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YAHOO!, INC.
Microsite Analytics agency measurement and reporting on microsites
Dennis R. Mortensen
2009/October
Measuring and reporting on the impact of a Microsite without taking into consideration how it uniquely differs from the expected and somewhat associated parent website is an error! This white paper points to a number of analysis items which will facilitate the right mindset for Microsite analysis and reporting - if this type of thinking is not applied, you will at best provide flawed reporting to your customers and at worst suggest actions that will negatively impact the Microsite.
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About the Author Dennis R. Mortensen is a pioneer and expert in the Analytics industry. He is an accredited Associate Web
Analytics Instructor at the University of British Columbia, the Author of data driven insights with Yahoo!
Web Analytics, and a frequent speaker on the subject of analytics and online marketing. Mortensen is an
Entrepreneur and was the COO of IndexTools until it was acquired by Yahoo! Inc., in May 2008. Today he
is the Director of Data Insights at Yahoo! and sits on the Board of Directors at the Web Analytics
Association, and he maintains the highly popular analytics blog, VisualRevenue.com/blog
A big Thanks to the following contributors Mihaela Popa; who is an Account Manager for Yahoo! Web Analytics and has been working in the Web
Analytics industry for three and a half years. She is currently enrolled in the Award of Achievement in
Web Analytics program at the University of British Columbia. Mihaela is also the Technical Editor for
“Yahoo! Web Analytics: Tracking, Reporting, and Analyzing for Data-Driven Insights”.
Emer Kirrane; who worked in the Professional Services team of IndexTools before becoming an Account
Manager at Yahoo! Web Analytics, where she is responsible for social media communications, best
practices and consultation.
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Table of Contents
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 5
Data Collection ........................................................................................................................................ 6
Amount of data points needed ........................................................................................................ 6
Data Collection Grouping ................................................................................................................. 7
Reporting ................................................................................................................................................ 8
General Traffic Reporting ................................................................................................................. 8
Organic Search ............................................................................................................................... 10
Visitor Demographic and Geographic ............................................................................................. 14
Visitor Paths .................................................................................................................................. 16
Insights and client communication ........................................................................................................ 18
Microsite independence and dependence ......................................................................................... 18
Success Attribution ............................................................................................................................ 20
Contacting me ....................................................................................................................................... 23
Table of Figures Figure 1 Microsite Context .................................................................................................................... 5
Figure 2 Parent website conversion points (Goals / Actions) ................................................................. 6
Figure 3 Microsite conversion points (Goals / Actions) .......................................................................... 7
Figure 4 Unique Visitors trend for Parent website ................................................................................. 9
Figure 5 Unique Visitors trend for Microsite ........................................................................................ 10
Figure 6 Percentage of Organic Traffic to Parent website .................................................................... 11
Figure 7 Percentage of Organic Traffic to Microsite ............................................................................. 11
Figure 8 Organic Search Phrases for Parent website ............................................................................ 12
Figure 9 Organic Search Phrases for Microsite..................................................................................... 13
Figure 10 Compared Organic Search Visit Distribution......................................................................... 13
Figure 11 Age Distribution of Visits on Parent website ........................................................................ 14
Figure 12 Age Distribution of Visits on Microsite ................................................................................. 15
Figure 13 Microsite Geographic Reporting (Country) ........................................................................... 15
Figure 14 Microsite Entry Page Percentage (linear path) ..................................................................... 16
Figure 15 Microsite Entry Page Percentage (non-linear path) .............................................................. 17
Figure 16 Entries to Microsite from Parent website ............................................................................. 19
Figure 17 Microsite Exits to the Parent website................................................................................... 20
Figure 18 Parent website campaign categorization (applying Microsite as a category) ........................ 21
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Parent website
Landing page
Microsite
Introduction Any online endeavor such as a Microsite is created with a business objective in mind, and for
this business objective, one must have a set of measurable KPIs1 and very likely a set of associated
metrics that can be used to optimize the KPIs. This is a given and, with this assumption in mind, as I take
you through this white paper, you must understand that this is not meant to provide you with an
exhaustive list of Microsite specific KPIs.
