Lukas Teply's blog

A blog about digital analytics, online marketing, social media and things that I found interesting. Happy reading.

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Measurecamp Prague 2016

Measurecamp is an event started by Peter O’Neill and it is mostly focused on digital analytics and online marketing. This event organised globally in cities such as London, Berlin or Sydney and it has been gaining on popularity from year to year and even in the Czech Republic it got sold out (however, shame on people who finally did not show up).

Measurecamp Prague was happening for the second time and a big thank you to the entire team who contributed to this amazing event. Besides that, credits should go also to sponsors. It was hosted in the Avast office and therefore all visitors could expect great service and place with beautiful view. I have to admit they have a perfect place for working at Avast. One of the coolest thing at Measurecamp is that you can come up with your own presentation and add it into a schedule and attract people to come and listen. It is completely up to you what topic you choose. This year the topics such as data layer discussion, mobile app tracking, cohorts creation, process of analytics implementation or how to optimize campaigns for smaller clients were presented. 

Below you can find a short summary of them:

How to manage big analytics projects

Lukáš Čech - Etnetera

Lukas spoke about manaign big projects for clients. About creating a documentation for the business stakeholder and how to proceed further and make the implementation less painfull for all involved sides. He showed useful examples how to explain implementation to the stakeholder by providing business description, what to send in data layer as well as the variable description. etc. It was interesting to see that.

Mobile app tracking

Hanka Kalivodová - Etnetera

The session dedicated to mobile apps tracking. The presenter Hanka Andrlikova explained the topic very well and provided many useful tips&trics. It is pretty difficult topic to cover but thanks to her Hanka's experience the audience got some idea and insights how to track mobile apps, what to avoid and be aware of. The things like how often to sent data for mobile app tracking was discussed, facts about GTM tracking were shown (how often it is being sent, when data is not being sent e.g. if data is not being sent till midnight you simply loose it. Enhanced ecommerce implementation on mobile apps was described literally as "hell". The approach of Google in this area also came to a discussion, old "legacy" approach vs. new Firebase Analytics. The tips like preview mode by scanning QR code was told, update frequency of GTM container and how to approach tracking implementation were shared. Overall, it was a fruitful session full of useful tips and facts.

Data layer discussion

Andre Heller - Medio Interactive

The discussion was focused on things like what iti is good to send through data layer, what to pay attention to (keep in mind that data from data layer can be collected/scraped by other parties etc.). However, one rule was said "It is difficult to implement data layer without developers." You need to include them in the process. A lot of people shared their opinions what to collect through data layer, who needs to be included and what you need to pay attention like cleaning data layer values by using "undefined". In the afternoon session where Andre shared his broad knowledge on this topic were mentioned new GTM implementation guide. Why to implement new GTM according new Google Tag Manager guide. What is the reason (iframe can not be included in the head section). An article on how to avoid risks with Google Tag Manager was told, it can be found on http://www.blastam.com/blog/4-tips-to-avoid-risk-with-google-tag-manager. The limit size for the contained was uncovered. Actually, it is 200kb.

How to optimize campaigns for smaller clients

Michal Blazek - Marketing Makers

Michal presented how to manage campaigns when you have smaller clients. When you have enough data you can optimize using various statistical modelling or apply more advanced techniques (such as FRM model etc.). However, when you get a client with website having less traffic then you need to pay attention twice when doing analysis and optimization. Why? Since there is not so much data. Michal advised to focus on perfect GA measurement (use Google Tag Manager to collect data about important events or to trigger various marketing tags), set goals in GA, filter your traffic to avoid spamming your data.  It is pretty crucial do analyse data correctly (better to avoid "averaging), useful tips for analysing your audience like using "User Explorer" in Google Analytics or replaying videos in SmartLook were mentioned.

Are you interested in knowing more? Then follow the article on Michal's blog.

GTM doping

Vašek Jelen and Martin Neuschl

https://sites.google.com/site/gtmtemplates/home

They introduced 3 templates for 3 site types. It is available for download and basically it contains all important functions for tracking. They were even keen on asking people for adding/sending tracking functionalities that could be added. The templates can be used on microsites (some basic tracking), lead sites with no ecommerce and in the end for ecommerce sites. Some tags seem to be very useful. In my opinion, this presentation was very useful in terms how to differentiate sites and tracking model for them. In general it may differ but actually nice approach of guys to offer some digital analytics tracking product.

Besides that, Marek Lecian spoke about cohorts creation. He mentioned that he got inspired by Tomas Cupr and his usage of cohorts. Therefore he develop his own cohort reporting for his own purposes. His presentation can be found here.

Zbynek Hyrak spoke about basic information that Google Analytics can provide. The presentation is available on Slideshare.

