As the media landscape undergoes rapid transformation, understanding how audiences engage with various platforms has never been more crucial. Traditional broadcast and cable networks are grappling with the rise of streaming services, which have captured a significant share of viewership and revolutionized content delivery and consumption. Rao emphasized the importance of capturing this shift comprehensively. “We’ve been putting out The Gauge for many years now, and streaming is nearing 40% based on the latest report,” Rao noted. “We thought it was crucial to compile a total TV view because that best represents how consumers are voting with their time.”

The Gauge: A New Way To Measure Audiences

The introduction of The Gauge comes at a time when media companies are increasingly focused on optimizing their content strategies to attract and retain viewers. With streaming giants like Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video continually expanding their libraries and introducing new features, traditional networks must innovate to stay relevant. The Gauge provides invaluable insights into these dynamics, enabling media executives to make data-driven content production and distribution decisions.

The competition for viewer attention is fierce, and the stakes are high. Advertisers, too, are closely monitoring these trends to ensure their campaigns reach the intended audience effectively. The Gauge’s ability to deliver a comprehensive view of media consumption patterns makes it a critical tool for advertisers planning their media buys. By understanding where and how audiences spend their viewing time, advertisers can tailor their strategies to maximize impact and engagement.

Shifting Consumer Preferences Revealed

Moreover, the data reveals shifting consumer preferences shaping the media industry’s future. Rao explained, “At the end of the day, this is the best representation of how we, as consumers and viewers, are voting with our time.” The Gauge serves as a barometer of public interest, reflecting the content that resonates most with viewers. This information is vital for content creators and distributors and provides a window into broader societal trends and behaviors.

With streaming on the rise and traditional viewing formats evolving, Nielsen’s comprehensive approach through The Gauge highlights the dynamic nature of media consumption. As the industry adapts to these changes, accurate, holistic data will be essential for navigating the complex landscape and making informed decisions that drive growth and engagement.

Unveiling the Numbers

Rao revealed that streaming now accounts for almost 40% of total TV viewing, while broadcast and cable make up nearly 50%. This data underscores a significant shift in viewing habits, reflecting the growing dominance of streaming services. “We’ve been putting out The Gauge for many years now, and streaming is nearing 40% based on the latest report,” Rao noted. “We thought it was crucial to compile a total TV view because that best represents how consumers are voting with their time.”

The Gauge’s latest iteration, the Distributor Gauge, offers a more detailed look at media consumption from a media property perspective. This monthly report aims to provide a clear and comprehensive view of how total TV viewing is distributed across different platforms. In the April edition, Disney emerged as the leader with 11.5% of total TV viewing, a testament to its wide-reaching influence and diverse content offerings.

A Controversial Launch

The introduction of The Gauge has sparked considerable discussion within the media industry. While the data provides valuable insights, it also raises questions about the measurement and classification of viewing time. One point of contention is YouTube’s position as the second-largest platform for TV viewing. “YouTube is number two, and they would be considered the one that’s sort of untraditional,” Rao explained. This classification does not include YouTube TV, a live streaming service, but focuses solely on YouTube’s main platform. This distinction is critical as it separates traditional broadcast content from digital-first media, highlighting the evolving landscape of media consumption.

The debate extends to social media platforms, which are not fully represented in The Gauge. With platforms like TikTok and Instagram increasingly becoming significant sources of video content, there is a growing need to consider these mediums in future report iterations. Rao acknowledged this gap, stating, “This is all about what hits the television screen. The next iterations will obviously need to expand to include these other forms of consumer engagement.”

Initial Findings

Nielsen’s latest report, The Gauge, unveils a new era of media consumption, illustrating a significant shift in how audiences engage with various platforms. The data reveals that streaming services now account for nearly 40% of total television viewing, with traditional broadcast and cable TV making up close to 50%. This distribution underscores the growing influence of streaming platforms in the media landscape and traditional networks’ challenges in retaining their audience.

According to the April version of the report, Disney leads the pack with 11.5% of total TV viewing. This dominance reflects Disney’s strategic investments in its streaming platforms, including Disney+ and Hulu, which have attracted millions of subscribers with diverse content. However, Disney’s success is closely followed by YouTube, which has emerged as a formidable competitor. YouTube’s presence in television highlights the changing nature of content consumption, where user-generated content and shorter video formats are increasingly popular.

YouTube Ranks Second in Total TV Viewing!

One notable aspect of the findings is YouTube’s role, which ranks second in total TV viewing. Unlike traditional streaming services, YouTube offers a mix of professional and user-generated content, attracting a broad audience base. Rao clarified that the data for YouTube in The Gauge specifically includes YouTube Main, excluding YouTube TV, which streams live channels. This distinction is crucial for understanding the platform’s impact on viewership, as YouTube Main’s vast library of videos caters to diverse viewer interests.

The report’s inclusion of platforms like YouTube highlights the evolving definitions of television and video content. Traditional boundaries between broadcast, cable, and streaming are becoming increasingly blurred as viewers seek content that is not only entertaining but also easily accessible and on-demand. This trend is further evidenced by the significant portion of viewing attributed to other streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu, which continue to invest heavily in original programming to attract and retain subscribers.

Digital Holds It’s Own Against Traditional TV

Rao emphasized that The Gauge provides a holistic view of media consumption, reflecting how viewers spend their time across different platforms. “This is a great tool for all forms of content planning decisions or ad planning decisions,” Rao stated. The comprehensive nature of the data allows media companies and advertisers to understand viewing habits better and tailor their strategies accordingly.

The initial findings from The Gauge suggest a dynamic and competitive media environment where traditional and digital platforms vie for viewer attention. As streaming continues to gain traction, traditional networks are prompted to innovate and adapt. Nielsen’s report’s insights are invaluable for guiding these efforts, offering a detailed snapshot of the current media landscape and setting the stage for future developments.

Total TV Viewing Explained

The Gauge report delves deep into the intricacies of total TV viewing, breaking down how audiences allocate their time across various platforms. One of the most striking revelations from the data is the seamless integration of different content types into viewers’ daily routines. Streaming services, traditional broadcast networks, and cable channels are no longer seen as distinct entities but as components of a holistic viewing experience. This convergence reshapes the media landscape, compelling content creators and distributors to rethink their strategies.

