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missrkl · 4 years ago

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Descendants Acts 2 -

Chapter Three

Rachel was having a very stressful day. Her parents were giving her a hard time about not being married yet whilst all their friend’s children were married and had babies. Rachel knew she could not explain to them her reason for being single still. Not only did she find it hard to let people in and trust them, she also had issues with being physically intimate with anyone. The whole thought of how it goes it down really creeped her out. Rachel sighed as she made her way out from the house. The last thing she wanted to do was hang out at home and pretend that everything was fine. The last thing she wanted was to be around her mother who kept nagging her about not having a husband and how bible school won’t exactly be reeling in profits. Her dad had suggested she become one of those mega church pastors and reel in the money through tithes and offering, he was snickering as he told her so. Her dad thought her whole faith was a joke. He had given up on God a long time ago and no longer believed he existed. Yet even after his heart attack and Rachel and her church praying for him and God healing him, he still chose to not believe in God. Rachel sighed again as she walked up the steps to her church, despite it being a weekday she always visited the place, not because it held the presence of God, but it was a place where Christians roamed the halls and by chance she might bump into one. Rachel sat in the foyer for a while, the silence of the church was quite welcoming. Rachel surveyed the entire main hall and imagined the different church services she experienced within its walls. Nothing like home to remind her of home.

Rachel decided to go back out, maybe she should go for a walk in the park. Before she could leave her phone pinged. She opened up the notifications screen and saw she had a message on The Holy Bible Game. The game was also available on the iPhone, but it did have limited features compared to the computer. She had a message from someone named David_Samuel738. She opened the message and read:

Dear Rachel,

You have the highest points ranked in this game and I was wondering if you would like to team up in saving more citizens to the kingdom of God? It would be an honour to work with someone with such a high ranking such as yourself.

David

Rachel thought about it a moment. The levels would begin to get harder and she still did not have The Blood Stained Sword for ultimate victory (overcome by the blood of the lamb). Rachel checked first David’s profile. He was quite high ranking himself, second to hers. She smiled, good, that means he could keep up. She accepted his offer and accepted his friend request. As Rachel was going to put her phone away she saw Matt Kane walking into the building. Lovely, just what she needed, a friendly happy face. Matt smiled widely when he saw Rachel and said hello, she did too. He asked her how she was doing and that they had a worship rehearsal now and the main room will be closing soon. Rachel left him and walked out to the park. She was always happy when seeing other children of God knowing full well they had a mutual understanding of the Lord of Most High. Rachel’s phone pinged again and she opened it, another message from David:

Hi there Rachel,

Thank you so much for accepting my friendship request. Looking forward to working with you. Maybe one day we could meet in person. It would be nice to meet the girl behind the screen.

David

Rachel sighed again and rolled her eyes. This was why she didn’t accept a lot of people online, especially the men. They always ‘wanted to know the girl behind the screen’ which always sounded super creepy to her. Still, the fact he was second highest ranking was something she could not ignore. So as Rachel walked into the park she sat down on the bench and logged into her programme. She changed her clothes and went to the market, as per usual, to see if anything was there to help her on today’s mission. She found Discernment Dove. This was a power that would give her greater wisdom and insight into frauds and deceivers, including wolves in sheep’s clothing. Definitely she needed that. Rachel bought the item, it was very expensive and took half of her virtual savings. It was worth the investment. You don’t get great things for free.

Suddenly David was online and standing beside her. His character was very handsome. Looking more like a warrior hero in a secular comic book than a Holy Bible hero’s of the heart. Rachel wondered if he looked like that in real life? One could only dream. Still, Rachel found herself blushing. She had to remind herself that this wasn’t real. Although there was a real person behind it. As the sun lay its heavy heat on Rachel in the park, the wind blew slightly caressing her skin and cooling her down. Here she sat under the big massive tree, with its branches and leaves giving her the shade and the breeze. The wind blew her hair around her face and David said ‘so, what’s the plan now?’ Rachel smiled, despite this being virtual, there was a real person behind that handsome virtual character and she quite liked him. He reminded her of Pastor Gabriel In her church. Handsome looking and she was glad about that. Rachel explained that she wanted to go down the south side of town to see if there was any citizens down there. She also explained that she was using her phone not her computer so her movements would be limited and would he be willing to cover her if necessary? She explained how she had not lost a life yet during this game, hence she was number one on the charts. David agreed to cover as he was at home using his computer. Where he was it was raining so he wasn’t out. Rachel realised then maybe that he lived far away. Oh well..their two characters on screen walked together in amiable silence. When they arrived at the south side of town there was many many citizens. Too many to choose from and a few specials. Rachel explained that she wasn’t equipped right now to handle any specials. David agreed and said that was a wise decision, no wonder she was number one. Rachel smiled, was he flirting or just complimenting her? Rachel had never put up her photo on this account and in no way was it connected to any of her social media accounts. Her virtual character looked nothing like her, slim and stealthy. Whilst in real life she was round and plump. This man can’t possibly believe she looked anything like her character could she?

Rachel motioned in the game to a group of citizens. None were specials. You could save an entire group of citizens, if you had backup, which she didn’t have. Rachel was usually a Lone Ranger, but maybe God in real life was trying to show her something?

Ecclesiastes 4:9 Two are better than one,

because they have a good return for their labor:

If either of them falls down,

one can help the other up.

But pity anyone who falls

and has no one to help them up.