Measuring and reporting on the impact of a Microsite without taking into consideration how it
uniquely differs from the expected and somewhat associated parent website is an error! This white
paper points to a number of analysis items which will facilitate the right mindset for Microsite analysis
and reporting - if this thinking is not applied, you will at best provide flawed reporting to your customers
and at worst suggest actions that will negatively impact the Microsite. That being said, this is neither a
complete reporting and analysis guide nor a template for you to replicate to your next customer - it is a
way of thinking which you must apply to your own Microsite reporting. For every three suggestions I
provide with regard to reporting or insight on Microsites, there should be another three as obvious
recommendations from you, based upon the introduced mindset.
A Microsite (and it goes by many different names) is an autonomous website, focused on a
smaller subject matter. It is usually detached from the parent website and the only combined
experience is a set of gateways into the parent site. It is unusual and in most
cases not recommended to replicate the navigation structure and
general layout of the parent site as you lose the advantages of the
Microsite - and honestly, aren’t you then just building a new
subsection to the parent site? There are ways to analyze whether
you have been successful in your casual parent site attachment
and we will come to that later. Finally, have in mind that a
Microsite is designed to have a limited lifespan - if nothing else, in
its current form. You can also think of it as a range of purposes like;
specific product offerings, whether that is a feature film, car or a burger
for that matter, small branded communities, portal integrated and
sponsored content sites, branded entertainment used as a promotion
vehicle - and with that in mind, you should have a fair view of what I
warrant a Microsite.
It is important that you do not misplace the meaning of a
landing page or set of landing pages as a result of your Microsite endeavors. A landing page is a logical
1 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) - KPIs are promoted metrics, such as cost per new subscriber, that function as
communication and steering vehicles for management - or in plain English, the numbers that are important to you! Find a detailed explanation of the difference between a KPI and a metric here: http://visualrevenue.com/blog/2008/02/difference-between-kpi-and-metric.html
Figure 1 Microsite Context
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Figure 2 Parent website conversion points (Goals / Actions)
extension of your advertisement of your parent site. The landing page serves, for the most part, as
either a gateway into the parent site or directly as an optimized transaction page. You can, of course,
have a unique landing page on your Microsite, should you want to, but for the most part this will be the
home page or a page that plays the role of the homepage. See Figure 1 for an illustration of how
Microsite content and traffic overlaps with parent website and landing pages.
As an Agency you must create a mindset in your analysis and reporting that intelligently takes
into account the content split and overlap of the three constituents (as shown in Figure 1) and their
traffic flows. To put it clearly, we agree that the Microsite is indeed independent, but we also expect
integration and overlap with the parent website. Do have in mind that a Microsite can function as a
bridge and path between two parent websites as well, such as having the Microsite partly injected into a
foster parent. As an example, in describing the idea of a foster parent, envision a scenario where you
have the Microsite created as part of a portal channel. In this particular scenario, I both view and treat
the initiating foster parent as a campaign source throughout this white paper - and I suggest you do the
same in general. The thinking about a foster parent expands the Microsite definition to include elements
like the fan-page and branded apps.
I am not debating or concluding on the potential success in deploying a Microsite and/or the
overall strategic righteousness in using a Microsite as a marketing vehicle. This white paper assumes
you’ve used a different set of metrics for such a debate and positively concluded that branching out
from the parent website and using a Microsite is what’s needed for success.
So who is this white paper for then? The Agency Analyst, Account Manager and anybody who is
responsible for communicating the effectiveness of a Microsite.
Data Collection True competitive advantage in web marketing comes from collecting the right data, but also,
and no less importantly, from configuring your
web analytics tool in such a way that you get an
opportunity to derive insight from the data.
