Download The Analysis of the Influence of Selected Factors on Website Traffic

The Analysis of the Influence of Selected
Factors on Website Traffic
Martina HOĎÁKOVÁ, VŠB-TU Ostravai
Zuzana NÉMETHOVÁ, VŠB-TU Ostravai
Abstract
Web traffic analysis and a correct interpretation of the results are essential to optimize the site and effective
online communication, which is today for some organizations even more important than offline communication.
The aim of this paper is to analyze the influence of a time period and banner adverts on Web traffic of school
newspaper monitored by using Google Analytics tool. The methodological basis is the use of statistical system,
namely the correlation coefficient and ANOVA. The research results confirm the importance of planning, managing and adapting the content of online communication to increase web traffic.
Keywords
Advertising on the Internet, ANOVA, Google Analytics, Pearson´s correlation coefficient, Spearman´s correlation
coefficient, Website traffic Measurement.
JEL Classification: M31, M37
i
Department of Marketing and Business, Faculty of Economics, VŠB-Technical University of Ostrava, Sokolská 33, 701 21
Ostrava, Czech Republic.
[email protected] (corresponding author)
The research is due to the support provided by the SGS projects of VŠB-TUO SP/2010164 and SP2011/152.
1. Introduction
Online advertising includes a variety of tools which
are reflected in increased website traffic through its
significant impact on consumer awareness while
online advertising directly affects users of the internet
and directly leads to higher website traffic. Although
advertising can increase brand value due to its effective use and also through awareness, no ads (online or
offline) can clearly contribute to the immediate development of various brands of companies on the internet. Therefore, companies should concentrate, in terms
of cost of online advertising, on building the traffic on
the internet rather than building its own brand (see
Ilfeld and Winer, 2002).
Today more than ever not be found on the internet
is the same as if you did not exist. It is not enough to
create a website, it is important to monitor website
traffic and find out where web visitors come from,
© 2011 Published by VŠB-TU Ostrava. All rights reserved.
ISSN 1212-3951
how long they view the website, which pages are (not)
interesting for the web visitors and other factors; the
correct analysis and interpretation can help to web
optimization and effective online communication.
Website traffic can be measured by the method of
measurement according to the log file (e.g. AwStats)
or by the method of measurement according to the
active file, ie. dot (e.g. Google Analytics, Yahoo! Web
analytics). For analysis it is recommended to use
a combination of these two methods due to the fact
that each has its advantages and disadvantages. Characteristics of these methods and other factors are
discusssed more in the following section of this
contribution.
Similar problems connected to measuring website
traffic, was dealt with by Plaza (2010), who used
Google Analytics to measure the performance of
toursim websites. She analyzed the efficiency o
ER-CEREI, Volume 14: 37–49 (2011).
doi:10.7327/cerei.2011.03.03
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Ekonomická revue – Central European Review of Economic Issues 14, 2011
fentries (visit behavior and length of sessions) depending on how they entered the website (direct visit,
inlink entries, search engine visits) or by Wei Fang,
who used Google Analytics to improve the content
and design of the library main website so that the
library´s website will better fit the needs of its customers. For more details on analysis of library´s
website see e.g. Fang (2007).
The aim of our research is to determine the influence of significant factors on the website. For this
analysis we chose a school magazine website
Sokolská 33 which has been operating on the domain
www.sokolska33.cz for more than a year and a half.
There is only one advertising banner which refers
directly to this website. This banner is located on the
website of the Faculty of Economics VŠB – TUO
which is also the founder of this magazine. The banner
changes in dependence on the update of the website
content of the magazine, the changes and the length of
display of the banner are not regular. Advertising is
displayed on the homepage of the faculty website
(www.ekf.vsb.cz).
To analyze the effects of factors on website traffic
we decided to use the data from Google Analytics
which has monitored closely website traffic of the
journal since its launch. The main reason to choose
Google Analytics is that website of school magazine
Sokolska33 has already uploaded on the Google
Analytics code before the start of our research. Google
Analytics also has a simple user interface and allows
features, which are required for our research. We did
not have the reason to change the tool. This tool was
also rated as the best in a performance snapshot.
Another reason why we did not choose any of the
other tools is that some tools are not as well known
and widespread as Google Analytics. The advantage
of Google Analytics is also that it is free. Google
Analytics has met all our requirements. The length of
the analysing period is twenty months. It is a period
from the launch of the website magazine in November
2008 to July 2010. For our research we have defined
working hypotheses on which we concentrate in the
analytical part of this paper.
For data analysis we used statistical apparatus. We
set the working hypothesis that we confirmed or
refuted by the Pearson correlation coefficient and
Spearman's coefficient of serial correlation and
ANOVA, in dependence on the character of the data.
