Nissan uses Analytics to Track Consumer Behavior

Shopping online has become big business and is one of the fastest growing segments in the commercial industry. Tracking a customer experience from browsing to check out provides valuable data for a business. One of the top ranking auto dealers in the world uses Google Analytics to help them measure their website traffic. A case study by Google reports how the Nissan Motor Company uses the analytic data to gain deeper insights about consumer’s car preference – about the type, model, and color of car they like the most. Knowing which cars are most popular helps Nissan make inventory decisions for their global markets (Google, Inc., 2013).

A study by the McKinsey & Company, reports that Americans are rethinking how they buy cars. “This is the most dramatic change we've seen in the auto industry and how people buy cars in the last 50 years," said Hans-Werner Kaas,” senior partner with McKinsey (LeBeau, 2014).  CNBC Reporter, Phil LeBeau explains that consumers are doing more research online and less shopping at the dealerships. According to the McKinsey report, most consumers visit just 1.6 auto dealerships before purchasing a car, compare that to a decade ago when the average buyer visited, at least, five dealerships. Kaas says that’s because there is so much more information and resources online and the auto dealers who can adapt to this new opportunity, will be the ones who succeed.

One auto dealer that is ahead of the game is the Nissan Motor Company. In doing research for this blog topic, I was pleasantly surprised to find that another IMC student in 2013, Marcie Shanks, had chosen Nissan for her blogpost on e-commerce and web tracking analytics.

Shanks does an excellent job and details how Nissan has integrated and diversified their use of online technology and analytics.

From using Skype, social media platforms, mobile apps, and even gaming technology, Shanks discovered Nissan collected data, the analytics, from all these sources and used that information to help improve their website content and make business decisions. She also found there were a few things that Nissan could do to improve their website performance. I decided to see if perhaps, 

Nissan had implemented any of the recommendations she made and see if there were any improvements on their website.

In her research, Shanks found that the home page, NissanUSA.com, took a while to load, 2.292 seconds to be exact, that is 38% slower than other websites (Shanks, 2013). Fast forward to 2015, using different platforms, I re-tested Nissan’s homepage ranking and loading speed.

I found that it loads even slower, drastically slower, between 4.8 to 13.7 seconds (the speed was different depending on which platform is used and if the test was repeated), that means 65% to 95% of the world's websites load faster. You would think that would be a concern. A slow rate of speed could detour your user, and they could leave the site before it finishes loading. When Shanks did her research in 2013, the homepage load speed was 2.292 seconds. What happened? The image slider on the home page takes forever to load. However, apparently users don't mind - they either love the pictures and the information and don't mind waiting.

Would you agree that when the information is as vital as making a purchasing decision, especially one as expensive as a car purchase, and comes with an enticing interactive experience, it is one that is worth waiting for?

Shanks also reported that there were 93 HTML errors on the home page, I checked the homepage with the W3C Markup Evaluator tool and found 115 errors. To get more insight, I ran the URL on WebPageTest.org site. Nissan received an F ranking for its images not being compressed, and an F for having cached static content. I also ran a test on Pingdom.com, and it confirmed the poor page speed performance. Pingdom tools provided recommendations on how to improve Nissan’s website performance. To improve the download parallelization, Pingdom recommends that you distribute requests across multiple hostnames. Currently, there are 91 parallelizable requests to www.nissanusa.com. Other recommendations included minimizing redirects, combining external JavaScript, leverage browser caching, and combining external CSS (Pingdom, 2015). More information about these speed rules and how to improve them can be found on  Google Developers PageSpeed Insights.

Finally, I wanted to get back with how Nissan uses Google Analytics to track consumer behavior. Nissan's Global Marketing Strategy division wanted to know which vehicles were most popular so they could make inventory decisions to serve different markets across the world and optimize their website. Karun Takkar, wirth Digital Vidya Blog, writes that Nissan leveraged Google Analytics like a clairvoyant, a medium who is capturing insights to predict consumer purchasing behavior (Takka, 2014). Even Google was impressed on how Nissan used their analytics tools and made it one of their case studies (Google, 2012). Without even using e-commerce transactions, Nissan was able to use Google Analytics to help them discern a consumer’s product preference that in turn helped them make accurate business decisions (Google, Inc., 2013).  Nissan simply places an e-commerce tag on the follow through pages, on the 'thank you' page after the user downloads a brochure or signs up for a test drive. It’s at this stage when Nissan captures consumer’s preference information about the cars.

