Information about who's visiting web sites and watching webcasts can develop IR strategy
Too much information. It's a regular complaint of those new to the online world: what's the point in having all this information at your fingertips if you can't sort the wheat from the chaff?
The same might be said of the ways in which web site traffic is monitored. Sure, you can monitor every visitor to your site, you can even see what they did while clicking through the pages. It's streets ahead of the feedback you receive from sending out a printed document. But what's the use?
In many cases, generic web logs only tell you the basic hit rates and may not even split them down into geographic area, let alone tell you that your favorite fund manager took the time to flick through one of your latest presentations.
Some of the problem lies with the anonymity afforded by the web. Most web traffic reports identify users based on their web – or IP (internet protocol) – address. That's fine when those addresses reveal all you want to know about the visitor: location, company and all. It is less handy when many users hide behind a single address or internet domain. AOL is the obvious example here with thousands of users around the globe and little way of distinguishing between them.
Many large companies also have servers that mask the particular user or, at the very least, reveal little about where they are located. For example, while it may be good to know that someone from UBS Warburg has looked at your latest presentation on the web for ten minutes, it doesn't really help you narrow down who it was, which city they're in, or the best way to follow up on their interest.
Information clamor
Luckily, there are ways and means of getting round the problem. And IROs are clamoring for more information as they seek to prove that devoting scarce budget dollars to the site is worthwhile or that key investors are tuning in to webcasts and the like.
'Given enough time and money you can do almost anything with the data,' says Mark Hill, managing director of the London-based IR Group. His company has built its own software to help clients resolve IP addresses and give them that extra information edge. He reckons most visitors – AOL members excluded – can now be traced to within 50 miles of where they are located.
The real challenge lies in tying a particular person to a particular session so that the IR team can follow up safe in the knowledge that there is real interest in one particular area. 'You could blow your brain with all the things you could measure. The trick lies in turning that information into a practical tool,' Hill says.
It also depends on how far you want to go with your analysis. Some IROs are content to see that x number of visitors took a look through their site and that the majority started off their sessions from, say, the corporate governance page. That type of information is readily available and can be put to good use next time the IR site is redeveloped or, on a more regular basis, by simply highlighting quick access buttons on the IR home page. If you find the corporate governance section popular, it makes sense to make it more easily accessible.
Even if the extremely detailed visitor analysis through IP addresses is restricted to the leading IR teams willing to part with big bucks, more and more IROs are demanding frequent updates of who is going where on their sites. Many agencies use generic web traffic reporting packages like Web Trends to provide a basic service and then add to it according to the needs of the client.
Such reports usually need some extra explanation to break down the differences between various ways of describing the data. For example, hits, page impressions and site visits can give widely varying accounts of user activity. The web traffic statistical information can then be bolstered by adding in visitor analysis available through other means, such as the registration pages for specific events.
'The feedback should have an impact on overall communications strategy,' states Rupert Spiegelberg, European director at Investis in London. He points out that several of his clients have rearranged the order of their interactive annual reports as a result of monitoring traffic.
The same information could provide companies with valuable insight into how to structure the printed report, too. Indeed, Investis recently looked at the traffic on the web sites of companies with lots of retail investors, and compared it to how more institutionally-oriented sites are used. The results give some clear guidance on site structure according to which camp your company falls into (see sidebar, Who's watching what?).
Spiegelberg suggests that the best tactic for IROs to take is to mix their site's web-tracking statistics with direct feedback from the site. The latter might include e-mail alert systems, report requests or webcast registration. All these tools get visitors to submit information which can help IROs create their own database of visitors. Together with IP addresses, this can create a bigger picture of what visitors find useful.
Popular pages
Will Flower, vice president of communications at Republic Services, a Florida-based company, is a heavy user of web feedback: 'We look closely at where people are going on the site, particularly the most sought after pages. The tools we use allow us to track what kind of investors are looking at us and what they're interested in.'
Flower puts the information on which pages have been visited together with the requests that come in for services such as e-mail alerts to gain a better idea of who uses what and how the site could be improved in the future.
It's not just the main IR site where this traffic information comes in handy, however. Flower carefully monitors who logs onto Republic's earnings results webcasts and uses that information to check back on whether they found the call useful and how it could be improved in the future. There is also the potential to target new investors who log on for the first time.
Most of Flower's web feedback comes directly from CCBN, which hosts the IR section of Republic Services' site. Greg Radner, VP of marketing at CCBN, notes that providing this type of web traffic feedback is more and more important as IROs try to get a grip on who's using their site and, crucially, how that usage compares to their peers.
That's where Radner believes CCBN has an edge. 'Due to our number of clients we're almost a surrogate for the IR industry,' he claims. 'This allows clients to benchmark their sites against their peers so that they can see their traffic relative to, say, their sector or a select group of other clients.'