Web analysis changes as fast as the requests from
the analysts. Google Analytics entered the market four
years ago. Despite the fact that this tool is free it has
not proven to fall behind the competition (see Fisher
and Johnson, 2008).
The start of free tools for analysing website by using search engines can serve as a main marketing tool
and can help managers get online information. Analysing of data collected by Google Analytics or
competitive Yahoo Web Analytics helps webmasters
configure as their websites user-friendly and also in
terms of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as more
effective (see Plaza, 2010).
In the first part of the contribution we present the
basic theoretical knowledge to measure website traffic
and brief description of used tool for measuring
website traffic. In the analytical part of this post is the
analysis of individual factors and their impact on
website traffic. To prove the relationship between
variables Correlation coefficient and ANOVA are
mainly used. In conclusion the key findings from the
analysis are summarized.
2. Website traffic Measurement
Web analytics, according to WAA (The Web Analytics Association), measures, collects, analyzes and
provides data from the Internet for understanding and
optimizing websites (see Jansen, 2009).
Analysing website traffic, monitoring behavior of
web visitors, tracking incoming links and monitoring
ad campaigns are the main marketing activities on the
internet. The output of the web analyzes are reports of
the data from the internet. This analysis provides the
basis for decisions and the improvement of the internet marketing of companines. For more details on web
analytics see e.g. Janouch (2010).
There are many factors that may affect the website
traffic. One of the common principles in marketing
theory, framework of marketing mix follows the
structure of 16 factors that affects website traffic.
These are the factors – product (quality, uniqueness,
relevance, personalization, branding), price (the price
level, price discrimination, business model, payment
system), place (interactivity, organization website,
navigation, accessibility, timeliness) and promotion
(credibility, website visibility). Some factors are
linked (see Wolk and Theysohn, 2007).
For the company it is very important to know the
behavior of visitors on website. Web analysis examines the dependence of advertising campaigns, which
are placed on the internet, on website traffic. There are
also deviations from the average rate of traffic of the
company website.
The analysis is realized in order to find the intensity of using the website and its efficiency to be able to
find if the company has met set objectives. Using such
information allows changes of website, offers, advertisements, prices, etc. In comparison with traditional
marketing, the analysis measures the efficiency or
ROI of the activities on the internet.
M. Hoďáková, Z. Némethová – The Analysis of the Influence of Selected Factors on Website Traffic
The data of the overal or partial website traffic
says nothing about the success of the company website. As well as the selection of the target group of
customers and services also the company web presentation must be targeted at the right segment of visitors
(potential customers).
The aim of the analysis of website traffic is visitors
segmentation into homogeneous groups which are
necessary to be analyzed separately (ie, unique visitors, number of returning visitors, the number of exits,
which search engines visitors used, where visitors
join, etc.). Analysis of website traffic monitors not
only the number of web visitors but also characterizes
who are the real website visitors. For more details on
Google Analytics e.g. see Clifton (2009).
For the analysis of website traffic two methods are
used most frequently. The principle of the first method, the measurement according to the log file is that
the log file records all web activities of web server.
The method provides information about requirements
for the server and records answers to these requirements.
The method of measurement according to the active file, ie. dot uses JavaScript code which is placed
into HTML web pages. Subsequently, it monitors and
records all activities of visitors on the website.
According to Janouch (2010) it is suitable to use a
combination of these methods for the analysis because
they all have advantages and disadvantages.
The tool of measurement according to the log file
is for example a product AWStats, which is mostly
used free by providers. Very widespread tool for the
measurement method according to the active file is
a product Google Anatylicts (see below).
By using analytical tools we can segment web visitors into groups, according to whether web visitor
entered the website from search engines (from which
search engines), which keywords were used, whether
the first visit was from paid campaigns (we can find
price for a new web visitor, then we can compare
different campaigns to each other), which visitors are
most profitable, etc.
The analysis of website traffic is realized in several
stages, ie. before a new ad campaign, during and after
its completion. The results are then evaluated and
compared between several advertising campaigns.
Fitzgerald (2007) concentrated on analysis of web
analytics softwares. Based on this analysis six best
softwares for website traffic were chosen. Google
Analytics was regarded as the best by A performance
snapshot; Omniture SearchCenter was regarded as the
best by understanding the customers; CFanalytics was
considered as the best by fighting click fraud; BetterPPC AdTest was regarded as the best by perfecting
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the pitch, Engine Rankings search was considered best
according to boosting the WebTrends' WebPosition 4,
according to coordinating ad campaigns was considered the Coremetrics Online Analytics. For more
details on these softwares, see e.g. Fitzgerald (2007).
2.1 Google Analytics
Google Analytics is one of the most popular free web
analytics software. This tool is also known because it
has very clear and understandable user interface.