Amount of data points needed
There is no doubt about the need for a
data collection strategy for your parent website
and there is an inherent advantage when
looking at data collected from a parent website,
to the extent that plain vanilla tagging2 will in
fact help you derive insights (plain vanilla
tagging is the same as saying that no data
collection strategy was in place). These
2 Plain-Vanilla Tagging is also known as simple footer tagging. Tagging your complete website by using the provided
default tracking script and simply applying that to the footer of your website templates.
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Figure 3 Microsite conversion points (Goals / Actions)
insights, however simple perhaps, remain valuable. This is partly due to the fact that you have a much
broader context and a much larger dataset to look at. Figure 2 illustrates such a setup for a parent
website, with a few simple conversion points.
However, this is not the case with a Microsite where a plain vanilla tagging strategy is less likely
to provide you with insights. It will certainly
provide you some basic reporting
opportunities, but there is not enough context
and likely too few data points to really get you
where you want to be - creating opportunities
for optimization.
If you focus on the data point,
conversion, as an example, you will be able to
get by with a limited and focused set of
conversion points for a parent website (as
illustrated in Figure 2) and still be able to derive
insights. In a Microsite where content is
compressed to a very limited set of pages, and
in some circumstances all the way down to a
single page, this is not an option.
To overcome this you have to think of
specific and unique Microsite conversion points
and event handlers. As this is for the most part
separate from the parent site reporting, you
can have this set up in great detail without
disturbing the parent website. You must
however make sure that you have an overlap in
conversion points, event handlers or other
distinctive data collection points - so that you
do not lose opportunities for Microsite
independence and dependence analysis. You
achieve this by using parent website specific
KPIs or metrics on the Microsite.
Figure 3 illustrates in great detail how
one can collect a large amount of conversion
points and events from a Microsite.
Data Collection Grouping
It is highly recommended that you
choose to collect the Microsite activity inside
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the same overall profile/project of the parent website. The Microsite is indeed, as stated earlier, an
autonomous website, but that does not mean that it is not part of the bigger reporting picture.
There is one word of caution I would add with regard to my previous comments on data points
not being the only aspect required, especially when a single encompassing profile/project is used. You
must be very careful with regard to how you proceed with your setup in order to ensure that reporting
on the parent website is not disturbed by, from the parent perspective, noise and useless information
points.
Assuming that you have both the technical ability to collect the data and the approval to collect
parent website and Microsite data together, you get the opportunity to perform Microsite
independence and dependence analysis. This type of analysis, which I will comment on under the
reporting section, is in essence an opportunity to look into big questions such as brand affinity,
engagement and specific user behaviors - but also simple confirmations, such as whether the Microsite
successfully serves the purpose for which it was created in the first place.
Reporting It is important to have in mind that with changed visitor behavior, site focus, and purpose,
comes a way of reporting and a set of reports that is very different from what you typically see in your
parent website reporting. Having this in mind, it becomes your task to educate your clients on what is to
be considered normal for a Microsite - and not only that, what they should expect when setting up the
initial goals and targets.
This is in particular important as basic reports and trends as clients know them from parent
websites must be read differently, such as the basic expectation of an up-and-to-right trend for traffic
on a parent website which is simply not the case for a Microsite.
General Traffic Reporting
I believe base metrics such as Unique Visitors, Visits and perhaps even Page Views hold value in
Microsite reporting, but most of all, I suggest you report on unique visitors. This is a well understood
metric with typically well-defined parent website targets. Figure 4 is a typical unique visitor trend for a
parent website - a trend showing a stable growth pattern that one can project and to which targets may
be applied.
When you have trends with somewhat high daily or weekly volatility, as we see in Figure 4,
targets should be set on a monthly or perhaps even quarterly basis.
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Figure 4 Unique Visitors trend for Parent website
Parent website volatility leads us forward to traffic reporting on Microsites, which for the most
part, are even more fickle in their traffic patterns. Nevertheless, Microsites typically, and for good
reasons, show similar behavior (amongst each other); a steep ascending traffic pattern in the beginning
of the Microsite life cycle and then a slow decline in the remainder of its life cycle.
