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• What is Google Analytics data sampling and what’s so bad about it ?

  16 août 2019, par Joselyn Khor — Analytics Tips, Development
  What is Google Analytics data sampling, and what’s so bad about it ?

  Google (2019) explains what data sampling is :

  “In data analysis, sampling is the practice of analysing a subset of all data in order to uncover the meaningful information in the larger data set.”[1]

  This is basically saying instead of analysing all of the data, there’s a threshold on how much data is analysed and any data after that will be an assumption based on patterns.

  Google’s (2019) data sampling thresholds :

  Ad-hoc queries of your data are subject to the following general thresholds for sampling :
  [Google] Analytics Standard : 500k sessions at the property level for the date range you are using
  [Google] Analytics 360 : 100M sessions at the view level for the date range you are using (para. 3) [2]

  This threshold is limiting because your data in GA may become more inaccurate as the traffic to your website increases.

  Say you’re looking through all your traffic data from the last year and find you have 5 million page views. Only 500K of that 5 million is accurate ! The data for the remaining 4.5 million (90%) is an assumption based on the 500K sample size.

  This is a key weapon Google uses to sell to large businesses. In order to increase that threshold for more accurate reporting, upgrading to premium Google Analytics 360 for approximately US$150,000 per year seems to be the only choice.

  What’s so bad about data sampling ?

  It’s unfair to say sampled data is to be disregarded completely. There is a calculation ensuring it is representative and can allow you to get good enough insights. However, we don’t encourage it as we don’t just want “good enough” data. We want the actual facts.

  In a recent survey sent to Matomo customers, we found a large proportion of users switched from GA to Matomo due to the data sampling issue.

  The two reasons why data sampling isn’t preferable : 

  1. If the selected sample size is too small, you won’t get a good representative of all the data. 
  2. The bigger your website grows, the more inaccurate your reports will become.

  An example of why we don’t fully trust sampled data is, say you have an ecommerce store and see your GA revenue reports aren’t matching the actual sales data, due to data sampling. In GA you may be seeing revenue for the month as $1 million, instead of actual sales of $800K.

  The sampling here has caused an inaccuracy that could have negative financial implications. What you get in the GA report is an estimated dollar figure rather than the actual sales. Making decisions based on inaccurate data can be costly in this case. 

  Another disadvantage to sampled data is that you might be missing out on opportunities you would’ve noticed if you were given a view of the whole. E.g. not being able to see real patterns occurring due to the data already being predicted. 

  By not getting a chance to see things as they are and only being able to jump to the conclusions and assumptions made by GA is risky. The bigger your business grows, the less you can risk making business decisions based on assumptions that could be inaccurate. 

  If you feel you could be missing out on opportunities because your GA data is sampled data, get 100% accurately reported data. 

  The benefits of 100% accurate data

  Matomo doesn’t use data sampling on any of our products or plans. You get to see all of your data and not a sampled data set.

  Data quality is necessary for high impact decision-making. It’s hard to make strategic changes if you don’t have confidence that your data is reliable and accurate.

  Learn about how Matomo is a serious contender to Google Analytics 360. 

  Now you can import your Google Analytics data directly into your Matomo

  If you’re wanting to make the switch to Matomo but worried about losing all your historic Google Analytics data, you can now import this directly into your Matomo with the Google Analytics Importer tool.

  
  Take the challenge !

  Compare your Google Analytics data (sampled data) against your Matomo data, or if you don’t have Matomo data yet, sign up to our 30-day free trial and start tracking !

  References :

  [1 & 2] About data sampling. (2019). In Analytics Help About data sampling. Retrieved August 14, 2019, from https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2637192

• Dreamcast Finds

  15 avril 2022, par Multimedia Mike — Sega Dreamcast

  Pursuant to my recent post about finally understanding how Sega Dreamcast GD-ROM rips are structured, I was able to prepare the contents of various demo discs in a manner that makes exploration easy via the Internet Archive. This is due to the way that IA makes it easy to browse archives such as ZIP or ISO files (anything that 7zip knows how to unpack), and also presents the audio tracks for native playback directly through the web browser.

  These are some of the interesting things I have found while perusing the various Dreamcast sampler discs.

  Multimedia Formats
  First and foremost : Multimedia-wise, SFD and ADX files abound on all the discs. SFD files are Sofdec, a middleware format used for a lot of FMV on Dreamcast games. These were little more than MPEG video files with a non-MPEG (ADPCM instead) audio codec. VLC will usually play the video portions of these files but has trouble detecting the audio. It’s not for lack of audio codec support because it can play the ADX files just fine.
  

