This post is part 5 in an arc on NextStage Evolution's Evolution Technology reports, this time considering Real Visitors per Session. Real Visitors per Session and Real Visitors by URL are two answers to the same question. The question is "How many real, live human beings are really visiting my site?" I'm not sure and I think most others answer this question with either cookies, session-ids or something similar. This method has always been flawed to me. What if I see something on a website and call over someone else, "Hey, look at this!" and they sit at the computer, either beside me or taking over my seat? There's only one cookie and one session-id, but now two people are using the same session-id and cookie to look at a webpage.
Back when NextStage was developing its technology this report truly noteworthy for the simple reason that not everyone had a computer at their desk and not everyone in the family had their own computer. Knowing that someone in a company called over a co-worker was a sure sign that the information on the page was interesting, hence valuable, hence actionable. Ditto for calling over family members. Knowing that mom called dad over, etc., meant there were conversions to be had (probably).
Now that computers are more common "per Session" gets paired with "per URL". Now a more often occurrence is seeing the same person move amongst several computers at a given cookie-sessionid-location.
In any case, Real Visitors...
The yellow and blue bars on the chart show number of sessions and number of real visitors per session. When the two don't match you know that either someone called over someone else and they took over the computer or a single individual moved between two or more computers at a single physical location to view the same site. How does ET know that more than a single user was involved in a single session? How much time do you have for me to explain it to you? The truth is, it's not that difficult to understand and makes use of NextStage's Rich Personae system, something I've written about in Mapping Personae to Outcomes.
NextStage's standard Rich Personae system recognizes 72 different personality types and this is more than adequate for commercial purposes. It is capable of recognizing several thousands so even the most heavily trafficked sites can be analyzed along these means for reporting purposes.
This also handles the question of "What if I call over someone but they don't sit down at the computer?" Excellent question and yes, when we up ET's sensitivity it can determine that person B wasn't sitting at the computer but that they were telling person A what to do. As Angie Brown, Strategic Services Consultant for Coremetrics (at the time) said, "I kept waiting for the "We expect this technology to be available in a few years" part, so it took a little while for it to sink in that you're doing this NOW."
Previous topics in this arc included:
- Are Visitors Getting Good Value?
- Are Visitors Having a Good Experience?
- Do you have more men or women visiting your site?
- Returning Visitors and How Many?
Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.
Upcoming Conferences:
- IMedia Brand Summit on 9-12 Sept 07
- XChange on 20-21 Sept 07
- DC Emetrics Summit on 14-17 Oct '07
- Society for New Communications Research Annual Research Symposium & Awards Gala on 5-6 Dec 07 in Boston.
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