Variant design in Optimization is important, and it deserves more care and attention from Optimization test designers. In the current practice of test design, much attention is paid to analytics numbers when deciding the hypothesis and direction of a test. However, numbers by themselves only tell you where the problem is, they do not tell you what alternatives to try. At ZAAZ, we have been combining User Research methods with our Optimization practice and have...
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ZAAZ is hosting the latest in our social media events series next Thursday, June 18th, at ZAAZ hq in downtown Seattle. Join us from 6 - 9 for a panel discussion on agency / client relationships in social media. Panelists will include folks from the agency side who specialize in digital, brand, and PR; along with client-side web and community managers. Here's the announcement: How do agencies help clients develop richer, more valuable online relationships...
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(Cross-posted from Web Social Architecture.) My Twitter experiment was a “successful failure.” I started an experiment a few weeks ago, basically using Twitter differently than I had previously. Until then, I'd only followed people I know personally--friends, family, colleagues, and professional acquaintances. But a couple weeks ago, I decided to try following everyone who follows me. This is not a large number of people by Twitter standards (a couple hundred), but I was immediately annoyed...
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(Cross-posted from Web Social Architecture.) We did an internal exercise recently that produced a list of the advanced features we think are crucial for a successful enterprise social media platform. The idea is that functionality for user participation across every owned venue should draw upon a central system, enabling a multifaceted approach to CRM, data analysis, reporting—and ultimately leveraging distributed corporate efforts to generate enterprise business intelligence. I’ll share the results of that exercise here,...
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I WISH! Well, if the goal was to spark a discussion and fuel up the fireplace...mission accomplished. Eric Peterson's post last week on "Unique Visitors Only Come In One Size has has done just that... (http://blog.webanalyticsdemystified.com/weblog/2009/03/unique-visitors-only-come-in-one-size.html) It's needless to say that Unique Visitors has been a top subject matter on many posts. Over the years we have all discussed its drawbacks, using a weighted average, how to improve it, and in some ways have found...
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Targeting, a hot-topic marketing practice, deserves digital marketers' attention. Targeting can help marketers deliver the right content or message to the right person, at the right time and in the right space. But targeting can be an ambiguous concept. Often it means different things to different people. Most digital marketers divide their efforts between offsite and onsite targeting. Offsite targeting comprises advertising and demand-generation activities like search, display, and e-mail. They drive performance by sending...
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I never thought I'd see the day that I would yawn during an analytics discussion. But it happened. I always thought it was my job to motivate people, show them the value and they will move forward. I get little butterflies as I pull and integrate numbers and find a story to share. I often feel like the journalist, breaking news. But this time, I felt like I had been transported to 2004 and I...
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One of my most favorite websites in the world, eMusic, just got a facelift. I love eMusic because they have a great selection of indie music, they are cheaper than most of the competition, and the music you get is legal and DRM free, as it should be. The reviews of the redesign have been generally positive: now eMusic sports some fancy AJAX-y interface bits, a wealth of third party content (youtube videos, reviews, etc),...
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Cross-posted from Web Social Architecture. Jason Carmel is a colleague of mine I learn a ton from. His expertise is in web site optimization--running experiments where he tests versions of web pages against each other to see which performs best. (Not to be confused with search engine optimization, improving a site's visibillity in search engines.) Jason is a fairly unflappable guy. Nonetheless I recently started making an effort to get his goat. He gives me...
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(Cross-Posted from Web Social Architecture.) Jason Carmel is a colleague of mine I learn a ton from. His expertise is in web site optimization--running experiments where he tests versions of web pages against each other to see which performs best. (Not to be confused with search engine optimization, improving a site's visibility in search engines.) Jason is a fairly unflappable guy. Nonetheless I recently started making an effort to get his goat. He gives me...
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I wrote a post a year and a half ago on Twitter in which I identified two types of use for it. This was at the height of the initial buzz about Twitter, and while some folks were really excited to finally see an HTML / SMS / IM social application, others worried aloud that Twitter, for the same reasons it offers such a low threshold of entry, would also tend to erode the quality...
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For three years now, the standards committee has been working on standardizing web analytics terms. Well, we've revamped the August 2007 release. Besides incorporating the feedback we received last year, we've added three new terms and created the 'Ask your vendor' section. This was done to encourage vendor involvement and eventually vendor compliance. As a member, I have had the privilege of working with a diverse group of individuals. As many know, the committee is...
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How painful is a low amount of web traffic? It can hurt in more ways than one. Take the example of United Airlines this week. You may have heard that United Airlines stock crashed on Monday (reduced by 75%, around $1.2 billion worth.) Trading had to be halted. What's coming to light is that the stock's temporary downward fall was due to the following set of events: 1. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel is a newspaper...
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Remember Carl Lewis? The Olympic hero of the 80’s and 90’s? He won a lot of medals, set some world records and was in general, the type of athlete you marvel at. He had the potential to endorse multiple household brands and be a sports commenter for as long as Bob Costas. Until Michael Phelps came along, outside of Mary Lou Retton and Bruce Jenner, there were very few other Olympic athletes who were as...
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