Microsite Analytics Agency Measurement and Reporting on Microsites

YAHOO!, INC.

Microsite Analytics agency measurement and reporting on microsites

Dennis R. Mortensen 2009/October

Dennis R. Mortensen, Yahoo Inc. Yahoo Mortensen, R. Dennis

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About the Author Dennis R. Mortensen is a pioneer and expert in the Analytics industry. He is an accredited Associate Web Analytics Instructor at the University of British Columbia, the Author of data driven insights with Yahoo! Web Analytics, and a frequent speaker on the subject of analytics and online marketing. Mortensen is an Entrepreneur and was the COO of IndexTools until it was acquired by Yahoo! Inc., in May 2008. Today he is the Director of Data Insights at Yahoo! and sits on the Board of Directors at the Web Analytics Association, and he maintains the highly popular analytics blog, VisualRevenue.com/blog

A big Thanks to the following contributors Mihaela Popa; who is an Account Manager for Yahoo! Web Analytics and has been working in the Web Analytics industry for three and a half years. She is currently enrolled in the Award of Achievement in Web Analytics program at the University of British Columbia. Mihaela is also the Technical Editor for “Yahoo! Web Analytics: Tracking, Reporting, and Analyzing for Data-Driven Insights”.

Emer Kirrane; who worked in the Professional Services team of IndexTools before becoming an Account Manager at Yahoo! Web Analytics, where she is responsible for social media communications, best practices and consultation.

Dennis R. Mortensen, Yahoo Inc. Yahoo Mortensen, R. Dennis

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Table of Contents

Introduction ...... 5 Data Collection ...... 6 Amount of data points needed ...... 6 Data Collection Grouping ...... 7 Reporting ...... 8 General Traffic Reporting ...... 8 Organic Search ...... 10 Visitor Demographic and Geographic ...... 14 Visitor Paths ...... 16 Insights and client communication ...... 18 Microsite independence and dependence ...... 18 Success Attribution ...... 20 Contacting me ...... 23

Table of Figures Figure 1 Microsite Context ...... 5

Figure 2 Parent website conversion points (Goals / Actions) ...... 6

Figure 3 Microsite conversion points (Goals / Actions) ...... 7 Figure 4 Unique Visitors trend for Parent website ...... 9 Figure 5 Unique Visitors trend for Microsite ...... 10 Figure 6 Percentage of Organic Traffic to Parent website ...... 11 Figure 7 Percentage of Organic Traffic to Microsite ...... 11 Figure 8 Organic Search Phrases for Parent website ...... 12 Figure 9 Organic Search Phrases for Microsite...... 13

Dennis R. Mortensen, Yahoo Inc. Yahoo Mortensen, R. Dennis Figure 10 Compared Organic Search Visit Distribution...... 13

- Figure 11 Age Distribution of Visits on Parent website ...... 14 Figure 12 Age Distribution of Visits on Microsite ...... 15 Figure 13 Microsite Geographic Reporting (Country) ...... 15 Figure 14 Microsite Entry Page Percentage (linear path) ...... 16

icrosite Analytics Analytics icrosite Figure 15 Microsite Entry Page Percentage (non-linear path) ...... 17 Figure 16 Entries to Microsite from Parent website ...... 19 Figure 17 Microsite Exits to the Parent website...... 20

Figure 18 Parent website campaign categorization (applying Microsite as a category) ...... 21

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Introduction Any online endeavor such as a Microsite is created with a business objective in mind, and for this business objective, one must have a set of measurable KPIs1 and very likely a set of associated metrics that can be used to optimize the KPIs. This is a given and, with this assumption in mind, as I take you through this white paper, you must understand that this is not meant to provide you with an exhaustive list of Microsite specific KPIs.

Measuring and reporting on the impact of a Microsite without taking into consideration how it uniquely differs from the expected and somewhat associated parent website is an error! This white paper points to a number of analysis items which will facilitate the right mindset for Microsite analysis and reporting - if this thinking is not applied, you will at best provide flawed reporting to your customers and at worst suggest actions that will negatively impact the Microsite. That being said, this is neither a complete reporting and analysis guide nor a template for you to replicate to your next customer - it is a way of thinking which you must apply to your own Microsite reporting. For every three suggestions I provide with regard to reporting or insight on Microsites, there should be another three as obvious recommendations from you, based upon the introduced mindset.