  It should be noted that Dreamcast Magazine Disc 11 has an actual .mpg file (as opposed to a .sfd file) that has proper MPEG audio instead instead of ADX ADPCM.

  The only other multimedia format I know of that was used in any Dreamcast games was 4XM, used on Alone In The Dark : The New Nightmare. I wrote a simple C tool a long time to recover these files from a disc image I extracted myself. Rather than interpreting the ISO-9660 filesystem, the tool just crawled through the binary blob searching for ‘4XMV’ file signatures and using length data within the files for extraction.

  Also, there are plentiful PVR files (in reference to the PowerVR2 GPU hardware that the DC uses) which ‘file’ dutifully identifies as “Sega PVR image”. There are probably tools to view them. It doesn’t appear to be a complicated format.

  Scripting
  I was fascinated to see Lua files on at least one of the discs. It turns out that MDK 2 leverages the language, as several other games do. But it was still interesting to see the .lua files show up in the Dreamcast version as well.

  That Windows CE Logo
  Every Sega Dreamcast is famously emblazoned with a logo mentioning Microsoft Windows CE :

  
  
  

  It has confused many folks. It also confused me until this exploratory exercise. Many would wonder if the Dreamcast booted up into some Windows CE OS environment that then ran the game, but that certainly wasn’t it. Indeed, Dreamcast was one of the last consoles that really didn’t have any kind of hypervisor operating system managing everything.

  I found a file called rt2dc.exe on one sampler disc. At first, I suspected that this was a development utility for Windows to convert some “RT” graphical format into a format more suitable for the Dreamcast. Then, ‘file’ told me that it was actually a Windows EXE but compiled for the Hitachi SH-4 CPU (the brain inside the DC). Does the conversion utility run on the Dreamcast itself ? Then I analyzed the strings inside the binary and saw references to train stations. That’s when it started to click for me that this was the binary executable for the demo version of Railroad Tycoon 2 : Gold Edition, hence “rt2dc.exe”. Still, this provides some insight about whether Dreamcast “runs” Windows. This binary was built against a series of Windows CE libraries. The symbols also imply DirectX compatibility.

  Here is a page with more info about the WinCE/DirectX variant for the Sega Dreamcast. It seems that this was useful for closing the gap between PC and DC ports of games (i.e., being able to re-use more code between the 2 platforms). I guess this was part of what made Dreamcast a dry run for the DirectXbox (later Xbox).

  Here is a list of all the Dreamcast games that are known to use Windows CE.

  Suddenly, I am curious if tools such as IDA Pro or Ghidra can possibly open up Windows CE binaries that contain SH-4 code. Not that I’m particularly interested in reverse engineering any algorithms locked up in Dreamcast land.

  Tomb Raider Easter Egg
  The volume 6 sampler disc has a demo of Tomb Raider : The Last Revelation. While inspecting the strings, I found an Easter egg. I was far from the first person to discover it, though, as seen on this The Cutting Room Floor wiki page (look under “Developer Message”). It looks like I am the first person to notice it on the Dreamcast version. It shows up at offset 0xE3978 in the Dreamcast (demo version) binary, if anyone with permissions wants to update the page.

  Web Browser
  Then there’s the Web Browser for Sega Dreamcast. It seemed to be included on a lot of these sampler discs. But only mentioning the web browser undersells it– the thing also bundled an email client and an IRC client. It’s important to remember that the Dreamcast also had a keyboard peripheral.

  I need to check the timeline for when the web browser first became available vs. when the MIL-CD hack became known. My thinking is that there is no way that the web browser program didn’t have some security issues– buffer overflows and the like. It seems like this would have been a good method of breaking the security of the system.

  Ironically, I suddenly can think of a reason why one might want to use advanced reverse engineering tools on Dreamcast binaries, something I struggled with just a few paragraphs ago.

  Odds ‘n Ends
  It’s always fun to find plain text files among video game assets and speculating on the precise meaning… while also marveling how long people have been struggling to correctly spell “length”.

  Internationalization via plain text files.

  Another game (Slave Zero) saw fit to zip its assets. Maybe this was to save space in order to fit everything on the magazine sampler disc. Quizzically, this didn’t really save an appreciable amount of space.

  Finally, all the discs have an audio track 2 that advises that the disc must be played in a Dreamcast console. Not unusual. However, volume 4 also has a Japanese lady saying the same thing on track 4. This is odd because track 4 is one of the GD area audio tracks and is not accessible with normal CD hardware. Further, she identifies the disc as a “Windows CE disc”.

