Web Analytics Wednesday in Beijing Recap
Thanks everyone for joining last week’s Web Analytics
Wednesday. It was the largest and most diverse WAW in Beijing so far. The community is
growing and you are the core. Rock on! Special thanks to Zhou Yang from Google
for presenting on Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer and to Eric
Peterson and the folks at Web
Analytics Demystified for generously sponsoring the event.
People
With 13 participants this was the largest WAW to date in Beijing (30% growth QoQ :)). The room was bursting at its seams, so we are looking for a larger location next time. In addition to the usual suspects (folks from MRM Worldwide, OgilvyOne and DMG: Thanks for your loyalty), new faces came from Ronghai Consulting and major Chinese SOE’s like Air China and China Netcom. It was also the first meeting to be conducted mainly in Chinese. I am particularly pleased with this development (while I can't understand every word being said). I see it as a evidence that we finally start to reach the local practitioners. Most of praise goes to Wu Yong, a leading local WebTrends expert, who has an amazing talent reaching local users.
Presentations (Google Analytics / Google Website Optimizer)
Google’s Zhou Yang shared two insightful presentations with
a captivated audience and graciously agreed to share the decks with me. I have uploaded the files to a brand new WAW Beijing Google Group. Check it out.
Discussion
While the early discussion focused on experience sharing
about these two Google tools, we also had a more far reaching discussion on
communicating analytics findings and reconciling data from multiple tools.
- Google Analytics
- Pro’s
- Free of charge
- Easy to use interface. New users (and many web analysts in China are new) show a very steep landing curve with GA. After less than a week they are able to get all relevant report while packages like WebTrends’ and Omniture’s can take more than a month to feel comfortable in.
- Strong functionality, can cover 98% of all web analytics needs in China right now
- Data sharing setting allow complete privacy for the data.
- Con’s
- Tracking servers are hosted in the US, channeling server calls to the US might impact data quality. The extend of the problem is not clear, but Zhou Yang assured that it is not a major issue. Google will also work to set up a tracking server in China, to insure that users feel more confident.
- GA uses a JS bases tracking strategy and a hosted application (like most state of the art solutions). For many local users that is an issue, since they want to control their analytics data themselves. Many users therefore use server log bases tools (mainly Webtrends). Google log file solution (Urchin), can address this need, but is widely unknown.
- Use cases
- Most members of the audience are users of "corporate" web analytics tools like Omniture Sitecatalyst, WebTrends and IndexTools.
- GA only used in non standard cases, where the processes of implementing the corporate solution is too time consuming.
- Website Optimizer
- There was strong interest in the capabilities of GWO.
- None of the audience members are active users of GWO or any other A/B or Multivariate testing tools. I attribute that to the early stage of web analytics in China. Clients often don't buy the value of testing and find it a waste of money. More advocacy and training is needed to get the ball rolling.
- Clickmaps provided by current analytics solutions are most often used to make decisions on landing page design
- Communicating Analytics
- Communicating
what web analytics is, and what it can do for decision makers is an
even larger challenge than implementing tools. We discussed some
strategies to solve this problem, but none of use could say is as
eloquently as Avinash in his recent post on the topic. Read it!
- Using multiple analytics solutions on one site
- One
interesting question was about data discrepancies when using multiple
tools on one site. I commented numbers from different tools are
different and may never be exactly the same. The key question though is
if both tools are showing the same trends. If so, you can take action.
More the data consolidation from Avinash and Eric T. Peterson.
Chinese version of this blog (中文的博客)
During the discussion it became clear that it the community is looking for a Chinese language platform to discuss about Web Analytics. That seems to be a good time to bring the Chinese version of this blog out of stealth mode. My colleague Song Xing has been so nice to translate my post into Chinese on his blog . Please go there for your fill of web analytics news and analysis in Chinese. I will also add a link to Song Xing’s blog directly at the top of my sidebar.
Have I missed anything, did I ignore the Chinese part of the discussion? Tell me in the comments section.
Florian,
Nice picture. Good times.
I find your blog a great place to get up-to-date information about WA development in China. I'm very interested in SEM and WA, and look forward to stepping into this field in China one day.