David agreed and they both approached the group of citizens, about 10 in total. They were having some sort of picnic. So that meant 10 demons to fight, 5 each. As the demons manifested themselves as they began sharing the gospel story of the kingdom of heaven, Rachel got out her sword of the spirit and began wielding it against them. David too. For some reason their weapons were not working. Rachel remembered then her newly bought product she had bought today, Discernment Dove. Rachel motioned to David to cover her and as he did so, quite epically in fact, Rachel took out the Dove of Discernment and it began to shine and spoke into her characters mind, her spirit presumably in the game:

What they need is deliverance. Prayer is required. Forgiveness needed.

Rachel shouted at David what Discernment Dove had spoken and he understood. So instead of fighting at the demons floating about Rachel and David got on their knees and began to pray. They asked for (special words in the game) Deliverance and Forgiveness in Mashiac Yeshua Name. Discernment Dove spoke again and informed Rachel that the citizens had some forgiving to do, as some of them were backsliders. Rachel repeated what the Dove had told her and the citizens cried and soon was released from their bondage by forgiving. Then David and Rachel took them to the Temple of the Lord to train them. 10 citizens, each on their list. Making them almost unbeatable in the game.

Soon the sun was hiding behind some clouds and Rachel realised that some time had passed. Maybe it was time she went home. She couldn’t stay out forever. Rachel told David ‘good game’ and ‘I have to go now’ and logged out. Her character left David’s standing in the temple of Lord. David had waved. Virtually. Rachel put her phone back in her bag and decided to stop by the church again. She could use the bathroom, much cleaner than McDonald’s. They knew her face, she wasn’t a stranger, they would allow her. Rachel entered the church foyer and saw the worship team taking a break. So she went to the bathroom and one of the worship members was there, Juliet. She had her big curly hair out and Rachel loved that about her. They chatted a little and then Juliet invited Rachel to have tea and biscuits during their worship break. So Rachel joined in and had a good time, talking about the Lord, worship and their upcoming album. Rachel soon made her way home and as boarded the bus she prayed and asked God that her mum would have calmed down by now as she couldn’t handle the stress or the pressure. Rachel breathed in heavily and exhaled heavily. At least she had some fellowship today. Plus she had made a new friend, David.

0 notes

diet-lemonade · 7 years ago

Text

Google Analytics: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly Missing Link

Google Analytics is a staple for websites, but ol’ reliable just isn’t what she used to be.

Most – if not all – businesses depend on it on some regular basis to understand how their websites are doing. Is traffic up today? How many visitors are bouncing?

It’s popular, handy, filled with data, and free to use –but today’s websites require more insight than just what Google Analytics can muster.

As great as the platform is for businesses, it’s just not enough these days to really dive into what the customers are truly experiencing when they land on your website.

A Brief History of Google Analytics

First, it’s important to understand how Google Analytics came to be the analytic giant it is today.

Back in 1995, Jennifer Aniston rocked “The Rachel” haircut, Amazon sold its first book, cell phones were only used to make calls, and a company called Web Depot, a web consulting and hosting business in San Diego, was founded.

According to Attendly, a few years after it was founded, the company’s CEO and technical guru Paul Muret was developing the first version of Urchin, their analytics software when the classic “a-ha” moment struck.

As Paul explained to Attendly, “One of our large clients was struggling with the fact that it took 24 hours to process a single day’s worth of website tracking results. We tried out our new analytics tool, and it took 15 minutes to process the same data.”

“That’s when the light bulb went off – that Urchin was for real,” he added.

Urchin was a hit, to put it mildly. It quickly became the standard analytic software for thousands of websites.

Fast forward to 2004 and a trade show. Google representatives approached the Urchin team and before they knew it, an offer was on the table and negotiations were underway.

By 2005, the software – Urchin on Demand – was acquired by Google, and with that acquisition, Google Analytics was born.

Within its first week, Google Analytics saw 100,000 new accounts created and by its tenth anniversary in 2015 as many as 30 to 50 million websites used it. !

Let’s take a look at why.

The Good: What Google Analytics Will Do For You

Its history aside, Google Analytics is like the grand-daddy of analytics. It’s a true behemoth of information.

In many ways, diving into Google Analytics feels like Scrooge McDuck diving into his vault of money.

via GIPHY

There is just so much information! For example, with Google Analytics you can:

Create custom reports Integrate with other tools (such as Lucky Orange!) Show real-time traffic data Understand where your traffic came from Rank your pages by popularity Track campaigns Export to Excel

Not only is it powerful, but it’s all something that more people, especially those working within a digital marketing agency, should be learning how to use. Megalytic put it best:

“In a digital agency, web analytics is everyone’s job, whether they realize it or not. […] You need it for your own insight, but also to help clients to understand their data and how it applies to their businesses.”

How can Google Analytics in particular help agencies? Search Engine Land has a great list of seven reports every marketer should know:

Report

Why

Mobile Performance

Mobile matters and you know it. In the fourth quarter of 2017, 24% of all digital eCommerce dollars were spent via mobile devices. Understanding how a client’s site performs on the smaller mobile screen is crucial.

Traffic Acquisition

This report is likely your first step in creating reports. After all, you want to know if an SEO strategy or PPC campaign is working. Traffic Acquisition will give you a breakdown of your traffic sources and referring sources.

Content Efficiency

You’ll need to be a little more Google Analytic savvy to get this report set up, but it tracks entrances, pageviews, bounces, and goal completions. Click here to learn more from Avinash Kaushik, author of “Web Analytics 2.0.”

Keyword Analysis

Google has been encrypting search data since 2012, which accounts for about 80% of organic keyword data. However, a lot can still be gained by tracking unencrypted keywords.

New vs. Returning Visitors

You probably already know that generating traffic isn’t enough these days. New visitors are important, but it’s also necessary to see what percentage of visitors return to your client’s website. Returning visitors are bae.