A Microsite (and it goes by many different names) is an autonomous website, focused on a smaller subject matter. It is usually detached from the parent website and the only combined experience is a set of gateways into the parent site. It is unusual and in most cases not recommended to replicate the navigation structure and general layout of the parent site as you lose the advantages of the Microsite - and honestly, aren’t you then just building a new

subsection to the parent site? There are ways to analyze whether Parent website you have been successful in your casual parent site attachment and we will come to that later. Finally, have in mind that a Microsite is designed to have a limited lifespan - if nothing else, in its current form. You can also think of it as a range of purposes like; Landing specific product offerings, whether that is a feature film, car or a burger page for that matter, small branded communities, portal integrated and

sponsored content sites, branded entertainment used as a promotion Microsite

Dennis R. Mortensen, Yahoo Inc. Yahoo Mortensen, R. Dennis

vehicle - and with that in mind, you should have a fair view of what I - warrant a Microsite. Figure 1 Microsite Context It is important that you do not misplace the meaning of a landing page or set of landing pages as a result of your Microsite endeavors. A landing page is a logical

icrosite Analytics Analytics icrosite 1 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) - KPIs are promoted metrics, such as cost per new subscriber, that function as communication and steering vehicles for management - or in plain English, the numbers that are important to you! Find a detailed explanation of the difference between a KPI and a metric here:

http://visualrevenue.com/blog/2008/02/difference-between-kpi-and-metric.html

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extension of your advertisement of your parent site. The landing page serves, for the most part, as either a gateway into the parent site or directly as an optimized transaction page. You can, of course, have a unique landing page on your Microsite, should you want to, but for the most part this will be the home page or a page that plays the role of the homepage. See Figure 1 for an illustration of how Microsite content and traffic overlaps with parent website and landing pages.

As an Agency you must create a mindset in your analysis and reporting that intelligently takes into account the content split and overlap of the three constituents (as shown in Figure 1) and their traffic flows. To put it clearly, we agree that the Microsite is indeed independent, but we also expect integration and overlap with the parent website. Do have in mind that a Microsite can function as a bridge and path between two parent websites as well, such as having the Microsite partly injected into a foster parent. As an example, in describing the idea of a foster parent, envision a scenario where you have the Microsite created as part of a portal channel. In this particular scenario, I both view and treat the initiating foster parent as a campaign source throughout this white paper - and I suggest you do the same in general. The thinking about a foster parent expands the Microsite definition to include elements like the fan-page and branded apps.

I am not debating or concluding on the potential success in deploying a Microsite and/or the overall strategic righteousness in using a Microsite as a marketing vehicle. This white paper assumes you’ve used a different set of metrics for such a debate and positively concluded that branching out from the parent website and using a Microsite is what’s needed for success.

So who is this white paper for then? The Agency Analyst, Account Manager and anybody who is responsible for communicating the effectiveness of a Microsite.

Data Collection

True competitive advantage in web marketing comes from collecting the right data, but also, and no less importantly, from configuring your web analytics tool in such a way that you get an opportunity to derive insight from the data.

Amount of data points needed There is no doubt about the need for a

data collection strategy for your parent website

Dennis R. Mortensen, Yahoo Inc. Yahoo Mortensen, R. Dennis

- and there is an inherent advantage when looking at data collected from a parent website, to the extent that plain vanilla tagging2 will in fact help you derive insights (plain vanilla tagging is the same as saying that no data icrosite Analytics Analytics icrosite collection strategy was in place). These Figure 2 Parent website conversion points (Goals / Actions)

2 Plain-Vanilla Tagging is also known as simple footer tagging. Tagging your complete website by using the provided

default tracking script and simply applying that to the footer of your website templates.

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insights, however simple perhaps, remain valuable. This is partly due to the fact that you have a much broader context and a much larger dataset to look at. Figure 2 illustrates such a setup for a parent website, with a few simple conversion points.

