How Twitter Saved Qwest a Customer

By Jason | Published: January 20, 2010

For 3 days, I was unable to access my FTP server on GoDaddy and I was starting to panic.  I begrudgingly reached for the phone and dialed their support number (a toll number at that). After a 15 minute wait and a 45 minute phone call, it was determined that the problem either was on my end or with my ISP. GoDaddy’s suggestion “contact your ISP”.

My first step was to send an email, explaining the complexity of my problem, to Qwest’s email support. After several hours of not hearing back, not even an automated email saying “we received your request”, I decided I would give the Qwest call center an opportunity to resolve my issue.

“Thank you for calling Qwest. We are experiencing a large call volume at this time. You estimated wait time is MORE THAN TEN MINUTES.”

5 Minutes Later (must be said in the Sponge Bob voice over voice).

“Thank you for calling Qwest. We are experiecing a large call volume at this time. You estimated wait time is LESS  THAN TEN MINUTES.”

5 Minutes Later (must be said in the Sponge Bob voice over voice).

“Thank you for calling Qwest. We are experiecing a large call volume at this time. You estimated wait time is MORE THAN TEN MINUTES.”

After finally reaching an agent, I spent at least 15 minutes trying to explain what FTP was.

Jason: I can’t access my GoDaddy FTP account. I can access it from work but not from home on the Qwest network. GoDaddy suggested I call you.

Qwest: Ok Jason. I want to assure you we will get your issue reconfigured (I think he meant to say “resolved”) shortly.

Jason: Fantastic.

Qwest: Jason, can you see web pages?

Jason: Ahhhh, Yeah, I like web pages but my problem is with FTP.

Qwest: Ok, so you are saying you have a problem with FPP. Let me configure (I think he meant to say “confer”) with my colleagues. {hold music} Ok, Jason, we don’t support FPP, that is why you are seeing this problem.

Jason: F-T-P

Qwest: Ok, let me reconfigure with one of my colleagues.

This went back and forth for over an hour and which point I was told that if I can see web pages the Qwest DSL service is working properly and I would need to hire a local computer technician to solve my problem.

I was at my wits end and decided I would give Qwest one last chance before I canceled my service and looked for a new ISP. I have had good luck resolving Omniture issues with their world-class support via Twitter so I thought Twitter might be the answer in this case as well. I found Qwest’s Twitter account:

Through this Tweet, I was quickly introduced to a top-level engineer at Qwest, who spent 2 hours with me, reconfiguring my network setup, going above & beyond his job to ensure that my network was configured for optimal performance. Not only did he fix the issue I was having accessing my FTP account, he also increased my network speed by 40% with a few modifications.

Did this one support incident have any impact to Qwest’s bottom line? I doubt it. I’m just a small customer, but this one event had a huge impact on my view of Qwest. Not only did I decide to stay with Qwest, at least for 6 more months, I now have a very positive story about how Twitter saved Qwest a customer that I’m more than happy to share with whomever will listen.

As an analyst, I found myself thinking, how would I measure this? How could I attribute the use of Twitter as a support tool to a customer’s lifetime value? I don’t have the answers but I do know that companies who are using social media tools in innovative ways (see also: other than lame PR and marketing efforts) are getting a huge jump on their competition. Companies that are using social media to push PR or who are not using social media at all, will find themselves playing catchup for a long time to come.

Posted in Marketing, web analytics | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Delivering Honesty

By Jason | Published: January 15, 2010

There have been times where, I wouldn’t say I have been asked to fake the numbers but, I have felt like I needed to make my analysis support a desired outcome. As analysts we serve as independent and impartial investigators, whose goal is to deliver insight and analysis to our various customers so that they in-turn can make educated decisions about the future of their products.

If we fall into the trap of sculpting the numbers to support a desired outcome, regardless of the motivation, we are doing ourselves, our customers, and the end-users of our sites, a major disservice.

For some reason, when I think about this topic, I think about how crazy the financial term EBITDA drives me. I don’t like EBITDA, in fact, I’d go as far as saying I hate EBITDA. If you aren’t familiar with the term, EBITDA is a financial measure delivered to investors, that calculates earnings by deducting a lot of expenses (interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization, and other “non-core expenses). To me it is too open to abuse. Companies use EBITA to make their earnings look better than they really are. Perhaps I’m over simplifying things but I believe that “honesty is the best policy”.

The same holds true in analytics. I’m sure we could find loop holes and semi-ethical ways to fudge the numbers, but in the end, it is always best to be honest and simply report on what we find.

Posted in web analytics | Tagged , | 2 Comments

dSLRs, Holgas, and Web Analytics (A Story of Multiplicity)

By Jason | Published: January 11, 2010

A few years back, I remember reading a blog post by Avinash Kaushik on the subject of Multiplicity. In theory, I completely agreed with the idea of multiplicity however in practice, I found myself being a laser beam for all things Omniture. I was the perfect case study for the “single source of truth” model. I found myself sitting in strategy meetings where analytics was being discussed and I found myself sitting on the outside, only to be brought in if there was an “Omniture issue” or a question we needed “Omniture to answer”.

