Webtrends 10 & Bit.ly Integration

As I continue to explore the new features of Webtrends Analytics 10 I'm continually impressed with all the news features and interface. One of my favorite new features is the automatic integration with bit.ly (http://bit.ly).

For those unfamiliar with bit.ly, it is a URL shortener. You simply enter a long and complicated URL and it generates a shorter version (approx. 20 characters). The use of bit.ly and other URL shorteners is exploding because of Social Media. The need to conserve characters for Twitter's 140 character and the desire to hide all the tracking paramenters have contributed to its grow.

While each URL shorter provides it's own basic analytic data (how many people clicked on the shorten URL, where in the world the click happened, etc.) you had to check multiple sources and then how did you correlate this to your site's web analytic data?

Webtrends to the rescue. Webtrends now automatically tracks and reports on all bit.ly links that drive traffic to your site. There is nothing to do for any new profiles. For existing profiles you need to enable an additional report (Pages Dashboard). To retrieve the page's detailed data you simply click on the page's name (Title) in the pages report.

With the page's detailed data report open, you can see how many people clicked on a bit.ly shorten link to come to the page during the reporting period (in this example 85). Additionally Webtrends 10 reports on other important social media including "how many Likes" on facebook (16 in this example) and how many shares (8) the page generated.

A quick summary is also provided of referring traffic sources for the specified page.

And a summary of next pages is also included which if configured correctly will show clicks to external sites.

All in all this detailed page report, brings together all the data you to evaluate an individual page's success or failure.

What would be nice as a future enhancement by Webtrends is the inclusion of other URL shortners, primarily ow.ly and goo.gl into this report as well.

The tracking of bit.ly and other social media activity make this Webtrends update worth it all by themselves.

Webtrends Analtyics & Facebook

Last week I talked about creating a new website space in Webtrends Analytics 10. During the creation process I pointed out that you have the option to create Facebook space.

This option is so ease, it's scary. Once you select Facebook Page option, you'll be asked to login into Facebook. After a successful login, you'll be presented with a list of Facebook Pages where you have administrator access. Select the one you want and Webtrends will do the rest.

You now have access to all your Facebook Insights data in a much more user friendly presentation. As an added bonus, you can now grant other Webtrends users access to this data. Normally your require administrator rights to the Facebook page as requirement to see the Insights data.

Because Webtrends uses the Facebook API, data tends to lag 2 days behind the current date. I've seen it lag more than a 2.5 days behind, but that's not Webtrends fault.

If you have the Facebook Analytics module from Webtrends, you can capture additional data but for most part for small to medium sized business simply having this data all in one spot may be all they need.

Webtrends Analytics 10

Last week Webtrends released its much anticipated Webtrends Analytics 10. Webtrends 10 is an extension for Webtrends Ondemand 9.2 and will eventually replace Webtrends Insight. The roll out of Webtrends is well underway and I received access to it on Monday May 16.

I've been playing with ever since mostly with existing Profiles and yesterday I got to sit in on a training Webinar. For those who are familiar with Webtrends, get ready for lots of new stuff and new ways to access your data.

I'm going to be doing a series of blog posts on various features as I discover and learn how to use them to optimize the data extraction and available information.

I have discovered a few bugs with it, and a maintenance release is scheduled for tonight. So I'll avoid posting any issues until it's in place and I've had a chance to verify that the issues have been cleared up.

Tracking Phone Calls in WebTrends

About 8 weeks ago I was contacted by Mongoose Metrics.

The purpose of this contact was two fold. First they wanted to demonstrate their product. Mongoose Metrics is an web/marketing analytics tool for tracking and attributing on-line phone calls back to the referring on-line marketing campaign.

The product works simply: by adding some java script to you page and a bit tagging. The result is that everyone who comes to your site sees a different toll-free number. This number is recorded in a cookie along with information about the referrer. If they came directly to your site, the visitor sees the default number.