However, this is not the case with a Microsite where a plain vanilla tagging strategy is less likely to provide you with insights. It will certainly provide you some basic reporting opportunities, but there is not enough context and likely too few data points to really get you where you want to be - creating opportunities for optimization.

If you focus on the data point, conversion, as an example, you will be able to get by with a limited and focused set of conversion points for a parent website (as illustrated in Figure 2) and still be able to derive insights. In a Microsite where content is compressed to a very limited set of pages, and in some circumstances all the way down to a single page, this is not an option.

To overcome this you have to think of specific and unique Microsite conversion points and event handlers. As this is for the most part separate from the parent site reporting, you

can have this set up in great detail without disturbing the parent website. You must however make sure that you have an overlap in conversion points, event handlers or other distinctive data collection points - so that you do not lose opportunities for Microsite independence and dependence analysis. You

achieve this by using parent website specific Dennis R. Mortensen, Yahoo Inc. Yahoo Mortensen, R. Dennis

KPIs or metrics on the Microsite.

- Figure 3 illustrates in great detail how one can collect a large amount of conversion points and events from a Microsite. icrosite Analytics Analytics icrosite Data Collection Grouping It is highly recommended that you

choose to collect the Microsite activity inside

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7 Figure 3 Microsite conversion points (Goals / Actions)

the same overall profile/project of the parent website. The Microsite is indeed, as stated earlier, an autonomous website, but that does not mean that it is not part of the bigger reporting picture.

There is one word of caution I would add with regard to my previous comments on data points not being the only aspect required, especially when a single encompassing profile/project is used. You must be very careful with regard to how you proceed with your setup in order to ensure that reporting on the parent website is not disturbed by, from the parent perspective, noise and useless information points.

Assuming that you have both the technical ability to collect the data and the approval to collect parent website and Microsite data together, you get the opportunity to perform Microsite independence and dependence analysis. This type of analysis, which I will comment on under the reporting section, is in essence an opportunity to look into big questions such as brand affinity, engagement and specific user behaviors - but also simple confirmations, such as whether the Microsite successfully serves the purpose for which it was created in the first place.

Reporting It is important to have in mind that with changed visitor behavior, site focus, and purpose, comes a way of reporting and a set of reports that is very different from what you typically see in your parent website reporting. Having this in mind, it becomes your task to educate your clients on what is to be considered normal for a Microsite - and not only that, what they should expect when setting up the initial goals and targets.

This is in particular important as basic reports and trends as clients know them from parent websites must be read differently, such as the basic expectation of an up-and-to-right trend for traffic

on a parent website which is simply not the case for a Microsite.

General Traffic Reporting I believe base metrics such as Unique Visitors, Visits and perhaps even Page Views hold value in Microsite reporting, but most of all, I suggest you report on unique visitors. This is a well understood metric with typically well-defined parent website targets. Figure 4 is a typical unique visitor trend for a parent website - a trend showing a stable growth pattern that one can project and to which targets may

be applied. Dennis R. Mortensen, Yahoo Inc. Yahoo Mortensen, R. Dennis

When you have trends with somewhat high daily or weekly volatility, as we see in Figure 4,

targets should be set on a monthly or perhaps even quarterly basis.

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Figure 4 Unique Visitors trend for Parent website

Parent website volatility leads us forward to traffic reporting on Microsites, which for the most part, are even more fickle in their traffic patterns. Nevertheless, Microsites typically, and for good reasons, show similar behavior (amongst each other); a steep ascending traffic pattern in the beginning of the Microsite life cycle and then a slow decline in the remainder of its life cycle.

A typical Microsite traffic pattern as illustrated in Figure 5, confirms the initial peak, which is

likely something which has been achieved through campaigning and activities such as social media buzz.

The more social media activities you use, the more likely you are to see this pattern.

Dennis R. Mortensen, Yahoo Inc. Yahoo Mortensen, R. Dennis

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Figure 5 Unique Visitors trend for Microsite

Knowing and accepting that this pattern exists, also indicates that you have to think differently about setting traffic targets for your Microsite. For instance, based on Figure 5, you can see that setting a daily target of 20000 unique visitors, simply makes no sense!