Nielsen’s approach in The Gauge involves aggregating data from multiple sources to provide a comprehensive view of total TV consumption. This methodology captures a wide array of viewing habits, including live TV, on-demand content, and time-shifted viewing. By encompassing all these elements, The Gauge accurately represents how modern audiences consume television content. This aggregated view is essential for media companies looking to optimize their content delivery and advertising strategies.

All About What Hits The Television Screen

Karthik Rao, Nielsen’s CEO, highlighted the importance of understanding these viewing patterns to better serve both consumers and advertisers. “This is all about what hits the television screen,” Rao explained. The first evolution of putting together video viewing in totality allows us to see the complete picture of consumer engagement with content.” This holistic view is crucial for advertisers who need to know where their target audiences spend their time and how to reach them effectively across different platforms.

The report also illuminates the impact of social media and other digital platforms on TV viewing habits. While The Gauge’s primary focus is on television screens, it acknowledges the growing influence of platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, where short-form videos and clips are becoming increasingly popular. Although these are not included in the current iteration of The Gauge, future reports may expand to incorporate these forms of media consumption, providing an even broader understanding of the media ecosystem.

The Guage Seeks To Include Digital Viewers

Understanding the nuances of total TV viewing also involves recognizing the diverse preferences of different demographic groups. Younger audiences, for example, tend to gravitate more toward streaming services and user-generated content on platforms like YouTube. In contrast, older demographics may still prefer traditional broadcast and cable TV. By analyzing these preferences, Nielsen’s report helps media companies tailor their content offerings to meet the needs of various audience segments, ensuring they remain relevant in a rapidly changing media landscape.

Ultimately, The Gauge is a crucial tool for deciphering the complex web of modern TV consumption. It highlights the importance of flexibility and adaptability for media companies navigating the evolving landscape. By providing a detailed and nuanced view of total TV viewing, Nielsen empowers content creators, distributors, and advertisers to make informed decisions that align with the shifting preferences of today’s audiences.

Broader Implications: The Future of TV Audience Measurement

The implications of Nielsen’s Gauge report extend far beyond current viewing trends, signaling a transformative shift in the future of TV audience measurement. As streaming services, cable, and broadcast television coexist and compete, the need for a unified measurement system becomes increasingly critical. The Gauge represents a significant step toward this goal, offering a comprehensive view of audience behavior that integrates traditional and digital platforms. This integration is poised to reshape how the industry approaches content creation, distribution, and monetization.

One of The Gauge’s most profound implications is its potential to standardize TV audience measurement across all viewing platforms. Historically, the industry has relied on disparate metrics to evaluate viewership on broadcast, cable, and streaming services. This fragmentation has often led to inconsistencies and challenges in understanding audience behavior. By providing a holistic view, The Gauge enables more accurate comparisons and comprehensive insights, allowing stakeholders better to gauge the success of their content and advertising efforts.

More Data Granularity and Real-Time Analytics

The future of TV audience measurement will likely see further enhancements in data granularity and real-time analytics. As technology advances, the ability to capture and analyze viewer interactions in real time will become more sophisticated. This will provide content creators and advertisers with immediate feedback, enabling them to adjust strategies on the fly and tailor their offerings to the evolving preferences of their audiences. Such capabilities could revolutionize how TV programming is planned and marketed, fostering a more dynamic and responsive industry.

Moreover, integrating social media and other digital platforms into TV audience measurement will become increasingly important. Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube significantly shape viewer preferences and drive engagement. Future iterations of The Gauge will likely incorporate these platforms, providing an even more comprehensive view of audience behavior. This will be crucial for understanding the full spectrum of media consumption, from traditional TV to digital and social media interactions.

Artificial Intelligence Will Enhance Analytics

Another critical aspect of the future of TV audience measurement is the role of artificial intelligence and machine learning. These technologies can enhance audience analytics’ accuracy and predictive power by identifying patterns and trends that may not be immediately apparent. For instance, AI algorithms can analyze vast amounts of data to predict which types of content are likely to resonate with specific demographics, allowing media companies to optimize their programming and advertising strategies.

The shift towards a more integrated and technology-driven approach to TV audience measurement also has implications for privacy and data security. As more detailed viewer data is collected, ensuring this information is handled responsibly and ethically will be paramount. This will require robust data protection measures and transparent policies that safeguard consumer privacy while enabling the benefits of advanced audience measurement.

The Gauge report marks a pivotal moment in the evolution of TV audience measurement. Providing a unified view of viewer behavior across all platforms sets the stage for a future where audience insights are more accurate, comprehensive, and actionable. As the industry continues to innovate and adapt, these advancements will drive more effective content strategies, targeted advertising, and a more engaging and personalized viewing experience for audiences.

As digital marketers and analysts venture into GA4, they encounter a landscape with unexpected twists and turns. While some features align seamlessly with expectations, others defy conventional wisdom, prompting users to rethink their data interpretation and analysis approach.

Unveiling the Quirks: A Comprehensive Overview

1. Currency Conversion Conundrum

GA4’s approach to currency conversion introduces a perplexing scenario for users. Despite configuring the property to showcase specific currencies, GA4 internally converts incoming data to US Dollars before reverting it to the default currency. This unnecessary intermediary step often leads to discrepancies between the data sent and the data displayed, leaving users scratching their heads in confusion.

2. Data Processing Delays

GA4 introduces a time lag that catches many users off guard in a world accustomed to real-time insights. While some data might surface within hours, others require up to 48 hours for processing. This delay manifests prominently in reports, with sudden spikes and fluctuations often smoothing out over time. Users are advised to exercise caution when analyzing recent data to avoid misinterpretation instead of focusing on more established trends.

3. Key Event Modeling Mysteries

The intricacies of key event modeling add another layer of complexity to GA4 analytics. Users navigating attribution models and data-driven reports must contend with the possibility of fluctuating numbers over time. As GA4 recalibrates its attribution models, conversions may be reattributed or recalculated, leading to unexpected shifts in reported metrics.