A typical Microsite traffic pattern as illustrated in Figure 5, confirms the initial peak, which is
likely something which has been achieved through campaigning and activities such as social media buzz.
The more social media activities you use, the more likely you are to see this pattern.
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Figure 5 Unique Visitors trend for Microsite
Knowing and accepting that this pattern exists, also indicates that you have to think differently
about setting traffic targets for your Microsite. For instance, based on Figure 5, you can see that setting
a daily target of 20000 unique visitors, simply makes no sense!
Before you think about setting your Microsite traffic targets, I suggest you take into
consideration the life span of the initiative, something which previous Microsite campaigns should help
you set, and something which can be anything from, say, 3 months to 12 months. I am personally an
advocate of setting targets for the Microsite as a whole, for the complete life span, which does not
necessarily exclude halfway target follow-ups and predictions on whether we will get to where we want
to be. Always have the traffic pattern in mind, in the sense that having received 50% of the targeted
traffic halfway through the life cycle means it is unlikely the initial target will be met. The opposite
counts as well, so that you should keep the Champagne in the cooler even if you received 65% traffic
halfway through, as this is expected and normal, does not necessarily mean the initial target will be
exceeded. This attitude in reporting only makes sense if the distribution pattern is explained and
communicated to the client. You might actually have a less aggressive pattern than the one in Figure 5,
which is OK, but you must communicate it. Most people, clients included have a human tendency to
expect increase over time. We are all suckers for an up-and-to-the-right attitude when setting targets
and reporting on them.
Organic Search
It has somewhat become legitimate to run a Microsite where most traffic is sourced through
campaigns - whether internal campaigns (from parent website and similar) or external (and likely paid
for) campaigns. As established in the introduction, setting benchmarks and targets for Microsites are
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difficult, very difficult actually, due to their short lived and unique nature. With regard to organic search,
I am in favor of using the parent website as a benchmark. Not as an absolute benchmark but as a
relative one, where you compare the percentage of organic search traffic influx to the parent site to that
of the Microsite.
It should be understood that we cannot assume everything being equal, such as campaign
traffic, direct traffic due to branding and offline activities, viral buzz and so on - thus this benchmark is to
be treated as an approximation and point of view of what to expect and drive for.
Looking at the relative organic search visit share in Figure 6 and Figure 7, we see that the
percentage of organic traffic to the parent website is 6.49%, while the percentage of organic traffic to
the Microsite is 21.05%. I recommend you present this fact as part of your reporting no matter how the
traffic patterns are divided. In a worst case scenario this fact will provide food for thought (e.g. about
campaign allocation), and in a best case scenario, it will help you debate and set expectations for the
Microsite.
Figure 6 Percentage of Organic Traffic to Parent website
As a rule of thumb one should expect and plan for a better organic traffic influx and better social
media exposure (we will come to that) for the Microsite compared to the parent website - this assuming
a fairly equal (relative) campaign allocation between parent website and Microsite (which can always
skew things).
Figure 7 Percentage of Organic Traffic to Microsite
I strongly believe that organic search is a low hanging fruit and generally a missed optimization
opportunity for Microsites, due to the simple fact that they are very well positioned for non-traditional
campaign traffic such as social media activities and in particular organic search.
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You should, however, be aware about the innate search phrase difference between parent
website and Microsite.
The Organic Search Phrase distribution for a parent website, as illustrated in Figure 8, is well
known and follows, for the most part, a power law distribution. More popularly said, you’ll have a long
tail3 of search phrases, which shows a few search phrases that generate a lot of traffic, while the same
amount of traffic is generated by a large pool of lesser used search phrases.
Not only is the search phrase distribution for a parent website very true to the long tail
distribution, it is also likely to have a head (most popular search phrases) which consists of very generic
and broad search phrases, which are often brand related and only one or two words long.
