase in average referrals from Facebook on a given day. This is logged in Google Analytics automatically and is retained so you can look back overtime for patterns or responses to campaigns. You can also elect to have this alert emailed to the appropriate people.

Custom Alerts

As the title suggests, you can tell Google Analytics to watch for the events that are important to your business. Daily, weekly, and monthly alerts are possible and can also be viewed in the interface or emailed directly.

Example: A hardware ecommerce site manager wants to be alerted when the average order size for lumber drops 20% or more for the contractor segment. Once set, the manager can be alerted of this event instantly.

View the Google video:

Some of the features are live now, others will be rolled out in the coming weeks. It’s great to see Google Analytics continue to mature. These features offer more actionable and meaningful data with powerful options analysts will appreciate.

Interactive Industry News & Events, Internet Marketing, Social Media, Web Analytics, Web Strategy Consulting Google Analytics, Internet Marketing, Web Analytics

Everybody knows that money talks. It’s no different in the world of web analytics. When dollar values are assigned to site behaviors and other key metrics, the value of user actions and traffic sources becomes immediately clear.

Monetization isn’t just for ecommerce sites. Even user actions that have no immediate financial value such as contact form submissions, file downloads, page views, and email newsletter signups are excellent candidates.

If it’s your job to convince stakeholders to take action, or if you’re an executive looking for more clarity in your KPIs, this post will offer you some ammunition and help get you started.

Monetization’s Impact on Language

Monetized language is much more effective than un-monetized when communicating to decision makers why a certain site update should be undertaken.

Take this example for instance:

Un-monetized: “After mapping user traffic trends to goal completions for our site’s primary lead generation form, I found that the percentage of site visitors who find their way to the lead generation form is low and the conversion rate of visitors who access the form itself is less than optimal. We should work to improve these metrics.”

Monetized: “We’re leaving money on the table. With minor adjustments, we could significantly increase the number of leads we get through the website. Our web analytics and past order data shows that each lead we get through the site is worth $730. With some minor changes, we can increase our visitor-to-lead conversion rate by 10%, conservatively speaking. This would mean an additional $190,000 per month or $2.3 million a year in revenue. We should act soon. If we wait three months, we’ll be passing up $570,000.

Which example gets your attention?

The Benefits of Monetization

Here are some reasons why your organization should take a monetized approach to your data gathering and reporting.

1. Concretely know the impact of web development efforts and missed opportunities
2. Clearly prioritized initiatives sorted by those that drive revenue
3. Less time spent on updates that don’t impact the bottom line
4. Removal of internal politics and guesswork from decision making
5. Knowledge of your site’s true ROI

Examples of Monetized Behaviors

Lead generation is the most commonly monetized behavior and rightly so. This is the bread and butter of sites that complete their sales through reps or agents.

The calculation of a lead value is as follows:

(leads closed x average revenue per sale) / total leads = avg. lead value

For example, if your site produces an average of 500 leads per month, and 100 of them result in sales with an average of $2,000 each, then each lead is worth $400.

Customer Service also provides a strong opportunity. With an average cost of between $3.50 and $10 per call, many organizations place reducing call center costs by improving website help areas near the top of their list. Use unique phone numbers and track those calls that originated from the website. The conversion rate (to be reduced) here is those visits to the support section that resulted in a call center call. Use this data to frame any proposed improvements to the support section in clear dollar terms.

With ecommerce, it’s obvious to begin optimizing the checkout process, however increases in other actions such as views of product detail pages can also be monetized. The more users view product detail pages, the more likely they are to complete a sale. By analyzing clickthrough data patterns and ultimate purchase rates, you should be able to determine the value of a visit that includes 1 or more product detail page views. Once that is established it will be clearer which proposed improvements that drive traffic to detail pages (such as internal ads, better search results, etc) are worth the effort.

Show Them the Money

Here are some tips on how to present a monetized forecast to stakeholders. In your document, include the key metrics: monthly visits, the number of visits that result in a desired action, the conversion rate, the value of the desired action, and the current monthly value from that behavior.

Then show how incremental increases (or reductions in the case of customer service) will impact the bottom line. Show monthly profit impact as well as annual.

Another great attention-getter is presenting the cost of delay. With each incremental conversion rate change, show how much money is left on the table by not acting for three months. Ears will perk up regardless of whether the decision maker is benefit or loss-driven.