  The post Dreamcast Finds first appeared on Breaking Eggs And Making Omelettes.

• 11 of the Most Effective Conversion Rate Optimisation Best Practices

  14 février 2024, par Erin

  Driving more traffic to your website is hard work, but it’s still only half the battle. 

  You don’t just need to acquire new users ; you need to make sure as many convert as possible to make your digital marketing efforts worthwhile.

  That’s why improving your site’s conversion rate is so important. It will also help you get more value from your existing traffic source and keep you in line with your competitors. It’s also probably a lot easier than you think — especially if you adopt optimisation strategies that have been proven to be profitable time and time again. 

  In this article, we’ll show some of the most powerful, innovative and tried-and-tested conversion rate optimisation strategies you can implement immediately. 

  What is conversion rate optimisation ?

  First, let’s look at what conversion rate optimisation means. Conversion rate optimisation is the practice of improving elements of your website to increase the number of users who take a desired action and turn visitors into customers. 

  Common conversion goals include :

  • Making a purchase
  • Adding an item to a shopping cart
  • Signing up for a newsletter
  • Registering for a free trial
  • Downloading an ebook
  • Watching a video

  It doesn’t matter what your goal is. Using one of the following conversion rate optimisation best practices can send your conversions soaring. 

  11 conversion rate optimisation best practices 

  Are you ready to roll up your sleeves and get to work ? Then use one or more of the following best practices to improve your return on investment. 

  Set a clear goals and hypothesis

  When running an A/B or multivariate test, you need a clear idea of what you are testing and why. 

  A goal (a statement about what you want to achieve) and a hypothesis (a statement about what you expect to happen) clarify the problem you are trying to solve and give you a definitive way to judge the experiment’s results. 

  Confused ? Just use this template :

  We aim to [insert goal] by testing [insert test] on [insert page]. We expect that [insert test] will increase [insert metric] because [insert reason].

  Make sure your goals are directly related to the experiment. If you are testing your CTA button, the goal should be getting more users to click the button. It shouldn’t be a goal further down the conversion funnel, like making a purchase. 

  Start with A/B tests

  A/B testing is one of the easiest and most effective ways to run experiments to improve your current conversion rate. So, it’s no wonder that the A/B testing software market was expected to be worth $1.2 billion in 2023 and hit $3.6 billion by 2033. 

  Also known as split testing, A/B testing allows you to directly compare the conversion performance of two elements on your page, like the colour of your CTA button or your headline copy.

  

  You can go even further with multivariate testing, which lets you test two or more changes against a single control. 

  For example, the screenshot above shows the results of a multivariate test between a standard header, a wide header and a small header using Matomo’s A/B testing tool. As you can see, the wider header has a much higher conversion, and the increase was statistically significant. 

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  Tweak your CTAs

  Calls to action (CTAs) are page elements that prompt users to respond immediately. They are usually buttons but can also be images or plain text links. 

  What your CTAs say, how they look, and where they are placed can greatly impact your site’s conversion rates. As such, this is one of the elements you’ll want to optimise first. 

  There are several tweaks you can test, including your CTA’s :

  • Colour 
  • Length 
  • Copy
  • Placement 

  You can even test the impact of removing CTA banners and using text-based CTAs on your conversion rates.

  You should test out personalising CTAs, too. Research shows that personalised CTAs perform 202% better than standard calls to action. 

  Revise your web copy

  You can use several strategies to improve your website’s copy and generate more conversions. 

  Optimising copy for search engines can increase traffic and generate more conversions, for example. But that shouldn’t make your copy any less impactful. Bear search engines in mind, by all means, but make sure you are speaking to the needs and desires of your potential customers. Your copy needs to convince users that your product can solve their problems. 

  Nowhere is this more important than your headlines. These will be the first thing users read, so make sure they sell your USP and highlight pain points.

  Don’t just guess at the kind of messaging that will move the needle, however. Constantly test new headlines and continue doing so even after you’ve started seeing success. The results may surprise you. TruckersReport, a site that helps people become truck drivers, boosted opt-ins by 21.7% by revising its landing page headline, among other changes. 

  Make sure there are no spelling mistakes in your copy, either. Misspelt words, poor grammar and bad formatting make your website look unprofessional and untrustworthy. Even if the rest of your copy is incredibly enticing, these rookie errors can be enough to turn customers off. 

  Simplify your site’s navigation

  A website’s navigation is an often overlooked factor in conversion rate optimisation, but simplifying it can make it much easier for users to take action. 

