This is a follow up piece to “Web Analytics Strategy – Part 1: Making the Most of your Web Analytics” and “Web Analytics Strategy – Part 2: Analyze Your Results“

Once you have met with your stakeholders and decided on goals (see part 1). And once you have created a review schedule to measure those goals (see part 2). A common first place many people start is to understand how well their website is performing in search. Keyword ranking is where most people start, but as they come to understand how organic search works and what the factors involved are, many of them start looking at a wider range of metrics. Reporting becomes more complex and critical for success.

Search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) are two of the best examples of how to use Web analytics to improve your website’s and your business’s performance. Search engine marketing (SEM) and Web analytics are made for each other. Once you understand how search marketing metrics work, you will have insight into almost every key measurement aspect of any online marketing program.

Organic and Paid Search – A Brief Overview

Just in case anyone doesn’t know this already, here is the basics of search engine marketing. There are two types of visitors from search engines–organic and paid. Paid search listings (PPC) are ads, or “sponsored results” that you see in search results. Organic listings are the “regular” results that the particular search engine deems most relevant for the search query. For both, how closely you rank to the top of the first page of results for any given phrase will greatly impact how much traffic you get. While both types of listings show up very close to one another, they generate different types of visitors and require different metrics to understand their effectiveness. (For more about SEM basics, see our SEM resources section)

Why You Absolutely Need a Web Analytics Strategy for Search Engine Marketing

Basic Metrics

Any website owner needs to know how many visitors it is getting and where those visitors are coming from. The basic metrics here are almost universal. You need to know:

• How many visitors you got from search and if that number is increasing
• What the bounce rate is of those visitors
• How long visitors are spending on your site
• What the most popular keyword phrases are
• What the most common entry pages are
• What the most common exit pages are

These are some of the basic visitor metrics you need for any marketing program. Without this information, you can have almost no idea if your search engine marketing initiative is producing results.

Beyond the Basics: Segmentation

Both organic and paid search have a lot of opportunity for visitor segmentation. This is something that many people don’t take time to work through and is one area where having a professional marketing analyst review your metrics can really help.

In organic search, the primary segmentation is normally between branded and non-branded search. Branded search is loosely defined as any keyword phrase that includes your company name or a specific product name. These searches indicate that the visitor already knows who you are and is looking specifically for you. Branded search can provide a good benchmark for overall search performance since performance here is normally stronger. Non-branded search is also known as “topical search”, meaning the visitor found you by way of a topic they were looking up. Because this visitor may not be familiar with your company or products, “performance” here is normally lower but these visitors are also critical to your growth. Segmenting out the topics into distinct groups provides an additional layer of insight into your search analytics and performance by group can vary widely. This segment provides great insight into what your next marketing & content development initiatives should be. Again, a marketing analyst can provide great value here in helping to find the differences in performance and where opportunity exists.

In paid search, the segments can be predefined by how the program is structured. If you have integrated your paid search program and analytics (for instance with Google Analytics and Adwords), then you will be able to see the performance of each segment as the performance of various parts of your program. In reviewing this, the performance may vary widely. All this variation gives you rich insight into the needs and experiences of the visitors following those paths and what you can do to make the experience more successful.

Beyond the Basics: Goals and Conversions

“Goals and conversions” should be included in the basic metrics for every marketing campaign. Determining how many people become a lead or customer as a result of a marketing program is critical to knowing if your they are successful. However, I did not put “goals and conversions” in the basics group for two reasons:

1. It’s surprising how many organizations do not have clearly defined goals and conversion points identified in their websites, and if they do,
2. Many times the Web analytics platform is not configured correctly to capture this information.

Understanding your conversion paths and setting up your Web analytics platform to capture the important information about your visitors as they travel your conversion paths is a key benefit of using an analytics specialist. When goals and segments are defined and combined, you can find a wealth of information about how to make your website more valuable and profitable. It is absolutely worth your time and effort to properly implement goal & conversion tracking.

Additionally, for paid search, knowing the conversion rate of any given program is essential to determining ROI and cost per conversion (lead or sale). Other metrics unique to paid search, such as Cost Per Click (CPC), are useful mostly for campaign optimization, not bottom line business reporting of success.

Summary: Web Analytics & SEM

Web analytics for your search engine marketing programs can give you more insight into what the visitors to your website are looking for and how they think about you and your products. Having a well configured Web analytics package in place to capture the visitor data from search is critical to determining if your search engine marketing program is working. Whether you are looking at basic metrics such as traffic trends, or digging into several layers of segmentation, it is the analytics package you have supporting that program that will make all the difference. Working with a Web analytics specialist can also help to make sure your metrics are accurate and actionable.

