At Moneyspyder, we started developing our Ruby on Rails Ecommerce system nearly three years ago. As we progressed through the prototyping stage we recognised that we needed a serious hosting partner who had good Rails experience.
We know we are great when it comes to Ecommerce strategy and Ecommerce technology - our clients tell us! We didn't want to divert our attention away from our core business so we needed a fully outsourced infrastructure team. Someone who could support us. Someone who we could work with to grow our product and share in our success.
There was a clear winner in the market place: Engine Yard.
Read more about our partnership and how we grew as a company on the Engineyard Q & A section.
High Performance E-Commerce Solutions. We provide a range of E-Commerce solutions for retailers of all shapes and sizes. With our applied expertise we build businesses as well as websites.
Thursday, 30 April 2009
Saturday, 4 April 2009
Google Analytics Consultants - why work with them?
Moneyspyder has been a Google Analytics Authorised Consultant (GAAC) for a while now. We have worked with a number of clients on Google Analytics, Google Adwords and Google Website Optimiser. We have met a few prospective clients who ask, quite rightly, 'Why do I need to bring Google Consultants in to improve my site?'. Here are a few points as to why you should think about Google Analytics Authorised Consultants as a value proposition rather than a cost...
Bill Hunt, CEO of Global Strategies International has been quoted as saying 'Eight out of 10 implementations of web analytics solutions are incorrectly set up.'
Google Analytics Consultants will know what a best practice Google Analytics implementation looks like. Being a Google Analytics Authorised Consultant requires up-to-date knowledge of what is best practice.
So, the first step is to get your Google Analytics implementation properly audited by Google Aanalytics Consultants. You can only rely on your Google Analytics data to make decisions if it is accurate and precise. Your data can only be as accurate and precise as the quality of your implementation.
I've blogged previously on the subject of keeping focused when using Google Analytics. This is true in terms of both setup and usage. You remain focused on your core business - play to your strengths. Let the Google Consultants play to their's in order to maximise your returns.
Consider the best practice Google Analytics implementation; you should not divert your focus away from your business, your site and your customer's experience in order to be a Google Analytics Expert. Let someone else develop the latest techniques for gathering and analysing Google Analytics data.
Similarly, you know your business better than the Google Consultant - you tell them what your primary goals are so that they can develop your business KPIs with you and then advise how to track them using Google Analytics.
Google Conultants are the right people to advise on the best custom reporting and segmentation techniques. Use them as guides in the vast arena of Google Analytics Reporting capabilities. Less really can be more when considering KPI reporting. The less time you spend searching for the answers to your key questions, the more time you have to reflect and act on those answers - think about the aggregation of marginal gains and how you might approach them one your own and with a Google Consultant.
Bill Hunt, CEO of Global Strategies International has been quoted as saying 'Eight out of 10 implementations of web analytics solutions are incorrectly set up.'
Google Analytics Consultants will know what a best practice Google Analytics implementation looks like. Being a Google Analytics Authorised Consultant requires up-to-date knowledge of what is best practice.
So, the first step is to get your Google Analytics implementation properly audited by Google Aanalytics Consultants. You can only rely on your Google Analytics data to make decisions if it is accurate and precise. Your data can only be as accurate and precise as the quality of your implementation.
I've blogged previously on the subject of keeping focused when using Google Analytics. This is true in terms of both setup and usage. You remain focused on your core business - play to your strengths. Let the Google Consultants play to their's in order to maximise your returns.
Consider the best practice Google Analytics implementation; you should not divert your focus away from your business, your site and your customer's experience in order to be a Google Analytics Expert. Let someone else develop the latest techniques for gathering and analysing Google Analytics data.
Similarly, you know your business better than the Google Consultant - you tell them what your primary goals are so that they can develop your business KPIs with you and then advise how to track them using Google Analytics.
Google Conultants are the right people to advise on the best custom reporting and segmentation techniques. Use them as guides in the vast arena of Google Analytics Reporting capabilities. Less really can be more when considering KPI reporting. The less time you spend searching for the answers to your key questions, the more time you have to reflect and act on those answers - think about the aggregation of marginal gains and how you might approach them one your own and with a Google Consultant.
Thursday, 26 March 2009
Google Analytics Services - Calibration Techniques
Advanced Google Analytics Content Follows
We have been working with a number of clients who have quite complex goals and conversion funnels....and no staging/test environments. These clients are quite challenging when it comes to refining and testing their goals and filters. As is best practice we always create specific profiles for testing filters and goals. What
we have also done and what I'd like to share today, is our technique for goal and filter calibration.
Calibration Requirements and Challenges
Calibrating a goal or filter in a live environment whilst not impacting a client's GA data set is tricky - more so in high traffic environments. Knowing that a goal or filter works accurately is essential though. We have developed a simple filter based on the IP address exclusion filter most people use already to facilitate calibration. The 'Exclude all traffic from an IP address' filter is provided by default. What we want to do though, is to include data for traffic only from a specific IP address so that we can hit one page, follow one journey through the site or hit the site using a particular user agent and be certain only our traffic hits our profile. This way we know exactly what traffic the goals and filters based on those criteria are going to receive and we know what results to expect - easy calibration.
Setup a new profile to test this
Say we want to test a newsletter signup goal for a new client. First of all we create a new profile for the site in question called something like 'Signup Goal Calibration'.
