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SawMill Weblog Analysis and Web Analytics |
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Monday, 21 May 2007 |
Comparing Sawmill to the web analytics tools is not a simple "checking
of boxes on a form". While Sawmill is a weblog analysis tool, web
analytics
data come from weblog, web beacons or page bug(i.e. transparent 1x1
pixel from a
third party), Javascript tags (widely used, i.e. Google Analytics),
packet sniffing, and
event logging (see Blog Decision Analysis and Web Analytics on this
page). However, Sawmill (Enterprise version) processes the log
and stores the data in MySQL making dicing and slicing using SQLqueries
a simple process (nearly free Data warehouse). When used to its full
potential, Sawmill is
useful with understanding User Behavior such as clicktream, click
density, segmentation, longtail analysis, predicting what users will do
next (using with a
data mining tool, i.e. MineSet). Sawmill is also useful with
understanding the patterns of user behavior, for example, Why are a
number of users going through a particular path before reaching the
"Thank you" page?
Using SawMill with Excel, or SawMill with MineSet, data visualization
can reveal the potential traffic that can be generated
with long tail analyses, i.e pageviews or keyword
searches. For example, using Excel, a logarithmic plot of
pageviews for each page can reveal where are the humps, dips, and
drooping tails of pageviews - Note that humps and dips can be
readily seen using a log scale but not a linear scale. Using humps and
dips, website traffic (or traffic to specific landing pages) can be
increased by increasing relevant content at those humps and dips. For
more information on log normal for visualizing the long tail, see this
paper: "A Brief History of Generative
Models for Power Law and Lognormal Distributions".
SawMill can readily show the paths through the website for all sessions
(or visits) in a day, week, or month, and by location - see the
screenshot below. This feature is important if you want to know the
pattern of traffic through your website from the moment of entry to
exit for some analyses such as check out or conversion (not otherwise
recommended as it is a time sink). This is analogous to the patterns of
people walking through the
hallways and aisles in a department store as they enter and exit. Every
single path is observed as well the the collective
patterns. Google Analytics does not support this feature.
SawMill screenshot below shows both the overall traffic pattern and for
every single session.
Its integration with mySQL is extremely useful for possibilities of
realtime
applications including clickstream analysis and CRM .
If you are looking for packaged tools, there are several tools in
different price brackets. For example, HBX (from Websidestory) provides
visitor segmentation, overlay/active viewing, multimedia analysis of
Web 2.0 (most comprehensive), on-the-fly "What If", and other
standard features. Clicktracks
provides standard
reports, expected web metrics, and convenient user segmentation. visistat.com provides
realtime display of web traffic and metrics - this is great for quick
feedback on Adword campaigns. Omniture provides a Web Services API
(WSDL) for its reports (Admin console). If you are a data miner and
programmer
who wants to create customized reports or creating new products,
SawMill will be more appealing as the tool is extensible and can act as
a data ware house using MySQL backend. Useful: SawMill can mine several
hundred type of logs.
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