In conjunction with our recently expanded Web analytics services, we’re putting together this series of posts with our Web analytics expert to shed some light on Web analytics best practices and how your organization can leverage analytics to improve business. Amplify Interactive is now providing full service Web Analytics strategy, implementation, support and reporting services across multiple platforms. Contact us if you’d like to discuss taking a more comprehensive, pro-active, and substantive approach to Web Analytics.

This is a follow up piece to “Web Analytics Strategy – Part 1: Making the Most of your Web Analytics” and “Web Analytics Strategy – Part 2: Analyze Your Results“

Once you have met with your stakeholders and decided on goals (see part 1).  And once you have created a review schedule to measure those goals (see part 2).  A common first place many people start is to understand how well their website is performing in search.  Keyword ranking is where most people start, but as they come to understand how organic search works and what the factors involved are, many of them start looking at a wider range of metrics. Reporting becomes more complex and critical for success.

Search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) are two of the best examples of how to use Web analytics to improve your website’s and your business’s performance.  Search engine marketing (SEM) and Web analytics are made for each other. Once you understand how search marketing metrics work, you will have insight into almost every key measurement aspect of any online marketing program.

Organic and Paid Search – A Brief Overview

Just in case anyone doesn’t know this already, here is the basics of search engine marketing.  There are two types of visitors from search engines–organic and paid.    Paid search listings (PPC) are ads, or “sponsored results” that you see in search results.  Organic listings are the “regular” results that the particular search engine deems most relevant for the search query.  For both, how closely you rank to the top of the first page of results for any given phrase will greatly impact how much traffic you get.  While both types of listings show up very close to one another, they generate different types of visitors and require different metrics to understand their effectiveness. (For more about SEM basics, see our SEM resources section)

Why You Absolutely Need a Web Analytics Strategy for Search Engine Marketing

Basic Metrics

Any website owner needs to know how many visitors it is getting and where those visitors are coming from. The basic metrics here are almost universal. You need to know:

• How many visitors you got from search and if that number is increasing
• What the bounce rate is of those visitors
• How long visitors are spending on your site
• What the most popular keyword phrases are
• What the most common entry pages are
• What the most common exit pages are

These are some of the basic visitor metrics you need for any marketing program.  Without this information, you can have almost no idea if your search engine marketing initiative is producing results.

Beyond the Basics:  Segmentation

Both organic and paid search have a lot of opportunity for visitor segmentation.  This is something that many  people don’t take time to work through and is one area where having a professional marketing analyst review your metrics can really help.

In organic search, the primary segmentation is normally between branded and non-branded search. Branded search is loosely defined as any keyword phrase that includes your company name or a specific product name.  These searches indicate that the visitor already knows who you are and is looking specifically for you.  Branded search can provide a good benchmark for overall search performance since performance here is normally stronger.  Non-branded search is also known as “topical search”, meaning the visitor found you by way of a topic they were looking up.  Because this visitor may not be familiar with your company or products, “performance” here is normally lower but these visitors are also critical to your growth. Segmenting out the topics into distinct groups provides an additional layer of insight into your search analytics and performance by group can vary widely.  This segment provides great insight into what your next marketing & content development initiatives should be.  Again, a marketing analyst can provide great value here in helping to find the differences in performance and where opportunity exists.

In paid search, the segments can be predefined by how the program is structured.  If you have integrated your paid search program and analytics (for instance with Google Analytics and Adwords), then you will be able to see the performance of each segment as the performance of various parts of your program.  In reviewing this, the performance may vary widely.  All this variation gives you rich insight into the needs and experiences of the visitors following those paths and what you can do to make the experience more successful.

Beyond the Basics: Goals and Conversions

“Goals and conversions” should be included in the basic metrics for every marketing campaign.  Determining how many people become a lead or customer as a result of a marketing program is critical to knowing if your they are successful.  However, I did not put “goals and conversions” in the basics group for two reasons:

1. It’s surprising how many organizations do not have clearly defined goals and conversion points identified in their websites, and if they do,
2. Many times the Web analytics platform is not configured correctly to capture this information.

Understanding your conversion paths and setting up your Web analytics platform to capture the important information about your visitors as they travel your conversion paths is a key benefit of using an analytics specialist.  When goals and segments are defined and combined, you can find a wealth of information about how to make your website more valuable and profitable.  It is absolutely worth your time and effort to properly implement goal & conversion tracking.

