This document provides an overview of web analytics basics for public relations. It discusses measuring various media channels including websites, social media, newspapers, magazines and more. It outlines key metrics to track, such as unique visitors, page views, bounce rates, and engagement on social networks. The document emphasizes that success is defined by goals and whether audiences take desired actions, rather than total traffic numbers alone. It also cautions that metrics need to be interpreted in context and can indicate positive or negative outcomes depending on the situation. Overall, the document promotes setting clear objectives and measuring a variety of analytics to understand outcomes across all communication channels.

1. Web Analytics Basics
for
Public Relations
JOUR 504 – Public Relations Research & Evaluation
Laura Min Jackson
Nov. 9, 2010
Dana Chinn

2. • Media that can be measured
• Site metrics
• Social media metrics
Slides: www.slideshare.net/danachinn
Twitter: @danachinn

3. Evaluating a public relations plan starts
with setting goals, objectives
3
Start here
not here

4. Measure these…
4
Newspapers
Magazines
Radio TV
Direct mail Yellow
Pages
Outdoor
Publishers with display advertising

5. …and these…
5
*
*A “starting point” – doesn’t include search, lead generation, international, others. Ted Kawaja in paidContent.org, 9/28/10
Company
site
E-mail
Video
Paid & earned media
on social media, too!

6. …and don’t forget about…
6
Apps for each smartphone,
carrier
Apps for
tablets
WAP, or mobile web sites Geolocation
Quick
Response
codes

7. Return On Objective:
What can you measure, optimize?
7
The actions people take
Company
site
Are the targeted audiences aware?
Did they come? From where? How many? Why?
What did they do?
Did they come back?
Were they “engaged?”
And whether those
actions were due
to external events
or your actions
E-mail
Video

8. What needs to be measured:
All ways a person can engage with you*
8
* not “all the places you put content and hope everyone will come”
SITES
SOCIAL MEDIA
Computer
Home
Work
Public
Mobile devices
WAP/mobile web
Apps
Tablet
1
2
4
3
5 - 7
SEARCH

9. Audiences, actions, metrics differ by channel
9
SITES SOCIAL MEDIA
1. Who? How many?
In target audience?
3. What did they see?
Did they get want
they wanted?
4. Did they interact?
What did they do?
How much?
2. No. of visits?
How often?
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Totals
*
* Different metrics, methodologies for each channel!

10. Counts only indicate a person was there
at least once (and maybe only once)
10
Our site has 5,000 monthly unique visitors.
Last Tuesday that story got 20,000 page views.
The average time spent on our site last week
was 24 minutes.
We have 5,000 Twitter followers.
Our iPhone app was downloaded 10,000 times.
We have 2,000 fans on our Facebook page.

11. Success is defined by the type, number
of desired actions taken
11
Content actions E-commerce actions
Saadkamal.com
e.g., rate, e-mail, comment

12. What people say they did
what they think
and
why
as captured by
surveys, focus groups, social media, usability studies
Site metrics
12
1. Behavioral research
What people did
when they came to your site,
as captured by
an action taken on a keyboard
or mouse
2. Attitudinal research

13. 13
Not only are the technologies new,
but the metrics are as well.
-Online Media and Marketing Association Metrics and Measurement program, June 2009
Social media metrics
1. Influencers
2. Content, context, sentiment
3. Calls to action answered

14. 14
• Panel data
Activity from a sample of self-
selected people. Only total site data
for a limited number of sites.
• External data
Used by agencies to compare sites
• comScore
Nielsen
Compete
etc.
• Interactive
Advertising Bureau
Internal decision-making External marketing
Sources for site metrics
• Census data
100% of all visitors, visits, page
views for all sections
• Internal data
Confidential
• Omniture
Google Analytics
WebTrends
etc.
• Web Analytics
Association

15. Key Performance Indicator #1: Visits
15
A visit is counted
-- Unique visitors
-- Page views
every time
someone comes to a site
An increase in visits? Always good.
A decrease in visits? Always bad.
These metrics are useful
when put in ratios with visits, other metrics

16. A unique visitor is really a unique computer.
Unique visitors are either over-counted…
16

17. …or under-counted.
You don’t know when or by how much.*
17
* It doesn’t matter anyway….better to measure outcomes (did
people do what you wanted?) than the number of people who came to
your site.
library
?

18. An increase in page views can be good -
or bad.*
18
* It doesn’t matter anyway….better to measure outcomes (did
people do what you wanted?) than the number of pages people went
to when they came to your site.
Bad design, navigation, site architecture?
Lots of page views, annoyed users
A redesign improved usability?
Fewer page views, happier users
Content that should be there but isn’t?
Lots of page views, annoyed users
Dynamic content?
Fewer page views, happier users (probably)
?

19. An increase in average time spent on
site can be good - or bad.*
19
* It doesn’t matter anyway….better to measure outcomes (did
people do what you wanted?) than how much time people spent on
your site.
Bad design, navigation, site architecture?
Lots of time spent, annoyed users
A redesign improved usability?
Less time spent, happier users?

