I’ve spent over two years developing a social media measurement platform. One of the most important things I’ve learned during that time is that what counts as good and valuable measurement is unique to almost every client. While there are some commonalities between companies in similar industry verticals, my experience suggests strongly that there simply is no “cookbook” for social media measurement that applies universally. [caption id="attachment_37296" align="alignright" width="302"] Image via Shutterstock[/caption] What this means is that you can’t simply watch what the [...]

Related Topics: Analytics | Analytics & Marketing Column | Channel: Analytics | Social Media Marketing

Wouldn't it be great to get weekly website performance updates as a simple, easy-to-read graphic? Now you can go beyond the Google Analytics dashboard with a new creative  - and free - tool by Visual.ly. The New Google Analytics Report tool automatically delivers an infographic depicting your favorite metrics right to your desktop. Below is a sample of a full infographic that is generated. To be clear, this report isn't meant to replace regular analytics dashboards, nor does it report beyond page views, visitors, time on site, organic traffic and social traffic. You also may be tra [...]

Related Topics: Analytics | Channel: Analytics | Google: Analytics | Infographics | Top News

Google's Universal Analytics product is now available to all. Universal Analytics launched last October as a beta product that was primarily intended for enterprise-level GA users. It offers APIs that make it possible to integrate offline data into Google Analytics to combing online/offline tracking. Google's blog post offers some specifics on how to add Universal Analytics to your account. It involves getting a new analytics.js code snippet and setting up a new property in the account. (Google says a migration guide for those using ga.js is on the way.) This developer guide looks like a [...]

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One of my favorite features of Quantcast is the ability to compare metrics like traffic for two different sites against each other. Make that "was" one of my favorite features. It disappeared earlier this week, but the company says it'll make a comeback. Quantcast launched the feature in December 2006. One thing I loved about it versus other comparison tools out there was that if two sites "Quantified," used Quantcast's tracking code on their sites, you were getting about as direct comparison as possible. There was no wondering if the figures were perhaps off for one site versus the other, [...]

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"I Before E, Except After C" -- do you remember that from 4th grade spelling? Well, it works just as well when you're concentrating on your metrics and optimization program. What do the letters mean for metrics optimization? I is for Insight -- learnings you derive from your continuous optimization efforts E is for Earnings -- which is presumably why you're going through the optimization process C is for Conversion -- which is how you're measuring the efficacy of your past I on your current E Metrics Optimization Think about it this way: every time you perform a test -- he [...]

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Today, Pinterest launched Web Analytics, a slick new tool that allows marketers to see information about how their information is being pinned/shared. So, just how can you get your hands on this new Pinterest data? It's actually quite easy. Step 1 -Make Sure You Are Connected First things first, you much actually tie your website to an account! This can quickly be done with either a business account or by listing a website on your profile. If you've already secured the new look, hop on to step 3. Step 2 - Switch To The New Look In order to access analytics, you'll need the new-look Pint [...]

Related Topics: Analytics | Channel: Analytics | Pinterest | Pinterest: Analytics | Social Media Marketing | Top News

Last night, Pinterest announced that it was introducing Web analytics -- dare we call them "Pinalytics"? This may well be a first step toward a larger monetization strategy. Regardless, it makes the site more marketer-friendly and provides insights into activity and interaction with boards and images on the site. The newly available metrics include impressions, volume (activity/people), recent pins and most-repinnned images. Marketers and brands can also see what pins drove the most visits to their sites. Pinterest Web analytics are available to anyone with a verified account. Once ver [...]

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Apple's iOS 6.1.2 -- to correct a bug that reduced battery life and increased network activity for some users -- made its way into the hands of consumers on February 19th, 2013. Adoption of iOS 6.1.2 took off, and within a week, it was the most used version of iOS. According to a recent report by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, Apple's iOS claimed the majority of smartphone OS sales in the U.S. in Q4 2012, standing at 51.2%. Given the popularity of the iPhone and iOS in North America, Chitika Insights conducted a research study analyzing iOS version click through rate (CTR) to help quantify the [...]

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Pinterest will announce an analytics product for its business users as early as Tuesday, according to Reuters. Details are sketchy, but Reuters suggests that Pinterest's analytics tool will: "show businesses the number of visitors it delivers to their websites" "provide information about user activity on Pinterest as it relates to a particular company, such as the frequency with which people are clicking on a company's online photos" It sounds fairly basic from that description, but you could certainly argue that any type of official analytics is better than nothing. Reuters say [...]

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A new system for user access control is coming to Google Analytics in the next few weeks. Google announced two primary changes that offer more specific controls over how different users can interact with Google Analytics accounts. For starters, access permissions will be able to be set at the property level, not just at the account and profile levels. Second, access roles are expanding beyond the current administrator and viewer options to allow any user a combination of view, edit and manage users access. It's more powerful, and that also means it can be more complicated knowing w [...]