Additionally, for paid search, knowing the conversion rate of any given program is essential to determining ROI and cost per conversion (lead or sale).  Other metrics unique to paid search, such as Cost Per Click (CPC), are useful mostly for campaign optimization, not bottom line business reporting of success.

Summary: Web Analytics & SEM

Web analytics for your search engine marketing programs can give you more insight into what the visitors to your website are looking for and how they think about you and your products.  Having a well configured Web analytics package in place to capture the visitor data from search is critical to determining if your search engine marketing program is working.  Whether you are looking at basic metrics such as traffic trends, or digging into several layers of segmentation, it is the analytics package you have supporting that program that will make all the difference.  Working with a Web analytics specialist can also help to make sure your metrics are accurate and actionable.

In conjunction with our recently expanded Web analytics services, we’re putting together this series of posts with our Web analytics expert to shed some light on Web analytics best practices and how your organization can leverage analytics to improve business. Amplify Interactive is now providing full service Web Analytics strategy, implementation, support and reporting services across multiple platforms. Contact us if you’d like to discuss taking a more comprehensive, pro-active, and substantive approach to Web Analytics.

This is a follow up piece to “Web Analytics Strategy – Part 1: Making the Most of your Web Analytics“

I was recently discussing a campaign with a client. We were going through the campaign strategy and what was working and where improvements could be made and listing off all the next steps that we would take. The conversation itself was a hour long just to talk through results. After the meeting, he had to run off to another meeting for a different project. Then he had another meeting after that. In any given day, his day is 80% full of meetings! When does he ever have time to think?!

Most business decision makers are involved in a lot of decisions. The decision process takes time and understanding. Very few have as much time as they’d like to sit down and really dig through campaign response metrics. Practically none of the marketers I know have the time to do the deep work that is required to thoroughly analyze under-performing programs.

Web Analytics Best Practices – Properly Analyze Your Results

Once the goals have been decided and everyone is ready to get started, the next step in having a successful analytics strategy is to figure out who is going to review and analyze the numbers.

• Put a schedule in place. Reporting schedules that align with how long it takes to implement a change work well. For instance, if it takes two weeks to get all stakeholders on board with a landing page change, then schedule your reporting time every 2 weeks. Reporting normally leads to action items. If those action items start stacking up on top of one another, it can make deciphering what was effective and what wasn’t more difficult.
• Make time to think about the results. Scrambling to look up conversions five minutes before a review meeting is not ideal. Block out time on your schedule the day before. Give enough time to not only pull the numbers, but also to think about the numbers.
• Review results with others. Having more than one set of eyes looking over the information is a good idea, especially if things are changing.

Analyzing marketing results takes time, more time than most people anticipate. Creating a regular schedule and setting aside time specifically for reviewing & analyzing results will help you manage that time better. If possible, get a marketing analyst to help you with this. You’ll have more time to think through the results and make more thoughtful plans.

Next: “Web Analytics Strategy – Part 3: Search Engine Marketing & Web Analytics are Made For Each Other“

In conjunction with our recently expanded Web analytics services, we’re putting together this series of posts with our Web analytics expert to shed some light on Web analytics best practices and how your organization can leverage analytics to improve business. Amplify Interactive is now providing full service Web Analytics strategy, implementation, support and reporting services across multiple platforms. Contact us if you’d like to discuss taking a more comprehensive, pro-active, and substantive approach to Web Analytics.

This is a follow up piece to “Web Analytics Strategy – Part 1: Making the Most of your Web Analytics“

I was recently discussing a campaign with a client.  We were going through the campaign strategy and what was working and where improvements could be made and listing off all the next steps that we would take.  The conversation itself was a hour long just to talk through results.  After the meeting, he had to run off to another meeting for a different project.  Then he had another meeting after that.  In any given day, his day is 80% full of meetings!  When does he ever have time to think?!

Most business decision makers are involved in a lot of decisions.  The decision process takes time and understanding.  Very few have as much time as they’d like to sit down and really dig through campaign response metrics.  Practically none of the marketers I know have the time to do the deep work that is required to thoroughly analyze under-performing programs.

Web Analytics Best Practices – Properly Analyze Your Results

Once the goals have been decided and everyone is ready to get started, the next step in having a successful analytics strategy is to figure out who is going to review and analyze the numbers.

