Fit and Finish: Insight from the Ironworks User Experience Group

Trim your Mobile Strategy to Avoid App Rot

App rot
noun

1. When an app is published and nary a soul downloads it. An all-too-common problem for brands and app developers in today's overcrowded app marketplace.
2. When an app is downloaded by a consumer but is rarely interacted with by said consumer.

I've got 50 apps on my iPhone4. Another 50 or so on my "vintage" model - a 2G iPhone I still use for gaming with the kids. Many of the apps do fantastic things, like turning my phone into a videoediting bay, and enabling me to record R&B tracks in autotune.  (What could be more fantastic than that?)

But aside from the standby apps of social, stocks, weather and maps, there's one app I use more regularly than any other. One app that has increased my brand loyalty and usage: The GreatClips app.

Like a rooster that crows each morn, once a month, I open my trusty GreatClips app. It tells me current wait time, store hours, and … here's the best part… it lets me choose my store location and check in ahead of time so I don't have to sit and wait. Simple, powerful, and very valuable for someone like me, whose idea of torture is sitting in a haircut waiting room on a sunny Saturday.

When it comes to low switching costs -- meaning low brand loyalty -- you can't get much lower than men's haircuts. But the GreatClips app has succeeded in making me loyal to the brand.

As marketers and product managers, we're all scurrying to leverage mobile to increase brand affinity and capture positive ROI. But instead of trying to dream up the next great mobile innovation, the simplest path to avoiding App Rot is to identify your customer touchpoint where the greatest utility can be delivered, like GreatClips did for customers like me. Most of the time, you'll find that the less complex the better, and the less sexy, the better.

Rather than trying to recreate your desktop experience on mobile, or stuff every marketing exec's ideas into a company app, why not start small and simple, with a mobile experience that will do one thing really well for your core market segment? Your customers will thank you, and they'll tell others. And word-of-mouth is the most powerful marketing of all.

Google Analytics Tip - How to Delete Profiles and Web Properties

We recently had a client that wanted to do some cleanup on their Google Analytics account and get rid of several web properties that either had never been used or were no longer needed.  Google provides some pretty clear guidance on how to create or edit a web property and add or remove profiles within that property, but nothing on how to delete the web property itself.

Fortunately, we had a test GA account with which we could try some things, and were able to figure out the answer.  To delete a web property, you simply need to delete every profile within the property.  Once the last profile has been deleted, the web property with cease to exist in the GA account.  That's all there is to it!

Now, before you go deleting profiles and Web Properties in GA, there are some important things to consider first:

1. Is there data in this profile that I might need later on?  If so, you may not want to delete the profile.  Once a profile is deleted, all data associated with that profile is also deleted.  Also, a deleted profile will no longer collect incoming data, so make sure all active GA code on your site(s) is going into a profile that you plan to keep active.
2. Do I have the proper access to delete a profile?  If you are an administrator for the account, then the answer is yes.  If not, you'll need to either work with an administrator to gain access or have them delete the profiles/web properties for you.
3. What if I don't want to lose the data in an older profile, but I want to keep my users from accessing it for reports?  For non-Administrators, you can adjust which profiles they can see or access through the "Users" tab under the account or profile settings.  For administrators, consider renaming the profile in the "Profile Settings" tab to something like "Archived - [Old Profile Name]" so users know this is not an active profile.

Deleting profiles and web properties should not be done casually, but it can be a good way to clean up an older analytics account with lots of unused or irrelevant profiles and properties cluttering it up.  Just make sure you understand the implications and have the proper access.

The Power of Advanced Segments

Advanced segments are one of my favorite features of Google Analytics.  They are a powerful tool for slicing, dicing, and analyzing specific segments of your traffic that help you to  better understand WHO your customers are and WHAT they are looking for on your website.  

What are advanced segments?

• Advanced Segments allow you to isolate and analyze specific kinds of traffic.
• One of the most powerful features of Google Analytics for analyzing website traffic

Marketers spend a ton of time and money conducting research to understand who their audiences are and their behavior patterns.  Just like traditional marketing, the same is true of marketing your website to get the most value. 

If you continuously look at your site traffic without applying advanced segments, it is very easy to miss valuable insights into exactly what part of your audience is doing what. 

 

Advanced Segments vs. Profile Filters

Advanced segments

• Used to filter the Analytics data you're viewing in a report
• Can view historical data 
• You can see and compare multiple advanced segments side by side in reports

Filters

• Applied to the information coming into your account, to manipulate the final data in order to provide specialized reports
• Can only view data going forward from when the filter was created
• You can only view data for one filtered profile at a time.

 

Types of Advanced Segments: Default and Custom

Google Analytics provides a variety of default advanced segments that are quite useful.

• New Visitors
• Returning Visitors
• Paid Search Traffic
• Non-paid Search Traffic
• Search Traffic
• Direct Traffic
• Referral Traffic
• Visits with Conversions
• Mobile Traffic
• Non-bounce Visits

Advanced Custom Segments can help you analyze several aspects of your website and web or Marketing strategy, including:

• SEO efforts
• Link building campaigns
• Social media strategy
• Keyword performance
• Conversion optimization

 

Why I love them:

• Advanced segments are retroactive meaning you can look at historical data. 

• Site averages can be misleading.  Advanced segments really help you to understand the data in front of you. 

• Top-level reports in Google Analytics are not going to help you identify what the serious problems are or where they are coming from.

 

Advanced segments have the power to help you determine your marketing objectives and study the behavior that is right in front of you.  Instead of spending loads of time and money on in-depth market research, take a look at the information that is right in front of you! 

 

 

Webinar Recap: Know What Works - How Testing Can Save You Time, Increase Conversion, and Improve Morale

Today, organizations still make far too many decisions on their website based on imperfect information, with no way to measure effectiveness. With proper data collection and analytics tools by way of A/B and/or multivariate testing, experiments can be a powerful way to help your organization make better, more informed decisions.

In a recent Ironworks and Sitecore webinar, “Know What Works – How Testing Can Save You Time, Increase Conversion, and Improve Morale,”  Geoff Harper of Ironworks and Peter Fogelsanger of Sitecore walked attendees through real-life scenarios on how A/B and multivariate testing can help your organization:

• Save time by building a consensus around a solution using hard data
• Optimize user experience by understanding what solutions best meet the requirements of your audience
• Determine the effect of changes to your website by testing a portion of site visitors to mitigate risks

Using Sitecore's built-in testing features, we demonstrated how easy it is to get started with A/B testing. Once you’re ready to get started, always remember to A/B test often, measure, rinse, and repeat.

Questions? For more information about A/B and multivariate testing, please contact Geoff Harper, Manager of Research & Measurement on the Interactive team at Ironworks Consulting.

View Webinar Recording: “Know What Works – How Testing Can Save You Time, Increase Conversion, and Improve Morale”

Ironworks 2011 Interactive Summit

 Stepping Back to Look at the Biggest Issues Facing Clients in the Year Ahead

Is your web design "Responsive" enough to look good on tablet displays that haven't been invented yet? Do you have an analytics plan in place to capture usage data beyond the "page" level? And just what exactly is your digital strategy for 2011? Interactive teams from Ironworks' multiple offices met this month to discuss answers to these questions and more. Join us as we recap our latest thinking on Web and Mobile Strategy, Responsive Design, and Analytics.

 

To learn more about responsive web design as mentioned in this video, please see our related blog post, “The Future of Web Design Will Be Responsive”.