Marketing 3590 chapter 3

Lead Generation KPIs: Users, Conversion rate, Close rate, Closed Deal Value, Revenue per session----- Users

because additional leads from the same person do not generate additional revenue. Thus a lead-generation site should be looking to increase the number of users to the site and not sessions.

Conversion Rate

for a retail site, it would be the percentage of sessions that result in a purchase. For a lead generation site, it would be the percentage of sessions that result in a lead capture fill.

The analytics program stores this information and provides it to authorized parties through the analytics report interface.

four steps

destination goal

instructs analytics that a goal has been met when a user reaches a specific page on a site. both a retail site and a lead-generation site might set up a destination goal

Raw information about server requests will not be useful to a webmaster unless

it can be aggregated and organized in a way that enables the webmaster to make inferences about the nature of the traffic on his site.

Navigation Source.

know how users are arriving at a website, whether through search engines, direct URL entry, links from other websites, ads, and so on.

Geography.

knows the general geography of each user, typically to the zip code.

Media KPIs: Sessions.

or a media site, repeat sessions from the same user are just as beneficial as a session from a new user, so it should care about generating a high number of sessions of any kind.

A media website's owner might be more interested in

other statistics such as average number of pages viewed or average time on site. A website's analytics are only as useful as the owner makes them. Making analytics useful requires an understanding of the various metrics analytics can provide

a retail website's owner may be most interested in

seeing aggregate statistics on visitors, shopping cart additions, purchases, and revenue. The retailer can instruct the analytics package to make reports on those statistics available on the homepage for easy perusal at any time.

Perhaps the most disastrous error digital marketers can make is

to run their websites without web analytics packages properly installed because they will be entirely unable to determine whether their marketing efforts had the desired effect.

step 1

user takes some action that results in a request for a page on a website. This page request could be caused by the user typing in the URL

a poor conversion rate can have multiple causes.

(1) poor messaging on the website, (2) poor audience selection, or (3) technical glitches. For example, if a website sells scrubs (the clothing worn by doctors and nurses), the best messaging and web design in the world is unlikely to result in a high conversion rate if most of its visitors are not medical professionals And if the website's merchant account software (the software that enables the website to process credit card charges) is not compatible with the Chrome browser, it will have a 0% conversion rate from Chrome visitors even with perfect messaging and audience selection.

Any analytics package will allow a user to aggregate and organize the data in a variety of ways. For example,

, it might show aggregate statistics like the total number of visits, the total revenue, and the total time on site. It can also break up the data to show the conversion rate of mobile users in Mobile, Alabama versus desktop users in the same city. It can also use the aggregate data to provide reports of various behaviors, like the percentage of visitors who move from the homepage to each category page (typically called a "traffic flow" report).

Timing.

A business with seasonality may wish to get a more precise picture of how site behavior differs at various points in the season. Alternatively, a company may find that traffic between midnight at 6 am is completely worthless (i.e., it never converts or the leads generated never become closed deals), which would imply that the company's ads should not run between those times.

Average Page Depth

A media site lives and dies by its ability to generate a high level of engagement with users. For a site with written content (news sites, blogs, etc.), average page depth is a reliable indicator of user engagement and good content navigation/integration.

Conversion Rate.

A retail site should be constantly striving for ways to increase the conversion rate, typically through A/B testing of various aspects of the site. Likewise, any sudden drop in the conversion rate is a reliable sign of problems that should be addressed

Revenue

A retail site that sets up a destination goal for each purchase can also pass on to analytics the amount of money being spent on the order so that analytics can track this information. Revenue can also be attached to other types of goals. A lead-generation website may know that a lead will become a closed deal 20% of the time, and that a closed deal is worth $500 on average. Every goal completion is then worth $100 ($500 x 20%), and this information can be tracked in analytics, even though the revenue does not come directly through the website.

Average Page Depth

A search engine wants to track average page depth, not to maximize it, but to minimize it. If a searcher needs to navigate to the second or third page of search results, the search engine is not doing a good job ordering the search results.

Search Engine KPIs

A search engine's goal is to provide the best list of content possible to users so they can find the best content and get on their way. Thus a search engine has the explicit goal to generate a user exit, which is contrary to many other sites.

Organic Search.

A site that has been search-engine optimized should be receiving organic search traffic from a variety of search terms. For example, a beef jerky company should show up on the search results for searches on beef jerky, turkey jerky, organic beef jerky, best beef jerky, and so forth.