It didn’t sink in, that the model I had deployed for myself was against everything I believed in, until I found myself in the mountains, shooting scenes of nature, with two cameras and several lenses. It was then that it hit me, I was doing myself and the company I worked for a disservice by being an “Omniture Shop” rather than a “Web Analytics Shop”. In photography, there is never a single camera or lens or aperture setting that is right for every situation and the same is true for web analytics. If I was going to be a successful analyst, I needed to move outside my Omniture comfort zone and I needed to incorporate more gear into my bag.

Today, I make use of several tools to complete a job. Sometimes, what is required is a high end tool like Omniture Discover, other times something like CrazyEgg will get the job done. And yet others will take a combination of Omniture Discover, Omniture Test & Target, and ProClarity to get the job done right.

It is a mistake, one that I have been guilty of, to think that your high priced analytics tool is the only tool you’ll ever need. If I had made that mistake in my photography, I would have never put down my dSLR and picked up a $12 toy camera from China.

Taken with a $12 Holga camera from China

Posted in web analytics | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Yahoo Web Analytics Wordpress Plug-in from Rudi Shumpert

By Jason | Published: January 9, 2010

Even for amateur blog authors, understanding your site traffic is critical to building a site that provides information and services that people are asking for.  Even if you are just blogging about your kids soccer game, understanding where your traffic is coming from and what they are doing on the site can not only prove interesting but may help you target your posts for your most faithful readers.

Google Analytics is by far the most popular free web analytics service that is available but with Yahoo’s acquisition of IndexTools in the summer of 2008, Yahoo has been dipping their toe in the deep end and it looks like they are poised to give Google a run for their money.  If I had to bet one way or another, I’d put my money on Google but I wouldn’t count Yahoo out yet as Google has failed to do anything that would suggest they are ready to step on the throats of their competitors.

I have recently been experimenting with Yahoo Web Analytics (YWA) and have been pleasantly surprised with their offering. For a part-time blogger it is more than powerful enough to give you insight into your site activity.

Recently, Rudi Shumpert, released a Wordpress plug-in that automatically deploys YWA tracking to your blog.  You don’t need to know PHP or anything about Yahoo’s tracking code, you simply install the plug-in, provide a few details, and the plug-in does the rest.  I have been testing the plug-in and had it installed and running in under two minutes.

What I love most about the plug-in, is that it is theme independent.  I can change my theme a thousand times and never have to worry about moving my analytics tracking code from theme to theme, the plug-in simply applies to code to all the pages of my blog.  It’s a beautiful thing.

If you have an existing YWA account, installation of the plug-in is easy.  Under the Plugins section in your Wordpress admin, click ‘Add New’

Search for ‘YWA’ and click install.

For detailed information about configuration steps and plug-in versions, please visit Rudi’s plug-in site

Posted in web analytics | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Don’t Hate Me Because I Worked At Omniture

By Jason | Published: January 8, 2010

Hello. My name is Jason. And it’s true, I once worked at Omniture.

It was 3 years ago that I moved on from Omniture to see how things worked on the client side. The company I went to work for had zero web analytics, so I was charged with building the practice from the ground up. I got to work understanding the needs of the business and sending out RFPs. Although I had come from Omniture, I was keeping my companies best intest in mind, and I was set on choosing the vendor that would provide us the greatest long term value.

However one vendor decided that I was simply wasting everyones time, including my own, by going through the RFP process. I was so entertained by this voicemail, that I had it converted to MP3 and had filed it away.

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One thing I have learned working on the client side is that there never is a single tool that answers all your questions.  If you take a peek under the covers, you’ll notice that I’m running Omniture, Google Analytics, and Yahoo Analytics on my blog, I’m an equal opporunity analyst.

Posted in web analytics | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Kill the Office

By Jason | Published: January 7, 2010

Companies use office real estate as a means of maintaining a sort of social order. It doesn’t take an advanced degree in deductive logic to observe this sacred, yet often unspoken ritual. Look around, when was the last time you saw a CEO sporting a tricked out cubical?

Now the social order goes something like this.

The Executive
The Executive is typically reserved for your upper crust of the corporate elite, your “C-Levels” and on occasions your senior vice presidents, we just call them SVPs in the industry. The Executive is typically a large and spacious office with views of nature or a sprawling city skyline.

The Mover & Shaker
The Mover & Shaker is custom made for the VP types. Slightly smaller than The Executive, the view is nice but they aren’t as sweeping as you would find in The Executive. They are typically pimped out in the finest leather furniture and a rich mahogany desk which is usually adorned with some sort of a kitschy gadget.

The Middle Manager
The Middle Manager has the same square footage as The Mover & Shaker but the view is of an alley way or parking structure. The office is usually a mess of papers and filing cabinets as the occupant engages in a vain attempt to impress the uppers.

The Team Lead
The Team Lead is an office by definition only. Its square and has walls and a door and may or may not have a window. The Team Lead is an unused closet that has been transformed into an office to keep its occupant un-disgruntled for a short period of time.