Before you think about setting your Microsite traffic targets, I suggest you take into consideration the life span of the initiative, something which previous Microsite campaigns should help

you set, and something which can be anything from, say, 3 months to 12 months. I am personally an advocate of setting targets for the Microsite as a whole, for the complete life span, which does not necessarily exclude halfway target follow-ups and predictions on whether we will get to where we want to be. Always have the traffic pattern in mind, in the sense that having received 50% of the targeted traffic halfway through the life cycle means it is unlikely the initial target will be met. The opposite counts as well, so that you should keep the Champagne in the cooler even if you received 65% traffic halfway through, as this is expected and normal, does not necessarily mean the initial target will be

exceeded. This attitude in reporting only makes sense if the distribution pattern is explained and Dennis R. Mortensen, Yahoo Inc. Yahoo Mortensen, R. Dennis

communicated to the client. You might actually have a less aggressive pattern than the one in Figure 5,

- which is OK, but you must communicate it. Most people, clients included have a human tendency to expect increase over time. We are all suckers for an up-and-to-the-right attitude when setting targets and reporting on them.

Organic Search icrosite Analytics Analytics icrosite It has somewhat become legitimate to run a Microsite where most traffic is sourced through campaigns - whether internal campaigns (from parent website and similar) or external (and likely paid

for) campaigns. As established in the introduction, setting benchmarks and targets for Microsites are

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difficult, very difficult actually, due to their short lived and unique nature. With regard to organic search, I am in favor of using the parent website as a benchmark. Not as an absolute benchmark but as a relative one, where you compare the percentage of organic search traffic influx to the parent site to that of the Microsite.

It should be understood that we cannot assume everything being equal, such as campaign traffic, direct traffic due to branding and offline activities, viral buzz and so on - thus this benchmark is to be treated as an approximation and point of view of what to expect and drive for.

Looking at the relative organic search visit share in Figure 6 and Figure 7, we see that the percentage of organic traffic to the parent website is 6.49%, while the percentage of organic traffic to the Microsite is 21.05%. I recommend you present this fact as part of your reporting no matter how the traffic patterns are divided. In a worst case scenario this fact will provide food for thought (e.g. about campaign allocation), and in a best case scenario, it will help you debate and set expectations for the Microsite.

Figure 6 Percentage of Organic Traffic to Parent website

As a rule of thumb one should expect and plan for a better organic traffic influx and better social

media exposure (we will come to that) for the Microsite compared to the parent website - this assuming a fairly equal (relative) campaign allocation between parent website and Microsite (which can always

skew things).

Dennis R. Mortensen, Yahoo Inc. Yahoo Mortensen, R. Dennis

Figure 7 Percentage of Organic Traffic to Microsite

I strongly believe that organic search is a low hanging fruit and generally a missed optimization icrosite Analytics Analytics icrosite opportunity for Microsites, due to the simple fact that they are very well positioned for non-traditional

campaign traffic such as social media activities and in particular organic search.

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You should, however, be aware about the innate search phrase difference between parent website and Microsite.

The Organic Search Phrase distribution for a parent website, as illustrated in Figure 8, is well known and follows, for the most part, a power law distribution. More popularly said, you’ll have a long tail3 of search phrases, which shows a few search phrases that generate a lot of traffic, while the same amount of traffic is generated by a large pool of lesser used search phrases.

Not only is the search phrase distribution for a parent website very true to the long tail distribution, it is also likely to have a head (most popular search phrases) which consists of very generic and broad search phrases, which are often brand related and only one or two words long.

Figure 8 Organic Search Phrases for Parent website

That said, you are not only likely to see a very different behavior on your Microsite, something we would call a Fat Head4, but you should actually strive for this top heavy distribution. A typical Microsite search phrase distribution and illustration of a fat head is shown in Figure 9. On top of this change in distribution, you should also expect, and may I say strive for, less generic, less brand focused terms and finally three, four or five word search phrases instead of one or two words long. You would also want the search phrases to be clustered around the same theme, the theme of the Microsite. We

Dennis R. Mortensen, Yahoo Inc. Yahoo Mortensen, R. Dennis shouldn’t forget why we used a marketing component like a Microsite to begin with - namely to focus

- on something unique and distinctive. icrosite Analytics Analytics icrosite

3 Long Tail - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Tail 4

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Figure 9 Organic Search Phrases for Microsite

When we look at Figure 9 we do indeed see a fat head, more words in the search phrases and a theme clustering around the Microsite purpose. This is good.

