WCUS 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 you can leverage with WordPress to 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 Google 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.

https://2019.us.wordcamp.org/session/responsible-tracking-learning-from-your-users-without-being-creepy/

Transcript

1. 1 KANOPI STUDIOS PRESENTS Responsible Tracking Observing your users… without being creepy November 2, 2019
2. 2 I make websites effective and easy to understand. Kanopi takes care of the full lifecycle of open source websites. @katherinemwhite www.kanopi.com Katherine White CTO Kanopi Studios 2 RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
3. 3 Photo by Ján Jakub Naništa on Unsplash
4. 4 4 WHAT USERS FEAR TOOLS OF THE TRADE ― THE NOT-GOOGLES ― THE GOOGLES CONSIDERATIONS WHAT USERS WANT AGENDA
5. What users want THE CONTEXT OF DIGITAL INTERACTION
6. EXPECT USER-CENTRIC EXPERIENCES 37% of users think websites will recognize and adapt to the user to create a unique, optimal experience [within five years]. The Personal Touch 37% 6 Source: WP Engine & The Center for Generational Kinetics, 2017 RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
7. EXPECT AGGREGATED INTELLIGENCE 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 58% 7 Source: WP Engine & The Center for Generational Kinetics, 2017 RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
8. PREDICTIVE EXPERIENCES 50% of of Gen Z would stop visiting a website if it didn’t anticipate what they needed, liked or wanted. Five-star service 50% 8 Source: WP Engine & The Center for Generational Kinetics, 2017 RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
9. WANT ANONYMITY 62% of users would prefer an Internet where you were completely anonymous and had to order everything manually. Privacy Options 62% 9 Source: WP Engine & The Center for Generational Kinetics, 2017 RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
10. What users fear THE CONTEXT OF DIGITAL INTERACTION
11. HAVE BEEN COMPROMISED A majority of Americans (64%) have personally experienced a major data breach. Data Breaches 64% 11 Source: Pew Research Center, 2017 RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
12. “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.” WP ENGINE & THE CENTER FOR GENERATIONAL KINETICS, 2017 12 RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
13. FEEL VULNERABLE Roughly half of Americans feel that their personal information is less secure than it was five years ago. Identity Threat 49% 13 Source: Pew Research Center, 2017 RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
14. 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. PEW RESEARCH CENTER, 2014 14 RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
15. Security is not privacy.
16. 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. WP ENGINE & THE CENTER FOR GENERATIONAL KINETICS, 2017 16 RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
17. Transparency is key.
18. How do we give users what they want without getting in their way… and while respecting unique preferences? 18 RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
19. Tools of the Trade OBSERVING USERS IN THE WILD
20. The Not-Googles
21. 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 21 CREEP-O-METER RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
22. The Potential of Site Search SEARCH FIRST Forrester research shows that 43% of users go directly to site search. BETTER CONVERSION WebLinc research shows site search users are 216% more likely to convert. REVENUE Users who performed an on-site search spent more than regular users 22 43% 200%+ $$$ RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
23. 23 WORDPRESS ONLY Relevanssi is an excellent search plugin that will also log search queries in the WordPress database. https://wordpress.org/plugins/relevanssi/ 23 CREEP-O-METER RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
24. 24 GOOGLE ANALYTICS Because WordPress uses query string parameters by default, configuring this directly in Google is straightforward. 24 CREEP-O-METER RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
25. Contact Form Analysis ⎼ Review onsite submissions ⎼ Complaints ⎼ Hopes/wishes/needs ⎼ Opportunities for improvement ⎼ Usually tied to PII ⎼ Don’t keep these longer than necessary 25 RESPONSIBLE TRACKING | CREEP-O-METER
26. Visual Behavior Analytics ⎼ “See” users interact with your site ⎼ Heatmaps that indicate what’s hot and what’s not on your pages ⎼ Session recordings that let you observe a user’s screen as they navigate your site 26 CREEP-O-METER RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
27. 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 27 RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
28. HEATMAPS These tools provide a visual guide to clicks, movement, and scrolling on your site. 28 RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
29. SESSION RECORDINGS Study the activities of individual users. 29 RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
