11 November 2009 - 19:32Analytics – The Key to Profitable Marketing

There is an old advertising saying attributed to John Wanamaker that goes “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, the trouble is I don’t know which half”. Today you may still think that half of your advertising may be wasted, but shame on you if you don’t know which half.

With company websites as the cornerstone of today’s marketing, and with the addition of analytic tools to measure traffic, conversions, and sales that flow through your website, not only can you determine which half of your advertising and marketing is working, but you can make informed marketing decisions that prevent you from wasting money on advertising and marketing that does not work.

There is almost no marketing effort that can’t be tracked through analytics. Online advertising such as links from PPC, or purchased links from third party websites like Thomasnet and GlobalSpec, e-mail campaigns, direct mail campaigns, trade show events, and trade publication advertising can all be measured through your company website.

What do we measure?

Consider metrics for quantity, quality, cost, time and satisfaction. The most important metric in our space is Key Performance Indicators (KPI). If you don’t know what that is, call us. For demand generation, focus on cost per inquiry, cost per opportunity and cost per sale. For branding, focus on recognition and recall through surveys.

• How many unique visitors your site receives daily
• Which keywords are responsible for driving sales and leads to the site
• What are the most effective referring sources to drive revenue
• Which marketing campaign generates the most sales at the lowest cost
• Which pages within your site result in the most profit

Understanding which analytics to focus on (KPI) and understanding how to interpret those KPI can help you make improvements in your web design, improvements in your marketing/advertising campaigns, and ultimately increase the quality of your leads.For an example of an analytics report, customized specifically for your company go to:                  FREE ANALYSIS