The
goal of Web analytics is to produce actionable data. Online marketing is the first channel that can
provide marketers with volumes of data in real time. The key to using Web analytics is to filter out
the important data with which marketers can take immediate action. This ability for immediate action doesn’t
exist in the other channels of advertising.
For example, when a TV buy is placed, a marketer must wait until the
actual ratings are published to see how many people “watched” their commercial. If they wanted to measure awareness or brand
lift, research that could take weeks or months would need to be done. There is no ability for a marketer to take
action until the campaign is over. The ability
to optimize digital performance in real time is what makes digital unique.
When
deciding where to start with the data, marketers should first look at their key
performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs are
metrics that help a marketer understand how they are doing against their
objectives (Kaushik, 2010). These
metrics are usually unique to the company and directly tie into the business
objectives. This is where actionable
data can be found.
The
KPIs should be established from marketer’s business objectives. These objectives should be “DUMB: Doable.
Understandable. Manageable. Beneficial.” (Kaushik, 2010). It is critical for a company to have business
objectives defined up front because they clarify what marketers hope to
accomplish with their site. Defining
those specific objectives helps web analysts decide whether to focus on visitor
data or conversion data, for example.
Once
a marketer has clearly defined objectives, goals should be created. Goals are the specific strategies used to
accomplish business objectives (Kaushik, 2010).
Goals should be 100% measurable.
This is where optimizations will come in. KPIs will reflect metrics that are related to
specific goals. For example, a goal
could be to increase sign-ups.
Therefore, the KPIs could be number of sign-ups, sign-up conversion
rate, or bounce rate on pages within the sign-up process.
One
vital step that many marketers miss is setting up targets. KPIs are specific metrics that can clearly
define performance. Once marketers have
those metrics though, how do they know if the results are good or bad? In order to know whether 125 sign-ups or 300
downloads is a success or failure, marketers need to have targets. Targets are numerical values that a company pre-determines
as indicators for success or failure (Kaushik, 2010). Targets help marketers evaluate their
performance metrics against another value.
For example, if your company decided the target for quarterly sign-ups
is 200, you could use that number to evaluate your performance each quarter, as
well as track pacing along the way. Establishing
targets for KPIs is essential to determining success.
With
these steps in place, marketers can optimize their websites from actionable
data. Business objectives and strategic
goals paint the framework, while KPIs and targets provide numerical data. Analyzing
these metrics provide insight into actionable areas. Knowing what metrics are KPIs ensures you
analyze the right data. With the overwhelming
amount of data available, clearly defined objectives and goals keeps the focus
on the most important data points.
Comparing performance to targets will determine success and the next
course of action. Using actionable data
to optimize site performance should be a continuous process.
References
Kaushik, A. (2010, April 19). Web analytics 101:
Definitions: Goals, metrics, KPIs, dimensions, targets. Occam’s Razor Blog.
Retrieved on May 29, 2013 from http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/web-analytics-101-definitions-goals-metrics-kpis-dimensions-targets/
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