Landing Pages

Use this report to see which pages your client’s visitors land on when they first visit the website. If the report shows higher bounce rates on certain web pages, use this information to make these web pages more engaging.

Bounce Rate vs. Exit Rate

Compare the bounce rate (the percentage of visitor who didn’t take action after viewing just one webpage) with the exit rate (the percentage of visitors who browsed 2+ pages on a website before leaving) to isolate UX problems or find pages with lower engagement.

Click here to read more from Search Engine Land.

Even if you don’t have a report to prepare for a client, you can still use Google Analytics to answer questions for yourself like:

How many people are visiting my website? Which websites are sending traffic to my website? What content/web pages do my visitors like the most?

Click here for a beginner’s guide to Google Analytics from Moz.

Now, it’s a shock to – well – no one that Google Analytics is an essential of websites of all shapes, sizes, and niches — but that doesn’t mean it should be the only tool in your digital toolbox.

The Bad: What Google Analytics Won’t Do For You

Google Analytics excels in telling you the beginning and end of a visitor’s journey, but the middle gets a little fuzzy.

Sure, it can tell you how many people visited your website, where they left, and even tell you which campaigns were the most successful.

That’s all useful information, but it doesn’t really explain why visitors do what they do.

Many people use Google Analytics to try to uncover this.

Yes, if one page has a high exit rate, it can be assumed that something is wrong with that page, but what? Once again, you may have isolated the problem page, but there’s still much work to be done.

Was it your call-to-action? Was it your not-so-“mobile-friendly” design? Did you just have a broken link? Were they looking for contact information?

The fact is that you cannot really know for an absolute certain if any of these issues were the ultimate cause of the higher exit rate using Google Analytics.

For example: Let’s say you live in this lovely little abode at 742 Evergreen Terrace in Springfield.

Credit: Andrew Delong

You’re hosting an open house and want to know what people are really doing while there.

So, you put a person at each door to count visitors. By doing this, like Google Analytics, you would know roughly how many people entered the door, how many traveled to a different room, how many went upstairs, etc. It could even tell you your most popular rooms.

Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be able to tell you:

What made your rooms popular; Which room was accidentally locked and unable to be accessed; or If visitors avoided the living room because the rug had dog poop on it.

It cannot provide you much context or explanation for why visitors did what they did or specifically what they were doing.

Now, let’s say instead you used a tool like Lucky Orange.

Instead of just having a person at the doors counting visitors coming and going, you would now have security cameras in every room feeding real-time video directly to you.

You’ll see everything – where visitors touched, how many kept trying to open a closed door, and what areas of the living room were the most popular.

Furthermore, if you saw someone struggling to find something (say the bathroom), you would be able to chat with said visitor to know exactly what they were looking for and lead them directly to the right room before they left your house.

Okay, so the world of websites isn’t quite as homey as the Simpsons’ house. It does offer an excellent illustration of why Google Analytics isn’t enough.

For a website – whether your own or your client’s – you need to know more than just the numbers and charts.

It’s about so much more. We’ll talk more about that in a little bit.

The Ugly Missing Link

Look, I have nothing against Google Analytics. There’s a reason it’s a popular tool, but too many brands make the mistake of only using Google Analytics.

For one, it’s not really “free.”

IMPACT’s Iris Hearn broke down Google Analytics’ “freemium” service in an excellent article here. On the free side, Google Analytics is fine for small businesses that don’t want to pay a monthly charge.

However, those wanting more advanced features or the ability to do more should be prepared to pay up (and I mean pay up).

Google Analytics 360 will cost roughly $150,000 annually in licensing.

Ouch.

You get plenty of additional perks such as emergency 24/7 support and technology recommendations, but with a $150,000 price tag, it’s still a tough upsell to swallow.

In a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sort of benefit to Google Analytics 360, though, is unsampled reporting.

Sampling is exactly what it sounds like – instead of providing a complete data set, the data is aggregated and delivered in a smaller, bite-sized nugget.

It’s not even unique to website analytics. If you’ve ever been called to take part in a research or political poll, you were among a sample size of participants.

For websites, the free version of Google Analytics reports a sample, or percentage of overall traffic, rather than all of the traffic. Let’s say your website had 5 million sessions during a select time period. Instead of showing you 100% of these sessions, Google Analytics shows you 400,000 sessions or 8% of the total.

In this Supermetrics article, Ruben Ugarte discussed one of the most obvious issues of this – you can end up jumping to conclusions.

Yes, sampling gave you the faster response, but you’re still missing 92% of the data needed to make an informed decision.

In a data-driven world, this accuracy matters.

So, that being said, What percentage of sampling is an accurate reflection of the complete dataset?

Sayf Sharif with Lunametrics argues that even 50% sampling may not be enough to get an accurate look at data.

“I once described the Google Analytics sample rate as akin to my personal confidence in the data. At 90% sample, I’m 90% confident that the data is close to correct. At 50%, I’m 50% confident. At 1% sample, I’m 1% confident.” Sayf wrote. “I don’t generally base opinions on things when I’m as close to a coin flip in regards to my confidence.”

There are workarounds, but it still doesn’t hide the elephant in the room.

IMPACT’s Kyle Bento asked if Google fails digital marketers and their audience. While it’s not directly related to Google Analytics, one portion, in particular, stood out to me:

“If your business is like IMPACT, however, your job isn’t just to gets clicks. Your job as a marketer is to drive business and you do this by answering the questions of your buyers.”

That’s where Google Analytics fails – it does not and cannot answer all of your buyer’s questions.

It can show you data that can help you guess what your buyers’ questions, but it leaves much open to interpretation.

