It’s the most wonderful time of the year for Etsy and Google Analytics

Tis the season for celebrating the birth of Jesus and shopping online. Also known as the best time of the year. I love scouring the web for personal Christmas presents and this year I made a fabulous new discovery – Etsy.

Granted, Etsy isn’t new. In fact you could say I’m a little late to the party. These days, Etsy is practically synonymous with hand-made and unique items. Friends have shops and Pinterest is full of those who create and those who purchase pinning wonderful items tailored to your needs. Buzzfeed posted about 2,347 gift giving articles this season featuring unique products from the site for the book lovers in your life, nerds in your life, etc.

Etsy is everywhere.

I’ll start at the beginning for those of you living under a rock.

Launched in 2005, Etsy is a website that invites users to open shops and sell their handmade and vintage items and craft supplies. The model is meant to replicate a typical craft fair and allow the sellers can list their goods in personal storefronts. There is a flat listing fee of 20 cents per items and requests a 3.5 percent commission from everything sold (Crunchbase, 2014).

The name came from a desire to be whimsical and nonsensical to grow the brand from nothing. Robert Kalin, one of the founders, chose Etsy because it sounds like the Italian phrase ‘eh, si’ which sounds  and means ‘oh, yes’ (Wikipedia).

In a world full of heavyweight sites like Pinterest, Google and Facebook, Etsy was the little enging that could, continuing to surprise the world with its rapid growth. In May 2012, just seven years after launching, the site had 15 million users in more than 150 countries. There were 875,000 shops, 13 million items, almost 700,000 new users each month and almost three million items sold per month (Adams, 2012).

Last November, 1,381,666 users joined the site, marking a 22.5 percent increase from the month before. More items were sold as well, with 7,430,698 purchased goods. Web and mobile page views surpassed two million for the month (Traub, 2013).

Etsy publishes a Weather Report on the blog each month to show trends and providing updates for sellers and visitors alike.

Let’s recap: Etsy is a site that invites the creative folk to sell their goods to those who love the unique and unusual. It’s like an online craft fair. Hearing that, how does an e-commerce site like Etsy track analytics? On the macro level, Etsy clearly tracks sales, page views, signups and more, but how does that help its moneymakers?

In 2009, as the site continued to grow, Etsy launched analytics for the shops through Google Analytics (Engelhardt, 2009). The partnership allowed the sellers to monitor their own metrics but worked with Google to tailor the content to track the most important data for sellers.

Etsy realized the need for its sellers, but also the challenges the seller might face if they were new to the world of web analytics (which I’m sure a large majority were). In a blog post, Etsy described Google Analytics as ‘the pulse of your shop…a higher pulse rate means more visitor, and in general more visitors would correlate to more sales for your shop’ (TechUpdates, 2009).

Understanding the value, Etsy put forth a commendable effort to make it relatable for the sellers through online labs and blog posts designed to aid with questions and guide users to maximize the potential of Google Analytics.

On a basic level, Etsy provides Shop Stats to show the traffic volume and traffic source for sellers. It provides views, favorites, orders, revenue, traffic sources, sources from Etsy and keywords. The interface resembles Google Analytics, but much simpler. It provides an additional breakdown of how the metrics can assist a seller (Etsy, Shop Stars, 2014).

If users choose to pursue Google Analytics for a more in-depth breakdown, a step-by-step guide is provided (Etsy, Web Analytics, 2014). I read through the steps, and I think Etsy does a really wonderful job of making it easy to understand for those who are unfamiliar with code.

Additionally, the various blog posts inform sellers about the metrics they may find most beneficial as well as information about how to find them and apply them to the individual’s shop.  The site is dedicated to learning what the sellers’ need and adapting the analytics to best help them.

Suggestions include discovering the search engine keyword referrals and site search tracking from Etsy. The first provides sellers with the ability to see what keywords lead potential consumers to the site and includes organic and paid search results. The latter tracks ‘on Etsy’ six different ways (Engelhardt, 2009). A 2011 post covered filters and how they can assist the seller as well as providing cheat sheet coding to assist the curious user (daniellexo).

Months after launching Google Analytics for sellers, Etsy released another post about the benefits and how they expand upon Shop Stats (kutty, 2009). The site seemed to push the use of GA to help sellers, which ultimately helps Etsy.