If you don’t see a fat head you are likely to see a Microsite that is not focused enough and you may conclude that you should move it into the parent website or simply remove parts of the Microsite to get it laser focused. The same attitude goes for the word count of search phrases, but most importantly, you cannot and must not steal away generic terms from the parent website. This will lead, not only to poor Microsite management, but to the defeat of the purpose of creating the Microsite. In a best case scenario you will have no overlapping search phrases - and if you do have an overlap, it should connect directly with those parts of the Microsite from where you purposefully drive traffic back into the parent site or vice versa - what we previous named parent site gateways. Where the search phrase “Toyota Fantasy” might actually be too aggressively promoted on this Microsite example and you would look into de-optimizing that specific search phrase (a SEO practice that you actually rarely hear about).

It must be the dream of an Organic Search Engine

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optimization engineer’s to work not only with pages, but with a - complete website containing content with a high keyword density.

Whether you have been successful in sourcing a larger

icrosite Analytics Analytics icrosite amount of traffic from organic search is secondary to Figure 10 Compared Organic Search Visit Distribution the above analysis attitude. As I’ve indicated earlier, should you have little or no organic traffic influx, you must treat this as an optimization opportunity.

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I’ve illustrated the actual fat head in Figure 10 (inside the dotted red line) containing both the parent website (the straight green line) and the Microsite (blue line) are displayed. The chart is essentially just a simple scatter chart that shows the search phrase distribution and it is really a great visualization that confirms that you are where you want to be for the Microsite. Don’t mind the drooping tail 5 as this is expected behavior (and a debate for another day).

A simpler way for you to illustrate this distribution is to report only the relative percentage traffic driven by the top ten most popular search phrases. Top ten search phrases, which for the Figure 8 parent website is 18.89% of the traffic and for the Figure 9 Microsite is a healthy (perhaps even aggressive) 91.03%.

Finally, do have in mind that on your parent website essentially every page is a potential landing page and that is how you designed it, but on a Microsite you should probably not let this happen. I would even recommend that you develop with this in mind.

Visitor Demographic and Geographic I find it valuable to report on the traditional demographic and geographic characteristics of the visitors coming to your parent website. Illustrated in Figure 11, you will see a type of reporting where

you traditionally show the distribution of individual visitors according to a dimension such as age.

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Figure 11 Age Distribution of Visits on Parent website

However, it is recommended that a Microsite caters to a unique demographic gender or age icrosite Analytics Analytics icrosite bucket, or specific geographic regions or other predefined valuable dimensions. This is part of the

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rationale behind creating the Microsite to begin with, and you should expect a much tighter Microsite demographic or geographic distribution because of that.

Figure 12 Age Distribution of Visits on Microsite

If the Microsite is not focused on a given demographics or geography, or in a sub-optimal scenario, is a navigational replica of your parent site - you may actually not be creating a Microsite, but just a parent website subsection in a different design!

I am not arguing for a perfect demographic or geographic clustering, but I am advocating and repeating the need for focus. If you are unsure about where to draw the line, I recommend using 75% as an acceptable threshold for success; demanding that three quarters are within your planned target audience.

Remember, this is not about age or any other dimension in particular, it is about making sure that your initial focus and strategic outset, when creating the Microsite is

maintained when reporting on success and failure.

Dennis R. Mortensen, Yahoo Inc. Yahoo Mortensen, R. Dennis

- While it might be difficult to truly discount any visitors from your parent website reporting, you are put in a different situation with a heavily focused Microsite, where you should actively discount (out-segment) visitors who are not in the target audience. Looking at

the information, and not so much at the actual visualization, in Figure icrosite Analytics Analytics icrosite 13, we should (for a Microsite with a clear and decided upon US geographic focus and impact area) only report on the actual and absolute

number of 780,687 visitors. The remainder (22.38%) is a campaign or traffic White Paper: M Paper: White

Figure 13 Microsite Geographic Reporting (Country)

generation error that is moved to a different type of reporting. All other reports should have this almost one quarter of traffic completely discounted.

