Tracking Mobile Device & Carrier

Version 10.3.18 of Yahoo! Web Analytics has added the ability to track, customize reports, and filter/segment based on device type. These options are available as dimensions for visitor, session, or tracking scope metrics, which should enable users to better understand and optimize the traffic received across the following four device types:

• Mobile
• Tablet
• TV
• Desktop

Additionally, as a Yahoo! Web Analytics user, you can now track, customize reports, and filter/segment based on specific carriers, makes, and models of devices.

Sample carriers and makes might include:

• Carrier: Verizon, Vodafone, China Mobile Hong Kong
• Make: Apple, HTC, Motorola
• Model: iPhone 3G, Droid, iPad 2

Tracking Mobile Operating System and Version

Yahoo! Web Analytics now supports tracking versions of the Android or iOS operating system.
These values have been added to the existing Operating Systems field (which already reflects desktop operating systems for Windows or Macintosh platforms.

Sample operating system and version combinations might include such examples as iOS 4.0.1, iOS 5.0, Android 3.1, and so forth.

New Mobile Reports

You no longer have to use custom fields and custom reports and try to approximate your mobile traffic. We’ve introduced some great new reports:

• Device Type > System > Device > Device Type
• Device Type > System > Device > Device Carrier
• Campaign by Device > Marketing > Campaigns > Campaign by Device

Note: The Campaign by Device report appears just below the Campaign by Type report, already on the menu.

Users can see Visits, Visitors, Page Views, & Actions by:

Device Type
—-Device Type
——–Device Make
————Device Model

Device Carrier
—-Device Carrier
——–Device Make
————Device Model

Campaign by Device
—-Campaign Vendor
——–Campaign Type
————Campaign
—————-Device Make
——————–Device Model

Yahoo! Web Analytics users can customize these new reports, adding or removing dimensions and metrics.  See below for a couple of examples.

—Device Type report—

—Device Type report—

Getting a facelift

We’ve taken on board feedback from users on our User Interface and we’ve made a couple of small changes. We want to make a cleaner workspace for our users and, while this is a work in progress, we’ve made a couple of changes in this release. We hope you like them!

Before

After

Since this change is a reality, we analysts need to deal with it and one of the first steps we can take is to calculate what percent of our Google search traffic is encrypted and thus not providing any keyword data.  This new metric can be called “Lost Keyword Data” and is something that should be tracked over time and included with your keyword reports.

To calculate this “Lost Keyword Data” in YWA we will create two custom segments that we will compare against each other.  One will show traffic generated by Google that doesn’t provide keywords and the other will show the total traffic sent by Google.

Start by creating a custom segment and adding two dimensions: 1. “Search Engines equals “Google” 2. “Search Phrases is empty.”

Then save this custom segment so that you can quickly apply it to reports across YWA:

Using the same technique we’ll create and save a segment for all Google searches:

Now I can use the “Compare Segments” functionality of YWA along with the two custom segments I created to directly compare the impact that encrypted searches has had:

Here is how these segments compare on a basic Visits report for the previous 12 week period:

Next we’ll export this table to Excel to calculate the percentages:

I have now quantified exactly how much impact this change by Google has had on my site.  In this instance I can see that the percentage of encrypted Google searches (Lost Keyword Data) has gone from a 1/2 percent to 6 percent from October to November!  This is certainly a trend I’ll be keeping an eye one and falls in line with what has been seen by other analysts on the sites they monitor.

Using the Gender Report in conjunction with these segments, Location3 Media was able to determine some interesting statistics about this particular client’s website users.

Data from 5/01/11 – 9/30/11 from Yahoo! Web Analytics with a 95% confidence level.

It was generally known that the client’s prospective customers are typically about 55% female and 45% male, so a similar distribution would be expected for their website’s online traffic. However, the statistics from Yahoo! Web Analytics demographics data showed that western states like California and Colorado leaned towards a more even distribution between male and female web visits, while mid-western states like Georgia, Illinois and Virginia swayed much more heavily towards female visits. This is especially revealing when noting that the conversions for Virginia are still very equally distributed between male and female visitors, indicating that there may be an opportunity to better tailor offerings and information to the female demographic in Virginia.

What was even more interesting is the combination of age and gender demographic data from Yahoo! Web Analytics.

Data from 5/01/11 – 9/30/11 from Yahoo! Web Analytics with a 95% confidence level. (Conditional formatting added from Microsoft Excel 2010).