It seems like Etsy is doing a decent job of tracking the overall site stats and encouraging Google Analytics use among the sellers. It’s dedicated to education and assisting them to make the implementation easier. It recognizes the need and benefits and realizes Google offers more than its stats alone.

So now the question: what could Etsy do better to assist sellers in the tracking process?

In a word: simplicity. Yes, the site is very clear in how to use Google Analytics. Yes, Etsy offers its own limited version of statistics to help sellers who might be afraid of implementing GA. But isn’t there an easier way?

Different developers create apps to work in conjunction with GA to simplify it and provide the reports most essential to the individual. If Etsy created a similar app, it could remove the learning curve associated with Google and deliver the best metrics to the sellers.

The developers at Etsy most likely know what works best compared to most sellers. By designing this app, they could assist themselves by making it as easy as possible to interpret and improve a shop. If a user was aware and didn’t need the assistance, Google Analytics would still be available in its raw form.

Etsy continues to be our favorite online craft fair, and I’m excited to see how the analytics evolve.  

References

Adams, D. (2012). Etsy’s growth may surprise you: The facts and stats. Bit Rebels. Retrieved from http://www.bitrebels.com/social/etsys-growth-may-surprise-you-the-facts-stats-infographic/

Crunchbase. (2014). Etsy. Retrieved from http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/etsy

daniellexo. (2011). Web analytics: Who’s found you through the Taste Test. The Etsy Blog. Retrieved from https://blog.etsy.com/en/2011/web-analytics-whos-found-you-through-the-taste-test/

Engelhardt, L. (2009). Tech update: Etsy web analytics enhancements. The Etsy Blog. Retrieved from https://blog.etsy.com/en/2009/tech-update-etsy-web-analytics-enhancements/

Etsy. (2014). Shop Stats. Help Home. Retrieved from https://www.etsy.com/help/article/541

Etsy. (2014). Web Analytics. Help Home. Retrieved from https://www.etsy.com/help/article/230

kutty. (2009). Etsy web analytics: Get it straight from Google. The Etsy Blog. Retrieved from https://blog.etsy.com/en/2009/etsy-web-analytics-get-it-straight-from-google/

TechUpdates. (2009). Web analytics recap: Seller chat in the online labs, The Etsy Blog. Retrieved from https://blog.etsy.com/en/2009/web-analytics-recap-seller-chat-in-the-virtual-labs/

Traub, M. (2013). Etsy statistics: November 2013 Weather Report. Etsy News Blog. Retrieved from https://blog.etsy.com/news/2013/etsy-statistics-november-2013-weather-report/

Wikipedia. (2014). Etsy. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etsy

Why do you have to go and make things so complicated? A look at Piwik vs. Google Analytics

Avril Lavigne’s iconic song ‘Complicated’ focuses on the frustration we frequently have with anything that is more challenging than necessary. For example, the system to check my gym schedule and payments is so anger inducing I’m often reduced to bouts of obscenities directed at the site.

Google Images

(I suppose I could also apply the line ‘chill out, what you yellin’ for?’ given my short temper)

Regardless of the frustration, we want things to be as simple as possible. Not that we can’t appreciate the complex; more that we want to invest our time wisely and not be overwhelmed resulting in more time wasting when trying to perform basic tasks, like checking our web metrics.

After using Google Analytics for a few weeks and watching a few tutorials, I still find it rather confusing. I stare at the screen, and know what I’m looking with, yet I have no idea how to find the source of information. To make matters worse (*probably better if you know what you’re doing), each metric breaks down into inception style more specific metrics. Metrics within metrics.

Luckily, I realized I’m not alone. 

When researching alternatives to GA, I found multiple sites that listed several drawbacks of GA, including its complicated nature. Sure, there are a crazy amount of features, but it’s not something you can jump into and learn in a day (ImImpact, 2014). Other reasons to stray is for different measurements that may assist your business better given what another tool can measure (Hines, 2014).

A resounding agreement across the Internet seems to be if you want to track web traffic, if nothing else use GA (ImImpact, 2014).

Google Analytics isn’t perfect but if you’re unhappy in your relationship, there are other programs in the sea.

This post is going to discuss a popular alternative called Piwik. Mostly because it came up in a few search results and I like the name.

Found in more than 150 countries, Piwik leads open source analytics with more than 1,000,000 million sites using the tool (Piwik History, 2014). At the time of this post, it’s been downloaded 2,109,716 times (Piwik, 2014). Launched in 2007, Piwik began receiving recognition within two years in the form of an award for the best open source enterprise software.