Google Analytics tracks the behavior of web visitors
on the website from click to conversion. Google
Analytics includes several features which show and
analyze the results of traffic on the website.
The primary benefit of Google Analytics is the information on how web visitors found the website and
how extensively websites are used. Web visitors could
come to the website from ads, keywords, search
engines and e-mails. The company may improve the
ROI of its website, increase conversions, and make
more money on the website using this information.
These results also allow company to target their ads on
the internet in more eficient way, encourage their
marketing activities and create websites with higher
conversion rate, which is one of the main objectives of
examining the website traffic.
Conversion means a situation where the website
visitor becomes a customer. Generally this is a situation when the web user sends order form, pays online
for the goods or only sends query through contact
form. The aim of this analysis is to measure the
profitability of website or efficiency of advertising
campaign, in which the company has invested. In this
analysis we followed indicators such as number of
customers in the total number of users, which web
browsers are generating the most customers, what key
words the web visitors used and from what web
browser they converted to customers, which advertising campaigns transform web visitors to customers
(efficiency advertising campaigns), the most demanded products/services or groups of products/services,
etc. Conversion yet cannot be used at website
www.sokolska33.cz.
Plaza (2010) codified, on the basis of time series
analysis with Google Analytics, a few rules that we
consider to be consistent with our analysis: Rule No. 1
– Returning visitors browse deeper into the website
and stay longer (longer time spent on website/a greater
number of pages viewed per one visit). Rule No. 2 –
The lower the bounce rate (the number of error visits)
the longer the visit length (with regard to the time
spent on the website or the number of pages viewed
per one visit). Rule No. 3 – The lower the bounce rate,
the higher the return visit rate (see Plaza, 2010).
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Ekonomická revue – Central European Review of Economic Issues 14, 2011
Products of Google Analytics
The services, which may be used in Google Analytics,
are, for example, analysis and optimisation (Website
Optimiser, webmasters tools, Insights for Search),
advertising (AdWords, AdSense, DoubleClick,
YouTube, Adplanner) and commerce and enterprise
search (CSEs, checkout).
system, a combination of browser and operating
system, how many colors on the screen the visitors
can see, used screen resolution, the version of Flash,
Java support, internet providers, domain name, connection speed etc.
AwStats
Google Analytics can be used by anyone who manages website on the internet, it can be small or large
website company.
The service is a very effective tool which provides
information for managers (it allows one to select the
most effective marketing activities, estimate trends or
patterns of the website traffic, identify profitable
customers or customer segments), marketing specialists (they can find where web visitors come from,
what visitors do on the website, how they can increase
the number of conversions, which keywords are used
by potential customers, which is the most effective
online advertising) and developers of the website (it
can reveal the reasons of web visitor departures).
AwStats is another web analytics tool. This tool
evaluates and displays statistics of access on the
website. Statistics are evaluated regularly every 24
hours during the night hours the previous day.
AwStats is a freely available tool that generates
advanced web, streaming, ftp and e-mail statistics to
graphical form. This method, the measurement according to the log file works as a CGI from the command line and shows all available information contained in the log on a few graphical web pages.
AwStats provides the summary statistics, which
clearly show us where and how many visitors came to
our website. It is also possible to monitor the summary
statistics, but also the statistics of the particular
months of the year, statistics of the days of selected
months, average statistics of days of the weeks or
average statistics of hours.
The principle of Google Analytics
Yahoo! Web analytics
One of the main principles of operation of the Google
Analytics is anonymous observation of web visitors
and how they use the website. It also contains information on where the visitors come from, what they do
on the website, how long they remain and if some of
conversion objectives are achieved. In Google Analytics we can also monitor data of e-commerce combined
with information on conversions and campaigns. This
gives the user all information about the effectiveness
of realized advertising campaigns.
All outputs of the analysis are available to the user
in clear detailed visual reports that can be exported to
various applications such as Microsoft Office Excel.
Yahoo! Web analytics is a tool similar to Google
analytics. It provides free web analytics solution for
every company. In undertaking this analysis each
company will get the view of demographics and
psychographic structure of its web users. The aim of
Yahoo! web analytics is to divide the web users into
different segments. These segments are important for
managing advertising campaigns and because of the
faster and easier targeting of the on-line marketing.
Analysis helps each company coordinate its marketing
campaigns on the Internet to target segments of users.
Google Analytics users
Indicators of Google Analytics
From Google Analytics software we can derive
indicators, such as who, when, and how visited
a website. Among the significant monitored indicators
in terms of Google Analytics belong the number of
visitors, number of unique visitors, an overview of
visitors (the number of new and returning visitors), the
number of page views, average web page views, rate
of exits, timeliness of visits, loyalty visits, an overview of languages, time spent on the website, depth of
visits, an overview of user defined, sources (direct,
referring websites, search engines), content (the
number of page views), a list of objectives (an overview of the conversions).
