Everyone is looking to "Big Data" to provide the answers: How do we learn more about our visitors? How do we capture data? How do we report on it? How do we use it to provide a personalized experience? Big data is a big challenge, but this session will teach you to start with "small data" - the analytics and information that you probably already have access to, or could easily have access to, but that you're just not capturing or leveraging effectively. We'll discuss how to track more than just page views so that you can understand your visitors' behavior on a deeper level. You'll also learn about tracking specific visitors across sessions, providing a personalized experience, some tips for measuring and reporting on their behavior, and how to adjust your site to drive more meaningful interactions and conversions.

1. How to understand your visitors, capture data, and provide a
personalized experience
Start With Small Data

2. Partner, Technology Director
JimKellerES
jimk@easternstandard.com
http://easternstandard.com
Jim Keller

3. FIRST, SOME BACKGROUND

4. Billboard
Purchased
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5. Billboard
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7. “BIG DATA”

8. Starting Smaller
0
No Analytics or Data Collection
10
Google, Facebook, Amazon
5

9. 1. Identify
2. Assess
3. Act
Three Steps to Better Analytics and Better Content

10. IDENTIFY

11. IDENTIFY: Segmenting
Understanding your visitors as a single, large group isn’t
generally very helpful. Segment your thinking, and your
analytics, to understand users as having distinct needs
and goals.

12. Ways to Identify a visitor:
- Individually
- As members of a known group
- By behavior patterns
IDENTIFY: Segmenting

13. IDENTIFY: Identifying Visitors as Individuals
In some cases, it’s valuable and practical to
identify users as specific individuals. This way,
you can provide very specific content and
targeted followup.

14. IDENTIFY: By User Account / Sign-in

16. IDENTIFY: Map to an existing CRM or Email List

17. IDENTIFY: Just Ask

18. It’s not always practical or worthwhile to identify visitors as individuals.
However, sometimes you can preemptively identify visitors as
members of a group
IDENTIFY: Members of a Known Group

19. - By tracking audience navigation (“I am a…” links)
It’s not always practical or worthwhile to identify visitors as individuals.
However, sometimes you can preemptively identify visitors as members
of a group
- By tracking clicks from targeted emails or other campaigns.
- By looking at Location or Device Type
IDENTIFY: Members of a Known Group

20. Even if you don’t know who someone
is or which group they belong to, you
can gain vital insights about them
from their behavior patterns.
In other words, which pages people
visit and what they do on the site tells
us about the type of visitor they are.
IDENTIFY: Behavior Patterns

21. IDENTIFY: Car Buyer

22. IDENTIFY: Prospective Student

23. The goal of your website is to provide
the right content to the right person at
the right time

24. ASSESS

25. Google Analytics and other platforms offer the ability to make
your data your own, and really help you understand what’s
happening.
A few topics of note:
- Content groups
- Custom dimensions
- Event Tracking
- Goals
ASSESS: Beyond Basic Metrics
Too much time and energy is spent focusing on overall metrics like total
page views and sessions, and not enough time on specific, actionable
data.

26. Content groups allow you to view your analytics by related types of
content; for example, men’s clothing vs. women’s clothing, blog content
vs. services content, or STEM content vs. Liberal Arts content
Grouping content lets you compare one to another, so that you can
identify whether one group is outperforming the other, or hitting goals
more frequently.
Image from: http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2359561/10-point-google-analytics-implementation-checkup
ASSESS: Content Groups

27. Custom dimensions let you provide additional data to your analytics package.
In other words, you can filter your reports by a new “dimension” that is relevant to
your visitors.
If you’ve ever found yourself saying, “I wish I could filter this report by [x]”, a
custom dimension is probably what you needed.
ASSESS: Custom Dimensions

28. Custom events let you keep track of events other than pageviews
- How many times a button was clicked
- How many times an accordion was expanded
- How many times an external link was visited.
ASSESS: Custom Events

30. Image from: http://blog.littledata.co.uk/2015/04/setting-up-a-destination-goal-funnel/
ASSESS: Goals

31. Goal tracking can be as simple or as
complex as you need it to be. Start by
identifying a simple metric that you can look
at for improvement:
• “I’d like to get more people to send
requests through the contact form”
• “I’d like to have more people purchase X
product”
• “I’d like more people to complete the
application form”
ASSESS: Goals

32. ACT

34. Once you understand a bit more about your visitors, you can begin to
tailor the experience for your visitor.
Just a few ways this can be accomplished:
• Information-gathering Popups
• Email Drip Campaigns
• Content Personalization
ACT: What to do with your data

36. I know what you’re thinking: “but I hate those things.”
The data is there – popups increase email signups, as long as they’re
done right.
Here’s some evidence:
http://blog.crazyegg.com/2014/08/18/opt-pop-ups/
http://optinmonster.com/email-pop-up-implementation/
http://unbounce.com/email-marketing/get-subscribers-from-pop-ups/
http://conversionxl.com/popup-defense/?hvid=2EcGFw
ACT: Popups

37. Popups can be done right:
1. Timing is everything. Wait up to 60 seconds to display the popup,
and in some cases, you may want to forego the popup for first time
visitors.
2. Make sure the popup is relevant to your visitor. Don’t offer the same
thing to everyone.
3. Make them easy to close, and don’t show them twice.
ACT: Popups

38. ACT: Email Drip Campaigns

39. Delivering a relevant, personalized experience.
We can change our content in realtime based on the data we’ve collected
about our visitor and his or her behavior.
ACT: Personalized Content

40. ACT: Personalized Content

41. ACT: Personalized Content

42. ACT: Personalized Content

43. ACT: Personalized Content

44. Decision Points for Personalization
• Location
• Device
• Search Keywords
• Visitor Frequency
• Date and time of Day
• Referring URL
• Customer History
• Sessions Behavior
ACT: Personalized Content

45. Good Reading:
http://conversionxl.com/how-to-use-personalized-content-and-behavioral-
targeting-for-improved-conversions/
https://econsultancy.com/blog/10194-the-roi-of-personalisation-infographic
http://blog.crazyegg.com/2014/11/06/boost-conversions-personalization/
ACT: Personalized Content

46. Start small. Work your way up.
Focus on easily identifiable goals, and work backwards from them.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you have to be able to do everything
before you can do anything.
FINAL THOUGHTS

47. THANKS
Thank You