In 2010, the first app was launched, a feature not found with GA. The four years since have seen international expansion, the Prop section of the company and 50 different translations (Piwik History, 2014).

According to Piwik, the tool is ‘liberating web analytics.’ As an open source platform, it is leading in its field and providing insights that are valuable to the success of online efforts (2014). It specializes in allowing users to own their data and puts privacy as a top concern.

Piwik’s website also describes how it is different from the Google Analytics:

“One of the principle advantages of Piwik is that you are in control. Unlike remote-hosted services (such as Google Analytics), you host Piwik on your own server and the data is tracked inside your Mysql database. Because Piwik is installed on your server, you enjoy full control over your data. You can access the data easily via the Piwik APIs. Advanced users can use Custom Variables, Segmentation, or even run manual queries on the database in order to build advanced reports.

Piwik also protects your visitor privacy with advanced Privacy features. When using Piwik for Web Analytics, you ensure that your visitors behavior on your website(s) is not shared with advertising companies” (New to Piwik).

Let’s dissect this a little.

Open source analytics differ from Google Analytics because they give the user control over the data. From all the open source options, Piwik rivals GA the most in terms of available functions (Nesbitt, 2014). A potential downside to Piwik is the fact that users need a host, which can be intimidating. If you have a website, everything is almost in place anyway making this barrier minimal and the rest of the installation process simple (Speyer, 2012).

A major selling point of the platform centers around its privacy features. Right now, Google is surrounded by Internet users with privacy concerns and discomfort about what is done with the information it tracks. With Piwik, these concerns are eliminated because all the data belongs to the person doing it and is used for whatever that person wants. Only with permission is the data shared with third parties (White, 2014).

Piwik is also incredibly customizable, trying to make your life a little less complicated. The tool works with more than 65 different platforms, including Wordpress, Joomla! and Magneto through plug ins to keep all you need in one place (Nesbitt, 2014).

Customization is the driving force behind Piwik. Users can rearrange the interface (via widgets) that allow them to see only what they want and include the most relevant stats in the most convenient place. The entire theme can be designed to fit individual needs with the ability to design specific plugins (White, 2014).

In fact, you can edit the open source tool right down to its core (White, 2014).

Like other services, Piwik offers the standard real time analytics, goals, referrals, JavaScript API, campaign tracking and visitor maps (White, 2014). Unique features to the site including tracking outbound links, file downloads, cart abandonment, a mobile app and Professional Services team to customize your plan (Speyer, 2012).

As a free tool, Piwik offers many useful tracking tools, although in some areas (like visit lengths and bounce tracking), it is lacking (ImImpact, 2014). A premium plan is also available starting at $65 per month and offers additional support, training and functionality for those who choose to upgrade (Hines, 2014).

Piwik

At first glance of the demo for Piwik, I’m intrigued and delighted. Everything is right there when you visit the Dashboard and the drag and drop customization feature makes it ideal for anyone trying to organize it by the most relevant data. I think the tabs at the top directing users to visitors, actions, goals, etc., is better than the menu on the side in GA.

Based on everything I read, Piwik is a decent alternative to GA, especially if you get caught up in all the data available to you. The layout is what sells me for future reference if I ever need to track a site. It appears easier to manage and less intimidating. The idea of needing a host would create a small amount of annoyance at the beginning, but I think it would be worth figuring it out.

Google Analytics, you made things too complicated and I’m now I’m trying to hang out with your more aesthetically pleasing friend.

References

Hines, K. (2014). 15 Google Analytics alternatives. iAcquire. Retrieved from http://www.iacquire.com/blog/15-google-analytics-alternatives

ImImpact. (2014). Web stats: Alternatives to Google Analytics. Retrieved from http://imimpact.com/web-stats-alternatives-to-google-analytics/

Nesbitt, S. (2014). Top 3 open source alternatives to Google Analytics. Opensource.com. Retrieved from http://opensource.com/business/14/10/top-3-open-source-alternatives-google-analytics

New to Piwik. (n.d.). How is Piwik different to Google Analytics and other web analytics tools. Piwik. Retrieved from http://piwik.org/faq/new-to-piwik/faq_15/

