Interview – Bertie Stevenson from Global Reviews shares his thoughts.
Interview – Bertie Stevenson from Global Reviews shares his thoughts.Bertie Stevenson takes time out from Global Reviews to give TargetStone a quick interview.
Bertie Stevenson, my friend, is one of the chaps that got me into this game and I’ve always valued his insight and 
knowledge. When we first met he was Head of Business Development at RedEye (a company founded by Paul Cook of TagMan fame) and following a number of successful years there he moved from analytics into insight and benchmarking with Global Reviews.
So how do you see the web analytics market going? Why are so many people still relying on just hits?
It’s been a couple of years since I was in the web analytics market, so not sure if my answer will be that up to date! But happy to give you my thoughts if you like!
What is your role at Global Reviews?
As the UK director, I’m responsible for winning new business, delivering workshops to some of our clients, and ensuring our operations team deliver us the data and quality we and our clients require
Where does GR fit into a company’s reporting strategy?
Companies use Global Reviews as a way to objectively benchmark how their website treats visitors. It is measure which separates out the things the digital marketer can’t control. For example, if the product is terrible and far too expensive, it doesn’t matter how good the website is, it will have a terrible conversion. Or, if a business stops all it’s new customer acquisition marketing, the only people who visit the site will be those looking for the product and the site will convert the few visitors extremely well.
However, the digital marketer responsible for converting more people through the site needs a measure which takes the product itself and level of marketing out of the equation, and that’s exactly what our benchmark does.
Tell me more about GR and how it can help businesses? What is so unique about GR which justifies the spend?
By objectively measuring how a website treats a person (what we do) as opposed to how people treat a website (what web analysis does), we can do two things web analytics and usability is unable to do.
Firstly, the benchmark identifies exactly which elements of a site or page are causing problems and upsetting the customer experience, combining this with the output from our consumer surveys to gauge importance, we can then prioritise all the issues of your site so the things you improve first will have the biggest response with your site visitors.
Secondly, through the delivery of our recommendations of how to fix and improve areas of the site, we are able to illustrate the points with examples of best practice from other industries and other countries. Too often, clients are too focused within their own industry and enjoy our wider view of the digital world at helping them improve.
Can people live with one study a year – what would you recommend with a practicality hat on. Not a sales hat.
If you and your peers only change your site once a year, a single annual study will be fine for you; however, if you and your peers update the site more frequently, our benchmark is a very robust way to track you and your peers performance – as well as helping with what to improve! Faster moving industries such as insurance, utilities and the automotive sector move incredibly quickly and the bulk of our clients subscribe to quarterly data.
What is GR’s sector focus at the moment. What is your next study and when is it due out?
We split the year into 4 quarter’s and each qtr we analyse all the benchmarks we have operating (currently about 15 in the UK). With a handful of analysts objectively benchmarking sites, we tend to be focusing on a couple of industries at anyone time. Today, I’m working on our latest savings benchmark, some of my colleagues are working in the mobile sector and others are on home insurance.
How does it work? How can you ensure reliable data capture?
Three words – Objective, transparent and repeatable
It is a very reliable measure – each benchmark consists of over 500 objective criteria. By that, I mean every criteria is a question about the content or utility of the website which can only be answers with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Our analysts, then assess an entire site – capturing screen grabs of all pages for the QA process – against all the criteria, taking out all elements of subjective opinion. Because all the sites are measured against the same criteria, it is a very powerful like for like piece of analysis across sites and across time.
Do you have any analysis back up? To ensure that companies are taking the right strategic or tactical decisions?
Yes we do.
Our first evidence is from our clients who continue to work with us over the years – the recommendations we provide help them improve the conversion of visitors through the site. Unfortunately, their data they use to understand the effects is theirs and not for public consumption
However, the second piece of evidence is in the public domain. We benchmarked the online travel agents benchmark and at the same time got a measure of site conversion from 4 brands we measured. The ranking of customer experience and site conversion matched exactly. These sites were Expedia, ebookers, Opodo and lastminute. Considering each of these sites are selling very similar products (holidays), this is a great vouch that we are measuring the things which most affect the conversion of visitors through a site! People can get in touch if they want to see the full report.
What is the most surprising thing you’ve discovered from your studies?
On a macro level, I’m startled by the range of capabilities across each industry. While some brands have plenty of freedom to tinker and improve their site, there are some brands (just as big and well known) who are completely limited at improving the customer experience.
This is echoed by looking at the score changes across industries over time. The sites which lead the benchmarks tend to be the ones making the biggest gains between periods and those at the tail end, their sites hardly seem to change.
