Web metrics for web channels
With limited resources, businesses must ensure every dollar is well spent. This is inclusive of all marketing campaigns through their web channels. The truth is, a venture into web marketing should lead to measurable increase in revenues. Thus, every company serious about lead generation and subsequent sales should take web metrics seriously.
Web metrics are derived from the analysis of data gathered from user interactions with the company website and/or financial expenditure involved. Web metrics are revenue metrics — they indicate an increase or decrease in revenue. They are also dynamic in nature in the sense that little changes in web layout, page-load time and purchased ad words can significantly alter revenue in a short period of time. When things are not working, a little tweak can be all that’s needed.
Important web metrics for companies
- Acquisition cost: This is the average money spent on getting new customers via a particular channel. Assuming you paid for Adwords for a particular month, at the end of that month, you should know those that came to your website through that channel, and how many of them bought a product or service at least once. This is your conversion rate. The money spent on Adwords for that month over the conversion rate is the acquisition cost for that month via Adwords channel.
- Life-time value (LTV): This is an estimated average of revenue from a customer throughout their time of doing business with the company. For example, the average lifespan for a Starbucks customer is 20 years, and the average gross margin per customer lifespan is $5,382.94. Over time, a company can estimate the life-time value of conversion through a particular channel. Such estimates for each channel are helped through what is known as segmentation.
The ultimate goal is for the acquisition cost to always be less than the life-time value, especially the first year of the customer. Positive cash flow depends on it.
- Segmentation is classifying and grouping users and customers that have similar traits. Segmentation seeks to answer this question: “What is peculiar about the customers that become our long-term customers?” If this answer can be provided, then resources and money can be focused on attracting them.
Typical data collected from users during a website visit
1) Where do they come from?
- Sponsored search; purchased via search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc)
- Organic search
- Clicked on a link on email, tweet, Facebook post and other social media channels
- Third-party websites, e.g., blogs and articles
- Typed in URL (web address)
2) Devices used
- Mobile: iOS or Android
- PC: Mac, Windows or Linux
3) What they did when they logged on
- Did they bounce (leave immediately)?
- Duration of visit
- How many pages were visited?
- How they moved through the site, also known as clickstream.
In the end, using analytics in web development is a positive thing. It is meant to lead to actionable plans that are thorough and evidence based. A simple example of an actionable plan is implementing SEO (search engine optimization) to improve the bounce rate from organic searches.
There are other things web metrics can lead to as well. If your web page’s loading time is high, there’s every tendency you’re losing potential sales. In this case, the action plan would be to redesign the page or remove excessive videos and pictures. Properly tracking web metrics gives the ability to quantify success or failure.