4. Unraveling Regular Expressions

GA4’s treatment of regular expressions introduces an unexpected twist for users familiar with previous iterations. Unlike its predecessor, GA4’s regular expressions demand exact matches, eschewing partial matches altogether. This departure from convention necessitates a reevaluation of search patterns and query structures to ensure accurate data retrieval.

5. Default Data Retention Dilemma

Upon creating a new GA4 property, users face a default data retention period of just two months. This abbreviated timeframe limits the scope of exploration and analysis, prompting users to adjust settings immediately to preserve historical data. The rationale behind this default setting remains unclear, leaving users to navigate the perplexing choice between preservation and purging.

6. User-Provided Data Pitfalls

Integrating user-provided data introduces a critical consideration for users leveraging BigQuery for advanced analytics. While enticing in its potential, enabling this feature comes with a caveat—loss of user IDs in BigQuery exports. This trade-off underscores the importance of careful consideration before toggling this beta feature, particularly for users reliant on user-level data analysis.

7. Cohort Exploration Limitations

While promising, GA4’s cohort exploration feature falls short of expectations in one key aspect—its reliance solely on-device data. This omission renders user IDs, a cornerstone of user-level analysis, ineffective within cohort exploration reports. The absence of user-level granularity diminishes the utility of cohort analysis, highlighting an area ripe for improvement in future updates.

8. Client-Side Limitations

The dichotomy between client-side and server-side data processing in GA4 presents a unique challenge for users. While features like modifying events and creating events offer powerful capabilities, their effectiveness is confined to client-side interactions. As a result, users employing server-side tracking via the measurement protocol may be unable to leverage these features effectively.

9: Metric Misconceptions

A discrepancy in metric labeling within GA4 reports adds a final layer of confusion for users. While the “users” metric in standard reports represent active users, its counterpart in explorations mirrors “total users.” This subtle distinction often eludes users, leading to misinterpretation and confusion when comparing metrics across different report types.

Conclusion: Navigating the Quirks of GA4 with Confidence

As users traverse the intricate terrain of GA4, they encounter a landscape peppered with peculiarities and unexpected twists. By shedding light on these quirks and providing insights into their implications, this exploration equips users with the knowledge and understanding necessary to navigate GA4 with confidence. Armed with a deeper appreciation for its nuances, users can harness the full potential of GA4, transforming data into actionable insights and driving informed decision-making in the digital age.

Due to web analytics, you can customize your website content to make it more attractive to site users. Find out what tasks web analytics performs and how it helps businesses.

What Is Web Analytics?

Web analytics is a system for analyzing the effectiveness of promotion methods and evaluating their results. Getting digital analytics consulting is necessary when it comes to improving your business strategy and sales. It allows you to measure a company’s efforts to advertise its product on the Internet.

How Does It Help Business?

Competition on the Internet is so high that even companies with a long history have to fight for their position. Web analytics helps you choose those methods for improving the content that will have the maximum effect and keep users attracted to your product.

Analysts optimize and automate the process of distributing information about a product, saving time and money on advertising.

Types of Analytics

There are various types of web analytics, each of which serves a specific purpose.

First, there is classic web analytics, which focuses on analyzing data related directly to the website itself. This includes metrics such as visitor counts, session duration, page views, and navigation patterns.

The other crucial type is end-to-end marketing analytics. It determines the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and promotional activities. This analytics involves tracking traffic sources, conversions, user engagement with marketing content, and the influence of different marketing channels on website performance.

Finally, there are custom business intelligence (BI) systems. They are specific tools designed to meet individual business needs, allowing them to identify strategic opportunities and help you meet targeted goals.

Web Analytics Metrics

Website metrics show how effectively visitors interact with your website and online brand. These metrics can identify what information attracts users, how often, and for how long they stay there. So, there are major web analytics metrics to improve your web strategy:

• page views – measures the number of visitors who saw your website page;
• average time of page – measures how long users spend on your web page;
• bounce rate – identifies how many visitors leave your site and go elsewhere;
• conversion rate – determines the visitor percentage who completed a specific action (making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter);
• top pages – the method determines the highest-value pages on your website.

Based on these and many other indicators, analysts build a promotion strategy and select different types of advertising.

Web Analytics Algorithm

Here is a brief overview of the web analytics process:

• identify goals – decide what you want to manage with your website (increase sales, site traffic, or improve user engagement);
• set up data collection – implement tools and strategies to collect relevant data about visitors and their engagement (tracking codes, cookies, etc.);
• collect data – collect information about user behavior, traffic sources, and other metrics;
• analyze data – check the collected information to understand how clients interact with your site (identify patterns, trends, etc.);
• visualize and report – present data in charts, graphics, and dashboards in order to make decision-making strategies to achieve website optimization goals. 

With web analytics, you can optimize the user experience on your website more effectively. Such companies as Netpeak US can provide web analytics services to make your business prosper.

Those details might be found by analyzing various sources of data. Data might not be something that you often associate with the field of business, but knowing where to look can allow you to change that perception – meaning you can use that knowledge to push your business in a more positive direction.

Business Analytics

The go-to answer here for many people is going to be the data generated by your business itself. This data can inform you of an incredible number of things. Analyzing your business data tells you more about your audiences, where you’re reaching them, and where you’re not. It tells you about the varying success of your different marketing campaigns, and it can give you a better idea of how you can spend your money for a more effective effort. This means you can take measures to improve the various areas that aren’t performing as well as you’d like, or you can cut them out entirely in order to put more resources toward what’s working.

Knowledge is power, and having access to this information, in particular, can tell you everything about your business that you need to know to make more informed decisions moving forward.

Prospective Marketing Opportunities

Risks are everywhere in the business world. Making a decision doesn’t come without some possibility of failure, and your ability to minimize this risk comes from the data that is available on these routes. For example, social media marketing isn’t going to be seen as risky because it doesn’t cost you very much in resources to add to your repertoire, but what about something more committed, like search engine optimization? Looking at information on its success for other businesses can tell you that it’s thought of highly, but that might not be enough for you. Therefore, to improve your chances of success, you could look to blogger outreach services to further strengthen your approach.

