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Integrated Website Measurement and Demographic Profiling Project 2004/2005 - Watching Brief No.4, June 2005

This "Watching Brief" is the fourth, and final, in a series of watching briefs published to highlight the major findings from the second phase of the integrated website measurement and demographic profiling project across Victorian Government websites.

• Use your Web analytics data to plan for the future
• Vital statistics - Demographic profiling survey
• Case study: Live in Victoria
• Watching Brief publication timeline

Use your Web analytics to plan for the future

Introduction

Over the past twelve months, Nielsen//NetRatings measurement and tracking programs have been implemented across a wide range of Victorian Government websites.

To date, the focus for many government sites has been on becoming familiar with the Nielsen//NetRatings Site Census and Market Intelligence tools - understanding what the tools can track and measure and slowly realising areas of focus for tracking and measurement programs.

Now, however, it is time to harness the learnings from the past 12 months and begin to use web analytics to inform future optimisation and website enhancement plans.

Justifying your existence and sharing/celebrating past successes and achievements should not be forgotten. However, the power of site measurement and tracking will not be fully realised until forward planning becomes a core focus.

Next Phase

It is time to start to squeeze the value out of your measurement and tracking program - use web analytics to inform optimisation and enhancement plans for the future

Measurement and tracking checklist

Whilst every department has unique measurement, tracking and reporting requirements, the 'measurement and tracking checklist' detailed below will provide a guideline for fulfilling each of your unique requirements.

This checklist consists of:

• Defining what you measure
• Developing a reporting framework
• Analysing statistics
• Optimising/enhancing your site.

1. Defining what you measure

Whilst Nielsen//NetRatings' Site Census and Market Intelligence tools can produce pages and pages of data reporting on the performance of your website, in reality you may not have time to digest most of this information. So why waste your time collating and looking at information if you have no time to assimilate it?

Outlined below are steps to help you begin to isolate what information is meaningful and relevant for stakeholders:

• Hold stakeholder workshops to define reporting requirements
• Define website objectives - what performance do you need to measure?
• Identify areas of performance people need/want to hear about
• Prioritise requirements to ensure your focus is on collecting the most important data

• Identify Nielsen//NetRatings reports that deliver the information you require
• Restructure Nielsen reports to ensure you can easily access relevant raw data from the tool

2. Developing a reporting framework

Once the types of data to be collected and reported on have been isolated, develop a reporting framework within which data is presented to stakeholders in a relevant and meaningful way.

Below is a list of requirements for developing an intuitive and easy to digest report;

• Create a framework that;
• presents data in a meaningful and relevant manner to all stakeholders
• enables efficient reporting in the future - an intuitive framework will help people compiling reports do so in a more efficient manner

• Ensure consistency - it is hard to measure performance from one period to the next if you are unable to properly benchmark on past performances
• Set goals for each area of measurement - this helps provide context for people picking up the report
• Remember that the framework, along with the isolated metrics, should be continually reviewed. The environment is constantly changing, your website is constantly changing and your target audience is growing and changing. Regular reviews of your framework and metrics will ensure you keep up to speed as well.

3. Analysing statistics

The next step is to understand your statistics.

You need to understand what the statistics are telling you and identify trends and patterns in the data in order to accurately inform future optimisation and enhancement programs.

Some key areas for analysis include:

• Content/functionality usage analysis - what are the most popular areas of your site?
• Funnel analysis - are browsers easily able to complete activities on your site? Are you facilitating an easy path from point A to point B to point C, or is there a big drop-off on the path?
• Search analysis - are you effectively driving qualified traffic to your site from search engines/directories?

4. Optimising/enhancing your site

Websites need to change - if they no longer keep up with the demands of their target audience then they will be ignored and replaced by another website or an alternative avenue for gathering information and communicating.

The question is though, how do you keep up with the demands of your target audience?

What will separate your enhancement/optimisation program from others is that you are no longer running in the dark - with an effective measurement, tracking and reporting program you will be able to enhance and optimise your site in line with the demands of your target audience. Others, on the other hand, will be guessing what their audience wants and will not get the same return on investment.

Some key considerations you need to take into account include:

• Prioritise optimisation/enhancement activities
  • your resources are not unlimited - realistically you may not be able to attend to all areas of concern highlighted by your web analytics.
• Align enhancement/optimisation program goals with your website objectives
  • if providing an information service is the core aim of your site then your focus for optimisation/enhancement activities would obviously be on content/functionality upgrades;
  • similarly, if you do not rely on/require search engines/directories to drive traffic to your site then there is no need to consider a search engine strategy.

"It is necessary to develop a reporting framework within which data is presented to stakeholders in a relevant and meaningful way."

Vital Statistics

The following table presents a high-level overview of the major statistics tracked by Nielsen//NetRatings over the period 01/06/04 – 31/03/05. Please note this information has not changed since the previous Watching Brief.

