NTC 2019: Responsible Tracking

As site owners, it’s impossible for us to serve our users better without knowing a little bit about them — what’s working for them, and what isn’t. There are a number of high-impact but unobtrusive ways to learn more about how users interact with your site and your brand. In fact, you might be surprised at the information you can learn about your users with nothing more than Google Analytics.

This talk will expose some touch points that can help you learn about your users and how they interact with your site. We’ll discuss tools that move beyond just your analytics platform to help you gain access to these insights, and we’ll walk through some core features of analytics that you may not be aware of.

Leaving this session, you’ll have a better understanding of the types of tracking tools, the information you can glean from them, and how to ensure your data tracking is responsible, transparent, and accessible.

Transcript

1. 1 KANOPI STUDIOS PRESENTS Responsible Tracking Observing your users… without being creepy
2. 2 I make websites effective and easy to understand. Kanopi creates open source websites that create an impact. @katherinemwhite www.kanopi.com Katherine White Director of Engineering Kanopi Studios RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
4. What users expect THE CONTEXT OF DIGITAL INTERACTION
5. 37% of users think websites will recognize and adapt to the user to create a unique, optimal experience [within five years]. The Personal Touch Source: WP Engine & The Center for Generational Kinetics, 2017 RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
6. 58% of all respondents believe that all websites will “talk” to each other so that every site, app, or appliance will present a personalized experienced [within five years]. Digital Footprint Source: WP Engine & The Center for Generational Kinetics, 2017 RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
7. 62% of users would prefer an Internet where you were completely anonymous and had to order everything manually. Privacy Options Source: WP Engine & The Center for Generational Kinetics, 2017 RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
8. “When it comes to ensuring digital devices and experiences are safe, security is a big concern for every generation... The national study found that two of the top three least liked aspects of the Web are security related.” RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
9. A majority of Americans (64%) have personally experienced a major data breach. Data Breaches Source: Pew Research Center, 2017 RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
10. Roughly half of Americans feel that their personal information is less secure than it was five years ago. Identity Threat Source: Pew Research Center, 2017 RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
11. Americans consistently lack confidence in the security of everyday communication channels and the organizations that control them – particularly when it comes to the use of online tools. RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
12. “While security is a concern, the youngest generation is more open to balancing their privacy concerns with the desire for personalized experiences. ... This represents an important shift in mindset around security from a defensive mindset to a growth mindset. RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
13. 50% of of Gen Z would stop visiting a website if it didn’t anticipate what they needed, liked or wanted. Five-star service Source: WP Engine & The Center for Generational Kinetics, 2017 RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
14. Security is not privacy.
15. Transparency is key.
16. How do we study users without getting in their way… and while respecting their preferences? RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
17. Tools GOOGLE AND BEYOND
18. The Potential of Site Search Forrester research shows that 43% of users go directly to site search. WebLinc research shows site search users are 216% more likely to convert. Users who performed an on-site search spent more than regular users RESPONSIBLE TRACKING 43% 200%+ $$$
19. Site Search Logging One of the most powerful sources of information about what your users seek. ⎼ If you do nothing else, do this! ⎼ Track user search queries on your site ⎼ Gives you insights into what content is in demand ⎼ Gives you insights into what is difficult to find RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
20. Contact Form Analysis ⎼ Review onsite submissions ⎼ Complaints ⎼ Hopes/wishes/needs ⎼ Opportunities for improvement ⎼ Don’t keep these longer than you need to. RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
21. 21 Easy to do with query strings (WordPress); trickier with path-based search URLs (Drupal default) RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
22. DRUPAL The standard Google Analytics plugin facilitates search tracking. https://www.drupal.org/project/google_analytics WORDPRESS RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
23. DRUPAL Drupal 8 core provides a minimal search query report out of the box at /admin/reports/search WORDPRESS RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
24. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) “In internet marketing, conversion optimization, or conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a system for increasing the percentage of visitors to a website that convert into customers, or more generally, take any desired action on a webpage.” Wikipedia RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
