Publishing visitor activity in marketing

[neilorourke]

I switched over to google analytics from using Urchin to analyse our server logs and the number of visitors seemed to plummet from 900 to 100 per day.

I understand that this is quite common as Google Analytics is better at filtering out non human traffic such as web spiders.

The frustration is that a subscriber to our service has asked for our visitor stats and I will clearly have to quote the rather paltry lower figure.

Does anyone know whether web based companies generally quote unfiltered visitor stats to their clients in their marketing or are websites generally more honest when representing the actual number of human visitors?

Although my conscientious nature will drive me to quote the lower figures is they are a more realistic representation I wonder if honestly puts us at a competitive disadvantage!

Neil

[nashville]

Wow, what a great question!

In fact I just spent some time looking at the ways I measure traffic. I use Google also, plus Quantcast.com and of course AWstats that comes with hosting. They all were a bit different but AWStats showed the best numbers.

Some thoughts.

You could publish all the numbers from more than one source

OR

You could dig into the keywords that brought your visitor to the site in the first place and then make the point that YOUR keywords result in the RIGHT visitor and that your service does not play a 'numbers game' but more of a 'right visitor' game. This approach would show your client that you dig deeper into the numbers and know more about your visitor.

Actually the one above is what we do. My goal is really to get the RIGHT kind of visitor not the most visitors.

[nottheusual1]

Publish the numbers that put you in the best light. I'm not sure if I agree that just because numbers come from Google that they are superior - they are just Google's interpretation of your logs.

Like how they determine whether a CPC click is fraudulent or not, and we all know how stellar and foolproof that process is, right???

Such disparities can be "deflationary" for the effort if not put into context. Some may even believe that this is a way for Google to offer other services or open the door for their "service partners", but I'm not personally a conspiracy theorist.

[wige]

Well, the Google numbers are always going to be lower than your actual visitor count. They use third party tracking cookies (not your logs) to track visits. In most cases, this will naturally filter out bots. However, many security applications and browser settings can render a visitor invisible to Google analytics. Most of the pros use a "hybrid" method for counting visitors, averaging the number of uniques/day from Analytics (or other JS-based analysis system) and the number of uniques/day from a log analysis system that has the ability to filter known bots. The result will still not be completely accurate, but it will account for some of the users who hide from analytics and still discount many of the unknown bots.

[jordanmcclements]

I found Quantcast gave 'better' numbers to show to advertisers!

[martink]

You could always tell the subscriber the truth with a marketing spin... that you recently switched analytics tools and that you are still waiting for sufficient data from the new tool, but the latest data from your old tool reports xyz. I like the "right traffic" concept as well.

[TrafficProducer]

Maybe this will help:-
Why web usage statistics are (worse than) meaningless

[wige]

That document is somewhat outdated (first written 13 years ago) and does not address javascript-based analytics. It also over-estimates the use of caching proxies. Today, there is less than a 2% chance a visitor is pulling your page from a cache, and even if they are the server logs will record a "version check" in most cases, where the cache checks to see if the document needs to be updated.

[bobchrist]

IMO google analytics block many spiders resultant the stats highly differ from other services.

[seo4china]

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[Dubbya]

I hear from Marketing "Professionals" all the time and very seldom do I get the truth. Marketing is all about the "positive spin". In most instances, when it comes to statistics, you're seldom going to get the real deal.

I want actual results for my advertising dollar, not just an optimistic expectation based on irrelevant information. I appreciate honesty and integrity and I expect that the company can back up their claims with legitimate information, not simply Alexa stats.

My goal is really to get the RIGHT kind of visitor not the most visitors.

There's your marketing spin and IMHO, the best way to tackle your situation.

Who cares if you get 100,000 page views if they only result in a .0005 conversion rate? It's much more cost-effective to get 10,000 page views with a 2% conversion rate.

Ask them point blank to outline their expectations. Educate your clients to understand that what you're after is quality traffic that yields a higher conversion rate.

Maintain your integrity and follow your initial intentions. Tell them the truth and make a point of letting them know you not trying to blow them away with bogus numbers up front, but with sustainable results in the home stretch.

They can decide to lay out a large amount of cash for immediate exposure and visitors that never return, or they can maximize ROE with sustained and consistent results.

It ain't rocket science.

.02

[nottheusual1]

Nobody says to be disingenuous, but why have to do all the extra explaining?

There seems to be some underlying consensus that googles' numbers are in some way superior, hence "more truthful". I think that is a basic fallacy of the argument, and so is the assumption that the customer will actually be able to discern the difference and/or appreciate it, so why go there?

And - BTW - selling is an art, not a science.

[John]

Originally Posted by nottheusual1

There seems to be some underlying consensus that googles' numbers are in some way superior, hence "more truthful".

Anybody can inflate even their google analytics figures by joining some automated traffic exchanges. So I agree with Dubbya (not the one in the White House, I completely disagree with him!) that traffic numbers only are no reference to usefulness of a website.

[neilorourke]

Thanks for the feedback which has been really useful.

It is very rare that artists request these stats (partly because they can see how many people visit their gallery and view each artwork when they log in).

I completly agree that it should be about the right type of visitors for the client and the quality of visits. One of the challenges is explaining low figures in this context to clients who see my competitors advertising far higher visitor figures on their websites without filtering out potential robot activity which help to inflate their figures.

Cheers

Neil