Chinalytics Longmarch Blog

One of the most elelgant features in Google Analytics is Advanced Segments. It allows analysts to quickly and easily segment visitors based on their behavior on your site and answer questions like:

• What share  of overal conversions comes  from visitors that were searching for brand search term vs. non branded terms?
• Which pages do visitors read that do not convert but don’t bounce? (Maybe you missed a goal, or the opportunity to add a call to action to critcal page)
• What is the conversion rate for visitors from groups of untagged referrers (e.g. social networking sites, blogs) vs. tagged traffic sources and search
• What is the best indicator for the difference between “super engaged visits” (>10 PV/Visits) and “normal engaged visits” (>1 to 9 PV/Visits). Is it the traffic source? Is it the landing page? Is it the conversion for a specific goal?

Just create 1 or 2 segments and compare the bahavior difference in almost any report in GA, instantly. Anyone who every tried to answer similar questions in Omniture or WebTrends will feel nothing but gratitude to Google to make segmentation that easy. You can find much more detail in Avinash’s great Google Analytics Releases Advanced Segmentation: Now Be A Ninja! post.

What Avinash didn’t tell us in his post is how to supercharge our advanced segment using user defined variables. I learned about this power of this combination, when trying to segment out the behavior of registered visitors. GA has no build in function that can identify registered visitors, but Google Analytics Help had the solution. User Defined Variabeles!

Adding  a small piece of JavaScript to your login script

<script type=”text/javascript”>pageTracker._setVar(‘registered_user’);</script>

tags this visitor as a member of the “registe

red user” segment by setting a variable in the GA cookie that is handed over with each tracking image request. That sounds complicated but in the end it just means that GA now allows you to create a custom segment based on this User Defined Variable and voala, you can segm

ent each report for registered visitors. Sweet!

But why stop there? Advanced Segments allow an unlimited number of variations. For example

• Compare “Converting Registered Visitors” (who convert to a Goal) vs. “Non Converting Registered Visitors”, to improve conversion
• “Returning Registered Visitors” (more than 1 visit in the time period) to “Single Visit Registered Visitors”, to improve loyalty.
• etc..

To take matters further, Convurgency provided a list of ideas for User Defined Variables in their Google Analytics – User Defined visitor tracking post in Juy 2007. They include ideas like:

1. Visitor Type Segmentation (Business Users, Technical Users, etc) based on form inputs
2. Simple A/B testing by setting a user defined variable for each landing page
3. Referrer Segmentation

This was before the new GA code and before advanced segments became available. Respect! Now implementing all these ideas became even easier.

What are you waiting for? Go segment!

Any ideas for cool segments? Please leave them in the comments.

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• What does the Google Analytics API mean for you? (cmswatch.com)

For those of you who couldn’t join yesterday’s Adworld 2009 event, please find the presentations of the Web Analytics session attached. Regular readers of this blog will have seen my 10 Rules for Winning through Analytics presentation already.

Among the other three  decks I want to highlight the “Measurement and optimizations at Qunar” presentation Charlene Ng gave. Qunar is one of the leading travel portals and the leading travel search engine in China. They have presented atthe June WAW but the current deck is more detailed and provides a much better understanding about how they do analytics.

Thanks again to DCCI for hosting this event and of course for all the Speakers & Sidney Song (OMD) – as the moderator

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• Report: Companies Spending Less on Web Analytics Technology, More on Staff (myventurepad.com)
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Attention: Location Change: Now at Club Obiwan (Haidian), Next month back at Luga’s Villa.

Speaker: Mike Pereira, COO at Sinotech Media (TBC)

Topic: Web Analyics Getting Social in China

Please join me and 40 other web analytics enthusiasts to learn about web analytics, meet other web analytics enthusiasts and have an all around great time. Bring any friends who might be interested to join our community along as well to.

We will have a buffet dinner and soft drinks available for our guests. Be prepared to spend RMB 50 for the evening if you register in advance, and RMB 100 if you visit us without registration. As usual, the knowledge you get in exchange is invaluable.

Address:
Club Obiwan (Description and Map)
西城区西海西沿4号 离积水潭地铁站300米
Xihai Xiyan No.4, Xicheng district, 300m from Jishuitan subway station

Phone (for directions): 010 8322 1231

Schedule:
19:45 – Door open / Buffet open
20:15 – 20:45 Presentation
20:45 – 21:00 Q&A Session
21:00 – 22:00 Networking

I am looking forward to meeting you on Wednesday July 1st

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• Measuring Social Media at Web Analytics Wednesday (n0d3.org)

After talking about Omniture and January and Webtrends in February we are completing the Web Analytics trinity in March with a presentation about Google Analyics. In a premier for the Beijing WAW we have a guest from the Google Mountain View HQ to give us Web Analytics insights, straight from the source.

