Visualize Website Clickstream Data
Overview
NOTICE
As of January 31, 2021, this tutorial references legacy products that no longer represent Cloudera’s current product offerings.
Please visit recommended tutorials:
- How to Create a CDP Private Cloud Base Development Cluster
- All Cloudera Data Platform (CDP) related tutorials
Visualize Log Data with Microsoft Excel
Introduction
In this section, we will use Microsoft Excel to access refined clickstream data.
Prerequisites
- Have installed the Cloudera ODBC driver for Apache Hive
- Have sample retail data already loaded by completing this tutorial
- Have a version of Excel with Power View (i.e. Excel 2013), which is currently only offered for Windows computers.
Outline
Import Data From Apache Hive
Open a new Excel workbook, then navigate to Data > From Other Sources > From Microsoft Query.
On the Choose Data Source pop-up, select the Hortonworks ODBC data source you installed, then click OK. The Hortonworks ODBC driver enables you to access Hortonworks data with Excel and other Business Intelligence (BI) applications that support ODBC.
After the connection to the sandbox is established, the Query Wizard appears. Select the webloganalytics table in the Available tables and columns box, then click the right arrow button to add the entire webloganalytics table to the query. Click Next to continue.
On the Filter Data screen, click Next to continue without filtering the data.
On the Sort Order screen, click Next to continue without setting a sort order.
Click Finish on the Query Wizard Finish screen to retrieve the query data from the sandbox and import it into Excel.
On the Import Data dialog box, click OK to accept the default settings and import the data as a table.
The imported query data appears in the Excel workbook.
Now that we have successfully imported Hortonworks Sandbox data into Microsoft Excel, we can use Excel's Power View feature to analyze and visualize the data.
Visualize Data Using Power View
Data visualization can help you optimize your website and convert more visits into sales and revenue. In this section we will:
- Analyze the clickstream data by location
- Filter the data by product category
- Graph the website user data by age and gender
- Pick a target customer segment
- Identify web pages with the highest bounce rates
In the Excel workbook with the imported webloganalytics data, select Insert > Power View to open a new Power View report.
The Power View Fields area appears on the right side of the window, with the data table displayed on the left. Drag the handles or click the Pop Out icon to maximize the size of the data table.
Let’s start by taking a look at the countries of origin of our website visitors. In the Power View Fields area, leave the country checkbox selected, and clear all of the other checkboxes. The data table will update to reflect the selections.
On the Design tab in the top menu, click Map.
The map view displays a global view of the data. Now let’s take a look at a count of IP address by state. First, drag the ip field into the SIZE box.
Drag country from the Power View Fields area into the Filters area, then select the usa checkbox.
Next, drag state into the LOCATIONS box. Remove the country field from the LOCATIONS box by clicking the down-arrow and then Remove Field.
Use the map controls to zoom in on the United States. Move the pointer over each state to display the IP count for that state.
Our dataset includes product data, so we can display the product categories viewed by website visitors in each state. To display product categories in the map by color, drag the category field into the COLOR box.
The map displays the product categories by color for each state. Move the pointer over each state to display detailed category information. We can see that the largest number of page hits in Florida were for clothing, followed by shoes.
Now let’s look at the clothing data by age and gender so we can optimize our content for these customers. Select Insert > Power View to open a new Power View report.
To set up the data, set the following fields and filters:
- In the Power View Fields area, select ip and age. All of the other fields should be unselected.
- Drag category from the Power View Fields area into the Filters area, then select the clothing checkbox.
- Drag gender from the Power View Fields area into the Filters area, then select the M (male) checkbox.
After setting these fields and filters, select Column Chart > Clustered Column in the top menu.
To finish setting up the chart, drag age into the AXIS box. Also, remove ip from the AXIS box by clicking the down-arrow and then Remove Field. The chart shows that the majority of men shopping for clothing on our website are between the ages of 22 and 30. With this information, we can optimize our content for this market segment.
Let’s assume that our data includes information about website pages (URLs) with high bounce rates. A page is considered to have a high bounce rate if it is the last page a user visited before leaving the website. By filtering this URL data by our target age group, we can find out exactly which website pages we should optimize for this market segment. Select Insert > Power View to open a new Power View report.
To set up the data, set the following fields and filters:
- Drag age from the Power View Fields area into the Filters area, then drag the sliders to set the age range from 22 to 30.
- Drag gender from the Power View Fields area into the Filters area, then select the M (male) checkbox.
- Drag country from the Power View Fields area into the Filters area, then select the usa checkbox.
- In the Power View Fields area, select url. All of the other fields should be unselected.
- In the Power View Fields area, move the pointer over url, click the down-arrow, and then select Add to Table as Count.
After setting these fields and filters, select Column Chart > Clustered Column in the top menu.
The chart shows that we should focus on optimizing four of our website pages for the market segment of men between the ages of 22 and 30. Now we can redesign these four pages and test the new designs based on our target demographic, thereby reducing the bounce rate and increasing customer retention and sales.
You can use the controls in the upper left corner of the map to sort by Count of URL in ascending order.
Summary
You have successfully analyzed and visualized log data with Microsoft Excel. This, and other BI tools can be used with the Hortonworks Data Platform to derive insights about customers from various data sources.
The data stored in the Hortonworks Data Platform can be refreshed frequently and used for basket analysis, A/B testing, personalized product recommendations, and other sales optimization activities.