Our march madness bracket by audit score

Our March Madness Bracket by Audit Score

ObservePoint ObservePoint DataAssurance

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Congratulations to the Duke Blue Devils on their amazing season and the 2015 NCAA Men’s Basketball national championship. They proved on the court that they are indeed the number one team in the land. Getting into the big dance is no easy feat. Each of the schools in the 64 team field put countless hours in the gym, in the film room, and on the road. The results of their hard work, dedication, blood, sweat and tears were showcased over the past two weeks.

While we know that each school’s basketball teams can play ball, we wondered if their digital teams were also ready for prime time. Basketball is front and center every March, but university websites are working and public facing each and every day. We wondered, “Who would be the last schools standing if their websites marketing technology was put head to head?”

The 2015 NCAA Men’s Basketball national championship






In order to quantify Return on Marketing Investment (RoMT), ObservePoint and Lima Consulting Group (LCG) used ObservePoint’s Audit Score along with several other key metrics such as percent of pages tagged, number of duplicate tags, average load times, and java script errors.

We audited both the official university and athletics websites of each of the 64 teams in this year’s tournament. The audited sites are listed here:

Official university and athletics websites




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64 teams in this year’s tournament

School University Site Athletic SiteAlbany http://www.albany.edu/ http://www.ualbanysports.com/Arizona http://www.arizona.edu/ http://www.arizonawildcats.com/Arkansas http://www.uark.edu/ http://www.arkansasrazorbacks.com/Baylor http://www.baylor.edu/ http://www.baylorbears.com/Belmont http://www.belmont.edu/ http://www.belmontbruins.com/landing/indexBuffalo https://www.buffalo.edu/ http://www.ubbulls.com/landing/indexButler https://www.butler.edu/ http://www.butlersports.com/landing/indexCincinnati http://www.uc.edu/ http://www.gobearcats.com/Coastal Carolina http://www.coastal.edu/ http://www.goccusports.com/







Davidson http://www.davidson.edu/ http://www.davidsonwildcats.com/Dayton https://www.udayton.edu/ http://daytonflyers.com/Duke http://www.duke.edu/ http://www.goduke.com/Eastern Washington http://www.ewu.edu/ http://www.goeags.com/landing/indexGeorgetown http://www.georgetown.edu/ http://www.guhoyas.com/Georgia http://www.uga.edu/ http://www.georgiadogs.com/Georgia State http://www.gsu.edu/ http://www.georgiastatesports.com/Gonzaga http://www.gonzaga.edu/ http://www.gozags.com/Hampton http://www.hamptonu.edu/ http://www.hamptonpirates.com/







Harvard http://www.harvard.edu/ http://www.gocrimson.com/landing/index

Indiana http://www.iub.edu/ http://www.iuhoosiers.com/Iowa http://www.uiowa.edu/ http://www.hawkeyesports.com/Iowa State http://www.iastate.edu/ http://www.cyclones.com/Kansas http://www.ku.edu/ http://www.kuathletics.com/Kentucky http://www.uky.edu/ http://www.ukathletics.com/

Lafayette http://www.lafayette.edu/ http://www.goleopards.com/index-main.html







Northeastern http://www.northeastern.edu/ http://www.gonu.com/Notre Dame http://www.nd.edu/ http://www.und.com/Ohio State http://www.osu.edu/ http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/Oklahoma http://www.ou.edu/ http://www.soonersports.com/Oklahoma State http://go.okstate.edu/ http://www.okstate.com/Oregon http://uoregon.edu/ http://www.goducks.com/Providence http://www.providence.edu/Pages/default.aspx http://www.friars.com/Purdue http://www.purdue.edu/ http://www.purduesports.com/Robert Morris http://www.rmu.edu/ http://rmucolonials.com/San Diego State http://www.sdsu.edu/ http://www.goaztecs.com/






General Trend among websites

Before we dive into the brackets and reveal our Final Four, we wanted to look at some general trends across the 128 websites. Among the 64 schools in the tournament, the average website had 23 tags. Leading the pack were the Wofford Terriers with 53 tags.

So what are the schools using their tags for?

While almost all of the schools in the tournament are using Analytics, Social Media, and Advertising Tags on their websites only 84% of the schools are using a tag management system (TMS).






What tags are being used?

The tree map below gives an indication of which tags these universities are using and how thoroughly they are being implemented. The top number in the tree map box represents the number of schools using the particular tag; the bottom percentage represents the average percent of pages containing the tag. We can see that Google Analytics is deployed by all 64 schools in the tournament.

The top notch resources and facilities of the nation’s largest schools make it challenging for smaller programs to compete at the elite level on a consistent basis. We also wanted to know if schools with more students or bigger endowments outperformed there smaller, less endowed counterparts in the online space.

As we can see in this chart, there is no clear correlation between resources and Observe Point audit scores. We found that athletic sites received higher audit scores than .edu counterparts. We also see that private schools outperformed their public counterparts.






What tags are being used?

And now, what you’ve all been waiting for- The LCG/Observe Point Bracket. In order to make it to the Final Four, schools were evaluated using a different metric each round.Second RoundObserve Point Audit score (university .edu site)Third RoundObserve Point Audit score (official athletics site)Sweet 16 %Pages Tagged (university .edu site)Elite 8Pages Tagged (official athletics site)

Congratulations to Southern Methodist University, Xavier, Wyoming, and Northeastern!




Data & Analytics

Our march madness bracket by audit score