Among the other monitored indicators are for example the type of used browser, type of operating
Piwik
Piwik is a PHP MySQL software program. Compared
to previous analytical tools the difference is that one
can download and then install their program on his
own web server. This program will enable company to
provide detailed reports on the website in real time –
what web browser was used, what key words were
used, what language users speak, a popular web pages
users, etc.
Other tools
Among other tools of measuring website traffic there
are Yahoo Web Analytics, Piwik, Ommiture, Weblog
Expert, Webalizer, Lyris HQ Web Analytics Solution,
WebTrends Analytics, Site Meter, Coremetrics, etc.
M. Hoďáková, Z. Némethová – The Analysis of the Influence of Selected Factors on Website Traffic
2.2 Advertising on the internet
Online advertising differs from offline advertising and
it allows more efficient targeting of ads, flexibility of
use, clear and easy evaluating the effectiveness of
advertising campaigns. Also online advertising offers
interactivity (see Jahodová and Přikrylová, 2010).
Internet as a medium has the following characteristics – offers a huge range of content, features possibility of a quick update, the global effect, has the ability
of very precise targetting and personalized content
communication, is interactive, fast and continuous, has
easy measurability of results, and evaluate the effectiveness of advertisement etc.
The trend of online advertising is a term of Behavioral Targeting. It is a tool that allows the introduction
of new advertising systems, which help to the most
effective targeting of advertising campaigns. This
method works with the behavior and motivations of
web users while the movement of web pages, the
number of returns, etc. studied here in detail. Visitors
relevant advertising campaign can be done on the
basis of the collection of information about individual
website.
Advertising on the internet offers many advantages, for example a function of a multimedia
presentation (text, sound, images, video, animation,
etc.), flexibility in choice of time and extent of advertisement, offer of an unlimited number of products and
services, selective media (focusing on a target group
of users), rate of the immediate response to online
advertising, scientifically measurable impact of online
advertising)
The aim of online advertising is to influence the
buying behavior of potential customers (see Blažková,
2005). On the Internet each part of the website can be
advertising.
Most often we can meet with a banner advertising.
Banner advertising is particularly suitable for the
presentation of new products, promotion of products
which are rarely search by using key words, to increase brand awareness, to support events, to differentiate brands from competitors, etc.
A special type of advertising is a contextual advertising which is displayed in content (context) network
of website, not in the search network of web search
engines, but on partner websites. The principle of
contextual advertising is that its text is displayed on
a web page, whose content is closely related to the
keyword of the advertisement. Importantly the content
of the message does not correspond with content of
the website on which it is located. Contextual advertising is suitable for products which are not too familiar
to the user searching through web search engines. In
recent years, sales of text ads have substantially
41
increased and have had a large percentage of the
revenues of major internet portals.
Sponsored links are marketing based on web
search engines. Sponsored link of the web search
engines is displayed in the graphical presentation and
is located on the first page of the search engines
before the unpaid links. On the internet there is a huge
number of web pages. Discipline of search engine
marketing or marketing based on web search engines,
is used to find a wbside of a company without any
dificulties.
Another form of advertising is sponsorship of
website. It means that for the money agreed before
hand the provider provides location on a website for
a logo of the advertiser as the sponsor server.
Advertising can also be blind the existence of websites, which then contain a light color advertisement,
non-traditional advertising such as viral marketing,
buzz marketing and advergaming. Another form of
advertising is guerrilla marketing which is related to
the placement of advertising formats in a way which
gives the impression of a part of the Web. In fact, it is
only a fictitious blog or article supporting the product.
Very popular advertisement is email marketing
that sends advertisements through the e-mail. It is very
cheap, easily accessible and highly effective advertising solutions. The approach of companies to email
marketing is different. A company which sends emails at the request of the addressee chooses effective
form of authorization email, while the company which
sends e-mails to all target users without their permission chooses the path of risk – they are sending
unsolicited emails or spam.
3. Analysis of the influence of selected factors on
website traffic
We mentioned that we used school magazine Sokolská
33 which was monitored by Google Analytics for the
period from November 2008 to July 2010 to analyze
data of website traffic.
For the analysis we have established several working hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: There is no influence of the day of a
week on the website traffic;
Hypothesis 2: There is no influence of summer vacation on the website traffic;
Hypothesis 3: There is no influence of advertising
banners on the website traffic;
Hypothesis 4: There is no influence of the length
of banner display on the website traffic;
Hypothesis 5: There is no influence of the subject
of advertising banner on the website traffic.