Take advantage of monetization to create powerful reports that get noticed and acted upon. Then get ready to calculate the financial benefits of vastly shorter prioritization meetings and fewer internal debates.

Web Analytics, Web Strategy Consulting Internet Marketing, KPIs, Monetization, Web Analytics

Website testing and optimization involves the utilization of software to compare the performance of two or more versions of a page or process to determine which version is the most effective in driving desired user behavior.  Tools such as Google Website Optimizer and more robust options geared toward the sophisticated enterprise such as SiteSpect, are available to automate (as much as possible) the process of conducting A/B or multivariate online tests.

Web analytics expert, Eric T. Peterson of Web Analytics Demystified and website optimization software creator, SiteSpect, recently teamed up to release a white paper entitled, “Successful Web Site Testing Practices.”  This must-read document provides a road map for setting up and leading a web testing team within an organization and leveraging it to yield definitive and dramatic results.  Below is our take on some of the highlights of their recommendations.  However, we strongly recommend you read the document in its entirety and take full advantage of case studies, testimonials, and direct examples including a sample test plan approval form (highly useful)!

Best Practice #1: Form a Great Testing Team
Your testing team must have a mandate for improvement.  This means they need to be charged with improving the website’s condition in a measureable way and be able to clearly demonstrate and communicate results to stakeholders.  It’s crucial to include your organization’s top talent in this team; those folks with the clout and track record to spark enthusiasm and buy-in throughout the company.

Eric T. Peterson labels the project manager and the executive sponsor as the two most important roles within the team.  We couldn’t agree more.  Without a carefully managed process and unwavering support from executive management, objectives can be unclear and the powerful force of entropy can take hold quickly.   Of course, without a key executive at the helm of this initiative, team members will find themselves, as Eric puts it, dead in the water.

The author also values the ability of the project manager to think from the perspective of an end user.  After all, it’s the user interface that’s being optimized, and without a firm grasp of user’s needs and the distinct problems or challenges they face when using the site, tests will be misguided and ineffective.

The efforts, updates, successes and even failures of the testing team should be broadcasted throughout the organization.  Allow for a platform for team members to showcase their results.  Ensure this is not merely one-way communication.  Follow the lessons of social media and allow for comments and suggestions in a structured way.  Demonstrating top-level commitment of both time and critical resources communicates the importance of the initiative.  The changes that incrementally occur to the site as a result of testing won’t be alarming to departments.  They’ll appreciate being informed and involved, and will be far more likely to lend their support.

Best Practice #2: Get Your Stakeholders On Board
Like any website redesign, web analytics, or social media endeavor, without management’s support for your testing initiative, you can essentially guarantee failure.

Be sure to work with management from the very start.  Illustrate to them exactly what you wish to achieve and the results you can expect, communicated in bottom-line financial predictions.  Communicate that a data-driven culture is one that strives to make web improvement decisions based on performance and demonstrated merit rather than assumptions.  As a result, an organization is better able to compete in the marketplace.

Best Practice #3: Write a (Formal) Testing Plan
There needs to be a structure through which requests for testing are considered.  Without this, individuals may try to “skip in line” to push their desired updates through based on their own agenda. They need to understand that a prioritized queue exists and suggested tests must be justified by answering the following questions:

1. What is being tested?
2. Why is it being tested?
3. What are the expectations for the test?
4. What are the measures of the success for the test?
5. What are the risks associated with running the test?
6. What internal resources are required to run the test?
7. Who is requesting the test?
8. By when are the results needed?

As mentioned earlier, the white paper authors have included a valuable sample test plan intake form that expands on the above questions.

Best Practice #4: Think about Measurement
Your web testing program should integrate and collaborate closely with your overall web analytics efforts.  This takes extra consideration and possibly technical expertise to ensure data available through analytics tools (such as audience segments) can be applied to tests.  Metrics and KPIs that have been established within a web analytics program should dictate to a large extent which tests should be undertaken.  Make sure one hand is talking to the other.

Also consider how your tests impact more complex measurements such as “return visitation rate” and “lifetime customer value” beyond just clickthrough metrics.

