What the frell is CLV !?!?

If you don't know what a customer is worth, you're inefficient. You should be thinking like this:









Average Order Profit
         x
Number of orders per year
         x
Average customer length (years)

         =

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)


CLVs are important if you are selling anything.

...
CLV is not (here) a reference to how fast CDs work.

The mysterious case of the sick visitor, or why bounce rates make me vomit.

What's a bad bounce rate? If 90% of your shop visitors straight out, is that OK? Choose a number.

To
Firstly, what's your typical bounce rate? This well hidden bit of text tells you (~30%):

So if you have content that has a bounce rate of 100%, against your site's average 30% - panic stations?

But hold on, that's only 1 visitor - maybe he had a serious case of the man flu?

Here's one fix: 'Weighted sort'. Sort by bounce rate, then go to 'Sort Type', then 'Weighted'. Voila!

Here the important sources are direct, the .com site, and then the .co.uk site. Are these different enough from the 30% site average to invest your time in?

"Sampling is bad, limited, awful ..."

Here's something I get asked a lot - why does Google Analytics sample?

"That must be bad, right?!?! A 16% sample? That means you're ignoring 84% of the data?!?!?!"

That could be bad. But it most likely isn't. People spending their time investigating non-problems is a crime against efficient time management, at the least, if not a capital crime :)

A typical analysis - "16% is bad!"

OK, so let's increase the precision (and make the web slower).

And now we have (years later...)

What is that extra 0.07 pages/visit accuracy is going to tell you? In plain English, probably bugger all. Sampling has cost you about 1% (probably less) through inaccuracy.

P.s.  If that precision truly, truly critical to your business, do consider a more 'premium' solution. And you probably aren't reading this blog.

What's in a goal?

I get asked fairly frequently what are examples of goals. If you don't use them properly, how do you know when your website is successful?  Goals are a way of linking what your site does with what your organisation needs to do. So you can make sure you are using your time wisely.

Here's a list of goals (targets) in no particular order:

My recommendations ... are you ...

Selling on-line? Set up Revenue (E-commerce).

Getting customer details? Set up URL (Leads) goals.

Building interest? Set up 'Time on site'.

Something else? Ask me!

----

How to set up a goal? 

Log in to your analytics software, visit 'Admin', and then add a Goal.

Set it up like this: