Posts tagged nonprofit

Thanks to our generous sponsors, ObservePoint, IQ Workforce, and Jim Sterne, the Analysis Exchange is awarding $500 in scholarship money to two applicants each quarter for their continuing Web Analytics Education, as well as a pass to an eMetrics conference of their choice.

We wanted to take a few minutes to share a little bit about our first and second quarter winners.  Congratulations to our winners: Joan Cole, Tina Arnoldi, Stefanos Kapetanakis, and Grace Begany. Thank you for volunteering your time to support the Analysis Exchange!

Joan Cole completed 3 Analysis Exchange projects and had an overall rating of 9.7/10 and outstanding reviews.  Joan was new to the field of Web Analytics and has been able to find some work in the field as a result of her Analysis Exchange experience. Joan recently served on a panel at the Chicago eMetrics conference to share her Analysis Exchange experience with other aspiring web analysts.  Joan is using her scholarship money toward the UBC Award of Achievement Program in Web Analytics.

Tina Arnoldi has been a part of the Analysis Exchange since May, 2011, as both an Organization lead and as a student.  Tina has a 9.7/10 rating on her evaluations. It is wonderful that Tina has been able to help other nonprofits, in addition to her own, get value out of using Google Analytics. Tina will be using her scholarship money to help pay for a conference where she is a presenter on Google Analytics!  Thanks Tina for continuing to spread the word!

Stefanos Kapetanakis has been a part of the Analysis Exchange since January 2012 and has received a 10/10 as a Mentor on 2 projects.  Stefanos has been able to impart his experience on new Analysts in the field and at the same time gain his experience evolving as a professional.  Stefanos will use his scholarship money to use towards furthering his web analytics education through completing the Market Motive class.

Grace Begany has completed 3 projects with the Analysis Exchange since January 2010, and has a 9.6/10 rating and outstanding recommendations!  Grace would like to help further extend and represent digital analytics activities within academia. As a soon-to-be doctoral student in Information Science, she would like to accomplish this goal by incorporating her existing digital analytics knowledge into her study and research at the university. The Analysis Exchange Scholarship will allow her to undertake a variety of knowledge-building activities, pushing her toward this goal.

Our next scholarship money will be granted this Fall.  If you have worked on an Analysis Exchange project and could use up to $500 to help further your web analytics education, you can find details on how to apply for the scholarship here: http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com/ae/scholarship/index.asp

This is a great guest post, entitled Make an Even BIGGER Difference, from David Schuette, an active member of the Analysis Exchange. You can follow David on Twitter @TheCakeScraps or contact us if you’d like to reach David directly.

As a non-profit, you know that you have the ability to get free help from Web Analytics professionals by participating in the Analysis Exchange, and you want to make the most of this fantastic opportunity.  You know that you will be working with mentors, who are highly accomplished in their field, as well as students, who are eager to extend their digital measurement skills.  You also know that everyone will be volunteering their time. 

But, maybe, you are just starting out in Web Analytics, as many non-profits are, and the simple task of determining the goals of a project may seem intimidating, if not overwhelming, to you.  Requesting a Technical Audit for your first Analysis Exchange project may be a solution for you.

What is a Technical Audit?

                It may be surprising to hear that, out of the box, even the best analytics software doesn’t track everything you need to know about your website.  Believe it or not, there may be many marketing efforts that are missing from your reports, or some of your reports may be inaccurate due to various tracking issues.  How do you know which reports are working as you would want them to, and which ones are misrepresenting your data?

A technical audit is a thorough evaluation of your website’s analytics software implementation that allows you to understand what your software may be missing or reporting inaccurately.  It provides you with knowledge of your reporting limitations, and its ultimate goal is to identify issues that need to be addressed to ensure that key visitor behaviors are captured accurately so that your data-driven recommendations are reliable.  By requesting an audit from the mentor and student in your first Analysis Exchange project, the areas of greatest need will be identified, and you can prioritize your subsequent projects according to your requirements, while obtaining ideas for future projects.  This will allow you to gain greater confidence that the outcome of your first project will be successful, and it will also set the stage for future steps to take.  Utilizing this approach can give you the greatest bang for your buck, even though you’re not spending a penny!!  