Figure 8 Organic Search Phrases for Parent website
That said, you are not only likely to see a very different behavior on your Microsite, something
we would call a Fat Head4, but you should actually strive for this top heavy distribution. A typical
Microsite search phrase distribution and illustration of a fat head is shown in Figure 9. On top of this
change in distribution, you should also expect, and may I say strive for, less generic, less brand focused
terms and finally three, four or five word search phrases instead of one or two words long. You would
also want the search phrases to be clustered around the same theme, the theme of the Microsite. We
shouldn’t forget why we used a marketing component like a Microsite to begin with - namely to focus
on something unique and distinctive.
3 Long Tail - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Tail
4 Fat Head - http://visualrevenue.com/blog/2007/06/do-you-have-fat-head-long-tail.html
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Figure 9 Organic Search Phrases for Microsite
When we look at Figure 9 we do indeed see a fat head, more words in the search phrases and a
theme clustering around the Microsite purpose. This is good.
If you don’t see a fat head you are likely to see a Microsite that is not focused enough and you
may conclude that you should move it into the parent website or simply remove parts of the Microsite
to get it laser focused. The same attitude goes for the word count of search phrases, but most
importantly, you cannot and must not steal away generic terms from the parent
website. This will lead, not only to poor Microsite management, but to the
defeat of the purpose of creating the Microsite. In a best case scenario you
will have no overlapping search phrases - and if you do have an overlap, it
should connect directly with those parts of the Microsite from where you
purposefully drive traffic back into the parent site or vice versa - what we
previous named parent site gateways. Where the search phrase “Toyota
Fantasy” might actually be too aggressively promoted on this Microsite example
and you would look into de-optimizing that specific search phrase (a SEO
practice that you actually rarely hear about).
It must be the dream of an Organic Search Engine
optimization engineer’s to work not only with pages, but with a
complete website containing content with a high keyword
density.
Whether you have been successful in sourcing a larger
amount of traffic from organic search is secondary to
the above analysis attitude. As I’ve indicated earlier,
should you have little or no organic traffic influx, you must treat this as an optimization opportunity.
Figure 10 Compared Organic Search Visit Distribution
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I’ve illustrated the actual fat head in Figure 10 (inside the dotted red line) containing both the
parent website (the straight green line) and the Microsite (blue line) are displayed. The chart is
essentially just a simple scatter chart that shows the search phrase distribution and it is really a great
visualization that confirms that you are where you want to be for the Microsite. Don’t mind the
drooping tail 5 as this is expected behavior (and a debate for another day).
A simpler way for you to illustrate this distribution is to report only the relative percentage
traffic driven by the top ten most popular search phrases. Top ten search phrases, which for the Figure 8
parent website is 18.89% of the traffic and for the Figure 9 Microsite is a healthy (perhaps even
aggressive) 91.03%.
Finally, do have in mind that on your parent website essentially every page is a potential landing
page and that is how you designed it, but on a Microsite you should probably not let this happen. I
would even recommend that you develop with this in mind.
Visitor Demographic and Geographic
I find it valuable to report on the traditional demographic and geographic characteristics of the
visitors coming to your parent website. Illustrated in Figure 11, you will see a type of reporting where
you traditionally show the distribution of individual visitors according to a dimension such as age.
Figure 11 Age Distribution of Visits on Parent website
However, it is recommended that a Microsite caters to a unique demographic gender or age
bucket, or specific geographic regions or other predefined valuable dimensions. This is part of the
5 Drooping Tail - http://visualrevenue.com/blog/2007/03/long-tail-and-how-to-calculate-missing.html
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Figure 13 Microsite Geographic Reporting (Country)
rationale behind creating the Microsite to begin with, and you should expect a much tighter Microsite
demographic or geographic distribution because of that.
Figure 12 Age Distribution of Visits on Microsite
If the Microsite is not focused on a given demographics or geography, or in a sub-optimal
scenario, is a navigational replica of your parent site - you may actually not be creating a Microsite, but
just a parent website subsection in a different design!
I am not arguing for a perfect demographic or geographic clustering, but I am advocating and
repeating the need for focus. If you are unsure about where to draw the line, I recommend using 75% as
an acceptable threshold for success; demanding that three quarters are within your planned target
audience.
