Online Recruiting and Web Analytics

Reading an old post on the blog of Ian Thomas, ‘Lies, Damned Lies’, on Web Analytics in online recruiting, and having worked on a couple of Web Analytics projects for online recruitment agencies, together with the OX2 team, we decided to find out which web analytics tools are currently used by the different recruiting companies which have a presence in Belgium, the Netherlands and France at the same time.

What initially aroused my interest in Ian Thomas’post was next paragraph:

One of the loops that people often get themselves into with Web Analytics is an assumption that what you learn from your web analytics can only be applied directly back to the site, or at a stretch, at the marketing for the site. But that’s not true, of course: web analytics can provide all sorts of insights that can be applied across a business, sometimes in areas not related to the web at all.

Read the rest of the post on: http://www.liesdamnedlies.com/2007/03/web_analytics_i.html

And this last sentence is of course more than true, but typically companies, and this doesn’t apply only to online recruitment agencies, don’t take full advantage of what is possible with the web analytics tool they have.

I have summed up some KPIs for online recruitement sites, and tried to show some possible areas, online and offline, where they could be applied:

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My 3 outcomes of the Emetrics London 2007

A first version of this post has been hanging in the ‘draft’ section since the week after I came back from the Emetrics in London (29-30 March 2007), but as I’ve been quite busy and I actually reached my 3 outcomes since 2 weeks only (since our WAW in Brussels), I feel it is now the time to publish it.
A chance to win Jim Sterne’s Markting Optimization Library made me help to set all the work aside and finish this post as well. You never know 😉 (What do you think Jim? You think I get nominated?)

Let me start by explaining the concept of the 3 outcomes.
Like last year, between presentations, there was the time for a roundtable discussion. Last year one of the discussions was about Web Analytics KPIs, and this year was quite similar. But instead of thinking about the succes factors that need to be measured for a web site, this time you had think about the personal objectives you wanted to meet by attending the Emetrics. Kind of your personal summit KPIs. In addition, these outcomes had to fulfill some criteria, and I quote:

Each of your outcomes will be effective when they meet the following criteria.

• S – Specific (the What, Why and How)
• M – Measurable
• A – Attainable
• R – Realistic
• T – Timely

S.M.A.R.T. outcomes emphasize what you want, rather than what you don’t want.

So here we go with my personal outcomes of this years Emetrics London:

BeCommerce Awards winners & Web Analytics

Following the example of Julien with his research on the web analytics tools used by CAC40, IBEX35 and DAX30 companies, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the 2006 and 2007 BeCommerce Awards winners (see post BeCommerce Awards 2007) as well, to get an idea if the best of Belgian eCommerce is doing any web analytics überhaupt and which is their prefered tool.

To be complete, I also included the companies which were attributed the BeCommerce Label (and this for the first time in Belgium). These companies received this label as their ecommerce website fullfilled different conditions such as respecting the privacy, solving complaints, prtecticting minors, etc.
As they respresent the best of breed, I wondered if they analyse their web site behavior to improve their Return On Investment?

Let’s start with the list of winners and label owners, and the web analytics tool they use:

BeCommerce Awards 2007

Op 13 februari 2007 werd de 2e editie van de BeCommerce Awards georganiseerd, door Inside en BeCommere (BDMV), en waar WebAnalytcs.be één van de hoofdsponsors was. Dit event ging dit jaar door in de prachtige gebouwen van de Concert Noble, en trok meer volk dan de vorige editie. Een feit waarop we ons alleen maar kunnen verheugen, al blijft er nog veel werk aan de (online) winkel wat betreft wetgeving en standardisatie, zodat de ‘webshop’ ook betrouwbaarder wordt bij de consument.

Maar hieraan wordt volop gewerkt. Hetgeen ook bevestigd werd door de aanwezigheid van Piet Van Baeveghem, kabinetchef van minister Marc Verwilghen (Economie, Energie, Buitenlandse Handel en Wetenschapsbeleid), en de uitreiking van de eerste BeCommerce Certificatie labels.

Web Analytics Wednesday (WAW) Kick-off @ Amsterdam

Last week, Aurélie and I were invited for the kick-off of the Web Analytics Wednesdays in Amsterdam. As Brussels and Amsterdam is only 200km next from each other, and we are addicted to ‘de enige echte Hollandse drop’, we didn’t hesitate long to jump in our car.

