(Cross-posted from the YouTube Biz Blog)
We announced last week that we now have over 1,000 partners using our content identification and management tools to control how and where their videos are distributed on YouTube. Every major U.S. network broadcaster, movie studio and music label is using Content ID to identify user-uploaded versions of their videos, and decide whether they to want block, track or make money from them. As Content ID is proving to be an effective way for media companies to control, promote and monetize their content on our site, we're always thinking about how we can make these tools even more valuable for content owners of all kinds.
Today, we're excited to integrate Content ID with YouTube Insight. Previously, when you claimed a video with Content ID, we were only able to show you basic information (like view counts and tags) associated with the video you claimed. But now, all the statistics and data we share directly with uploaders in YouTube Insight is available to Content ID partners too, making our content management tools more useful than ever — especially for partners whose claimed user videos generate lots of views for them. For example, using Insight with claimed content, Sony Music learned that the JK Wedding Entrance Dance video is currently the music label's 8th most popular video on YouTube.
In addition to rankings, you can also learn about demographics, discovery sources and other metrics for videos that you've claimed, and then compare them to your own uploads. Do the audience demographics of a claimed video differ from those of the official version? What websites or search terms drive the most traffic to user uploaded versions of your content? We think integrating Content ID and Insight can help answer questions like these and will be very helpful as you think about distributing, marketing and making money from your content online.
If you're a Content ID partner, you can find this new information in the Reporting section of your CMS (Content Management System) account.
Showing posts with label measurement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label measurement. Show all posts
Monday, 28 September 2009
Tuesday, 11 August 2009
New tools for Google Services for Websites
Earlier this year, we launched Google Services for Websites, a program that helps partners, e.g., web hoster and access providers, offer useful and powerful tools to their customers. By making services, such as Webmaster Tools, Custom Search, Site Search and AdSense, easily accessible via the hoster control panel, hosters can easily enable these services for their webmasters. The tools help website owners understand search performance, improve user retention and monetize their content — in other words, run more effective websites.
Since we launched the program, several hosting platforms have enhanced their offerings by integrating with the appropriate APIs. Webmasters can configure accounts, submit Sitemaps with Webmaster Tools, create Custom Search Boxes for their sites and monetize their content with AdSense, all with a few clicks at their hoster control panel. More partners are in the process of implementing these enhancements.
We've just added new tools to the suite:
As always, we'd love to get feedback on how the program is working for you, and what improvements you'd like to see.
Since we launched the program, several hosting platforms have enhanced their offerings by integrating with the appropriate APIs. Webmasters can configure accounts, submit Sitemaps with Webmaster Tools, create Custom Search Boxes for their sites and monetize their content with AdSense, all with a few clicks at their hoster control panel. More partners are in the process of implementing these enhancements.
We've just added new tools to the suite:
- Web Elements allows your customers to enhance their websites with the ease of cut-and-paste. Webmasters can provide maps, real-time news, calendars, presentations, spreadsheets and YouTube videos on their sites. With the Conversation Element, websites can create more engagement with their communities. The Custom Search Element provides inline search over your own site (or others you specify) without having to write any code and various options to customize further.
- Page Speed allows webmasters to measure the performance of their websites. Snappier websites help users find things faster; the recommendations from these latency tools allow hosters and webmasters to optimize website speed. These techniques can help hosters reduce resource use and optimize network bandwidth.
- The Tips for Hosters page offers a set of tips for hosters for creating a richer website hosting platform. Hosters can improve the convenience and accessibility of tools, while at the same time saving platform costs and earning referral fees. Tips include the use of analytics tools such as Google Analytics to help webmasters understand their traffic and linguistic tools such as Google Translate to help websites reach a broader audience.
As always, we'd love to get feedback on how the program is working for you, and what improvements you'd like to see.
Wednesday, 5 August 2009
Leave the math to us: Advertisers increase their profits using Conversion Optimizer
This post is the latest in an ongoing series on The Power of Measurement. Previous topics have covered ways to make your website as successful as possible through tools such as Analytics and Website Optimizer. – Ed.
If you're an old-school AdWords advertiser, you may remember that you originally set bids based on ad impressions (cost-per-impression, or CPM). Later, AdWords transitioned to a new model where bids were set based on ad clicks (cost-per-click, or CPC). Now, as technology has become even more advanced, we’re seeing the next phase of search engine advertising.