In my simple view of the world, why not just kill the office. Do we really need them? Lets transform all that worthless office space into work areas that any employee can make use of if the occasion so arises. The work area is akin to the library I made use of in college when I needed to get away from my drunken roommates who were flinging the neighbor girls panties across the room, I would pack up my books and head to the library for some focused study time.

The work area holds a similar promise. Employees when in need of some private time or just some time to be totally focused on a project can simply walk into a work area, shut the door, and get to work.

It should be clear that these work areas are not land to be conquered or claimed as part of an individuals attempt at empire building. They are, as the name so implies, an area in which one can work undisturbed for a determined period of time.

Join the revolution. Make a stand. Kill the office.

Posted in Tao of J | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

2012: A Lesson for Analysts

By Jason | Published: January 5, 2010

We tend to gravitate to the sensational, hence why nightly news shows are filled with stories of rape and murder and conspiracy, we know deep down it’s wrong, yet we can’t look away. When we get sucked into this world of mystery and intrigue, we tend to throw out logic and believe anything that is flashed before our eyes.

Welcome 2012. The year the world will end. Well, according to popular Mayan belief. But was it really their belief that the world would end on December 21, 2012?

Popular theories of the Mayan’s prediction of the end of the world are based on a very limited set of artifacts. Many believe the Mayans predicted the end of the world based on evidence found in a single book and a set of stone discs. What if the set of discs was incomplete? What if the book was part of a larger volume?

Is this a fair representation of what the Mayan culture believed? Imagine if 10,000 years from now, archeologists discover a single book, containing the story of Hansel and Gretel, while unearthing a public library in Upstate New York. Would it be fair to say that, based on this finding, people that lived circa 1800-2500 lived in houses made purely of a sugar based substance, sometimes baked, other times not, and whose children were susceptible to being eaten by hunched over old ladies wearing over-sized black hats?

Yet, we do this all the time when we analyze the behavior of our web site visitors. We take a nugget of information, a singular fact, and from that we generalize a grand explanation for how an entire system works. I have been guilty of this way of thinking many times.

If we can take one lesson from the apocalyptic hype surrounding the year 2012, it is that we as analysts should be careful about getting sucked into the emotion of sensational news. Rather than becoming overly excited about the first artifact we uncover, we should center ourselves and logically look at all the information we have available to us. We should continue to dig for more truths. And, we should be slow to profess universal truths based on a limited set of data.

Posted in web analytics | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Understanding The ‘Fall Out’ Report in Omniture Discover

By Jason | Published: December 29, 2009

A. The percentages in column A represent the conversion rate for each step relative to the entry point into the funnel. In the example, the 1.19% conversion rate for ‘Compose Message’ is calculated as ‘Visits to Message Compose / Visits to Central’ — in the context of the path: ‘Central’ to ‘Advanced Search’ to ‘Compose Message’.

B. The first conversion metric is the lowest daily conversion % between the two steps, in the current reporting period.

C. The second conversion metric is the highest daily conversion % between the two steps, in the current reporting period.

D. Visit conversion rate between the two steps.

E. This is the fall-out percentage between steps.

F. This shows a ranked view of the top attrition pages between steps.

Posted in discover, omniture, web analytics | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Sexy Subject Lines

By Jason | Published: December 28, 2009

Did I catch your attention? Email subject lines are a critical part of any good marketing plan and should be tested, tested, tested. However, I fear the conversion funnel of Send–>Open–>Click–>Conversion is typically overlooked in our fast paced, get it done and out the door now, world of online business.

I recently received an email from Threadsy, touting the new features of their “all-in-one social messaging aggregator”. Typically emails from vendors go straight into the trash but this one was a little bit different. See the email below:

Now, I find it hard to believe that the subject was just a random array of words, rather I believe the clever marketing team at Threadsy is using the age old adage that “sex sells” and it sold me. “More bang for your box?”  Yes, I opened.

I’m really hoping that Threadsy ran an A|B test on this email campaign, mostly because I’d be really interested in seeing the results.  Anyone over at Threadsy want to email me, I’d love to talk about the results, even at a high-level.

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Posted in Marketing | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Omniture Twitter Analytics v0.4 – Tracking Multiple Keywords

By Jason | Published: December 26, 2009

Version 0.4 of the Omniture Twitter Analytics Plug-In is now available. The new version offers a simplified way of tracking multiple keywords.

Tracking Multiple Keywords in v0.3

$q = “+omniture+OR+omtr+OR+adobe”;

Tracking Multiple Keywords in v0.4

$q = “omniture,omtr,adobe”;

You no longer are required to know the exact syntax of the Twitter search, simply add a list of comma separated keywords and the plug-in will format the search string for you.  Although this seems like a simple enhancement, I have received numerous requests about how difficult it was to track multiple keywords, so I’m hoping this makes things much easier.

If you are an existing user of the Omniture Twitter Analytics plug-in user (v.03 or older), email me at ‘jason [at] omnituretwitteranalytics.com’ and I’ll send you a download link and instructions for how to deploy the updated code base.

If you are a new user of the Omniture Twitter Analytics plug-in, head over to our product site and request the application.

Posted in omniture, web analytics | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment
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