It’s exciting to be part of a growing blog…I must admit one of the first things I do in the morning is visit Get Elastic to check the Feedburner stats. So today was very exciting to see our subscriber count crack the 4,000 mark, making Get Elastic the most subscribed e-commerce blog in the world. So a big thank you to all of our valued readers who have subscribed, shared with friends and co-workers, bookmarked, blogged about and linked to Get Elastic and attended our webinars! Like they say on the airplanes, “we know you have options, thank you for flying with us.”

If you’d like to find more ecommerce blogs to subscribe to, I posted a list of as many as I’m aware of a while back, as well as non-blog resources for ecommerce topics.

And if you’re a new subscriber this week, welcome! Friday’s are traditionally link lists to recognize other blog posts that are helpful to online retailers.

• Do testimonials help or hurt? You’ll never know for sure until you do your own testing, but before you test, you will benefit from the expert testing done by others. Marketing Experiments recently offered a free webinar on testimonial optimization. You can catch the replay of Are Your Testimonials Properly Optimized? complete with case studies.

• Marketing bloggers are also web shoppers - and often our blog content is born out of personal experiences, positive and negative. Tim Peter and Andy Beal share their experiences this week, reminding us that customers don’t want to buy the wrong thing and overnight shipping shouldn’t take a week.

• Invesp Consulting has a 2 part series on choosing an ecommerce platform, do check out Part 1 and Part 2. And don’t forget next month’s webinar is all about the ecommerce platform decision. (Though we are an ecommerce software company, the webinar will not be self-promotional).

• Before you get too excited about Google’s improved Flash indexing, read Rand Fishkin’s 7 Compelling Reasons Search Engines and Flash Still Don’t Mix for a reality check. If your ecommerce site is still full Flash, remember your content still exists on one URL, among other issues.

• Don’t have the budget for comparison engines but still want to play in the channel? Kevin Packler provides tips on how to optimize for Google Product Search over at the Mercent Blog.

• Chad White spotted an email-contest idea from Circuit City - have customers create wishlists, register for an account and be entered into a $1000 sweepstakes draw. Chad notes this type of promotion encourages browsing and product attachment, not just entering a name and email in a draw.

We were thrilled to have Avinash Kaushik join us for 3 Things to Die For: Web Analytics Unleashed today. It was an information-packed hour with a brief question and answer period, but Avinash has a reputation for being very helpful answering questions via email and has invited you to get in touch with him to provide your feedback at ak AT marketmotive.com. Also, do not hesitate to post your questions in the comments of this post.

Even though this was an ecommerce webinar, everything Avinash talked about is useful to anyone with a website. If you missed it, want to bookmark the replay for future reference or forward this webinar to a friend, client or colleague, the 3 Things to Die For: Web Analytics Unleashed replay will be posted ASAP. You can also catch all our previous webinars in our archive.

(The winner of the signed copy of Web Analytics: An Hour a Day will be announced in our RSS feed, have you subscribed to Get Elastic yet?

Context (framework)

Data, data everywhere.

In the past, there was a quest to acquire lots and lots of analytics data. If one found himself unable to make decisions, it was from a lack of data. But in reality, we have access to way more data than we know what to do with. Companies will not die from lack of data!

The goal is not to collect more data – it’s about extracting insight from this data. Clickstream data is great to help understand the “what” – which products sold, what people do within the cart, where did visitors come from. But clickstream doesn’t address the “why” of visitor behavior. Many believe “if only I had enough path analysis data, I would understand the why.” The reality is, the web is a personal medium. Clickstream data alone is insufficient to explain the “why.”

Solution? Web Analytics 2.0

Reports doesn’t measure outcomes. So it’s key to expand the number of sources you have access to. Avinash lays the framework like this:

THE WHAT: Clickstream data
HOW MUCH: Multiple outcomes analysis (measuring micro and macro conversions)
THE WHY: Experimentation and testing (A/B, A/B/C and multivariate), voice of customer (surveys)
THE WHAT ELSE: Competitive intelligence (understanding whats going on outside your business, useful for benchmarking)
THE GOLD: Insights

This webinar’s focus is on The How Much and The Why. As wonderful as clickstream data is, ttesting and things you can take back to your business.