There was also a BI "battle" discussion etc., the overview was summarized and can be accessed through this link. 

Overall, it was great to invest your Saturday and attend this event. I am glad I did that. At the end visitors were voting for the best session. The winner was Jan Tichy from Medio Interactive and his presentation about CRM remarketing. Big thanks again for this event. 

If you are interested in knowing more than go and look for @MeasurecampCZ on Twitter or simply land on http://prague.measurecamp.org/. Thank you the MeasureCamp team.

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SuperWeek and Data Restart 2016

Hi,

it has been a while since I wrote an article. So let me improve that :) This year I got a chance to visit 2 amazing conferences related to digital analytics - SuperWeek and Data Restart. I shared my feelings from SuperWeek on the site msdit.cz Besides that, it is important to mention people worth following on Twitter or it is a worth reading their blogs: Avinash Kaushik (hope you all know him ;) ), Simo Ahava, Yehoshua Coren aka Analytics Ninja, DataRuns Deep or Stephane Hamel. However, there are more people with brilliant ideas I met at that conference. Simply browse through hashtag #spwk on Twitter and you find them. 

Overall, that conference was very inspirational and well-organized. Such an amazing event to meet new people. Thanks to Zoli and his team. They made a great work! It is incredible how they transformed a Hungarian event into one of a must-attend digital analytics conferences in the world. Highly recommended to visit next year. In April 2016 I went to Data Restart organized by Medio Interactive, a well-known Czech digital agency. It was also a great experience to be there and list to inspirational presentations and use cases. Kudos to Pavel Brecik from H1 who spoke about User-Scoring for remarketing. Actually, that was really an amazing presentation. Catchy and full of useful information. Pavel even shared with us the page where you can download the code that could be used for your own user-scoring, please download here.

Jan Tichy, a leader and main person in Medio and Czech digital analytics space, talked about 5 reporting tips for agencies as well as for clients. Pretty well explained with advises what should be provided to a client and what should be client aware of (or at least pay attention to!) in reports coming from agencies. 

His colleague Andre Heller explained difficulties and pain points of mobile analytics. Some tools related to measuring mobile applications were also advised in his presentation (namely, he spoke about App Annie or Mixpanel). Another person from Medio, Michal Prochazka, shared  with the audience how to leverage your data. 

Actually, a lot of useful information was shared from other speakers too. Customer Lifetime Value in digital marketing was the topic of Pavel Jasek from Google. Actually, he mentioned a site where you can calculate it, just check: https://life-time-value.appspot.com

In addition, topics such as machine learning, text analysis, data analysis or how Czech e-commerce space performs were presented. Well, it was good to be in person there. If you are keen on knowing more, search for #datarestart on Twitter or read a summary on Medio blog.

That’s all. Happy analyzing!

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How to implement Zeerat through Google Tag Manager

In this short article, I am going to show you how implement Zeerat through Google Tag Manager. But, first of all I tell you what Zeerat is and what you get from using this tool. Basically, if you use Google Search then the response you get is Analytics and Feedback platform for web. Let me provide you a brief description of that tool.

Zeerat offers functionalities such as heatmap functionality, basic analytics reporting, funnels  as well as user recording. Simply, you can get a brief digital analytics overview and even watch how users browse through your site. Yes, it offers you also a video to be watched. Furthermore, it automatically segments data into desktop, mobile or tablet visits.

Why is it useful? In my opinion, you can go deeper in your site analysis as this tools enables some functionalities that you do not get or are limited in Google Analytics. Pricing seems to be reasonable and up to 1000 recordings is free (with limited functionalities).Not a bad deal, right!?

Well, see below how UI of Zeerat looks like. That is an example of heatmap functionality.

And now how to implement it through GTM onto your site? It is pretty simple!

Firstly, you need to create an account in Zeerat. Once it is done, you are logged in then you will be offered a code that you need to copy and implemented onto your site.

Go back to GTM and create a new tag. Choose “Custom HTML” tag and paste the code you copied. Set the condition according your needs (if you want to track specific pages, define the rules). Finally, click the save button. Test and verify if it fires.

That is all! Feel free to comment.

Happy Analyzing!

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Have a very merry Christmas and all the best in 2016!

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Page scroll tracking in Google Tag Manager

Recently there were a lot of requirements and discussions about page scroll tracking. It seems a bit trendy now.However, first of all there should be a question put into place. Does it bring any additional value to implement page scroll tracking on your page? It is good to collect data but collect data that makes sense and brings you some value, right? Let me bring you some ideas when it could be beneficial to get data for page scroll tracking:

CTA buttons (sing-up buttons etc.) in the middle or at the bottom of the page (undoubtedly, business owners could be interested in stats #users reached CTA buttons x #users clicked through)

web content - imagine, you have an article and you want to see how many people read it to the bottom (please be cautious here as page scrolling might be misleading, users could only scroll down without reading anything therefore it would make sense to invite to your analysis also GA metrics - avg. time on page

Feel free to add more examples, these two crossed my mind immediately.