Radner is quick to point out that all of the benchmark data is based on grouped average hits for several companies at once so as to protect the privacy of each client company. 'Benchmarking has been a growth area for us,' he says, pointing out that it gives clients a handle on how their sites 'perform' relative to their peer group.
Raw Communications, based in London but growing fast in the States, has a similar benchmarking system for its private webcast network. This network, which feeds high bandwidth video directly into a range of institutions, lets Raw monitor which fund managers are interested in which companies. Raw then gives feedback to IROs about which fund managers have been showing more interest in their particular story relative to others in their sector. 'It gives a sense of who has a higher level of interest in your stock relative to your peer group,' says Ab Bannerjee, Raw's chief executive.
Raw stresses that the feedback it gets from its private broadcast network is superior to normal web feedback. 'Because Raw is a private network, there is no anonymity,' explains Bannerjee's colleague, David Roche. While Roche admits that the same level of information might be obtained by getting viewers to register for a normal webcast, for example, he thinks some users might just type in random names or be discouraged from participating altogether. Either way, he maintains that the detail IROs get from normal webcast viewer stats is less than what Raw's – albeit more expensive – broadcasts yield.
Registration return
Still, a lot of companies get webcast viewers to register before logging in – and rely on the information being accurate. Flower at Republic Services says that most of the information about who is listening to an earnings webcast, their job titles and the companies they represent is accurate. Nor does he believe that having to fill in a simple name and company registration page puts anyone off. 'We see analysts, investors – even our competitors reveal who they are,' says Flower. Ever the PR man, he adds, 'They're welcome to join in; we've got a great story to tell.'
Anna Miller Salzman, head of IR at UK-listed brewer SABMiller, also believes the registration approach works well. She regularly spots competitors on the list, too, so the pressure to remain anonymous can't be very great. 'It's helpful to see if a particular fund manager you've been targeting at, say, Schroders is accessing the presentation,' she remarks.
SABMiller concentrates its monitoring activities on webcasts as a means of checking how they fit into the whole IR program. Salzman and her team may follow up with fund managers they have been targeting who missed a webcast. 'The main reason we find is that they didn't realize it was available or, particularly with South African investors, that they didn't have the right sound card or something like that. We can then help them with that sort of technology problem so that they can join our webcasts in the future.'
In many cases, feedback about who logs onto a webcast has become quicker than for the same kind of information about a teleconference. Flower at Republic Services points out that CCBN provides him with a summary of attendees immediately after the webcast, whereas he tends to have to wait another day to find out who dialed into the conference call. Still, with the majority of listeners now accessing Republic's presentations over the web rather than by phone, the emphasis has shifted further away from the conference call and Flower expects feedback to increase on a similar scale.
Shareholder.com, another Boston-based consultancy, has put similar effort into perfecting this type of reporting for its clients. It monitors who is on a webcast throughout the event and then it sends a graphical representation of attendance to the relevant IRO while the webcast is taking place. 'That way they can ask themselves, Did they drop like flies when we went to our CFO?' chuckles Keith Barrett, Shareholder.com's chief technology officer.
Barrett calls this type of feedback 'activity centric' and backs it up with a 'person centric' report after the webcast has finished. The second report shows more detail as to who was watching or listening to the presentation, what slides they looked at, when they dropped out, and how long they spent online. 'Some clients use that information to survey attendees on what they got out of a webcast,' adds Barrett, quickly adding, 'The most common reason why people come and go is content of the call.'
Using feedback from IR web sites and webcasts to tweak future content could be the difference between a major investor staying online or dropping out due to lack of interest. Web stats – your own and aggregated information about peers – may lead to restructuring your web site, changing the format of the webcast, redesigning the next annual report and even targeting certain investors and analysts.
With IR web site agencies desperate to prove that they are one step ahead of the competition, IROs should take advantage of every bit of feedback they're offering. It will help justify the investment in their sites and perhaps even gain an edge in their own competition for capital.
Who's watching what?
Investment pros | Retail investors |
Top ten most visited pages for mid-cap IR sites whose top ten visitors are banks/fund managers | Top ten most visited pages for large-cap investor relations sites with more than 200,000 shareholders |
1 ‘What’s new’ page | 1 ‘What’s new’ page |
2 Strategy | 2 Stock price |
3 Contact details | 3 Stock chart |
4 Presentations | 4 Press releases |
5 Press releases | 5 FAQs |
6 Stock price | 6 Annual report |
7 Key financial data | 7 Shareholder info |
8 Analyst contacts | 8 Key financial data |
9 Events calendar | 9 Company profile |
10 Management | 10 Strategy |
Source: Investis datalogs
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