Web Metrics – Post #2: Engagement

Engagement gets analysts more toward the humanity behind the data that Margalit speaks of (Helbling & Wilson, 2017).  Kaushik (2010) writes that “[m]any people measure the time a Visitor spends on a website and call is Engagement,” but to do so is to ignore that someone might spend a longer time on a website because they are frustrated, confused, or failing to find the product or information they are looking for while another person is merely enchanted with the brand and the journey its website is taking them on. This explains why “click-through” and “click through rate-ratio” are categorized as measurements under Visit Characterization rather than Engagement—they measure the visit itself without attempting to, again in the words of Margalit (2017), “personalize” it.  
Factors such as Page Exit Ratio, Bounces, Bounce Ratio. And Page Views per Visit (Web Analytics Association) more effectively lend themselves to inferring an emotional motivation behind the data collected. It seems that the factors just listed in abundance would correlate to negative engagement as they all seem to point to a visitor ending their visit one or more times, however Kaushik (2010) would likely argue with this that, “if you have to overlay your own interpretations to understand the metric, then you might be on the wrong road.” Web analytics that measure engagement are quantitative in that they show the “degree” of visitor engagement, not the more qualitative measurement, “kind”; simply put a visitor could be positively engaged for a short time, or negatively engaged for a long time despite what analysts might infer (Kaushik, 2010). Looking at the Nike Golf example in the Visit Characterization post above, it is possible that prior to the company’s keyword strategy and content optimization, visitors might have spent either a long time on Nike’s website before discovering Nike Golf or a very short (or nonexistent, although this might not be measurable) time after bouncing the website when they weren’t directed immediately to the “golf apparel” they were seeking (Aitha, 2014). This is why Kaushik (2010) emphasizes repeated visits (frequency) and depth in measuring engagement—does the visitor journey deep within a website and do they return again for another journey?  Both of these things seem to point to the kind of engagement than more than duration does. 
For websites that are selling products or services would likely look at positive engagement as a correlation of positive conversion, but measuring engagement (particularly qualitatively) is likely far more difficult if sales isn’t a conversion measurement (Meares, 2013). This is perhaps why Engagement stands as a metric of its own, not merely as a measurement for conversion. Understanding what visitors engage with (and attempting to qualify the emotion behind their engagement) helps marketers learn how to intercept visitors during their journeys. After all, engagement pertains to visitor behavior, (Web Analytics Association) which is more illustrative of human emotion than if/what a customer clicks and for how long they click around once they land. 
Returning to Margalit one last time, there are two selves that make up a website visitor (i.e. data source): (1) the experiencing self and (2) the remembering self. The experiencing self engages, the remembering self chooses to re-engage (Helbling & Wilson, 2017).


Note: I heard Dr. Liraz Margalit (whom I referenced throughout these first two posts) speak about the psychology and personalization of metrics in Tim Wilson and Michael Helbling’s Podcast, Digital Analytics Power Hour. Margalit is Head of Digital Behavioral Research at Clicktale, and you can listen to the episode here.

References
Aitha, (2015, April  24th). Nike Golf Leveraged SEO and Got 169% Total Increase in Organic Search Traffic. Retrieved from: http://www.digitalvidya.com/blog/nike-golf-leveraged-seo-and-got-169-total-increase-in-organic-search-traffic-dmblog-0104/

Helbling, M. & Wilson, T. (2017, June 20). Digital Analytics from a Psychological Perspecitve with Dr. Liraz Margalit. Digital Analytics Power Hour.  Podcast.

Kaushik (2010). Web Analytics 2.0. The Art of Online Accountability & Science of Customer Centricity. Wiley Publishing, Inc.

Web Analytics Association. Web Analytics Defintions. Retrieved from: https://www.digitalanalyticsassociation.org/Files/PDF_standards/WebAnalyticsDefinitions.pdf
Meares, C. (2013, July 8). What is Online Engagement and Why Should You Measure It. Part 1. Retrieved from: http://www.maassmedia.com/what-we-say/blog/what-is-online-engagement-and-why-should-you-measure-it-part-one/

                  

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