What you need to have before you start:

Google Analytics account

Google Tag Manager

jQuery on your site

Alright folks, let’s start:

Variables: in total you will create 3 new variables

Go to your Google Tag Manager and choose Variables. Click on the button NEW to create a new variable. At first, name it - Event Category. Then choose Data Layer Variable. Give it a name eventCategory and keep Data Layer Version 2. You can just follow settings depicted on the picture below.

For new variables called Event Action (Data Layer Variable Name: eventAction) and Event Label (Data Layer Variable Name: eventLabel) follow the same approach as it was done for Event Category. I am posting pictures for both settings below so don’t hesitate to set both variables accordingly.

Event Action:

Event Label:

Triggers: one load rule needs to be created but you can specify more, it depends where you want to use this tracking

Firstly, go to Triggers and click on NEW. Name your new trigger (load rule) as Scroll. Set your new trigger as custom event, give it a name - ScrollDistance and select the rule Event Action contains Percentage. Finally, save your newly created trigger. Below find the picture with settings.

note: I found more approaches recommending e.g. set event contains ScrollDistance. I chose the one with Event Action.

Tags: in total there will be 2 new tags

Firstly, create new tag called Scroll tracking. Set this tag as CUSTOM HTML TAG and paste the code from the following link into the empty box. Credits goes to Rob Flaherty who developed this code. Lastly, set the condition where you want to trigger this code (for instance, you can set All Pages or specify some pages etc.)

Moreover, create another tag called Page Scroll Tracking (it is up to you how you name it). From the offer choose Google Analytics and set a tag type as Universal Analytics. Fill in your Tracking ID, set Track Type as Event and to Category choose Event Category, Action as Event Action and Label as Event Label. Below see the screenshots of settings.

Well, now I want to show you how it looks in a magnificent tool called Google Analytics. It is pretty straight. In Event Category you find the name of the page where page scrolling happened. Event Action is captured as “Percentage” and Event Label shows you if users scrolled 25, 50, 75 or 100% on your page. 

That is it. Feel free to start tracking on your site too. In case you have some better options how to implement page scroll tracking, just comment and I will be happy to found a bit more. 

And do not forget. Implement page scroll tracking only when it makes sense and your data provides useful insights to your business. As that is the main point of collecting data. Capture data that makes sense. Otherwise it is nice playing around and showing what cool stuff you can do with Google Tag Manager.

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WASP - one of the top debugging tools for web analyst

WASP aka Web Analytics Solution Profiler presents a big help to every web analyst or digital marketeer. Cardinal Path made a great work by developing this web browser extension. So far so good is my opinion. And it is easy to integrate it to developer console.

Firstly, what WASP brings to you? I bet you experienced many times the situation when you need to figure out why this or that does not work. Simply, you did debugging. Since, it might take a lot of time then any tool/extension is more than welcome to make your work and therefore life easier. WASP literally provides you the brief overview of scripts and tags loaded on sites. (e.g. it is simple to spot if there is old Google Analytics on or Universal Analytics, Adobe Omniture or if Google Tag Manager was implemented on a site).

Secondly, it is pretty easy and clear. No matter if you are a beginner or senior web analyst, WASP can definitely become your daily assistant. From the beginner point of view you might be interested in seeing what tags and scripts are being fired on a site.

On the other hand, if you are a big gun in digital analytics space you might welcome going deeper and see what custom dimensions are being sent or how scripts are connected to tags. That is everything available in nice intuitive graphics. Now you do not miss any tag!

What else you can get from using WASP? Well, you can even try a feature of blocking scripts or tags if needed. This could help you in answering questions about a specific tag that might be affecting you site in a not-desired way. Just block the script and observe what happens afterwards.

In case of ecommerce websites you can easily check if and how they track your web behavior. This is meant from the digital analytics point of view so you can focus on ecommerce tracking (on the picture is depicted what details are being sent as part of enhanced ecommerce tracking on a Czech discount server)  

That is all. As you can see there are various reasons why you can benefit from using WASP. It offers broad features that can make your work easier. Haven’t tried it yet, then go to and give it a chance: http://www.webanalyticssolutionprofiler.com/#axzz3oa7mi5JJ

Once you are on this site, you should not miss also Playground section. Some useful stuff can be found there too.