What if we told you that you could bid for ads simply based on conversions? (A conversion is a goal set by an advertiser, such as a website visitor purchasing a product or filling out a form.) With Conversion Optimizer, Google does all the heavy lifting and complicated analysis, letting you bid simply based on how much a conversion is worth to your business (cost-per-acquisition, or CPA). By using Conversion Optimizer, advertisers are not only seeing an increase in profits but have more time to devote to the rest of their business.
We’re excited to announce that this AdWords transformation is well underway: advertisers are already using the Conversion Optimizer to manage approximately $1 billion in spend annually.* This new shift benefits two areas Google cares deeply about: showing our users the most relevant ads and helping our advertisers increase their profits.
So how does it work? Each and every time someone types in a search query, AdWords runs a new keyword auction. Advertisers who are still bidding on a cost-per-click basis will be using the same bid in many different auctions, so sometimes their bid may be too high or too low. However, for advertisers using Conversion Optimizer, we'll automatically adjust the bid for each of these auctions so that it can hit the sweet spot more often, helping the advertiser to make more money.
For example, suppose you're advertising an online shoe store and you purchase ads using the keyword "shoes." Because your clicks come from many different types of people who have different intentions, Conversion Optimizer takes many factors into account to optimize your ad performance. If you don't ship internationally, Conversion Optimizer will learn that clicks from international users don't convert and will eliminate traffic from outside the United States. It might also learn that when customers include the word "cheap" in their query, they are particularly likely to convert because your prices are very competitive. Essentially, Google does the detective work — you tell us how much a conversion is worth and our algorithms make it happen.
As more advertisers transition to Conversion Optimizer, we look forward to showing more relevant ads and, in doing so, helping our advertisers achieve better results. Learn more about Conversion Optimizer and get started using it with your AdWords campaigns.
* Annualized figures based on Q2 sales
If you're an old-school AdWords advertiser, you may remember that you originally set bids based on ad impressions (cost-per-impression, or CPM). Later, AdWords transitioned to a new model where bids were set based on ad clicks (cost-per-click, or CPC). Now, as technology has become even more advanced, we’re seeing the next phase of search engine advertising.
What if we told you that you could bid for ads simply based on conversions? (A conversion is a goal set by an advertiser, such as a website visitor purchasing a product or filling out a form.) With Conversion Optimizer, Google does all the heavy lifting and complicated analysis, letting you bid simply based on how much a conversion is worth to your business (cost-per-acquisition, or CPA). By using Conversion Optimizer, advertisers are not only seeing an increase in profits but have more time to devote to the rest of their business.
We’re excited to announce that this AdWords transformation is well underway: advertisers are already using the Conversion Optimizer to manage approximately $1 billion in spend annually.* This new shift benefits two areas Google cares deeply about: showing our users the most relevant ads and helping our advertisers increase their profits.
So how does it work? Each and every time someone types in a search query, AdWords runs a new keyword auction. Advertisers who are still bidding on a cost-per-click basis will be using the same bid in many different auctions, so sometimes their bid may be too high or too low. However, for advertisers using Conversion Optimizer, we'll automatically adjust the bid for each of these auctions so that it can hit the sweet spot more often, helping the advertiser to make more money.
For example, suppose you're advertising an online shoe store and you purchase ads using the keyword "shoes." Because your clicks come from many different types of people who have different intentions, Conversion Optimizer takes many factors into account to optimize your ad performance. If you don't ship internationally, Conversion Optimizer will learn that clicks from international users don't convert and will eliminate traffic from outside the United States. It might also learn that when customers include the word "cheap" in their query, they are particularly likely to convert because your prices are very competitive. Essentially, Google does the detective work — you tell us how much a conversion is worth and our algorithms make it happen.
As more advertisers transition to Conversion Optimizer, we look forward to showing more relevant ads and, in doing so, helping our advertisers achieve better results. Learn more about Conversion Optimizer and get started using it with your AdWords campaigns.
* Annualized figures based on Q2 sales
Saturday, 16 May 2009
Step into the spotlight with YouTube Insight
This post is the latest in an ongoing series on The Power of Measurement. Previous topics have covered ways to make your website as successful as possible through tools such as Analytics and Website Optimizer. – Ed.
