In developing sound concepts
surrounding website performance an organization must have an effective
understanding and working knowledge that is focused on the primary metrics
needed to measure website activity (Reed College, 2016) . A solid foundational competence provides
opportunity for increased success and helps marketers strategically gather
online information to measure traffic, engagement and potential impact on ROI. Measuring
how visitors interact with a website, how they consume content, engage and
navigate your website is the means in which you gain insight on ways to refine
and improve the user experience.
Understanding website metrics and how
consumers are navigating their way through a website aids marketers and
organizations in making continuous improvement. As websites user interface and
content are improved it delivers opportunity to provide an increased level of
visitor satisfaction, deeper engagement, improved conversion rates and
ultimately a higher profit margin (Teixeira, 2011) .
(Jellyfish, 2016)
Developing a solid
understanding of these concepts includes a deep comprehension around the exclusive
terms, measures and actions web analytics programs utilize in gauging website
performance. Terms such as page views, visits and sessions along with events
and unique visitors form the foundation in assessing and quantifying website performance (Kaushik,
2010) .
Understanding the differences in these terms and the significance of their
function is critical.
The
Unique Visitor
One of the key
foundational measures of website performance is the unique visitor. The term unique visitor is essentially the “Number
of inferred individual people within a designated reporting timeframe, with
activity consisting of one or more visits to a site”. The key metric here is each
individual is counted only once in the unique visitor measure for the reporting
period (WAS, 2006) . While a unique
visitor may return to a site multiple times during a given reporting period the
unique visitor metric helps marketers and organizations understand whether the
number of actual users of a website are growing or declining.
The
Not So Unique Visitor
One of the evolving realities
in today’s digital market place is the propensity for consumers to use more
than one device or multiple browsers to access a website. For example an
individual navigating to your digital property may access a site in the morning
using a mobile smartphone. This same user may access the same website later in
the day while using a desktop computer during work hours. While the same person
has accessed the same website two times in the same day, there is a high
likelihood the web analytics system most organizations employ to measure
website usage will likely count this user twice creating two unique visits when
in reality there is just one visitor. To further complicate this scenario this
same user may make use of different web browsers located on their desktop
computer further increasing the propensity for a web analytics system to
overestimate the number of unique users accessing a website. Finally this same
user at the end of the day may access the same website again but this time
through a mobile tablet device unit again providing the opportunity to
overestimate the number of unique visitors.
Generally, the most
common reasons above will affect the unique visitor count again further
inflating the number of distinctive users visiting a given site. (Mason, 2010) . What is important
is that marketers need to be aware of these scenarios in an effort to quantify
the true number of audience members they have for their website.
(Chaffey, 2016)
Why Unique Visitors Matter
The unique visitor
metric gives organizations and marketers a sense of the size their audience.
The relative significance of the unique visitor metric rests on the purpose of the
website and what the site is ultimately looking to accomplish. If you are a
brand, you may want to maximize the number of people that come to your site,
with little regard for how many pages they access, as long as they follow
chosen path through the site and perhaps ultimately execute a desired outcome
such as make a purchase (Valela, 2016) . If a site is a focused
on publishing and creating content, the focus may be on depth of engagement and
loyalty by clicking deep into the site and generating page views. Ultimately the
unique visitor metric can be an important denominator when making usage
calculations for a website. For example the number of events or sessions per
unique visitor can provide marketers significant insight on the frequency an
individual uses website and by which channel they arrive. Studying the unique
visitors is a good way to look at users and user behavior instead of just
looking at one particular visit or other visitor associated metrics.
The unique visitor is a
foundational metric in a websites performance and one of the primary tools you
need to benchmark activity need to measure success. Since every session is not
always an opportunity to get a customer to hit submit, order or execute a
conversion in some manner, the unique visitor provides insight on how much
interaction website visitors need before they may execute a desired outcome.
Works Cited
Chaffey, D. (2016, April 27). Mobile marketing
statistics compilation. Retrieved from Smart Insights: http://www.smartinsights.com/mobile-marketing/mobile-marketing-analytics/mobile-marketing-statistics/
Jellyfish. (2016). Analytics insights training
course. Retrieved from Jellyfish:
http://www.jellyfish.co.uk/digital-marketing-courses/analytics-insights/
Kaushik, A. (2010). Web analytics 2.0. Indianapolis:
Wiley.
Mason, N. (2010, May 2010). Analytics basics:
unique visitors, new vs. returning visitors. Retrieved from Click Z:
https://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/1703608/analytics-basics-unique-visitors-new-vs-returning-visitors
Reed College. (2016). Week 1 lesson: intro to web
analytics and the basics of web analytics. Retrieved from West Virginia
University:
https://ecampus.wvu.edu/webapps/blackboard/execute/displayLearningUnit?course_id=_64077_1&content_id=_2976590_1&framesetWrapped=true
Teixeira, J. (2011, May 25). Entrances, bounces,
and exits – what does it all mean? Retrieved from
http://www.morevisibility.com/blogs/analytics/entrances-bounces-and-exits-what-does-it-all-mean.html
Valela, A. (2016, March 31). What’s more
important: page views or unique visitors? Retrieved from Agility:
http://blog.agilitycms.com/content-managers/what-s-more-important-page-views-or-unique-visitors
WAS. (2006). Web analytics “big three” definitions.
Retrieved from Web Analytics Association:
http://www.digitalanalyticsassociation.org/Files/PDF_standards/WebAnalyticsDefinitionsBig3.pdf
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