As good and mighty as Google Analytics may be, it can’t do everything. No matter how hard you try, at some point, you have to go beyond the data.

Light at the End of the Analytic Tunnel

Google Analytics isn’t a necessary evil, but it’s not enough for your website. You need more than just data, especially sampled data.

Brian Massey with Conversion Sciences said it best in 2013:

“The ability to make decisions based on data is powerful. In five years, marketers will be prized for their insight, not their creativity.”

Now it’s time to not only ask what insight you need to grow your website but also how you will get said insight. If Google Analytics isn’t the answer, what is?

The light at the end of this analytic tunnel is simple – conversion optimization tools.

I know “conversion optimization” can seem exotic, expensive, and difficult to use, but really it is just tools such as visitor recordings, live chat, form analytics, and polls (to name a few).

These tools complement Google Analytics data in the best way possible. In many ways, it makes data come alive to answer the questions you have about your website and visitors.

Here are three ways conversion optimization tools, in particular, can make a difference with your website.

1. They Measure interactions

As I mentioned in the Simpson house illustration, Google Analytics really fails at detailing what someone does on your website.

You need to see it in action.

For example, a dynamic heat map can help show you where visitors are clicking. You can see where visitors are clicking in a drop-down or which elements are being ignored.

You can also segment the dynamic heat map to show just Facebook traffic or PPC traffic to isolate issues with your campaign or landing page:

As you adjust the “segments” to filter through your data, you can see traffic instantly populate to the filter. You may find that Facebook traffic tends to prefer to stick only above the fold while direct traffic is more likely to scroll to the bottom.

You can then follow up with visitor recordings to see what exactly is going on before and after they clicked on a specific call-to-action.

Pair this insight with a conversion funnel, and all of a sudden you have a new way to look at you or your clients’ visitors and how they are really interacting.

Since nothing is sampled, you get a full look at all interactions and understand where (and why) they left.

2. They Can Connect with Visitors

Google Analytics wouldn’t necessarily be able to tell you which visitor on your client’s website right now is struggling, but tools like Lucky Orange can.

For example, a check of the live visitor recordings would easily let you watch someone interacting right now on your website or on a client’s website.

You could then “ask to chat” to pop up a chat to stop visitors from leaving in real-time by leading them to the right product page or information.

You can also take it a step further by creating a poll that will engage visitors to give their opinion on visitor sentiment, find out what is driving them nuts, identify what visitors are really thinking, and even capture leads.

3. Get Unbiased Feedback

As much as we would like to think that Google Analytics data is absolute, it’s not. We’ve already talked about data sampling, but there’s one other aspect that can hurt websites – biased reporting of Google Analytics data.

Perhaps marketers or designers may misinterpret Google Analytics, other times, it may be that we skew data to meet our own bias expectations. Whatever the reason, ignoring performance issues can only hurt brands by preventing them from understanding what’s working and what’s not.

The answer lies in conversion optimization insight which can’t be manipulated or misinterpreted.

For example, take TaylorMade, one of the leading makers of golf products and accessories. Even though millions of people flock to TaylorMade.com on a monthly basis to get the latest products, tips, and golf news, TaylorMade’s design team struggled.

They were discovering issues too late and becoming reactive. After some deliberation, the team used Lucky Orange dynamic heat maps to see exactly where visitors were clicking on the website before and after designs were implemented.

Clicks don’t lie. Recordings can’t be twisted.

Whether or not changes were effective, dynamic heatmaps and recordings would quickly show what visitors are doing instead.

Maybe it’s not even your changes that went wrong. Was a form field error tripping them up? Maybe they don’t want to be contacted by phone?

Run form analytics to see if there’s something wrong with your forms that could be sending visitors away.

Added bonus: You don’t need to spend $150,000.

Warning: Shameless plug ahead.

If you want to pay $150,000 for Google Analytics 360, by all means, go for it, but there are cheaper methods that can show you more dynamic data – such as Lucky Orange – that start as low as $10 per month.

Not only is it more budget-friendly, but Lucky Orange also integrates with HubSpot. When integrated within HubSpot, recordings, dynamic heat maps, and chat logs are automatically loaded directly for each contact.

And, to put the cherry on top, we also have integrations with Adobe DTM, Magento, Shopify, Unbounce, and a host of other options.

The Bottom Line

Google Analytics belongs in your digital toolbox, but it shouldn’t be the sole tool used on your website or for your clients’ websites.

Conversion optimization insight from tools like Lucky Orange used in conjunction with data tools like Google Analytics can open new doors to improve conversions, impress clients, and make the digital world a better place for all.Featured Image Created Using Placeit.net

Read more: impactbnd.com

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dorothydelgadillo · 7 years ago

Text

Google Analytics: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly Missing Link

Google Analytics is a staple for websites, but ol’ reliable just isn’t what she used to be.

Most – if not all – businesses depend on it on some regular basis to understand how their websites are doing. Is traffic up today? How many visitors are bouncing?

It’s popular, handy, filled with data, and free to use --but today’s websites require more insight than just what Google Analytics can muster.

As great as the platform is for businesses, it’s just not enough these days to really dive into what the customers are truly experiencing when they land on your website.

A Brief History of Google Analytics

First, it’s important to understand how Google Analytics came to be the analytic giant it is today.

“That’s when the light bulb went off – that Urchin was for real,” he added.

Urchin was a hit, to put it mildly. It quickly became the standard analytic software for thousands of websites.

Fast forward to 2004 and a trade show. Google representatives approached the Urchin team and before they knew it, an offer was on the table and negotiations were underway.

By 2005, the software - Urchin on Demand - was acquired by Google, and with that acquisition, Google Analytics was born.