Best Practice #5: Clearly Define “Success” and “Failure”
Success means different things to different stakeholders.  It can range from obvious financial gains, to user engagement, to fewer support calls.  An important point that the author points out is that even a “failed” test yields some measure of success.  That is, you now know more about what doesn’t work thereby narrowing the field of possible creative or interface options getting you closer to the winner.  Don’t view missing the objective as a failure, but rather a learning experience which has actually moved the process forward.  The only real failure is a test that is not properly designed, carefully executed, done within a vacuum, or without executive buy-in.

Best Practice #6: Test Your Test
With this best practice, the author reminds us that while testing is absolutely worthwhile and a potential boon to any company, it’s also “hard.”

Be aware that expectations must be set.  This isn’t going to solve all the issues of the website in a month, quarter, or even year.  This is a long-term shift in the thinking of the company to become data-driven.  Certain technical implementations of tests may be trickier than others and will involve the IT department.  Legacy systems can affect the types of tests that can be conducted.  SEO initiatives can be impacted.  Other departments may push back due to perceived technical or business risks.

Be aware of these challenges, but don’t let them discourage you.  Things of great value don’t come easily, yet are worth the effort.  Set expectations to mitigate disillusionment.

Also, make sure testing periods are long enough to yield a statistically significant sample size.  Isolating factors (individual changes) sufficiently so one can determine which is responsible for better results is crucial as well.

Best Practice #7: Clarify Your Testing Timeline
Testers often forget to take day parts and weekends into account.  To ensure you’re not giving too much weight to lunchtime, early morning, late night, or weekend visitors, allow for enough time to collect a representative sample.  The author recommends a 7+1 strategy so you test over an entire week, but also add one day at the beginning of the test before you actively track results.  This allows the test versions to take hold online across the sample and for any last-minute changes.

Those with more time available can opt for a two week test, in this case a 14+1 timeline.   Good things come to those who wait.

Best Practice #8: Communicate Your Test Results with Actionable Analysis
Some great points here.  As always, it’s best to customize one’s report based on the audience.  When communicating the results to the stakeholders who originally requested the test, go into significant detail.  Reiterate the purpose of the test, the timeline, resources used and extensive information on the results.  If external events occurred during the test such as a major news mention or campaign, illustrate how the results were affected.

The rest of the organization should receive a broad overview.  A big picture, clear summary of the results and the impact on the website and company is sufficient to foster a sense of involvement and ongoing support.  Whenever possible, communicate the financial impact of the test.  As Mr. Peterson puts it, a phrase like, “and we expect this change to result in an estimated $20,000,000 in incremental revenue every year” is hard to ignore.

Also, check out the white paper to see a ready-to-use email example of how to broadcast test results to the organization.

In addition, in-person presentations are always best.  Follow these meetings up with postings to your communication platform be it a blog, wiki, online project management tool, or even Google Wave.  Allow enthusiasm for the results to go viral.

Above all, include actionable recommendations along with your results.  Clearly state what next action steps should be taken to capitalize on the success of the test.  Use this opportunity to suggest additional tests to keep the optimization ball rolling.

Best Practice #9: Test Different Audience Segments
The most revealing tests will be those that utilize targeted audience segmentation.  Knowing that a certain change increased conversions by 5% for all visitors is somewhat helpful, but knowing that same change resulted in a 20% increase for a key target audience is far more valuable.  Next action steps are more obvious in light of this information and those steps are more likely to have greater impact.

Directly reference audience segments when presenting test results to stakeholders to better grab their attention.

Best Practice #10: Mine for Deeper Opportunities
Once the testing program is up and running, and the team has a few wins under its belt, in-depth data analysis and statistical modeling is the next level to strive for.  Companies that are already utilizing robust applications such as SAS, or SPSS have an advantage, but this is not an absolute requirement.

Analysis and comparison of offline data or qualitative voice-of-customer data alongside test results can yield insights that are not immediately obvious through the testing or web analytics tools alone.  The author points out that a significant competitive advantage will be had by those companies who truly leverage their online data.

Your Experience?
We’d love to hear your thoughts on web testing and optimization.  Have you recently formed a team or are you considering it?  What methods and/or tools have brought you success?  What real world challenges has your organization overcome (or is still struggling with)?

