Thoughts From The Cake Scraps

Well, their advertising got me in the door.  I decided to check out what this whole cruise thing was all about.  It looks like a great time, but I can’t help but think that their User Experience could be significantly improved (and therefore their conversion rate). Carnival is making some HUGE mistakes.

Making sure you have a usable website, one that is intuitive and easy to navigate, is a key element of converting your visitor into a sale.  Lets take the first page after I entered in some information about where and when I wanted to take a cruise:

The first thing I notice is that I am left to assume that these are per person rates.  Maybe it says that somewhere on the rest of the page, but this section is clearly the focus.   Making sure your user knows that this is a per person rate will save on hard feelings down then line.  After all, I am booking a room and rooms (at hotels) usually don’t care if you have 1 person or 2.  If I have never been on a cruise (and I have not) I could easily assume these are rates per room.  Update: It does not say that on the page, only when you hover over the lowest price (not shown in picture); does not show up when hovering over any of the other prices.

Next I see that the base room would cost me $729 while the Suites will cost $1,399.  That’s quite a difference.  I wonder what I get for $1,399.  Let me click on the “Suites” link with the camera icon.  This is what will sell me on getting the expensive room.  A nice overlay pops up on top of the current page looking like this:

Hmm…the first thing I notice is that I clicked on the Suite and the picture that pops up looks pretty unremarkable for the price.  Oh wait, the Interior room is selected.  Huh?  That seems like a pretty big miss.  But okay, I figure that out and click the suite.  I give them another chance to sell me on the room.  And…it is just an enlarged picture of the little thumbnail.  Thus far I am not convinced that I will double the price of my cruise.  But what could they do differently?

First, they could give me more pictures.  It is basically free for them and would do tons to help convert me.  Some pictures that I would love to see:

• What does the view out the balcony look like?
• How big is the balcony?  What does it look like?
• Is there a TV (like in the other rooms)?  Where is it?
• How big are the closets?  Where are they located?
• What does the bathroom look like?
• It says it has a large vanity/dressing table…where’s that?
• A whirlpool tub is listed.  Again, what does it look like?
• How big is the desk in the corner of the room?

All of these things are items that people want to know.  They want to know what they are getting for their dollar.  Instead there is one generic shot that does almost no good.

The next things is the text below the single picture: “Includes stateroom category: JS, OS and VS.”  Ohh, right.  Category JS.  I’m not sure what JS means to them but to me it means Jack Squat.  Why would these letters have any meaning to me?  And, to make matters worse, I cannot click them to figure out what the heck they are talking about.  It is just meaningless text unless I’m some sort of cruise expert in which case I wouldn’t be on this page to begin with!

Sorry Carnival, I’m not even all that interested in what your big green details button would give me.

What do you guys think?

This has been a Thought From The Cake Scraps.

I was working on my laptop today and was playing around with my newly installed Office 2007.  I really need to get to know it more, but work still uses 2003 and I have become quite good at using the 2003 version.  Some co-workers are even generous enough to put me into the category of Excel Expert.

I’m not sure about all of that, though I have done some posts on cool Excel tricks, but I do know one thing.  I don’t have nearly as good of handle on 2007 as I do on 2003.  The I remembered something that @Fantastical7 told me that had changed my life on my desktop computer.  The Office 2007 Search Ribbon.

This is the best download for Office that you have never heard of.  If you are having trouble figuring out where that old command went in the new ribbon structure, this add-in is perfect for you.  No more scouring the internet for answers to simple questions.  Just simple answers that are quick and, best of all, are exactly what you are looking for.

At the time of this post, only 64, 169 had downloaded this add-in.  I have to say that that is a bad indicator.  I just wonder how much time people have wasted looking for the buttons when this add-in makes it super simple.

So, what do you think of Office 2007?

This has been a Thought From The Cake Scraps.

I had an interesting discussion with a friend of mine the other day on which programs to apply to for an MBA.  If you have read my prior post you know that I am a fan of just going and getting the best GMAT score that you can; don’t worry about it too much.  Do your best and you’ll be fine.

