What a good point! Avinash Kaushik recently posted in his blog, Occam's Razor, about the importance and the possible impact of abandonment rates.

Think about this: have you ever seen somebody load up their cart with groceries at the supermarket, wheel up to the checkout lane, wait in line, make it up to the cashier... and just walk away? Just leave their cart full of groceries sitting there in the checkout lane and walk out the door?

I sure haven't! But that is almost exactly what happens with online shopping cart abandonment. In the online world it is a little more complicated, but putting an item in a shopping cart still indicates a serious interest in purchasing that item.

Kaushik points out that "depending on the cost of items you sell on your website each percent point of abandonment could represent tens of thousands to millions of dollars per month in revenue."

And it's true!

When people abandon their shopping cart that is money left on the table. That makes optimizing your checkout procedure (or lead capture process, download process, or any other online process) for reduced abandonment an immensely rewarding practice!

The Free Google Analytics Webinar we host has an entire section dedicated to tips on how to reduce shopping cart abandonment (We call it the 'Pure Profit' section, because that's what you'll earn more of when you reduce your abandonment rates). If you are interested in receiving some tips in addition to those Kaushik outlines in his article, stop on by and sign up for our free webinar today!

There's an interesting chart in the June issue of Direct magazine about the best sources for building your email list; and the #1 list-growth tactic email marketer's use is *not* online marketing/search!

Wanna guess what it is?

According to a recent poll of 321 online marketers (including B-to-B and B-to-C companies) by email marketing firm Silverpop, old-fashion offline media rules for the most utilized list growth strategies. Check it out:

Asked to name their list-growth tactics, almost two-thirds of the e-mail marketers surveyed cited offline advertising and direct marketing. More than half mentioned trade shows or online marketing and search. Viral marketing was third.

This proves "some of the most successful channels are the traditional ones [including catalogs and direct mail]," said Elaine O'Gorman, Silverpop's vice president of strategy.

But isn't direct mail, the workhorse of the direct marketing world, largely a dead/dying medium?

Not according to an article on B-to-B customer acquisition strategies written Ruth P. Stevens (in the same issue of Direct Magazine) where she says "Reports of direct mail's demise are greatly exaggerated. The ol' reliable medium still delivers."

Marketing copywriter/agitator/guru Dan Kennedy says that the one commonality in his highest earning clients (spanning 156 product, service, business and profession categories) is their "constant, frequent, aggressive, innovative and masterful use of direct mail. Neglect it at your peril."

But how to track the success or failure of your next direct mail campaign on your website using Google Analytics?

Actually, it's quite easy.

Either purchase an unique URL, and have it redirect to a specific page on your site and insert the Google Analytics tracking codes, or write a redirect script from a sub-directory on your site.

For more details on the mechanics, see our article entitled "How to track offline ads with Google Analytics" or hire us to help you with this and much, much more.

We're thrilled to spread the exciting news - Google Analytics is now open to everyone! No more waiting around for invitation codes! (I can hear the huge sigh of relief that is sweeping the nation from my computer chair!)

The awesome Google team has been diligently working toward this since Google Analytics was offered for free (surprise, surprise!) this past November. Some great new features and a lot of additional capacity later, and they did it!

Personally, I can't wait to see how the online world progresses 6 months from now, a year from now, five years from now, and beyond. With such a powerful analytics tool available to everyone, from a business owner with a website all the way to a kid with a personal blog, interesting and thrilling things are on the horizon!

Buckle your seatbelts, and let's see where this goes...

This morning DM News released a special report on Web Analytics (download the 6 page pdf here).

Eric Peterson (Visual Sciences VP of strategic services and web analytics best selling author) has the lead interview in this report talking about market consolidation, Sterne's eMetrics Summit doubling up this year (Santa Barbara, CA in the Spring and Washington, DC this fall), and the trend he has seen that more and more companies are actually putting their analytics investments to work (taking a strategic approach).

