Polar Bear Plunge E-Commerce: Analytics Overview and Recommendations

For this exercise I have taken an in-depth look at how Special Olympics New Jersey’s e-commerce sites for the Seaside Polar Plunge have been using analytics to monitor and interpret customer (Plunger and Donor) traffic. The organization has really only begun to scratch the surface when it comes to using analytical data to guide decision making, so there are many tools that could improve analytic efforts. Currently, SONJ uses Google Analytics to assess analytical data. The objectives of the Polar Plunge event organizers are to recruit NEW Plungers, retain past Plungers, and bring in more donations than previous years. A secondary goal is to increase the average Plunger amount raised over the 2014 Plunge, which is a goal tied to generally increasing donations. 

E-Commerce Functionality and Funnels

Currently SONJ has GA set up in both the website’s homepage, which is hosted on Wordpress (www.njpolarplunge.org) and in the Seaside-specific registration page (http://seaside-pbp.kintera.org/), which is hosted on Kintera, a fundraising tool. The e-commerce functionality is two-fold (soon to be three-fold, with the addition of an online Plunge store): visitors can pay to register to participate in the event and donors can complete a transaction to give money to the cause. The current expected funnel for a registrant is to go to the njpolarplunge.org homepage, click the “Seaside Registration” button, be transitioned to the Kintera landing homepage, and then begin the registration process by agreeing to the Waiver (the first step in the registration process).  The funnel for a donor varies a bit more, but he or she would receive the personal fundraising link of the Plunger (via email or social media, typically), click over to the Plunger’s site, click the donate button and follow the check-out process. 

Current Analytics & Recommendations

            Registration for the 2015 Plunge opened in early October 2014, so GA has only been tracking data since that time.  SONJ has primarily been interested in visitor behavior in terms of which pages were viewed and exited from the most, which sites have referred the most traffic, and which pages have the highest bounce rates. Since visitors can only take a small amount of action on the njpolarplunge.org site (click “Register” or “Home” for one of the Plunge registration pages), for those GA, SONJ has only been interested in how visitors got to that page and whether or not they bounced. A high bounce rate on njpolarplunge.org could mean that visitors are confused about why the site doesn’t “look like Plunge” and aren’t bothering to click anywhere (and therefore not being redirected to the registration pages) before resorting to Google search to find what they are looking for.

As for the Kintera analytics, the top two landing pages are the home page (7% of traffic) and the “Join a Team” page (2% of traffic). These number opens up all kinds of potential analytics for SONJ to perform. Since Kintera allows individual Plungers to create their own pages, the site has amassed to 16,000 pages (!). Clearly a vast majority of traffic is bypassing the homepage ,“find a donor” page, and event info pages all together, since donors are directly accessing the “landing pages” of their Plunger friends. Additionally, registered Plungers aren’t going back to the homepage – they’re able to do most of their Plunge-related fundraising through their own mini-sites. Knowing this information can help SONJ determine the types of content that should really be up on the homepage. If Plungers aren’t accessing it, other communications strategies should be implemented.

            In terms of traffic to the Kintera registration homepage, direct traffic represents 31% of visits. Facebook brings in another 35%, 15% are coming in from njpolarplunge.org, and only 7% are making their way to the page from organic search. Other smaller sites make up the negligible difference. These data show SONJ that time and attention needs to be paid to organic search. Search engine optimization techniques are free, and yet they are only bringing in 7% of visitor traffic. SONJ should start digging a little deeper by setting up conversion goals to see how much direct, social and organic search traffic is actually converting. If all 7% of those organic searchers have converted, SONJ immediately needs to start investing time in better SEO. If only a small percentage of visitors from the social traffic are actually converting into Plungers or donors, SONJ needs to determine why. Are users confused by the process (analyze the pages with the highest exit rates) or are they not even starting the registration process after arriving at the homepage (analyze the initial bounce rate)? 

Other Recommendations

            The first recommendation for SONJ is to create goals within the GA system. Each registration is worth at least $100 (the fundraising minimum to Plunge), so it is an easy goal to understand and measure other analytics against. For example, SONJ could view new vs. returning visitors and see how many visitors are actually registering on their first visit to the site. From there, SONJ can assess how many sessions it takes for a visitor to actually achieve the registration goal. As for donors, SONJ can filter the donor-related traffic using a regular expression to see how many visits it takes a donor to actually donate. Knowing this information can help SONJ assess the donor user experience – is it cumbersome? Can they find the Plunger they want to donate to? Are they dropping out of the donation process for a particular reason?

            Another recommendation for SONJ is to turn on the e-commerce tracking functionality within GA. This is a great way for event organizers to test out registration codes and discounts to see if they are truly generating more revenue. The e-commerce functionality will also tell SONJ exactly how long it takes a registrant to actually sign up, or a donor to actually make a donation. All the revenue data will be available within the GA interface, allowing for more efficient data analysis.

            Finally, SONJ should set up some events within GA to help determine exactly what content is most relevant to visitors. While the site is primarily used for registration only, it would be interesting to see exactly how many visitors are downloading event information PDFs, clicking on photo albums, or viewing incentive items. Understanding these ancillary actions will help SONJ answer the BIG question about the user-friendliness of both njpolarplunge.org and the registration website: are visitors able to access the important logistical information and fundraising tools they need, and where should visitors be getting the event information they need to have the best Plunge experience possible and raise the most amount of dollars possible?