So, why do I think that just doing your best on the GMAT will lead you toward the right program?  The reason is quite simple actually.  You don’t take Calculus 3 when you have never had Calculus 1.

While each individual has there own reasons to get an MBA, a common theme is to improve oneself – however you want to define that.  My thought is that your GMAT score will give you a good idea of where you will get in.  Don’t beat yourself up over getting into a top 10 school.  And, going back the the Calculus example, here’s why.

If you apply yourself on the GMAT, and have no special conditions, you will have a score that – more or less – is an indication of your ability (yes, there are many exceptions).  That means that if you have a 500 level score, Harvard is probably not looking good.  But take a moment to think about it like a Calculus class.

A student should not try and get in the most advanced class that they can get into with no regard to the level of their knowledge in the subject matter.   This we can all agree on but then some people hold a different standard to an MBA program.  The reality is that an individual new to calculus will get the same incremental value to themselves in a Calc 1 class as a more advanced person will get from a Calc 3 class.  If the goal is to improve yourself by X%, then both the Calc 1 student and the Calc 3 student will achieve their goals.  Either student going in the other’s class will make them fall short of their goal.

Therefore, be realistic about what schools you can get into.  Don’t view a non-top 10 school as a failure or a shortcoming.  The goal of an MBA isn’t to get a top 10 school on your resume (or at least shouldn’t be the main goal).  The goal is to improve yourself.  There are many levels of ability which means that there are many levels of programs that will all give the same incremental benefit to the individual at all of the different levels.

It is like the marathon I ran.  Just finishing was the goal.  I was happy with my time, but I’m sure an Olympic marathoner would not have been happy with that time.  The point is the same.  different goals for different people.  A lower ranked school may be a better overall fit, and deliver more incremental value to the individual, than a top 10 school might.

If you have found yourself discouraged about your GMAT score and the schools you might get into, maybe this gives you a fresh perspective.

What do you think about a MBA program’s incremental value?

This has been a Thought From The Cake Scraps.

I have recently completed the General Management Admissions Test, or the GMAT, and I have a few thoughts on it.  I want to share some of those thoughts over a series of posts and so I am going to do just that.  I had the idea for this series after I had a particularly good day.  You may be able to guess that that was the day that I took the test.

For starters I want to be clear that this series of posts are going to be my opinion.  I am not doing lots and lots of research to validate each and every detail.  I am merely sharing my experiences.  If you want textbook detail there are plenty of guides out there that already do just that.  No need to recreate the wheel here.  This is a blog about my experiences and I hope you find value in them.

With that in mind, I present my first critical point: expectations going in.

After talking to many people coming from differing points in their career or education I realized one common theme: get into a top 10 school or the like.  I think that this view is making a critical mistake.  Don’t fall into this trap.

Goals are an excellent thing to have.  Setting goals is something that everybody should do for all sorts of reasons.  But, make sure they are the right goals.  If you go into the test thinking that you need a specific score so that you can get into a specific school you are setting your sights far too narrow and this will only do harm for most people.  Don’t confuse this with not setting goals, just make them more realistic.  Goals have to be S.M.A.R.T. to work.

When I ran my marathon the goal was simple: finish.  There was no time pressure there wasn’t a “finish without walking” or anything else.  It was just finish.  Getting into a B-school is the same thing.  Just get in.  You should be looking at an MBA because you want to enhance your career and learn more.  The harsh reality is that while a top 10 or 20 school will give you a great education, there are plenty of others that will give you nearly as good of education but perhaps a little less powerful alumni network.  This means that no matter what score you get, there will probably be a place you can get into, so just enjoy the journey of the test and stop worrying about the end result so much.  After all, 700+ GMAT score doesn’t secure you entry; the score is just part of a larger application.

That is my first advice to you when looking to take the GMAT.  Know that you are taking the GMAT to get into an MBA program and to enhance your skills, meet people, and learn.  These things can be done many places.  Take the pressure off yourself to perform and just do it.  Needless worrying will only bring you down.

If you have to set a target score, only do so after you have done many practice tests.  Know where you stand.  Know what you can do.  Then put a little reach into it.  You’ll be fine.  Not going to Harvard is not the end of the world.  Lots of colleges can help you out.

