HomeAway Uses Data-Driven Attribution to Increase ROI

HomeAway is the leading online marketplace for vacation rentals. This company represents almost 900,000 listings of rentals around the world through the websites HomeAway.com, VRBO.com and VacationRentals.com in the U.S. and multiple sites in other countries.

Through the HomeAway sites, travelers can search for a vacation rental according to many filters, including location, number of guests, number of bedrooms, property type and features such as swimming pool, air conditioning, fireplace or pets allowed. Here is a sample of a filter screen for a property search in Orlando, Florida.

HomeAway depends on web searches for its business and uses paid display and search ads to drive traffic. There is no phone number posted on the homepage or in the header or footer of the website. The Contact Us page does offer a phone number, but not until after the user goes through a process to identify the type of user and the category that best describes the question and takes a third step beyond following the website links that offer support. This screen shot shows the Contact us page. 

Note that subsequent steps do not appear on the page until each step has been answered, so it takes three clicks on this page to show the phone number for customer support. Once the user finds a link to a phone number, there is a note that “Customer Service is available 24 hours a day and seven days a week.”

A focus on keeping activity on the website suggests that it should be easy to track traffic and conversion data, but with multiple online channels directing visitors to the website, it is difficult to identify exactly how a visitor made a conversion. Google Analytics Premium introduced a new Data-Driven Attribution model in August 2013 with a goal of better understanding the attribution process.

Data-Driven Attribution Improves ROI

HomeAway wanted to increase the number of inquiries on the HomeAway website. To do that, it needed to have a better understanding of the impact of paid search and display ads on conversions. The company used the new Data-Driven Attribution feature of Google Analytics Premium in order to identify the source for all campaign interactions.

Data-Driven Attribution uses statistics and economic principles to assign value to marketing touch points such as display ads, paid search, email campaigns and specific keywords. The model compares different channels that visitors use to find a site and make a conversion or purchase and then assigns value to the various channels. Craver explains that it uses 90 days worth of data “to determine which channels and keywords within a channel have the best probability of creating a conversion visit. This data-driven model automatically adjusts itself weekly, re-analyzing visit data from a rolling 90-day history.”

As a result, the model shows which channels are most successful and offers insight into planning for future marketing spends. Google notes that this algorithm is based on actual behavior of customers, but it is an estimate and does not guarantee results.

After using Data-Driven Attribution, HomeAway adjusted their keywords and their cost-per-acquisition information. It spent $6,000 to test the findings and as a result, the company saw a 23% increase in attributed conversions. The Senior Director of Global eMarketing for HomeAway, Will Lin, shares the impact of this new model on his company: “Data-Driven Attribution enabled a much cleaner and more balanced view of our marketing effectiveness. It really showed us where we were driving conversions, and where we needed to invest more.”

Other Tools That Would Benefit HomeAway

As noted, HomeAway is an e-commerce site. In addition to the new Data-Driven Attribution model, there are many other tools that the company could use to improve its analytics efforts.

Currently the HomeAway site offers a login option for travelers and owners, but it doesn’t require visitors to login in order to perform a search. UserReport is an online survey tool that would allow HomeAway to collect data about visitors who do not want to create a profile on the site. UserReport surveys collect demographics and user satisfaction information about a website. Collecting this data enables analysts to have a complete picture of the audience and then to target content to them. UserReport data can be used to build demographic and behavioral segments in Google Analytics. Some key outcomes as stated on the UserReport overview on the Google Analytics App page can include:

·      “Tracking demographics and satisfaction rates for specific visitor groups to better evaluate landing and exit pages, search keywords, traffic sources and campaigns.

·      Measuring conversion rates in different segments to gain a better understanding of the conversion cycle.

·      Comparing demographics over time, pages visited, sections visited and geographic region.”

Another application that HomeAway could incorporate on its site is Analytics Visualization which depicts activity to and within a website. The description of this app on the Google Analytics App Gallery says the company focused on one question: “how can we let users uncover the unexpected?” The app has several answers to that question, including showing what sites are linking to HomeAway.com, VRBO.com and other owned websites, and which specific pages on those sites are being linked to. It can also show frequently used keywords and how they are combined. Visualization like this offers a very focused view of what is happening and what is causing the activity.

