I perused a recent survey conducted in the U.K. about how young adults, a.k.a. “Digital Natives,” feel about the Web.  Like all surveys of this age group and how they interact with technology, it was fascinating.

The survey involved nearly a thousand participants ages 16 to 24, and the good news for us as online marketers was that 75% of respondents said that they “couldn’t live without the Internet.” Wow, that’s a bold statement indicating that the Web will continue to be a…

...continue to read "How Would Sterling Cooper Deal with Digital Natives?"

You know the kind of surveys I’m talking about, the ones that ask you to rate something on a scale of 1-5, they are called Likert surveys.  I doubt if anyone actually likes them, but I truly loath them.  Here’s why:

The rating system is too clunky. Most people get stuck between 3 and 4, usually with 4 sounding too good and 3 too wishy-washy, meaning that the results are often more indicative of a temporary mood than an honest…

...continue to read "On a Scale From 1 to 5 Surveys Stink. Here’s Why!"

Kudos to Omniture for posting “Survey: Search Marketers Underutilizing Sophisticated Metrics.” It takes guts to stop applauding customers and share some tough love.

According to the Omniture survey:

Marketers picked cost per click and click through rate as among their top metrics to optimize search campaigns instead of deeper metrics such as return on ad spend, cost per customer (or sale) or profit per order 43 percent of e-commerce respondents do not know how to accurately measure profit per customer (or order)…

...continue to read "Dirty Diapers, Shame and Web Analytics"

Yesterday, I posted the Missing Google Analytics Manual. That was relatively easy to put together since there are so many wonderful resources already written about it. However, as I tried to put together this post, I realized a real gap in the knowledge base available. I’ll be posting this as an ongoing series, that I might turn into a best practices whitepaper.

The “Voice of the Customer” (VOC), can be obtained in many ways: surveys, reviews, customer requests, interviews,  focus…

...continue to read "The Really Missing “Online Voice of Customer” Manual (Part 1)"

Web analytic tools are like having your own MRI, X-ray & CAT scan machine all rolled up in one.

The challenge of web analytics is that while many of the tools are great at presenting the symptoms you still have to diagnose yourself.

Go ahead and ask any physician how sites like WebMD have impacted their practice and they will give you an ear full about people self diagnosing. While their view may be too restrictive it does often lead to self-medication and…

...continue to read "Are Web Analytics Helping You? – Survey"