The cool thing happens when a web site visitor decides to call because they need more information or to place the order over the telephone. The software then very cleanly capatures all the referrer information and displays it to you in a easy to read report format. With a bit of advance set-up you can even break it down by different marketing programs.

Now the exciting part and the second reason Mongoose contacted me. They wanted to see if it was possible to integrate their data automatically into WebTrends. After a bit of trial and error, I developed the framework for the integration and Mongoose quickly developed the code on their end to make it possible.

So what does it mean to the average WebTrends web analytics team. With a bit of effort and creation of some WebTrends Custom Reports, you can now know which campaigns (and any variable within your campaigns translation file) drove people to call in. This conversion point is no longer a mystery.

During our tests we were able to successfully monitor calls generated by a Twitter post (tweat), a link in a Facebook status, traffic from organic and paid search including which keyword phrases generated the calls.

The method was successfully tested with both WebTrends OnDemand and an locally installed version of WebTrends (must be using the SDC feature). Beyond passing a conversion point, the configuration also allows for you to set a dollar value to be assigned to each call. While this value is fix in your configuration right now, plans are being made to develop a way to make the value of call arbitrary and in control of the person who took the call. This feature is still under development and no time line has been provided. However, even with assigning an average call value, better quality ROI calculations can be made to better optimize your campaigns.

Below are some sample reports from WebTrends

Paths to and from the call

Orders By Campaign ID (in this case the order is a phone call)

We are still conducting tests, but I expect this feature to be available to the general public before the end of year. If you'd like more information please let me know and I'll be glad to make the appropriate introductions.

WebTrends Release New Tag Builder

WebTrends announced today the release of a second generation tag builder. The tag builder is used for generating customized SDC (Smart Data Collector) java scripts to be added to web pages for java script based web analytics for both WebTrends OnDemand and installed version of WebTrends.

Details of the changes can be found at http://blog.webtrends.com/2009/02/24/new-verison-of-tag-builder-available/

Of note, you no longer have to tag Google Adword ads as paid search as WebTrends can now use the Google generated campaign ID assume you've enable "Autotagging" enabled for your Google Adwords campaign.

I'll be testing the new tag builder within the next few days and will post any problems if I find them.

WebTrends Update

WebTrends has released an update for those of us who have the software version. This update includes an update of the latest search engine list including Twitter and an update of the browser list.

It is simple to download and fast to upgrade.

To download or for more information go to:

http://www.webtrends.com/support/browser-and-keywords-updater.aspx

Tracking Clicks on Off-site Links - Made Easy with WebTrends SDC

One of the biggest questions many of us in web analytics have faced over the years was tracking visitors ow who click on which links that take users to 3rd party websites (external links). This is critical if you run banner ads, sell links, have partner sites etc.

Over the years a number of solutions have been developed. Some of these worked reasonably well and have included using third part tracking tools or creating redirection page or script. In any option it always required a middle layer that user would be directed to first and then redirect them to the external site. This solution, while it work, created a point of failure and potentially a bad user experience.

With the introduction java script tracking web analytics (WebTrends SDC, Google Analytics, Omiture etc.) it became possible tag the HTML code (specifically the "a href" tag) with an on-click or on-mouse down function that execute the tracking java script file and pass a series of variables to the data collection server. While this method works, it requires additional web site programming which generally required IT resources and testing.

WebTrends has come up with a way with their new SDC java script (relased earlier this year) to simplify this whole process. When building your SDC java script using the WebTrends Tag Builder simply select "Off-Site Links" as an option under the "Event Tracking" tab and generate your SDC script.

Once the script is uploaded, all works perfectly and clicks to off-site sites will appear in the top pages report with the title extension of "Offsite:URL".

At last something made simple. And please remember, if you need help with your WebTrends configuration please feel free to contact my company as that is one of our specialty.

Self Referrer

Just got asked an interesting web analytics question. The client was reviewing the "Referring Domain" report in WebTrends and noticed a lot of direct traffic and that the site itself is listed as a referrer. They wanted to know why.