I believe there will become a point that the worse performing site will either cease trading online or spend an inordinate amount of money to catch up as consumers won’t bother with a ‘poor’ customer experience anymore.
Now if you want to know more about Global Reviews then have a look at their site, this link takes you to their news site.
So how do you see the web analytics market going? Why are so many people still relying on just hits?
It’s been a couple of years since I was in the web analytics market, so not sure if my answer will be that up to date! But happy to give you my thoughts if you like!
What is your role at Global Reviews?
As the UK director, I’m responsible for winning new business, delivering workshops to some of our clients, and ensuring our operations team deliver us the data and quality we and our clients require
Where does GR fit into a company’s reporting strategy?
Companies use Global Reviews as a way to objectively benchmark how their website treats visitors. It is measure which separates out the things the digital marketer can’t control. For example, if the product is terrible and far too expensive, it doesn’t matter how good the website is, it will have a terrible conversion. Or, if a business stops all it’s new customer acquisition marketing, the only people who visit the site will be those looking for the product and the site will convert the few visitors extremely well.
However, the digital marketer responsible for converting more people through the site needs a measure which takes the product itself and level of marketing out of the equation, and that’s exactly what our benchmark does.
Tell me more about GR and how it can help businesses? What is so unique about GR which justifies the spend?
By objectively measuring how a website treats a person (what we do) as opposed to how people treat a website (what web analysis does), we can do two things web analytics and usability is unable to do.
Firstly, the benchmark identifies exactly which elements of a site or page are causing problems and upsetting the customer experience, combining this with the output from our consumer surveys to gauge importance, we can then prioritise all the issues of your site so the things you improve first will have the biggest response with your site visitors.
Secondly, through the delivery of our recommendations of how to fix and improve areas of the site, we are able to illustrate the points with examples of best practice from other industries and other countries. Too often, clients are too focused within their own industry and enjoy our wider view of the digital world at helping them improve.
Can people live with one study a year – what would you recommend with a practicality hat on. Not a sales hat.
If you and your peers only change your site once a year, a single annual study will be fine for you; however, if you and your peers update the site more frequently, our benchmark is a very robust way to track you and your peers performance – as well as helping with what to improve! Faster moving industries such as insurance, utilities and the automotive sector move incredibly quickly and the bulk of our clients subscribe to quarterly data.
What is GR’s sector focus at the moment. What is your next study and when is it due out?
We split the year into 4 quarter’s and each qtr we analyse all the benchmarks we have operating (currently about 15 in the UK). With a handful of analysts objectively benchmarking sites, we tend to be focusing on a couple of industries at anyone time. Today, I’m working on our latest savings benchmark, some of my colleagues are working in the mobile sector and others are on home insurance.
How does it work? How can you ensure reliable data capture?
Three words – Objective, transparent and repeatable
It is a very reliable measure – each benchmark consists of over 500 objective criteria. By that, I mean every criteria is a question about the content or utility of the website which can only be answers with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Our analysts, then assess an entire site – capturing screen grabs of all pages for the QA process – against all the criteria, taking out all elements of subjective opinion. Because all the sites are measured against the same criteria, it is a very powerful like for like piece of analysis across sites and across time.
Do you have any analysis back up? To ensure that companies are taking the right strategic or tactical decisions?
Yes we do.
Our first evidence is from our clients who continue to work with us over the years – the recommendations we provide help them improve the conversion of visitors through the site. Unfortunately, their data they use to understand the effects is theirs and not for public consumption
However, the second piece of evidence is in the public domain. We benchmarked the online travel agents benchmark and at the same time got a measure of site conversion from 4 brands we measured. The ranking of customer experience and site conversion matched exactly. These sites were Expedia, ebookers, Opodo and lastminute. Considering each of these sites are selling very similar products (holidays), this is a great vouch that we are measuring the things which most affect the conversion of visitors through a site! People can get in touch if they want to see the full report.
What is the most surprising thing you’ve discovered from your studies?
On a macro level, I’m startled by the range of capabilities across each industry. While some brands have plenty of freedom to tinker and improve their site, there are some brands (just as big and well known) who are completely limited at improving the customer experience.
This is echoed by looking at the score changes across industries over time. The sites which lead the benchmarks tend to be the ones making the biggest gains between periods and those at the tail end, their sites hardly seem to change.
I believe there will become a point that the worse performing site will either cease trading online or spend an inordinate amount of money to catch up as consumers won’t bother with a ‘poor’ customer experience anymore.
Now if you want to know more about Global Reviews then have a look at their site, this link takes you to their news site.< ><-->