New Account Sign-ups (Conversions).

A social media platform needs a large user base, so signing up new users is of paramount importance.

User

A user is someone who creates at least one session, but may make multiple visits or sessions.

Average Order Value.

A website can increase the amount of money it makes from each transaction by either (1) enticing shoppers to purchase additional items or (2) enticing shoppers to purchase higher-priced items.

Screen Size.

A website will appear differently to users with different screen sizes, which may cause divergent behavior from various user segments. I

Pageview

Also called a "hit," a pageview occurs any time a user accesses a page on a website.

Average Time on Site.

An alternate measure of content consumption might simply be the amount of time spent on the site. Because time on a site like Facebook might be split across several sessions in a day, the total time spent per day per person is a better reflection of user engagement than average session duration.

Identity of Requester.

Analytics does not know the actual identity of the user (for example, it does not know your name or address), but it identifies unique computers or devices, typically through the use of cookies. his enables the analytics package to identify repeat visits from the same computer and to organize behavior by session instead of just pageviews. (A session on a website can consist of multiple pageviews, and if the analytics package could not identify the computer, it would not be able to match multiple pageviews from the same computer.)

Technical Information

Analytics records technical information about each user, including the operating system, browser, screen size, and internet connection type. also determines the device they are using. and if they act differently depending on device/browser

Timing of Request

Analytics would not know the order of pageviews within a session without knowing the time that each pageview occurred, so each server request is time stamped. and how long uses spend on each page

Session

Any time a user enters a website, he has created a session. A session may consist of one or more pageviews.

New Versus Returning Sessions.

By examining how site usage differs for new versus returning sessions, a company may identify ways in which the site can better turn new users into repeat users.

Average Page Depth

Calculated as pageviews/sessions. This is a measure of user engagement with a website.

Close Rate.

Close rate is the percentage of leads that convert into revenue for the company.

Retail KPIs: Sessions, Conversion rate, Average order value, Revenue per session. Sessions--

Each visit to the website is a potential sale, so a retail website should always be looking to increase the number of sessions to its site.

Display Ad

Even more than paid search ads, display ads are likely to vary on several dimensions, including the content of the ad, the CTA in the ad, and the targeting method.

Conversion Rate.

For a lead-generation website, a conversion is a generated lead. A lead can be generated in multiple ways, either through filling out a form on the website or by calling the company directly, for example. Phone calls can be difficult to track, so the conversion rate is sometimes less reliable for a lead-generation site than for a retail site.

Conversion Rate.

Google and Bing will forego this KPI, because they are not trying to generate a conversion of any kind, but search engines for hotels, flight, rental cars, and so on, receive a commission on each conversion, so they want to maximize conversion rate.

Paid Search

If a company is paying for search results on Google or Bing, it should be running multiple ads. If it connects its analytics account with its paid search account, it can track site behavior for each ad or ad group, including the conversion rate resulting from each ad.

Affiliate Links

If a company pays referral fees to a partner website for quality traffic, it should be optimizing this traffic. If this traffic is converting at a low rate, neither website will be happy with the results. The partner websites may be able to share insights about how to send more qualified traffic to each other's sites or to a different landing page that might generate more success.

Revenue Per Session.

If a lead-generation site has a conversion rate of 15%, a close rate of 25%, and a closed deal value of $200, its revenue per session is .15 * .25 * $200 = $7.50. The site should not spend more than $7.50 for each website visitor it acquires through advertising or other channels.

Revenue Per Session.

If a retail website has a conversion rate of 5% and an average order value of $50, its revenue per session is $2.50. The retail website must know this number because it determines whether new traffic driven through additional advertising is profitable. If the website has a 50% gross margin, it makes $1.25 in profit for every session on average. It now knows it should not spend more than $1.25 to generate a visit to the site.

Because retail websites and lead-generation websites want their users to engage in different behaviors, they should be examining different metrics as signals of website performance.

In other words, websites of different types should have different key performance indicators, or KPIs, which are the metrics the website considers to be the most important measures of its success.

analysis paralysis

Just because loads of data are available does not mean that all the data are useful. wherein the sheer volume of data prevents the analyst from taking worthwhile action.

Social Media KPIs:

Like media sites, social media sites typically make money from advertising and thus care primarily about user engagement. But the metrics that best indicate the level of users' engagement are different for social media sites.

Average Session Duration.

