Benefits at a glance
The top-line benefit of integrating Internet Audience Analytics tools with core marketing apps is that marketers not only have the access to information they need to optimize their campaigns, but also the means to use this information to take instant, often automated action.
Room
For Improvement Web Audience Analytics
I'm still surprised no matter how many times I've seen it. I often discover companies rarely taking steps to monitor or improve their online campaign performance. Thirteen percent of companies admit they often do nothing to improve performance of their online advertising, at all! These are often small to medium sized companies and for various reasons the companies don't bother to apply any type of Internet Audience Analytics to measure performance in the first place.
The first thing to note is that it doesn't matter how big you are, or what you do-- the level of expertise in Internet Audience Analytics, and commitment to using them, is pretty much the same. No particular industry stands out as better or worse overall, and being bigger (or smaller) doesn't make you any smarter (or dumber). Advertising agencies are no better or worse at this than their clients.
The critical point here is that 42 percent of people are not
looking at their own sites. The primary considerations
for planning new campaigns people use are what has
been done in the past combined with gut feeling.
This is fine if you got it right in the past. However,
if your audience is doing something you don't expect
or if behavior patterns are changing, you'll be
under-performing. Only by examining what's going
on in your site now can you determine what your
audience is looking for now, and how appealing your
current message is.
You would think
they have money to burn.
It's good news for sites selling ad space. Surveys show that less than half (43 percent) of advertisers will drop an under-performing site. It's also good news for agencies that ads that perform badly have a good chance of being left in place, with just a little over half (51 percent) of advertisers removing those ads from poorly producing websites.
What people measure while their campaigns are running
is odd, and I'd suggest many people need to push
their agencies a little harder. Only 75 percent
of people measure how many impressions their ads
are getting, while 90 percent measure how many visits
these ads generate to the site. It's only by counting
both of these metrics that you can determine the
clickthrough rate of the ads, which tells you about
the quality of work you're getting from your agency.
If you break the clickthrough rate down so you're
comparing different outlets, you'll learn how their
readership compares with the audience you're trying
to attract.
Here is
another one.
As you know once a visitor clicks on an ad banner and lands on your site, you've paid for them, so you would think it's important to retain as many visitors as possible. However, only 55 percent of companies reported they did anything to tune their landing pages to better their visitor retention. Absolutely no one reported that they made any changes deeper within the site itself as a result of what they learned.
It is not sufficient to merely count visits to the
site. The rate of target actions tells you if your
material was exposed to the right audience. A high
clickthrough rate but a low conversion rate may
indicate your advertising is not reaching the right
people. Alternatively, you could be hitting the
right people, but there may be problems with your
site. The only way to determine this is to measure
what happens between clickthrough and target action,
to analyze visitor behavior within the site. However,
less than half (48 percent) of online advertisers
do so. This means most have no idea why they are
getting the results they see.
Conclusions
In the words of J.
Abraham, "You can often learn what you
should do by looking at what others are doing wrong."
The picture that often emerges after an initial
review is some flaws in the way most companies approach
online advertising.
The Website
I find the biggest problem is the disconnect between the ad that gets people into the site and what initial impression is made once they've arrived.
Everyone understands that different ads work for different audiences. All of us today Recognize that you must build specific landing pages for specific audiences.
But what about the next click? Too often, after the visitors are inside the site they find that the company has taken a "one-size-fits-all" approach. Which immediately triggers confusion, disappointment and then emotional disconnect.
One click of a mouse and they're gone. Is this happening
to you? You may be counting how many people are
engaging in the target action, but are you making
any attempt to understand why (less than half do).
Analyzing internal
site behavior provides the why.
I'm often called on to review a customer's website just to help bring
the website into a closer alignment with the new
marketing focus. From experience, I have learned
that it's sometimes like telling a young mother
her baby is ugly. As you could imagine I just might
receive a less than enthusiastic reception.
"Remember your website should not be regarded as a monolithic entity or even as a static one. It's not made of concrete so it's very easy to update and refocus."
Your site is a set of pages, each one of which has its own pattern of interactions. These interactions vary according to the person who is viewing them and the goal they are seeking to fulfill. The ad and landing page that pulled them into the site tell you what that goal was.
Your ad offered them something; it made a promise. The landing page convinced them your site could fulfill that promise. If they didn't make it to the target action, at some point they ceased to believe your company could actually deliver.
Analysis of what they did and where they left from
tells you when they emotionally disconnected and
ceased to believe in your site's message.
"Knowing that people don't ask why things
are happening, it doesn't surprise me that they're
not doing anything about it. Without an understanding
of why something is happening, you can't work out
what to do to change it.'
Important Discovery
The most important discovery is that so few people ask whether the cost of advertising exceeds the return it produces. I believe this is a consequence of not understanding the differences between online and offline marketing.
In order to survive, a business needs to make a profit. This means it has to spend less than it earns. Less than half (46 percent) measure revenue as a result of advertising, and only half of these measure profit. In other words, most people (73 percent) don't know if their online advertising is costing or earning money.
This is one reason why PPC rates in Google are so absurdly high. Obviously we don't have the facts, but my personal experience is most companies are spending much more for their online ads than can be cost-justified.
You should know whether you're making a profit or not. If you're making a loss but not doing anything to reduce it, you should be able to explain why that's OK.
By understanding how web analytics can report global key business performance indicators, companies will be better able to balance what is desired for the company with what is realistic, feasible and most effective for their specific audiences.
Though changing the name of web analytics may not
be the solution, businesses must realize that web
analytics is more than just data for the sake of
data, and more than just a way to optimize a website.
It is a valuable tool in shaping overall business
objectives.
Segmentation
Segmentation is essential in conducting analysis of web analytics data. Leveraging segmentation allows companies to answer complex web traffic questions that stem from basic reporting. While virtually every web analytics solution in the market today offers some form or method of segmentation, they all differ in their approach. Thus it is important to understand the concept of segmentation, your needs in regard to using segments, and the ability of various solutions to meet those needs.
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