Remember, this is not about age or any other dimension in particular, it is about making sure
that your initial focus and strategic outset, when creating the Microsite is
maintained when reporting on success and failure.
While it might be difficult to truly discount any visitors from
your parent website reporting, you are put in a different situation
with a heavily focused Microsite, where you should actively discount
(out-segment) visitors who are not in the target audience. Looking at
the information, and not so much at the actual visualization, in Figure
13, we should (for a Microsite with a clear and decided upon US
geographic focus and impact area) only report on the actual and absolute
number of 780,687 visitors. The remainder (22.38%) is a campaign or traffic
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generation error that is moved to a different type of reporting. All other reports should have this almost
one quarter of traffic completely discounted.
The idea of discounting visitors is of course not just about the visitor demographic and
geographic profile. You might also choose to discount (not include them into your reporting) specific
behavior, such as a cluster of search phrases, which are unrelated or so untargeted that the Microsite
traffic entries from those are obviously valueless.
When you discount these, do have in mind that some of these aren’t just errors, they might
actually be “stolen” from the parent website and it is your duty to return them as quickly as possible.
Visitor Paths
While Path Analysis as an analysis discipline is highly debated, I find it useful for Microsite
analytics in the following way.
The difficulty in using path analysis on a parent site comes primarily from the fact that you have
too many entry points to the website and too many interchangeable paths to success (conversion
points) - and thus the idea of having a preplanned path (linear path6) in mind just doesn’t work. It does,
however, work for subsections and specific areas of the parent site, and is particularly well-suited for
Microsite analytics. Path analysis
is useful for Microsites due to the
following reasons: a) Microsites
have a natural or perhaps even
planned set of entry points (as we
see in
Figure 14) and b) Microsites
typically have a few or likely just
one goal (which does not exclude
it from having multiple conversion
points and a plethora of events) .
So, while I agree that the whole idea of having a preplanned path in mind for a parent website is
absurd, I believe you are missing out on insight if you do not validate and confirm your entry points and
subsequently the visitor path on your Microsite. You would expect, as you see from your parent website
(as illustrated in
Figure 15), a traditional long tail distribution with hundreds and perhaps even thousands of entry points.
In the case of the Microsite you will be so top heavy that the distribution should not resemble a long tail
at all. It should be a confirmation of (though perhaps not as aggressive as in
Figure 14) the few planned entry points you had in mind.
6 Linear Path - http://visualrevenue.com/blog/2007/02/use-conversion-funnel-analysis-to.html
Figure 14 Microsite Entry Page Percentage (linear path)
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This brings us to the actual path analysis reporting itself, where I suggest you focus on both the
path (not shown in the figures), as it is debate-worthy, and on the overall content consumption - while
having the entry points in mind (a trifecta between the three metrics).
When you visit a parent website, content consumption as a percentage is rarely of any value,
unless you look at it from other angles, such as page views per visit or time spent on site as a whole.
These are useful parent website metrics, but they are as valueless on a Microsite as they are valuable on
a parent website. For example, on a six page Microsite you need not report on the average page views
per visit as this by itself leaves out a lot of insightful context. Just as you are not supposed to consume
all content on a parent website, you are likely to plan for visitors to consume all or most of the content
on a Microsite. Remember, this is not a menu of choices; the choice in content was taken when
designing the Microsite. So I recommend that you use the following:
This immediately brings up the question, what constitutes good Microsite Content
Consumption? I suggest you remove visits which bounced and set a target at 80%. This is not necessarily
about optimizing for better paths to obtain 80%; it might actually be an indicator of you having applied
too much fluff to a site that was, well, supposed to be Micro.
To put it differently, parent websites in this regards are more about absolute numbers (3.7
pages per visit) and Microsites are more about relative numbers (84% of pages consumed per visit).