Now that you are in the right mindset to attack the test, the next step is to begin the journey to your score by a self evaluation.  Look for that in my future posts in the series, GMAT Journey.

This has been a Thought From The Cake Scraps.

Every now and then a person stumbles across a small tip that makes life easy. Well, maybe just easier. Today I share one of those tips with you, the shift key.

We all use the shift key, but few people know about the additional power that it can provide. Gone are the days where it is used just for making a letter upper case or YELLING on the internet.

On a Windows OS,  holding the shift key while right clicking an item in a folder allows you to open the document read-only.  Very helpful if you don’t want to lock people of of the document, but still want it open.

The second and more helpful trick that I learned is in Excel.  Have you ever wanted to have a single page summary, but just couldn’t get it to work because the column widths for the stuff above doesn’t match with the stuff you want below?  Shift can help.

Copy the area that you want and then hold shift and go up to Edit > Paste Picture Link.  You now have a picture that is easily moved around, no matter the above column structure.  Better yet, if you change anything in the original range, it changes along with it!

Update: As commenter Ryan, of RyanMalesevich.com fame, points out, this is for Excel 2003.  For 2007, no shift is needed.  Just click the down arrow below “Paste” > “As Picture” > “Paste Picture Link”

Do you have any tips to share?

This has been a Thought From The Cake Scraps.

Diamonds are not the only thing that is forever anymore. It is no secret that Google will dig deep and find things on a person that the person has long since forgot about. Individuals that are active on the internet are pumping out a HUGE amount of information that is then on electronic record.

It could be a post in a blog, a comment on a blog, a Tweet, a Facebook wall post, a resume on your college club site, etc. The list of places that your name might show up grows almost every day.

I was most recently reminded of this by an interesting site, Cursebird, that tracks curse words used in Tweets. It even gives a real-time stream. Not only that, but you can search by user and it gives you all the tweets that the person used a curse in and ‘rates’ them based on which and how many curses they use.  If you check it out, @TheCakeScraps has no results.

While you may know all of this, and it may all seem pretty common sense, it doesn’t hurt to be reminded every once in a while. I will leave you with the short – but great – post from Seth’s Blog:

A friend advertised on Craigslist for a housekeeper.

Three interesting resumes came to the top. She googled each person’s name.

The first search turned up a MySpace page. There was a picture of the applicant, drinking beer from a funnel. Under hobbies, the first entry was, “binge drinking.”

The second search turned up a personal blog (a good one, actually). The most recent entry said something like, “I am applying for some menial jobs that are below me, and I’m annoyed by it. I’ll certainly quit the minute I sell a few paintings.”

And the third? There were only six matches, and the sixth was from the local police department, indicating that the applicant had been arrested for shoplifting two years earlier.

Three for three.

Google never forgets.

Of course, you don’t have to be a drunk, a thief or a bitter failure for this to backfire. Everything you do now ends up in your permanent record. The best plan is to overload Google with a long tail of good stuff and to always act as if you’re on Candid Camera, because you are.

What are your thoughts on the legacy you leave on the internet?

This has been a Thought From The Cake Scraps.

What do you see when you look at this picture?  Do you see a game of Jenga nearly complete?  Do you see a tower of block about to fall?  Do you see the next block that you would take out and add on top?  It all depends on your perception.

Many people will just see the picture as a game of Jenga.  Passive.  Just a picture.  That may be true, but what it represents is opportunity.  Yes, there is risk in taking the next block out.  But – as they say in a casino – you cannot win if you don’t play.

The economy is in an interesting state right now.  Things are a little wobbly.  But the interesting part is that we can change it.  All this is is economics.  As business pull back and cut ad spend that means that if you were to buy what they are leaving behind it will not only cost you less, but you will gain market share.

This won’t work with all businesses and all products.  Some things just won’t sell with things as they are.  Then go somewhere else.  Wal-Mart is growing.  McDonalds is growing.  Thrift stores are growing.  It is easy to just dismiss these things as obvious.  Resist the temptation.  What they are really doing is providing a service that people are seeking out right now.  Yes, in this case it is value, but it doesn’t have to be.