Within its first week, Google Analytics saw 100,000 new accounts created and by its tenth anniversary in 2015 as many as 30 to 50 million websites used it. !

Let’s take a look at why.

The Good: What Google Analytics Will Do For You

Its history aside, Google Analytics is like the grand-daddy of analytics. It’s a true behemoth of information.

In many ways, diving into Google Analytics feels like Scrooge McDuck diving into his vault of money.

via GIPHY

There is just so much information! For example, with Google Analytics you can:

Create custom reports

Integrate with other tools (such as Lucky Orange!)

Show real-time traffic data

Understand where your traffic came from

Rank your pages by popularity

Track campaigns

Export to Excel

Not only is it powerful, but it’s all something that more people, especially those working within a digital marketing agency, should be learning how to use. Megalytic put it best:

“In a digital agency, web analytics is everyone’s job, whether they realize it or not. [...] You need it for your own insight, but also to help clients to understand their data and how it applies to their businesses.”

How can Google Analytics in particular help agencies? Search Engine Land has a great list of seven reports every marketer should know:

Report

Why

Mobile Performance

Traffic Acquisition

Content Efficiency

Keyword Analysis

Google has been encrypting search data since 2012, which accounts for about 80% of organic keyword data. However, a lot can still be gained by tracking unencrypted keywords.

New vs. Returning Visitors

Landing Pages

Bounce Rate vs. Exit Rate

Click here to read more from Search Engine Land.

Even if you don’t have a report to prepare for a client, you can still use Google Analytics to answer questions for yourself like:

How many people are visiting my website?

Which websites are sending traffic to my website?

What content/web pages do my visitors like the most?

Click here for a beginner’s guide to Google Analytics from Moz.

Now, it’s a shock to - well - no one that Google Analytics is an essential of websites of all shapes, sizes, and niches -- but that doesn’t mean it should be the only tool in your digital toolbox.

The Bad: What Google Analytics Won’t Do For You

Google Analytics excels in telling you the beginning and end of a visitor’s journey, but the middle gets a little fuzzy.

Sure, it can tell you how many people visited your website, where they left, and even tell you which campaigns were the most successful.

That’s all useful information, but it doesn’t really explain why visitors do what they do.

Many people use Google Analytics to try to uncover this.

Was it your call-to-action? Was it your not-so-“mobile-friendly” design? Did you just have a broken link? Were they looking for contact information?

The fact is that you cannot really know for an absolute certain if any of these issues were the ultimate cause of the higher exit rate using Google Analytics.

For example: Let’s say you live in this lovely little abode at 742 Evergreen Terrace in Springfield.

Credit: Andrew Delong

You’re hosting an open house and want to know what people are really doing while there.

Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be able to tell you:

What made your rooms popular;

Which room was accidentally locked and unable to be accessed; or

If visitors avoided the living room because the rug had dog poop on it.

It cannot provide you much context or explanation for why visitors did what they did or specifically what they were doing.

Now, let’s say instead you used a tool like Lucky Orange.

Instead of just having a person at the doors counting visitors coming and going, you would now have security cameras in every room feeding real-time video directly to you.

You’ll see everything - where visitors touched, how many kept trying to open a closed door, and what areas of the living room were the most popular.

Okay, so the world of websites isn’t quite as homey as the Simpsons’ house. It does offer an excellent illustration of why Google Analytics isn’t enough.

For a website - whether your own or your client’s - you need to know more than just the numbers and charts.

It’s about so much more. We’ll talk more about that in a little bit.

The Ugly Missing Link

Look, I have nothing against Google Analytics. There’s a reason it’s a popular tool, but too many brands make the mistake of only using Google Analytics.

For one, it’s not really “free.”

However, those wanting more advanced features or the ability to do more should be prepared to pay up (and I mean pay up).

Google Analytics 360 will cost roughly $150,000 annually in licensing.

Ouch.

You get plenty of additional perks such as emergency 24/7 support and technology recommendations, but with a $150,000 price tag, it’s still a tough upsell to swallow.

In a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sort of benefit to Google Analytics 360, though, is unsampled reporting.

Sampling is exactly what it sounds like - instead of providing a complete data set, the data is aggregated and delivered in a smaller, bite-sized nugget.

It’s not even unique to website analytics. If you’ve ever been called to take part in a research or political poll, you were among a sample size of participants.

In this Supermetrics article, Ruben Ugarte discussed one of the most obvious issues of this - you can end up jumping to conclusions.

Yes, sampling gave you the faster response, but you’re still missing 92% of the data needed to make an informed decision.

In a data-driven world, this accuracy matters.

So, that being said, What percentage of sampling is an accurate reflection of the complete dataset?

Sayf Sharif with Lunametrics argues that even 50% sampling may not be enough to get an accurate look at data.

There are workarounds, but it still doesn’t hide the elephant in the room.

IMPACT’s Kyle Bento asked if Google fails digital marketers and their audience. While it’s not directly related to Google Analytics, one portion, in particular, stood out to me:

“If your business is like IMPACT, however, your job isn’t just to gets clicks. Your job as a marketer is to drive business and you do this by answering the questions of your buyers.”

That’s where Google Analytics fails - it does not and cannot answer all of your buyer’s questions.

It can show you data that can help you guess what your buyers’ questions, but it leaves much open to interpretation.

As good and mighty as Google Analytics may be, it can’t do everything. No matter how hard you try, at some point, you have to go beyond the data.

Light at the End of the Analytic Tunnel

Google Analytics isn’t a necessary evil, but it’s not enough for your website. You need more than just data, especially sampled data.