           

Google: What do they know about me?

I started my research on this week’s topic by attempting to see just what it is Google really “knows” about me. Personally, I think giving up a little privacy is completely worth the price I pay to use the many services Google provides, however I’ve never actually taken a careful look at exactly what Google “knows” about me.  The team behind Cloud Fender, an online file storage tool, recently wrote a blog post highlighting several different links you can use to see how Google sees you (2014). In the discussion below, I explore my own online identity through these links and evaluate several privacy and ethical concerns.

What Does Google Think of me?

            The first glimpse into Google’s knowledge of me is in my ad settings. This is an area of my Google profile that shows me basic information about myself based on my recent searches.

Google has identified 45 or so general interests for me based on my web activity and therefore will serve me ads that are most closely aligned with these things. I’ve never manually put in these interests and yet they are surprisingly accurate. Personally, I do not have a problem with Google knowing my general interests. I spend a lot of time online and if I have to see ads, they might as well be relevant to my actual interests. Additionally, it is easy to edit my interests or opt out of interest-based ads if I’m finding them to be a bit TOO accurate. I can even opt out of specific advertising campaigns if I’m seeing them just a bit too often.

While I may be comfortable with Google’s general picture of my interests, the same isn’t necessarily so for everyone. Earlier this year Google settled a lawsuit with students in California after it was discovered that the tech giant was scanning emails through their Google Apps for Education tool to help target ads. “Google Apps for Education, a free service used by more than 30 million students, teachers and administrators, offers Gmail email accounts, as well as calendars, cloud storage and document creation. Google didn’t place ads inside the apps, which it offered to educational institutions since 2006. However, the company continued to scan the contents of students’ Gmail accounts, gathering information that could potentially have been used to target ads to those students elsewhere online” (Barr, 2014). In this case students and educators felt Google was breaking wiretap laws and may have been violating the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which keeps educational records private. Since the lawsuit Google as removed all advertising from these student Gmail accounts.

 Does Google Know Where I am?

As nonchalant as I am about Google knowing my general interests to help tailor advertising, I’m finding it a bit more disturbing to learn that Google knows exactly where I am and where I’ve been, thanks to its location-based services and my iPhone. While I don’t really care that Google knows where I am and where I’ve been, I am weary that this information could be used for harm. Personally, I haven’t been the target of stalking or crime, but I can see how this location-based information could be used to hurt me should it fall into the wrong hands. Here’s a snapshot of my daily travels according to Google.

This information is readily accessible for me here: https://maps.google.com/locationhistory. As you can see I started my day in Florida and ended up back home in Pennsylvania. If I scroll over the time graph at the bottom I can see exactly where I traveled once I got in the car. Google knows where I am down to just a few feet! Personally I do not like having a daily history of my whereabouts available online simply because if the data got out a criminal could easily see my daily patterns down to the minute. To me this crosses the line just a little bit!

On the flip side, if I was into criminal activity myself (I’m not, I promise!), I would not particularly like this feature. Obviously this sort of information would be damning evidence in foul play. However, in a recent article with Forbes writer Amadou Diallo, a Google representative did confirm that they would require a search warrant from the police before giving out access to this data without consent from the user (2013).

I’ve decided to regularly delete my location history, but I do still plan on keeping my Google location services turned on. It’s helpful to me to know if I’m heading into heavy traffic, or if there’s a Starbucks nearby or if I need a shortcut home. These benefits are worth Google knowing my minute-by-minute move since I know I can control whether or not the data is stored for long periods of time.

What Data Does Google Store?

Another interesting side to my Google life is in my history. This includes all of my Google searches, a complete list of all the Google images I’ve ever looked at, a history of my YouTube video views, and every single Google AdWords ad I’ve ever clicked on. I can also see that my Google account is connected to several apps (Feedly and Amazon) and I also have one credit card on file.

I’m not too worried about all of this information being collected and stored since it’s helping Google create a better advertising experience for me. Furthermore, I’ve given Google permission to collect all this information and I can control quite a bit about what I allow them to collect right there from my dashboard. I would have a much bigger issue with them having access to information like my credit card number if I didn’t actually give them permission to store it.

Google came under fierce scrutiny in 2013 when they were accused of using their Google Maps vehicles (with all the cameras on top) for doing more than just taking street-view photos for Google Maps. “The Street View case arose out of Google’s deployment of special vehicles to photograph the houses and offices lining the world’s avenues and boulevards and lanes. For several years, the company also secretly collected personal information — e-mail, medical and financial records, passwords — as it cruised by. It was data-scooping from millions of unencrypted wireless networks” (Streitfeld, 2013). This is clearly crossing ethical boundaries since this information was not given with permission.

Overall I’m happy with the tools that Google offers me. They make my online experience simple and relevant and I feel like I have the world at my fingertips. While I’m a bit weary of the location tracking services I do ultimately trust Google to keep my data and information safe. I think as long as Google can retain the trust of its users, issues of privacy will be overlooked for the benefits this “god of the internet” can provide!