WWW...What's Working Well! Website Analytics Measure Success

  

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In the rush to "make it all happen" one of the most overlooked actions of an inbound marketing program is actually measuring what is and isn't working for you online so that you can establish value. Of course there's always the feeling you have, "Things are going great!" which, it could be argued has some limited qualitative value, but having detailed and specific information that shows you exact numbers will inform you as to what content development or online lead generation initiatives are working best...and which aren't. One of the most powerful aspects of inbound marketing is that with proper analysis, the old saying "We know only 50% of our advertsing is working, we just don't know which 50%!" no longer applies because everything done online can be measured. This means you have complete knowledge and with it you can clearly establish the ROI of your program. 

A brief side note is in order at this time. There are many agencies to outsource your online marketing activities with. It is the 21st century and the last few years have been difficult ones for many companies, your marketing budgets need to be carefully stewarded. If the agency you're considering (or have worked with previously) is not offering you a package where a detailed ROI analysis forms part of the proposal, we suggest you look elsewhere. Any good inbound marketing campaign should include this, and any good inbound marketing agency should deliver. You pay good money for these services, you should demand nothing less. Enough said.

There are many analytics tools available ranging in price from free to very costly that will allow you to 'measure' the activity of your program. As examples of products along the spectrum Google analytics and various other basic offerings like Sitemeter's for example, are free, the Hubspot offering which is part of their inbound marketing software platform offers significant detail at a modest price, more costly options include products like those offered by Omniture, now an Adobe company, that offer extraordinary detail. Depending on the sophistication of your metrics requirements you may be very satisfied with free services, however they don't offer the same level of detail that is particularly valuable in establishing the ROI of your activities. Regardless of the website analytics software that you deploy, your objective is to gain insight that allows you to calculate the ROI of your online development or inbound marketing program.

6 Steps to Implement Website Analytics to Evaluate Online Actions

1. Establish baseline measurements- If you're going to know how things are improving you must know where you're starting from. You will need to know, how many visitors, how many leads, and how many new clients you're generating from the web within a given time frame such as day, week, month, quarter etc. Depending on the maturity of your site this process could take a few days or significantly longer if these numbers are very low. 
2. Quantify the value of a new client and work backwards to establish a value for leads and visitors- To keep the math simple here, let's imagine that a new client is worth $1000, that 1 in 10 leads become clients and one in 100 visitors become leads. This means each lead is worth $100 and each visitor is worth $1. With your baseline measurements established you now have a formula for calculating the ROI of your program.
3. Determine an appropriate analytics solution for your website- While it would be nice to have a program like the Omniture offering, it's not in the budget of many if not most companies. Ideally, what you select will offer you the ability to perform closed loop analysis of your marketing efforts such as the Hubspot product offers. 
4. Install the analytics program on your website- For the most part this is just a matter of installing a bit of 'code' on each page of your website that will serve as the 'meter'. Being able to add further code onto pages such as landing pages will help you track specific campaigns that you deploy.
5. What to measure- Just like any marketing activity you will want to know: A- How many people (visitors) are we reaching? B- How many of those are converting to leads? C- How many of those leads are converting into customers? When you can establish these values for each individual action you take, it allows you to determine which are providing you with the best results which then guide further program development.
6. Plan for regular reviews of the analytics reports- By looking into the reports generated by your analytics package you will be able to see the impact of your efforts and calculate specifically the ROI of your program.

If this is your first time visiting our blog, you may not have heard this before, but for those regular readers we will repeat: Inbound marketing is not an event, it is a process. It integrates many elements and they require time to take hold. If you begin and expect immediate results, you may be disappointed. Make a plan, execute the plan, be adaptable depending on results, and stay the course, you will achieve the desired outcomes. More traffic. More leads. More business.

We're at the edge of the future!

Do you want to explore what inbound marketing could do for your company? Inbound Marketing Experts is here to help, contact us today!