This is a question that I'm frequently asked by users of various web analytic products, and so I thought I'd post my response for others.


Direct traffic (as reported by WebTrends) comes from the following sources

1. People entering the web site URL directly
2. People having added the web site directly to their bookmarks and then clicking on the bookmarked site
3. People clicking on a link in an email
4. Other possible sources for links that are not part of a web site
5. People who choose to hide the referring web site information (a setting now available in some browsers)

In the report where the website is listed as its own referrer is a bit harder to explain, but here is my explanation:

Every page has a referrer, so when someone browses from one page to another page within the site, the site is in itself a referrer.

Normally, these should not appear in a referrer report (many analytics products strip this data out), but WebTrends does show this data under certain circumstances. What a site self referring traffic generally means is that someone was on the site who's visit session had time out (stayed on a page more than 30 minutes) and then clicked on a new page. So that a new visits was initiated and the visits referrer is now the site itself. There are a couple of other possible causes of this, but this is the easiest one to explain and understand.

Google Chrome Reporting in WebTrends

In case you missed the big news a couple of weeks back Google released its browser called "Chrome". New browsers are nothing new, but because its from Google the speed at which users are trying it is higher than if it came from some unknown company. Now if you're using WebTrends On-Demand or Google Analytics, you don't have to worry about it showing up in your web analytics report of user clients.

However, if you are using a locally installed web analytics product (like WebTrends) then you need to tweak your software to start reporting on it. For WebTrends users, I've found some great instructions on just how to do this from WebTrends. These instructions can be found at: http://www.webtrendsoutsider.com/2008/adding-the-chrome-browser-to-your-reports/
For other web analytic products check with your manufacture and please post links to any guides as comments to this post.

WebTrends 8.5 Upgrade Success

Following the issues in my previous post, the upgrade completed successfully.

The only minor complaint were the status screens. While there has been a major improvement in terms of providing accurate time estimates, one has to remember that these are estimates and not to put too much faith in them. At least this time round, WebTrends provides a screen per module so can monitor the progress.

One one of the first screens the count got down to 5 minutes remaining and after about 3 minutes it jumped back up to 6 minutes which was about right. On the last of these screens it sat at 14 seconds for what seemed like a eternity. Fortunately it was about 6.5 minutes.

The whole upgrade on my test server (4 profiles) took approximately 45 minutes once I shut down the WebTrends Scheduler (see previous post).

I did run into one minor problem after the install. When I tried to run a profile update the update failed. I also tried to run a new profile and it also failed. After some investigation, it turned out that despite entering a new license key during the install (as early posted), WebTrends didn't retain the new 8.5 key, but instead retained the original 8.1 key. A quick delete of the old key and I activated the new key and all is good. WebTrends is now up and running and generating report data. (this issue has been reported to the WebTrends technical support team)

I'll now be putting WebTrends through its paces and should be able to report back on the quality and stability of the new GeoTrends module in a day or so.

WebTrends 8.5 Upgrade Issue

Still in the process of upgrading and ran into another minor issue.

In this instance, the upgrade had problems stopping the WebTrends Scheduler service. After 40 minutes I called tech support to report the problem. Here is the solution in case you run into the same problem.

Step
1. Open your Task Manager
2. Click on the Process Tab and sort the list by Image Name
3. Stop the process WTxd.exd

Once this is done, the upgrade proceeded as expected. Word of caution you should wait at least 10 minutes before performing the above steps.

According WebTrends technical support a way to avoid this problem in the future is to stop all the WebTrends services manually before the upgrade with the exception of the MySQL service. The Upgrade need to talk to this database during the upgrade.

One of the major changes in this version is a new backend database. Say good-bye to MySQL and say hello to MS Express (MS SQL Express). So a major part of this upgrade is converting the old data base over. So be sure to make a full and proper back-up of everything before starting the upgrade.