An email system like MarketTraq Email™ would enable HomeAway to communicate with users in a meaningful way, based on their interests, demographics and behavior. The HomeAway website does not currently have an email sign-up form, but this feature could easily be added. The company has already defined three audiences on their Contact Us page: traveler, vacation home owner, and property manager.  The company could plan unique emails to go out to these groups and customize each message according to the specific user’s interests. For example, a traveler who lives in the northeast and plans a trip to a warm locale one winter could receive highly ranked listings in warm-weather destinations the next year, and based on filters used for previous rental searches, the newsletter could highlight similar properties. For the property manager audience, newsletters could feature best practices for property listings or warnings about fraudulent practices. The MarketTraq Email system would ensure that relevant messages are sent at appropriate intervals.

In summary

HomeAway is a successful vacation rental website, known and used throughout the world. It can continue to improve its return on marketing investment with further use of tools that it already owns, such as Google Analytics Premium, as well as additional applications that integrate with this rich tool.

Google User Responsibility for Privacy Protection

I depend on Google everyday. In fact, the last time I bought a phone I chose a Droid so that I could have easy access to everything Google offers that keeps me organized. Google calendar tells me where I need to be and when. Gmail keeps me connected to friends. Google gives me phone numbers, restaurant addresses and bus schedules. This morning I used Google Drive to check the schedule for an event where I was volunteering. It is a convenience to me that Google tracks all of this data about my life and I voluntarily provide information to the company for these services.

I am not alone; Google is part of daily life for millions of people around the world. As of June 2012, 435 million people were using Gmail. That number includes government agencies, universities and businesses. Two-thirds of people conducting web searches in the U.S. use Google, according to data tracker comScore 2013.

In January 2014, Google purchased Nest, a company that makes a thermostat that “learns your schedule, programs itself and can be controlled from your phone.”  This acquisition ignited the latest discussion regarding Google and privacy. It also caused concern among Nest users who had “entered an agreement (to share their personally identifiable stream of data) with one company (Nest) but now that agreement has been transferred to another company (Google)” says Parker Higgins, an activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in a Forbes article. Some Nest users have returned their equipment and ended their contracts because they do not trust their personal data in the hands of Google, which has broader access to information than Nest had.

Google’s Privacy Policy is Very Public

Google’s privacy policy is easily accessible. A Google search for “Google privacy policy” yields an immediate result for the policy, which is also posted on the footer of the Google search page and at the bottom of Gmail, for example. The policy is written in plain language and includes a link to key terms for users who may not be familiar with the meaning of words like cookies, browsers and IP address. Google is not trying to hide anything.

The policy explains that Google collects “information to provide better services to all of our users – from figuring out basic stuff like which language you speak, to more complex things like which ads you’ll find most useful or the people who matter most to you online." The policy states that Google collects two types of information: that which users give Google, for example when setting up a profile, and that which Google gets when individuals use Google services, such as what you search for or where you are located when you use a Google service.

In addition to outlining the type of information Google collects, the privacy policy tells readers how they can control some of the information that is connected to their Google account via Google Dashboard. Here is a screen shot of my Dashboard to give an idea of what is there:

From this dashboard you can edit your Google account profile settings (gender, age, password), manage your alerts, access your analytics and view your most recent Google searches, Gmail messages topics, Google calendar entries, and everything else that connects you with Google. You can also locate your Android phone through the dashboard. In fact, I was able to locate mine and ring it just by pushing a button on the dashboard. This was especially surprising because my phone is always set to vibrate.

Google’s privacy policy states how you can prevent your information from being shared. “You may also set your browser to block all cookies, including cookies associated with our services, or to indicate when a cookie is being set by us. However, it is important to remember that many of our services may not function properly if your cookies are disabled." The second sentence may cause some readers to decide that protecting privacy by disabling cookies is not worth the trouble of losing settings and remembered passwords.

Google is transparent about the information that it stores; users simply have to read the policy. Google states that it uses data to “provide, maintain, protect and improve them, to develop new ones, and to protect Google and our users. We also use this information to offer you tailored content – like giving you more relevant search results and ads."