 Google Analytics' explains that their profile setting and custom reporting allows Nissan to take complex and timely information from one report view and easily share it within the organization, saving them time and money.

References

Google. (2012, January). Nissan Motor Company Gains Insights with Google Analytics E-Commerce. Retrieved from think with Google: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/case-studies/nissan-motor-company-gains-deep.html

Google, Inc. (2013). Nissan Motor Company gains deep insights into users’ product preferences with Google Analytics e-commerce. Google, Inc. Retrieved from Google Analytics Case Study.

LeBeau, P. (2014, February 26). Americans rethinking how they buy cars. Retrieved from CNBC: http://www.cnbc.com/2014/02/26/americans-rethinking-how-they-buy-cars.html

Pingdom. (2015, December 7). Nissanusa.com Page Speed Performance. Retrieved from Pingdom: http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/dxvPAn/nissanusa.com

Shanks, M. (2013, March 4). Nissan uses Innovative Marketing to Gather Web Analytics . Retrieved from Digital Marketing Marcie: http://digitalmarketingmarcie.blogspot.com/2013/03/nissan-uses-innovative-marketing-to.html

Takka, K. (2014, June 21). nissan motor company leverage web analytics to capture different market operations. Retrieved from Digital Vidya: http://www.digitalvidya.com/blog/nissan-motor-company-leverage-web-analytics-to-capture-different-market-operations-dmblog-0604/

Google is all in your business, is that a good thing?

Those of us from the baby boomer generation seem to have more of problem with the cyber intrusion into our privacy. The new millennials, on the other hand, since they grew up in this digital age of technology, are more accustomed and seem oblivious, or perhaps just more accepting, of having their every move monitored through their digital devices. 

I mean, really - you can’t do anything these days online without being tracked. Someone, somewhere is watching – or rather, tracking your every move. 

Do what you can to try and stop it, they’ll still find a way to track you. Now who is they? For this discussion, let’s focus on the mighty giant, the cyber leader in the digital world, Google.  Does Google spy on your every move? You bet ‘ya.

The Google, The Bad, and The Ugly

Frank Buytendijk, the author of Business Intelligence (BI) and analytics says Google wants to collect as much data about us as they can and provide it to their advertisers, it’s surely not to benefit us - those who created that data. This is how google survives, by selling our data to advertisers.

What do we get out of it? Quite a bit actually. Buytendijk explains that our love of Google’s "free" services are the counterpart of the religious "opium of the people" (McKenna, 2012). Let’s face it, we are addicted to Google. Living without it would have painful consequences for me and quite honestly, the tradeoff is not all that bad. I get all those free services; like a Gmail account, Google+, Google Analytics, a top notch search engine, and oh, who doesn’t love the new voice activated search function – just say, “Ok Google search…” and Google does all the work for you, hands free.

Wait, put on the breaks, before we become too complacent, Business Applications Editor, Brian McKenna, points out that the fine line between your personal privacy and data collection has all but disappeared, and privacy issues are abounding (McKenna, 2012).

Google as well as all the others, are collecting personal data from WiFi networks, not just your e-mail addresses and passwords, but our location. Even its creator, Marius Milner, questioned his superiors in 2010, asking Google Execs whether the WiFi data-collecting code he developed, might violate people’s privacy (Johnston, 2012). Basically back then he had a concern about the ethics of tracking and linking folks to specific geographic locations. Now this form of tracking is all but common place. The FCC determined that this form of tracking was in fact okay, and not a violation.

In doing research for this blog, I found quite a few instances where Google was and is fighting its way through countless court systems across multiple countries about privacy issues, often winning or plea dealing their way through most of these cases (Smith, 2013).

Google Vs. Safari

Apple is now suing Google for circumventing its Safari browser’s default “cookie blocker”. Apple provided this feature to prevent its user’s online activity from being tracked. Basically Apple was trying to give its users, who did not want their every move to be tracked, a chance to block Google from doing so, but alas, Google found a way around the block, all the while saying they would respect user’s Safari browser settings (Covington & Burling LLP, 2015). Bad Google. This one is still in the court systems pending an outcome.

Good Google

Enough of the bad, there is still much good Google has to offer that, for me admonishes some of their poor behavior. Venture Beat writer, Chris O’Brien, shares with us a look into the future of Google search - it’s all about mobile technology. According to him, Google’s future is about building us the ultimate personal assistant (O'Brien, 2015).

