Instructions: Replies to the students below must be substantive and add to each individual discussion and overall classroom discussion in a minimum of 200 words. See the original discussion question below to better understand the topic.

ORIGINAL Discussion Points: Define and discuss Statistical Significance as it pertains to web analytics, formulate your own opinions of what this means. In addition, discuss Segmentation and the different ways of using its power.

STUDENT 1: Victoria

Hello everyone,

I mentioned this in my other forum for this week, but I am amazed by how quickly the time has passed and the fact we are already on week seven! Great work from everyone so far. We're almost there!

Statistical significance simply means that a certain statistic is reliable after numerous amounts of testing (Statpac, n.d.). Several people misuse this term as the word 'significance' can make something seem larger than life, or at the very least, more important than it actually is, but the term quite simply refers to consistent results across several tests. As you can imagine, this has a relevance in web analytics simply because it is consistent data to base changes or updates on. For example, if a website has statistical significance that female readers interact with content more often than male readers, they may make a decision based on this data – such as, making more content for women to continue appeasing their existing userbase.

Segmentation allows the breaking down of data for proper analyzing techniques. In my opinion, segmentation is not only a crucial part of keeping data organized, but also interpreting it. Without the ability to create subgroups to compare and contrast bits of data to, there is no purpose in collecting the obscene amount of data available from users interacting with a website. The ability to break data down into smaller chunks, and in several different ways, leads to more accurate results in data interpretation, and thus, better implementation, and finally, happier users. Without segmentation, this process would take a severe hit and start a domino effect of bad data interpretation.

Thanks for reading, everyone, and have a great rest of your week.

Tori

Statpac. (n.d.). Statistical Significance. [online] Available at: https://www.statpac.com/surveys/statistical-signif… [Accessed 21 Mar. 2018].

STUDENT 2:Jacob

“Statistical significance helps quantify whether a result is likely due to chance or to some factor of interest” (Redman, 2016). This topic was a bit confusing at first as I couldn’t really tell if it was the result of a testing or the confidence that the results are what they appear to be. End of the day what I got from the whole topic is that the larger the testing group the less likely that the results will be random. I believe that this should always be taken into consideration when conducting analysis as having skewed results can impact the results and can influence action to be taken that are based incorrect information.

Segmentation can play a critical role in analysis of your website, but only if the correct information is gathered and processed. “You must keep in mind, that when segmenting you are trying to answer a dire in need question, this is why you are segmenting in the first place. (Galvan).The most referenced segmentation that I saw during this research was that of first time customers versus the return customer. This divide can display ample amount of information such as how often customers are returning to your site, which would display a level of customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. This information alone could assist in the improvement of your website. Other segmentations that could be established if enough information is attained gender, age group and location. This information could be used to target specific areas, improve areas that are less efficient and create a tailored marketing campaign.