20. Systems only measure the time spent
in between pages on a site, so…
20
The time spent of a user who goes only to
one page is NOT included in the time spent
calculation.?
The time spent on the last page
of a site isn’t counted at all.
1
minute
10
minutes
Site
X
Time spent = 1 minute

21. How often are they visiting?
What, how much are they seeing?
21
Page views per visit
Visits per unique visitor
Key Performance Indicator #2
Key Performance Indicator #3

22. Are you attracting new audiences?
22
Visits from new visitors
Visits from returning
visitors
Key Performance Indicator #4
vs.

23. When audiences - new and returning -
come, are they staying?
23A bounce: a visit with only one page view
Bounce rate percent
of the landing page
where most visits start
Key Performance Indicator #5
“I came. I saw. I puked.”
-- Avinash Kashik on bounce rate

24. WHY?
24
“What was the purpose of your visit today? Did you find what you wanted?”
…aren’t new audiences visiting?
…aren’t current audiences visiting and engaging with you more?
Usability studies
?
Get as much info as you can from every action taken on your site
An anonymous rating is the lowest level
indicator of engagement
Consider site surveys, but treat them like focus groups
Old-fashioned but highly
customized, focused
surveys are the only way to
get data for crucial strategic
decisions

25. 25
Overall site data consists of traffic
from everyone
Northwest Cyberton
Southern Cyberton
Eastern Cyberton
Non-
stakeholders
A name that stakeholders identify with

26. How much site traffic is from Cyberton?
26
NW Cyberton
50
E. Cyberton
25
S. Cyberton
25
Non-stakeholders
5

27. Success is defined by goals, priorities – not totals
27
NW Cyberton E. CybertonS. Cyberton Total
Site
Universe
50 25 25 100
67%
200 50 325
Penetration
75
13% 50% 31%
Interactive Advertising
Bureau illustration,
10/10

28. Social media:
a constant stream of calls to action
Brands earn the trust and loyalty of
their customers by listening and
responding.
-- Interactive Advertising Bureau Social Media Ad Metrics Definitions, May
2009
...the true value of a network
is measured
by the frequency of engagement
of the participants.
--”The Maturation of Social Media ROI,” by Brian Solis, Mashable, Jan. 26,
2010

29. KPIs, outcomes will differ by type of
social media channel
•
-- “Five essentials for social media marketing,” by Lisa Wehr, CEO/Oneupweb, iMedia Connection, July 17, 2009
Sharing
Networking
News
Bookmarking
Reviews

30. Social media metrics – focus on influencers
30
Do you know who they are?
Are they following you?
Are they interacting with you?
Usually not you

31. 31
The Facebook ad
application only gives
you people on
Facebook who filled
out the form.
You don’t know
how many:
didn’t give details
or
updated their status
or
told the truth
or
aren’t in Facebook
or...
Understand the limitations of your data
sources

32. What info do you need from site
registration, donation forms, offline events?
32
-- Name
-- E-mail
-- Zip code
-- Stakeholder type
as granular, specific as needed
based on your priorities
Example: Not just “Parent” but also
year-of-birth of children enrolled in
Philadelphia public schools

33. Success in social media defined by…
33
Number of
people in the
network
The “right”
people”
The amount of
engagement,
activity

34. Indicators of interactivity are essential
for leading to desired outcomes
34
Facebook Insights – daily stats*
No. of active users
No. of likes
No. of relevant, positive
comments
* Enter daily numbers in a spreadsheet for trending, rolling up into weekly/monthly totals
Nov. election
Higher education
Have different pages by topic
to increase community, make
analysis more insightful
Encourage lots of active users
to avoid dominant
commentators who might
constrict interaction
KPIs:

35. 35
Source: “Lifting of blogger’s story triggers online furor,” by Lance Whitney, CNET, 11/5/10
Before plagiarism, public relations crisis: 100 friends
After:
3,800
frenemies who
“liked” Cooks
Source on Facebook
so they could attack
it, link to negative
stories

36. RT/via @handle + call to action/comment + link + #hashtag
“Perfect” tweets are less than 120
characters
Lost the link
Watch handle,
hashtag sizes
100 characters 111 characters

37. 37
Followers
Look for influencers
Review reach, churn,
following/follower ratio

38. Measure influence
38
-- Lists
-- Retweets
-- Unique retweeters
-- Unique mentioners
-- Influenced by/influencer of

39. Track tweets, retweets, traffic
about a specific page/topic
39
Advanced search by
keyword, Twitter handle
KPI:
No. of tweets, retweets
by page
Who retweeted,
influencers
Enter numbers in a spreadsheet for trending

40. 40
Analyze content
Review hashtags,
keywords, sentiment,
problems,
conversations that
connect people

41. What should your public relations
plan include?
41
Clearly defined goals/objectives, audiences
Company
Program or campaign
Site
Social media
Company
site
Saadkmal.com
Metrics that measure actions
Baselines, goals
Where did you start?
Where do you want to go?
E-mail
Video

42. Dana Chinn
Lecturer
USC Annenberg School for
Communications & Journalism
213-821-6259
chinn@usc.edu
http://www.newsnumbers.com
http://www.slideshare.net/danachinn
42
Spring 2011
Resources
“Measuring the Online Impact of Your Information Project”
http://bit.ly/Knight-metrics-primer
Anything by Avinash Kashik, such as “Web Analytics 2.0”
“Social Media Metrics,” by Jim Sterne