GinzaMetrics gets Faster Processing, Notifications and Easier Setup

GinzaMetrics gets Faster Processing, Notifications and Easier Setup

GinzaMetrics is hurtling towards a public beta launch and most of the time since the private beta launch has been geared towards making sure it is easy for people to get up and running. Because I’ve had negative experiences in the past with other enterprise software vendors and how long they take to start using, building an app that was as close to instantaneous as possible is one of my top priorities. I’m happy to say, with today’s release, I’m much closer to that goal.

Faster Processing

Until today, when you created a new site or added keywords, you needed to wait until the nightly batch process kicked off to pull in your data.
That’s just annoying from a user perspective (even to me) and it’s one of the things I’ve most wanted to fix. So, I’m very happy to say that, now, when you add a new site or add keywords, it kicks off processing immediately. Depending on overall load at any given time, it may still be a few hours before the data appears but it will certainly be sooner than the 12-24 hours that it previously took.

Notifications

Email notifications are one of those obvious things that any self-respecting SaaS app should have but is surprisingly hard to do, and even harder to get right. You have to strike the right balance between keeping users engaged and not emailing them so often that they ignore your messages. Facebook is a company that has always done a superb job at this and is sort of my role model in this setting.
In conjunction with the faster processing of your data, you’ll start to receive notifications about a variety of things that may happen with your site. Today, it’s mostly focused on letting you know when your data is ready and if there are any errors in your setup, but this will grow into a rich set of real time notifications that should hopefully help Ginzametrics reflect the living, breathing reality behind many of my customer’s websites.
This also means that you may have had some email in the last 12 hours, as this was the first time the notifications were live. If you’ve successfully had data running through the system, then you shouldn’t have received email, but notifications letting people know that setup was not complete, and similar messages, should have gone to everybody else. If you don’t want to receive these sorts of messages (though they only happen once per site), you can adjust your notifications by going to Personal Settings → Notification Settings.

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Easier Setup

One of the things that stood out as people started to use Ginzametrics was that there was a stark difference between people who had used some sort of SEO software or not. Those who had basically knew how to get up and running, but those who were newer to the experience often weren’t able finish setting up.
It was clear that some help was needed so, now, whenever you set up a new site, you’re guided through the process with a setup wizard. It helps you set up your web analytics integration, add keywords and even lets you automatically import keywords from your Google Analytics account. If you’re on another analytics system, such as Omniture SiteCatalyst, the system will automatically email me so I can help you get set up.

Other Updates

Aside from the major updates above, I’ve fixed a bunch of bugs. In particular, the reporting UI is much more solid. Customer growth has been fantastic and October has been a record month in terms of sales (well over 100% growth from last month.)

What’s Next?

I don’t like to announce specific features before they are ready, but I can say that some really great stuff is coming. The platform is stabilized to the point now where I can pretty rapidly add features that I have been dreaming about for months and, given the above improvements, I feel more comfortable about letting more people into the private beta.
Thanks again for using Ginzametrics!