Internet users can take steps to be empowered and protect their own privacy. The first step, of course, is to avoid using any Google services, although that would be a huge shift for someone like me who depends on the convenience Google provides.

What should be of greater concern than Google’s access to your data is the possibility of hackers getting their hands on it. That is where individuals can take responsibility for their own privacy.

Individuals Need To Take Responsibility

Only 46 percent of Americans believe it is the responsibility of individuals to protect their online privacy, according to a survey sponsored by Microsoft in 2013. Thirty-one percent believe that companies are responsible to protect us online, and 23 percent think that it is the government’s job.  While I agree with the 45 percent of Americans who believe that companies can use technological innovations to help us manage our privacy, it should not be the full responsibility of companies to protect us.

Barring avoiding Google (and the Internet) altogether, individuals can prevent hackers from accessing information through password protection. An article on the McAfee website shares password security tips including:

·      Set unique passwords. Do not use familiar words, family member names, numbers such as “123456” or birthdates.

·      Do not reuse passwords among sites.

·      Do not use your password on public computers or in areas where you are on unsecured Wi-Fi connections.

·      Use at least eight characters, including letters numbers and symbols. Create a code or sentence with the characters.

A Social Media Today article shares many other tips for maintaining privacy while using the web and social media, including:

·      Do not save sign-in passwords in online accounts.

·      Set your Facebook privacy to “Friends Only.”

·      Use a password on all electronic devices.

·      Use two-step authentication in Gmail to prevent others from signing in.

·      Encrypt everything on your computer.

·      Clear your browser and cookies.

·      Keep track of applications that connect to your social media accounts and deactivate those you do not use.

·      Get an app that allows remote cleaning of a stolen device.

·      Set up a Google alert for your name in case anything strange pops up online.

In Closing

With everything that we can do online, such as banking, shopping, researching, accessing work email and work servers, privacy is a concern. Whether individuals use Google or other online companies, it is up to individuals to protect themselves if they are going to engage online.

Which Web Analytics Tool is Right for Me? Comparing SiteCatalyst and Google Analytics

Adobe SiteCatalyst collects web site visitors’ online analytics data such as page views and visits and provides a data processing and a reporting platform.  SiteCatalyst is part of the Adobe Marketing Cloud, which is branded as the “most comprehensive set of marketing solutions” and includes tools for analytics, social, media optimization, web experience marketing, targeting and cross-channel campaign marketing.

As part of this rebranding of the product into the cloud, the name SiteCatalyst was officially changed to Reports & Ana­lyt­ics in July 2013, although a search for SiteCatalyst brings you directly to the Adobe analytics page, and articles written after that date still refer to the product with that name. I will use the familiar name for this product while comparing it to Google Analytics.

This article compares SiteCatalyst to Google Analytics by answering a few basic questions.

What’s your budget?

SiteCatalyst offers similar tools to Google Analytics (GA), but at a price. While GA is free to use, the fee for SiteCatalyst could cost more than $100,000 a year, although exact cost is determined by your specific needs. This is a huge contrast to the free cost of GA.

On the positive side, now that SiteCatalyst is part of the “analytics suite” users will be able to use two other tools that were previously available at an additional cost. One of the tools, Discover, is a segmentation and reporting program, and the other, ReportBuilder, allows users to import data into Microsoft Excel. Of course, as Greco reports, this upgrade would likely come with a price increase.

Avinash Kaushik has a 10/90 rule that is worth considering when choosing an analytics tool. He believes that companies should invest 10% in the tool and 90% in the people who will use the tool (Kaushik, 2010). He believes that the people are what makes the tool worthwhile, otherwise you are “simply data rich and information poor” (Kaushik, 2010). After spending $100,000 on SiteCatalyst, that requires quite a large budget for the web analytics team.

How experienced are you with analytics software?

             SiteCatalyst is a powerful product, but it is not as user-friendly as Google Analytics. As one user says, “One [GA] is easy on the eyes; the other takes a bit longer to love."  In fact, SiteCatalyst requires a trained professional to implement it and that it requires a lot of work to set up.

