Focus on Results - Guide to Web Analytics

Focus on Results THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO WEB ANALYTICS CONTENT PARTNER: Focus on Results The essenTial Guide To Web analyTics Foreword ....................................................................................................... 02 brand Metrics: Which ones should you Track? .......................... 06 analytics in Perspective: Keep it simple and Relevant ........... 12 scoring your Firm on the Metrics Maturity Model ..................... 18 need to Know vs. nice to Know: a Web Primer ........................ 22 Marketing Performance Management: break conventional Marketing Wisdom .................................................................................... 28 is Marketing Roi dead?............................................................................ 34 The “holy Grail” of Marketing Metrics............................................... 38 Quantifying online search’s impact on offline demand ....... 42 nine database Marketing sins ............................................................ 48 using Metrics to shape your direct Marketing Plan ................. 52 The abcs of search data diving ........................................................ 58 using customer Knowledge to optimize channel Performance ............................................................................... 62 Web 2.0: What it Really Means to you ............................................ 66 Three Trends That Will Transform your loyalty strategy ...... 72 additional Resources ............................................................................. 78 about the experts ................................................................................... 79 about chief Marketer / about WebTrends.................................... 80 Foreword by Jason Palmer Vice President of Marketing, WebTrends Web Analytics is the Foundation for Proving and Improving Your Marketing Performance In the rapidly changing world of marketing, how can you turn challenges into opportunities? how can you make sure that your message is reaching the right audience and your marketing initiatives are meeting performance goals? The answer is simple: the web. Today, it’s a given that the web must be at the center of your marketing strategy: it’s the medium that lets you maximize the measurability and relationship building efforts of your business. but in order to take advantage of the power of the web, you need the right solutions in place to unlock the information it holds in store for you. Profitably Acquire New Customers search marketing has emerged as one of the most effective channels for reaching potential customers. according to Forrester, paid search spend is expected to grow from $7b in 2006 to $11.5b in 2010. but search is complex as well. Managing an increasing number of 0 keywords across different networks means you need to profitably so as you’re reading through the guide, consider how your scale your paid search investment. it’s also important to determine organization uses web analytics to improve your online channel as the impact search has on your offline demand. This guide will well as your overall marketing results. Marketing analytics can show you some of the ways your search marketing efforts can be have a dramatic impact on the success of your organization. measured against offline results. For Virgin atlantic, it meant increased visibility into KPis through desktop alerts. For designer linens outlet, it meant reducing cookie Measure and Optimize for Success rejection by 97.3 percent. For shopnbc, it meant an increase in it’s important to measure Key Performance indicators (KPis) net contribution margin of over 400 percent. What can marketing consistently—you need to have a common language to communicate analytics mean for you? across your organization to drive towards the same goals. it’s also vital to measure all of your campaigns together, whether you’re Enjoy the Guide measuring a pay-per-click keyword buy on a search engine, an WebTrends is proud to partner with Chief Marketer to develop this email campaign, a banner ad and so on. consolidating performance guide and we share in their mission to provide innovations and data driven by multiple channels into a single consistent metrics solution that can help you make critical connections between multiple framework lets you make decisions with confidence. We’ll provide marketing disciplines. We’ve pulled together these outstanding best practices for developing consistent KPis and integrated metrics articles on web analytics and results-focused measurement in order so you can get an accurate picture of which marketing efforts are to give you the insights you need to succeed in the changing performing well—and which ones aren’t. marketing landscape. Strengthen Customer Relationships Finally, the web affords the ability to target your customers more effectively. until now, data has been largely aggregated and impersonal. That’s all changing—smart marketers are making the most of clickstream analysis to segment their customers and create customized email marketing campaigns that resonate with them. They’re providing better customer service by understanding the visitor behind each visit, and developing targeted online and offline marketing programs based on the preferences of their customers. in this guide you’ll learn the trends in developing loyalty strategies that improve retention, and ideas for using customer insight to optimize your marketing performance. 0 : FOCUS ON RESULTS CONTENT PARTNER: ChIef marketer  05 Brand Metrics: Which ones should You track? What causes you to wake up at  a.m. in a sweat? by ray sChultz by ray sChultz October 20, 2006 For marketers, it may be response rates and clickthrough rates. October 20, 2006 For cFos, it’s cash flow and net asset value. Guess which one has the scarier dreams? sadly, too few marketers understand what drives ceos and cFos, and they often find their budgets being used as slush funds—or worse. case in point. a woman at a Texas company tracked open and clickthrough rates, awareness and lead Roi. but she was fired, said laura Patterson, president of Visionedge Marketing, speaking at the Promo live conference in chicago. “i didn’t understand what impact she was having,” the ceo told Patterson. “she gave me all kinds of numbers, but i didn’t understand how to translate that information into how it was affecting our business.” 0 Patterson added: “We have to make a connection between the work activity based metrics are not going away. but operational metrics we do and the revenue the company produces.” are “where we get to change the conversation, and become strategic member of team,” Patterson said. cFos are interested in efficiency, but Patterson argued that at some point “you are as efficient as you are going to be.” That means you For starters, a company might measure leads per rep, lead aging, have to be able to document growth. campaign Roi, the program-to-people ratio, cost per billing dollar and program spend vs. headcount. all those will impress a cFo. she noted that a colleague of the fired exec survived by tracking trial rates, adoption rates and category growth rates. next, try these on for size: 1.