'Net Features : compete.com

Interactive Map From Compete Charts Web Acquisitions

Linc Wonham — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 03:00:00 GMT

Compete.com, the Web analytics firm with the largest online behavior database in the industry, has just announced the reconfiguring of its Referral Analytics tool for Web professionals. Included as part of the Compete Pro digital intelligence package, the enhanced Referral Analytics solution includes a comprehensive new Traffic Dashboard that enables Internet marketers, advertisers and publishers to explore the traffic metrics of competitors, clients and prospects through a unified, at-a-glance portal.

The new dashboard features an interactive Channel Map that delineates each referring channel as a separate box, and the data can be drilled down further into corresponding sub-domains and specific channel metrics. Marketers can now uncover how a competitor or partner website is acquiring users, monitor changes in that site's strategy, and adjust their own marketing budget accordingly to obtain maximum returns.

To learn more about Compete’s new solution for advertisers, agencies and publishers, go to compete.com/referral-analytics.

Compete.com's New Features Give Deeper Insight

Mike Phillips — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 14:10:00 GMT

Compete.com launched a new interface and a host of new features recently, and the changes provide some excellent tools for digging deeper into websites.

Starting with the user interface (UI) on a URL search, the first thing you will notice is an easier-to-read graph than before. Hover over individual months and you will see detailed traffic numbers for that month, a feature not included in previous versions. The graph can also be sorted by Unique Visitors, Visits and Compete Rank or, with a pro version, analytics are available such as Page Views, Pages per Visit, Average Stay and more.

Below the graph is more detailed information such as Top Search Terms, Top Referral Sites, Top Destination Sites, and Top Tags. As the Top Tags feature is user-generated, you have the opportunity to look up your website and start tagging it before anyone else does, or vote up tags you think are appropriate. Under the Profiles tab, you can explore the current most popular tags and the websites associated with those tags.

Choose Site Profile from the Profiles tab and you can get detailed information in an easy-to-digest format for an individual site. (This is also the default when you enter only one site for analysis.) You can also compare separate metrics for one site. This powerful feature can show, for example, unique visitors vs. pages per visit each month over the past year or two. You can also examine subdomains.

Also available to Pro subscribers are daily digests (pictured below). Create portfolios of sites you wish to track, and Compete will send daily data updates to your inbox.

Compete is a very good tool for any Web professional. While the data might not be 100 percent accurate, it does provide a window to your competition, their users' patterns and behaviors, and it's free. The new design is not only easier to use, but provides more data and more tools to help you get ahead.

Retail Paid Clicks Convert Higher

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:07:00 GMT

It's a difficult decision for every Web professional where should we put our budget, time and resources? Paid traffic or natural/organic SEO for traffic? While there are advantages and disadvantages to both types of campaign, Google and Compete believe that paid clicks are more likely to convert in the online retail space.

It should come as no surprise that the role of SEO and advertising is vital in e-commerce. The findings from a joint study (available through a Webinar here) reveal that while both branded and non-brand clicks were important to ROI, paid clicks are more likely to convert than natural clicks. One retail study they were involved with stated that in 7 out of 8 categories tested (the exception was home furnishings) paid clicks were 50% more likely to convert than organic clicks.

The study aimed to quantify the value of search clicks in driving online and in-store sales. Google and Compete documented shoppers search behavior to understand non-converting clicks by monitoring clicks to leading retails websites (e.g. Ann Taylor, Zappos, Buy.com, Ikea, Walmart to name a few) and tracking consumer purchase activity 60 days after the of initial click. Some interesting findings from the study include:

Up to 33% of all visitors to retail sites come from search
Up to 55% of paid traffic comes from non-branded clicks
Up to 49% of purchasers using search click on non-branded search terms
32% of mass merchants purchases occur more than 2 weeks after the initial search referral (30% purchase same-session, but 70% purchase later)
Up to 43% of online shoppers purchase in-store

What does this mean for marketers? Primarily that search is a valuable tool for reaching retail shoppers and that broad and diversified search investments is the best strategy. Marketers should look beyond consumers immediate actions when valuing the ROI of search efforts.

If you are new to Website Magazine, consider reviewing the following two articles as they compliment the importance of this study quite well:

PPC Accountability: Pay-Per-Click Advertising and Lifetime Value
Web Promotion Cagematch: PPC vs SEO

Compete's SEO/SEM Breakouts

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 14:28:00 GMT

I don't say this very often about a company, but Compete.com has really impressed me with their latest announcement that paid versus natural search breakouts are available in their search analytics solution. The data shows the percentage of search referrals that a website gets from paid search trended over the last six months. This will allow Web professionals to find out if their competitors are relying on search engine optimization or search marketing, identify spikes in paid search activity with six months of trended data and even enable you to benchmark paid search activity to your competitors.