  If you’ve ever used a poorly designed e-commerce store, you know how confusing and overwhelming bad navigation can be. Research shows that a whopping 82% of stores don’t divide their navigation into manageable chunks. 

  The trick is to simplify your navigation as much as possible. As you can see in the screenshot below, our navigation only has five headers and a call to action. It’s easy to find exactly what you’re looking for, and you can’t miss the big green CTA button. 

  

  Alternatively, you can test what happens when you completely remove your navigation. Brands usually do this on landing pages where the only action they want the user to take is to make a purchase. 

  

  It’s exactly the strategy we’ve used on our free trial landing page. 

  Leverage heatmaps

  Analytics tools — and heatmaps in particular — can help you understand user behaviour and optimise accordingly. 

  Heatmaps are a visual representation of user interaction on your page. Red and yellow represent high levels of user interaction, and blue and green represent low levels of interaction.

  

  As you can see in the screenshot above, our CTA button has some of the highest levels of engagement on the page, telling us that it’s well-positioned. Given the focus on the site’s navigation, we can also assume we are correct to have a CTA button in there — something we can confirm using our web analytics to see how many users click on it.

  Reduce load time

  Speed matters when it comes to conversions. Fact. 

  Research shows a huge difference in conversion rates between quick and slow sites. For example, a site that loads in one second converts three times better than a site that loads in five seconds. 

  That’s why using a web analytics tool is vital to understand page load times and act accordingly if you think slow speeds are hampering your conversions.

  

  Identifying your slowest pages is easy with Matomo. Just sort your pages by the Avg. Use the page load time metric on the page performance report to identify the pages you want to drive conversions. 

  Next, take steps to improve your page’s load time by :

  • Compressing images
  • Compressing code files or using a more lightweight theme
  • Removing unnecessary plugins
  • Using a content delivery network
  • Improving your hosting

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  Add more trust signals

  Trust is essential when you’re trying to convince customers to make a purchase. In fact, consumers rate trust as one of the top three buying factors, far above a brand’s reputation and whether they love the brand. 

  Adding trust signals to your landing pages, such as customer testimonials, customer reviews, case studies, and other forms of social proof, can transform your conversion rates. If consumers see real people and businesses buy from you, they’ll feel reassured to do the same.

  

  It’s a strategy we use ourselves. Just look at the screenshot from our homepage above. Immediately after our free trial CTA, we display the logos of well-known brands that use our product. 

  Security-focused trust signals are also powerful if you are an online store. Installing an SSL certificate, showing logos of trusted payment providers (like PayPal and Mastercard) can convince people they are spending money at a legitimate store.

  Improve your site’s mobile experience

  More and more people are accessing the internet via their smartphones. In 2022, for instance, there were five billion unique mobile Internet users, meaning more than 60% of the internet population used a smartphone to browse online. 

  Moreover, 76% of U.S. adults make purchases using their smartphones. 

  That means you need to ensure your site’s mobile experience is on-point to increase conversions. 

  Your site should use a mobile-first design, meaning it works perfectly on smartphones and then scales up for desktop users. 

  Trust the data

  Opinions are a fantastic form of inspiration for new A/B tests. But they should never be trusted over cold, hard data. If your test shows the opposite of what you and your team thought would happen, then trust the data and not yourself.

  With that in mind, ensure you collect qualitative and quantitative data during your experiments. Web analytics should always form the backbone of conversion tests, but don’t forget to also use heatmaps, screen recordings, and customer surveys. 

  Keep testing

  There’s no such word as “finished” in the world of A/B testing. Continual testing is key if you want to convert more website visitors. 

  Make sure you aren’t stopping tests prematurely, either. Make sure every A/B and multivariate test reaches a sample size that makes the test statistically significant. 

  Understand your users better with Matomo 

  Whether you run an e-commerce store, a SaaS company, or a service-based business, implementing these conversion rate optimisation best practices could be an easy way to lower your bounce rate and boost your conversion rates.

  But remember, best practices aren’t clear-cut rules. What works for one website may not work for yours. That’s why running your own tests and understanding your visitors’ behaviour is important. 

  Matomo’s web analytics platform is the perfect tool for doing just that. Not only does it come with the tools you need to optimise your conversion rate (like an A/B testing tool, heatmaps and session recordings), but you can also trust the data. Unlike Google Analytics 4 and other tools, Matomo doesn’t use data sampling meaning you have 100% accurate data from which to make better decisions. It’s GDPR compliant and can run cookieless, so no need for cookie consent banners (excluding in the UK and Germany).

  Discover how you can improve your website’s conversions with Matomo by starting a free 21-day trial, no credit card required.

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