Dan Nedelko : Internet Marketer

It's slipped my mind for some time but a while back Clicktracks did a case study on me when I was Web Manager for Riptown Media here in Vancouver. Riptown is the Canadian provider of marketing services for Bodog.com - not that the structure makes a big deal. However, as I do some searches I see that the article is still in the SERPs, hurrah hurrah.

The original article is Riptown.com Doubles Search Engine Traffic With ClickTracks

Here's the content of the article, probably within blockquotes for those who care. Now admittedly it's a little bit on the markety oozy side of things but the content of the article is very much true. Although at Riptown and Bodog we actually used a combination of Clicktracks and Omniture SiteCatalyst.

Why?

Because when page tagging systems fail there is no way to recover data, it's just gone. Let's be honest here, mistakes do happen on large sites and mistagged pages can happen commonly especially when you get into in depth Analytics, Success Events, Join and Purchase processes. The thing I like about Clicktracks is the reverse tagging process they do from Log Files.

This certainly provides a decent backup in case of error. Be careful though, when using multiple analytics packages there will be a variance between each system, but I defer to the fact that processing the information for business purposes is the job of the Web Analytics/Business Intelligence Specialist.

Here's the article:

Riptown.com Doubles Search Engine Traffic With ClickTracks

With over 10 years in the advertising and marketing field, Riptown.com Media is a full service and world-class marketing, advertising, and design agency. Dan Nedelko, Riptown's Web Manager, implemented ClickTracks in order to track the effectiveness of site changes, PPC campaigns and SEO efforts for Riptown client Bodog.com, an upscale Sportsbook, Poker Room and Online Casino.

Before ClickTracks

Dan had a ton of data, but very little usable information with which the Riptown Team could make business, design and information architecture decisions for Bodog.com. «We knew that Google was sending us a significant number of visitors,» said Dan, «but what we didn't know was what those Google visitors were doing once they arrived on the site. As soon as they walked in the front door of the site, they were virtually invisible, data-wise.»

The role of search engines in Bodog.com's success also needed examination-lower than average search engine traffic was cause for concern. As Dan and the team implemented ClickTracks, «we could see that of all of the traffic that visited the site, approximatley 3.5% was generated through search engine results.» This was an area of improvement to Dan and his colleagues, who know that good search engine optimization is an important factor in continuing online success.

After ClickTracks

After seeing that conversion rates through search engine optimization could be increased , Dan and his team set out to make changes. «Within a 6-month period, we've more than doubled the number of people visiting from search engines-going from only 3.5% of all traffic to 7.5%,» noted Dan. «We could tell immediately whether or not a particular tactic was working, simply by firing up ClickTracks to see what it could show us.»

ClickTracks helped Dan compare and contrast visitors from the top search engines. Using ClickTracks' label wizard, he took a look at how Google visitors differ from Yahoo! visitors. First, he opened the Search report to get a bird's eye view of important metrics like time on site and pages visited. «The software confirmed that, although we attract a large number of visitors from Google, they tend to spend less time on the site, visiting some of our top-level pages and then leaving before navigating more deeply,» said Dan.

Conversely, Yahoo! sends fewer visitors to Bodog.com, but the visitors they do send interact with the site in a way that is more likely to result in a conversion. Even using ClickTracks Navigation report, the difference between the two groups of visitors was striking. «The Yahoo! visitors, although smaller in overall volume, tend to spend approximately twice as long on the pages in question, as well as navigating down into the deeper pages of the site.»

ClickTracks has also been helpful in identifying core areas of conversion rate weaknesses and strengths. «Because the program literally shows the click path analysis and literally shows how different groups of visitors behave, we've been able to make tactical decisions which have resulted in increases to our conversion rates in key areas,» concluded Dan.