Piwik. (2014). Learn more. Retrieved from http://piwik.org

Piwik History. (2014). Piwik open analytics platform. Retrieved from http://piwik.org/history/

Speyer, A. (2012). Some reasons to choose Piwik analytics over Google Analytics. Stat Story. Retrieved from http://www.statstory.com/some-reasons-to-choose-piwik-analytics-over-google-analytics/

White, L. (2014). A closer look at Piwik: A Google Analytics alternative. Site Point. Retrieved from http://www.sitepoint.com/closer-look-piwik-google-analytics-alternative/

We want converts and we want them now

Merriam-Webster defines conversion as the act of changing from one state to another, the process of changing from one belief to another or as an extra two points you can get in football after a touchdown (2014).

For our purposes, let’s focus on the middle definition (although two point conversions are pretty cool).

Now, I’m not referring to the type of conversion that happens when you see the light (although again, this is cool too). Conversion in relation to web analytics is basically the ultimate prize, what all our efforts are supposed to cause.

Avinash Kaushik, author of Web Analytics 2.0 and man I will probably reference throughout the course of these posts, says it best by “we are investing in our websites, so we should measure what comes of them” (2010, p. 55).

To put it simply, conversion “the number of times a desired outcome was accomplished” (Tiebohl, 2014).

Conversions are the result of the hard work behind the scenes to optimize the website. To measure, you take the outcomes divided by visits or unique visitors. There is some debate between visits and unique visitors in determining the most important number for the denominator of your equation. At the end of the day, it’s based on individual business goals and whether the unique sessions or unique browsers are more important (Kaushik, 2010, p. 55).

Two of the most common examples of conversions to study are purchases and email newsletter sign ups (Google, 2014). If you’re an e-commerce site, you ultimately want visitors to buy something sold on one of the pages. If you’re an advocacy group or blogger, you want to see people opting in to your electronic mailings.

For me, conversions are all about clients. How many of our visitors do we end up representing? How many submit an inquiry form? Our law firm runs off our clients, so our site needs to connect people to attorneys. My job literally depends on the success of our conversions.

When an inquiry is received, we have access to it in the marketing department. We can see the issue the potential client is having and where they came from on our site (the contact form is conveniently located EVERYWHERE). While they may not become clients, it’s the first step in determining our conversion effectiveness.

Recently, our firm is attempting to begin slowly branching out to include more types of personal injury law, including car accidents. Realizing we weren’t receiving any traffic or inquiries from these pages, we beefed them up a bit. By adding additional content about major fatal auto accident areas with a tie to all the GM recall drama, we’ve seen increased numbers. Today we even received one from the GM page, asking about a possible claim related to the recall (My stories found love!).

Before I entered the professional workforce, I spent my days as a head cashier at Sears, leading the way for a new era of the unfortunate retailer. One of Sears’ goals is to become the world’s greatest integrated retailer. The company streamlined the checkout process and encouraged sales online through store computers. I will say, despite Sears’ flaws, the check out process was fairly efficient.

In this role, it was about converting shoppers to purchasers. So much of Sears’ efforts went online to attract new audiences and exist in a different, less traditional environment for the storied brand. Like Amazon, a marketplace feature is available, selling goods from all over the internet.

Increasing Ecommerce conversions allows Sears to see the effectiveness of the drive to online engagement and shopping.

Foundational metrics serve as the starting point – making sure people are viewing your site and finding something worthwhile. Conversion rates are the end of the game, turning visitors to consumers or interested parties engaged in your company.

Online efforts without measuring conversion is like studying very hard for a final and never knowing if you passed. It’s the conclusion to your hard work, where you can see what went well and learn for the next time where you can improve.

References

Google. (2014). Conversion overview. Google analytics. Retrieved from https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1006230?hl=en

Kaushik, A. (2010). Web analytics 2.0: The art of online accountability and science of customer centricity. Chapter 3, pp. 55. Wiley Publishing: Indiana.