Insightful Outcomes from Measuring Multiple Goals (The How Much)

Most ecommerce folks have an obsession with conversion rate. This is a classic mistake, as it’s only one way to measure the direct value added by your website. Shop.org reports the average conversion rate for ecommerce websites as 1.74%. That means 98% + are doing something else on the website. Many of these things are actually micro-conversions such as:

• Attracting leads for your business, or offline conversions

• Improves customer satisfaction
• Establishes you as a thought-leader or information resource (blog, articles, reports, guides)
• Attracts human resources
• Et cetera…

Every ecommerce and non-ecommerce website can learn more about how your website is truly adding value / impact to your business by focusing on the “non-converting” visits and measuring successes from them. This subtle shift in thinking will also help you value your website a lot more.

Avinash cited an example of how one company believed its website was adding $13 Million of value before measuring micro-conversions, and after realized it was really “worth” $43 Million to the business.

Assigning “Fake Dollars”

Even though Avinash’s blog is not an ecommerce site, he measures “All Posts” clicks, as it’s a stepping stone to becoming a subscriber (in the sense it measures deep interest in his content). He also tracks “About” page views - that makes him happy. He also measures page views for his Speaking Engagements page. With each goal assigned a dollar value, Avinash concluded his blog accounts for $19,000 of value overall.

Measuring this and trending it over time is key to showing decision makers the value of the website and almost always leads to better questions.

Avinash used Fidelity Investments as an example. Since Fidelity does a lot of business in its physical locations, measuring the sue of the zipcode search box can show you customer intent by geography.

Repeat Visitors. Loyalty is certainly a measure of success. You should look at distributions of data – perhaps 40% visit once, and 2.80% visit 201+ times per month. You want to understand what kinds of content your loyal visitors are consuming. What kind of cross sells can you show them? And so on.

Visitor Recency. Another measure of success is visitor recency. Who comes every day and why? How can you better meet their needs?

Pay attention to visit number, time since previous visit, depth of visit (page views) and length of visits (seconds).

So, it’s very important to figure out what are the multiple goals, and ask yourself “am I doing anything for the 98% that are not converting?” And, “how do I extract value from that?” Measure outcomes first, then look for reasons and things to fix.

Your ecommerce website is not a one night stand. Understand how many visits are made before conversion with Visits to Purchase and Days to Purchase. Then, segment by acquisition channel to understand the differences in behavior from visitors who arrive through affiliate links vs. PPC vs. organic and so on. Paid search traffic (research mode) may take a few visits to convert. Pre-sold affiliate traffic may convert right away. Understand why your goals are or are not being accomplished.

Your Top Landing Page reports are a great place to start, then segment by traffic source.

Capturing the Voice of the Customer (The Why)

This is about giving a real voice to people on your website – not a fake voice. Give site visitors a channel to communicate and they will. The best way is to use surveys on-exit (not to interrupt the visit).

Avinash says the greatest survey in the world has 3 questions.

Why are you here? Your survey could have the following fields:

• Researching

• Looking to purchase
• Product / service support
• Check product order status
• Register a product
• Update information
• Other

Were you able to complete your task? Yes / No

This is important. What if 44% of your customers report that they were looking to purchase and couldn’t complete the task?!

If you couldn’t complete, why not?

Pay attention to the feedback! Look for “segments of discontent” and really understand what are the things that are broken. Not your web usability team pontificating on what might be wrong, but really using that customer feedback.

Avinash and iPerceptions have created 4Q, an on-exit survey that uses these key question. Oh yes, it’s also free!