Online video has become increasingly popular and it is now recognized as a very powerful medium for delivering a message. As more and more media companies and advertisers are embracing online video, and millions of people are uploading their own videos every day, building a following and reaching your target audience can be very challenging. We developed a free analytics tool, YouTube Insight, as one way to help you do just that. Since the launch of Insight just over a year ago, we've been adding more features to help you better understand how the YouTube community is interacting with your video and grow your audience.
Just like there is a "science" behind programming on TV, content owners and advertisers are becoming more sophisticated about how to gain optimal exposure for their content on YouTube. So how do you master this "science"? First, let's start with the basics. Monitoring viewing trends through Insight's "Views" tab can help you nail down the best time to upload your new videos. For example, Mondo Media uses Insight to monitor and predict surges in views of their strongest videos. They then time the launch of new episodes with these "waves" of traffic, making it easier for their existing audience to discover new favorites. Using Insight to increase their momentum on the site is one of the practices that have helped Mondo Media become the 6th most viewed YouTube Channel of all time.
Insight has even more sophisticated features, like the "Discovery" feature, which shows you how your viewers found your videos (i.e., through search, an embedded player, related videos or viral sharing). Just like with websites, figuring out how visitors are coming to your videos can help you grow your audience. Using "Discovery," the band Weezer was surprised to find out that many of their followers were actually techies and not indie rockers: a large number of people had discovered their "Pork & Beans" video on YouTube through the embedded player on tech blogs. This finding led them to optimize their marketing strategy and shift funds in their budget to tech blogs for promoting their summer tour.
Using "Discovery," you can also see which keywords are driving views and then advertise against these keywords using YouTube's Promoted Video product. You can see exactly how effective this method of promotion is and optimize your a spend in the future.
Understanding which parts of your video people liked can be difficult, so we created the "Hot Spots" feature in Insight to show you the ups-and-downs of viewership for every single moment of your video, compared to videos of similar length. The higher the graph, the hotter your video, meaning fewer viewers are leaving your video and they may also be rewinding to watch that point in the video again. Understanding which parts of your video your audience likes enables you to make better content. The better the content, the more likely it is that viewers will send your video to their friends, kicking off the cycle of virality and helping you grow your audience.
There are countless ways to use the data gathered from Insight to improve your YouTube numbers. Someone using YouTube to share a video of their vacation can just as easily use these tools as an advertiser working on a major campaign. And with our latest addition to YouTube Insight, you will no longer have to rely exclusively on the information you can get from the features described above. Last week we opened Insight, making your data exportable into CSV files. CSV files are open-format files that organize data so it can be moved and analyzed using common spreadsheet software such as Google Docs and Microsoft Excel. Now you can view and manipulate your data any way you like. Looking for ideas? Try comparing the view count for different videos side by side, mapping out where your viewers are coming from over time, or comparing discovery sources by country.
Good luck to all the hopeful YouTube stars among you!
Online video has become increasingly popular and it is now recognized as a very powerful medium for delivering a message. As more and more media companies and advertisers are embracing online video, and millions of people are uploading their own videos every day, building a following and reaching your target audience can be very challenging. We developed a free analytics tool, YouTube Insight, as one way to help you do just that. Since the launch of Insight just over a year ago, we've been adding more features to help you better understand how the YouTube community is interacting with your video and grow your audience.
Just like there is a "science" behind programming on TV, content owners and advertisers are becoming more sophisticated about how to gain optimal exposure for their content on YouTube. So how do you master this "science"? First, let's start with the basics. Monitoring viewing trends through Insight's "Views" tab can help you nail down the best time to upload your new videos. For example, Mondo Media uses Insight to monitor and predict surges in views of their strongest videos. They then time the launch of new episodes with these "waves" of traffic, making it easier for their existing audience to discover new favorites. Using Insight to increase their momentum on the site is one of the practices that have helped Mondo Media become the 6th most viewed YouTube Channel of all time.
Insight has even more sophisticated features, like the "Discovery" feature, which shows you how your viewers found your videos (i.e., through search, an embedded player, related videos or viral sharing). Just like with websites, figuring out how visitors are coming to your videos can help you grow your audience. Using "Discovery," the band Weezer was surprised to find out that many of their followers were actually techies and not indie rockers: a large number of people had discovered their "Pork & Beans" video on YouTube through the embedded player on tech blogs. This finding led them to optimize their marketing strategy and shift funds in their budget to tech blogs for promoting their summer tour.