Merriam-Webster. (2014). Conversion. Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conversion

Tiebohl, M. (2014). Lesson 2: Basic web analytics, IMC 642. WVU IMC. Retrieved from https://ecampus.wvu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_group=courses&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2FdisplayLearningUnit%3Fcourse_id%3D_20666_1%26content_id%3D_1178118_1%26framesetWrapped%3Dtrue

The foundation of foundational analytics

Before more complex analytics are used to break down the different types of pages, visit lengths and referrers, there are foundational analytics (Moore, 2014).  They are the core of web analytics and what began it all (Kaushik, 2010, p. 36). Foundational metrics can be broken down into the following categories:

• ·         Page views
• ·         Visits or sessions
• ·         Unique visitors
• ·          (Tiebohl, 2014)

Page views

Google defines a page view as “an instance of a page being loaded by a browser” (Google, 2014). The metric shows the number of viewed pages, with repeated views included.  By showing how many pages are viewed by site visitors, you can determine where they’re going and the most popular destinations.

Visits/sessions

Visits are the number of times your site received visitors without paying attention to repeated visitors (Spork Marketing).  This count is one of the most basic and important pieces of information to measure (Tendenci).

The experience of the visitor spending time on your site is called a session, according to Avinash Kaushik, author of Web Analytics 2.0 (2010, p. 38). A visit or session begins with the very first request and ends with the last.

Unique Visitors

Page views measure the number of requests a site receives, but unique visitors take it a step further. These metrics determine how many unique visitors came back to the site during a selected period of time (Beal). When someone visits your site, a unique string of characters and numbers are assigned called a cookie ID. No personal information is included, but every time the visitor returns, this cookie ID recognizes them and logs their activity (Kaushik, 2010, p. 28).

As a web metrics amateur, I’m still learning and part of that is using Facebook Insights more and trying to decipher information I typically ignore. I’m the administrator for two Pages. Granted, these are small scale analytics intended to be helpful to the average Joe with no experience (at least I assume considering I understand a lot of what I read).

One feature is tab views. Facebook offers many enagement stats, but they also show how many people view a tab on Facebook on a given day. At first, I thought this was a silly thing to monitor (considering it also tells me how many times I view the Insights tab), but it’s useful to figure out what is pulling them to look at our Page.

For example, if I have more views of the Timeline when I’m posting about an upcoming event, this could represent people seeking out the information about that particular happening. If I receive a lot of Photo tab views after posting a new album, it may help me to see if people are looking at pictures and finding value.

At my job, unique visitors can prove extremely helpful. My law firm specializes in personal injury. Right now, the GM recall is a pretty big deal and more than two million owners want answers. As the marketing coordinator, I’ve written around 15 stories outlining the initial breaking of the recall to the announcement of the compensation fund and growing death tolls.

Surprisingly, I don’t write these for my own enjoyment.

The unique cookie ID assigned to visitors could help me determine if people found my stories and the updated information useful and returned for more as the recall unfolded. If we checked the unique visitors from March to September (when most of the stories were written), we could see the value people found based on how often they returned.

Page views are essential for the firm as well. When people come to our site, where are they going? What do they find interesting? This, combined with the session mapping out the navigation path, can show what visitors find most valuable on our site and what our audience is looking for, enabling us to improve high-trafficked pages.

The three foundational metrics provide the base of information needed to begin examining online efforts. More complex metrics obviously exist, but you need the basics to at least tell you how many are coming to see what you have to offer.

References

Beal, V. (n.d.). Unique visitor. Webopedia. Retrieved from http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/U/unique_visitor.html

Google. (2014). Pageviews. Analytics. Retrieved from https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1006243?hl=en

Kaushik, A. (2010). Web analytics 2.0: The art of online accountability and science of customer centricity. Chapter 3, pp. 36 &38. Wiley Publishing: Indiana.

Moore, C. (2014). Big data and analytics- five foundational elements. Sirius Decisions. Retrieved from https://www.siriusdecisions.com/Blog/2014/Mar/Big-Data-and-Analytics-Five-Foundational-Elements.aspx

Spork Marketing, LLC. (n.d.). What visits, visitors and page views? Google analytics for beginners. Retrieved from http://sporkmarketing.com/376/what-are-visitors-unique-visitors-and-page-views-google-analytics/

Tendenci. (n.d.). Meaning of hits , visits, page views and traffic sources: Web analytics definitions. Retrieved from https://www.tendenci.com/help-files/meaning-of-hits-visits-page-views-and-traffic-sources-web-analytics-definitions/

Tiebohl, M. (2014). Lesson 2: Basic web analytics, IMC 642. WVU IMC. Retrieved from https://ecampus.wvu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_group=courses&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2FdisplayLearningUnit%3Fcourse_id%3D_20666_1%26content_id%3D_1178118_1%26framesetWrapped%3Dtrue