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Ekonomická revue – Central European Review of Economic Issues 14, 2011
Figure 1 The average website traffic for each day of the week
When we are discussing particular hypotheses we
are interested not only in indicators of overall website
traffic but in some cases we also focus on finding
differences between the behavior of new and returning
visitors.
3.1 Effect of the time period on the website traffic
Analysis of the impact of a time period on web traffic
can be seen from two angles. We are interested into
proving or refuting the impact of the week day and of
the summer holidays in this matter. These two aspects
of time are the most important from the perspective of
the site target group – students and teachers of Faculty
of Economics and their interest in the school magazine.
Influence of the day of a week on the website traffic
Figure 1 shows the average total website traffic and
website traffic for each segment, i.e. a new and returning visitors. The value of the average total website
traffic ranges from 36 (Saturday) to 69 (Tuesday)
visits per day. Important is also the value of the
standard deviation, which is relatively high at all
averages, it reflects higher variability of data.
Figure 1 shows that in the first working days the
website traffic is the highest, at weekends the website
traffic is weaker regardless the segment of web visitors. We verified hypothesis 1 – there is no influence
of the day of the week on the website traffic – with
using analysis of variance – ANOVA. To calculate we
used statistical software SPSS. For more about
ANOVA see Řezanková (2010). The result of the
analysis is shown in Table 1. At 1% level of significance we can reject the null hypothesis of equality
mean values of individual choices, both for overall
website traffic and for both segments (new and returning visitors). Day of the week has an important role in
website traffic of magazine Sokolská 33, in the first
half of the working week website is visited the most,
both total as well as in the case of both segments.
Influence of summer vacation on the website traffic
For evaluation of the second working hypothesis:
There is no influence of summer vacation on the
Table 1 ANOVA (day of the week and website traffic)
Sum of Squares
Visits (all visitors)
Visits (new visitors)
Visits (returning
visitors)
Between Groups
df
Mean Square
F
Sig.
5.178
0.000
4.942
0.000
4.640
0.000
88 173.829
6
14 695.638
Within Groups
1 739 827.492
613
2 838.218
Total
1 828 001.321
619
23 810.632
6
3 968.439
Within Groups
492 268.172
613
803.048
Total
516 078.805
619
20 530.265
6
3 421.711
Within Groups
452 024.669
613
737.398
Total
472 554.934
619
Between Groups
Between Groups
M. Hoďáková, Z. Némethová – The Analysis of the Influence of Selected Factors on Website Traffic
website traffic, we had to divide the calendar year into
two periods, from 1st of September to 30th of June
(school year) and from 1st of July to 31st of August
(holidays). Although it completely does not copy
exam periods and vacation periods of students of
Faculty of Economics, we also took into account
another factors, such as earlier end of the tests and
regular term of graduation – State Examination. We
also took partially into account heterogeneous structure of visitors, which includes not only students and
teachers of the faculty.
Table 2 shows that the average value of website
traffic during the holidays is significantly (more than
three times) lower than the average website traffic
over the school year. It is for both total website traffic
and website traffic of the faculty website. It is important to mention again the high value of standard
deviation from average for the school year. Here is
a high variability of measured website traffic during
the school year.
Table 2 Summary of average website traffic over the school
year and vacation and standard deviation
School year
Vacation
Average
website traffic
50.56
18.41
Deviation from the average
total website traffic
51.87
11.66
For evaluating the second working hypothesis we
used ANOVA. The results are clearly presented in
Table 3. At 1% level of significance we can reject the
hypothesis of equality mean values of both choices.
Thus, there is a significant difference between the
website traffic over the school year and the website
traffic during school vacation. We rejected the second
working hypothesis.
Table 3 ANOVA (website traffic and vacation/school year)
Sum of
Squares
Between
Groups
Within
Groups
Total
98 297.209
df
Mean
Square
F
Sig.
1 98 297.209 35.120 0.000
1 729 704.112 618
2 798.874
1 828 001.321 619
3.2 Influence of advertising banners on the website traffic
The analysis of the impact of advertising banners on
the website traffic of the school newspaper was
divided into two parts. At first, the impact of the
banner as a source of web traffic is examined and then
it is considered which banner content would be more
attractive for the visitors and if the content itself has
an influence on the web traffic.
43
Influence of advertising banner as a source of
website traffic
To determine the influence of advertising banner,
located on the homepage of Faculty of Economics
website, on the website traffic of school magazine
Sokolská 33, we used Pearson correlation coefficient.
More on this coefficient, see Řezanková, 2010. We
used SPSS to calculate the reset which can be seen in
Table 4. The value of the correlation coefficient is
0.993. The closer the value is to 1, the higher the
positive linear relationship between the examined
variables is. At 1% level of significance we can reject
the null hypothesis: Pearson correlation coefficient is
equal to 0. We therefore measured a high degree of
dependence between website traffic through advertising banner and overall website traffic. We say that
there is influence of advertising banners on the website traffic and we reject the third working hypothesis.
