Question
I read the reports but they are still mostly entertainment as I have not learned to take actions that have positive effect on results and sales.
I had five listings ending last night and I thought I would try to see what effect the endings had on the numbers.
I got the totals for the three default reports that show when you open the report page - Page Views, Visits and Storefront Homepage Page Views.
I then stayed away from the eBay site for about two hours before the closings started until 30 minutes after the last closing so that my actions did not effect the numbers.
These are the results (totals for the day) as I understand them.
Views were 144 and increased to 200. OK, 56 pages of my stuff were viewed by people.
Storefront Homepage Page Views - Were 10 and increased to 20. I assume people who looked at my listings made use of the live links in each listing and visited my Store. Not much traffic but the chart shows the visits have ranged from 3 to 70 on different days and, at least, I'm getting some visits to my Store.
Visits - Which is defined as:
A visit is defined as a sequence of consecutive
pages viewed by a single visitor for 30 minutes without a break.
This number was 50 and increased to 78. (net 28 during this time)
What I don't understand is why, with rather low number, 56 page views and 10 Storefront visits I should have 28 visits of a single visitor of 30 minutes or more.
That last number just seems way out of proportion and/or I don't understand the definitions.
Any insights?
Answer
It seems to me that of the 56 pages, 28 were viewed by one eBayer. That person spent more than 30 minutes looking.
Answer
reston,
I think their numbers aren't quite up to snuff yet (or at least am hoping that they get better). There have been some threads on the ebay store board I think about how accurate they are (I think that is where I read it).
I agree, if you had 28 unique visitors in one day then they should have viewed more than that number of pages.
commentary, that report shows that he had 28 visitors that spent at least half an hour on his site that day. Either those people were on incredibly slow dialups or some number doesn't jive because each one spent half an hour and yet he only had 56 pages viewed that day and those page views are total page views. It took them half an hour on average to look at 2 pages??
The visits are only visits (apparently) where they spend at least half an hour, not the ones that look at one page and move on.
ray,
are you using counters on your auctions? I'm not at the moment so can't compare those numbers to the ebay numbers. I think my next batch I will add counters and then compare numbers.
Mel-
Answer
oops, I managed to call you both reston and ray in the same post, sorry! Mr. RR from now on.
Mel-
Answer
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Visits - Which is defined as:
A visit is defined as a sequence of consecutive
pages viewed by a single visitor for 30 minutes without a break.
This number was 50 and increased to 78. (net 28 during this time) <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I do not read the word "unqiue" visitor here. So to me, it seems that the 28 is not unique visitors but part of the sequence of one or more visitors.
Answer
Mr. RR,
I was just re-reading ebays definition of a visit and it sounds like they may NOT be really spending a half an hour each to be counted in that report. Read more towards the bottom of their spiel:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
The Visits Report shows you the number of visits to any of your pages currently being tracked. This includes pages from all of your listings, pages within your store, your Member Profile (feedback), your Seller's Other Items page, and other pages that eBay can identify with a single seller for the selected time period.
A visit is defined as a sequence of consecutive page views without a 30-minute break. A visit always contains one or more page views. A unique visitor always performs at least one, but possibly more, visits.
The beginning of a visit is easily captured and is captured as the Entry Page (currently only Anchor level stores have access to the Entry and Exit Page reports). The end of a visit is not captured as easily. The end of a visit can include the following (non-exhaustive list): When the user follows a link from your listing to a general page in eBay, such as the eBay Homepage. In this instance, that specific listing page is captured as the Exit Page.
When the user closes their browser without exiting your store.
When the user turns off their computer while browsing your store, but without closing their browser.
When a user visits a page off of the eBay site.
Because it is not always clear when the end of the visit occurs, Omniture relies upon the definition used by the web metrics industry: A visit ends when Omniture detects a lapse of 30 minutes or more following a series of page views during that visit to your store, listings, or other tracked pages.
Use this report to:
See total number of visits to your store and your pages on eBay during a selected time period.
Identify the impact of modifications you've made to your store or listings, by viewing the possible changes to total number of visits, average pages per visit, and average time per visit. This information is located at the bottom of the report.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Mel-
Answer
Reston and/or Ray are fine. Mr. is not part of my ID nor something I usually respond to.
Ray will always work but whatever.
I'll try to copy the entire explaination of this report from their site. I must say the more I read it the less I understand what it is reporting.
" Visits Report
The Visits Report shows you the number of visits to any of your pages currently being tracked. This includes pages from all of your listings, pages within your store, your Member Profile (feedback), your Seller's Other Items page, and other pages that eBay can identify with a single seller for the selected time period.
A visit is defined as a sequence of consecutive page views without a 30-minute break. A visit always contains one or more page views. A unique visitor always performs at least one, but possibly more, visits.
The beginning of a visit is easily captured and is captured as the Entry Page (currently only Anchor level stores have access to the Entry and Exit Page reports). The end of a visit is not captured as easily. The end of a visit can include the following (non-exhaustive list): When the user follows a link from your listing to a general page in eBay, such as the eBay Homepage. In this instance, that specific listing page is captured as the Exit Page.
When the user closes their browser without exiting your store.
When the user turns off their computer while browsing your store, but without closing their browser.
When a user visits a page off of the eBay site.
Because it is not always clear when the end of the visit occurs, Omniture relies upon the definition used by the web metrics industry: A visit ends when Omniture detects a lapse of 30 minutes or more following a series of page views during that visit to your store, listings, or other tracked pages.
Use this report to:
See total number of visits to your store and your pages on eBay during a selected time period.
Identify the impact of modifications you've made to your store or listings, by viewing the possible changes to total number of visits, average pages per visit, and average time per visit. This information is located at the bottom of the report."
****************************************
It's the 30 minute comment that has me confused. Since they also say that really is not accurate, I guess it really is just visits of any duration.
Does this show people who might visit one or more pages (and may comeback after leaving, to visit again)
If this last explaination is correct then the numbers are in balance.
This time period would have had 28 unique visits (not necessarially unique visitors as someone may return 2 or more time).
During the 28 visits there were 56 pages viewed including 10 views of the Store front page.
Am I starting to understand?
Answer
Mel
I do have counters in most of my listings (most, but not all listings, are done in SAB where they are included automatically)
I have not charted counter results and make sparse use of the information.