METRIC
Microsite Content Consumption Percent: (Page Views per Visit / Site Pages in Total) * 100
Figure 15 Microsite Entry Page Percentage (non-linear path)
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Insights and client communication It is important to have in mind, when you report on the status of the Microsite (and perhaps
even provide your insights) that you think about the two outputs generated and thoroughly report on
each in your general communication:
1. The Microsite itself
2. The Impact on the parent site(s)
You will be doing yourself and your agency a disfavor by simply reporting with the first in mind
while not taking into consideration the actual impact on the parent site. For some Microsite endeavors,
this might be the biggest value generator.
Furthermore; make sure that you do not apply a landing page philosophy to any of this as such
reporting is a completely different matter - and one which we obviously didn’t discuss. The reason is
that landing pages show very different behavior and targets; goals and optimization techniques are very
different.
As with any traditional web analytics reporting, you should think about how often you report on
the activities of a Microsite. With a parent website, you will typically see a fixed timeline and a recurring
cycle set up, but this is not recommended for a Microsite - at least not full reporting. I recommend that
you report as follows: a) before launch, b) when your traffic influx peaks (about one third of the way
into the promotion) and c) at the end of the Microsite life span. This does not exclude simple updates
along the way, but think carefully about whether you would want to engage in that. The most important
reporting is the final conclusion, which is a type of reporting attitude that you simply don’t see on a
parent website, as it never comes to an end.
Finally and before we jump into my commentary on independence and dependence analysis, I
would like to remind you of the fact that most Microsites might as well have branched out of the Parent
(even though that was not the case) and as such any benchmark you gather from the parent website is
valuable in the sense that your Microsite should in essence be able to do better; when you think about
it, why would you otherwise branch out?
Microsite independence and dependence As previously outlined, you should ensure that there is a focused overlap in particular data
collection points in order to allow analysis of dependence and independence as far as the relationship
between parent and Microsite.
Depending on the type of Microsite, the visitor target profile will generally be different from
that of the parent site; for example the parent site is a car dealership targeting a reasonably broad age
range while the Microsite targets men aged 20-35 interested in a particular car type. Commonly, the
target profile of the Microsite will be a more tailored sub-profile of that of the Parent.
Remember that while debating stickiness, though the site is only live through the four months of
a campaign’s life, might not make much sense. You would actually shoot for enough brand awareness
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for people to spill over to the parent site during, and of course after, the campaign. A high level of
return visits to the Microsite alone might be interesting in that it gives insight into positive triggers that
may be used on the Parent site, but it is not the desired outcome. The Microsite should ultimately aim
to generate new engaged visitors for the Parent site, not for itself.
There are a number of ways in which you can verify the above aim and one of the easier ones is
to look at both the number of entries to the Microsite from the parent, and also at the number of exits
to the parent website from the Microsite.
I suggest you run something as simple as a referring domains report (in the scenario where the
Microsite and parent website are NOT reported in the same project). In the example of a Purina Proplan
Microsite, as illustrated in Figure 16, we see that (if adding up purina.com and proplan.com) just below
5% of the entries into the Microsite is sourced from the parent website.
Figure 16 Entries to Microsite from Parent website
I suggest you report on this fact as a statement of Microsite traffic sourcing success, and in the
same statement confirm and conclude that the parent traffic in question has been out-segmented and is
not taken into consideration as part of the direct Microsite measurement and reporting. There is no
scientific threshold for the maximum of traffic you are allowed to receive from the parent website, but
anything above 25% is something I would personally report as a failure, even when taking into
consideration that we out-segment this for the remainder of the reporting. At 26% you go from
Microsite to subsection!
There is another way to look at this, and just as important, which is the parent website exit ratio
- how many people exit to the parent website. The type of report you will pull to answer this question,
again depends on whether you have both Microsite and parent website integrated into the same web
analytics project. Figure 16 showed us a non-integrated project and introduced a referring domain
dimension, and you can use the same attitude and simply look at exits by domains as illustrated in
Figure 17.