30. 30 WORDPRESS ONLY WordPress has an official Hotjar plugin that’s maintained by the HotJar team. https://wordpress.org/plugins/hotjar/ 30 CREEP-O-METER RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
31. GOOGLE TAG MANAGER HotJar is also a built-in tag type available via Google Tag manager. 31 CREEP-O-METER RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
32. Analytics Alternatives ⎼ Matomo: https://matomo.org/ ⎼ Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/ ⎼ Open Web Analytics: http://www.openwebanalytics.com/ ⎼ Simple Analytics: https://simpleanalytics.io/ ⎼ Fathom: https://usefathom.com/ 32 CREEP-O-METER MAY VARY RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
33. The Googles
34. 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 34 RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
35. 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 ⎼ Can be configured to only fire once a user has given their consent 35 CREEP-O-METER RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
36. 36 WORDPRESS INTEGRATION Google Tag Manager for WordPress - https://wordpress.org/plugins/duracellt omi-google-tag-manager/ 36 CREEP-O-METER RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
37. 37 SEARCH CONSOLE Does that (not provided) look familiar? Search Console holds the data you seek. https://search.google.com/search-consol e/welcome 37 CREEP-O-METER RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
38. 38 CAMPAIGN TRACKING Track efficacy of inbound campaign traffic by the source and medium. 38 CREEP-O-METER RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
39. Custom Dimensions ⎼ A customized piece of information about a Google Analytics hit. ⎼ Data must be populated via external means (like WordPress!) ⎼ You can use the Google Tag Manager for WordPress plugin to help you write information to the data layer to support these ⎼ Can be assigned a hit, user, or session scope ⎼ Can then be used in your reporting as a secondary dimension in standard reports ⎼ Can be used as a primary dimension in custom reports 39 CREEP-O-METER RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
40. 40 USER DEMOGRAPHICS Analyze traffic based on dimensions such as age, gender, affinity, and in-market segments. 40 CREEP-O-METER RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
41. 41 AUDIENCE SEGMENTATION Allows you to craft highly targeted market segments to analyze your most valuable users. 41 CREEP-O-METER RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
42. 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 42 CREEP-O-METER RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
43. Considerations HOW CREEPY ARE YOU?
44. Data Privacy & Policies ⎼ Know what regulations apply to your business ⎼ 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 be tracked or configure their preferences ⎼ Make it as easy to get out as it was to get in 44 RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
45. Accessibility ⎼ Test with screen readers ⎼ Test with assistive navigation ⎼ Test with ad and tracking blockers enabled ⎼ Site functionality should not be affected by selectively disabling tracking ⎼ Consider site performance - track only what you need 45 RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
46. 46 Photo by Thomas Kelley on Unsplash
47. Tool Awareness ⎼ TOS;DR - do your homework! ⎼ Understand the privacy & data retention practices of your partners ⎼ Know your partner’s stances on accessibility ⎼ Know your widgets 47 RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
48. 48 Photo by Erik Eastman on Unsplash
49. You are just as creepy as your partners. Not all tools are created equal. Widgets are a window into someone else’s ethics. 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. 49 RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
50. References & Resources REFERENCES ⎼ https://wpengine.com/gen-z-us/ ⎼ http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/05/20/americ ans-attitudes-about-privacy-security-and-surve illance/ ⎼ http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/11/12/public-p rivacy-perceptions/ ⎼ http://www.pewinternet.org/2017/01/26/america ns-and-cybersecurity/ ⎼ https://tosdr.org/ ⎼ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_rate_o ptimization ⎼ https://www.hotjar.com/privacy RESOURCES ⎼ https://www.annielytics.com/ ⎼ https://analytics.google.com/analytics/academy/ ⎼ https://tosback.org/ ⎼ https://ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/campaign-url-b uilder/ ⎼ Google Analytics Demo Account ⎼ https://nomoregoogle.com/ ⎼ https://www.onetrust.com/products/cookies/ ⎼ https://humix.be/blog/configure-google-analytics -for-gdpr/ ⎼ https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/01/europes-top-c ourt-says-active-consent-is-needed-for-tracking- cookies/ 50 RESPONSIBLE TRACKING |
51. Thank you! @KATHERINEMWHITE KATHERINE@KANOPI.COM https://speakerdeck.com/katherinemwhite/wcus-2019-responsible-tracking