Slides used at the USC Annenberg Journalism Director's Forum, Oct. 13, 2009 See the YouTube video at http://www.newsnumbers.com/web-analytics-overview-video.html

1. Finding Meaning in the Metrics
October 2009
Dana Chinn

2. Web analytics essentials
• Why measuring audiences is different for online
• Behavioral vs. attitudinal
• Basic site metrics
Counting vs. calculating engagement
• Social media metrics
Understanding followers, analyzing content
• Attitudinal research
Finding out the “why” of
current, new, potential audiences
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3. Traditional ad-supported business model
Newspapers
Magazines
Radio
TV
Direct mail
...subsidized audiences Yellow Pages
defined by Outdoor
demographics,
geography
HIGH
BARRIERS ...few competitors
TO ...everyone in its place
ENTRY ...can only measure mass
e.g., paid circulation3

4. Online ad-supported business model
Online
Newspapers Direct mail
Magazines Yellow Pages
Radio Outdoor
TV Online-only
...(highly) subsidized
audiences defined
by individual
behavior, attitudes
...few barriers to entry
...change in behavior, business
...little geographic focus
...everyone’s online, competing with each
other
...can measure anything (niches, engagement) 4

5. Two ways to understand online audiences
Behavioral research: What people did when
they visited a site
Attitudinal research: What people said they did, and
why they go or don’t go to a site
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6. 6

7. 7

8. Journalism Online projects it will have
100,000,000+ monthly unique visitors
“Journalism Online Says Letters of Intent Now Cover More Than 1,000 Media Outlets,” paidcontent.org, Sept. 14, 2009
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9. Who: Nikki Finke
Content: 24/7
unique info about
The Industry
UVs: “a few”
100,000 Industry
execs who visit
10x/day
Value: $10 million
“Call Me,” by Tad Friend, The New Yorker, Oct. 12, 2009
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10. What really matters in online?
What people do...
...who they are, and what they think.
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11. Unique visitors
visit websites,
generate page views.
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12. A “unique visitor” is actually a “unique computer”
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13. Unique visitors may be over- or undercounted
Work =33 unique visitors
= unique visitors
Hotel
Home
= 1 unique visitor
Work
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14. The no. of unique visitors is based on the time period you specify.
S M T W Th F S
1
July 6-12
July 13-19
July 20-26
31
The number of unique visitors...
...on July 1 is six; July 31, two. “Daily unique visitors”
...for the week of July 13 is five. “Weekly unique visitors”
...for the month of July is seven. “Monthly unique visitors”
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15. The math of visits
A visit is a period of activity separated by at least 30
minutes of inactivity.
A visitor clicks into your site at 1 p.m., surfs for 20 minutes, then clicks into CNN.com.
One visit
A visitor clicks into your site at 1 p.m., surfs for 45 minutes, talks
on the phone for 30 minutes without touching the keyboard, then
hangs up and goes back to your site for 20 minutes before
clicking into CNN.com.
Two visits
A visitor clicks into your site at 1 p.m., surfs for an hour, leaves his
computer for 29 minutes, and then comes back and surfs for
another hour before clicking into CNN.com.
One visit
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16. Calculating engagement
Two ratios
visits per unique visitor page views per visit
One the bounce rate
proportion of the page where
people enter your
Example: 50%
site most often
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17. Visits
per weekly unique visitor
Example
2.5 visits per week
Are visitors coming to your site
with the frequency you need to
build loyal, satisfied audiences ?
If you update your site 24/7,
is your content engaging enough
to compel someone
to visit more than two or three
times a week?
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18. Page views
per visit, by week
Example
3.6 page views per visit
When visitors do come to your site,
are they engaging with its content?
Does a high number suggest
visitors can’t find what they want?
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19. Bounce rate of top entry pages
One visit with
one page view
to the home page
= 1 bounce
No. of bounces
+
No. of visits that started with the
home page and had 2+ page views
= 100% of visits 19