Table 4 Correlation
Visits
Pearson
Correlation
Visits
Visits from
www.ekf.vsb.cz
1
0.993**
Sig. (2-tailed)
N
Visits from
www.ekf.vsb.cz
Pearson
Correlation
Sig. (2-tailed)
N
0.000
620
0.993
620
**
1
0.000
620
620
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
Strong positive influence on the total number of
visits of magazine website is demonstrated on the
Figure 2. Grey part – visits from www.ekf.vsb.cz –
nearly copies the total website traffic.
The next step was to verify the fourth working hypothesis, i.e. there is no influence of the length of
banner display on the website traffic. In this case we
compared visits from the website of the Faculty of
Economics through banner and the length of banner
display.
Figure 3 shows the three values at once. Grey area
represents the time series of the share of visits coming
from banner located on www.ekf.vsb.cz on the total
number of visits. The second value represents the
overall long-term average of this ratio, a value of 79%.
This value is very high and again proves that on the
magazine website visitors come mainly through the
banner located on the Faculty website. The third value
is only enhanced data which means publishing banner
on the Faculty website and are shown as dotted line.
The first date of location of banner was
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Ekonomická revue – Central European Review of Economic Issues 14, 2011
400
350
Number of Visits
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
Visits
Visits from www.ekf.vsb.cz
Figure 2 Timeline of the total website traffic and visits from www.ekf.vsb.cz on the website Sokolská33
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
The ratio of visits from the website of the faculty at all visits
Long-term average of the ratio
Figure 3 Publication of new banners and the ratio of visits from the website of the faculty at all visits including long-term
average
M. Hoďáková, Z. Némethová – The Analysis of the Influence of Selected Factors on Website Traffic
45
180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
1
8
15
22
29
36
43
50
57
64
71
78
85
92
99
106
113
120
127
134
141
148
155
162
169
176
183
0
Mean of visits from www.ekf.vsb.cz
Std. deviation of visits from www.ekf.vsb.cz
Figure 4 Average visits from the website www.ekf.vsb.cz and standard deviation from 1st to 187th day banner display
14th of November 2008 (see Table 6) which represents
the beginning of axis x.
When we compare all the three values in Figure 3,
it shows that on the day of publication of an advertising banner on the Faculty website, the percentage of
visits from www.ekf.vsb.cz does not drop below
average value of 79%. In this case we confirmed the
influence of advertising on the website traffic journal.
Figure 4 shows the average number of visits which
come from the Faculty website, in dependence on
which day the banner is displayed on the website.
Start of the x-axis is the first day of banner display.
The figure shows a downward trend of average. For
the first 59 days of banner display we have data from
at least two advertising campaigns but after 59th day,
data is only from one ad campaign. Nevertheless,
other factors can occur, such as beginning of the
school year, which occasionally causes the rise of
website traffic – i.e. click on the website of the magazine.
Psychological limit of 100 visitors of the average
website traffic is exceeded only in the first two days of
the banner. If the editor’s office wanted to maintain
the limit of daily clicks from ads on the website
faculty they would have to update the banner regularly
every two days. This time period is too short to be
able to create a new banner and updated website
contents so frequently. Taking into account that on
average 79% of all visits of the web pages of the
magazine are the visitors from www.ekf.vsb.cz the
limit could be 79 visitors arriving from the website of
the Faculty. That would be maintained for at least
average website traffic of magazine limit of 100
visitors per day. Psychological limit of 79 visits is
provided on the first eight days of banner display. The
standard deviation reaches high values which represents a high variability observed website traffic, i. e.
that in fact the actual value of the website traffic is
very different from the average. So we cannot clearly
say that the first days of banner display will have
indeed highest rate of click.
Table 5 Correlation (day of banner display and visits from www.ekf.vsb.cz)
Day of banner display
Visits from www.ekf.vsb.cz
1.000
–0.666**
Correlation Coefficient
Day of banner
display
Sig. (2-tailed)
N
Visits from
www.ekf.vsb.cz
Correlation Coefficient
Sig. (2-tailed)
N
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
0.000
458
458
–0.666**
1.000
0.000
458
458
46
Ekonomická revue – Central European Review of Economic Issues 14, 2011
To determine the influence of the length of banner
display on website traffic we used Spearman's coefficient of serial correlation. More on this coefficient, see
Řezanková, 2010. Before the actual calculation, we
had to clean the data on cases for which we have not
at least three measurements. The value of the correlation coefficient is shown in Table 5. At 1% level of
significance we reject the hypothesis which means that
the coefficient of correlation has the value of 0.