WebTrends 8.5 Upgrade GeoTrends & Other Issues

I'm in the midst of upgrading my WebTrends test server from verison 8.1a to 8.5 and came across two issues. So I thought I would post these on the fly just in case anyone is planning on installing the upgrade today.

1. License Key - version 8.5 would not accept my current 8.1 license key. The reason for this is unclear as I was the first person to call into WebTrends tech support on any 8.5 issues. The problem may have just been with my key (I have a unique key for test and evaluation purposes only) or an issue with 8.5. The matter was quickly resolved by the phone call when a new 8.5 license key was issued.

2. GeoTrends - On the install screen where you point WebTrends to where your GeoTrends dat file is located, there is a warning message telling you that you must uses Geotrends version 8.200801 or later (presently this is the most current version).

I hadn't download this file before so off I went to download it. By going straight to it through the WebTrends FTP interface (FTP.webtrends.com/geotrends) it was going to take over 3 hours to download as it is over 800 megs and the site throttles download speeds (max I was getting was 76 kb/second). However on the install screen, they provide a download now button. It took just over 30 minutes for downloading from this alternative site. So if you have the time go the usual road and download it overnight, otherwise plan on 30 -45 minutes to download the dat file as part of your upgrade process.

I thought the downloading the latest dat file was a bit funny as WebTrends has been upgrading my GeoTrends database (at least according to my log files), but according to tech support, the newer GeoTrends is structured differently and version 8.5 takes advantage of this new structure.

That's it for now. The upgrade is in the process of shutting down all the WebTrends services. It's been trying to shut down the scheduler now for at least 5 minutes, but that seems normal given past experiences with WebTrends.

WebTrends 8.5

WebTrends 8.5 was just released today (June 30th).

I'm in the process of downloading it and will report back my findings and recommendations about upgrading shortly.

Here's hoping issues with Geotrends have been resolved and that the new database for the backend is more stable and flexible than the previous MySQL.

If you're feeling adventurous you can download and try it for yourself at
ftp://ftp.webtrends.com/WRC/85/

Here are some of the new features as reported by WebTrends:
Analytics Reports and report Administration
New calculated measures provide support for user-configured formulas. Configure calculated measures in custom reports during configuration, or create them at report time to provide new insights in real time. Report users can rearrange existing columns or add new ones on the fly.

Analytics Reports
New Web 2.0-focused reports provide enhanced out-of-the-box tracking for Rich Internet Applications (RIA), RSS feeds, streaming media, and customer-generated media.

WebTrends Administration and WebTrends Accounts
New user roles provide consistent, streamlined user rights assignments and custom groupings when creating or modifying users in WebTrends On Demand or Software. Use preconfigured roles included with your implementation, or create roles fine-tuned to your organizational needs in WebTrends Administration.
WebTrends Analytics On Demand administrators now assign user roles, not rights, in WebTrends On Demand Accounts.

Other points to note:
The user interface no longer requires Java
Analytics Reports - Analytics Reports Calendar now defaults to monthly rather than daily.

Stay tuned for my review. I should be finished putting through its paces by the end of the week.

WebTrends 8.1a - Reissued

During a routine call to WebTrends technical support a couple of weeks ago, I was asked an interesting questions by them. The question was "Which download of WebTrends 8.1a was I using?".

This question took me a second to digest. I dug a little deeper to only discover that some time in the middle of January of this year, they posted a revised version of WebTrends 8.1 on their FTP site. This posting had no fanfare and no announcement. I guess they just assumed that anyone installing 8.1a would simply download the newer version automatically. They didn't think about people like myself and my firm to help companies install their product. We keep the latest version of WebTrends on our USB keys so our clients don't have to download them.

Not being told there was a revision is a little disheartening.

However that being said, I've personally did one complete install of WebTrends 8.1a from stratch and was by far the smoothest install of 8.1a I had to date. In fact, there were any problems what so ever. Of course, this client had a properly sized server with ample RAM and hard drive space.