The idea of discounting visitors is of course not just about the visitor demographic and geographic profile. You might also choose to discount (not include them into your reporting) specific behavior, such as a cluster of search phrases, which are unrelated or so untargeted that the Microsite traffic entries from those are obviously valueless.

When you discount these, do have in mind that some of these aren’t just errors, they might actually be “stolen” from the parent website and it is your duty to return them as quickly as possible.

Visitor Paths While Path Analysis as an analysis discipline is highly debated, I find it useful for Microsite analytics in the following way.

The difficulty in using path analysis on a parent site comes primarily from the fact that you have too many entry points to the website and too many interchangeable paths to success (conversion points) - and thus the idea of having a preplanned path (linear path6) in mind just doesn’t work. It does, however, work for subsections and specific areas of the parent site, and is particularly well-suited for Microsite analytics. Path analysis is useful for Microsites due to the following reasons: a) Microsites have a natural or perhaps even planned set of entry points (as we see in Figure 14) and b) Microsites

typically have a few or likely just one goal (which does not exclude it from having multiple conversion points and a plethora of events) . Figure 14 Microsite Entry Page Percentage (linear path) So, while I agree that the whole idea of having a preplanned path in mind for a parent website is absurd, I believe you are missing out on insight if you do not validate and confirm your entry points and subsequently the visitor path on your Microsite. You would expect, as you see from your parent website

Dennis R. Mortensen, Yahoo Inc. Yahoo Mortensen, R. Dennis (as illustrated in

- Figure 15), a traditional long tail distribution with hundreds and perhaps even thousands of entry points. In the case of the Microsite you will be so top heavy that the distribution should not resemble a long tail at all. It should be a confirmation of (though perhaps not as aggressive as in

Figure 14) the few planned entry points you had in mind. icrosite Analytics Analytics icrosite

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Figure 15 Microsite Entry Page Percentage (non-linear path)

This brings us to the actual path analysis reporting itself, where I suggest you focus on both the path (not shown in the figures), as it is debate-worthy, and on the overall content consumption - while having the entry points in mind (a trifecta between the three metrics).

When you visit a parent website, content consumption as a percentage is rarely of any value, unless you look at it from other angles, such as page views per visit or time spent on site as a whole. These are useful parent website metrics, but they are as valueless on a Microsite as they are valuable on a parent website. For example, on a six page Microsite you need not report on the average page views per visit as this by itself leaves out a lot of insightful context. Just as you are not supposed to consume all content on a parent website, you are likely to plan for visitors to consume all or most of the content

on a Microsite. Remember, this is not a menu of choices; the choice in content was taken when designing the Microsite. So I recommend that you use the following:

METRIC Microsite Content Consumption Percent: (Page Views per Visit / Site Pages in Total) * 100

This immediately brings up the question, what constitutes good Microsite Content

Consumption? I suggest you remove visits which bounced and set a target at 80%. This is not necessarily

Dennis R. Mortensen, Yahoo Inc. Yahoo Mortensen, R. Dennis

about optimizing for better paths to obtain 80%; it might actually be an indicator of you having applied - too much fluff to a site that was, well, supposed to be Micro.

To put it differently, parent websites in this regards are more about absolute numbers (3.7

pages per visit) and Microsites are more about relative numbers (84% of pages consumed per visit).

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Insights and client communication It is important to have in mind, when you report on the status of the Microsite (and perhaps even provide your insights) that you think about the two outputs generated and thoroughly report on each in your general communication:

1. The Microsite itself 2. The Impact on the parent site(s)

You will be doing yourself and your agency a disfavor by simply reporting with the first in mind while not taking into consideration the actual impact on the parent site. For some Microsite endeavors, this might be the biggest value generator.