Using "Discovery," you can also see which keywords are driving views and then advertise against these keywords using YouTube's Promoted Video product. You can see exactly how effective this method of promotion is and optimize your a spend in the future.Understanding which parts of your video people liked can be difficult, so we created the "Hot Spots" feature in Insight to show you the ups-and-downs of viewership for every single moment of your video, compared to videos of similar length. The higher the graph, the hotter your video, meaning fewer viewers are leaving your video and they may also be rewinding to watch that point in the video again. Understanding which parts of your video your audience likes enables you to make better content. The better the content, the more likely it is that viewers will send your video to their friends, kicking off the cycle of virality and helping you grow your audience.
There are countless ways to use the data gathered from Insight to improve your YouTube numbers. Someone using YouTube to share a video of their vacation can just as easily use these tools as an advertiser working on a major campaign. And with our latest addition to YouTube Insight, you will no longer have to rely exclusively on the information you can get from the features described above. Last week we opened Insight, making your data exportable into CSV files. CSV files are open-format files that organize data so it can be moved and analyzed using common spreadsheet software such as Google Docs and Microsoft Excel. Now you can view and manipulate your data any way you like. Looking for ideas? Try comparing the view count for different videos side by side, mapping out where your viewers are coming from over time, or comparing discovery sources by country.Good luck to all the hopeful YouTube stars among you!
Thursday, 7 May 2009
Tuning in to TV data
This post is the latest in an ongoing series on The Power of Measurement. Previous topics have covered ways to make your website as successful as possible through tools such as Analytics and Website Optimizer. -Ed.
What if the ads we saw when watching TV were always just what we wanted to see? Well, we believe it is possible to make TV ads more relevant to viewers and to deliver more value to advertisers.
Television is becoming more like the web. Just as users click with their mouse to choose what's most relevant to them on the web, viewers send signals about what they want to see on television with clicks of the remote control.
Each week, Google analyzes data from millions of anonymized set-top boxes (STBs) to see which channels they were tuned to second by second. This data is provided by our partner, EchoStar. We're then able to use tuning metrics to provide our advertisers with next-day reports of how many televisions showed their ads nationwide and how the audience responded with their remotes.
We look at the various tuning metrics as signals from the audience about what they want to see and when. One of the metrics we've been exploring is the % Initial Audience Retained (%IAR). This is the percentage of the audience that was present at the beginning of the ad and then stayed tuned-in through the entire ad. If most viewers see an ad they like and decide to stay tuned-in, that ad would have a high %IAR.
Many factors affect audience behavior, including the nature of the programming, the time of day, the day of week, and, of course, the personality of each viewer. But ads themselves also have an impact. By identifying which factors affect tune-away, we can focus in on how the audience reacted to the ad itself.
Check out this video to learn what we found:
The chart below shows all TV commercials that aired on the Google TV Ads platform August through November 2008. Each dot represents an ad, and they are lined up from left to right in order of their %IAR as compared to what we'd expect given other factors (e.g., time of day, network, etc). The red dots on the left represent ads where more audience tuned away than expected. The green dots on the right represent ads where more of the audience stayed tuned than expected. The black dots in the middle are "normal," meaning there was no significant difference between the audience retention for those ads versus what you would expect based on historical data.
Through our analysis of tuning data from millions of set-top boxes, we're getting closer to matching the right ads to the right television audience. It takes a lot of processing power to make sense of the enormous amount of data, but the insights to be gleaned are very powerful. Not only are we able to offer advertisers better measurement and more accountability for their TV campaigns, our goal is to also create a better viewing experience for TV audiences by showing viewers what they want to see.
What if the ads we saw when watching TV were always just what we wanted to see? Well, we believe it is possible to make TV ads more relevant to viewers and to deliver more value to advertisers.
Television is becoming more like the web. Just as users click with their mouse to choose what's most relevant to them on the web, viewers send signals about what they want to see on television with clicks of the remote control.
Each week, Google analyzes data from millions of anonymized set-top boxes (STBs) to see which channels they were tuned to second by second. This data is provided by our partner, EchoStar. We're then able to use tuning metrics to provide our advertisers with next-day reports of how many televisions showed their ads nationwide and how the audience responded with their remotes.
We look at the various tuning metrics as signals from the audience about what they want to see and when. One of the metrics we've been exploring is the % Initial Audience Retained (%IAR). This is the percentage of the audience that was present at the beginning of the ad and then stayed tuned-in through the entire ad. If most viewers see an ad they like and decide to stay tuned-in, that ad would have a high %IAR.