With this highly segmented data, Location3 Media can now look at their client’s data from a much more holistic perspective. Not only is the gender distribution different by region, it is also different by age range. In most regions, females have a higher percentage of 25-34 age visits and 18-24 age inquiries, whereas males tend to be slightly older, with mostly 35-54 age visits and 25-34 age inquiries.

Another interesting insight gleaned from this data was that across almost all regions, visits tended to be from older age ranges than that of inquires. This can give some insights as to various web behaviors. For example, older web users on the client’s website may be more comfortable calling for more information rather than filling out a form – phone calls would not register as an online conversion with the current setup. Knowing this, Location3 Media can suggest bolder, easier to find phone numbers with phone tracking for the client’s landing pages, specifically for campaigns targeted at an older demographic. Similarly, Location3 Media can explain to the client that campaigns targeting younger demographics with landing pages that feature simple contact forms and possibly an online chat feature would be ideal.

In addition to providing the client valuable insights on their online web user behaviors, this type of knowledge is incredibly useful for fine-tuning targeting within the Yahoo! network. For search campaigns, Location3 Media can experiment with different ad copy targeting different age ranges and genders for specific regions. For Yahoo! Network Plus, Yahoo!’s display network, Location3 Media can also do some specific targeting based on the web behaviors of these demographics.

To learn more about Location3 Media’s web analytics services, please visit their website or contact sbedford@location3.com.

We also have a special prize to give away!  We’re offering a one-day eMetrics pass worth $900 for October 19th!  Members of the Yahoo! Web Analytics team will also be attending on that day, so feel free to come and meet us and ask us any questions you have about the product.

To enter our competition, just tweet us on Twitter (@YWebAnalytics) and tell us you want to win, post your interest in reply to our Facebook post.   It’s that easy!  We’ll draw a winning name at random on Saturday October 1st.

Note: You need to be in New York or able to travel there for the conference on October 19th.  Travel expenses are not included in the prize.  The pass may not be exchanged for cash.

Please see this Product Bulletin for a listing of all the UI changes to YWA made in this 10.2.1 release.

Publish Segments Specific to Network or Advertiser Entities

Previously, all segments published from Yahoo! Web Analytics to the Right Media Exchange were network-entity segments (even if the ad channel was associated with a specific advertiser entity). With version 10.2, ad channels can now be defined as specific to an advertiser level entity.

In the Right Media Exchange, segments are either associated with a network entity or an advertiser entity.

• Network entity segments can be used to target campaigns for any advertising entity and can be shared between networks using the Right Media Exchange’s audience sharing capabilities.
• Advertiser entity segments can only be targeted by campaigns for that entity (unless they are later promoted to a network entity segment).

To specify the entity of exported segments, choose Settings > Ad Channel > Ad Channel Configuration, then either add a new Right Media Exchange ad channel (if you have not yet created one) or edit an existing channel (to change it from a network to an advertiser level segment).

Redesigned Custom Report Wizard

The Custom Report Wizard has been redesigned for greater flexibility, with both aesthetic and usability enhancements. Enhancements include:

• A visible sample data grid, populated as you add dimensions or metrics.
• Metric incompatibility (notifying you if you try to create a report with incompatible metrics).
• Color coded target boxes, showing valid targets when adding dimensions or metrics to custom reports.

Progress Indicator on Reports

When generating or updating reports, a progress indicator may be displayed when appropriate.

Bulk Deletion of Downloads in Volume Export Download Center

For users who had accumulated a large number of downloads in the Volume Export Download Center, deleting each download individually was time consuming.

Users can now go to Settings > Volume Export Download Center > Download volume export reports and choose multiple downloads to delete. For each table (My Downloads, Shared Downloads, and Scheduled Mail Reports), users can now:

• Use the checkbox on the report header row to select all downloads in that table
• Select individual downloads for deletion using the checkbox at the beginning of each row

After selecting some or all downloads, click on the Delete button to remove the selected downloads.

New Report: Campaign Assists

Version 10.2 introduces the Assist Rate metric, available in both the Custom Report Wizard and the new Campaign Assists report. Each Action (whether default or user-defined) will have a corresponding Assist Rate metric. So, the Product View Action (for example) will have a corresponding Product View Assist Rate metric.

The Assist Rate metric is calculated as Assists divided by Aggregated Clicks displayed as a percentage, where Aggregated Clicks is the sum of click data imported from contributing ad systems. When Aggregated Clicks isn’t available, Clicks CCL (clicks landed) will be used instead.