Technical audits normally cost thousands of dollars, and their findings can be quite extensive.  Although all of the information below may not be included in a free audit, you can be assured that your mentor and student will provide you with findings that will improve your data-driven decision-making capabilities.  The following are among the findings you might receive from a free technical audit:

·         Identification of pages that are not tracked by current, functioning default JavaScript tracking codes or log files

·         Recommendations to improve Content and Audience Segmentation

·         Confirmation that signup and donation paths and confirmations are counted as funnels and conversions for more detailed reporting

·         Assurance that site search keywords and navigation impacts are measured

·         Recommendations for improvements to dashboard layouts, summaries, sharing, and underlying reports

·         Verification that all active marketing efforts are counted as campaigns and includes more detailed reporting by channel, source and creative

·         Confirmation of  integration of search engine marketing (SEM) pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns

In addition, an audit can be performed on your Google Analytics capabilities or your specific Campaign Attribution efforts can be evaluated.

Agora Partnerships’ First AE Project

Dorrit Lowsen, COO at Agora Partnerships, a non-profit organization that works with promising entrepreneurs in developing countries, was the beneficiary of this approach in her first project with the Analysis Exchange.   She had hoped to understand how website and social media data could help them understand how effective their web presence was at achieving each of the goals they had established.  Peter Howley, Project Mentor and Principal at Empirical Path, performed an abbreviated Google Analytics audit on the Agora website, and Joan Cole, Project Student, provided an analysis and summary of the tracking enhancements that were needed to improve Agora’s reporting capabilities.  The findings were enlightening: there was no tracking in place for campaigns, non-page events, ecommerce, or social media.  This meant that Agora could not identify which marketing efforts were the most successful, and that their reporting of Direct and Referral traffic was inaccurate. 

From learning about these reporting issues, Dorrit was able to make an educated decision about the ultimate goal of her first project.  She decided that campaign tracking issues should take priority on this project, and Peter and Joan provided her with a campaign tracking tool and methodology that addressed her most critical need first.  She also came away from the project with several ideas for future projects and the feeling that her first project was successful.  You can read more about the Agora Partnerships Analysis Exchange project here.

Submitted by Analysis Exchange Student, Joan Cole

Last week, as I finished my first mentorship in the Analysis Exchange, I spent some time reflecting on what I learned from my first project and what I would carry into the next.  While I had some reservations about pursuing this fabulous web analytics opportunity initially, it was a great experience that I would recommend for non-profit organizations, students and mentors alike.  None of the below lessons caused our project to fail, quite the contrary, but in the spirit of continuous improvement, these are opportunities going forward that will hopefully help others in my shoes as well.  Live and learn is the name of the game, right?

1.     Time Management.  Before committing to the project, think about time management.  Will this project, given differing time zones require you to use any time from your full-time position?  Do you need to make arrangements to reserve this time for Analysis Exchange (AE)?  In my situation, our organization was based in Switzerland with a student in Oregon and me in Missouri.  There were limited times we could meet that wouldn’t mean one of us was losing sleep.  I did make efforts to minimize the AE work during my work day, which was helpful.  In our virtual working world, this won’t be a problem for most, but thinking through the logistics of how this will work is worth the planning effort.

2.     Project Plan.  This may seem like a given but once I began the project, I was so impressed with my student I didn’t feel a written project plan was of the utmost importance.  We had a plan with the organization, but it would have been helpful to have a written plan between the student and I to ensure we were both in synch regarding back off dates to review, edit and finalize the presentation.  We worked together harmoniously but this may have been helpful in the end when we became a bit crunched for time. 

3.     Mentor the Organization as much as the Student.  One of the points of feedback I received from the organization we worked with is that they didn’t receive many personal web analytics recommendations from me directly.  This surprised me at first because many of my suggestions had been incorporated and presented by the student.  My view of the project was that it was the student’s project and I would add background value, helping the student to shine.  What I failed to think through is that the organization didn’t see all of the back and forth communication between the student and I.  He wouldn’t recognize my efforts or contributions and understandably so.  The value of the mentor role then becomes a bit vague for the organization.  For the next project, I will try to engage the organization in the conversations the student and I have separately.  This may mean a mid-project call or two with the organization, student and I, but will help the organization learn just as much as the student.