Many factors affect audience behavior, including the nature of the programming, the time of day, the day of week, and, of course, the personality of each viewer. But ads themselves also have an impact. By identifying which factors affect tune-away, we can focus in on how the audience reacted to the ad itself.
Check out this video to learn what we found:
The chart below shows all TV commercials that aired on the Google TV Ads platform August through November 2008. Each dot represents an ad, and they are lined up from left to right in order of their %IAR as compared to what we'd expect given other factors (e.g., time of day, network, etc). The red dots on the left represent ads where more audience tuned away than expected. The green dots on the right represent ads where more of the audience stayed tuned than expected. The black dots in the middle are "normal," meaning there was no significant difference between the audience retention for those ads versus what you would expect based on historical data.
(Click on the image for a full-size version)
The next question we wanted to answer was how well this historical data could predict the future audience reaction. If we can use the past to predict the future, then we can get closer to putting relevant ads in front of TV viewers. So we selected one ad with relatively high audience tune-away (red dot) and one ad with relatively low tune-away (green dot) to run side-by-side on national television to test our findings. In the graph below, the diagonal line shows where audiences reacted the same to both ads. The points above that line represent airings when more of the audience stayed tuned to the ad that had previously retained audiences better. We learned audiences reacted predictably to the two ads.
(Click on the image for a full-size version)
Through our analysis of tuning data from millions of set-top boxes, we're getting closer to matching the right ads to the right television audience. It takes a lot of processing power to make sense of the enormous amount of data, but the insights to be gleaned are very powerful. Not only are we able to offer advertisers better measurement and more accountability for their TV campaigns, our goal is to also create a better viewing experience for TV audiences by showing viewers what they want to see.
Wednesday, 1 April 2009
Analytics in Latin America
If you run an e-commerce site or use AdWords to direct traffic to your business' webpage, chances are you're interested in knowing what visitors to your site are clicking on, what content interests these potential customers and what avenues brought them there. The more you know about how people engage with your site, the better you are able to design successful advertising campaigns to help grow your business.
In Latin America, online advertising is growing as more and more small businesses initiate an online presence and publicize their efforts through search and display advertising. But less than 5% of web properties throughout Latin America rely on analysis tools to improve their website's performance. Last week, our offices throughout the region hosted several Analytics-themed events to give agencies and other clients a better look at several Google measurement tools that provide people with the means to analyze their site's flow of data, interest and readership in order to build a better advertising campaign.
In Mexico City, advertisers got together to learn about Insights for Search, Ad Planner, YouTube Insights, Analytics, Sitemaps and Website Optimizer, as well as DoubleClick tools. Presentations were designed to give companies an in-depth look at the Google tools that can be helpful for planning their marketing budgets during an economic downturn. Being able to measure data on what content interests people and where consumers are searching for information can help advertisers be more selective about how they invest ad budget. Since the great majority of consumers go online for information before making a purchase, the goal of the seminar was to familiarize advertisers with tools that can increase the reach of their campaigns, while giving them a better idea of what works and what people are searching for.
Meanwhile, our Analytics guru Avinash Kaushik visited São Paulo and Buenos Aires to speak to clients about web analytics and how to make the most of online marketing through analyzing metrics (check out his recent post on bounce rate for related information). Avinash made web analytics fun and accessible with colloquial comparisons (referring sites as 'BFFs'), and demonstrated how to optimize a website's performance with changes in color and layout, among other things. He was accompanied by Google's Latin America managing director Alexandre Hohagen, Brazil's country manager Alex Dias, and Argentina's country manager Adriana Noreña at a succession of events revolving around web metrics and website optimization.
The response and interest from customers and agencies to all of these events was indicative of the huge need for metrics and the ability to track ROI for their marketing investments, especially during these difficult times. For more information on Google Analytics tools, check out the Google Analytics Blog, the Website Optimizer Blog and the Conversion Room blog.
In Latin America, online advertising is growing as more and more small businesses initiate an online presence and publicize their efforts through search and display advertising. But less than 5% of web properties throughout Latin America rely on analysis tools to improve their website's performance. Last week, our offices throughout the region hosted several Analytics-themed events to give agencies and other clients a better look at several Google measurement tools that provide people with the means to analyze their site's flow of data, interest and readership in order to build a better advertising campaign.