The Campaign Assists report helps you understand the full “mix of campaigns” that visitors viewed or interacted with up to 45 days before performing a conversion action on your website. While other types of campaign reports credit exactly one campaign with each conversion, the Campaign Assists report reveals the series of campaign events experienced by visitors before they convert. Understanding these dependencies can help you determine the relative effectiveness of different campaigns and inform your buying decisions for future brand campaigns.

Expand Segment Targeting to Include Yahoo! Premium Display

Segments can now be published to two targets:

• Right Media Exchange – select this option to export to the Right Media Exchange.
• Yahoo! Premium Display – all segments are exported to this target by default. This option can only be modified by Yahoo! Account Management.

Read more in the Audience Definition Guide.

New Dimensions: Exit Link & Exit Link Domain

Version 10.2 introduces two new dimensions for creating segments:

• Exit Link
• Exit Link Domain

These dimensions can be used to build a custom report or to modify an existing standard report.

Please see this Product Bulletin for the complete list of changes and enhancements to the Yahoo! Web Analytics from this release.  Should you have any questions or encounter any issues please do not hesitate to leave a comment here or contact us through our Help Center.

We would like to thank all of our clients and partners for their continued support over the years.  Additionally we would like to thank all of the Yahoo! employees that have diligently worked behind the scenes on YWA.  These Yahoo’s are located throughout the world, from offices in Budapest, NYC, Boston, Hillsboro, Sunnyvale and Carlsbad.  Without their passion and dedication none of our success would be possible.  Happy Birthday to us!

We have made some changes to YWA’s reporting interface in this release, including a new way to apply Filters and Segments:

The Segmentation Wizard UI has been improved and we’ve added new segment types along with a wider variety of audience dimensions and metric parameters:

We’ve also included a audience definition segment feature that enables you to export user defined segments from YWA to the Right Media Exchange (RMX) where they can be used to target those user-defined groups.  So now you’ll find an option to link your RMX account to YWA via the Ad Channel Configuration tool:

These are just a few of the changes we have made in this release, please see our 10.1 product bulletin to review the full list.

We hope you enjoy the enhancements and new functionality that YWA 10.1 brings to the table.  Please give us you feedback in the comments or contact our support team if you encounter any issues with this release.

It happens way too often and it’s painful to watch.  Extra revenue being flushed down the toilet because online marketers aren’t taking a close enough look at what their web analytics reports are telling them.  They’ve spent the time to properly implement their tracking solutions but they aren’t spending enough time in their solution looking for insights.

For online marketers, there could be a whole slew of reasons as to why they’re not paying closer attention to their web analytics data:

• Perhaps a new rep was hired and he/she didn’t realize they had the data available
• Perhaps they have a 3rd party agency managing their data for them
• Perhaps they don’t know how to analyze the data and need a consultant
• Perhaps they’re just lazy and don’t care

While there’s always reasons why one hasn’t looked closely enough, the bottom line is that you have to pay close attention to what your data is telling you so that you can capitalize on it!  Web analytics data isn’t just a bunch of numbers on a page (though it may look like it to some).  Web analytics data provides you with insights such as: who your target audience is, where your roadblocks are, whether or not you’re turning a profit, and who you should be spending your online budget with.

With that said, I want to introduce you to a good example of an online marketer who hasn’t been paying close enough attention to their search engine referral report data.  And because of this, they’re missing out BIG TIME on driving additional revenue to their bottom line.

The data provided below for this particular marketer (in the UK) was generated during the past several months…


By looking at the data from this report, we can see that:

• Google is driving 91% of the referral traffic (combo of paid and organic search)
• Google drives a higher Avg. Order Value for each sale
• Yahoo drives a much higher Conversion Rate
• Google drives a lot more Revenue
• Yahoo drives a much higher ROAS (Return On Ad Spend)
• The marketer spends (Cost) a lot more with Google versus the other three engines

Now let’s analyze the data for insights.  Do you see the glaring question that comes from this report above (minus AOL since their search is enhanced by Google)???

Yes!  Why isn’t this marketer spending more with Yahoo to drive more referral traffic when more than half of their visitors convert, the ROAS is more than double Google’s, and the Avg Order Value is nearly the same as Google’s?

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the marketer should pull budget from away Google and use it for Yahoo (because Google’s ROAS is also very good) but they should definitely be spending a lot more with Yahoo with the kind of performance data it’s showing!  Sure spending more on Yahoo is going to drive up their costs/spend but at a 6,800% return-on-ad-spend, this marketer is missing out on a big revenue opportunity!!

Also, look how much more the marketer is spending with Bing (Cost), yet look at the return they get compared to Yahoo.  Does that make sense?  No.  However, that will soon change and become even more important as the Yahoo/Microsoft alliance moves into the UK in the near future.  Using the same data above, here’s a breakdown and summary of what a Bing/Yahoo alliance currently looks like for this marketer compared to Google….