Really think about how your business can fit a need for the modern customer.  If Lands’ End had never expanded into apparel, would they still be around?  BMG is canning its mail-order membership.  I just got my “Final Mailing” because they are getting out and moving into a discount model rather than a mail-order model.  (On a side note, did you know that if you forgot to decline the ‘Featured Selection’ you could just write “Return To Sender” on the box and they have to ship it back and don’t charge you!)

The point is that people still have needs.  Visualize how you can help morph your current business to fit a need.  It may be as simple as shifting your marketing to promote value.  Or if you are doing that maybe you have to highlight the value and some other feature that the product has.

Winners and losers are being determined as you read this.  Which side is your company on?

This has been a Thought From The Cake Scraps.

In any field it is easy to look at day over day comparisons, week over week, month over month, and even year over year.  If you are diligent you might even go so far as to trend your data over time.  Perhaps you will include a trend for the current time period as well as a trend for the historical time period.  The graph will be very pretty I’m sure.  That is all great stuff.

The problem with all of this is that it is far too easy to get caught looking at the micro picture without ever taking the time to step back to look at the macro picture.  Where were you at the pinnacle of your stats?  Where were you at the depths?  And not just in the time period you are comparing.  I am talking about ever.

These are the things that you need to be aware of.  Not with every project you do, but just in general.  This gives you perspective.  Have your sales been increasing each year?  Great, maybe they have even been increasing for the last 4 years.  Even better.  But what if you are still at half of your sales from your peak 15 years ago?  The company was capable of doing it then.  Ask yourself “why are we not at that now?” and then try and figure out how to get there.

Don’t be satisfied with being close to the industry average.  While it is great to know where and how you tack up against others, it should only be a component of your overall picture.  Who cares if you are far above average on conversion?  Someone has to shoot for the stars.  Somebody has to be the new benchmark.  It can be you.

The point is that as an analyst, and we are all analysts to greater and lesser extents – in your job or not, you need to be aware of the overall picture.  Don’t just be a reporting monkey.  Know your stuff.  Know what potential there is.

And if you are setting a new benchmark, then pat yourself on the back.  You deserve it.  But then ask, how can I (or we) push that even further.

How have you pushed a benchmark in your life?

This has been a Thought From The Cake Scraps.

I was recently working on an interesting project where I was estimating the demand impact of a change that we had implemented to our site.  Without getting into the details, a change was made so that the customer would be less distracted during their shopping experience.  This then – hopefully – keeps the visitor more engaged with the site and if everything else goes well, they will then buy.

The tricky part is that the likelihood to convert changes at different points on the site, though it is a bit difficult to get it.

For example, if all a visitor sees is the homepage, they are going to convert at some percent.  Assume 10% for easy math.  If a visitor doesn’t bounce – meaning come to the site, see one page, and leave – say the percent to convert increases to 20%.  If the visitor then sees a product page they are now going to convert 30% of the time.  And finally if they enter the checkout process they will convert 40% of the time.  The point is that the level that the customer is at in the site changes the likelihood of conversion.

This seems like it would be a very obvious thing, and to a certain extent it is.  The key component here is not that these differences exist and you know about them.  The key is taking that knowledge into account when making an estimate for demand impact of a change.

If visitors have all of these different conversion points and a change is made that causes 1,000 visitors to not leave the site you need to take these conversion points into account.  Saying that the 100 more people will buy (using 1,000 visitors * 10 % conversion from homepage) is just as misleading as saying that 400 people will buy (using 1,000 visitors * 40% conversion rate from checkout pages).  When making a demand impact, make sure that you include a few inputs for these different areas.

For example: 100 visitors * 10% + 300 * 20% + etc.  As long as the percents add up to 100% and the visitors add up to your total you are in good shape.  You can then take this number times your average order value and you now have a demand estimate.  Note that you could even take this a step more and apply a different average order value to people who have been in different areas of the site.  For instance someone who is shopping for Outerwear or A laptop will probably have a different average order value then an individual looking at flip-flops or computer cables.