In Mexico City, advertisers got together to learn about Insights for Search, Ad Planner, YouTube Insights, Analytics, Sitemaps and Website Optimizer, as well as DoubleClick tools. Presentations were designed to give companies an in-depth look at the Google tools that can be helpful for planning their marketing budgets during an economic downturn. Being able to measure data on what content interests people and where consumers are searching for information can help advertisers be more selective about how they invest ad budget. Since the great majority of consumers go online for information before making a purchase, the goal of the seminar was to familiarize advertisers with tools that can increase the reach of their campaigns, while giving them a better idea of what works and what people are searching for.
Meanwhile, our Analytics guru Avinash Kaushik visited São Paulo and Buenos Aires to speak to clients about web analytics and how to make the most of online marketing through analyzing metrics (check out his recent post on bounce rate for related information). Avinash made web analytics fun and accessible with colloquial comparisons (referring sites as 'BFFs'), and demonstrated how to optimize a website's performance with changes in color and layout, among other things. He was accompanied by Google's Latin America managing director Alexandre Hohagen, Brazil's country manager Alex Dias, and Argentina's country manager Adriana Noreña at a succession of events revolving around web metrics and website optimization.
The response and interest from customers and agencies to all of these events was indicative of the huge need for metrics and the ability to track ROI for their marketing investments, especially during these difficult times. For more information on Google Analytics tools, check out the Google Analytics Blog, the Website Optimizer Blog and the Conversion Room blog.
Monday, 16 March 2009
Make sense of your site: tips for webpage design
This is the second post in The Power of Measurement series. These posts are designed to cover ways to make your website as successful as possible, especially in the current economic climate. Here, Website Optimizer whiz Sandra Cheng explores the topic of website design and offers tips to help you get more from your site. -Ed.
In our last post, Avinash Kaushik dove into the world of website analytics and explained the power behind the bounce rate metric. With bounce rate, you are able to identify which webpages are turning away the most visitors. And while it's incredibly useful to identify which pages need fixing, what do you do next?
Back in the good old days, you would go back to the page and redesign it based on what you or other people thought was right for your site. Now, you can actually run a test on your website and let your visitors decide the best version of your page, instead of just going with a gut feeling. Here, I'll discuss website testing — executing different versions of a page to see what sticks — and the various ways you can make the most of your site's design choices.
To begin website testing, start by brainstorming variations of your website. You can decide on small changes, like swapping out a photo, or large changes, like an overhaul of your website's layout or color scheme. Then, by using a free tool like Website Optimizer, you can test your changes by automatically showing different visitors different versions of your site. From there, Website Optimizer will tell you which version your visitors liked the most by tracking which website variation was the most successful in reaching your goal. You can set your goal to be a sale, someone submitting a form or clicking a link, or any number of other interactions with your site. It's like running a simple experiment — without the complicated data analysis.
Testing your site can often reveal surprises. For example, we were surprised by the results of our own test on the Picasa homepage. In version A, we used the word "free," gave it an action-oriented headline, and included a pretty image of the product. In version B, we deleted the photo, used a button instead of a link, and called out the value proposition ("The easy way..."). Which version do you think led more visitors to download Picasa?
Version A
Version B
We predicted that Version A would be the clear winner since it had a photo to captivate visitors and a "free" product call-out. However, the data from the tests showed that the cleaner, simpler Version B was more effective. In fact, the changes in Version B increased downloads by 30%! This example illustrates a powerful point: sometimes you need to rely on data — not your gut — to make decisions that will help your website and your bottom line.
Now, you might be asking yourself, "With so many different aspects of my website to test, how do I know where to begin?" Here are four design tips to pay attention to:
Remember, best practices may work best for some, but they are not necessarily what's best for your site and your visitors. In the past, a few opinions and a strong hunch determined an effective website design. Now, armed with metrics, data, and tools galore, you can let your visitors tell you what works best for them and for your site.
Good luck, and get testing!
In our last post, Avinash Kaushik dove into the world of website analytics and explained the power behind the bounce rate metric. With bounce rate, you are able to identify which webpages are turning away the most visitors. And while it's incredibly useful to identify which pages need fixing, what do you do next?
Back in the good old days, you would go back to the page and redesign it based on what you or other people thought was right for your site. Now, you can actually run a test on your website and let your visitors decide the best version of your page, instead of just going with a gut feeling. Here, I'll discuss website testing — executing different versions of a page to see what sticks — and the various ways you can make the most of your site's design choices.