Actually, if you are a Czech speaker I recommend you visit an article about WASP written by Pavel Brecik from H1. Definitely worth a reading too and providing great details. Great inspiration for writing this article.

Well, now it is up to you. Have a great time using WASP for your daily digital analytics work! 

sources: WASP

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FB’s latest change in NewsFeed

Facebook announced a new feature for iOS devices today - NewsFeed preferences. For more details please follow their official note on their NewsRoom: http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/07/updated-controls-for-news-feed/

What it brings to users? Well, to be said in a nutshell: user can now control its Newsfeed better. Let me deep digger more on this topic. It brings you new ways how you can influence what is visible on your NewsFeeed:

Select friends and Pages to see first basically, friends and pages you choose in setting will get more space in terms of visibility on your NewsFeed

Find new Pages to connect to given you behavior on Facebook (engagement, what your friends like etc.),  new Pages will be offered to a user to click on a magic button “Like”

Select which friends and Pages to follow or unfollow in my opinion this feature means truly NewsFeed cleanup as a list of top people, pages, groups will be shown to you to follow/unfollow. Therefore you can prioritize posts you want to see  

It sounds nice, right? However, as usual in daily life there is a tradeoff. Let’s take it from Facebook’s and marketeers point of view. By selecting preferred options you simply give information what people, pages, groups you give more priority -> those (and especially consider mainly brands having Pages on Facebook) can use the feature “See first” as well as “Find new Pages”. If there will be some stats to those newly released features then maybe some form of predictive analytics might be knocking on the door. Especially, seeing some trends in following/unfollowing people/brands would be sufficient to observe raising opinion influencers/brands for specific areas. Overall, it gives cleaner NewsFeed for users and new space for social media marketing as well as new revenue stream for Facebook.

sources: Facebook, Techcrunch, Mashable

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report from Engage 2015

In May I visited Engage 2015 (the biggest social media conference in Europe, maybe even in the whole world) organised by Socialbakers (one of the hottest European start-ups providing social media analytics). If you are into social media world that is a must-to-visit event. In case you missed the conference, at least you can watch the recorded session. 

The conference lasted for 3 days (2 days workshops + 1 day conference). Kudos to Socialbakers and all people who put hands to make this big event happen in Forum Karlin in Prague.

Honestly, Prague has never hosted such a big technology conference before and in my opinion the atmosphere was amazing and hopefully Engage 2016 will take place in Prague too. Speakers, service, catering and place - A BIG LIKE. Once again, kudos to Socialbakers and its organizational team!!!

Well, I would like to sum it up a bit. so in a nutshell. Key points noticed in the conference:

data-driven marketing (this buzzword has been said many times in last 3 years but it seems not many companies can use wisely their data  

social media is a paid channel! 

mobile on rise (as we all know, number of people accessing from mobile devices has been raising significantly)

power of video - video will be playing more crucial role in marketing and on social media, count with that!

passion metrics for video - who uses metrics like #views should consider using “passion metrics such as 25% video watched, video completed etc.

use creativity, go where your customers are and provide them the best service -> you can generate revenue thanks to that, spread your brand or gain new ambassadors :)

If you are interested in more detailed notes, feel free to continue in more detailed view ;)

Keynote

Speaker: Jan Rezab

a keynote dedicated to data-driven marketing, importance of data is crucial, use of social media could be expanded to HR, business development or customer care

impact of social media is enormous (bigger than TV)

honestly, social media is a paid channel now (70% of reach is paid)

get inspired by digital publishers (they gain a lot of interaction on their posts (catchy content for almost 0$) -> talk to them

do not only store data but USE them!

new features of their products: video tracking, connection with Google Analytics (stay tuned, more news coming on this point ), signed the deal with Sino Weibo (Chinese Twitter)

Inspiring Passion

Speaker: Lars Silberbauer (LEGO), Roberto Ciacci (Lamborghini)

Lego - humans are social by nature -> interactions (not only offline but nowadays it takes place more frequently online)

Lego - example of a campaign "krokiwongi" - they asked children and adults to build Krokiwongi something from Lego (children more creative then adults - at the age of 3 we all are geniuses, only 2% of adults retained that creative skills on that level) -> use of creativity in your campaigns (tape a video, take a picture of your art and share)  

Lamborghini - they do not pay for social media marketing -> lower reach -> inventing new ways how to reach their customer (they took a video from the drive with Lamborghini Huracan and they present in using the virtual reality), focus on metrics - interactions and loyalty, it is important but difficult to transform the original brand to the digital world (brand must be digital)

The art of content creation

Speaker: Shira Feuer (Disney), Sabeen Ahmed (Publicis)

Disney - huge load of content they can offer but it must be transformed for the social media platform

Disney - connect creativity with your brand (examples on sharing a video how to make a pancake in the shape of Darth Vader face on A Pancake Day, in the UK there was a popular baking TV contest -> they made a picture where D2 from Star Wars was a piece of cake and put it across social media channels)

Disney - use creativity, localization and technology in your marketing!!!