Brian Massey with Conversion Sciences said it best in 2013:

“The ability to make decisions based on data is powerful. In five years, marketers will be prized for their insight, not their creativity.”

Now it’s time to not only ask what insight you need to grow your website but also how you will get said insight. If Google Analytics isn’t the answer, what is?

The light at the end of this analytic tunnel is simple - conversion optimization tools.

I know “conversion optimization” can seem exotic, expensive, and difficult to use, but really it is just tools such as visitor recordings, live chat, form analytics, and polls (to name a few).

These tools complement Google Analytics data in the best way possible. In many ways, it makes data come alive to answer the questions you have about your website and visitors.

Here are three ways conversion optimization tools, in particular, can make a difference with your website.

1. They Measure interactions

As I mentioned in the Simpson house illustration, Google Analytics really fails at detailing what someone does on your website.

You need to see it in action.

For example, a dynamic heat map can help show you where visitors are clicking. You can see where visitors are clicking in a drop-down or which elements are being ignored.

You can also segment the dynamic heat map to show just Facebook traffic or PPC traffic to isolate issues with your campaign or landing page:

You can then follow up with visitor recordings to see what exactly is going on before and after they clicked on a specific call-to-action.

Pair this insight with a conversion funnel, and all of a sudden you have a new way to look at you or your clients’ visitors and how they are really interacting.

Since nothing is sampled, you get a full look at all interactions and understand where (and why) they left.

2. They Can Connect with Visitors

Google Analytics wouldn’t necessarily be able to tell you which visitor on your client’s website right now is struggling, but tools like Lucky Orange can.

For example, a check of the live visitor recordings would easily let you watch someone interacting right now on your website or on a client’s website.

You could then “ask to chat” to pop up a chat to stop visitors from leaving in real-time by leading them to the right product page or information.

3. Get Unbiased Feedback

As much as we would like to think that Google Analytics data is absolute, it’s not. We’ve already talked about data sampling, but there’s one other aspect that can hurt websites - biased reporting of Google Analytics data.

The answer lies in conversion optimization insight which can’t be manipulated or misinterpreted.

Clicks don’t lie. Recordings can’t be twisted.

Whether or not changes were effective, dynamic heatmaps and recordings would quickly show what visitors are doing instead.

Maybe it’s not even your changes that went wrong. Was a form field error tripping them up? Maybe they don’t want to be contacted by phone?

Run form analytics to see if there’s something wrong with your forms that could be sending visitors away.

Added bonus: You don’t need to spend $150,000.

Warning: Shameless plug ahead.

If you want to pay $150,000 for Google Analytics 360, by all means, go for it, but there are cheaper methods that can show you more dynamic data - such as Lucky Orange - that start as low as $10 per month.

And, to put the cherry on top, we also have integrations with Adobe DTM, Magento, Shopify, Unbounce, and a host of other options.

The Bottom Line

Google Analytics belongs in your digital toolbox, but it shouldn’t be the sole tool used on your website or for your clients’ websites.

from Web Developers World https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/google-analytics-shortcomings

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blazingmarlene-blog · 7 years ago

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Character Chart ;

Character’s full name: Marlene Grace Mckinnon Reason or meaning of name: Named after her mother’s icons, the legendary (and very different) Marlene Dietrich and Grace Kelly. Character’s nickname: Occasionally called ‘blondie’. Reason for nickname: Hair color. Birth date: June 1st, 1992.

Physical Appearance Age: 25 How old does he/she appear: Mid to late twenties. Height: 5’4 Body build: Skinny Shape of face: Heart-shaped Eye color: Blue Glasses or contacts: None. Skin tone: Pale Distinguishing marks: A beauty mark on her cheek, chipped canine tooth and slightly yellow teeth, several minor scars from falls and altercations, a Bukowski quote tattooed on her upper back. Predominant features: Her eyes, her father’s well-defined nose, dark circles under her eyes. Hair color: Blonde Type of hair: Shaggy Hairstyle: Shoulder-length, bangs. Voice: Raspy Overall attractiveness: Very attractive, more often described as “hot” or “gorgeous” than “pretty”, and definitely not healthy looking in the slightest. Physical disabilities: Substance addictions, mild eczema, beginning of heart issues. Usual fashion of dress: “Forgotten member of the Runaways” would be her own description of what she’s aiming for, but she doesn’t always make the effort. Her eyes are always covered in eyeliner, but if she’s going to work, she’ll mainly just throw on whatever she can grab with a pair of boots and black skinny jeans. It somehow manages to look “casual-chic” either way. Favorite outfit: Faux fur jacket, blue sprayed hair, ripped fishnets, microscopic black dress and visible blue lingerie. Jewelry or accessories: Ear cartilage piercings, bracelets and the occasional pair of earrings or necklace.