I like GA. -- easy to implement, very user-friendly interface, the trending and pie chart graphs they added last year are very helpful, covering most WA data. Some criticize GA for that it offer limited numbers of conversion tags tracking, and some limitations of no calculated metrics or automated reporting. But overall, I think GA is a great tool and breakthrough. Google is always doing an outstanding job to make universal information accessible--- and FREE of charge.
It’s always fun to read Avinash’s post and his funny pictures. Just as he mentioned, it’s easier said than done. There’re a lot of work needs to be done in order to make WA more important and influential to decision making.
I indeed hope I can join the WAW event with you guys some day in Beijing.
BTW, I like the little survey you put at the end of the post. It's WA spirit right thur~~~.
And I look forward to learn more about WA in your next Post
Cheers
Scott
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Thanks Scott, its a pleasure having you join the conversation. Let me know when you are around Beijing and need any help to get into the field. I might me able to give some advice. Same of course for the WAW. I will add you mail to my distribution list, so you get a note every time I set up a new event.
I am glad you point out some criticisms to GA. I was hard pressed to
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Florian,
Sounds Great. Thanks a lot.
100%, I agree with what you pointed out. I think , in terms of fundamental data and metrics, there’re no big differences between free and expensive WA tools (although they might measured and calculated in different methods). It really come down to the people who can sort through the clutter of data and offer actionable insights. On the other hand, it’s really these business insights from WA tools that can really draw attention from the executives and “decision makers”.
WA rocks~~:)
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Hi Florain,
Thanks,I hope I could be an expert,I learned a lot from everybody attend the Web Analytics Wednesday event.
About the Chinese version blog:
希望这里有一些中文的介绍网站分析的文章，如果你的助理能帮忙翻译一下最好了，这样的话会有更多的有兴趣的人参与进来。除了中文的博客以外上次我们聊的还有两个事情一个是每个月搞一次聚会，再有一个就是争取选一个固定的地方，谁有好的主意请留言。
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Thanks Wu Yong for pushing me
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I will be in China from 4/15 - 4/28, and feel interested in attending WAW. When do you have the next WAW? If it'll happen someday while I am in China, I'd like to attend it.
Florian,
Can you help me get info on it ?
Thanks
Hai
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Thanks Hai for your interest. The next WAW will be in early May. Here is my recommendation: Lets arrange a dinner and I will send out an invite to everyone who has attended previous WAW. There will be no presentation and no sponsorship from Eric, but I am sure we can manage
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GA is great WA reporting tool. I think it's more useful to small/medium sized companies than for 'Enterprise' level companies. Given the current development in China, I believe almost all web analytics consulting/practices/people are from or for big companies.
I'd love to learn about the GA implementation among Small/Medium companies. Hope the Google people or GAACs in China can share more on that.
Florian, I'm glad you extend your blog audience to the massive Chinese readers by providing a Chinese version. I tried to take a look at it, but it couldn't load completed. Maybe it's not an issue for readers in China.
I really appreciate your efforts and passion to China Web Analytics. Keep us updated and look forward to reading more .
Thanks,
Steve
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Thanks Steve, You are certainly right, I do know many more Omniture and WebTrends users in China than GA users on the corporate level. But if you check out the Blogosphere, you will notice that there is much more happening for GA, especially for Bloggers and Google Adsense / Adwords advertisers. These are mainly SMB's
To learn more about GA on an SMB level head over to darwinmarketing.com. T.R. Harrington, a friend on mine and CEO over there is using GA for many of his SMB clients. Too bad he is based out of SH, I would love to have him speak on that during WAW.
The link to the Chinese blog works fine for me, sorry to hear you have problems. It is hosted on Sohu. Any problems accessing that? Song Xing tells me he is thinking about moving the blog. I will keep you updated about any developments.
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How about Baidu Tongji Web Analytics? :)
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I wish I know more about his myself. So far I don't know anyone actually using it. I will try to reach out to the Baidu guys, maybe I can get them to present. Given how new their product is, I don't expect a lot of penetration and their partnership with Omniture is a sign that Tongji is targeting more at the low end. I willkeep my eyes open.
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