Publicis - content is a key player (stress on real-time content), choose the platforms where your customers are (do not use FB if your customers are not there)

Publicis - unify the way how your company/brand communicate and behave online

Social Lifestyle

Speaker: Boris Mercier (Desigual), Thomas van Shaik (Adidas)

Desigual - online streaming videos through social media such as Periscope or Meerkat -> analysing behavior after the fashion show and collecting which model to choose for the collection

Desigual - connect with influencers (celebrities) -> it brings you to a wider audience

Adidas - example how to use a single brand (a ball for WC2014 Brazuca - tweeting funny tweets during WC2014, after the cup they determined the Twitter account -> helping their sales during that period)

Adidas - in most cases they connect a brand with another brand (football club/player brand with Adidas) -> bringing fans to both brands, nowadays you need to have a digital strategy as there are #noise and #platform and it is easy to get lost...

Innovation

Speaker: John Koetsier (Venture Beat)

Business Insider - more video uploaded on Facebook than it is stored on Youtube, FB videos get more interaction than Youtube video, videos capture 5% of uploaded Facebook content, pictures 70%), Youtube videos performs well on Twitter in terms of upload but more interactions get Twitter videos

John Sculley

A man most of visitors were waiting. He talked about his career and explained what happened between him and Steve Jobs. He made it unforgettable and showed how big as a marketeer is :)

empower customers, share stories related to products ->helps your brand to growth, listen to your customers, social media will be powerful than TV

sometimes you need to shock -> helps you to distinguish and get attention for almost no price

I did not fire Steve Jobs, he decided to leave Apple by himself as he asked to step down from the Macintosh division

mentioned healthcare as a big opportunity nowadays (huge amount of data -> analysis -> solution described on a blood test providing you immediate results for various diseases (Ebola was in that case))

Finding your Cause

Speaker: Mimi Jonas Sroke (Movember)

Movember - spread through ambassadors, evolve-wide your activites during time (Movember - firstly, grow MO, secondly - DONATE, now they want to launch - MOVE (have another challenge - run 5k etc.)

Socially Devoted

Speaker: Gert Wim ter Haar (KLM), John Saydam (Emirates)

KLM - customer care - ti is also a crucial part of the business (it also means marketing of your brand and sales - its social media sales generated 25mio EUR from additional services sold through social media) -> provide you customers QUICK and CLEAR answers/solutions, on Twitter they have changing background logo based on the response time to their customers, real-time feedback from a plane by giving crew iPads)

The Rise of the Connected

Speaker: Bryan Cheng (Shina Weibo), Shintaro Tabata (Line)

Weibo - 81 DAU (daily active users), 80% mobile, Chinese Twitter

Line - 200 mio MAU (monthly active users), communication enhanced with entertainment (live streaming channel, must-view stickers) and life services (payments, gaming etc.), sending eGifts through Line

The Democratization of Video

Speaker: Beau Avril (Google), Bethany Mota (Youtube star)

Youtube mobile video grew 90% YtY, 50% mobile users, old metrics - # times vide were played -> new "passion metrics - % time of video was played (watch time), a single video can affect other videos (Gangnam style generated 2bio views and other 2bio have its parodies, in total 4bio., multi-screening weakens TV ad power (80% of young users switch to the online world while a commercial break on TV), they pay also 2x times more attention to watching video on mobile than on TV -> Youtube influencers on the rise

Last but not least I attached the wrap up video showing atmosphere from Engage 2015. Looking forward to another one next year!

If you want to watch the entire conference, click here

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ROI of Tag Management System

While searching I found this infographics describing the Tag Management System and its benefits. Even though it is bit older (almost 3 years) it seems pretty straightforward and I bet the call for tag management system is now even bigger than before. From my own point of view I have gotten experience to work with Tealium and Google Tag Manager (already migrated to v2, do not hesitate to start migrating your sites or Google will automatically do that for you at the beginning of June 2015). However, no worries, there are many manuals and blogs dedicated how to do that. And I would say written as easy-to-understand.  Well, start exploring the power of Tag Managers as soon as possible as they can make your work more efficient, easier and powerful.

At least some key points that you benefit from:

- TMS is making digital marketing more efficient

- cost savings (no need to go back to your IT developers)

- time savings (going hand in hand with the point written above

- you manage various tags through a single tool

- using TMS improves the site performance

Source: Submitinforgraphics Click to Enlarge

Via

Tealium

View Other

Infographics

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Tools I use

Digital Analytics

Google Analytics

Tealium

Google Tag Manager

More info about migrating to V2...