Experimentation and Testing

You may have heard that many decisions are the result of the HiPPO, or Highest Paid Person’s Opinion. (Did you know this was coined by Avinash’s former employer, Intuit?) Perhaps the HiPPO is responsible for the home page design and content, and it’s hard for you to argue against the HiPPO!

A tip: Learn to prove HiPPOs wrong and quickly. Then you can create an “ideas democracy” where
everyone in the company has an equal voice and are allowed to try ideas. Google Website Optimizer can do A/B/C testing for free, or use a paid tool like Offermatica. But use something! Small, big or medium sized business, anyone can get their hands on a tool and get testing in as little as 6.5 minutes!

The simple A/B or A/B/C test is running 2 versions of a page, with one variable on each page. You are testing to see which version of the variable (like home page image, or headline) performs better against the “control” version.

MVT or “multivariate testing” is a bit sexier. Catch the webinar replay to find out if an endorsement from Oprah can sell more popcorn than a plug from the Today Show. Thanks to MVT, a popcorn e-tailer tested these 2 endorsements with various text promotions at the same time: Spotlight Gift vs. Spotlight Product vs. Customer Favorite, vs. Customer Favorite with Image A (Bags) Image B (tubs).

In this case, Combination 11, with 99% confidence, improved conversion by 24.9%.

Surveys and testing are essential to achieving True Customer Centricity. Involve customers in your website decision making process and you can make better decisions.

One more thing…

Avinash has a word of wisdom he calls the 10/90 Rule: of every $100 you have to spend on web analytics, spend $10 on the tool and $90 on great brains (your web analyst, and not someone who will just “puke reports.” Invest in good people, and even hire a consultant for a few months before bringing someone in house.

Questions

1. Should you implement surveys at the beginning, in the middle, upon exit or post-transaction?

Avinash has experimented with different approaches and prefers on exit pops up when people leave your website. The advantage is you don’t interrupt them in any way (better response quality, better participation rates). Another way is serving pop-under surveys to visitors who engage a bit more with your site than the typical visitor. The pop-under will be noticed when they close the browser.

2. Surveys and analytics – what to test first if you have limited resources?

Avinash would pick surveys because, even though there is a lot of data in analytics, but if you’re not giving your customers a voice, it’s very difficult to be customer centric. Give your customers a feedback channel. Then you go fix those problems you have on your website.

However, this doesn’t have to be either/or. Both analytics and surveys are available free through Google Analytics of 4Q.

Start with A/B testing - it’s straightforward and easy to do. Make dramatic changes and test them. Then tackle multivariate tests, with small tweaks here and there. Start with high Bounce Rate pages in your testing.

Further Reading

Avinash also sent through some links to information for some questions that didn’t get a chance to be answered in the short 60 minutes we had available. Thanks, Avinash!

A Web Analytics Primer (Do These Five Things First).
http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2007/12/web-analytics-demystified.html

Experimentation and Testing: A Primer
http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2006/05/experimentation-and-testing-a-primer.html

The Three Greatest Survey Questions Ever
http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2007/04/the-three-greatest-survey-questions-ever.html

Surveys Done Right. Tips, Best Practices, Recommendations
http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2006/05/got-surveys-recommendations-from-the-trenches.html

Six Rules For Creating A Data Driven Boss!
http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2007/10/six-rules-for-creating-a-data-driven-boss.html

How To Excite People About Web Analytics: Five Tips.
http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2008/04/how-to-excite-people-about-web-analytics-five-tips.html

Again, you can contact Avinash at:

ak AT marketmotive.com
Kaushik.net

And don’t miss next month’s webinar with Bernardine Wu, CEO of FitForCommerce:

The Art & Science of Choosing Ecommerce Technology

Thursday, Aug 14th 2008
9 am PST, 12 pm EST
Sign up today!

Also, if you missed Jason’s interview with Bernardine at the Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition in Chicago, you can check it out here.