I just completed a reinstall of 8.1a on my company's test WebTrends sever and all went smooth. We're going to be doing a bit more testing, but it is starting to look like the upgrade to WebTrends 8.1 might finally be good enough to recommended it clients. Let me test it a bit further before you take that big jump.

However, if you're planning on simply installing it from scratch on a new server without porting all your existing data, I'm very happy to now recommended it. As always, read the installation guide first and make sure you have a minimum of 3 gigs of RAM or 4 gigs of RAM per processor if you're planning on using the WebTrends GeoTrends module.

As always, if you can afford it, I recommend having a firm like my company (K'nechtology) or WebTrends itself come out and help you install and configure the product plus get your WebTrends Administrators some training. WebTrends is not a simple product to manage and a lot more difficult to install correctly than an out of the box product like MS Office or Adobe Photoshop.

WebTrends 8.1a - Issues and Solutions

An interesting thing occurred today, I received a call from one of WebTrends senior technical support staff. Turns out he was reading my blog posts about all recent issues with version 8.1. This is also one of the reason I like WebTrends. This was not a call to calm me down, but a proactive call and investigation into the cause of my problems and if I managed to get them resolved. I've always said that WebTrends has some of the best Techincal Support staff in the software business (both knowledgeable and high quality service)

We chatted for about 15 minutes and discussed issues and the reasons why. Here are a couple of things that came out of it.

1. My problem about the status message not updating for over 30 minutes is noted and should be addressed in a future release;
2. The reason why it takes so long upgrade compared to any previous version - turns out that WebTrends makes a temporary backup of the existing database, then deletes everything before performing a complete new install afterwards it restores the data.

This is a high risk move which is why WebTrends stresses the need to properly back up your WebTrends before any upgrade. I'll be posting a guide to the upgrade that I've developed based on some other conversations with tech support to ensure it goes smoothly.

3. Spent 3 days working with version 8.1a - while it is taking a while to get use to the new interface and there are still some technical issues, there are some new features that do make the upgrade worthwhile. Just make sure you plan for the upgrade properly (leave lots of time).

Here are a few of my favorites new features

1. Scheduled Reports - you can now specify a default SMTP server and from Address - no need to enter for each scheduled report.
2. Ability to FTP scheduled reports to a repository
3. Use of date macros in scheduled report naming convention (no more overwriting previously saved reports)
4. Ability to right click on a graphic a copy and pasted to other applications

Here are a few things I really don't like

1. Can't open profile reports in a new window or tag - so have keep closing report to view the admin module instead of toggling between them;
2. Export to Excel Smart Reports is no longer listed as an export type (solution - just choose "Export to Database");
3. Still no date macros available for scheduled custom compare reports

I'll expand on the above items in another post. The good news is the software is stable and performs as promised.

WebTrends Releases 8.1a

As previously posted, the new version of WebTrends 8.1 was a bit buggy. So 4 weeks later, WebTrends has now released the first round of patches with version 8.1a.

I'm in the process of upgrading my test server and the upgrade is slow. Just like during the original upgrade, it looks like the upgrade is hanging giving a message for more then 30 minutes "Time remaing: 13 seconds". I learned my lesson last time and did kill the process.

The result, after 30 minutes, I was notified that the upgrade was successful and to reboot the server.

I also did a brand new clean install today on a production server at a client. It went smooth until I went back to modify the configuration to change the UI port from the default of 7099 to port 80. After 30 minutes, WebTrends was still displaying the message "Shutting Down WTUI". It was a little after 5:00 pm, so I left it and am keeping my fingers crossed that it will be resolved by tomorrow morning.

So until I see the impact from tonights upgrade, I still can't recommend the WebTrends upgrade. However if your installing from scratch, go for it and download the latest version WebTrends 8.1a at ftp://ftp.webtrends.com/WRC/81a/wt-windows.exe

WebTrends 8.1 Update

Over the weekend WebTrends released version 8.1 to all Ondemand customers. It appears to be working fine.

