Jayson Ambrose

Vanity anaytics or “vanalytics” is the placing of your personal calling card into another website’s analytics data.

Direct Referrers in Google Analytics

A direct referrer is usually meant to indicate that your website URL was pasted or typed directly into a browser address bar.  While this is a useful stat, the growth of Twitter has started to skew this data.

Many links that are clicked via desktop applications such as Tweetdeck and Mail, and browser plugins like TwitterFox show up as direct referrers in Google Analytics.

WebTrends Outsider has a good list of reasons for “Direct Traffic” in referrer reports.

Manually Adding Analytics Data to Link

You can manually add query strings to your URL that will provide referrer data to the Google Analytics code in a website page.

For example, when I broadcast a message on Twitter stating that I have a new blog post, I use the following:

New Blog Post: Vanity Analytics http://www.jambrose.ca/vanity-analytics/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=tweet&utm_campaign=blog RT SVP

This pretty ugly, so I shorten the URL with bit.ly:

New Blog Post: Vanity Analytics http://bit.ly/QuWlH RT SVP

When someone clicks that link, the following is recorded in Google Analytics:

Creating a Vanalytics URL

Now that you have control over how your referrers are recorded in your Google Analytics, why not spam someone elses?

For example, when I retweet a great Twitter post, I use the following:

RT @TheOnion New Live Poll Allows Pundits To Pander To Viewers In Real Time http://www.theonion.com/content/video/new_live_poll_allows_pundits_to?utm_source=@jaysonambrose&utm_medium=tweet&utm_campaign=retweet Super funny!

Shortened (check out the video, too):

RT @TheOnion New Live Poll Allows Pundits To Pander To Viewers In Real Time http://bit.ly/16kLMW Super funny!

This makes my name appear in Google Analyics for The Onion!

Since The Onion already adds their own query strings to their tweets, I would leave it as a matter of ettiquette.

But if you are just sharing a link with your Twitter followers, why not take some credit for spreading the word?

Of course, there is good chance no one will see your tag on a large website’s analytics, but it might get noticed on a bloggers list.

I admit this is a goofy idea, but I thought it would be fun to coin Vanalytics and Spamalytics!

Can you think of some funny, smart or easter-egg-style Spamalytics?

Lighter Side, Social Media

I’ve recently stopped using both Sirius satellite radio and Audible.com, two very different services, but with similar pricing models: monthly. These types of businesses live and breath on their subscribers. Where they differ even more than technology, is their customer retention programs.

Sirius

Last year, I purchased a lightly used 2008 Ford Escape Limited. I couldn’t be happier with my purchase of this vehicle, and I’m not surprised that Ford might live through this downturn and arise stronger on the upswing. One sweet perk was that I got a six month free trial of Sirius satellite radio.

I was pretty underwhelmed after hearing all the hoopla about Sirius.  My first observation was that I had missed the days of satellite radio with real selection. Clearly the playlists have been consolidated into the same shit as terrestrial radio, and on talk stations, there are just as many if not more ads as the FM dial.

Although I did enjoy the ultra-right-wing political rants on FOX and Patriot 101 (really, its high entertainment), I wasn’t satisfied with my buck-bang. So when my beloved Republican Crazies when silent one day, I called up Sirius to negotiate.

Sirius: Thank you for holding, this is Lola. How can I help you?
Jambrose: Hi! My 6-month trial is done. How can I get this going again?
Sirius: That will be $15.00 per month on your credit card, Sir.
Jambrose: Gulp. Really? Wow. That’s a lot. I don’t see that happening.
Sirius: Silence.
Jambrose: I mean, I like a couple channels only. Can we make a deal here?
Sirius: It’s $15.00 per month, Sir.
Jambrose: Yeah, but c’mon. Tell you what, you can charge my card right now, one year for $100. Whadaya say?
Sirius: It’s $15.00 per month, Sir.
Jambrose: So I can’t get a better deal?
Sirius: Sorry, it’s $15.00 per month, Sir.
Jambrose: Ok, then. Thanks. I’ll go ahead and not get that.
Sirius: Is there anything else I can do for you today, Sir?
Jambrose: Uh… No. That’s plenty, thanks.
Sirius: Thank you for calling Sirius and have a nice day.

The kicker is that when I initiated the trial, they got my email address. Over the course of the 6 months, and ever since, I’ve never received an email from Sirius.  Surely, the “primary person responsible solely for the winning back of any and all lost customers, as well as the non-converted trial customers via the online media player and Automotive trial subscriptions” is now unemployed (if he ever existed).  I wonder if this keen new hire will be calling me?

Audible

My deal with Audible was typical: I pay a reasonable amount monthly, and I get to download one book per month. There is nothing wrong with Audible, but after a couple months, I found I didn’t have enough time to actually listen to my books. I did find the ass-pain of putting the books on my Blackberry annoying, but I made it work. I’ll save my “DRM is Stupid” blog post for less topic-saturated times.

Via the Audible website, I chose to close my account. Here’s how that went:

Jambrose: I’m done, close my account.
Audible: Are you sure? Check out all these new books you are sure to like!
Jambrose: Nah, close my account.
Audible: Ok, I hear you. Maybe we can change your mind with a $20 gift voucher?
Jambrose: No thanks, it’s not the price. Close my account.
Audible: Hey. We get it. Maybe you don’t have a lot of time of listen to books. What if we just put your account on hold for the next three months? No charge. We’ll send you a reminder, and you can decide then if you really want to quit. In the meantime, have a free download.
Jambrose: Well… That makes sense. Let’s do that.

Customer retained. At least for now.

That was less than three months ago, but I get email from Audible once per week, telling me about new books, new site features, higher quality recordings, etc… I’ll be more than happy to give it another go when my account is reactivated.

I’m curious to see how it will play out when I quit again though…

Lighter Side

This is the first blog post I have had time to do in the last 1.5 months.  If I worked at Expedia, I could have designed and built an entire website and produced two videos as a joke.

Honestly though, a great viral marketing campaign!

Lighter Side, Social Media marketing, viral

As Windows 7 approaches, people who were holding off upgrading can look at a new PC or a new Mac before retiring their Windows 95 boxes.

Apple intends to court these baby-boomer shoppers by offering support for their current peripherals.  The new Mac Mini will have PS2 ports for mouse and keyboard, an SVGA port, and even an LPT and serial port.  This picture was leaked from Cupertino:

Lighter Side Apple, mac mini, Windows

Google alerts are one of favourite ways to get good, weekly cross-section dumps on certain topics. Lately however, I have noticed that the top picks are usually spam blogs. These are also call splogs in Webtoopointohese. There are not always easy to spot at first, and they seem to take the form of “press releases”. Here’s an example:

Google News Alert for: social networking

Expert business advice on using Facebook as a marketing tool
BigNews.biz (press release) – Natick,MA,USA
While some businesses are beginning to use social networking sites in their marketing efforts, most business experts say that few companies are investing …

Word repetition: 

Business = 34

Expert = 13

Facebook = 8

Social networking = 6

If only I knew a social networking Facebook business expert.  I would be an expert at Facebook business and social networking and could start a social networking and Facebook business if I did.

Lighter Side, Social Media google alert, spam