To begin website testing, start by brainstorming variations of your website. You can decide on small changes, like swapping out a photo, or large changes, like an overhaul of your website's layout or color scheme. Then, by using a free tool like Website Optimizer, you can test your changes by automatically showing different visitors different versions of your site. From there, Website Optimizer will tell you which version your visitors liked the most by tracking which website variation was the most successful in reaching your goal. You can set your goal to be a sale, someone submitting a form or clicking a link, or any number of other interactions with your site. It's like running a simple experiment — without the complicated data analysis.
Testing your site can often reveal surprises. For example, we were surprised by the results of our own test on the Picasa homepage. In version A, we used the word "free," gave it an action-oriented headline, and included a pretty image of the product. In version B, we deleted the photo, used a button instead of a link, and called out the value proposition ("The easy way..."). Which version do you think led more visitors to download Picasa?
Version A
Version BWe predicted that Version A would be the clear winner since it had a photo to captivate visitors and a "free" product call-out. However, the data from the tests showed that the cleaner, simpler Version B was more effective. In fact, the changes in Version B increased downloads by 30%! This example illustrates a powerful point: sometimes you need to rely on data — not your gut — to make decisions that will help your website and your bottom line.
Now, you might be asking yourself, "With so many different aspects of my website to test, how do I know where to begin?" Here are four design tips to pay attention to:
- Tip #1: Pass the 8 second test. At first glance, a visitor should understand the purpose of your website within a few seconds. People are busy and have limited attention spans — you want to keep them from hitting the dreaded back button.
- Tip #2: Tell them what's in it for them. Create clear and tangible benefits (e.g., "Save more! Make extra money! Look better with our product!").
- Tip #3: Use compelling images. Try product images instead of generic stock photos, icons with blocks of text, and buttons instead of links. Keep in mind that a low-quality, irrelevant image can kill your site's credibility.
- Tip #4: Close the sale. Help your visitors take the next step. Make that step clear and easy to reach; don't make them hunt for it. Action words like "buy now" may work better than "add to cart," for instance.
Remember, best practices may work best for some, but they are not necessarily what's best for your site and your visitors. In the past, a few opinions and a strong hunch determined an effective website design. Now, armed with metrics, data, and tools galore, you can let your visitors tell you what works best for them and for your site.
Good luck, and get testing!
Wednesday, 18 February 2009
Stop bouncing: tips for website success
This is the first post in a series on The Power of Measurement. In this economic climate, these posts are designed to cover ways to make your website as successful as possible. Over the course of the next few weeks, our in-house Analytics guru, Avinash Kaushik, and others will demystify the world of website analytics and offer tips for getting the most out of your metrics. -Ed.
Would you believe me if I said you don't need a Ph.D. to understand your website data? No? Believe it. Free tools like Google Analytics can help simplify website data so that you can better understand what visitors are doing when they arrive on your site.
One of the coolest innovations in understanding your website has been to provide delightful metrics on your web data so that you can make direct changes to your site. In lesson one of our series on The Power of Measurement, we will learn about bounce rate and how understanding it can improve your website.
You may be used to reading about how many “hits” a site or a page has received. But reporting a "hit" meant something back in 1985 when it was essentially a pageview (the number of times your webpage was viewed). Today, you will find that each web page gets many "hits," rendering the metric meaningless. While the number of "hits" a page received used to be the best measure of success, we now have more in-depth and detailed metrics to analyze the performance of our web pages.
Bounce rate is insightful because from the perspective of a website visitor, it measures this phenomenon: "I came; I puked; I left." (OK, technically it also means the number of sessions with just one pageview.) While metrics like visitors show the number of people who came to your site, bounce rate will tell you how many of those people were unimpressed and left your site without taking any action (not even dignifying the site with a single click!).
Bounce rate has these attributes:
1) It is really hard to misunderstand. It measures the number of people who landed on your site and refused to give you even one single click!
2) It is available in most web analytics tools, including our own Google Analytics.
3) It is quick and easy to use. Bounce rate will help you understand where and how to make changes on your website in under an hour.
Now, let's make this real. If you have a Google Analytics account, you'll see this when you log in:
This means that about 77 percent of website visitors came to the site, "puked," and left. Ouch. Based on that, you may need to light a fire somewhere, as things need fixing. Here are two simple and specific ideas:
Tip #1: Find out where your visitors are coming from and which of these sites sends visitors with the highest bounce rate. To do so, all you have to do is go to "Traffic Sources" (in Google Analytics, or whatever tool you are using), click on "Referring Sites," and boom!