Out of all the Internet Retailer Top 500, I’ve only found one that offers incentives to web surfers who look around without purchasing. When you close your browser tab or window, a pop-up chat window appears:

123Inkjets.com is using UpSellit.com’s SMARTagent product to re-engage visitors that exit prematurely from the site, the cart or a form. According to UpSellit, clients see sales increases of 5-20%.

It appears site visitors only have one go at the offer. If you close the box and return again on the same day it won’t pop back up. Of course, it could use browser cookies and it could reappear after cookies expire or you delete them.

Running ads on your ecommerce website can be very confusing to customers, especially when it competes with the product image or resembles a customer service function like live chat.

*Shudder*

Tamara Adlin shares other examples of bad, bad, bad, bad ads on her blog, Corporate Underpants. And no, in this case bad does not mean good.

As email marketers, we never know what mindset email recipients will be in at any given time. So a good idea is to design your copy and creative to speak to all personality types/buying modalities: competitive, spontaneous, methodical and humanistic. If this makes you go “hmmm?” make sure you check out our explanation of the buying modes in our personas webinar and webinar recap.

For example, I’m in the market for a GPS. I’m not actively researching one right now, but it’s “on my radar.” Being methodical, I usually research the heck out of something before I buy. I read reviews, compare products, compare retailers. I just don’t have the time to look into my GPS purchase now.

But I recently received an email that caught my attention. The headline read:

“Initial GPS is All Sold Out! Here’s A Magellan Instead from Comp-U-Plus!”

Though I’m usually methodical, if an email like this could cut out my research time and tell me why I can’t go wrong with {featured product} and give me a deal - I just might wax spontaneous and convert today.

So, how does Comp-U-Plus “speak” to all four buying modes in this email? Let’s break it down:

Headline

This would have made a good trigger email if I had viewed the Initial GPS recently on Comp-U-Plus as a registered, logged in customer. Or if I had added it to my cart and abandoned the purchase. But since that’s not the case, I assume this email was sent to all subscribers.

First off, some people may be confused by the wording of this headline. “Initial” is a brand of GPS (I was not aware prior to this email), but also is an adjective, noun and verb. Worst case scenario, the message comes across as:

“Our first GPS is All Sold Out! Here’s Our Second Best Instead!”

or

“GPS Personalized With Your Initials are All Sold Out, But We’ve Got Magellan”

Okay, maybe this is a stretch, but these are examples of lost-in-translation subject lines.

Assuming there’s no confusion, this headline may appeal to the competitive shopper, who responds to best-seller merchandising. Unfortunately, competitives also want to own the best-seller, so offering a “consolation prize” is counter-productive. Same with humanistics who trust others’ opinions. If so many people love the Initial, what about the Magellan makes it equally attractive?

Really, the body of this email needs to give compelling and persuasive back-up for why someone should buy a Magellan today from Comp-U-Plus instead of buying an the Initial from a competitor.

Before we move on, please note that nowhere in the email does Comp-U-Plus address back-orders or restocking of the Initial.

Competitive Shoppers

• Likes to be the first to own a product, responds to new items, featured or best-sellers. Naturally, competitives want to win, so “…consolation prize! Grab it before it’s gone too!” is fitting - although consolation prize does suggest someone is not a winner…

• “…fastest GPS position accuracy in the industry” is a powerful selling proposition. The product description would serve competitives who prefer to scan copy better as a bullet list.

• Competitives are less likely to comparison shop and read lots of text, so making a compelling sales pitch in the email copy is essential. This text is also readable with images off.

• Offering exclusive web-only prices for a limited time speaks to competitives who like to have the edge on the regular folk.

Spontaneous Shoppers

• Responds to sales, discounts, limited stock and time-limited offers (like day-only sales), so this campaign is appropriate.

• Spontaneous are text scanners, so bullets would be better here, too. They like to see products in action, a link to a demo video would be great. Or an enlarged image.

• They’re interested in what others bought, and how popular. Including a customer review star-rating and “how many” reviews there are for the Maestro model may help that spontaneous conversion.

