Click Here For Customized Data Google Analytics Automated Dashboard and Case Studies MW /20/2013 Brian Alpert Web Analytics and SEM Analyst Office of the CIO Smithsonian Institution Effie Kapsalis Head of Web & New Media Smithsonian Archives Smithsonian Institution

2 Topics Web Analytics Process GA Data Grabber Data Grabber Dashboard Case Studies Dashboard copying for attendees

Web analytics step-by-step process  Articulate your program’s goals  Decide strategies to achieve those goals  Decide tactics to pursue the strategies  Decide what and how to measure  Benchmark to get a sense of what’s normal 3

4 GA Data Grabber (GADG)  Extracts data from the Google Analytics API  Easy-to-use and customize  Exceptional charting capabilities  Commercial product  14 days free  $300 per year  Limited documentation and support  Excel for Windows 2003/2007/2010/2011  There are other GA automation tools  GADG was chosen for its ease of use and charting  s?category=Reporting%20Tools s?category=Reporting%20Tools

5 Data Grabber Dashboard  ‘Engagement’ metrics  Visit Frequency  Visit Length  Visit Depth  New vs. Returning Visits  Bounce Rate  Conversion Rate  Search Engines  A foundation to make data actionable  “Key Trends and Insights”  “Impact on Site/Museum”  “Steps Being Taken” The easily updated, trended data makes the dashboard a powerful tool.

6 Case Studies

Smithsonian Archives Smithsonian-History Goal  One of SIA’s goals: “become the definitive source on the Smithsonian’s history”  History content was segmented  Compared visit-depth for ALL web visitors to HISTORY visitors  Data for high-visit-depth segment was remarkable  Percentage of HISTORY visits was 94% higher than ALL visits  1.21% average for ALL visits  2.35% average for HISTORY visits History-content visits All visits

Smithsonian Archives Women’s History Month Campaign  Month-long, image-focused, crowdsourcing/outreach campaign  Pinterest, Facebook, Tumblr  Goal: attract / engage audiences with “women in science” collections  Compared all visits vs. “WHM social” visits for moderate / high visit frequency segments  Social media website visits are "streaky" – they reflect daily activity  WHM segment exhibited higher percentages of moderate (2-9) and high (10+) visit frequency  Peaks as much as 2-4X higher  Referral traffic from the targeted social media sites increased by 52% WHM ‘social’ visits All visits WHM ‘social’ visits All visits

9 Archives of American Art / Wikipedia Collaboration  AAA wanted to make their content more accessible to younger students  They worked with Wikipedia to expand their offerings  We compared segments of Wikipedia visitors to other visitors  Wiki-referred visitors were increasingly less likely to (need to) visit the AAA site many times  This contrasts with the stable trend of all visits All visits, high frequency Wikipedia visits, high frequency

10 Archives of American Art Wikipedia Case Study  Wikipedia-referred visitors were less likely to ask Smithsonian staff for help via “contact us”  Reduces the burden on Smithsonian staffers  The same datapoint for two other segments is shown  Returning visitors  Visitors from search engines Returning visitors Wikipedia visitors Visitors from search engines

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Is the trend statistically significant? Control Limits Definition Avinash’s blog post ‘Instant Cognition’ (Clint Ivy) blog post‘Instant Cognition’ (Clint Ivy) blog post Four of thirteen datapoints are outside of the upper and lower control limit ranges, 30% of the data. Is that enough to say yes, that’s a statistically significant trend? The answer is subjective, but arguably so.

All Visits data tells a nice story Minimal loyalty group (purple) downward trend indicates improving content engagement High loyalty group (blue) upward trend indicates same This Impact of this Data on the Site or Program This good-looking chart may indicate high content engagement and/or perceived value This data may correlate to increasing conversion behaviors Acting on this Data Identify moderate and high loyalty pages as a means of duplicating, or improving others Examining conversion behaviors of these segments may yield add'l insights Correlating high bounce rate pages to one-time visits may yield add'l insights Test different content types in an attempt to move 'minimal' visitors into 'moderate' group Key Trends and Insights

15 This Impact of this Data on the Site or Program Organic search listings are driving poorly-targeted traffic Will result in decreased organic search performance over time Acting on this Data Refocus title tags, meta-description tags and page content for important pages Perform link analysis to see where other SEO improvements can be made Minimal frequency group upward trend indicates organic listings are not appropriately targeted Moderate frequency group downward trend indicates same High frequency group trending slightly downward, in contrast to previous chart’s upward slope Key Trends and Insights …But applying segmentation tells a different story