Google: 91%
Yahoo/Bing: 3%

Search Engine Spend/Cost
Google: €164,409 ($235,606)
Yahoo/Bing: €28,037 ($40,198)

Google: €1,759 ($2,521)
Yahoo/Bing: €1,662 ($2,382)

Google: .43%
Yahoo/Bing:  .52%

Google: €5,468,506 ($7,840,167)
Yahoo/Bing: €458,009 ($656,607)

ROAS (Gain)
Google: 3,326%
Yahoo/Bing: 3,914%

Summary:

While the Yahoo/Bing alliance has not yet taken place in the UK, the client should prepare themselves to take advantage of it when it does.  Even though Google refers a lot more traffic and generates more Revenue than both Yahoo and Bing combined (partly due to their 5X higher spend in Google), a combined Yahoo/Bing drives almost the same Average Order Value, drives a higher Conversion Rate, and provides a better Return On Ad Spend.  Those three metrics alone should alert the client that they should be spending more in AdCenter to drive higher revenue when the Yahoo/Bing alliance comes along.

Web Analytics Wednesdays were founded in 2005 by  Eric Peterson of Web Analytics Demystified, and have become very popular in the digital measurement sector. They are organized by local hosts, paid for by generous sponsors, and enjoyed by over 10,000 people worldwide.

Speakers

Emer Kirrane, a manager at Yahoo!, spoke about community efforts in the Web Analytics industry, specifically the Web Analytics Association (WAA) and the Analysis Exchange.
Yahoo! is a founding member of the WAA, which supports education through a certification program and discounted university courses.  It also helps to drive standards and help the community shape the industry.
The Analysis Exchange works to provide free on-the-job experience to students of web analytics, or to those who want to get more experience in gaining insights from web measurement. This is done by providing free website analysis to not-for-profit organisations while the students are helped by experienced mentors.

Lefty Balogh, an SEO and PPC manager at Synchronica, spoke about mobile tracking, stressing that, with mobile becoming such an integral part of our lives, it is very important to investigate mobile measurement and supporting mobile visitors to websites.
Lefty also spoke about finding new ways to report findings to upper management – for example, have you ever considered presenting a video report?
Finally, he touched on the importance of training and gaining experience in the web analytics industry.

Áron Szanitter, project management lead at Allegroup, presented a case study on improving customer service through various web analytics tools and techniques.   He showed the attendees various ways of looking for answers to such questions as:
“How effective is each help page and section – how can we improve them?”
“Which pages and features generate the most visits to help pages – which of those visits end on the customer service online contact form?”

Firsts

On the same night as the Budapest WAW, Petri Mertanen hosted a similar event in Helsinki, Finland, sponsored by Sanoma , Frantic and Snoobi.

Inter-WAW Skype Link-up

Over Skype, Budapest and Helsinki linked the Web Analytics Wednesdays together for a short chat over video.

Flash Debate

The Budapest and Helskinki WAWs participated in the first ever Flash Debates, which come from an idea spawned by Peter O’Neill, founder of L3 Analytics.  The Flash Debate is a short (15-20 minute) discussion on a particular topic set by the event organiser in order to get an idea of the community’s attitude towards particular topics.  The same topic was introduced at both events and the discussion was also run on Twitter using the hashtag #flashwaw and an online vote.

The question was on whether or not Behavioural Display Advertising (when a visitor sees targeted ads based on their behaviour on 3rd-party sites) is ethical.  Attendees debated whether or not this form of targeting is “creepy” and whether is should be condemned by the WAA.

Online, the vote was 27% Yes and 73% No (to “Should it be…named as an unethical practice by WAA”)

Onsite discussions, while generally leaning in favour of the practice, brought up statements like:

• If I understand the background of where the ad comes from, then I don’t think the ad is creepy
• This kind of targeting is like targeting in a supermarket, but it is not as obvious to a shopper that they are being targeted.  More people realised when loyalty cards came along, but they still don’t dislike it as much because you are more likely to get discounts.
• In print media, you can be targeted because of past purchases when you have a subscription.  But you can always unsubscribe.  It’s not always clear how to “unsubscribe” from behavioural display advertising.
• I’m ok with direct targeting – like seeing Google ads when I’m in Gmail.  But I don’t like when I see targeted ads from behaviour on a third-party site.

Yahoo! is proud to be part of the web analytics community and play host to events bringing web analysts, online marketers and other interested parties together.