Interactive Industry News & Events, Internet Marketing, User Interface Design, Web Analytics, Web Project Management, Web Strategy Consulting Google Website Optimizer, User Interface Design, Web Analytics, Web Project Management, Website Testing

By now, most companies are aware that there is a discussion about their brand going on. They also know that they can track and monitor this discussion via a wide variety of tools such as Radian6, Techrigy’s SM2, Twitter Search, Twitalyzer, Social Mention, and many more. The question now is, “What should I pay attention to? Which metrics will actually tell me something about my business?”

Certainly not easy questions, but some trends have evolved that help indicate whether you’re effectively promoting your business online and if you’re being showcased in a positive light. Here are some metrics to watch regularly.

Overall number of mentions or volume: Watch this top-level metric for significant spikes or dips in mentions across all social media especially during major campaigns or events.

Brand mentions: This is social media monitoring 101. What’s the buzz surrounding your company name? A great place to start, but strive to expand beyond this basic metric (more on this below).

Most popular topics: Moving beyond basic brand mentions to specific product names, promotions, and campaigns. These should change on a regular basis and keep pace with your company’s activities.

Share of voice: A term used by SM2, which channels (blogs, microblogs, Facebook, video/photo sharing, etc.) generate the most discussion? How do these metrics match up with recent efforts to increase your Twitter or Facebook reach? Are you gaining traction in the Blogosphere?

Top competitors: Monitor your competitors’ buzz. Be as detailed in tracking their social media reach, as you are with your own. Build off of their success by learning of new channels for adoption.

Demographics: It’s possible to obtain a high-level picture of the gender and age of your audience. Depending on the tool you use, a measurement of contributors’ popularity or influence scores is attainable. This in particular provides a great opportunity to reach out to those that run high-traffic sites or have a large number of Twitter followers. Developing and maintaining content sharing, and cross-promotional strategies with these folks should be an ongoing goal.

Top advocates and detractors: As mentioned above, popularity and influence can be determined. Pair this with sentiment statistics (see some guidelines on sentiment from Radian6) and you have a picture of your cheerleaders and your saboteurs. Join forces with the supporters and reach out to the detractors to determine the cause of their frustration. Pay special attention to setting up automated alerts of negative comments by the influential.

Geography: Running promotions or releasing product in a particular region? Track local impact and target the influences in that region. Stay on top of customer support efforts and respond to those that are expressing concern.

Number of comments: Here’s an easy one to gauge the popularity of your blog. Track overall numbers as well as a ratio of posts to comments.

Number of social bookmarking actions: How many people bookmark your content and what sites/systems do they use? Find out which content resonates and continue to generate that content which encourages viral sharing. Tools such as ShareThis make this easy by providing usage statistics including most popular content and the channels most utilized.

RSS feed subscriptions: This is a healthy barometer of how interested your audience is in your blog. These are the folks that are devoted enough to be notified when you post new content. As you modify frequency, average post length or strategy, watch this metric closely. Run your feed through Feedburner (now a Google product) to maximize insight.

User reviews and average rating: If you run an ecommerce site, seriously consider adding this functionality if you haven’t already. Studies have shown that inclusion of customer reviews helps move product in addition to allowing you to keep your finger on the pulse of customer sentiment. Watch for negative reviews, but don’t jump into the conversation unless a review surfaces that is significantly damaging. Instead, contact the customer privately if possible to resolve the issue. Keep an eye on average rating per product and product category.

Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn performance: Each of these is complex enough to warrant entire books on the subject and beyond the scope of this post. Here are some resources to get you started:

• Facebook: The Missing Manual by E. Vander Veer
• Facebook for Dummies by Carolyn Abrams
• The Twitter Book by Tim O’Reilly
• Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time by Joel Comm
• See our previous post about Twitalizer
• How to Really Use LinkedIn by Jan Vermeiren
• I’m on LinkedIn–Now What??? by Jason Alba

Want to know who’s buzzing about you right now? Take advantage of the explosion of real-time search options:

• Twitter Search
  
• Scoopler
• Collecta
• Topsy
• Crowd-eye

A few best practices:

• Take benchmarks of your own efforts. Understand what changed and analyze the cause. Use this insight to set goals for the short, mid, and long term.
• Involve key stakeholders when it comes to the keywords you’ll be tracking and ensure they’re kept in the loop when reporting is generated. In addition to tracking obvious terms such as brand, promotions, and competitors by name, evolve your terms to include the categories your business operates in. Also monitor specific customer experiences such as quality, satisfaction, speed, and even anger to lead to actionable data.
• Setup real time alerts and have processes in place to respond accordingly. ReadWrite Web offers some options.

