media seo analytics | push2digital

Apples and watermelons may be a good combination for Nerds, but terrible for analytics.

If you're in digital media measurement, you've probably heard this from your boss, "ComScore's got it wrong, our site has twice as many uniques. Have them fix it!"

Well, he/she is right; you probably do have twice as many. But guess what … in the end, it doesn't really matter [I'll explain why later], but first let's explain why they're different.

My favorite analytics guru Avinash Kaushik recently listed 7 common analytics mistakes and first on the list was ... "Never Compare Apples to Watermelons."

And one of the most common "Apples to Watermelons" examples I can think of happens in media measurement -- comparing internal metrics (Omniture, Web Trends, Google Analytics) to external metrics (comScore, NielsenNet, Compete).

There are 2 main reasons why this is a fruitless task ... let me count them.

1. Differences in the data source -- Most metric measurements are based off a specific data set. Typically it's the data the vendor or company has access to, has purchased or has built. Different sources will generate different results. Internal metrics generally rely on a javascript beacon that passes information. External sources don't have permission to drop a beacon on your pages, so they often use panel-based methods (large panels like Compete, or smaller targeted panels such as comScore).

Internal metrics depend on users' computers to accept cookies and run javascript. External metrics depend on mathematicians to extrapolate what 1 million people in a DMA do based off the actions of 200 monitored panelists.

2. Differences in the definitions -- a pageview is a pageview right? Well yeah, but what about reloaded pages, what about pages viewed by people not represented in panels, what about pageviews viewed from a mobile device? You can see how each source defines their metric by what they have the ability to count or estimate.

Great, then what's the solution?

Well, first is a discussion with your boss to help him/her understand that his competitors deal with the same 40% to 60% comScore metric discount that you do.

Second, measure yourself versus the competition based on same external metric source -- so that you're measuring "apples to apples". Then identify exactly how they compute their measurements and ensure your site is registered with all means possible. Adding tags to your site pages can aid a company like comScore or Quantcast in measuring your audience more accurately.

Third, measure your individual site performance based on the more detailed internal metrics. Focus on relative metrics like percentage growth, month-to-month and year-over-year. Focusing on magic number milestones can obscure recognition of true progress and serious problems.

As with most problems, there’s no black-and-white answer – but understanding the core issue is half the battle enroute to a more actionable strategy.

Analytics is about taking action. But if you don’t understand what the data is telling you, you can’t do much with it. 

That’s why data visualization is white hot in the rush to manage big data. In response, Google will be releasing flow visualization as a new feature in Google Analytics over the coming weeks. 

Google referenced what is considered by some to be the greatest statistical graph of all-time – a visualization that charts Napoleon's 1812 invasion of Russia, a campaign that had a casualty rate of 97.7% -- as the inspiration for the new feature.

Google hopes to brings this type of visual clarity to the fire hose of data it collects about your sites.

[Disclaimer: Your casualty rates may differ].  

If you thought the hockey stick growth of mobile usage was important, you're right. But what is becoming clearer is that the iPad is pouring gas on that mobile adoption fire.

People who may be hesitant to significantly increase usage on their handheld mobile device are more comfortable with the larger format tablet. And that means iPad for business use is growing.

"... 28 percent of the new device activations by its mobile management customers -- mainly North American large businesses, with thousands of devices managed -- were for iPads in December 2010," according to InfoWorld.

So if you've been focused on how your site displays on hand-held devices, don't overlook the importance of tablet display, where for iPad's, Flash is a deal-breaker and your navigation needs to be swipe-friendly.

You can check your audience easily with most analytics tools by scanning the mobile device metrics.

To recap, I'm sitting in the second day of Google Analytics training today in NYC and will relay tidbits of insight as they pop up.

First AHA today is the presenter Jonathan Weber's review of Chrome's developer tools built into the browser. I have used Firebug in the past, but this provides everything I need to review GA cookies, image calls and more in one easy tool set in the browser I'm already in. Pretty cool.

Attending Google Analytics seminar today and tomorrow in NYC -- will try to feedback nuggets or AHA's throughout the day as we cover.

So far the coolest thing we've covered is the built-in alerting in Google Analytics [Intelligence] that tracks variations above or below the norm from a variety of data points including total pageviews, visits, new visits, referral sources, visit spikes from geographic areas.

You can build your own alerts, but it's neat that GA takes a crack at it out of the box to surface metric variations you might not notice otherwise.