Before I go into detail about the event in Amsterdam, for those who haven’t a clue what Web Analytic Wednesdays are all about (I assume 90% of the readers of this blog already attended at least 1 WAW), here are some facts (see also Web Analytics Wednesday F.A.Q.):

• Definition: Web Analytics Wednesday is the world’s only distributed networking event for web analytics professionals. Open to everyone, practitioners and vendors alike, Web Analytics Wednesday is a free event allowing you to meet folks with similar work interests.
• Founded by Eric T. Peterson, author of Web Analytics Demystified and Web Site Measurement Hacks
• Topics: Ideally you’d discuss web analytic topics like favorite vendors, how your company uses web analytics and staffing issues but everyone eventually tires of talking about work. Get to know people! Especially within this community I’m sure you’ll discover you have friends in common, have worked at the same places, etc. Whatever you discuss, have fun!
• Calendar: Either visit the main Web Analytics Wednesday page at Web Analytics Demystified to see which events are scheduled for the coming month or, even better, subscribe to the RSS feed for Web Analytics Wednesday events.
• Drinks: the first round is on WAA 🙂

Back to Amsterdam. The initiative for the first Dutch WAW was taken by Frans Appels from Netprofiler, and Nicole Niemann from Satama Interactive, and took place in the nice open kitchen of the Satama offices.
About 60 people subscribed for this event which is already a great succes, and shows that Web Analytics really lives in the Netherlands (and I can confirm also in the rest of the Benelux). Amongst the attendees there were some vendors (Nedstat was well represented with 4 – Moniforce – WSS), a lot of agencies and consultants (WA but also SEM), but also some end-users which are working with a WA tool since quite a while such as Vodafone, ING, PostcodeLotterij…

WebTrends recognized as the leader in Market Suitability in JupiterResearch’s report

WebTrends, the market leader for web analytics and Marketing Performance Management solutions, today announced it was recognized as the leader in Market Suitability in JupiterResearch‘s report, “Web Analytics Constellation: Assessing Web Analytics Applications,” published on February 6, 2007. WebTrends out-scored all other web analytics vendors for its top ranking in market suitability, which was based on product pricing, critical feature set, standard feature set and product support cost. JupiterResearch mapped and ranked WebTrends available feature set against a pre-requisite feature set as determined by JupiterResearch, and interviewed vendor clients to assess the strength and availability of its services.

“WebTrends has led the industry since the market’s inception, and we are thrilled to be named the top vendor for market suitability for the second consecutive time in Jupiter’s web analytics vendor evaluation,” said Greg Drew, CEO and president, WebTrends. “Over the past year, we’ve built-out a strong suite of solutions focused on marketers’ highest points of value including accurate comprehensive analytics, targeted relationship marketing and automated paid search optimization. This momentum, which has made WebTrends solutions the most award-winning in the industry, continues to accelerate.”

Read the full press release in the WebTrends News Room.

Web Analytics: what about Packet Sniffing?

As from time to time we come along a web analytics solution that makes use of Packet (or IP) Sniffing, I took the opportunity during the Emetrics Summit 2006 in London to ask the different vendors that were present what they thought about this quite new technology, as the opinions were all on the same line.

For those who don't know about this technique, packet sniffing is designed for the purpose of monitoring network traffic in order to recognize and decode certain packets of interest. It makes use of a black box which is installed in the network.
Packet sniffing is also widely used by hackers and crackers to gather information illegally about networks they intend to break into. Using a packet sniffer it is possible to capture data like passwords, IP addresses, protocols being used on the network and other information that will help the attacker infiltrate the network.

And lately it is being used for web analytics reporting as well.

So what was the outcome of the nice little discussion I started during Emetrics:

We went to Emetrics Summit London 2006!

It was Wednesday morning, 3 May, 7am. I woke up in a nice little hotel near Hide Park in London, the sun was shining for the first time this year, and I had an Emetrics Summit to go to. Life can be beautiful…
After a real English breakfast with eggs and beans, Aurélie and I went of to the one and only real Emetrics Summit that was presented by Jim Sterne and with numerous interesting speakers and slots!!!

WebTrends Advanced Technical Training

Finally. My first post on this blog!!!

Not that I have a fanclub waiting for my feedback, but I know René and Aurélie were eagerly expecting some more technical input from my side, so that we kind of cover all different aspects of WebAnalytics on this blog.

Cause don't be mistaken, although the business side of WebAnalytics is far important and indispensable for marketeers, they need a strong technical backup team.

IT remains responsible for the optimal functioning of the web analytics software and related hardware.

In corder to simplify the technical implementation and the maintenance of their solution, most web analytics vendors only propose ASP solutions.

But due to the fact that more and more tagging solutions are being used, IT often becomes also responsible for automatic tagging through the CMS system and must ensure correct traffic flow or bandwidth. So even if a company chooses for an ASP WebAnalytics product, IT is still needed.