Inventory Control

If your business is one that deals with a lot of inventory or stock, you might deem it appropriate to have inventory management systems put into place. Not only can these allow you to keep better track of your wares, but they can prevent you from losing as much of your stock – the advantages of which are pretty obvious. The shift towards this model might take some time if your team isn’t accustomed to using technologies such as these, but the data that you gather through this ordeal can give you a much more thorough understanding of your business, and utilizing that to your advantage means saving yourself money.

The gains (or lack of losses) from this might seem minimal at first, but they accumulate, and that can ultimately lead to a big difference in your financial situation.

Nielsen ratings are the gold standard for gauging the popularity of TV shows. Nielsen’s Four-Screen Ad Deduplication is a major step forward in its Nielsen One plans. Nielsen One is slated for release in December 2022 and will be a cross-media measurement platform.

“Marketers are increasingly investing in CTV to follow consumers. However, brands want consistent measurement across screens,” said Kim Gilberti, SVP, Product Management, Nielsen. “Marketers can now better evaluate CTV inventory’s unique reach and frequency in conjunction with their entire Roku buy in a comparable and comprehensive manner, and advertisers can reduce waste and help ensure that relevant ads are delivered to the right audiences across devices. This release brings us one step closer to providing comparable and deduplicated metrics across screens with Nielsen ONE.”

“We believe that all TV ads will be accountable and measurable,” said Asaf Davidov, Head of Ad Measurement and Research, Roku. “Our direct consumer relationship, our scale, and our tech all make us uniquely positioned to work with Nielsen to make measurement simpler and more accurate as marketers shift spend to TV streaming.”

The History of Web Analytics

Web analytics is almost as old as the internet itself. Just 3 years after the internet came into existence, hit counters became available for use. Hit counters are familiar features to most internet users. They consist of simple code that displays the number of page views. Hit counters can be used without any kind of IT expertise.

Slightly more complicated is log analysis, which helps people interpret server logs and identify traffic sources to their website. Yet as websites morphed from plain text to images, audio, and video, log analysis developed gaps in its data. That’s because caching, or temporarily storing a file in the system to avoid multiple HTTP requests was a common occurrence that wouldn’t show up on the log. Eventually, the gap was filled by JavaScript, which followed user behavior using a tag-based system. JavaScript could track more than just hits, which moved analytics into the field of marketing. 

The Dawn of Google Analytics

By this point, marketers were able to create targeted advertisements, optimize website copy, and more. Yet there were limits; in the late ‘90s, large companies could take as long as 24 hours to process their website’s data. Along came Urchin, a web analytics company that could process the same data in as little as 15 minutes. At one point, Urchin worked with 1 in 5 of the Fortune 500. Urchin continued its upward trend until Google bought them in 2005 for $30 million, giving birth to Google Analytics.

Google Analytics is a service that ties in directly with Google’s web marketing offerings. They offer in-depth, tag-based data that focuses on the quantitative side. For the past decade, their most popular offering has been Universal Analytics, which launched in 2012. Universal Analytics lived up to its name by enabling the tracking of users across multiple devices and platforms. It can monitor offline behavior, and it combines demographic data with real-time monitoring for the most detailed consumer insights possible.

Google Analytics 4 is Coming

The expansive reach of Universal Analytics made it one of the targets of certain governments as they passed online privacy laws. One of the most well known laws of this nature is the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR for short. In part as a response to the new regulatory environment, Google launched Google Analytics 4 (GA4) in October 2020. GA4 is in compliance with the GDPR in that it only uses first-party cookies and has a Consent Mode that adjusts data collected on users based on said user’s permissions. At the same time, GA4 has all the insight capacity of its predecessor.

In Conclusion

GA4 has added new features like debugging mode, consistent collection methods for mobile and web data, and cross-platform reporting opportunities. Is your website ready to switch?

Because of the expansive technology that businesses can use to gather personal data on their customers, there are many privacy regulations that have been put into place to protect the rights of the user when online, which may be part of why cybersecurity insurance rates are rising. For example, in Europe, ePrivacy Directive is the governing body of user experience and privacy, and secures one’s right to privacy in terms of online tracking, personal profiting, unsolicited marketing tactics, and nonconsensual data harvesting by third parties. Similarly, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) addresses data protection regardless of data type, giving users multiple rights and powers over where and with whom their data is shared. In the United States, state-specific legislation gives users rights related to the processing of their personal information. California, Colorado, and Virginia are only a few of the many states that outline specific guidelines for how data and private information is handled.

If too many users refuse to consent to sharing their data, businesses struggle to gather sufficient data and analytics may be rendered useless. When websites are unaware of the proportion of consenting users, what cohort is reflected in collected data, and if a sufficient sample is present to make accurate optimizations, it is increasingly difficult for businesses to make accurate inferences about user behavior. In addition, if these regulations are violated, there are heavy fines associated with non-compliance. In May 2018, the EU issued over 800 fines, and to date, big name companies like Amazon and Google have incurred millions of dollars in fines. It is tedious for users to read the consent agreement and give permission to a website to store their data, therefore a smaller proportion of users are consenting, leaving companies with insufficient information and a higher likelihood of fines and violations.

There is now a new approach to online privacy law compliance that allows businesses to make the most of the data that they have in an ethical way. This measurement methodology involves collecting data anonymously without the use of cookies, and suggests that websites prompt users to provide a login or to register early in the user funnel. Both of these methods will allow for data collection in common scenarios where consent is not necessary or when it is given voluntarily under the guise of account creation with a certain business or web page. This data is vital to marketers and users alike, as it allows a company to make informed decisions about their user’s interests in the most ethical way, which is important to customers. Data in today’s world is so powerful, and it’s important to present the best tools to harness that power, lawfully.

In mid-January, the Austrian Data Protection Authority ruled that Google Analytics was illegal due to conflicts with the GDPR. Essentially, the GDPR prohibits countries from exporting EU citizen data to the US. Much of the concern stems from the fact that US intelligence agencies can force companies to give them access to such data, without the protections EU citizens are normally afforded.