Furthermore; make sure that you do not apply a landing page philosophy to any of this as such reporting is a completely different matter - and one which we obviously didn’t discuss. The reason is that landing pages show very different behavior and targets; goals and optimization techniques are very different.

As with any traditional web analytics reporting, you should think about how often you report on the activities of a Microsite. With a parent website, you will typically see a fixed timeline and a recurring cycle set up, but this is not recommended for a Microsite - at least not full reporting. I recommend that you report as follows: a) before launch, b) when your traffic influx peaks (about one third of the way into the promotion) and c) at the end of the Microsite life span. This does not exclude simple updates along the way, but think carefully about whether you would want to engage in that. The most important reporting is the final conclusion, which is a type of reporting attitude that you simply don’t see on a parent website, as it never comes to an end.

Finally and before we jump into my commentary on independence and dependence analysis, I would like to remind you of the fact that most Microsites might as well have branched out of the Parent (even though that was not the case) and as such any benchmark you gather from the parent website is valuable in the sense that your Microsite should in essence be able to do better; when you think about it, why would you otherwise branch out?

Microsite independence and dependence As previously outlined, you should ensure that there is a focused overlap in particular data

Dennis R. Mortensen, Yahoo Inc. Yahoo Mortensen, R. Dennis collection points in order to allow analysis of dependence and independence as far as the relationship

- between parent and Microsite.

Depending on the type of Microsite, the visitor target profile will generally be different from that of the parent site; for example the parent site is a car dealership targeting a reasonably broad age

range while the Microsite targets men aged 20-35 interested in a particular car type. Commonly, the icrosite Analytics Analytics icrosite target profile of the Microsite will be a more tailored sub-profile of that of the Parent.

Remember that while debating stickiness, though the site is only live through the four months of

a campaign’s life, might not make much sense. You would actually shoot for enough brand awareness

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for people to spill over to the parent site during, and of course after, the campaign. A high level of return visits to the Microsite alone might be interesting in that it gives insight into positive triggers that may be used on the Parent site, but it is not the desired outcome. The Microsite should ultimately aim to generate new engaged visitors for the Parent site, not for itself.

There are a number of ways in which you can verify the above aim and one of the easier ones is to look at both the number of entries to the Microsite from the parent, and also at the number of exits to the parent website from the Microsite.

I suggest you run something as simple as a referring domains report (in the scenario where the Microsite and parent website are NOT reported in the same project). In the example of a Purina Proplan Microsite, as illustrated in Figure 16, we see that (if adding up purina.com and proplan.com) just below

5% of the entries into the Microsite is sourced from the parent website.

Figure 16 Entries to Microsite from Parent website

I suggest you report on this fact as a statement of Microsite traffic sourcing success, and in the same statement confirm and conclude that the parent traffic in question has been out-segmented and is not taken into consideration as part of the direct Microsite measurement and reporting. There is no

scientific threshold for the maximum of traffic you are allowed to receive from the parent website, but Dennis R. Mortensen, Yahoo Inc. Yahoo Mortensen, R. Dennis

anything above 25% is something I would personally report as a failure, even when taking into

- consideration that we out-segment this for the remainder of the reporting. At 26% you go from Microsite to subsection!

There is another way to look at this, and just as important, which is the parent website exit ratio

- how many people exit to the parent website. The type of report you will pull to answer this question, icrosite Analytics Analytics icrosite again depends on whether you have both Microsite and parent website integrated into the same web analytics project. Figure 16 showed us a non-integrated project and introduced a referring domain dimension, and you can use the same attitude and simply look at exits by domains as illustrated in

Figure 17.

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Figure 17 Microsite Exits to the Parent website

However, as they are not included into the same project, you need to do a bit of calculus yourself (at least if you are using Yahoo! Web Analytics as I have done for this). Looking at Figure 17 you see offer.purina.com and proplan.com add up to 9,664 visits (exit clicks to those sites) which comes to about 35%. You have to look at the total visits to the site, which Figure 16 tells us is 139,221 and use that in your calculation; thus about 7% of the visits to the Microsite is sent to the parent website. I tend to use a rule of thumb of 33% (one third), to judge whether I have obtained a fair independence and not gone from Microsite to subsection.

