Changes In Clicktracks Appetizer

The Challenge
We were recently challenged by the author of Occam's Razor, Avinash Kaushik, to enable more features in Appetizer. The short story is that we agreed, but you might find the 'why' and 'how' to be interesting—and get a little view of the less-conformist thinking of ClickTracks' marketing department.

The Dilemma
We've never hid the fact that Appetizer is primarily a learning tool and a very useful 'taste' rather than a comprehensive web analytics solution. We measure the success of Appetizer by how many people attend our free classes each month. It's true. Folks who learn good web analytics practices tend to favor (or buy) ClickTracks' more powerful products. However, if we enable too many features, Appetizer could conceivably eat into sales of our $19/month Analyzer service or our $295 Analyzer software product.

The Answer
So, like a good web analytics team, we decided to do a test. We'd enable the Site Overview in Appetizer for 90 days. After 90 days we'll measure. If the growth rate of Analyzer continues uninhibited, and we see a spike in attendance in the online classes (in theory, more future buyers), then the Site Overview remains enabled. We also asked Avinash to teach one of the classes.

It's On Right Now
Open up Appetizer and you'll see that the Site Overview is enabled today. Without labels, the Site Overview can be deceptively unimpressive, so here are two ideas from Avinash to get you started:

1. Click on Visitor Labeling Button. Then click the Compare Search Referrals button. Click Ok. Now go back and look at your newly available Site Overview report to see what Search Engines are doing for your website. Typically, 80% of the web traffic now starts at a Search Engine. Is your website able to leverage this critical fact?
   
   
2. Click on Visitor Labeling Button. Then click on the Short Visit Length button. Click OK. Now check out your new Site Overview report and look at what % of your site traffic leaves in less than 5 seconds (your Site Bounce Rate), look at your Top Referrers report and identify websites that are sending you traffic that is "bouncing" off your site quickly.

This should give you a taste of how powerful ClickTracks is at segmenting traffic (even more Advanced Labeling available in Analyzer) and how you can quickly glean insights and take action (rather than spending your time viewing reports).

Give Us Your Two Cents (or more if you like)
Our January class will cover paid search best practices (sign up already!). Here's your chance to influence February's topic. Mr. Kaushik is a highly-respected author, speaker, and practitioner of web analytics (check out his blog, Occam's Razor). Tell us what you want to learn and we'll send it on to Avinash.