Ultimately you can segment this to any level that you are able to get.  Just make sure that the work that you put into arriving at the final number is worth it – especially if you are using the Omniture Excel Client.  Make a judgement call.  If it is just going to be small dollars or you really just need a ballpark then take the 1,000 visitors * 25% or something like that.  It is a guess, but it should be an educated guess.  Each different analysis will require varying levles of confidence.

Have you done anything like this before?  How did it go?

This has been a Thought From The Cake Scraps.

More often than not if you are somewhere you know how you got there.  Hopefully you don’t have too many weeknights (weekends I will exclude) where you just wake up and have no idea how you got to where you are.  You may be smart enough to know how you arrived at a particular location, but your website – at least by default – is not.

This post covers the principle of having a Product Page Finding Method (PPFM) tag on your site.  If your site was successful in getting a visitor to a product page, you should really know how they got there.  And if you are a visitor you should know that this is one more way you are being tracked.  For more information on being tracked check out my posts on Internal Campaigns and E-Mail tracking.  I will point out now that this post is less about describing to a visitor how they are being tracked and more about how a website should track the visitor.  This is because a PPFM tag is less common and may not apply to many sites a visitor may go to.  Nevertheless, it is still something to keep an eye out for.

Back to tracking how a visitor got to a product page.  The easy solution is a ‘Next Page’ or ‘Previous Page’ report.  This will tell you what pages a visitor was going to or coming from, respectively.  It may seem like the answer to our question of how the visitor arrived at a product page, and it does at a simplistic level, but is of no use for aggregating data.  Consider an index page that lists all of a companies laptops.  How often does a customer click through to an individual laptop (a product page)?  There is no easy answer to this if you have more than a few laptops displayed.  A PPFM tag will solve this problem.

If you add a PPFM – that’s Product Page Finding Method – tag to each link on the index page then when the visitor clicks through to a product page you can tell Omniture to look for PPFM=INDEX_Laptops01 and it will store it to an e.var ( a commerce variable).   Then you can run a report in Omniture and look for instances of INDEX_Laptops01.  Compare that to the Page Views for your laptop index page and you have the rate at which a person is clicking form that index page to a product page.

Another trick is to make sure that all of your index pages are tagged and have INDEX in the PPFM tag.  That way you can actually do a search to pull back all instances of an index page click on any index page.  With any luck you have your pages named in a similar fashion – so you can get total index page views – and you can then get a site-wide rate that people are clicking though to your products from your index pages.

Now that we understand the concept of a PPFM, lets look at a few other uses for it.

Basically, you should not have an instance where a customer navigated to a product page and you do not know how they got there.  Other ways they could get to that product page include a ‘direct to product page’ search and a cross-sell placement from another product page.

The ‘direct to product page’ is useful if you have a search box that will allow a customer to go directly to a product page without going through an index page.  An additional way to tag this would be to have a search results tag – for instances when a search returns many products – and then any click from that index/search page to a product page would give credit to the search tag.

The cross-sell tag would be used on any product page where you are displaying some other products the customer might also like to buy.  Any click on these links will bring the customer to another product page and then the cross-sell tag would get credit.  You might also have a similar tag for items displayed in the cart.

The last thing to discuss is credit.  On a $100 order who gets the credit.  The simple way to do it is the last used tag.  The bad part is that with this method if a customer uses and index for the first 3 items and the last item they clicked a cross-sell item, the cross-sell tag will get all of the $100 attributed to it.  That isn’t really accurate.  The better way is to distribute the $100 via linear attribution.  That means that in the example above each of the index pages would get $25 and the cross-sell would get $25.  The tricky part here is that if a customer is browsing they may click to 10 different products from 10 different index pages and each of the index pages would get 1/10 a share of the revenue even though the customer only bought from one of the index pages.  Just something to keep in mind.

With this tagging in place on your site you should always be able to answer how a customer arrived at your products.  It does not quite answer the question on a page by page basis – i.e. for Product A the PPFM tags used to arrive there were cross-sell 24%, indes 53% etc. – but it will give you a much better idea, on the whole, how your visitor is getting to your product pages.  Just a little tip that can save a ton of work

This has been some Thoughts From The Cake Scraps.