Don’t confuse the above analysis with the aim of creating long term parent website engagement and loyalty - the above is all done in a visit session and not on a visitor life time basis, which is where we would want to work that angle.

On the note of independence, and with the fact that site-search should not exist on a Microsite, but should indeed exist on a parent website - you need to very carefully take into consideration how and if you would want the Microsite to be displayed in your site search engine results pages. I’ve decided not to delve into this subject matter in this whitepaper beyond the note of caution.

Success Attribution Dennis R. Mortensen, Yahoo Inc. Yahoo Mortensen, R. Dennis

Let me repeat my previous statement, as this is probably one of the most common mistakes

- when reporting on the success of a Microsite: The Microsite should ultimately aim to generate new engaged visitors for the parent site, not for itself!

Accepting my statement above, you also have to continue with an aggressive attitude on

whether or not you should attribute any success to visitors who arrive from the parent website. In my icrosite Analytics Analytics icrosite world, it simply doesn’t count (from a Microsite success measuring perspective) - as the Microsite has

essentially just turned into another parent website funnel. This doesn’t spell disaster, but it does mean

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that you have a set of pages, that are better optimized for conversion than your original site - and you’ve thus created a new optimized parent website funnel and no longer an independent Microsite.

Beyond the obvious goals and direct conversions on the Microsite itself, I suggest that you setup and view the whole Microsite as a campaign in your parent website. If the data is in a separate project this is an easy feat; if the data is in the same project, it becomes a bit more tricky, but still doable using internal campaign features.

Figure 18 illustrates how this could look.

Figure 18 Parent website campaign categorization (applying Microsite as a category)

Don’t mind the actual numbers, but view Figure 18 for what it is, a parent website campaign categorization choice (applying Microsite as a category). There is no rule for where you should place this

in your campaign categorization, other than, the more important it is, and the more activity you engage

Dennis R. Mortensen, Yahoo Inc. Yahoo Mortensen, R. Dennis

- in, the higher up the tree it needs to be. This might as well mean that this is a separate channel for you, should you run forty specific product Microsites.

The reason for this is primarily so that you can a) track the impact of the Microsite on a visitor level and b) use the attribution models provided by your analytics package -such as attributing the icrosite Analytics Analytics icrosite success of future conversions on the parent website to people (visitors) who originated from the

Microsite.

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Have in mind that, very different from a landing page, where you will have continuous optimization, the Microsite is destined to die and thus the optimization cycle is more likely to be in the form of a learning curve as you move from one Microsite and to the next. You would rarely do much mid-campaign Microsite optimization unless you really screwed up!

I started this white paper by highlighting the fact that I was not about to debate the overall strategic righteousness in using a concept such as Microsites. I would like to add a comment to this statement before I close up; I find it very important, that you make sure that the Microsite is not created to heal diseases elsewhere in the organization. A symptom such as the marketing department’s inability to quickly bring new concepts to market, due to meager IT setup and release schedules - as this is certainly not a reason to create a Microsite.

In closing and as a final word of advice, I suggest you, as recommended in the introduction, use this white paper, not as a direct guide, but to change your thinking about Microsite measurement and reporting.

Sincerely, Dennis R. Mortensen

Dennis R. Mortensen, Yahoo Inc. Yahoo Mortensen, R. Dennis

icrosite Analytics Analytics icrosite

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Contacting me If you have questions, feedback, or critique, I am eager to hear from you. You can reach me through the following online destinations:

Corporate: http://web.analytics.yahoo.com/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/DennisMortensen Blog: http://visualrevenue.com/blog/ Book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470424249

And you are always welcome to email me directly at either [email protected]

or [email protected].

Dennis R. Mortensen, Yahoo Inc. Yahoo Mortensen, R. Dennis

icrosite Analytics Analytics icrosite

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This white paper is licensed under a fair Creative Commons License. So go share! You must attribute the work if you do, but not in

any way that suggests that I endorse you or your use of the work. All data is fictional and not related to any site/customer in specific.

Dennis R. Mortensen, Yahoo Inc. Yahoo Mortensen, R. Dennis

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