Methodical Shoppers

• Likes product details, very thorough in researching a purchase. So providing a product description and link to more details is great.

• Unfortunately, the product description doesn’t explain how the Maestro model is comparable to the Initial. Methodicals like side-by-side comparisons.

• “Fastest GPS position accuracy in the industry” is a powerful selling proposition - but as a methodical, I want back-up and proof before I believe the hype. But if I’m really interested I will read more, and hope the site has enough information for me to make the right decision.

• I like the phone number option, I can ask questions of the CSR in real-time. I just hope the CSR is knowledgable about the product.

Humanistic Shoppers

• Star ratings and a sample review would help persuade humanistics, who value the opinions of others. The telephone number is great too, he or she knows a person is available to talk through the purchase and answer questions.

The gratuitous use of exclamation points aside, Comp-U-Plus’ email includes something for every buying mode. It also provides links to other categories if the featured offer doesn’t do it for you.

My recommendations would be to tweak the copy to include:

• Bullet points to make it easier to scan

• An average star rating and link to all reviews (unfortunately there are none that belong to Comp-U-Plus.com)
• Some idea of how the Maestro compares to the Initial
• Information on how to backorder the Initial.

And the landing page could definitely use some optimization:

There’s no price on the landing page to confirm the promise made in the email (you have to click to see a pop-up, but that’s confusing). If you need to hide prices from the public because they are so low, you could create a custom landing page for your email campaign that’s not linked to from the rest of your site (like you would for an A/B test) and show the price.

What’s worse is the recommendations for similar items, with star ratings, from other retailers (powered by Shopping.com) appear on the landing page.

*Smacks head*

Just a friendly Friday reminder to reserve your spot for next Thursday’s webinar with Avinash Kaushik, 3 Things to Die For: Web Analytics Unleashed.

Response has been overwhelming and there are limited spaces. Again, this free, one hour class will include a time for questions with Avinash at the end, and every attendee is eligible to win a copy of Web Analytics: An Hour a Day. So sign up today!

You can also catch up with a whole year’s worth of webinars in our archive.

Big day for Get Elastic today, Marketing Pilgrim announced that 8 Stupid Things Webmasters Do to Mess Up Their Analytics captured first prize in the 3rd Annual SEM Scholarship contest. Big thanks to all of you who supported me by checking out the article, blogging about it, Sphinning, Stumbling and socially-bookmarking it!

And for you analytics buffs, did I mention we’ll be chatting for a full hour on web analytics with Avinash Kaushik next week?

If you’re new here (maybe you followed the link from Marketing Pilgrim or found us through a search engine today), every Friday we link out to others, but if you’re looking for the best of Get Elastic, you can check out the Best of the Blog to your right, or check out Why Ecommerce is a Lot Like ICanHasCheezburger which links to my favorite posts organized by topic. This should keep you busy for a while, and if you like our stuff, please subscribe!

Okay, without further ado, here are the links for the week:

• Big news from Google, you can now see hard search volume numbers with the Google Keyword Tool. This is really helpful for your keyword research that you can apply to all areas of marketing: organic SEO, PPC, email marketing, etc.

• Is your copy optimized for skimming and scanning? Some great tips from GrokDotCom.

• It’s always hard to pick just one article from Grok, so here’s a couple more: How to do A/B Testing on Lower Traffic Sites and 5 Copywriting Keys to Landing Page Credibility.

• Yep, it’s that time of year again - Christmas is just around the corner and according to Internet Retailer, you should be ready to promote by October. Join Sitebrand on July 30 for a quick 29 minute webinar and learn what was Danskin’s secret to Cyber Monday success.

• If you’re jonesing for even more ecommerce posts, the German hit Exciting Commerce has launched an English edition, highlighting new business models and emerging markets in ecommerce.