The amount of data that can be collected from social media is limitless. Use the above metrics as a starting point and a way to filter through the noise to track what matters.

Social Media, Web Analytics Blogging, Ecommerce, Internet Marketing, Social Media, Web Analytics

THE CHALLENGE
Assist a top-notch interactive agency with redefining the information architecture and user experience of a major global corporation’s flagship website, integrating the content and functions of multiple external sites, and designing over 400 screens within an aggressive timeframe.

THE SOLUTIONS
Briggs & Stratton is the world’s largest producer of air-cooled gasoline engines for outdoor power equipment. With clients worldwide, the Milwaukee-based company has been designing, manufacturing, marketing, and servicing the best-known brand of small engines since 1908. With such a large and diverse client and customer base, Briggs & Stratton’s primary website has many audiences performing a myriad of tasks. From searches for maintenance and repair resources, to direct purchase of products online, thousands of visitors each month use the website seeking education and support for the products their families depend on.

To better serve their customers, connect with existing communities, and introduce new revenue sources, a full redesign was planned.
Interactive experts, Finn Digital of Milwaukee were tasked with the crucial first phase of the overhaul and tapped Molstad Consulting to support internal efforts related to web analytics, information architecture, and prototype design.

Web Analytics
The first step involved a web analytics and conversion assessment of the primary site and 2 key sister sites. Screens and sections were evaluated for their ability to move users to the next stage in the conversion process, track crucial data, and provide a solid overall customer experience. Findings, recommendations, and annotated screenshots were documented and presented to the end client. A detailed report was also submitted with a step-by-step process for implementing a comprehensive web analytics methodology with topics ranging from URLs and meta tag structure to email marketing and social media best practices.

Taxonomy & Sitemaps
Molstad Consulting utilized card sorting methods and led discovery sessions with Finn Digital staff members to define the taxonomy and navigation for the primary website. This process involved the integration of content and functions from a number of external partner sites. Suggestions on labeling, order, syntax, and context were offered throughout. Quality assurance was also provided during the sitemap documentation phase along with assistance with client meeting preparation.

Prototypes & Wireframes
Molstad Consulting acted as a consultative “third eye” ensuring interfaces reflected decisions and strategies defined in the taxonomy phase and showcased optimal usability and intuitive conversion paths. Project management of selected production deliverables was also provided, including updates to an internal online collaboration tool, processing and prioritization of task lists, channeling of communication, and preparation assistance for presentations to the development team and end client.

Design Justification
In advance of final delivery of all sitemaps and prototypes, Molstad Consulting drafted an extensive report tying each site feature and content offering to previously established business goals, and key user tasks illustrating how they are achieved and fulfilled. This report also served as justification for a variety of new, community-building features introduced during the prototyping process and demonstrated the team’s clear understanding of Briggs & Stratton’s current situation and future opportunities.

THE RESPONSE
“Finn Digital has enjoyed a long and mutually beneficial relationship with Molstad Consulting. The strength of our relationship allowed Molstad Consulting to quickly get up to speed for providing carefully considered design specifications within an aggressively paced project schedule. Molstad was required to lead selected analysis and design components and participate as team member in others, and did so flexibly, efficiently and effectively. Most importantly, Molstad Consulting provided clear, concise project communications and relevant review comments that helped the overall project team deliver on challenging project milestones. We select our external strategic partners carefully and will continue to work with Molstad Consulting as a trusted member of our “extended team” for analytics and usability architecture – Molstad meets all of our high standards for success!”
- Bill Finn, Principal, Finn Digital

“Brian has the right mix of expertise and experience to integrate seamlessly with our team. His web analysis and recommendations for improvement are spot on and he is always pleasant, prompt and extremely professional. I highly recommend his work.”
- Jill Schmidt (Thompson), Interactive Strategist, Finn Digital

Molstad Consulting Case Studies Expert Review, Information Architecture, Molstad Consulting News, Prototypes, User Interface Design, Web Analytics, Web Project Management, Wireframes