France has now joined Austria, according to Le Monde, via AppleInsider. The National Commission for Informatics and Liberties (CNIL) has ordered a company to stop using Google Analytics.

“The CNIL notes that Internet users’ data [collected by Google Analytics] are transferred to the United States in violation of…GDPR,” reads the statement Le Monde gained access to. “It therefore requires the site manager to bring these processing into compliance with the GDPR, if necessary by ceasing to use the Google Analytics feature (under current conditions) or by using a tool that does not result in a transfer outside the EU.”

The CNIL has given the site manager one month to stop using Google’s platform. This latest development does not bode well for Google. When Austria made its ruling, experts believed other countries would soon follow suit. Austria and France are likely just the first elements of what may become a wave of losses for the Google Analytics platform.

National Commission for Informatics and Liberties (CNIL) has issued a formal statement regarding the unnamed company. “The site manager has one month to comply,” says the statement (in translation), as seen by Le Monde.

“The CNIL notes that Internet users’ data [collected by Google Analytics] are transferred to the United States in violation of…GDPR,” continues the statement. “It therefore requires the site manager to bring these processing into compliance with the GDPR, if necessary by ceasing to use the Google Analytics feature (under current conditions) or by using a tool that does not result in a transfer outside the EU.”

A website must be user-friendly, easy to navigate, and have a clear purpose. Otherwise, users will just move on to the next best thing. To understand user behavior on your website, you can use a tool known as a heat map. Heat maps are an excellent way to take an analytical approach to understanding your users and eventually your customer’s behavior. Here’s a quick look at the analytical benefits of using heat maps. 

Heatmaps Defined

As you enter the exciting world of audience analytics and consider using web heatmaps, it helps to understand what they are and how they work. A website heat map is a suite of software tools that creates a visual of what’s happening with a website. It uses color-coding to display different metrics. Think of it as a visual representation of data. Heat maps aggregate data from whatever metrics you’ve defined using certain tools.

These tools might include session recording which logs and tracks how users interact with websites, conversion funnels analysis tools, and other tools to help you analyze and optimize forms/user feedback tools. While there are many different providers of heat maps, sometimes the best way to go is with a suite of heat map tools that help you optimize your website’s user experience to ultimately create more conversions by understanding customer behavior/interests.

Understand How Users Interact With Your Site

The entire point of analytics is to understand data. When it comes to the ideal e-commerce website, you want to have something that’s easy for users to interact with while allowing them every opportunity to conveniently make purchases. When visitors interact with your site, heatmap tools can help track interaction vectors like where they click, how far they scroll, keyboard input, which pages they’re visiting, how long they stay on a particular page.

A session recording tool can track and measure all of those vectors in a private way without breaking any compliance standards (such as GDPR) or jeopardizing their privacy/security. Using this tool, you can understand the outcomes of AB testing, figure out how to optimize the website experience based on what users are actually doing when they visit your site, and deploy a better marketing strategy from understanding customer interactions on your website.

Save Time

Time is a finite resource, even for the best of us. Heat maps are useful and practical for saving time when you’re building a marketing strategy. Understanding the insights provided by the software allows an entire team to build a better plan, fix any bugs in the software, redesign the user interface, and increase traffic. Moreover, analytics can help save time and money by complementing the user testing process to create a much more efficient website in the long term. A better user experience/website leads to more interest which can in turn eventually create those conversions over time.

Create Conversions

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is pretty nuanced. You need to understand what users are looking for when they come to your website and how to provide it for them in an uncomplicated way. Through the CRO process, you can analyze and optimize every point where a conversion can take place. Powerful website heatmap software tools offer several methods for creating more conversion opportunities at every stop along the way. Whether it’s mouse movement, seeing how far users scroll, or understanding when and why they are putting items in their carts, you can use a heat map to leverage The conversion process to your advantage by paying attention to the tools/insights provided with the software.

Increase Online Revenue

At the end of the day, the goal of increasing revenue is pretty important. So how do heat maps help accomplish this? Well, the more conversions a keymap creates, the more customers make purchases. Heatmap analytics help you learn how users are making purchases on your site as well as what they’re buying. In this manner, you can find products to fit your customers which can ultimately increase sales/revenue. When you’re spending a great deal of time trying to get your customers to make the purchase, you need to make sure that the purchase page is optimized enough to actually create that conversion.

Conversion funnel tools as part of the heat map software suite can’t help with this. Other tools also provide ways to generate revenue. The key is to implement the tools as soon as possible and use them as often as possible. That way, you are taking advantage of any insights you can glean and fully optimizing the customer experience to maximize your gains.

Although other maps can measure data density, heat maps are a tidier way of doing so. For instance, a pin map displays density by identifying each datapoint with a marker. However, these maps can become messy and difficult to analyze. By contrast, a heat map makes it easy to identify areas where particular information is more prevalent in representing density with colors. For example, if you wanted to see where your sales are coming from, you would start by plotting all your sales locations. Then, by applying a heat map to this data, you would be able to quickly identify where sales are highest and where they are lowest. You can then use this information to make important changes to your sales strategy. 

Types of Heat Maps

There are three primary types of heat maps. These are: 

Traditional

This type of heat map represents data points as color-coded circles with a specific radius of influence. In general, the densest areas of these circles will be colored red and then fade to blue or green as the data becomes dispersed. However, most heat maps will allow you to choose colors to suit your preferences. 

Area-Based

If you want to compare data between one or more different geographic areas, you will use an area-based heat map. Geographic areas can be defined by either zip codes, counties, or states. These areas are then colored based on the amount of data located there. For example, if a large number of customers aged 30-50 live in the state of Illinois, it would be colored red. However, if only a few customers aged 30-50 live in the state of Georgia, Georgia would be colored blue. Consequently, you’ll get a quick overview of where these types of customers are located in the US. 

Point-Based

Often compared to dot-density maps, point-based heat maps use points to represent data. The larger the cluster of points, the higher density of data. The more sparse the cluster, the lower the density of data. 