• Tom Lindmeier, Get Elastic reader, blogger friend and former director of e-commerce for a Top 500 retailer is available for e-mail marketing consulting. Thought you might be interested…

A conversation emerged out of the comments on last week’s post Can Product Images Improve Conversion? Showing Products in Context about how to achieve a “ghost” mannequin effect like these examples, where the body is filled out, you can see through the V-line but the mannequin is invisible.

As the post explained, showing products “in context” can be more persuasive than flat images - models and mannequins give customers an idea of how a garment fits a real person. I recently researched how to achieve the invisible mannequin look and found answers like:

Make a mannequin out of a very open wire mesh, and then edit the mesh out in post. You could even paint the mesh with green or something like that and chroma-key it out.

Make a mannequin out of a thin, cheap material (perhaps even wire mesh again) and put the garment on it, and position the camera. Then, start cutting away the mannequin in all the places where it’s visible to the camera, even with the shirt over it. You’d end up cutting off it’s left arm, part of it’s left ’shoulder blade’ and some stuff around the neck.

-djlemma, from Flickr discussion

and

Looking at a few of the examples I reckon the mannequin is being chopped out. Looking at some of the tops you can see no back to the item even if there is a lower front if you see what I mean.

An ideal solution could be to get a mannequin and a background with a strong colour. Take the photo then in Photoshop make a clear layer below the image layer so you have a transparent background. On the photo layer click the Select main menu item and choose “Color range” and click the mannequin colour on the photo. It should select just this colour, use the sensitivity slider to get the best selection and the just cut it out. Do the same with the background. It is not the quickest but compared to hand tracing each item and mannequin area it would potentially save a lot of time.

-MickeyFinn, from Freelance UK Forums

I noticed a couple photographers left comments on our post, so I tossed out the question, what’s the best way to achieve the ghost mannequin look? Anna Yeaman, professional photographer who specializes in product photography for apparel and accessories shared the following:

Two years ago I tried plastic and wireframe mannequins to achieve the “ghost” effect but I was not happy with the results. Also this limits the types of mannequin you can use.

I sometimes combine two images in Photoshop if its just a small part of the label I’m after.

I never found a simple way to do this in-camera, I decided that there must be custom made mannequins out there but could never find them. I considered taking a saw to one of my own and cutting out the chest area!

I’m going to renew my efforts and contact some websites using this effect. I will let you know how it goes. Most of my clients are after the Bluefly.com look and don’t mind the mannequin.

One thing I do a lot is take a photo on a mannequin, in Photoshop I edit out parts of the mannequin that are showing (around the hem, arms ect). You end up with an item with shape and form without a mannequin showing, but you cannot see through to the back…We take multiple angle shots and close ups of every item instead.

I have a hook that I hang bags off, then I edit it out later in Photoshop. For earrings I use clear fishing wire (craft shop), the earrings hang perfectly and the wire is invisible. I also use a clear plastic board for studs (I drilled a small hole) and clip ons (clip onto the bottom).

In a follow-up comment:

I contacted a bunch of product photographers to find out how they achieved the “ghost” effect.

John Gibbens of, G2 Catalog Design sent me this reply,

“We either shoot two images and piece together or we use an inexpensive plastic mannequin supported from below (for shirt/jacket images) whose neck is cut down below the open neckline. We then keep a couple different lengths of removable arms to fill sleeves - long arms with hands cut off for long-sleeve items and shorter arms for short sleeve garments.”

So we can conclude that the invisible mannequin look, though very slick, takes a bit of pre and post production effort. Another alternative would be to shoot a flat image and mannequin shot, so customers can still see the product on a form and see through the V-line. Works for Net-A-Porter…

Last Christmas, I picked myself up a copy of Avinash Kaushik’s Web Analytics: An Hour a Day. (I read about 50 marketing and ecommerce blog feeds each week, so it’s a real treat to read top-notch marketing material offline from time to time). And now with the warm and sunny weather, I’m finding myself sneaking outside for around an hour a day to give it a second run through.

