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Understanding &
presenting online &
web stats – showing
IMPACT
Jeff Wisniewski
Web Services Librarian
University of Pittsburgh

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Roadmap
Impact
Web statistics
Trends
Content types
Goals
Campaigns
Caveats
Built in visualizations
Trend watch: Real time visualization tools

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Showing impact
(NARRATIVE / CONTEXT) x
VISUALIZATION

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Tell the story
With numbers
With context
With compelling visuals

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Good data visualization tells a
story that can be understood by
anyone
The goal is to reduce complexity
and give data a human face

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Web statistics

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Google analytics
Google analytics as example, so
YMMV

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Google analytics
Trends
Content impact: Content types
User experience impact: Goals
Outreach impact: Campaigns
Real Time

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The big picture is too big

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IMPACT
Content
User Experience
Outreach

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Content IMPACT

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Different metrics for different
content
Time on page:
Engagement content (blogs, guides,
reviews): hopefully high
Funnel content (get me to…databases,
ejournals, catalog, etc): hopefully very
low
Informational content (hours, policies):
hopefully low

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How to
Admin > View > Custom Channel
Groupings > New Content Grouping

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User Experience IMPACT

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Use personas to Identify top
tasks by audience
What specific things does Stacey want
to do on our site?
Set up GOALS and FUNNELS around
these tasks

19. + Stacey
 freshman
 the source of the information can come from
anywhere and is really irrelevant; she just needs to
know where to look
 uses often commercial search engines like Yahoo
and Google to locate information
 she doesn’t distinguish between the online catalog
and the library web site; for her, the web site is just
the way to get to the catalog with some additional
information mixed in
 Unaware of library tools and resources
 needs help with the research process and is overly-
confident about her own research skills, which may
not be as strong as she thinks

20. + spends a lot of time at the library to study for midterms
and finals; wants to be able to check easily what the
library hours are
 she wants to easily connect to wi-fi and uses self-print
for all her assigned readings
 does not rely heavily on the library’s print journal
collections; commonly uses e-journal collections
 uses primarily books on reserve and rarely checks out
a book or two from Hillman collection; expects Hillman
library to have all the textbooks required by instructors
and is surprised if they are not in the collection or are
not placed on reserve for students
 uses chat or calls the front desk to get help from library
staff with locating a reference
 uses her smart phone to find the call number of a book
on reserve, see if a book is checked out and when is
due back, or look up the syllabus, the course number,
or the name of the instructor

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Goals
Goal : the page a visitor reaches once
they have completed a desired action
Funnel : The (optimized) steps along
the way to the goal

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Examples
Can students successfully find and
enroll in a class on your site?
After visiting a readers’ advisory page
do people click into the catalog to find
and checkout items?
Are students clicking from a course
libguide into a database that the guide
recommends?

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The goal

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Step 1
Sstep 2
Sstep 3
The funnel

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How to
Admin > Goals > Create New Goal

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*PRO TIP
Exact match has to be EXACTLY the
same as the URL….even leading or
trailing spaces will cause it to fail

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Outreach IMPACT
Campaigns

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Campaigns
Great way to demonstrate the impact (or
lack thereof) of specific online outreach
and marketing efforts

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Campaigns
 How many library mailing list members clicked the link in the
PDF we sent about our new makerspace?
 How many people took our annual survey from the link if
Facebook versus the link on Twitter?

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Campaigns
Allows for tagging URLs with special
parameters
Source- blog, Facebook
Medium- PDF flyer, website
Campaign-
new_community_meeting_rooms

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How to
utm_source: Identify the advertiser, site, publication, etc. that is
sending traffic to your property, e.g. Google, citysearch,
newsletter4, billboard.
utm_medium: The advertising or marketing medium, e.g.: cpc,
referral, email.
utm_campaign: The individual campaign name, slogan, promo
code, etc. for a product.
utm_term: Identify paid search keywords. If you're manually
tagging paid keyword campaigns, you should also use utm_term
to specify the keyword.
utm_content: Used to differentiate similar content, or links within
the same ad. For example, if you have two call-to-action links
within the same email message, you can use utm_content and
set different values for each so you can tell which version is more
effective.

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How to:
URL Builder
https://support.Google.com/analytics/answer/
1033867?hl=en&ref_topic=1032998

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General web stats caveat

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The bounce rate myth
We link to a LOT of third party sites
from our websites:
Catalogs
Discovery tools
Overdrive
Databases
LibGuides

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The bounce rate myth
A user who visits your homepage and
then visits one of these places has

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When the cookie crumbles*
New vs Returning users relies on
cookies.
• Up to 66% of users user multiple
devices
• App. 30% of users deleted cookies in a
one month period

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Communicating the
results

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Key visualizations

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Communicate
With BOTH internal and external
stakeholders

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traffic> search> organic

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traffic> search> organic

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Content>Landing pages &exit
pages

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Content>Landing pages &exit
pages via visitor flow

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Content>top pages

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Content>top pages (in-page
analytics)

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Real-Time Visualization Tools

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Trend Watch: Real time
visualizations
Gale Analytics on Demand
http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2014/04/research/g
ale-releases-analytics-demand-demographic-gis-
libraries/
create maps, charts, and reports that illustrate
where their patrons live, how different
demographic groups are utilizing the library,
which genres or resources are most popular
among different consumer segment

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Trend Watch: Real time
visualizations
“Making the Invisible Library Visible”
Checkouts
How many people on the website right now?
http://library.case.edu/ksl/aboutus/assessm
ent/publicwow/
http://www.optiem.com/

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Trend Watch: Real time
visualizations
Google Charts
https://developers.Google.com/chart/
Display real-time data from various sources
on your website
Wordpress and Drupal plugins
https://drupal.org/project/google_chart_tools
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-google-
charts/

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Questions?

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Thank you!