 

General Website Usage

	June - Sept 2004	Oct 2004 - Jan 2005	Feb - March 2005
Unique Browsers	4,830,735	5,755,763	3,586,041
Average Session Duration	3.5 minutes	3.4 minutes	3.5 minutes
Frequency of Visits (Average)	1.6 per month	1.7 per month	1.7 per month
Websites Monitored	111 (top level domains)	140 (top level domains)	145 (top level domains)
Surveys Completed	36,409	26,218	10,151
Place of Website Use	57.07% accessed the internet in the workplace 35.69% accessed the internet from home	58.15% accessed the internet in the workplace 35.58% accessed the internet from home	60.92% accessed the internet in the workplace 32.46% accessed the internet from home

 

Demographics

	June - Sept 2004	Oct 2004 - Jan 2005	Feb - March 2005
Gender	58.65% female 41.35% male	58.52% female 41.48% male	59.21% female 40.79% male
Location	67.99% Metropolitan Melbourne	68.03% Metropolitan Melbourne	68.05% Metropolitan Melbourne
Age	Majority (68%) aged between 18 and 45 years	Majority (67%) aged between 18 and 45 years	Majority (69%) aged between 18 and 45 years
Employment Status	58.77% in full-time employment 13.55% in part-time / casual employment	60.05% in full-time employment 13.6% in part-time / casual employment	61.57% in full-time employment 13.94% in part-time / casual employment
Occupation	Highest - Health / Community Services Industry (15.11%)	Highest - Health / Community Services Industry (15.39%)	Highest - Health / Community Services Industry (15.51%)
Type of Internet Connection	45.4% of respondents used a broadband connection	47.69% of respondents used a broadband connection	49.91% of respondents used a broadband connection
Preferred Method of Interaction with Government	50.69% preferred the Internet 20.87% preferred to use the telephone	51.76% preferred the Internet 21.49% preferred to use the telephone	52.37% preferred the Internet 21.68% preferred to use the telephone

Case study: Live in Victoria (www.liveinvictoria.vic.gov.au)

Victoria 's long history of immigration has helped the state earn the reputation of being one of the most culturally rich and diverse destinations on the planet. And whilst there has been little change in the government's unwavering ambition to attract skilled and business migrants to settle in Victoria, it seems giant leaps have been taken to ensure potential settlers are provided with accurate and helpful information to support their move.

Rachael Barker, Skilled Migration Program strategic advisor for marketing and communications , took time out recently to discuss with us the role of the 'Live in Victoria ' site in attracting and assisting migrants move to Victoria.

 

Key insights

• Website analytics provide valuable insight into the behaviour of your browsers
• Identifying trends and patterns opens your eyes to new opportunities and support website change/enhancement initiatives
• Increase the impact of your marketing efforts by using 'geo-targeting' - you'll get a greater response if you are targeting the right people in the right places

What is 'Live in Victoria '? Who are you trying to communicate to and what are your goals?

'Live in Victoria ' is a Victorian Government initiative designed to encourage business and skilled migrants to come to Victoria .

The site itself delivers something that has been missing in the migration business for years - easy and efficient access to an information service providing invaluable living, employment and migration advice for potential Victorian settlers.

Aside from selling Victoria as a destination, the site's core focus is to ensure that the migration process is made as smooth as possible.  

How do your target audience find out about your site?

We are in the awkward situation of having a target audience that transcends international boundaries - we often have to reach out to all corners of the globe to speak to our audience.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM - sponsored search directory listings) has worked well for us to date. We have found this gives us the "best bang for our buck" and is able to consistently drive qualified, targeted traffic to our site.

Public Relations (PR) is also an invaluable marketing tool for us. We are currently in the process of developing a program targeted towards Australian expatriates and using them to spread the word about our website - this way when someone overseas asks, "So, what is Victoria really like?" they will be able to guide them directly to our website to find out more!

What benefits does online tracking provide for your website?

The ability to measure and track activity on our website helps us plan for the future. Analysing our data provides us with valuable insight into the way our audience interacts with the site. For instance, some time ago our statistics suggested the first port of call for browsers on the website was the 'job opportunities' section. Naturally, people are inclined to search for employment opportunites before even considering if Victoria is a place they could see themselves settling down in.

The results from this particular analysis provided the impetus and support to focus on bolstering the employment information and services we offered on our site - after all, it was what our audience wanted!

What can you tell us about 'geo-targeting' - is it useful for your analysis?

 The geo-targeting tool that is available through the Nielsen NetRatings site census tool has been of enormous assistance to our targeting exercises.

Obviously, with a limited marketing and communications budget, we must be careful about where we spend our resources. The geo-targeting tool has provided us with great insight into the location of many of our browsers.

Can you provide an example of how this has impacted a marketing decision recently?

In recent times we have been witnessing that whilst there is still a lot of interest from the UK in our migration programs, there is rapidly increasing traffic to the site coming from China and India . If the statistics suggest the majority of our traffic is coming from the UK , India and China , then it provides ample justification for diverting resources to campaigns targeted towards these markets.

Learnings from this analysis are regularly fed into SEM campaigns - a greater percentage of resources are dedicated to SEM in these markets because we recognise that the people we are trying to target are concentrated in these areas.

For more information on the 'Live in Victoria ' website, please contact:

Rachael Barker
Department of Victorian Communities

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For more information on the Integrated Website Measurement and Demographic Profiling Project, please contact:

Cheryl Hardy
Project Manager - Victoria Online
Chief Technology Office, Multimedia Victoria
Email: cheryl.hardy@mmv.vic.gov.au

The Watching Brief is also available for printing in pdf format. (This document requires the use of Adobe Acrobat Reader) (188kb)

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Publication timeline for watching briefs

Each watching brief will cover a specific period of time. These time periods, and the publication date for the associated watching briefs are as follows.

• Watching Brief #1: Period Covered, June 04 – Sep 04, Published December 2004
• Watching Brief #2: Period Covered, Oct 04 – Jan 05, Published February 2005
• Watching Brief #3: Period Covered, Feb 05 – Mar 05, Published April 2005
• Watching Brief #4: Period Covered, Apr 05 – May 05, To be published June 2005

 

Last updated: 28 February 2006

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