Tag Archive for 'metrics'

Google Analytics Upgrade - October 2008

Published
by
Kyle Bumgardner
on October 22, 2008
in Online Marketing and Website Analytics
. 0 Comments

Google officially announced upgrades to Google Analytics today via their blog here. The impressive list of new features and the timing of the announcement should be very interesting to marketers considering upgrading or choosing another web analytics solution.  Basically, Google is offering some very compelling reasons to stick with what’s working…at a great price point! ($0).

A brief summary of enhancements being added in the coming weeks, which will be available to all Google Analytics users…is outlined below.  The full list of new features includes: custom reporting, advanced segmentation, motion charts, as well as integration with AdSense, and a beta API.

New Google Analytics Features:

Advanced Segmentation: This enhancement enables a user to analyze subsets of site traffic based on data variables and visitor segments, such as Paid traffic or Visits with Conversions.  (Custom segments can be created using a drag-and drop interface).  The segments you create can also be compared to historical data or to segment performance in side-by-side reports, as well.

Custom Reporting: This allows a user to create, save, and edit reports with custom variables viewable on the axes of graphs.  The customization also allows tabbed sub reports to be created that can show related data for a specific variable.

Motion Charts: This is advanced visualization feature adds multi-dimensional analysis to most reports (not sure which reports would not be applicable).  Using specific metrics for each axis, along with bubble size and color, a user can analyze how data points interact and change over time.  By comparing metrics over time, this allows a marketer to view relationships that might not be evident in traditional reports.

The video below gives a great introduction to the Motion Chart (my personal favorite) feature available in the upgraded Google Analytics solution.

These new enterprise-level enhancements should satisfy many of the needs of more sophisticated marketers and create more actionable data to drive online marketing in 2009.  I’ll be checking the discussion forum here to gauge what users think as these enhancements roll-out over the next few weeks and months.

Search Marketing Benchmark Guide for 2009

Published
by
Kyle Bumgardner
on September 16, 2008
in Online Marketing and Search Marketing
. 0 Comments

MarketingSherpa’s Search Marketing Benchmark Guide for 2009 has been released, which provides an interesting collection of data that can be used a reference when determining what role Search Marketing needs to play in an organization.

To organize the 300+ charts and survey results, The Guide covers 5 major areas outlined below:

  1. Budgeting and Search
  2. Tactics of Search
  3. Search Providers Explored
  4. Measuring and Testing
  5. Search Benchmarks

Useful takeaways from the guide:

  1. Budgeting for Search requires strategic planning
  2. Search Advertising affects Your Brand ( Favorably)
  3. More marketers have adopted analytics (Google Analytics leads the way

Survey Results to consider for 2009:

  1. Conversion and ROI rank as the top two most under-used metrics for Search Marketing
  2. Search is a medium that affects the perception of your Brand
  3. The majority of marketers “under-budget” for Search and fail to realize their goals

Read and download the full Executive Summary here

 

Measuring Results Online - What should you track?

Published
by
Kyle Bumgardner
on February 28, 2008
in Branding, Customer Acquisition and Website Analytics
. 0 Comments

Unfortunately, I still see marketers struggling to communicate the value of online marketing and how it drives bottom-line results. Much of this is caused by a lack of standard metrics by which to measure results online and report impact…especially when a direct response conversion is not clearly evident.

Most CEO’s and CFO’s are focused on driving efficiency and scale to achieve revenue growth. But when it comes to marketing, they need to be able to make a connection between the work ($) that is being done and the revenue that will be produce as a result.

Bottom line.

With studies suggesting that merely 2/3 of all marketers include metrics in their marketing plans…a need for more standard measurement is necessary for measuring results online. So, what do you track? The ultimate answer is Everything…but realistically, try focusing on things that will move the needle and provide leading indicators of revenue. (Stuff that C-Levels discuss).

Here are 10 tactical examples that you might not be considering when establishing metrics for measuring results online:

  1. Brand impact (i.e., increased brand awareness, intent or favorability)
  2. Number of impressions
  3. Position of paid listing
  4. Number of clicks
  5. Ratio of new to returning visitors
  6. Amount of increased website traffic
  7. Duration of website visits
  8. Amount of increased traffic to physical store
  9. Amount of increased volume to call center
  10. Number of leads generated for products sold online
  11. Number of leads generated for products sold offline
  12. Number of immediate sales generated for products sold online

Collecting this data will create trends and insight that will translate across most organizations.