4.     Rehearse , rehearse, rehearse.  As I mentioned, my student impressed me.  He far exceeded my expectations of the caliber of analytical skills I would find with the students in the AE.  Most of our communications were via email, which worked very efficiently.  However, in hindsight, another opportunity to provide feedback and help the student grow is by rehearsing the presentation on a call.  Part of the challenge of web analytics is delivering insightful analysis in a very simple and easily digestible format.  Presentation is half of this battle.  Providing feedback to the student regarding presentation style, flow, and timing just can’t be done as thoughtfully via email alone. 

5.     Just Do It.  Before participating in the Analysis Exchange, I was apprehensive of if I could do it.  I won’t even elaborate on the reasons why because they just seem silly now.  The Analysis Exchange is such an amazing experience for all parties involved.  What other prospect exists to do what you love while helping others learn and giving back to very worthy non-profit organizations?  None that I’ve seen.  Nike got this one very right – next time, I’ll just do it.  

Have you been a mentor, student or organization participating in the Analysis Exchange?  What lessons did you learn along the way?  What would you do differently the next time around?

Submitted by Analysis Exchange Mentor, Angie Bledsoe

We are incredibly happy to announce the creation of the Analysis Exchange Scholarship Fund. You can read the press release and learn more about the effort at the Analysis Exchange web site, but in an nutshell thanks to the generosity of ObservePoint and IQ Workforce we are now able to financially support Analysis Exchange member’s in their efforts to expand their web analytics horizons.  To read more about this effort, click here.

Thanks to Phil Mui and the Google Analytics Team for helping spread the word about the Analysis Exchange.  

http://analytics.blogspot.com/2012/01/new-initiative-connects-analysts-with.html

On September 21, 2011, the National Center for Media Engagement and Integrated Media Association coordinated a webinar entitled “Insights From Metrics: Public Media and Analysis Exchange”.  Thank you to Steve Ley from KDHX in St. Louis, Chelsea Lund from Pioneer Public TV in Minnesota, and Trevor Clendenin from Virgin Islands Public Television for sharing your Analysis Exchange success stories and how you are using web analytics at your stations.  And Thank you to the National Center for Media Engagement and Integrated Media Association for providing a forum for us to share our story. If you are interested in hearing this webinar, it is recorded and posted on the NCME website here.

Volunteering is making a resurgence. Not sure if you saw the exciting LinkedIn news from yesterday, but LinkedIn now lets people add their volunteer experience to their profiles since volunteer experience can give people a way to expand their skills or use their skills to help nonprofits. 

http://mashable.com/2011/09/07/linkedin-profile-volunteer-causes/

We, at the Analysis Exchange, have known this for a while.  We now have over 1,200 volunteers doing projects for the Analysis Exchange!    According to the recent Fast Company article, LinkedIn “encourages users to tout their selfless deeds to land better jobs. And a survey of users of the social media service suggests employers prefer do-gooders.” 

http://www.fastcompany.com/1778415/volunteering-will-save-your-career-or-be-a-path-into-a-new-one

Since the launch of the Analysis Exchange in 2010, we have helped hundreds of nonprofits get basic web analytics up and running and have trained several hundred of the next generation web analysts.   If you have volunteered with the Analysis Exchange, it is a great volunteer experience to add to your profile.

In 2011, we had our first student get a full-time job working in web analytics after volunteering his time with the Analysis Exchange to help him gain hands on experience. To read more about this success story, see Eric Petersen’s blog post here:

http://blog.webanalyticsdemystified.com/weblog/2011/05/amazing-news-from-analysis-exchange.html 

In Eric’s post, he interviews the Vice President of Human Resources who made the recent hire, Cynthia Nelson Holmsky who says:

“As a major e-commerce website we were recruiting for an E-Commerce Analyst and found an alumni of Analysis Exchange.  While the candidate had many years of business and software analytics, his only web experience was through Analysis Exchange.  However that Exchange experience provided just enough applied web analytics to win him the interview.  During this recruitment I met other candidates with strong business analysis backgrounds who lacked any web experience, and I referred all of them to Analysis Exchange as a great place to learn web analytics and expand their career potential.”

Are you interested in making a career change into Web Analytics?  Do you have a favorite nonprofit that you would love to volunteer your time to help? 

The Analysis Exchange is Web Analytics Demystified’s unique philanthropic effort to provide much needed web analytics advice and consulting to nonprofits and non-governmental organizations around the world without any money changing hands.  I also hope those of you reading this post will consider joining the Analysis Exchange. Signing up takes less than a minute and there are plenty of projects looking for mentors and students available right now.

http://www.analysis-exchange.com