Since we’re having Avinash as our webinar guest this month, I figured now’s a good time to share my review of the book with Get Elastic readers.

Who It’s For

Web Analytics: An Hour a Day by Avinash Kaushik is a great primer on web analytics for any webmaster, business owner, programmer or marketer. You don’t have to be a techie to “get it.” In fact, if you’re not a techie, you should read it simply to understand the basics of how data is collected on the web.

Because web analytics is as much art as science (perhaps more so), even seasoned web analysts can glean from Avinash’s strategies, tips and tactics. Plus, page 85 to 92 is all about what makes a great web analyst (aren’t you curious?), and there is an advanced analytics chapter that is sure to challenge your thinking.

Although Avinash is Google Analytics’ ambassador, it’s not a Google Analytics guide, nor is it biased to any particular analytics tool. The principles can be applied to free, mid-sized or enterprise tools.

Format

Web Analytics: An Hour a Day starts off with a few chapters to bring you up to speed on what analytics is, the different tools available and how they work, types of data and common challenges of web analytics. You’ll learn the “what,” the “why you should care” and the “what you should care about” of each item.

This is followed up with invaluable advice on what to look for in a Web analyst, a detailed guide to choosing the best analytics solution for your business (without finding out after spending a ton of money that it was the wrong tool) and how to ensure your tracking is set up properly.

Once you’re settled with your tool, the book continues with an 8 month plan for understanding the major capabilities of web analytics in — you got it — an hour a day. Each day you’ll do a little bit of reading, and the rest of the hour you’re hands on with your data. Kaushik covers all the bases - SEO, search engine marketing (PPC), internal site search, email marketing, multi-channel marketing, blogging and RSS tracking.

The content in Web Analytics: An Hour a Day is valuable for anyone who is involved in ecommerce - even if your title is not “Web Analyst.” Just like you must understand financial statements and balance sheets, even if you have an accountant, Web Analytics: An Hour A Day will help you understand your analytics data and reports.

Win a Copy of Web Analytics: An Hour a Day

If you haven’t read Web Analytics: An Hour a Day (or even if you have), please sign up for our upcoming Webinar, Thursday, July 17. Avinash will be presenting 3 Things to Die For: Web Analytics Unleashed, and every participant is eligible to win one of 6 signed copies of Web Analytics: An Hour a Day. And if you have a burning question for the analytics master, this is your chance as there is time for questions at the end. For details, and to sign up click here.

You’ll also do yourself a favor by checking out Avinash’s blog Occam’s Razor. It’s top notch content, and he responds thoughtfully to every comment and email. There’s an archive of podcasts and other media coverage on his blog, which will tide you over until next Thursday.

Luxury retailer Cartier recently launched a MySpace presence for its Love by Cartier campaign. But it faces an interesting reputation management issue: since MySpace already has hundreds of profiles that use the name Cartier (it is a surname, after all).

If you type in “Cartier MySpace” in Google, this is what you get:

If someone really wants to find the page, they may head over to MySpace and use it’s site search box, and still not find the official page:

You have to type “Love By Cartier” in Google or MySpace to get the link to the Cartier MySpace page (at time of posting, algorithm changes or incoming links to Cartier’s page may change that).

Yahoo’s algorithm does select the right page for “Cartier MySpace”:

Though you can’t control how Google matches pages to the search term (duplicate content filter in action), you can build links to the page you want to rank well to help boost its “Page Rank” which may cause it to beat out other pages in the search engine’s index. (If the search engine indexed 500+ pages from MySpace relevant to the term “Cartier”, it only picks 1 to show in search results, 2 if it uses an indented second result).

Cartier could also nag MySpace to tweak its internal search to rank its page tops for “Cartier” searches, especially since this is an advertising partnership between the two.

This is also an example of why brands should really claim their social network profile names / domains / Facebook Pages and Groups proactively, even if they just sit on them. It’s easy for net citizens to beat you to the punch which makes it harder for you to be found in search engines and social network searches.