WASP

Ghostery

Tag Assistant

Interesting Articles, for ideas, capturing moments Pocket

Evernote

Awesome screenshot

Social Media

Buffer

Socialbakers

Hootsuite

RiteTag

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Why is web analytics important?

Web analytics can sound for somebody as something seriously scientific. No doubt, numbers look more serious than only words but on the other hand they bear importance. However, do not feel afraid. Firstly, wow can be web analytics defined? According to the guru of web analytics Avinash Kaushik:

Web Analytics 2.0 is:

(1) the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data from your website and the competition, (2) to drive a continual improvement of the online experience that your customers, and potential customers have, (3) which translates into your desired outcomes (online and offline).

And here is the code:

Copy it (do not edit it) and paste it on every page you want to track. Paste it immediately before the closing </head> tag. It is really easy, isn’t it? Now wait until you see your first data coming :) sources: Kaushik.net, AndersAnalytics, Google Analytics

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Google Analytics Basics - creating a view

During last months I got more and more interested in Web Analytics. Firstly, thanks to my job and secondly it drove me there because of the close connection to online marketing (which is my another interest). Once you need to evaluate your online marketing efforts then analysis based on online data (sure you can also import other data then those stored by Google) is a must. Well, web analytics will be becoming more and more important in the online world. Not just for owners of e-commerce sites or online software providers but it might also catch interest of website owners in terms of improving their websites with help of available data about their sites. The most common thing you do when you decided to start tracking your website in Google Analytics (GA) is  to create a view. I do not count the process before (creating an account and properties there). Once you did steps before, then choose the property (maybe if you have more sites you want to track it would be good to group them in different properties according the same key they share, e.g. properties based different regions etc.) in which you want to track your site. Moreover, you click create a view (depicted on the picture below)

Then you have to follow the basic steps of creating a view such as name of the view and set your time zone. In the next step you go to view settings and specify the website’s URL, currency, the URL query parameters you want to exclude or you can turn on site search tracking. It is good to check a box “Exclude All Hits From Known Bots and Spiders.” It simply excludes all known bots and spiders from AB/ABC International Spiders & Bots List.

User management & Goals Furthermore, apart from the basic settings you can set goals (e.g. you want to see how many people register to your newsletter), add users to access you view in GA (and don’t forget to grant them specific rights (read&analyse, collaborate, edit and add users) too!). The important tab here is “Filters.” I really recommend you to add at least the filter excluding your or company IPs (you figure it out really simply on http://www.whatismyip.com/). Filters It is really easy to set it up. You just add a new filter, name it and then choose the custom one and check a box “Exclude”. You need to find IP address (the easiest way is to look it up) and finally you have to write the IP address. Maybe you noticed the “\” character (backslash) in front of “.” The answer for that is easy. Since the backlash character turns any special character into a literal one. More about regular expressions can be found here.

Another filter could include hostname of your site. That enables to view your hostname in the reports. Content Grouping “Content grouping” could be also helpful in way you want to group a content of your site into a structure. E.g. you track an ecommerce site and you want to compare different groups of products (pants x skirts, shirts x t-shirts etc.). That is the way how content grouping works. It helps you with comparing statistics of different groups. Ecommerce settings For e-commerce tracking it is important to turn on the e-commerce tracking. Simply, go to the E-commerce Settings tab. And then turn on “Enable Ecommerce.” However, this is just a beginning for tracking your e-commerce site. You have to do other things in order to get data from your online store (for instance you need to add a data layer etc.). Overall, if you read the article to this line then you got a quick overview of creating a view in Google Analytics and its basic settings. Do not forget about the importance of web analysis. It helps you in making decisions such as re-designing your site, analysing your e-commerce site or evaluating your marketing campaign. It is definitely worth a try. Sources: Lunametrics, Google, WhatismyIP

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Hi, hope you are enjoying Christmas time and having relax before 2015 starts with all new challenges. It has been a long time since I posted for the last time. A lot of new things happened since then, started at new job etc. Besides from social media I got more and more interested in web analytics during last year. It is incredible how much you can figure out by analysing data. And if you make adjustments or improvements  then to get desired outcomes. Here is the Periodic Table of Google Analytics by JeffAnalytics.com I found on Marketingland. In my opinion it describes perfectly the most of GA metrics, reports features etc. 