Setup the filter
Having created the profile, the only traffic I want to appear in that profile is from my PC - let's say by going to http://whatsmyip.org/ or similar that my address is 83.215.34.12 (randomly chosen as an example). I create a new filter called 'CALIBRATION - CAUTION'. The caution note should advise careful use
of this filter...it's potentially quite destructive.
Now, the calibration filter is a custom filter that includes traffic based on 'Visitor IP Address' and the filter pattern would be something like '83\.215\.34\.12'. Of course, a range could be used here but the tighter the range the better when calibrating exercise. So, the filter is applied to the profile and now only I can hit the site and have my traffic data appear in the calibration profile. I can hit the site once, leave - come back after x hours and expect to see 2 visits, 2 page views etc. etc. I would compare the traffic in my calibration profile to other profiles to be 100% certain that the traffic is only me. Perhaps even fabricate a set of UTM tags to fake a spurious traffic source that only I would come from. Basically be certain that your calibration filter is water tight. Now I can follow the newsletter signup user journey and wait for my goal results to appear. Hurrah, the goal works. Now I can try other goals and filters and test them scientifically.
Rinse and Repeat as they say...
Additional Techniques
Depending on your preferences and need for speed, you may also want to use setVar to set the user defined parameter to a unique value for you and segment the traffic based on that value. This neat alternative was pointed out to me by Robbin from Lunametrics - thanks!
Doug Hall
CTO Moneyspyder (Google Analytics Authorised Consultant)
Google Analytics Consultant
GAIQ
We have been working with a number of clients who have quite complex goals and conversion funnels....and no staging/test environments. These clients are quite challenging when it comes to refining and testing their goals and filters. As is best practice we always create specific profiles for testing filters and goals. What
we have also done and what I'd like to share today, is our technique for goal and filter calibration.
Calibration Requirements and Challenges
Calibrating a goal or filter in a live environment whilst not impacting a client's GA data set is tricky - more so in high traffic environments. Knowing that a goal or filter works accurately is essential though. We have developed a simple filter based on the IP address exclusion filter most people use already to facilitate calibration. The 'Exclude all traffic from an IP address' filter is provided by default. What we want to do though, is to include data for traffic only from a specific IP address so that we can hit one page, follow one journey through the site or hit the site using a particular user agent and be certain only our traffic hits our profile. This way we know exactly what traffic the goals and filters based on those criteria are going to receive and we know what results to expect - easy calibration.
Setup a new profile to test this
Say we want to test a newsletter signup goal for a new client. First of all we create a new profile for the site in question called something like 'Signup Goal Calibration'.
Setup the filter
Having created the profile, the only traffic I want to appear in that profile is from my PC - let's say by going to http://whatsmyip.org/ or similar that my address is 83.215.34.12 (randomly chosen as an example). I create a new filter called 'CALIBRATION - CAUTION'. The caution note should advise careful use
of this filter...it's potentially quite destructive.
Now, the calibration filter is a custom filter that includes traffic based on 'Visitor IP Address' and the filter pattern would be something like '83\.215\.34\.12'. Of course, a range could be used here but the tighter the range the better when calibrating exercise. So, the filter is applied to the profile and now only I can hit the site and have my traffic data appear in the calibration profile. I can hit the site once, leave - come back after x hours and expect to see 2 visits, 2 page views etc. etc. I would compare the traffic in my calibration profile to other profiles to be 100% certain that the traffic is only me. Perhaps even fabricate a set of UTM tags to fake a spurious traffic source that only I would come from. Basically be certain that your calibration filter is water tight. Now I can follow the newsletter signup user journey and wait for my goal results to appear. Hurrah, the goal works. Now I can try other goals and filters and test them scientifically.
Rinse and Repeat as they say...
Additional Techniques
Depending on your preferences and need for speed, you may also want to use setVar to set the user defined parameter to a unique value for you and segment the traffic based on that value. This neat alternative was pointed out to me by Robbin from Lunametrics - thanks!
Doug Hall
CTO Moneyspyder (Google Analytics Authorised Consultant)
Google Analytics Consultant
GAIQ
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
Babyetc revamped
Babyetc.co.uk got a face lift this morning.
Of course there are some (major) behind the scenes updates to the backend regarding order processing and fulfillment. If you want to know more, give us a call!
- Based on data gathered through Google Analytics and our own tracking we have redsigned the presentation of the navigation and Information Architecture.
- The product page has been redesigned as part of a Google Webbsite Optimiser Split Test.
- The basket has been enhanced to ease navigation.
- The promotion engine has had some polish to enable better discounts on delivery methods
Of course there are some (major) behind the scenes updates to the backend regarding order processing and fulfillment. If you want to know more, give us a call!
Tuesday, 24 February 2009
Moneyspyder has new offices
Last Friday we moved to swanky new offices!
The front:
We have more space and much nicer surroundings to reflect how we are growing:
As you walk in:
The view of the business:
The all important reverse angle:
We have yet to fit out the 'front office' so no pics till then but it will a comfortable 'break out' room. We'll have wireless support for friends and clients of Moneyspyder who would like to visit and need somewhere to do business in London.
The conference room is a good size and with kitchen and bath/shower room facilities we're wondering if we should get into the hotel business!
The front:
We have more space and much nicer surroundings to reflect how we are growing:
As you walk in:
The view of the business:
The all important reverse angle:
We have yet to fit out the 'front office' so no pics till then but it will a comfortable 'break out' room. We'll have wireless support for friends and clients of Moneyspyder who would like to visit and need somewhere to do business in London.
The conference room is a good size and with kitchen and bath/shower room facilities we're wondering if we should get into the hotel business!
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