Between the length of banner location on the home
page of the website of the Faculty of Economics and
the number of visitors coming from this website is
a negative linear relationship. The longer the banner is
displayed, the lower the ratio of click from the website
of the Faculty of Economics is. Our fourth working
hypothesis, which reads: There is no influence of the
length of banner display on the website traffic, was
rejected.
The effect of focus advertising banners on the
website traffic
For the analysis of focus banner we had to divide all
banners into groups according to their focus. We
created three basic groups, i.e. advertising on the
printed edition of the magazine, changes of the website (in terms of new sections, redesign of website)
and advertising of articles related to the events for
students and teachers. Each division is shown in
Table 6.
Table 6 shows that the banners were displayed for
various length of time. In our calculations we took
into account only the first 14 days of banner display.
For this reason a longer delay between banner exchange (eg summer vacation) did not affect the results.
The previous calculations show that the editors should
change banners every 8 days, the maximum length of
14 days we consider sufficient for further analysis.
With using ANOVA we examined whether the
subject of banner influences the website traffic of
magazine. We wanted to know if there is a difference
between the behavior of individual segments, if
returning visitors are interested in other subject than
new visitors. The results are shown in Table 7.
At 1% level of significance we reject the hypothesis of equal mean values of individual choices, both
for overall website traffic and for both segments (new
and returning visitors). The subject of the banner is
important for the evaluation of advertising as a significant source of attracting visitors to the webiste of the
magazine. Table 8 shows that for the web visitors the
banners which relate to the events for teachers and
students are the most interesting, regardless whether
they are new visitors or returning.
Table 6 An overview of banners located on the website www.ekf.vsb.cz
Days
Subject of advertising banner
Group of subject of advertising banners
Day and date of
publication of banner
1
31
The first issue (1/08)
Advertising on the printed edition of the magazine
Fr, 14-Nov-2008
2
39
The second issue (2/08)
Advertising on the printed edition of the magazine
Mo, 15-Dec-2008
3
6
Lecture of Zeman
Advertising on the articles and events
Fr, 23-Jan-2009
4
13
Advertising Online billboard
Changes of the website
Th, 29-Jan-2009
5
7
Magazine launch
Advertising on the articles and events
We, 11-Feb-2009
6
12
New section: Culture
Changes of the website
We, 18-Feb-2009
7
11
The third issue (1/09)
Advertising on the printed edition of the magazine
Mo, 2-Mar-2009
8
45
New section: Sport
Changes of the website
Fr, 13-Mar-2009
9
23
Majales and sports day
Advertising on the articles and events
Mo, 27-Apr-2009
10
187
The fourth issue (2/09)
Advertising on the printed edition of the magazine
We, 20-May-2009
11
49
The fifth issue (3/09)
Advertising on the printed edition of the magazine
Mo, 23-Nov-2009
12
59
The sixth issue (4/09)
Advertising on the printed edition of the magazine
Mo, 11-Jan-2010
13
33
The seventh issue (1/10)
(2 alternating banners)
Advertising on the printed edition of the magazine
Th, 11-Mar-2010
14
7
A workshop was held
Advertising on the articles and events
Tue, 13-Apr-2010
15
17
A new website (2 banners)
Changes of the website
Tue, 20-Apr-2010
16
34
Majáles 2010
Advertising on the articles and events
Fr, 7-May-2010
17
48*
State Examination 2010
Advertising on the articles and events
Th, 10-Jun-2010
* Number is not final, ad is running after the end of the period
M. Hoďáková, Z. Némethová – The Analysis of the Influence of Selected Factors on Website Traffic
Banners with the lowest ratio of click are banners
relating to printed edition of the magazine. For returning visitors the changes of the website (adding new
features, redesign) are more interesting (average 39)
than for new visitors (average 29). The fifth working
hypothesis, i.e. there is no influence of the subject of
advertising banner on the website traffic, was again
rejected. Subject of advertising banner has a significant influence on the website traffic.
4. Discussion
The analysis of website traffic shows a significant
influence of the advertising banner on the website
traffic from linked website. On average less than 80 %
of all the visits of the magazine get on the website
through the banner. To maintain a minimum daily
ratio of visits, i.e. 100 visits, it would be appropriate to
update advertising banner located on the website every
8 days. It is a time limit beyond which the curve of the
average website traffic of Faculty website falls below
value of 80 visits and overall website traffic falls
below 100 visits per day.
It is obvious that there are sites whose web traffic
is dependent on online marketing communications
activities. There is no need for the potential visitors to
47
find the website themselves, but they may be attracted
to the site by its interesting content, and thuse by
definitely well-aimed and created communication
activity. It can be said that websites with possibly
interesting content which do not use online marketing
communications may be confronted with a low web
traffic simply just because the visitors are not able to
find them. Certainly there is an importance of the
offline marketing communications as well. It is
recommended to apply the everywhere you look
approach, which means that each organization owning
the website lists the URL address of its website on all
their promotional materials, advertisements for products, etc. This approach may support the direct entry
of web addresses of the organizations and therefore
also the growth of the total traffic site.