• Put a schedule in place.  Reporting schedules that align with how long it takes to implement a change work well.  For instance, if it takes two weeks to get all stakeholders on board with a landing page change, then schedule your reporting time every 2 weeks.  Reporting normally leads to action items.  If those action items start stacking up on top of one another, it can make deciphering what was effective and what wasn’t more difficult.
• Make time to think about the results.  Scrambling to look up conversions five minutes before a review meeting is not ideal.  Block out time on your schedule the day before.  Give enough time to not only pull the numbers, but also to think about the numbers.
• Review results with others. Having more than one set of eyes looking over the information is a good idea, especially if things are changing.

Analyzing marketing results takes time, more time than most people anticipate.  Creating a regular schedule and setting aside time specifically for reviewing & analyzing results will help you manage that time better.  If possible, get a marketing analyst to help you with this.  You’ll have more time to think through the results and make more thoughtful plans.

Next: “Web Analytics Strategy – Part 3: Search Engine Marketing & Web Analytics are Made For Each Other“

In conjunction with our recently expanded Web analytics services, we’re putting together this series of posts with our Web analytics expert to shed some light on Web analytics best practices and how your organization can leverage analytics to improve business. Amplify Interactive is now providing full service Web Analytics strategy, implementation, support and reporting services across multiple platforms. Contact us if you’d like to discuss taking a more comprehensive, pro-active, and substantive approach to Web Analytics.

Every organization that has a website, regardless of size, should know what that website is contributing to the business. Analytics reports are designed to help you see that. However, knowing what information you need your analytics report to tell you is most important. Building a Web analytics strategy to help uncover those key performance indicators and design reports that tell you what you need to know is the best first step in making the most of your analytics package.

Web Analytics as a Tool

Most people who have a website also have some sort of website measurement tool. Many times this is a free solution provided by the hosting service. For example, Urchin was a very popular reporting service for a long time. Normally, these reporting tools are tucked into the website management interface and come with the default set of canned reports. When you see these reports they show some really intersting stuff–how many people visited your website, how many pageviews you get each week, what the most common files requested are, how many people came from search engines. In fact, these tools can show you so much stuff that it is easy to get lost. Or even worse, many people start correllating all the different bits of information in all sorts of different ways. You can spend hours digging through web analytics data, but miss the information completely. In the worst cases, some people end up in semi-permanent state of analysis paralysis.

Building a Web Analytics Strategy

This situation can be avoided, and the first step is to step away from your website analytics tool. Instead, sit down with yourself and the other business decision makers and decide what information is key for you to make a good decision. The services of an analytics consultant can be very helpful in facilitating this conversation. Some people will need the same information, some people will need completely different information, and some people will need similar but not quite the same information.

For example, the marketing manager and the sales manager need similar but not the same information–usually dealing with leads and sales close rates. The sales manager will need more details around the sales close rate while the marketing manager will need more detail around lead generation process. Product Marketing Managers will want all that information as they are normally tasked with marketing but responsible for units sold against a goal (we’ll talk about tracking goals in a later article).

Once you know what the key pieces of information are that you need to make well informed decisions, your analytics consultant can take those generic analytics reports and turn them into very valuable, actionable chunks of information.

Real World Example – Web Analytics Best Practices

An enterprise size client had a robust sales force, a well trained marketing team, several very involved VPs, and some really smart product marketing managers. They also had very few ways of knowing if their marketing was working. So, they made some infrastructure investments by upgrading their CRM and data warehousing. They started some new initiatives around marketing support. They gave more authority to their PMMs to make decisions. All really good ideas. However, they still could not tell how well their marketing was performing. After several rounds of conversations and many example reporting dashboards, the core issue started to become clear–they could not agree on definitions. What is a lead? What is an opportunity? What is a conversion? Without knowing these central pieces, they were cross-talking in a fundamental way. This lead to some very serious mis-alignments. How can you agree that you need to generate more opportunities, if you don’t understand and agree on what an opportunity is? Once we got some working definitions down and started using them, the decision making criteria became clear and the reports stopped being data and became actionable information.

Next: “Web Analytics Strategy Part 2 – Got a Strategy? Get Some Numbers“

In conjunction with our recently expanded Web analytics services, we’re putting together a series of posts with our Web analytics expert to shed some light on Web analytics best practices and how your organization can leverage analytics to improve business. Amplify Interactive is now providing full service Web Analytics strategy, implementation, support and reporting services across multiple platforms. Contact us if you’d like to discuss taking a more comprehensive, pro-active, and substantive approach to Web Analytics.