OWAC Recap

The beginning of the Omniture competition was a little overwhelming, but it was nice to have learned more about various parts of web analytics from our in class presentations a couple weeks prior. After attending Omniture University, my team decided we each needed to spend some time alone getting familiar with how to use Site Catalyst. Our overall strategy was to spend time familiarizing ourselves with Site Catalyst on our own, then meeting together to bring up any points of interest / possible KPIs that we had come across. (After going through the KPI tutorial, we also went and bookmarked the specific reports that were talked about). The day before presentation, we selected what we thought were our strongest KPIs and dove further into them, gathering the necessary information and that's what we presented.

From this whole experience I've learned that there is a lot of data and it might be useful, but you need to decide what your ultimate goal is before proceeding with the analyzing of the data. It great to become more familiar with Site Catalyst and to be able to see the broken down portions of what information can be tracked such as all the different keywords or the paths that visitors take or where visitors are leaving the site. Having actually ran the reports first hand, it makes them make a little more sense. However, as I went through the process, I also developed additional questions.

What is a "loyal customer?" If cookies are erased when the browser closes, how is a "loyal customer" tracked? At what point do you begin to implement changes to see the reaction? How long is a long enough time frame to draw reasonable conclusions?

It was a great experience and I'm excited to hear what recommendations other groups made and how they approached the competition.