25. Google Tools THE COOL STUFF ⎼ Free! ⎼ Incredibly powerful tools for generating insights ⎼ Broad reach ⎼ Tools to integrate your data sources THE CREEPY STUFF ⎼ Nothing is actually free… ⎼ They can use your content for all their existing and future services ⎼ Tracks you on other websites ⎼ May use device fingerprinting RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
26. 26 Look familiar? Search Console gives you the data you want. https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home PRESENTATION TITLE
27. 27 A customized piece of information about a Google Analytics hit. RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
28. 28 Track efficacy of inbound campaign traffic by the source and medium. RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
29. 29 Allows you to craft highly targeted market segments to analyze your most valuable users. PRESENTATION TITLE
30. 30 Analyze traffic based on dimensions such as age, gender, affinity, and in-market segments. RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
31. User ID Integration ⎼ Primarily for cross-device tracking ⎼ Requires an a consistent, unique identifier for a user ⎼ Cannot contain any PII ⎼ MUST be random ⎼ May not be used with demographic data views ⎼ Makes new/returning user statistics slightly more accurate ⎼ Requires a login ⎼ There are lots of wrong and creepy ways to use this RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
32. Google Tag Manager ⎼ A “container” that helps you manage a wide variety of tracking beacons, scripts, and pixels ⎼ Deeply integrated with Google Analytics ⎼ A number of tracking tools have “out of the box” configurations ⎼ Gives non-developers a UI for creating their own event tracking and script implementations ⎼ Saves you the pain and suffering of firing multiple tags on a single event, and simplifies your code RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
33. DRUPAL - https://www.drupal.org/project/google_analytics - https://www.drupal.org/project/google_tag - https://www.drupal.org/project/dataLayer - https://www.drupal.org/project/ga WORDPRESS - https://wordpress.org/plugins/google-analytics-f or-wordpress/ - Just… use Yoast. ^^ - https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/google-analyt ics/ RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
34. HEATMAPS These tools provide a visual guide to clicks, movement, and scrolling on your site. PRESENTATION TITLE
35. SESSION RECORDINGS Study the activities of individual users. RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
36. HotJar THE COOL STUFF ⎼ Free (tier)! ⎼ Visualizations of site usage data ⎼ Individual session recordings ⎼ Surveys, feedback, form and funnel analysis (not covered here) THE (NOT TOO) CREEPY STUFF ⎼ Keystrokes are suppressed for all recordings ⎼ Data backups are not kept more than 365 days ⎼ GDPR compliant ⎼ Users can opt-out on the Hotjar site RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
37. DRUPAL There’s a Hotjar-specific module available at https://www.drupal.org/project/hotjar (or just use a tag manager) WORDPRESS https://wordpress.org/plugins/hotjar/ (or, again, just use a tag manager) RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
38. Alternative Tools ⎼ Matomo: https://matomo.org/ ⎼ Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/ ⎼ Open Web Analytics: http://www.openwebanalytics.com/ ⎼ Simple Analytics: https://simpleanalytics.io/ ⎼ Fathom: https://usefathom.com/ RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
39. How creepy are you? RESPECTING YOUR USERS
40. Accessibility ⎼ Test with screen readers ⎼ Test with an ad blocker enabled ⎼ Site functionality should not be affected by tracking ⎼ Consider performance - track only what you need RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
41. Data Privacy & Policies ⎼ Be transparent in what you use and why ⎼ Use simple language that is easy to understand ⎼ Keep only what you need, only as long as you need it ⎼ Give users the option to decline to participate or configure their preferences ⎼ Make it as easy to get out as it was to get in RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
42. You are just as creepy as your partners. Not all tools are created equal, and few things are truly free. Make sure you’ve read the fine print for the tools you are using, and that your policies reflect it. RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
43. References & Resources REFERENCES ⎼ https://wpengine.com/gen-z-us/ ⎼ http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/05/20/am ericans-attitudes-about-privacy-security-a nd-surveillance/ ⎼ http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/11/12/publ ic-privacy-perceptions/ ⎼ http://www.pewinternet.org/2017/01/26/am ericans-and-cybersecurity/ ⎼ https://tosdr.org/ ⎼ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_ra te_optimization ⎼ https://www.hotjar.com/privacy RESOURCES ⎼ https://www.annielytics.com/ ⎼ https://analytics.google.com/analytics/acad emy/ ⎼ https://tosback.org/ ⎼ https://ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/campaig n-url-builder/ ⎼ Google Analytics Demo Account ⎼ https://www.drupal.org/project/ga ⎼ https://nomoregoogle.com/ RESPONSIBLE TRACKING
44. Thank you! @KATHERINEMWHITE KATHERINE@KANOPI.COM