It is also important that web developers think
about why the visitor should return to the site. It is too
expensive and inefficient to attract a visitor who will
visit the site only once with no intend to return. If the
site content is updated frequently and at the same time
it is attractive enough for the visitors, they can learn to
return to the site. This may again show an increase in
web traffic by using the direct web address entering as
the visitors will be interested to find out what is new
on the site.
Table 7 ANOVA (visits and subject of banners)
Sum of Squares
Visits from
www.ekf.vsb.cz
(all visitors)
Visits from
www.ekf.vsb.cz
(new visitors)
Visits from
www.ekf.vsb.cz
(returning visitors)
Between Groups
df
Mean Square
F
Sig.
97.467
0.000
76.963
0.000
101.250
0.000
364 612.511
2
182 306.256
Within Groups
1 154 057.489
617
1 870.434
Total
1 518 670.000
619
Between Groups
83 925.187
2
41 962.593
Within Groups
336 405.484
617
545.228
Total
420 330.671
619
Between Groups
100 883.471
2
50 441.736
Within Groups
307 381.916
617
498.188
Total
408 265.387
619
Table 8 Average number of visits from www.ekf.vsb.cz according to focus banner
Visits from
www.ekf.vsb.cz
(all visitors)
Visits from
www.ekf.vsb.cz
(new visitors)
Visits from
www.ekf.vsb.cz
(returning visitors)
Advertising on the printed edition of the magazine
29.07
14.46
14.60
Changes of the website
67.17
28.57
38.97
Advertising on the articles and events
86.99
43.44
43.12
Total
46.00
22.24
23.73
48
Ekonomická revue – Central European Review of Economic Issues 14, 2011
The visitor may also wait for some kind of a communication message – a momentum that could persuade to the return visit and entice to its content.
Therefore it is efficient to allow site visitors to add the
site to their favourite sites, and where the web site
target group is the population aged between 12–35
years, to share the web site in the social network used
or propose the usage of RSS service. Thus the visitors
can return to the site much more easily and in some
cases they may be informed about the news on the
web site in other cost-effective manners. Of course
a great role is still played by the content of the communication alone.
Editors should focus on the banners focused on
events for students or teachers. These banners were
generally the most attractive. As the banner on the
new printed issue of the magazine is not so interesting
for visitors, I recommend to editors to rotate banner
contents with other banner so that it can maintain
a certain level of the website traffic and it could attract
visitors who are not interested in printed issue so
much. To get returning visitors the banners should
present the informatik about website changes even
though it will not be a radical change. Examples can
be the new sections, new regular articles, the use of
social networks and other actions which will bring
new information to the visitors, but also new opportunities – extension of what the website could deliver so
far.
Another part of our recommendations relates to
a time period. We recommend that the editors place
new banners in the first three working days. In these
days there is the highest website traffic. Combination
of the most popular days and first days of placing the
banner makes the number of clicks the highest, the
combination of these factors could get the highest
effect in the form of increasing website traffic. For the
vacation period (July, August) we do not recommend
to editors to needlessly invest in resources to improve
the website traffic which is at a very low level in this
period, but they should rather spend time by planning
activities for the next school year when the interest in
the website of magazine is growing.
Proper timing of online marketing communication
activity may save the web site operator a considerable
amount of money. Each site should have clearly
defined target group at which it is aimed. Then the
web content and all communication activities should
be adapted to meet the demands of this target group.
The web traffic analysis can help the operator categorize the behavior of their visitors and on the basis of
ascertained outcomes the effective timing of online
communication activity can be established so that its
efficiency is of a great value.
5. Conclusion
The paper dealt with demonstrating the influence of
time and the banner ads on web site traffic by using
a statistical system. The results show that the timing
and attractive content of online communication
message are very important for increasing the web site
traffic. The target group of the site that was used as
groundwork for this paper is mainly formed by students and teachers of the Faculty of Economics.
A summary of results and subsequent recommendations can therefore be used by the organizations that
are focused on the recognized target audience.
The online marketing communication activity
should be planned for one of the first three working
days of the month with an exception of the summer
holidays, when there is no effective endeavor to
promote education and educational institutions as
there is a great lack of interest in the related information. However, it is very important to aim the
content of the message at activities and events that are
meant for the target group. The possibility of finding
out what to attend or to gain in their favour or where
to find a reference about them after the event is ended,
for example in the photo or article, is the most attractive aspect for this target group.
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Additional sources
www.ekf.vsb.cz
www.sokolska33.cz
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