Choosing KPIs: Visitors or Visits?

Recently had a client situation where we were providing the client with monthly organic visitor numbers to their ecommerce site. A colleague showed me a report received from the client, which had the same data, but marked as ‘visits’. So that got me thinking…what do they really want to measure here: visitors or visits? And do they know? And have they thought about what difference it makes? And, of course, what recommendation can we provide?
Both numbers are important (although they may not be critical – depending on the outcomes you need to measure) and they provide similar information, but [...]

Taking the Confusion Out of Attribution

So we get a number of questions about attribution. What is attribution? Which attribution model should we be using? Is there an ideal attribution model? What is a typical attribution model look like? How accurate is one attribution model vs. another?
Before I go on, I would like to say that I am by no means an expert on attribution. The purpose of this article is to really open up a dialogue and help take some of the confusion out of attribution as it pertains to marketing specifically online marketing.  People have been trying to figure out attribution for years and [...]

The Difference Between a Dashboard and a Report

From a number of “dashboards” and “reports” that I have seen out there, in the world of SEO and online marketing, there appears to be a disconnect with regards to reporting and dashboards. Quite often a new client comes to us and we ask to see some historical data, the client presents us with a plethora of data and lengthily reports. Sound familiar?

Google Local Search Gets A Dashboard!

Local search is an important part of a solid search marketing strategy, and became even more so when Google started being more aggressive in their use of local search result maps back in early April. 
Now they’ve rolled out a proper dashboard to let you see how people are interacting with your local listings. (Full announcement here and here)

Today the Local Business Center team is rolling out a new feature: a dashboard that will provide you with information on how Google users are interacting with your local listing in Google Maps and Google Search.

These local results can be an excellent way [...]

PPC Measurability: A Double Edged Sword

In marketing circles, the old adage: "Half my advertising money is wasted. The problem is that I don’t know which half!" is often regarded as marketing fact and has been more or less accepted as fact until now. In a down economy marketers are now heralding this statement no longer as a quote, but as a mission statement to finding where to invest money.  However, the very nature of this quote embodies the challenge that all marketers face: attribution. The famous marketing quote was reportedly said by William Lever, John Wanamaker, and F.W. Woolworth; begging the question: who gets the [...]

BtoB Webcast: Avinash Hits the Mark on B2B Analytics

Earlier in the week BtoB Magazine hosted a website with Avinash Kaushik on ‘Measuring Micro & Macro Conversions in Lead Generation’, a topic near and dear to our hearts.  This was an action-packed hour of strategies for leveraging analytics to meet B2B website objectives and it has garnered quite a bit of interest, judging from recent conversations with our clients and others.  That Avinash, always causing a stir! 
There were lots of good concepts presented, but I wanted to highlight a couple that we think are particularly relevant.  These are the kinds of things that can lead to significantly improved results [...]

The Customer Life Cycle Funnel – an Interview with Jim Sterne

 
I recently had a chance to chat with Jim Sterne, Chairman of the Web Analytics Association and founder of the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit.
Jim Sterne’s depiction of the Customer Life Cycle Funnel – four distinct funnels based on successful or unsuccessful customer acquisition, persuasion and conversion – has been widely quoted and referenced since he first presented it in 2000.  In the interview, Jim walks us through the four funnels, while also touching upon B2B vs. B2C, and social media marketing.

Want to be a Top Notch Analyst? Add these Skills to your Repertoire

If you are looking for a career in web analytics and want to establish a solid foundation of skills as a part of your overall analytics training, then I recommend adding the skills below to your tool-set to help you become a very well rounded analyst before you enter the field. Taking a course on web analytics, reading a book on web analytics or subscribing to a web analytics blog are a good start, but frankly, are not good enough by themselves.
 

Search Marketing: I always think of Web Analytics as a tool to help your search marketing strategy. Without an [...]

Why You Should Use Google Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster Tools has been around for a few years now.   Over the past few years, the Google Webmaster Team has done a remarkable job in updating Google Webmaster Tools and listening to the needs of Webmasters and site owners.  For those of you who do not currently use Webmaster Tools, you should.  Google Webmaster Tools is a very powerful tool that you can use to address any indexing issues that Google may have with your site.  Google Webmaster Tools is a great tool for reporting statistics and diagnostics pertaining to the managment of your site’s pages in Google index.  [...]

Marketers Would Increase Budget for Behavioral Targeting

Four out of five advertisers are willing to increase their online advertising budget in order to add behavioral targeting to their pay-per-click campaigns, according to SEMPO, (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization), http://www.sempo.org/, which conducted a 2007 state of the market survey of 867 search engine advertisers and search engine marketing agencies. I had a quick chat with the Chairperson of SEMPO, Dana Todd regarding the latest interest in behavioral targeting and the need to include it in a company’s online marketing strategy. Listen to the podcast of our conversation below:
 
 

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Rest of the press release: The survey also [...]