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Most Facebook Page Owners should be seeing substantial increases in the reported reach of their posts after Facebook announced and fixed a bug that affected its reach and impressions data in Page Insights. The folks at EdgeRank Checker studied about 1,000 Pages, comparing reach on posts that were published on two days: February 18th (before the bug announcement) and February 25th (after the announcement, and when Facebook told Page owners to start looking for improved data). The results are significant: the studied Pages saw a median Total Reach gain of 31 percent per fan, Organic Reach [...]

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Mo Analytics, Mo Problems -- other than a terrible use of the great Notorious B.I.G. song, this phrase accurately reflects how marketers feel about their analytics. If marketers aren’t versed in the finer details of the different metrics, they can easily draw the wrong conclusions with their on-page optimization and reporting. 1. Thinking Greater Time On Page Equates To A More Engaged Customer Average time on a page is a core metric to assess your page performance in many analytics platforms. However, marketers often incorrectly assume that it’s a good measure for customer engagement [...]

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[caption id="attachment_34163" align="alignright" width="175"] Image courtesy of DepositPhotos[/caption] Remember that time long, long ago (in a land far away) when the term “web analytics” hadn’t even been coined? Fast-forward to 2013: web analytics data is the tip of the iceberg, “big data” is readily available, and many new tools on the market do the work of collecting data, storing it, manipulating it and reporting on it. No doubt about it, Data-Land is a much sweeter place than No-Data-Land, and as marketers, we’re lucky to have arrived here. Data provides insights that [...]

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Facebook is notifying Page owners that a bug in its analytics system has affected both the reach and impressions data that's been showing in Page Insights -- and it impacts both paid and organic numbers. Logged-in Page owners should see an alert at the top of their Page the next time they visit, which points to this explanation of the problem. The company says the bug impacts data related to Paid Reach, Organic Reach, Paid Impressions and Organic Impressions - along with other data points that rely on those numbers, such as Virality and Engagement Rate. Facebook emphasizes -- particularl [...]

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Today, Google Analytics started offering a new Admin section called "Change History." It is a very simple table which shows changes made to your Google Analytics account settings in the last 180 days. This was a much needed feature as up till now, we had to trust people to document all changes, a boring task which is difficult to manage. Which Types Of Changes Are Saved This is a significant improvement to Google Analytics Administrators, but it is important to understand which changes are saved and which are not. The changes saved are those made through the interface: changes to accounts, p [...]

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Curalate has expanded beyond its Pinterest-based roots to offer Instagram-based analytics and marketing tools. In doing so, Curalate says it's the first company to combine data from both Instagram and Pinterest in a single dashboard. In a news release, Curalate says that 70 percent of social media conversations are using images, making it more important for brands and marketers to understand that images increase engagement. Among other things, the company's Instagram analytics lets users track brand images shared by Instagram users (and reply if they wish) see overall counts of fol [...]

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If 2012 was considered the year of mobile, we may as well go ahead and declare 2013 the year of the tablet. A new study from research firm Canalys shows that one in every three PCs shipped globally was a tablet, with 114.6 million units moving during 2012. Sales were split almost evenly between Apple’s iPad (49%) and Android tablets (46%). The current state of the tablet market is starkly different from a year ago. In 2011, the iPad was still the undisputed king of the tablet market, claiming 67% of worldwide tablet sales, according to Gartner. iPad Market Share The year-over-year decl [...]

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This afternoon comScore released data on December US smartphone market share. The story is the same as in previous months. Android and iOS are up and almost all others are down. Apple and Samsung gained share, while others besides LG lost share. LG produced the wildly popular, perpetually sold out Nexus 4 handset. Apple was the single top smartphone OEM, while Android was the top platform with 53.4 percent of the market. Increasingly, however, Samsung is the hardware maker synonymous with Android, although Samsung rarely promotes the "Android brand." It markets Galaxy rather than And [...]

Related Topics: Apple: iOS | Apple: iPhone | Channel: Analytics | Google: Analytics | Google: Mobile | Statistics: Market Share | Statistics: Mobile Marketing

Mobile app developers have a new tool to quickly see how users have rated their apps -- and their competitors' -- on both the iOS and Android platforms. Oh, and it's free, too. It's called Applause, and it's a new tool just announced by uTest, the same company that previously created Mobile AppGrader. Applause has analyzed more than 50 million app reviews from the Apple App Store and Google Play. The tool does sentiment analysis on those reviews to measure user satisfaction, and ultimately comes up with an "Applause Score" between 0-100. There's a minimum review threshold that needs t [...]

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As more budget flows toward content marketing (12% of budgets on average according to a 2012 study by Ad Age), inevitable questions have arisen about its value and how to measure impact. The good news is that plenty of data and metrics exist. The bad news is that marketers are already awash in data and often suffer from too much noise, not enough signal. Careful planning can help ensure that measurement is meaningful and provides insights for decision making. Here are three things to consider as you create a measurement plan for your content marketing initiatives: 1. Where Are You Meas [...]

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