Director of Google’s Search Innovation in Zurich, Behshad Behzadi, shares how Google’s voice feature will become even more natural. It will be like talking to a real person with actual back and forth conversation he says. You will be able to ask Google to scan your Facebook app and find something specific, so you don’t have to waste time scrolling up or down to find that buried post. If you are out and about and want to know what that lake or park is you just walked by, just ask Google, since it is tracking your every move, it can tell by your location what you’re looking at. Now we’re getting a bit uncomfortable/creepy for me here – Google knows what I’m looking at? Hmmm, maybe TMI??? 

Your Google Android device will truly be one with you – even answering your question before you ask. I don’t know about you, but this seems a bit too personal, what do you think? Do you like the future glimpse of Google or not?

Shopping Smarter with Google

With the holiday shopping season upon us, Google announced how they are using the ever popular, yet creepy mapping technology, to help you monitor crowd levels at your favorite stores, plus you’ll get up to date information on the best deals so you don’t miss out on anything (Pymts, 2015). As Pymnts.com explains, it’s hard to think shoppers would begrudge Google for this obvious ploy to cash in on more sales, after all, if it’s helping customers save time and money and avoid the crowds, then isn’t that worth it?

If you really must block

For those of you who are a bit leery of all this technology and, like me, would rather not have your every move tracked - there is hope. Google is actually making it easy for you to turn off features like location-tracking on your smart phones. They also show you how you can stop those annoying advertisements you get after you do search queries and web site visits – Yes, thank you Google for that one! Just check out their privacy.google.com site (Dave, 2015).

Finally, if you think Google is changing its tactics, not so fast, the “European Union officials have accused Google of abusing its search-engine dominance to favor its own comparison shopping services over those of its rivals (Dave, 2015).” Now I ask, is that ethically moral, is it really good business practice?

References

Covington & Burling LLP. (2015, November 17). Third Circuit Resurrects State Law Claims Against Google in Safari Cookie Tracking Lawsuit - See more at: http://www.natlawreview.com/article/third-circuit-resurrects-state-law-claims-against-google-safari-cookie-tracking#sthash.ndUG1maK.dpuf. Retrieved from The National Law Review: http://www.natlawreview.com/article/third-circuit-resurrects-state-law-claims-against-google-safari-cookie-tracking

Dave, P. (2015, June 1). Google unveils simpler portal for users to delete data it has about them . Retrieved from La Times: http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-google-privacy-data-20150601-story.html

Johnston, C. (2012, May 6). http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240162744/Data-ethics-Author-warns-of-ethical-pitfalls-of-data-collection. Retrieved from http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/05/googles-street-view-engineer-knew-data-collection-was-questionable/

McKenna, B. (2012, September 6). Data ethics: Author warns of ethical pitfalls of data collection. Retrieved from http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240162744/Data-ethics-Author-warns-of-ethical-pitfalls-of-data-collection

O'Brien, C. (2015, November 30). The 4 things Google believes are key to the future of search. Retrieved from Venture Beat: http://venturebeat.com/2015/11/30/the-4-things-google-believes-are-key-to-the-future-of-search/

Pymts. (2015, November 26). Google To Give Black Friday Shoppers Real-Time Store Data. Retrieved from Pymnts.com: http://www.pymnts.com/news/2015/google-to-give-black-friday-shoppers-real-time-store-data/

Smith, E. (2013, February 1). UK Privacy Lawsuit Against Google Spreads to Europe. Retrieved from IBTimes: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/google-safari-apple-privacy-legal-action-ftc-430523

WordPress Jetpack Stats or Google Analytics – what’s the difference?

WordPress is one of the most popular website content management system (CMS), ranking 2^nd in the 2016 Top Ten Reviews.com website. 

This CMS program offers hundreds of add-ons with user friendly functionality and strong community support. One of those add-ons is JetPack Stats, an analytical tool that helps you measure your website data, like how many visits your site has or which post and pages are the most viewed.

Wordpress.com describes JetPack Stats (WP Stats) as being somewhat limited, in that it only analyzes the most popular metrics; but you can also get information about referrers, search engine terms, subscriptions, and clicks, all in a very easy to understand format. WP Stats also allows you to use other analytic plugins, like Google Analytics (GA), so you can use both and get a more in-depth look into your data.

I like the way blog writer Andrew Urevig explains it, he says website analytics are like eyes that allow you to see the path (into the soul of the data) so you can effectively manage your website. Urevig does agree that using GA requires more setup time, but it is a worthwhile tradeoff to have access to more in-depth data; like being able to set up and track goals and conversions, which you cannot do with WP Stats. Urevig wraps up by explaining that WP Stats is great for a basic look at web data but suggests adding GA to obtain the additional features. I agree that using both is the best of both worlds.