Media sites with more video content than written content may be less interested in driving additional pageviews and more focused on keeping users watching videos, during which a site will insert video advertising. Average session duration would be a better measure of user engagement for such sites.

Posts/Tweets/Pins/etc.

Most social media sites are driven by user-generated content, so a KPI for a social media site is any measure that reflects the amount of content being created by users. A good social media analyst will not just examine total volume of content or even average pieces of content, but the distribution of content being generated. A social media site would rather have all of its users creating a reasonable amount of content rather than a few select users creating loads of content.

External Links.

Obtaining links from external sources is an important aspect of search engine optimization, which we begin to discuss in the next chapter, but many web developers often forget that those external links can also drive a significant share of a site's traffic, which is the primary goal.

Closed Deal Value.

On average, how much is a closed deal worth to the company? Again, this value is external to the website, but it can still affect the website's decisions, so the website manager should track and know it.

Searches.

Rather than measuring sessions or users, a search engine wishes to generate searches.

Browser

Segmenting user behavior by browser is important not only for behavioral reasons (observable actionable differences may exist in behavior across browser types), but also for technical reasons. Some browsers may not display a site correctly, and segmenting user behavior by browser should give a company clues about these technical glitches so that its technical team can work to make the site compatible with all browsers.

Likes/Re-Tweets/Re-Pins/etc.

Social media sites need users to not only create content but also consume it. The varying nature of content consumption across social media platforms means that no single metric will work for all social media sites, so each site needs to determine its own measure to use as a KPI on this dimension.

Conversions.

Some media websites may want users to sign up for regular emails, or to create an account, or to pay for a premium membership. Regardless of the nature of the conversion, the media site will want to set up a goal on the site to track the number of conversions that occur.

Unique Pageviews.

Some sessions may hit the same page several times. Removing these double counts can give a more realistic picture about the volume of traffic on a page.

Time on Page

The amount of time the user spent on a page before navigating to a different page.

step 4

The analytics package will aggregate and organize this data in a variety of ways according to the user's requests.

Emails.

The conversion rate on traffic from email campaigns is likely to be higher than the conversion rate from sources. But within email-generated traffic, a website may be able to find that traffic from some emails converts at a higher rate.

step 3

The data-collection center will store data about this server request and all other server requests until a user requests this data through the analytics report center.

Average Session Duration.

The duration of every session is the sum of time on page for every pageview in the session. (If the session ended because of 30 minutes of user inactivity, the calculation of session duration does not include these 30 minutes.)

Entry

The first pageview of a session is the entry point, which is often not the home page.

Exit

The last page view of a session is the exit point. An exit may occur because the user navigated outside the website or because the user was inactive for over 30 minutes (analytics will consider the session over if the user takes no action for 30 minutes or longer).

Site Bounce Rate

The percentage of all sessions that consist of only one pageview.

Exit Rate

The percentage of pageviews that result in an exit. Again, this is a page-specific metric.

Page Bounce Rate

The percentage of sessions that begin on that page that consist of only one pageview.

Entrance Rate.

The percentage of sessions that begin on that page. This is a page-specific metric.

Revenue Per Session

The revenue per session is calculated as revenue/sessions. This metric is important because it determines how much a company can spend on advertising to attract users to its site profitably.

Tracking website user behavior is straightforward, but it does not happen automatically.

The web developer needs to install a web analytics program into every page of the website she wishes to track, usually by pasting a small snippet of html code into the HEAD tag of the page.

Social Media Posts and Ads.

Traffic from social media typically comes from one of three possible sources: (1) content created by the company (the company tweets a 10% discount on select merchandise, leading many of its Twitter followers to click the link and shop the site); (2) content created or shared by other social media users (a Pinterest user pins one of a company's products, and others on Pinterest follow this pin back to the original site); or (3) advertising on a social media platform (the company pays for Facebook banner ads).

Segmentation: Geography. New Versus Returning Sessions. Timing. Browser. Screen Size. Device.---Geography

Web traffic patterns may differ between regions. Identifying these differences could provide recommendations for profitable changes to the website.

step 2

When the user navigates to the webpage, the web server receives a request for the information on this page, which the server sends across the internet to the requesting computer. At the same time, the web server will also pass on some information about this server request to a data-collection center run by the analytics package.

Device.

With the increasing usage of mobile devices and tablet computers of varying sizes and processing capacities, websites have to cater to a wider variety of users than ever before.