How Can You Use Heat Maps for Business

There are a variety of ways that heat maps can be useful for your business. For instance, as previously mentioned, heat mapping is a valuable asset for planning your sales strategy. This is because heat maps demonstrate the strength of data’s presence in some areas and its absence in others. As a result, a business can gain valuable insights. 

A heat mapping tool measures a business’s performance based on several key metrics. These include:

• Revenue
• Customers
• Sales
• Service calls
• Deliveries 

Taking revenue as an example, heat maps tell a company what areas bring in the most money. Businesses can decide what areas require more attention and what areas are already well served using this information. This can be particularly useful when designing a targeted marketing campaign. For example, for areas that bring in a great deal of revenue, the company might create ads that encourage repeat purchases. However, they might need ads that encourage new customers to trust their product or service for areas where revenue is low. 

Another way to use heat maps is to employ them to manage salesperson distribution or delivery driver management. For example, by plotting your sales reps or delivery drivers and locations, you can see which territories have plenty of personnel and which are lacking. As a result, you can fill gaps and move people around to serve your customers better. 

Lastly, heat mapping is a great tool for research. Heat maps can measure a vast array of demographic data, including:

• Income
• Housing
• Gender
• Population
• Race
• Age 

Using this data, you can determine where your target audience is located, allowing you to plan strategic marketing campaigns and choose sites for new business locations. 

Businesses that Heat Maps are Particularly Well Suited For

While virtually every business can benefit from using a heat map to analyze its data, there are a few types of companies that heat maps are particularly well suited for. These are:

• Sales
• Healthcare/Medical professions
• Finance
• Franchises
• Real Estate
• Delivery businesses
• Governments
• Service businesses 

Main Advantages of Using Heat Maps

Heat maps are beneficial to businesses for many reasons, but let’s look at the advantages they provide in a little more depth. 

Heat Maps Measure Performance

To improve your company, it’s essential that you know which parts of your business are performing well and which are not. Using a heat map, you can determine where you’re hitting your targets and where you’re falling behind. With this information, you can compare business locations and territories to determine where you perform best and which areas need work. 

Heat Maps Help You Understand the Market

Developing a successful marketing strategy requires that you have a good understanding of the people you’re targeting. Therefore, a heat map is an excellent way to learn more about where your target audience is located based on demographic information. You will also learn more about who your customers are and how you can sell to them. Furthermore, a heat map can show you potential new areas for expansion. 

Heat Maps Help Uncover Hidden Patterns

Business data contains a lot of valuable information, but some of it might go unseen if not portrayed in the right manner. For instance, it can be hard to decipher patterns in geographic buying habits by looking at numbers in a spreadsheet. By contrast, if you were to visualize your data using a heat map, you can compare the buying habits of one area versus other areas.

John Copeland of Adobe, predicts that ecommerce spending could be $930 billion, or just under $1 trillion, in 2021:

COVID was a catalyst to the ecommerce channel last year. What we saw when you look at the full calendar year of 2020 was $813 billion dollars in ecommerce spending, 42 percent growth over 2019. That’s like combining two years’ worth of growth into a single year. Consumers have really embraced the online channel to meet their needs during these challenging times.

We’re all kind of wondering what (the vaccine rollout) is going to do in terms of ecommerce. We’re forecasting this year somewhere between $850 billion, only a 5 percent over last year, and up to $930 billion, which would be a 14 percent increase over last year. The 5 percent increase would be if everybody gets vaccinated and rushes out and we see kind of a slowdown. The $930 billion, 14 percent increase, would be more typical of what we see year over year in the ecommerce channel.

Buy Now Pay Later Up 215 Percent Over Last Year

Buy Now Pay Later is very much good for retailers. In fact, what we’ve seen in February this year relative to February 2020, which is kind of on the cusp of the pandemic, is a 215 percent increase year over year in buy now pay later orders. In terms of retailers, it comes along with larger average order values. What we’re seeing is 18 percent larger orders when customers are using that service. Unlike layaway, with buy now pay later you actually get the goods upfront, you don’t have to wait until the payment’s done.

Another trend is Buy Online, Pick Up In-Store, also known as BOPUS. In February of this year, we’re already seeing it growing 67 percent year on year. It’s always been huge and growing during the holiday season but now people are clearly working it in as part of their fulfillment options. Picking up in the store gives consumers the ability to schedule it according to their availability and knowing that stock will be there for them when they want to pick it up.

Google routinely updates their search algorithms, with the most recent being in June and July of 2021. Unfortunately, changes to Google’s algorithms often lead to some sites seeing major drops in traffic. For many, the causes and potential solutions are unclear, making it difficult for sites to regain the traffic they once enjoyed.

Google is now shedding light on the causes behind a drop in organic traffic: technical issues, security issues, manual actions, algorithmic changes and search interest disruptions.

Daniel Waisberg, Google Search Advocate, outlines how each of these can impact traffic:

Technical issues: Errors that can prevent Google from crawling, indexing, or serving your pages to users – for example server availability, robots.txt fetching, page not found, and others. Note that the issues can be site-wide (for example, your website is down) or page-wide (for example, a misplaced noindex tag, which would depend on Google crawling the page, meaning there would be a slower drop in traffic).

Security issues: If your site is affected by a security threat, Google may alert users before they reach your site with warnings or interstitial pages, which may decrease Search traffic.

Manual Actions: If your site does not comply with Google’s guidelines, some of your pages or the entire site may be omitted from Google Search results through a Manual Action.

Algorithmic changes: Google is always improving how it assesses content and updating its algorithm accordingly; core updates and other smaller updates may change how some pages perform in Google Search results. To keep track of future updates, subscribe to our Google Search News YouTube series or follow us on Twitter.

Search interest disruption: Sometimes changes in user behavior will change the demand for certain queries, either as a result of a new trend, or seasonality throughout the year. This means your traffic may drop simply as a result of external influences.

Waisberg’s post should be a valuable resource for all webmasters, both those whose sites have experienced a drop and those that want to avoid one.

Google has a number of policies aimed at preventing harmful or inappropriate ads. The company prohibits “ads promoting deceptive behavior or products such as the creation of false documents, hacking services, and spyware, as well as tobacco, drugs and weapons, among other types of content.”