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Importance of Customer Care

I bet that you have dealt at least once with customer service of any company. Did they delay your flight, damage your baggage or you received a broken device instead of working one? Maybe you want to visit a restaurant in your neighborhood on Sunday evening and it is already closed even though it says it should be open. Well, maybe then you try to reach the customer service or you just simply complain. Nowadays when people spend more and more time online (according last studies we spent around 54% a day online from daily media time). This is reminding me my train journey in Switzerland when almost everybody in my part of the train was starring in her or his smartphone. Taking into account this fact, the presence of customer care in the online world is therefore a must. If the company provides services online then it must expect questions, complaints etc. from the customers also in the digital world. Moreover, the part of the online world is also social media (people spend on social networks around one third of their online time). This increasing amount of time spent on social networks makes pressure on companies regarding their customer care also in the social media world – then let’s talk about social care. As I mentioned above, with the presence on social media you can expect the customer attention of any kind also in this environment.

What does it mean for any company? If you are a service provider or seller of goods in the online world then you must face your customers there too. Even though it sometimes means to be ready 24/7 (at least in some industries, can you imagine to receive an answer about your flight in a week or a day? Definitely not, you want to get it asap). Furthermore, companies should answer the questions and provide solutions. In average 33% of asked questions on Facebook remain unanswered. Really? Ok, then don’t wonder if there is a huge group of customers complaining about your company online (and trust me, it is really easy to do that on Facebook, Twitter etc. and it does not cost you anything). Providing an additional benefit in the meaning of saying sorry to your customer could have a good effect. The most important thing for companies is to keep in mind one fact – with increasing customer satisfaction we increase the chance of customer loyalty. Nobody wants to deal with a company that simply does not care about the customer again.

What customers expect? Customers have rising expectations. If they ask a question they want to get an answer or solution as soon as possible. In some cases they expect at least an answer (just don’t take it that you have a month to respond them, that is not a good example of customer service). In my opinion customers also prefer a personal approach (by using social media they get it). If there is an additional benefit provided next to your customer service (even in adding credits on customer’s account) it could raise your company in customer’s eyes. I still remember when I used Damejidlo to order sushi in the evening. I sent an order and immediately a guy from Damejidlo contacted me that the restaurant will be not able to deliver my food so he immediately offered me possible restaurants and in addition they added me some credits on my account. That is what I call a customer service masterpiece. I understand that in some cases it could be probably more difficult to solve the situation accordingly but the main purpose remains the same – get an answer or solution. This should be kept in mind of all companies. Once you have satisfied and happy customers, they can talk about you and the power of word of mouth is nowadays with social media and digital presence even more powerful than ever. The good word about you and your service could be good marketing for you and therefore lead to bringing new customers.  source: We Are Social, BestWestern, Socialbakers, Peppers&Rogers Group

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Twitter Ads and a bit from Facebook changes

it has been a while since I posted last article so now it is the time to do that. Last month Twitter announced to expand its ads to 12 EMEA markets (Czech Republic including) and Facebook made some changes in its News Feed so I would like to bring you a bit closer to these topics. Twitter Ads Well, what can companies or brands do on Twitter? Besides from posting tweets and engage their followers they can use one of advertising ways there. Namely there are 4 ways of promoting your company or brand:

objective-based campaigns

promoted tweets

promoted accounts

promoted trends

Let’s share some words about each of them. Objective-based campaigns (still in beta) You can focus the campaigns on followers, website clicks or conversions, tweet engagement, app installs or leads on Twitter. At first, you target the audience (followers, location, gender or device etc.) and then you choose the advertising tool you want to use (e.g. Promoted Account, Website Card etc.). Finally, the pricing is shown to you and you can check you campaigns with Twitter analytics tool. Promoted Tweets In short, using Promoted Tweets your Tweets are delivered also to your non-followers. Again there is targeting and you can track the performance of promoted tweets with Analytics.

Promoted Accounts Promoted Accounts consist of promoting your account on Twitter.

Promoted Trends It means promoting your trend, that is expressed by # (hashtag) sign. So e.g. if you launch a new product and you add a specific hashtag to your tweet then if you select Promoted Trends you appear in Trends column on Twitter (you can find it on the left side of the homepage, on mobile devices it can be found in the Discover tab).

Facebook changes in News Feed Facebook made 2 improvements to News Feed. The first one is reducing click-baiting headlines and the second one aims at links in posts. Click-baiting headlines What is “Click-bait”? According to Facebook Click-baiting is posting a link with a headline that encourages people to click on in order to see more. There is not much information about what they will see. How does Facebook identify Click-bait? Facebook takes into account time spent on reading an article away from Facebook They compare the ratio of people clicking on the content to people engaging in it (share, like or comment on the story) Links in posts Facebook will prioritize the posts with links in the link-format than the posts containing the link in photo captions. An example of posts on Facebook, that one on the right will be prioritised.

sources: Twitter, Socialbakers, BBC, Facebook, Mediabistro

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Trends in social media

After a long period I add an interesting infographics related to social media trends. As you can point below more stress will be put on the interaction/engagement with customers and better use of data the companies gather from different places.