For another perspective, I found an article by Chernboy on Tree Top Media’s website that believes it may be time to replace GA with WPStats. Whoa, now that is news to me. This statement definitely caught my attention.

Chernboy starts off by stating how the internet is now being bombarded with referral spam: Semalt, Seo-Best-Offer, ILoveVitaly, and so many more. He says these spam referrals makes the website traffic worthless, “especially low traffic sites”. I can attest to this being an accurate statement. This blog, for example, received a significant increase in views over the weekend from the referral site, ILoveVitaly, an obvious spam bot. IgniteVisibility.com describes this ghost referral as “creating fake page views that are posted to Google’s tracking services via random tracking IDs to wreak havoc on unsuspecting websites. The article’s author, John Lincoln, says, “I’ll admit, curiosity is powerful. We all want to see where that new link is coming from, but you’re better off not clicking on it.” Instead he suggests adding filters in your GA to try and eliminate the spam bot from being tracked, but this is quite an involved procedure and it doesn’t always work, click here to read more.

Now back to Chernboy, who says that WP Stats makes it easier to block referral spams. He explains that all you have to do is, “log into your WP Stats dashboard. Go to your site stats and the referrers section. Click the three dots next to any referrer that is an expected spammer and a little box will pop with word SPAM in it. Then just click the word SPAM.” That’s it - goodbye spammer.  Here’s another one - “floating-share-buttons.com” click here to learn how to get rid of that spam invader.

Basically, Chernboy feels GA is a good tool, but he is so annoyed with the difficulty of eliminating spam referral in GA that he recommends sticking to WP Stats until GA resolves this problem. I too am very upset. I tied my Gmail account to this blog, the same email I use to manage all my other client’s websites. You know where I’m going with this. Now those sites are being inundated with referral spam and that wasn’t the case before. Is that coincidence or did I open a door and jeopardize the integrity of the other sites? I must admit, I did click on a couple of those spam referrals off of this blog’s GA report – big mistake. Please feel free to comment and offer your suggestions/thoughts about this.

Now getting back to WP stats. I do like it more than GA, because it is easier to use and navigate. I manage nonprofit websites, so our need to track goals and conversions are limited, therefore, more in-depth reporting is not as critical. Another element I noticed, was that my views on WP Stats are higher than on GA. According to Justin Taylor, Internet Marketing Consultant, GA uses Java Script, so if a user has Java turned off, then GA cannot track that visitor. Do you know of other reasons why there would be a difference in views?

Another blogger, Patrick Rauland, writes on his blog that WP Stats is just for fun. He says he likes the “pretty graph on his dashboard” and that he can “drill pretty deep from within WordPress admin”. Rauland does say that using both is a good idea to compare analytics, to see how some aspects may work better for measuring your website’s data, but for him, WP Stats is fun, cool, and easy to use, just not his primary go to source. He cautions that if WP goes away, out of business - then you’ll lose all your data, but with Google you’ll never have to worry, you can back up your data.

For me, WordPress Stats are my go to source for a quick overview of what going on with the website. I’ll then go to GA to check how things compare and if there are any discrepancies, which may alert me that something is wrong, then I know to delve deeper to resolve any issues. 

Because Google’s tracking and options are more robust, and because it comes highly recommended by most experts in the field, I tend to hold GA in high esteem. I do worry that the spam referral bots are the tip of the iceberg for GA, due to its popularity, it is very vulnerable to more malicious exploits. It reminds me of the operating systems running on PC vs Mac. Since there were more businesses, especially government using PC’s Windows platform, there were more viruses created to attack the PC’s Operating System. I say the same is true with GA. I give a word of caution, user beware would be my motto for GA – if it ever gets really bad, well I always have my WP Stats. 

Measuring Nonprofit Website Conversions - Pt Two

If you're losing it, just hold on,
Google Analytics will make it better

In Part One of this blog we discussed three website metrics, two of which lead to conversions, which is by far the most important measurement to track.

Author Avinash Kaushik of Web Metrics 2.0 says that there is no metric more deserving of our love and attention then conversions. And it is no wonder, because if we are having conversions, that means we are achieving results.

According to the Web Metrics graduate course at West Virginia University, a conversion is the number of times a desired outcome was accomplished or as David Harstein, with Wired Impact explains, it is simply the successful completion of a website goal.