Unfortunately, companies often try to circumvent Google’s policies, leading the company to try a ‘three strikes and you’re out’ approach.

“That’s why we are introducing a new pilot program to test a three-strikes system for repeat ad policy violations,” writes Brett Kline, Product Manager. “Starting September 2021, warnings and strikes will be issued for violations of our Enabling Dishonest Behavior, Unapproved Substances and Dangerous Products or Services policies—this includes ads promoting deceptive behavior or products such as the creation of false documents, hacking services, and spyware, as well as tobacco, drugs and weapons, among other types of content. These types of ads have long been prohibited, but now we are introducing increasing penalties with each strike applied.”

In a win for Apple and privacy advocates, the French Competition Authority has upheld Apple’s right to proceed with its iOS privacy changes.

Apple has been warning developers since last year of upcoming privacy changes to iOS that would prevent apps from tracking users without their permission. Apps are also required to include a privacy label that outlines exactly what data they collect.

Needless to say, the advertising industry has been up in arms over the changes, clinging to the archaic belief they should have the right to collect detailed, personal data and track users across services and devices, without their knowledge or consent. As a result, the advertising industry is trying fighting on multiple fronts to force Apple to back down.

According to Fortune, the French Competition Authority said Apple’s plans did not appear to be abusive, since “a company, even if it is in a dominant position…has the freedom in principle to set rules to access its services, subject to not disregarding the laws and applicable regulations and that these rules are not anticompetitive.”

The Competition Authority said it would continue to investigate to make sure Apple is playing by its own rules, and not gathering and tracking more data than it allows third-party developers to track.

“We’re grateful to the French Competition Authority for recognizing that App Tracking Transparency in iOS 14 is in the best interest of French iOS users,” Apple said in a statement.

The software helps organizations “view into the endpoints, applications, and drivers” being managed. It also provides a way to “assess application and driver compatibility with the latest Windows feature updates and receive mitigation recommendations for known issues, as well as advanced insights for line of business apps.”

Desktop Analytics replaces Windows Analytics, which Microsoft has slated for end-of-life on January 31, 2020.

Microsoft says the commercial release of Desktop Analytics has the following new features and improvements:

“Since announcing the public preview of Desktop Analytics, we made a point to deliver new features on a regular basis. For example, in August we helped streamline the workflow by eliminating the need to manually evaluate applications (such as system components published by Microsoft) that are known to be compatible with new feature updates. Then, in September, we delivered on one of our most requested features: The ability for customers to migrate existing data from Windows Analytics Upgrade Readiness to Desktop Analytics during the onboarding process.

“In addition to these updates, the 1906 release of System Center Configuration Manager further integrated Desktop Analytics with phased deployments, which means you can automate your pilot and production deployments with the health insights from Desktop Analytics. Looking ahead, we’ll soon enable customers who have already onboarded to migrate their administrator data. And we’re constantly investing in longer-running service enhancements like performance and reliability improvements.”

Edge computing allows companies to reduce data processing time by processing the data collected by Internet of Things (IoT) devices at or near the data collection point, rather than sending it to a data center.

Verizon’s 5G network, paired with SAP’s Leonardo Internet of Things and Edge Services and analytics, will give customers in the supply chain, field service management, assembly line and retail industries real-time data processing.

“We are unleashing the next generation of cloud capabilities through global data centers, across the edge of the network,” said Eric Stine, Chief Customer Innovation Officer, SAP North America. “With data volumes growing exponentially and the capabilities of new wireless technologies like 5G to further expand the reach of IoT and enterprise computing, SAP and Verizon are uniquely positioned to drive a new class of data analytics, management and services at scale to help the world’s great companies create amazing customer
experiences, and unlock new business models and monetization strategies.”

“Our ability to integrate our ThingSpace platform into the SAP Cloud portfolio provides a secure and agile way to deliver instantaneous, end-to-end operational analytics at the edge while lowering the cost of IoT management,” said George Fischer, president, Global Enterprise, Verizon Business Group. “This combined solution is not just about massive IoT. We are also enabling computer vision, augmented reality, blockchain and machine learning using Verizon’s network. These are a truly comprehensive set of capabilities to help our customers better manage critical functions including asset lifecycles, supply chains, customer experiences, human capital and plant operations.”

The report highlights that just over 56.1% of all websites are using some form of analytics, with Google the leading analytics platform with 20% market share. Analytics packages provide important information, including geolocation, browser type, operating system and more.

Akamai researcher Tomer Shlomo, who penned the report, said:

“As phishing has evolved over the years, criminals have learned that technical markers, like browser identification, geo-location, and operating system, can help adjust the phishing website’s visibility, and enable more granular targeting. In order to evaluate these metrics, kit developers use third-party analytic products, such as those developed by Google, Bing, or Yandex, to gather the necessary details.

“Akamai scanned 62,627 active phishing URLs of which 54,261 are non-blank pages that belong to 28,906 unique domains. We discovered 874 domains with UIDs and 396 of the UIDs were unique Google Analytic accounts. Moreover, 75 of the UIDs were used in more than one website.”

Before companies go ripping out Google Analytics from their sites, it’s important to know that Akamai believes additional analytics are the solution to the problem, helping companies trace attackers and mitigate the damage.

“Using analytics can help you understand the full scale of a phishing campaign, and defenders can use this data to compare with internal signatures, for a more rounded detection and remediation process. Analytical data also helps understand domain targeting approaches.”

CEO Kenneth Coats of KENTECH Consulting, an investigative background check technology company recently discussed on Entrepreneur his business challenges and offered advice to other small business founders:

Simplification is Key to Going to Market Quickly

I’m the founder and CEO of KENTECH Consulting. We help the world make clear informed decisions. We are an investigative technology firm. We help our clients navigate risks and hire superior human capital. The biggest challenge I experience in my current role as founder and CEO is having many ideas and not enough time to execute on them all.

The challenge that it created was the ability to go to market. How we resolved it was to simplify the process which was harder than it appears on paper to cut out things we knew we couldn’t possibly do in the time we have. The lesson I would pass on to other entrepreneurs is to simplify. There are many great ideas that are constantly running around in our head. Those are great, but it’s good to just journal them and simplify and execute.

