Measuring the amount and quality of traffic generated through Twitter can be challenging since most Twitter activity occurs outside of the web, on desktop clients like TweetDeck, mobile apps like Echofon, and other types of third party applications.
I’ve found six reports for Twitter client statistics from Many Eyes/IBM, TwitStat, Sysomos, Twalytics, Funkatron, and TweetStats, however there are some big differences among their reports. For example, web (twitter.com) usage varies from 18.9% to 48%; TweetDeck varies from 6.6% to 13.8%; and Hootsuite varies from 0.6% to 5.2%. That’s a lot of variation considering these reports were all generated on the same day (Feb 5, 2010) with the exception of the Sysomos report (Nov 16, 2009). Averaging the results among all six reports reduces the variances likely due to the different data collection methodologies.
When we average the results we can see that 38.1% of all Twitter activity takes place on twitter.com (Web), and 2.4% takes place on m.twitter.com (mobile web), for a total of 40.5% of twitter activity coming from the twitter.com domain. Why does this matter? Marketers need to be able to measure the volume and quality of traffic coming from Twitter to determine an ROI for their efforts. If you’re only measuring visits from twitter.com in your web analytics tool, you’re only measuring 40% of all the activity.
Here are three possible solutions:
- Use trackable URL shortening services
- Append tracking codes to all links posted on Twitter
- Use a multiplier to compensate for visits from Twitter clients
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I’ve heard statements like this countless times: “We should use Add to Cart instead of Buy Now because it’s the best practice.” But the fact is that in web design, best practices simply don’t exist. What works for one site, might not work for another. It will depend entirely on the context in which the element in question is displayed, and the website’s audience. Add to Shopping Cart might convert better for Amazon, whereas Buy Now might convert better for Dell, and Buy It Now might convert better for eBay. They have the data to back it up. But just because the Amazon uses Add to Cart, it doesn’t mean that’s the right option for your site. You will never know which option is truly the better one until you’ve identified and tested other options. On the web this is relatively inexpensive, not to mention a lot of fun, so you have no excuse!
These “best practices” aren’t just limited to calls to action, although CTA’s are notorious for having so-called best practices. Other elements which are subject to the tyranny of best practices are: colours, fonts, size of icons/design elements, advertising, navigation, general layout, style of writing, type of visuals used, design style, and everything else under the sun.
So, how do you determine what’s best for your site? Here are some paths to enlightenment:
- Usability testing
- Multivariate testing & A/B testing
- Sequential testing
- Surveys
- Continual testing
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In almost all web analytics software packages, you can define a dollar value to any goal you define. Few people actually make use of assigning monetary goal values, however. If you are not assigning goal values, you could be missing some key data. Here are 5 reasons why you need to start defining goal values, and there’s no better time to start than right now:
- More effectively evaluate your traffic sources
- Easily determine ROI on your Pay Per Click campaigns
- Use “$ index” to choose which pages to optimize
- You will never have complete information, so just jump in now
- Show your boss/investors/CEO the dollar value of the website
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Starting a blog is something that’s been on my to-do list for months now. Inspired by bloggers such as Avinash Kaushik, Seth Godin, Bryan Eisenberg, Mitch Joel, and several others, I’ve decided to finally make it happen. Specifically, I have to thank Avinash for his wonderful post on benefits of blogging for giving me the final push.
The intended audience for this blog is anyone who is involved in running an online business, including entrepreneurs, marketers, analysts, designers, developers, editors, brand managers, product managers, etc. I hope to share the tips, tricks, and expertise I’ve gathered over the last decade or so in an effort to make the Internet a better place. I will attempt to maintain a once per week frequency, but we’ll see how that goes. I’m really excited to get going, and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for checking out my little corner of the web. Please do drop a comment or two, and join the discussion. Enjoy!
