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Web analytics comes close to being the top choice for a paid listing ROI tracking solution. Because it's critical for assessing all Internet marketing efforts, web analytics may become part of your marketing foundation even before you give it extra points for the search engine advertising component. Data That Improves Site ConversionsWithout web analytics, marketers are clueless about how their site serves, or doesn't serve, their site visitors . This information is the Holy Grail of understanding online customers. Whereas other ROI tracking solutions count the number of paid listing clicks and resulting sales, they miss the customers' travels within the web site. Worse yet, they don't identify shopping abandonment patterns. Web analytics logs all of this data and more. How can this information help marketers? Let's look at a couple of basic scenarios.
Think of the insight you'll gain with web analytics. You'll see where your customers are going and what they're doing in your online store or sales office. You'll even see how they landed on your site, which gives you ideas for possible marketing partnerships, or helps you evaluate current ones. Add a splash of site design and copywriting creativity to your analysis, and you'll figure out how to get a greater number of your site visitors to buy. That'll lower your customer acquisition costs across all of your marketing campaigns . Drill into Search Engine MarketingE-commerce solutions provide limited search engine marketing data, if any. Affiliate programs aren't set up to conveniently track it at all, although marketers could tweak them to do so. Web analytics, on the other hand, scores superior marks in this area. These solutions were created to drill deep into web site data. As an example, see ClickTracks' campaign tracking capabilities as related to search engines. Important
Not to be outdone, Urchin recently released a campaign tracking module, an optional add-on to their main software product. This module enables marketers to track click fraud activity and daypart targeting, among other search engine-specific actions. Both the ClickTracks and Urchin examples represent the tip of the iceberg in terms of what search engine-specific data is available. All Companies Can ParticipateAll companies, large and small, can afford web analytics. Solution providers present a variety of software or services to meet marketers' data analysis needs. There are versions of HitBox, WebTrends, and ClickTracks that start at less than $50 per month. Referring traffic from search engines is included in the small business versions, but not all offer ROI tracking. Find out the reporting details from the product information on providers' web sites. It's helpful when vendors , such as ClickTracks, show a product comparison chart to help marketers determine the best solution for their business (Figure 18.3). Figure 18.3. ClickTracks presents a side-by-side comparison chart of their web analytics tools to help marketers choose the edition that's right for them.
A great way for small business to get site statistics reports for free, or at a low fee, is to host their web sites with Internet service providers (ISPs) who have purchased a web analytics multi- user license. For example, NTT/Verio and Earthlink include Urchin reports with their hosting service. This brings up an important point: Ask your current ISP if traffic statistics are included in your hosting agreement. Storing the data for these reports takes up server space, so unless you ask, these reports generally aren't made available. One simple email or phone call can change that ‚ at no additional charge. E-commerce solution providers, including Yahoo!, might offer statistics as part of their merchant solutions, too. |
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