In about fifteen seconds you know which sites are your “best friends forever” (BFFs), and where you need to look a tad deeper. By identifying the sites that are sending you visitors with high bounce rates, you can investigate the reasons why (the campaigns, the context in which your link is placed, the ads) and make changes to ensure that visitors find what they are looking for when they come to your site.
However, it may not just be the campaigns that turned your readers away; it could be the specific page that your visitors landed on. That leads to my Tip #2: Go to “Content” (labeled as such in Google Analytics) and click on "Top Landing Pages" report:
You can see different pages of your website on the left and the corresponding bounce rates on the right. Remember, you don't decide the homepage of your website. When people search, the engine finds the most relevant page on your site and that's the homepage. If you have 50,000 pages on your website, you have 50,000 homepages. The report above is showing the top ten pages of your website and which ones might be letting you down by not engaging your visitors enough to get even one click!
In under an hour you can discover which sources are your BFFs and which pages on your site need some sprucing up. This will ensure lower bounce rates, higher engagement with your site, and perhaps even higher revenue. To learn about other ways in which you can use bounce rate effectively, check out this article on my web analytics blog, Occam's Razor.
Good luck!
Would you believe me if I said you don't need a Ph.D. to understand your website data? No? Believe it. Free tools like Google Analytics can help simplify website data so that you can better understand what visitors are doing when they arrive on your site.
One of the coolest innovations in understanding your website has been to provide delightful metrics on your web data so that you can make direct changes to your site. In lesson one of our series on The Power of Measurement, we will learn about bounce rate and how understanding it can improve your website.
You may be used to reading about how many “hits” a site or a page has received. But reporting a "hit" meant something back in 1985 when it was essentially a pageview (the number of times your webpage was viewed). Today, you will find that each web page gets many "hits," rendering the metric meaningless. While the number of "hits" a page received used to be the best measure of success, we now have more in-depth and detailed metrics to analyze the performance of our web pages.
Bounce rate is insightful because from the perspective of a website visitor, it measures this phenomenon: "I came; I puked; I left." (OK, technically it also means the number of sessions with just one pageview.) While metrics like visitors show the number of people who came to your site, bounce rate will tell you how many of those people were unimpressed and left your site without taking any action (not even dignifying the site with a single click!).
Bounce rate has these attributes:
1) It is really hard to misunderstand. It measures the number of people who landed on your site and refused to give you even one single click!
2) It is available in most web analytics tools, including our own Google Analytics.
3) It is quick and easy to use. Bounce rate will help you understand where and how to make changes on your website in under an hour.
Now, let's make this real. If you have a Google Analytics account, you'll see this when you log in:
This means that about 77 percent of website visitors came to the site, "puked," and left. Ouch. Based on that, you may need to light a fire somewhere, as things need fixing. Here are two simple and specific ideas:
Tip #1: Find out where your visitors are coming from and which of these sites sends visitors with the highest bounce rate. To do so, all you have to do is go to "Traffic Sources" (in Google Analytics, or whatever tool you are using), click on "Referring Sites," and boom!
In about fifteen seconds you know which sites are your “best friends forever” (BFFs), and where you need to look a tad deeper. By identifying the sites that are sending you visitors with high bounce rates, you can investigate the reasons why (the campaigns, the context in which your link is placed, the ads) and make changes to ensure that visitors find what they are looking for when they come to your site.
However, it may not just be the campaigns that turned your readers away; it could be the specific page that your visitors landed on. That leads to my Tip #2: Go to “Content” (labeled as such in Google Analytics) and click on "Top Landing Pages" report:
You can see different pages of your website on the left and the corresponding bounce rates on the right. Remember, you don't decide the homepage of your website. When people search, the engine finds the most relevant page on your site and that's the homepage. If you have 50,000 pages on your website, you have 50,000 homepages. The report above is showing the top ten pages of your website and which ones might be letting you down by not engaging your visitors enough to get even one click!
In under an hour you can discover which sources are your BFFs and which pages on your site need some sprucing up. This will ensure lower bounce rates, higher engagement with your site, and perhaps even higher revenue. To learn about other ways in which you can use bounce rate effectively, check out this article on my web analytics blog, Occam's Razor.
Good luck!
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