Sayf Sharif with Google Analytics, writes that there are so many things nonprofits can do to track and improve their conversions. He stresses that Analytics can be scary, but once you jump in, it actually becomes easier. He says, “Don’t panic. Don’t worry. It’s honestly not painful.”

I actually like Sharif’s comment, when is says working with Analytics is like ripping off a Band-Aid. He gives easy to follow step by step instructions on how to sign up and use Google Analytics. Check out his online article at How a Nonprofit Can Best Use Google Analytics.

During a podcast interview, Yesenia Sotelo of Smart Cause Digital, exclaimed that conversions are the only reasons for a website to exist. She explains that nonprofits can track conversions like a visitor who becomes a donor or a donor who becomes an advocate. When asked how a nonprofit can convert visitors, she said they need to keep it simple. The best way to convert a visitor, she continues, is to focus on one conversion that is an easy sale – like having an easy to fill out on line form,or  like signing up for a newsletter. The form can take a website visitor and move them in a certain direction – the first step is to guide a visitor along the process and build a relationship. Eventually, from the newsletter, they can be converted into a volunteer or donor.

Another important factor is the content. Engaging web content that can motivate a visitor and compel them to take action is a critical element of a successful website. It is also one of the hardest things to accomplish and measure. Sotelo stresses the importance of creating a catchy headline that gives the visitor a reason to engage with your website. You can listen to her full podcast interview at Nonprofit websites that convert: Q & A with Yesenia Sotelo.

Kaushik states in his book that measuring engagement is near impossible. He says we all want websites that are engaging. However, web Analytics cannot measure qualitative data, it can only measure the degree, but not the kind of engagement a visitor had on a website. In other words, it can measure how much time was spent on a page, but not if that time was spent with them getting aggravated because they couldn’t find something or if that time was spent with them enjoying what they are reading. Using conversions can help track a certain degree of engagement; like time spent on the site, or if someone was registering, subscribing to a newsletter, or making a donation.

So, when Sharif said Analytics was like ripping off a Band-Aid, he should add, that it often comes with an “Ouch”, especially when measuring engagement, but then, that is a topic for another blog.

Measuring Nonprofit Website Data - Pt One

There was a time when tracking website data for most nonprofits wasn't affordable or even feasible, mostly due to an antiquated mentality and the lack of technology and resources. There was almost a stigma of denial from the nonprofit world about using analytics.

In the book, Working Well, Working Hard, author David E. K. Hunter wrote that many nonprofit leaders in the past thought of data assessment/management as “dehumanizing practices of the corporate sector and (that it) reeks of rampant data gathering run amok”. A lot has changed over the past two decades, as the digital technology advanced so did the nonprofit mindset. Nonprofit leaders are now focusing on data driven results and are tracking their digital data, especially their websites.

On WiredImpact.com, blog writer David Hartstein recommends nonprofits use Google Analytics to track the following three basic metrics to determine their website's performance:

1. Landing Pages that Lead to Conversions 
2. Traffic Sources that Lead to Conversions 
3. Pages with the Highest Exit Rate

A landing page, as defined by a Web Metrics graduate course at West Virginia University, is the web page where a visitor begins their first user experience, it is the first page they land on. What you want to measure are the conversions of a specific landing page. Did the visitor make a donation, click on another link, or sign up to volunteer? Knowing which pages are having the most successful conversions helps you determine which pages are working and which ones need more attention.

Number two, tracking sources, where are your visits coming from - the traffic sources that brought a visitor to your website. How did someone find you? Was it a webpage referral from another website, the result of a search, or direct traffic - did the user type in your URL directly into their browser or did they click on a campaign link off of a newsletter/e-blast? Knowing where your traffic is coming from can help you put more focus on those sources that are working.

The final measurement for this discussion are exit rates on your web pages. Understanding this can be a bit confusing. In the book, Web Metrics 2.0 by Avinash Kaushik, he states that 98% of visitors to your site will leave without a conversion. Trying to understand why someone left is like guessing and a bad metric says Kaushik. In order to measure why they left you need to track the bounce rate, this is how many visitors left the site without clicking anywhere on the page or going to any other page. This differs from exit rate which could have visitors who arrived on one page but exited off another. To understand exit rates better, we’ll look at Harstein example, “Let’s say 10 visitors view a specific page of your website.  Eight of them leave your website from this page while two others go look at more pages.  The exit rate for this page is 80% (since eight of the 10 visitors left your website from this page).” Measuring which pages have higher exit and bounce rates lets you know which pages are not effective in engagement and conversions.

To learn more on how to use Google Analytics and to track metrics, read David Harstien’s full article by clicking here.