The benefit of SiteCatalyst is that once it is in place, the software will be set up to do exactly what you want it to do, tracking the metrics according to your established goals. The customization afforded by SiteCatalyst may be what some companies need, particularly in combination with the complete analytics suite that Adobe now bundles.

Google Analytics is easy to use. Rather than a complicated implementation and set up, anyone with access to the backend of a website can apply the Google Analytics Java Script code to the site. Google offers clear directions on taking this step, and within 24 hours the code starts to collect analytics.

Once installed, users of both products have access to customer service. SiteCatalyst offers 24-hour support, including online videos, guides and tutorials for free. Additional training is available at a cost.

Google offers free tools, both written and video, to help users implement the product. In addition to a User Forum, Help Center and three-week Digital Analytics Fundamentals course, Google also offers Analytics Academy which dives deeper in data analysis.

How much customization do you want and need?

SiteCatalyst also offers more custom variables than Google Analytics. Custom variables are segments of visitors organized by any criteria you identify, such as common user characteristics, specific pages visited or actions taken. Using custom variables allows the analytics team to view data related to specific groups instead of all traffic in aggregate.

Site Catalyst allows 75 traffic variables, 75 conversion variables and 100 event variables. Chianis notes that GA allows five variables per page, while Ingle states that Google’s Universal Analytics offers 20 variables, an increase, but still not as customized as SiteCatalyst. Both tools allows you to set an expiration date on the variable, but SiteCatalyst allows multiple variables to be stacked on top of each other so analysts can note a sequence of events.

How does it track data?

With SiteCatalyst users can have suites of data for microsites, but all data suites can feed into a large suite that incorporates data for the whole site and one dashboard can be used across all data suites. A benefit of viewing the data for microsites within the entire website is that it is possible to see how a visitor moves between microsites.

Rather than data suites, Google Analytics uses profile filters that permanently apply filters to the data. GA has predefined filters and custom filters. Predefined filters include some basics that most sites will want to view, such as:

·      Exclude/Include only traffic from a specific ISP domain

·      Exclude/Include only traffic from a specific IP address

·      Exclude/Include only traffic from a specific hostname

·      Exclude/Include only traffic from a specific subdirectory.

GA custom filters are developed according to specific needs of your company. They may include or exclude traffic based on a specific dimension such as a campaign, audience information, location or event; or may connected to use of lower or upper case letters. Advanced filters are also available. This article offers a lot of detail about GA's profile filters.

It is important to note that once filters are applied in Google Analytics, they are permanent and cannot be removed. When filters are applied, a raw data profile should always be maintained so that there will be a backup file.

How long do you want to keep back-up data?

If you want to keep back-up data for your website indefinitely, SiteCatalyst will meet your needs as long as you continue using this product. Google Analytics stores data for just over two years. But how long do you need to keep web data?

Avinash Kaushik points out that web data has a shelf life, and there is no need to keep it around indefinitely. He recommends keeping click-level, detailed data for a year and session-level aggregated data for longer, as long as it fits in a spreadsheet (Kaushik, 2010).

Kaushik’s reasons are simple and all end in the phrase “change too much.” What changes? Your visitors and the browsers and devices they use; your computations, or how you measure things on the web; your systems – content management system, new web language or new applications; your website itself as you implement new technology and improvements based on your analytics; and finally your people, or the team that takes care of your website and its data (Kaushik, 2010).

 What web analytics tool would I choose?

Some expert analytics users combine SiteCatalyst and Google Analytics to monitor their websites. Sarah Ingle notes that she uses GA for quick and easy answers, but sometimes she needs to dig deeper for information and SiteCatalyst is the better tool. That may make sense for a seasoned analytics professional, but at this early stage of my analytics exploration, I can’t imagine delving deeper than the depth that Google Analytics offers.

GA’s free cost means that I could allocate dollars to consultants who can help me set up the best goals and automatic tracking to meet my needs. Committing to a richer analytics suite, such as SiteCatalyst and its sister components, would appeal more to a large company with a team trained in managing analytics and focused on making their website work to its fullest.

Your turn

Have you tried SiteCatalyst? If so, would you ever give it up and solely use Google Analytics?