Stepahnie Hsu, Analytics Specialist at Google, will reprise her Google Conversion University talk for us, and dig into the integration of Google Adwords and Google Analytics. I have also asked her to share some insights into the new GA features like advanced segmentation and motion charts. Stephanie will be supported by Zhou Yang, Google local GA support specialist, for translation and localization.

In another first, and courtesy of OMD’s Sidney Song (宋星) we will also be able to record the event on video and share it with those of you who cannot attend.

Please join Stephanie, Zhou Yang, me and 30 – 40 other web analytics enthusiasts to learn more about web analytics, meet other web enthusiasts and have an all around great time. Bring any friends who might be interested to join our community along as well to:

Location: Luga’s Villa (right behind 3.3 in Sanlitun)

Time and date: Wednesday March 3rd  4th , 8PM

We will have a buffet dinner and soft drinks available for our guests. Be prepared to spend RMB 50 for the evening. As usual the knowledge you get in exchange is invaluable

Please RSVP by commenting to this post or drop me an email florianpihs[at]gmail[dot]com.

P.s.: Thanks Stan for helping me to correct the date

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• February WAW in Beijing: WebTrends at China Mobile with Wu Yong (longmarch.chinalytics.com)
• Bryan Eisenberg Publishes Comprehensive Google Analytics Guide (searchenginewatch.com)
• Google Catching Up in the Analytics Market (robweatherhead.co.uk)
• Your feedback on the blog (adwords.blogspot.com)
• Upcoming Omniture training in Beijing and Shanghai (longmarch.chinalytics.com)

With the next WAW right around the corner, its time to finally publish the writeup for the WAW on October 15th. Last time I had the luxury that Tango Chan did a write up for me, now I need wet the metaphorical pen myself. 

Just found a note to myself from last month. It said “If you don’t write up the event review immediately, you will never do it.” So here we go, no bad consciousness this month.
As usually a colorful band of web analyst as sympathizers met up at Club Camp for a merry get together. This time we had the honor to host a presentation by Song Jie, CEO of Banru a local web analytics vendor. They position their product Web -IA as direct competitor to the likes of WebTrends and Omniture, so this promised to be an interesting presentation.

Presentation on Web-IA
This summary will necessary a bit limited since your truly is not as good in Chinese as he should be. What you read here is often only possible through the kind support of WAW attended who help with the translation.

• Web IA started as early as 2001 to provide basic analytics solutions.
• Multiple versions of their products compete is several market segments from medium to high end. In the high end Song Jie believed their feature set outstrips Omniture.
  While I believe this to be a very aggressive claim, their impressive client list seems an evidence of their local success. Song Jie especially highlighted their partnership with Microsoft’s Service, who implemented Web-IA at several corporate clients.
• While none of the attendees was a user of the product, we could agree that have a strong engineering team in town is a strong competitive advantage. Song Jie commented that their tech support team is able to provide custom reports within 24h after a client request.
• Web IA is based on a web interface, and does sport direct data warehouse access, for custom reports their rely on their tech support and engineering team.
• Web IA can be integrated with various BI tools. While it lacks standard API’s, their engineering team has several standard implementations that can be customized to client needs.

Attendees
With about 19 attendees the event size is stabilizing. Interestingly enough the attendees rotate quite a lot. We have a core group of 7 – 9 people who are there every time and some 25 – 30 people who join once in a while. Another interesting trend is the growth of attendees that are not web analysts but advertisers. I see this as an encouraging trend, although the discussion are more detailed with fellow analysts

Discussion
This time discussion were a bit short, due to the late start of the event. After some brainstorming we agreed to change the format a bit. Instead of a formal dinner set up, we will sent the food up in a buffet arrangement, so we walk around and talk to each other. That should facilitate communication and discussion.

Please use the comment section for detailed feedback and idea what we can do better. If you want to join our illustrious line up of speakers, please also drop me a not. We are very interested in case studies and sample analytics reports. Vendors are also welcome to present their products.