20. Example
Home page bounce rate
= over 50%
Over half of the visits to the CNN.com home page
left CNN.com without clicking into any other pages
Best (?) cases: Came only to get the headlines
Home page has dynamic content
not captured with page views
(check your business model)
Worst cases: Couldn’t find what they wanted
Didn’t like what they saw
Source: “Can CNN, the Go-To Site, Get You to Stay?” by Brian Stetler, New York Times, Jan. 17, 2009
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21. Newsroom numbers vs. advertising numbers
Newsroom Advertising
• Census data • Panel data
100% of all visitors, visits, Activity from a sample of self-
page views for all sections selected people. Only total site
data for a limited number of sites.
• Internal data • External data
Confidential Used to compare sites
• Omniture • comScore
Google Analytics Nielsen
WebTrends Compete
etc. etc.
• Web Analytics • Interactive
Association Advertising Bureau
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22. Types of social media channels
Sharing
Networking
News
Bookmarking
Reviews
From “Five essentials for social media marketing,” by Lisa Wehr, CEO/Oneupweb, iMedia Connection, July 17, 2009
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23. Social media:
a constant stream of calls to action
For consumers
the true value of a network
is measured
by the frequency of engagement
of the participants.
-- Interactive Advertising Bureau Social Media Ad Metrics Definitions, May 2009
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24. Understand Twitter’s simple complexity,
understand how social media is measured
Content
Followers
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25. The perfect (measurable) Tweet
• A call to action to participate, engage with you
Look at this. Go here. What do you think?
• A link
To get news, information
Tweets are now a primary news source,
the new home page
To respond to the call to action
• A #hashtag and/or keywords
• A comment
“Commenting9/21/09 http://mashable.com/2009/09/20/commenting-on-retweets/
Pete Cashmore, Mashable,
is important, even essential.”
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26. “Perfect” tweets are less than 120 characters
RT/via @handle + call to action/comment + link + #hashtag
100 characters 111 characters Watch handle,
hashtag sizes
Lost the link
Note: Twitter will be changing its RT and comment functions 26

27. Analyzing content
Review hashtags,
keywords,
sentiment
See a list of Twitter tools at http://www.newsnumbers.com/socialmedia.html
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28. Is your news org part of the conversation
in real-time web signaling events?
“When a burst of tweets citing a particular subject
or URL emerges, it’s a signaling event.”
--Rishab Ghosh, co-founder of Topsy, a search engine for tweets, in “Live in the Moment,”
by Clive Thompson, Wired magazine, October 2009
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29. Analyzing followers
Look for influencers.
Review reach,
following/follower ratio
See a list of Twitter tools at http://www.newsnumbers.com/
socialmedia.html
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30. Analyze your follower profiles
to assess their likelihood of engagement
Do your followers identify with your keywords?
See a list of Twitter tools at http://www.newsnumbers.com/socialmedia.html
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31. Attitudinal research
Do you know the people behind the clicks?
1. What was the purpose of your visit today?
2. Were you able to
complete your task today?
3. If not, why not?
4. If you did complete your task,
what did you enjoy most about our site?
Caution: Pop-up survey data is a truth but not the
complete truth. Pop-ups are only completed by those
who feel like it...it’s not a representative sample.
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32. Do you know who’s not coming to your site,
and why?
• Start with focus groups, usability
studies, etc. (not thinking about you)
• Follow with surveys that reach a
representative sample of the
target audience
Measure niche audiences,
not
“all people who could
possibly be interested in
coming to our site
at any time
for whatever reason.” 32

33. Define success by who your audiences are
and what they’re doing, thinking
Universal Studios Hollywood ad, 2007
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34. Dana Chinn
Lecturer
USC Annenberg School of Journalism
E-mail: chinn@usc.edu
Phone: 213-821-6259
www.newsnumbers.com
Blog on web analytics for newsrooms
Delicious bookmarks
Basic metrics; video metrics
Social media metrics methodology
Twitter Tools list
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