Short URL Services

URLs (web addresses) can be extremely long! If you are not hyperlinked and can’t cut/paste then the web page may not be visited. People just can't be bothered to walk the walk...

To the rescue came organisations offering a URL Shortner service. There are LOADS of these services and they differ in many ways. You may have heard of the TINY service. For example click on this URL

http://tiny.cc/mrmix you will reach a fantastic book at Amazon, please feel free to buy it!

Do you see what I’ve done? I’ve changed the long 38 symbols...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0199281963/

to the short 20 symbols...

http://tiny.cc/mrmix

I can track how many people click the tiny link by going to the Tiny web site. (Click on the image to see it better)

Just to prove my point I did the same for bit.ly so try

http://bit.ly/mmix

(Click on the image to see it better)

Take a look at many others at this link

URLShortner compilation

And now google offer one too see

http://goo.gl/

Q. Why is this so good and why is it relevant to metrics?

A. Well there is no restriction on how many aliases I can create at for this one site or for others, and I can use the many other services too. That means I can use different URLS in different campaigns. If I am promoting my book on my business card I can use one, another as an email signature, another I can use in Blogs, another one on my TV ads and so on. This simple device allows me to see the effectiveness of these different modes. In metric-speak this is ATTRIBUTION. I can attribute actions to the initial web page that was served.

Do yourself a favour. Create 20 short URLs ready to use with different campaigns, but make sure that the service you choose allows you to track the visitor numbers. My favoured two are the ones above

http://bit.ly/ and http://www.tiny.cc/

Blogs & Blooks

Complicated wording coming up!

On our journey for what is happening today, (rather than yesterday) people, (rather than books), become essential.

Yes we can learn a great deal about measurement, metrics and research from web pages and text books, but the field of digital marketing is ever-changing. I find that blogs are an important source of knowledge. There are many blogs, what I mean are the many blogs produced by professional researchers and analysts.

Here are the three blogs I like the best:

1. Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik
2. Brian Clifton
3. Eric Peterson

The first one was even turned into a BLOOK (that is a word meaning book based on a blog) you'll find details of the book at the blog. The second one is also available as a book and Eric also has books. These blogs are the place where these experts sound out ideas, and those ideas eventually become books.

Many other professionals write blogs and many are linked to this LINK, just look under BLOG ROLL. Thought for the day: to keep up to date, keep in touch with real people.

Puzzling Results

Although I think web analytics are an amazing thing, every so often users in large companies find conflicting results with two types of software. There are usually good reasons such as reporting two different time periods or excluding certain things or often the software has been configured differently. A recent post to an online forum is typical of the frustration shared by a few users

"We have XXXX on one of our sites and we were suspicious of the numbers so we put Google Analytics on it as well. I expected discrepancies in the total numbers, but they trend differently too and that I can't figure out.

For example, using a basic metric like "visits" I find that between day X and day Y our XXXXXwill report we got fewer visits and GA will report we got more visits.Can anyone tell me how something basic like visits can be counted so differently between two reporting suites? "

Indeed Google have answered that question see their answer by clicking HERE