So long and until next month.
Florian

Those of you that cannot attend our Web Analytics Wednesday event next Thursday, do not despair. The folks from LexAd are running a Google Analytics workshop in Shanghai on April 22nd and May 27th. This is not the first time they do that, just the first time I notice Thanks Sidney for pointing this out! If any one of my readers has attended their workshop before, please let me know how it went. The comment section is the perfect place 

In the most well attended web analytics event in Beijing yet, our group of local Web Analytics practitioners met WebTrends‘ Sean Browning and Colby Cavanaugh in Bed Bar to talk about WebTrends activities in China.
While this post cannot do justice to the rich discussions going on during the event (you have to BE THERE to get the full flavor), I will try to summarize to key points here, as a quick reference to all those who attended as well as for those of you who could not join (but hopefully drop by next time).

Attendees

• Our honored guests from WebTrends (including Ronghai Consulting, their local reseller)
• Agencies: MRM Worldwide, Ogilvy One, DMG
• Clients and Entrepreneurs: Nokia China Interface Lab, Jonathan Zhou, Olandio (ex Baidu)

Topics

• WebTrends China Strategy:
  WebTrends is managing its global expansion through a regional partner network. Sean and Colby’s reason to visit Beijing was a regional North Asia parter event, hosted by Ronghai. WebTrends sees this as a key advantage to drive a fast global roll-out with localized service, quick response times and fast adoption of local business practices. It certainly seems to have worked in China, judging from the client list on Ronghai’s website (which interestingly uses Google Analytics, instead of WebTrends) and my experience with their response times and unique set of trainings and services.
• WebTrends & Double byte characters:
  One support questions that kept popping up was WebTrends’ support for double byte characters. We had discussions with our clients that indicated WebTrends might have problems tracking pages that have certain double byte characters in their page title. Neither Ronghai nor the WebTrends team could report mayor tracking issues (apart  from some display issues in the interface). Some problems might occur based on customized JavaScripts used for certain clients. As with Omniture SiteCatalyst, customization can be a blessing and a curse. We will be looking into that.
• Clients in China:
  While Ronghai’s client list is impressive (incl. China Mobile, China Telecom, Air China, China Merchants Bank), proving that Web Analytics is much more prevalent than I imagined, actual use of the tool is still limited. Most clients do have a reporting infrastructure in place, but rarely optimize their site or advertising based on analytics insights.
• Companies that are not clients (surprisingly):
  Non of the larger local e-commerce players or portals in currently a WebTrends client (nor could I detect any other standard solution using WASP). Most of the large sites use custom made solutions based on server logs
  and Oracle databases. Maybe I should not be surprised, neither Yahoo, nor Google nor MSN use standard tools.
• WebTrends is a strong supporter of Web Analytics Wednesday’s. With Eric Peterson being  a WebTrends alumni, thats hardly surprising. The next question through is, when will WebTrends take of Web Analytics
  Demystified’s role as WAW Beijing sponsor? I will keep you posted on this one
• Last but not least, WebTrends is going coming back to China. Rest assured that I will let you know more details, when the time comes.

Please do let me know if I missed a key point of the discussion, or got something wrong (it has been known to happen). The comment section is the best place for that.

About two weeks ago I blogged a question about WebTrends in China,
and following up on that questions opened a whole new perspective on
web analytics in China for me. It turned out that Webtrends indeed has
be present in China since 2000, as stated in this press release. Ronghai Consulting is distributing its solution in China and providing training for its local accounts. This is the kind of blow to my world view
that I like to see more often! There is actual web analytics life
outside the small agency planet I exist on. Unbeknown to your ignorant
correspondent, Ronghai has licensed WebTrends to several large state
owned enterprises like China Mobile and China Telecoms (HQ and regional
telecoms). Since the company focussed on reselling software, all of
these installations are local installations, in contrast to the SAAS /
On Demand services WebTrends like to sell these days. This modus
operandi might actually benefit data accuracy, since the data does not
need to travel to the WebTrends servers outside the great firewall.
Another interesting story is the training Ronghai provides for WebTrends, charging local rates (RMB 1K/day/person, less for groups) including

• WebTrends installation
• WebTrends SDC Java script tagging skills
• Campaign tracking configuration skills

This seems to be a good benchmark for Omniture and Baidu
in their effort to broaden he base of web analytics users in China. It
is also a great reminder to me to continue honing my radar for web
analytics activity in China.

Web Analytics is becoming serious business in Beijing these days. After I hosted Omniture for a dinner last month, me and Wu Yong (ex. Ronghai Consulting) will host drinks with WebTrends next Tuesday. Please join the fun at Bed Bar. (http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/beijing/listings/nightlife/bars/has/bed-bar/). Please do RSVP by replying to this post or sending me an email, so we can reserve a private room that fits everyone. Please feel free to bring everybody else you know to be interested in Web Analytics and WebTrends.

Best,
Florian