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List of helpful sites

Today I want to share with you some of websites that I follow and check, some of them daily, others at least once a week. Moreover, apart from sites I want to write also about some Czech start-ups or services that could help you once you are in the CZ.

Well, here we go with the helpful pages: Tech news Mashable – I think my favorite site if I want to read about news from tech industry, even tho now it is just not focused at IT anymore and you can find news from other industries too or just stories related to lifestyle Techcrunch – according the name of this page, it is simply dedicated to IT, everything what goes on in the tech industry it is mostly mentioned here. There is also a part where they show recent fundings of companies Business Insider – here you can find news from all categories – tech, finance, politics etc. However, sometimes I found this site interesting and some articles kinda inspiring Czechcrunch – this site was founded just in September 2013 as Startupnews.cz. It got a new name – Czechcrunch almost 2 weeks ago. It is a Czech page dedicated to bringing news from IT, mostly news about startups. Even tho it is a young project I bet it will grow and attract more readers. Tyinternety – a site, written in Czech, about tech news. Before Czechcrunch was created I was mostly following this page. However, recently it does nt bring interesting news compared to Czechcrunch. Latest news says the founders want to sell this page or shut it down due their busy schedule and not having enough time to focus on writing on Tyinternety.cz Lupa.cz – Czech site again, the oldest one from other Czech sites mentioned above. However, still performng on a good level so every day you can find here articles from IT, mostly from the Czech environment Google Official Blog – the latest news from Googlers about their products Social Media Socialbakers – I would say that Socialbakers are the hottest Czech startup. If you want to get some useful tips or analysis from social networks this company is here for you. Socialbakers, founded in 2009, grew in past years enormously. These guys really deserve the success with work they do. Moreover, it is nice to see another Czech company highlighting the Czech Republic as a great pool for IT. Facebook Newsroom – what is a must than to get latest news from the biggest social network in the world, nuff said Social Media Today – another site dedicated to social networks, useful tips or infographics included Traveling Airbnb - who does not know this site? It is very easy to search for accommodation here. Moreover, you can choose and select the amenities you need and accordingly you get results. Very helpful while you travel. Tripadvisor - I bet, it is a must for travellers. Useful tips. Skyscanner, Momondo, Skypicker - search engines for flight tickets

Czech start-ups As I mentioned at the beginning, here is the list of Czech start-ups/services that I found useful in your daily life. If I forget about some, I am sorry for that but feel free to add them in comments. Liftago – actually, I have not used this service/app yet therefore I do not want to describe it more depply. Overall, it is a Czech version of Uber. Damejidlo – lead by Tomas Cupr, food delivery service. Working on 120%. The best customer service experience ever. If there is a problem, you can be 100% sure they solve it our and you will get some additional benefit too. I consider this service as one of the best in the CZ. Highly recommended. Slevomat – a Czech version of Groupon. Actually, not literally. Once again, founded by Tomas Cupr. It has grown rapidly since 2010 when it was founded. The offers there are updated almost daily, except Sunday. Sometimes it is an amazing bargain! Bonami – ecommerce shop based on flash sales, offering design stuff and furniture. Another project with bright future, founded a year ago it has been growing in the fast pace Bezrealitky.cz – looking for a flat to rent or thinking about purchasing a real estate. Then this site is for you. On this page you can easily search for flats/houses/lands for sale or rent. Or you can put your offer there too. No need to pay commisions to real estate agents anymore. Zoot – an ecommerce site for fashion. I really like their newsletters. It is catchy and their CTA must be therefore high Muzi v Cesku – a blog about men’s fashion, who wants to look chic then it is a must to follow articles there. useful tips how to look like a true gentleman Startupjobs - the job portal for startups. If you are looking for a job in a start-up or you are a start-up looking for somebody, post you offer there. I think this project might become even bigger if it spreads to other markets than just a Czech one Lunchtime – it is around lunchtime and you still have not decided where to go. Look at this site and figure out what you can get in restaurants. This page offers you lunch menus from various restaurants in different cities around the Czech Republic Bookio – the system for booking in restaurants. Simply to use, it can even help you with choosing the restaurant Scuk – if you are a foodie then this site is a must for you. There are the latest news about food, gastronomy and interesting restaurants for you. Furthermore, you can find here a map with places  (restaurants, cafes, grocery stories etc.) worth a visit sources: Globalstartups, Financesonline