Eric has a nice comment on Google Analytics

Take Google Analytics as an example: all-and-all the Urchin application is good and provides many features for free that other vendors sell.

and on the need for web analytics

Again, how do you know you're successful if you're not measuring your success? Web analytics and Web measurement technologies when thoughtfully deployed can have a great and profound impact on any online business. If you're satisfied being average, be average. Most companies I work with strive to be great and they see their investment in Web analytics as a competitive edge that will help them achieve greatness.

There are about a dozen more articles in this special report written by analytics consultants and luminaries including Jim Sterne (eMetrics Summit organizer) talking about the top five pain-points for web analysts, Greg Drew (CEO of WebTrends) discussing the the correlation between measurement and profitability and Warren Raisch (senior VP WebSideStory) talking about the importance of hiring a web analytics consulting firm.

With summer vacations winding down, SES San Jose 2006 just over, and a little less humidity and heat in the Carolina summer air, I thought it was a fitting time to roundup a few of the latest in Google Analytics, so here goes:

Brett Crosby, Senior Product Marketing Manager for Google Analytics and co-founder of Urchin, points out the importance of taking the time (or resources in hiring people or professional services firms) to analyze and act on the data afforded by a properly configured Google Analytics installation.

Brett also mentioned at the SES San Jose 2006 show in a session called "Vendor Chat on Measuring Success" that he's "happy to say that the wait for G A is now only about 15 minutes from signup." Very cool.

Here at professional services firm ROI Revolution, we're excited to point out that we've just launched a brand new 2 hour report-by-report Google Analytics training seminar (Webinar):

This extremely meticulous 2 hour training online seminar goes through each and every report within Google Analytics and discusses how to use it to your best advantage.

It is limited to just 10 participants, so that everybody can get the full benefit of the interactive exercises at the end of each major section and have their specific questions answered.

We've got a couple seats left in this week's training session and more training dates to follow in a couple of weeks.

Conversion optimization specialist Robbin Steif of LunaMetrics has put together a 'birds of a feather' lunch table at the upcoming eMetrics Summit in Washington, DC and has invited me, Justin Cutroni, and Urchin co-founder Paul Muret to informally talk about all things Google Analytics. I am looking forward to this conference.

A couple of month ago, on the heels of a sold-out Santa Barbara, CA eMetrics Summit, I signed up for the eMetrics Summit in Washington, DC taking place October 16-18th, 2006.

The summit, produced by web analytics luminary Jim Sterne, sponcered by the WAA (Web Analytics Association), is a gathering of managers, executives and business leaders who wish to learn how to leverage the value of their web efforts.

From the 'Who Should Attend" portion of the website:

Anyone with a vested interest in matching their Internet activities to their business goals. Anybody who craves accountability.

But the recent announcement that the University of British Columbia was bringing its (typically online) Web Analytics course cirriculum to the eMetrics Summit (in a one day immersion training course immediately preceeding the conference) really intriguied me.

On the heels of its great success with the online courses given through the University of British Columbia, the WAA is bringing the Introduction to Web Analytics course to the physical classroom. Your instructors are people who have been doing web analytics for years, people who have been involved with the WAA from the beginning and people who have helped numerous clients understand the fundamentals of tracking clickthroughs, pageviews and revenues.

Attend this one day, 5-session workshop and be well positioned to get the most from the jam-packed E-metrics conference that follows. Return to your workplace primed to put everything you'll have learned into practice, immediately.

If you're ready to put your web analytics vision in hyper-drive, I'll see you at the eMetrics Summit conference in October.

It's official. Google has increased the number of default profiles for a Google Analytics account from 5 to 10. Why does that mean more control?

Well, with more profiles comes the ability to restrict a user to only those sites for which they need access. You can track subdomains and subdirectories separately in a new profile, and if you've filled up the four goals available in your main profile, just create a new one for the same website and set up some new goals. You don't even need to change the tracking script on your webpage.