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Figure 17 Microsite Exits to the Parent website
However, as they are not included into the same project, you need to do a bit of calculus
yourself (at least if you are using Yahoo! Web Analytics as I have done for this). Looking at Figure 17 you
see offer.purina.com and proplan.com add up to 9,664 visits (exit clicks to those sites) which comes to
about 35%. You have to look at the total visits to the site, which Figure 16 tells us is 139,221 and use
that in your calculation; thus about 7% of the visits to the Microsite is sent to the parent website. I tend
to use a rule of thumb of 33% (one third), to judge whether I have obtained a fair independence and not
gone from Microsite to subsection.
Don’t confuse the above analysis with the aim of creating long term parent website engagement
and loyalty - the above is all done in a visit session and not on a visitor life time basis, which is where we
would want to work that angle.
On the note of independence, and with the fact that site-search should not exist on a Microsite,
but should indeed exist on a parent website - you need to very carefully take into consideration how and
if you would want the Microsite to be displayed in your site search engine results pages. I’ve decided not
to delve into this subject matter in this whitepaper beyond the note of caution.
Success Attribution Let me repeat my previous statement, as this is probably one of the most common mistakes
when reporting on the success of a Microsite: The Microsite should ultimately aim to generate new
engaged visitors for the parent site, not for itself!
Accepting my statement above, you also have to continue with an aggressive attitude on
whether or not you should attribute any success to visitors who arrive from the parent website. In my
world, it simply doesn’t count (from a Microsite success measuring perspective) - as the Microsite has
essentially just turned into another parent website funnel. This doesn’t spell disaster, but it does mean
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that you have a set of pages, that are better optimized for conversion than your original site - and
you’ve thus created a new optimized parent website funnel and no longer an independent Microsite.
Beyond the obvious goals and direct conversions on the Microsite itself, I suggest that you setup
and view the whole Microsite as a campaign in your parent website. If the data is in a separate project
this is an easy feat; if the data is in the same project, it becomes a bit more tricky, but still doable using
internal campaign features.
Figure 18 illustrates how this could look.
Figure 18 Parent website campaign categorization (applying Microsite as a category)
Don’t mind the actual numbers, but view Figure 18 for what it is, a parent website campaign
categorization choice (applying Microsite as a category). There is no rule for where you should place this
in your campaign categorization, other than, the more important it is, and the more activity you engage
in, the higher up the tree it needs to be. This might as well mean that this is a separate channel for you,
should you run forty specific product Microsites.
The reason for this is primarily so that you can a) track the impact of the Microsite on a visitor
level and b) use the attribution models provided by your analytics package -such as attributing the
success of future conversions on the parent website to people (visitors) who originated from the
Microsite.
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Have in mind that, very different from a landing page, where you will have continuous
optimization, the Microsite is destined to die and thus the optimization cycle is more likely to be in the
form of a learning curve as you move from one Microsite and to the next. You would rarely do much
mid-campaign Microsite optimization unless you really screwed up!
I started this white paper by highlighting the fact that I was not about to debate the overall
strategic righteousness in using a concept such as Microsites. I would like to add a comment to this
statement before I close up; I find it very important, that you make sure that the Microsite is not created
to heal diseases elsewhere in the organization. A symptom such as the marketing department’s inability
to quickly bring new concepts to market, due to meager IT setup and release schedules - as this is
certainly not a reason to create a Microsite.
In closing and as a final word of advice, I suggest you, as recommended in the introduction, use
this white paper, not as a direct guide, but to change your thinking about Microsite measurement and
reporting.
Sincerely,
Dennis R. Mortensen
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Contacting me If you have questions, feedback, or critique, I am eager to hear from you. You can reach me
through the following online destinations:
Corporate: http://web.analytics.yahoo.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/DennisMortensen
Blog: http://visualrevenue.com/blog/
Book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470424249
And you are always welcome to email me directly at either [email protected]
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This white paper is licensed under a fair Creative Commons License. So go share! You must attribute the work if you do, but not in
any way that suggests that I endorse you or your use of the work. All data is fictional and not related to any site/customer in specific.
