UX Brighton - Analytics Best Practice

Data Monitoring & Insights

Don’t forget the quantitative!

“Most people use statistics the way a drunkard uses a lamp post, more for support than illumination”

Mark Twain

Google AnalyticsWorld’s most widely used analytics service - used on over 10 million websites

Default Reports

• Audience demographics and behaviour• Traffic Sources• Viewed Content

Advanced Features• Internal Site Search

• eCommerce

• Goals

• Filters and advanced segments

• Dashboards

• Custom Reports

• Tagged emails, outbound links, PDFs and non-trackable pages

Goals in Google Analytics

Types of goals include:

• Financial (eCommerce)

• Demo/quote requests

• Newsletter signups

• Contact forms

• …and many more

Google Analytics - Dashboards

Social Media Monitoring

Introduced last year - Give some information, but not enough!

Other Social Media Tools…

BrandwatchOne of the world’s leading tools for monitoring & analysing social media.

TopsyA more basic (free) tool - useful for quick checks of trends

CrowdboosterShows reach through retweets and impressions.

TwitonomyComprehensive stats on your Twitter account.

Facebook InsightsFacebook’s own, highly detailed, analytics.

Other Data Collection Methods

• Simple but effective

• Make it easy for people to feedback

• Can be in-depth surveys…

• …or simple questions on the

website

Competitor & Industry Data

Benchmarking data is hard to find but can be useful (e.g. Mailchimp):

Don’t view your data in isolation!

Google Trends

Used to see seasonality and trends over time.

We’ve got a lot of Data……and that’s great!

However, too much data can be overwhelming…

What to do with this Data• Work out what data is most important to you based on

objectives

• Analyse in detail rather than just looking at ‘headline’ figures

• Begin to consider the ‘why’ rather than the ‘what’

• Benchmark and track for improvements over time

• Identify problem areas - areas for concern are high bounce

rates, underperforming channels and negative mentions on

social media

Pinpoint what the Issues areIf users are dropping out during a process, find which step they are struggling with using funnels or a more detailed tool like ClickTale

Pinpoint what the Issues are

If the exact reason is unclear from the data alone, try a quick test yourself, ask your users directly or do some user testing.

Propose SolutionsOnce you have identified where the problem is, find a solution and test it

Get a Second Opinion

Larger changes may require a second, unbiased, opinion.

Tools like 5secondtest can help with this.

Get a Second Opinion

Testers click to show their preference, and we have a clear winner…

User Testing

A/B Testing

Different versions of a design are shown on the live website to real users

A/B Testing Results

In Summary…

• Use tools to get all the relevant data you need

• Ask the right questions of your data

• User testing, of some kind, is vital

• Use A/B tests to monitor improvements

• On-going process - Keep monitoring and

improving

• Always lots areas for improvements…

• …but focus on those which have the maximum

impact on the overall objectives of your

website

Thanks

@hayluke@noporkpies