Personality Good personality traits: Brave, vibrant, clever, driven, honest Bad personality traits: Arrogant, self-destructive, crass, insecure, addictive tendencies. Mood character is most often in: Anxious. Sense of humor: Sarcastic and extremely dark, often leading people to wonder whether what she said was a joke or an extremely brutal form of honesty. Character’s greatest joy in life: Destroying corporate property bought on the backs of decent people a.k.a her most recent addiction. Character’s greatest fear: Being locked up in jail or worst, rehab. Why? Sobriety, of the real, crushing kind that comes with isolation and goes beyond the absence of chemicals, terrifies Marlene. Putting things on a page works as long as she has some sort of filter. But she doesn’t know what would happen if she was left alone with her thoughts and fears. She doesn’t want to. What single event would most throw this character’s life into complete turmoil? Getting sent to a prision or a clinic. Character is most at ease when: High, messing around with friends, irritating stuck-up people. Most ill at ease when: Alone, forced to conform, entirely sober. Enraged when: Catching even the slightest hint of unfairness, spoken to when craving drugs, running out of money. Depressed or sad when: Alone, craving. Priorities: Destruction. Life philosophy: Be like Samson: use your last ounce of strength to bring the prison crashing down on the motherfuckers’ heads. Character’s soft spot: The underdogs. Is this soft spot obvious to others? Crushingly so. Greatest strength: Bravery. Greatest vulnerability or weakness: Self-destruction. Biggest regret: Having spent as long as she did pretending to be someone she wasn’t. Minor regret: Not having burnt down the TripleM headquarters rather than just crashing her car against the building. Biggest accomplishment: Joining the Order of the Phoenix, as well as the many jobs she pulled off for them. Past failures he/she would be embarrassed to have people know about: Everyone knows them all already. Character’s darkest secret: Altough Marlene’s sympathy for the exploited is genuine, she’s also a priviledged girl using extremely complex issues as outlets for her own self-loathing and inferiority complexes, and her activism and rage are addictions in themselves. Does anyone else know? It’s probably not a secret to anyone but herself, really. Goals Drives and motivations: Justice, knowledge, pleasure. Immediate goals: To get back at TripleM. Long term goals: To bring the Sacred 28 down, to create a world in which corporate greed doesn’t corrupt every aspect of human existence, to die in a blaze of glory. Past Type of childhood: Privileged but miserable. Pets: A dog named Rufus. Most important childhood memory: Being accidentally driven through the slums of Los Angeles when she was seven. Childhood hero: Initially, her mother. But heroism died pretty fast. Dream job: Either a writer or a real journalist, a profession the people working under TripleM are not truly in. Education: Private schools, University. Religion: None. Finances: Very wealthy. Present Current location: London Currently living with: Her flatmate, Rachel, and her landlady, Patty. Pets: None. Religion: Atheist. Occupation: Barmaid at The Leaky Bucket. Finances: Living on a prayer. Family Mother: Priscilla Barnes, born Mary Barnes. Relationship with her: In a word: shit. All Marlene ever wanted was to know her mother loved her. She admired her for her beauty and for the way she built a fortune and never looked back, and came to hate her for the very same reasons. The problem was that Priscilla grew up poor with neglectful parents, and she somewhat believed that throwing money at her daughter was all there was to raising her. Their personalities are also a bit too similar to work together. They both wreck everything in their path, but while Priscilla does it for money and success, Marlene sees the vacancy behind it all, and prefers to wreck herself and the injustice she sees in the world. Priscilla does love Marlene in her way, and hopes that cutting her off will be the push she needs to be all that she can be. But it doesn’t make her any less of a shitty mother. And no remnant of affection that Marlene feels for her mother is greater than the hatred and disgust that taints their relationship.

Father: Clark Mckinnon. Relationship with him: Benevolent indifference on his end, with the occasional polite lunch thrown in. He did make an effort to see more of her after he moved back to London, but gave up once he realized he was talking to a frightening, fully grown stranger. Marlene thinks he’s the most boring, most frivolous person on earth. She endures him only because she can still squeeze some money off of him in a moment of despair with the comfort of knowing that it’s not as bloody as her mother’s. Siblings: None. Relationship with them: None.

Favorites Color: Electric Blue. Least favorite color: Brown. Music: Punk and House , with a secret love of corny Country music. Mode of transportation: Underground and bus. Most prized possession: A signed copy of Ryszard Kapuściński’s “Christ With a Rifle on His Shoulder”.

Habits Hobbies: Clubbing, writing, listening to music, taking pictures, chatting to strangers, minor vandalism (major one is a passion, not a hobbie). Plays a musical instrument? A few chords on the guitar. Plays a sport? None. How he/she would spend a rainy day: At home in bed. Spending habits: Forced to count her money, prone to spending it all on binging episodes. Smokes: Yes. Drinks: Yes, but not as much as one would expect. Alcohol is actually kind of a last resort for her. Other drugs: Marlene is still a speed girl at heart, but she’s not as faithful to it as she used to be. She’ll snort, smoke and swallow anything in sight if she’s in the right mood, though. What does he/she do too much of? Drugs. What does he/she do too little of? Self-reflection.

Nervous Tics: Biting her nails, biting her lip, playing with her hands, tapping her feet, talking nonstop.

Traits Optimist or pessimist? Pessimist. Introvert or extrovert? Extrovert. Daredevil or cautious? Daredevil. Logical or emotional? Emotional. Disorderly and messy or methodical and neat? Messy. Prefers working or relaxing? Relaxing. Confident or unsure of himself/herself? Unsure, but convinced that she’s confident. Animal lover? Not really. She’s sympathetic to their suffering and would beat the shit out of anyone who was hurting them for sport, but her refusal to wear real leather and her general avoidance of meat have more to do with sticking it to the man than with any particular kindship she feels towards animals. The people that seem to care more about them than they care about humans also tend to piss her off.

Self-Perception How he/she feels about himself/herself: Please, lord, don’t make her think about that. One word the character would use to describe self: Fuck you. Two words, but that’s how little she cares. What does the character consider his/her best personality trait? Honesty. What does the character consider his/her worst personality trait? Lack of self-control. What does the character consider his/her best physical characteristic? Her legs. What does the character consider his/her worst physical characteristic? Her nose. How does the character think others perceive him/her: Crazy, fun, pathetic Marlene. What would the character most like to change about himself/herself: Either nothing or nearly everything, depending on the day.