I've also installed the stand-alone version on my test server and despite some problems getting the upgrade to work, it appears to be working. However, I also have a test SDC installation on that server and that has created a conflict.

I think I know where the problem lies, but I just haven't had time to fix it. I hope to have that resolved shortly. Once I have that out of the way, I can better comment on version 8.1. I must admit, I do like the new interface.

A couple of complaints on the new version and the install. First it requires .net Framework version 2.0. I had to go out and look for it on microsoft.com and install it. It should have come bundled with the install.

Secondly, since the new version doesn't require Apache or Tomcat it should have prompted me to delete these two applications. Instead it simply leaves them on the server and deactivated the Apache Virtual host. Not a very clean upgrade.

Lastly, my test server has less then 10 profiles and all are very small. Yet it took several hours for the upgrade. This seems excessive and I'm not looking forward to upgrading my various clients who have a 100 plus profiles.

WebTrends 8.1

Want to thank Wolf who gave me the heads-up that WebTrends 8.1 in now available for download.

I'm on the road this week and next week running WebTrends training classes, so I don't know when I'll get the chance to install and evaluate this download. Should be lots of fun

If you want to be the first on the block with WebTrends 8.1 go ftp://ftp.webtrends.com/WRC/81/

For the OnDemand users, WebTrends is promising the upgrade this coming weekened (Auguat 18 & 19th).

Should be a fun time for all.

WebBuilder 2007 Schedule Annouced

As mentioned in an earlier post, I'll be speaking at this years WebBuilder 2.0 conference in Las Vegas (December 3-5, 2007). The good news is they've finally launched the conference web site at www.ftponline.com/conferences/webbuilder/2007.

The bad news is I've been given a tough time slot. I'll be speaking on Tuesday December 4 at 5:15 pm. Once again my session is entitled "Designing with Web Analytics In Mind".

For details on my session and the other sessions along with information about the conference workshops, be sure to visit their web site.

Monitoring Search Engine Traffic

One of the advantages of speaking at conferences is the chance to meet and socialize with other conference speakers. Recently at SES Toronto, I had the opportunity to go out for dinner with some 40 plus of these people.

During the dinner I had the chance to chat with someone from Google who actually works on the algorithm and I was able to get some very detailed information o the algorithm that almost contradicted what he had he said during his conference address. To be more specific, I got him to clarify his statement about coding valid HTML and its impact on SEO efforts, more on that another day.

The score of the evening was a chat with Richard Zwicky of Enquisite (www.enquisite.com). During our chat, he mentioned a beta product that his company had launched that allows any web site to get extremely detailed search engine traffic information that typically exceeds anything from all the web analytic products on the marketing (including WebTrends, Site Catalyst, etc.).

So we swapped business cards, and the next day I was given a personal demo of the Enquisite tool. I was impressed and immediately following the conference I registered for the beta. Ever since my account was activated, I've been enjoying rich detailed information on how people are finding my web site.

Features include:

• Splitting paid from organic traffic;
• Exact search phrases;
• Data drilldown by country, region, city, search engine, paid vs. organic, search term or any combination of these elements;
• Frequency of searches;
• Which page of search results they had clicked on;

This tool is a must have for anyone doing search engine optimization or search engine marketing. If you're using Google Analytics or any other analytics tool that doesn't easily split paid from organic traffic, the value is even higher. The best news it's free. All you need to do is go to the Enquisite site (www.enquisite.com), register and typically within 24 hours your account will be activated and you'll be given a java script to add to the bottom of all your web pages. It's that simple.

Once the script is activated, you just need to do a tiny bit of configuration to define how you identified paid traffic and away you go. You can now easily and accurately extract valuable information from all your search traffic. With this information on hand you can use it to further enhance you SEO efforts or paid search campaigns.