KENTECH Launches ClarityIQ, Bringing Technology to the Hiring Process

Security has continuously been a challenge throughout the world whether it’s people, or access or technology. What we are looking at is tackling police and law enforcement recruitment. Policing in the US is not so good. There is not a great relationship between the community and police. Part of that challenge is stemming from the hiring practices.

We’ve been looking at how to resolve that problem by ensuring that the right people are being hired in these positions. We now have a patent pending product called ClarityIQ which is built on providing predictive analytics, a “FICO” score of sorts on the success probability of a person becoming a law enforcement officer that can orient into the community.

Entrepreneurs Should Expect the Unexpected

As a leader how do you prepare for the challenges that you may face? The simple answer to that is to expect the unexpected at all times. Being an entrepreneur is living inside the Matrix where two plus two does not equal four. If you understand that from the outset two plus two can equal whatever you want it to. You can always plan and 80 percent of the time things will work out, but leaving about 20 percent unforeseen and expect it is the challenge.

Ketan Karhanis, SVP & GM, Salesforce Analytics at Salesforce talks about the need for smart analytics in businesses in order to drive better actions:

Technology is Simply an Enabler

We must be clear about one thing, technology is simply an enabler. Real transformation requires trailblazers. We live in a time of tremendous technological change with lots of good stuff happening AI, AR, voice. This is not about the technology, it’s simply about you. The single biggest question is how does all this enable your success and what does this mean to you?

You all know the world of business applications, such as sales, service, marketing, you know this world very well. Then there’s the world of analytics, some call it visualizations and some call it reporting,. No matter what you call it it is important because it’s crucial to see what is happening in your business and why.

AI and Analytics Need to Come Together

Now we have AI, the game-changing power of AI insight. What does that mean? Now we can get a glimpse of the future. We get predictive and prescriptive, very exciting technology. But are you going to be swivel chairing three different boxes, three different logins, different stats for everything, one stack for ML, one stack for visualization?  

That’s probably not going to be fun because here’s one simple thing we need to realize, these are not three separate boxes they are facets of the same experience. AI and analytics need to come together and they need to be infused in your business applications.

You Need Automated Discovery

What you need is not just a digital experience but an intelligent experience where analytics is built right in and if done right analytics becomes invisible but you get the benefits of it, and the benefits are pretty spectacular. We are drowning in data, lots of data everywhere. Making sense out of millions of data points in sub-second speeds to derive insights, that’s kind of hard, our brains are not really wired to do that.

You need automated discovery. Automated discovery helps you discover the story in your data and the intelligent experience comes built with automated discovery. Insights have to be outcome focused.

You Need Smart Analytics that Drive Better Actions

Of course, you need charts which tell you about the past, but you need recommendations and explanations. You probably don’t need yet another dashboard which tells you what happened. You need better outcomes for the future and you should not settle for incomplete. From visualizations to predictive to prescriptive you need it complete in one experience.

You need smart analytics. AI stands for actionable insights because an insight which does not lead to an action is just a dumb chart. That’s why connecting to the business process is key. Insights need to drive better actions.

You need to be able to leverage your existing teams and bring them to this new world of no-code AI, of a completely different way of interfacing with your insights. AI’s role is amplifying your effectiveness, it’s about augmenting your skills but how will you trust it. That’s why accountability is key, transparency is key, and you need all of this.

“For example, you may find the people most likely to convert first browse your website on mobile before ultimately making a purchase on desktop,” Facebook noted. “Or maybe, the people who interact with your business on Messenger ultimately spend more in your mobile app. You can then use these insights to optimize your marketing strategy and grow your business.”

To make it work a business would simply add custom parameters to their events in Facebook Analytics enabling them to automatically receive key user insights. One of the ways to do this is via funnel conversion insights, which will provide key data on where in the process visitors tend to convert or go away.

VR Now Available for Brands Using Facebook Messenger

Since Facebook’s opened the Messenger Platform in 2016 to businesses and developers it has become a critical customer interaction tool for many brands. Facebook noted at F8 that there are over 8 billion messages exchanged between people and businesses each month on the platform. That is 4x more than last year and signifies widespread adoption of Messenger by businesses of all sizes including some of the largest brands.

At F8 Facebook announced that the Messenger Platform now includes the ability for brands to integrate custom uses of augmented reality into their Messenger experience. “With this launch, businesses large and small can leverage the Camera Effects Platform to easily integrate AR into their Messenger experience, bringing the virtual and physical worlds one step closer together,” says David Marcus, VP of Messaging Products at Facebook. “So, when a person interacts with your business in Messenger, you can prompt them to open the camera, which will be pre-populated with filters and AR effects that are specific to your brand. From there, people can share the image or video to their story or in a group or one-to conversation or they can simply save it to their camera roll.”

The value for marketers is that they can incorporate better visualizations of their products. This is especially important to brands that have products that customers feel more comfortable buying after touching, seeing up close or trying on, such as apparel. Facebook announced that ASUS, Kia, Nike, and Sephora will be including AR effects in their Messenger experience soon.

If you are interested in using these new AR effecting in Messenger you can sign up for their waitlist.

Facebook Enters the Dating Business

Also at F8, Mark Zuckerberg announced “Dating,” a new service by Facebook. It will let users create a second profile that is specifically for the purpose of introductions to others that they might want to date or hook up with. The key here is that your friends on Facebook won’t be able to see your other profile and they also will not show up as potential matches. This will hopefully eliminate the awkward situation where somebody uses their Facebook friendship as a vehicle to hitting on another person, which in the past often led to unfriending.

Facebook’s dating algorithm will use various signals to determine potential matches including if two people are attending the same Event or are a member of the same Group. You can assume that your bio info, likes and geography will play leading roles in making potential romantic matchups as well.

Not everyone is impressed by Facebook’s foray into dating:

Tonight at 11/10c, Facebook is getting into the dating game…minus the hookups. pic.twitter.com/Bqaa3BlJAO

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) May 2, 2018