#no lie in her fire;#character development;#drugs tw #addiction tw #i can't remember where i took this form from #and it makes me feel bad #because i'd like to credit it

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unicornery · 6 months ago

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Hello friends! Here's the latest installment of Rachel's Chart Chat, a feature of the People are the Enemy podcast. This week is all about the biggest US pop hits for Barbra Streisand, inspired by listening to her autobiography "My Name is Barbra." Run time 10min 0sec

Between 1964-1997, Barbara charted 41 songs into the US Billboard Hot 100, 21 of which made the Top 40. 12 of those hit the Top 10, and that's what I talk about in this segment, while also highlighting her achievements on the Top 200 albums chart.

Sources used, in addition to her book, include wikipedia and the Billboard database.

Below screenshot from the vulture dot com article Everything Barbra Streisand Eats in Her 970-Page Memoir, because I mentioned her enjoying crafty when I talked about the Guilty album.

Run time 10m 0sec

#Barbra Streisand #My Name is Barbra #Rachel's Chart Chat #RCC #People are the Enemy Podcast

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brendagilliam2 · 8 years ago

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Meet the Twitter designer who shuns all social media

Jon Bell will speak at Generate San Francisco on 9 June, alongside Aaron Gustafson, Stephanie Rewis, Rachel Nabors, Steve Souders, Josh Brewer and eight other great speakers. Get your ticket today!

Please introduce yourself. What do you do? I’m a product designer that loves to write and teach. I’ve worked on lots of products from Real Player back in 2000 to consulting at Frog Design to startups to Windows Phone to my current job at Twitter. On the side, I founded a company that teaches design called UX Launchpad.

What’s life like working at Twitter? The other day I was DMing with someone in a war zone about some Twitter feature ideas that would help them to survive. That’s how life is: humbling and complicated. Everyone has ideas about what Twitter should do, and only a small group of people actually get to design and ship them. That’s always on my mind.

What’s your typical day like? I’ve mocked up a helpful chart:

I’ve been doing this work professionally for 17 years, and over 20 if you count freelance web work in the mid-90s. I’ve found the most joy in ‘leaning out‘.

It freaks people out sometimes. You come onto a team and expect the senior designer to take the hardest stuff and the junior people to have smaller tasks. But I like to flip it. Give the new people the biggest challenges, then be there for discussion. Trust them and they’ll grow faster.

Other than lots and lots of listening, I spend a lot of time helping people craft stories and writing what I call ‘design rationale’ documents. I like to write design specs like I’m a journalist or a historian. My thinking is: don’t just explain what you did, explain every single tradeoff. Explain why. This is where Design Explosions came from.

Do you still do Design Explosions? Yup! It’s like an indie band you used to love who’s taking a suspiciously long hiatus. Then after you give up on them they suddenly release one more album. You buy it out of nostalgia and think, ‘Hm, maybe they should have just stopped at the hiatus’. But I’m not that smart.

What are your top three tools that you use in your day-to-day work?

You work at Twitter but have very little online presence, even on Twitter. Please explain. Gladly! This should sum it up:

That didn’t clarify anything, did it? Darn it.

Among other things UX Launchpad teaches UX design to non-designers. How do you do that? What’s the single most important thing engineers and dev would need to get their head around? UX Launchpad’s entire reason for existing is to teach design to non-designers. Here’s the summary:

My co-founder William Van Hecke and I both feel very strongly that design is just problem solving. We spend all day demystifying design to make it as fun and hands-on as possible.

I modelled the class on Penn & Teller. Like them, we don’t have a lot of patience for making our field an ivory tower that only some people can access. It’s way more accessible and fun than it seems when you’re talking to some arrogant jerk at a networking event about how great he is.

When engineers or product managers leave our class, they’ll often say they haven’t had that much fun with building and creating since they were much younger. Mission accomplished! If you’re not playing, you’re doing it wrong.

What’s the Design Play Manifesto? I started a design conference called Design Play that’s now approaching its fourth year. I also did a meetup in Seattle for a while called Design Play. In both cases, it all comes down to the simple (science-based) fact that people do better problem solving when they’re feeling comfortable and positive. This graph sums it up:

So the manifesto (currently in draft form) is me trying to spread the thinking a bit in an open source way. A couple of Design Play meetups have happened around the world since then, which is so cool.

The description for your Generate San Francisco session is unusual. What can people expect to take away from the talk? I purposely keep it vague because it’s a unique talk format, but for the curious I have an article I wrote about it here. And for the slightly less curious I have this marketing department-approved PR image. Share with all your friends, especially the target demographics my company is currently geo and topic targeting for maximum shareholder value. Am I doing this right?

What irritates you most about product design and how could we avoid those mistakes? I won’t answer here for fear of being blacklisted from the design community. But I’m writing a series of essays called Unpopular Opinions About Design, so if anyone is reading this, I’d love to chat with you about it at the conference! I’m a hoot in person. Don’t be shy.

What’s your advice to anyone aspiring to work at a big tech company? See previous answer. I can talk about this for hours. Literally. Like, when I get going, a crowd sometimes forms because it’s so out of place seeing someone talk so frankly and excessively. Come be a part of the freak show!

What are the three biggest lessons you’ve learned in your career?

Jon Bell will give a presentation at Generate San Francisco alongside 13 other great speakers from the likes of Netflix, NASA, Uber, Salesforce and more. Topics covered include adaptive interfaces, web animations, design and performance, prototyping, design systems… and astronaut autonomy through design. Get your ticket today!

This post comes from the RSS feed of CreativeBlog, you can find more here!

The post Meet the Twitter designer who shuns all social media appeared first on Brenda Gilliam.

from Brenda Gilliam http://brendagilliam.com/meet-the-twitter-designer-who-shuns-all-social-media/

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