Traffic Analysis Can Improve Your Marketing Campaigns by Paul J. Bruemmer-2003 Once your site has been promoted with the right mix of advertising, PR, and search engine marketing, you'll want to measure performance to see how your marketing ROI stacks up. Marketers are looking for better returns from their marketing campaigns. A good way to measure returns is to examine the data in your Web logs, analyzing your traffic for clues to user behavior. By analyzing behavioral data, you can fine-tune your site to serve customers better and improve your own profitability. It's important to know where your visitors go and to notice what they like or don't like. Traffic analysis can yield information that improves marketing efficiency in two important areas: · Making site changes to improve your conversion ratio, and · Improving your marketing campaigns to achieve better ROI. Analyze This The beauty of online marketing is that your Web site gathers behavioral data from all visitors. You can find all the information you need for optimal marketing strategies in your Web logs. The best marketing campaigns are those designed to be measured, analyzed, and continuously improved. The problem is that most laypeople don't know what to analyze or what actions to take as data is recorded. It's not always easy to know what to measure and why. Traffic Analysis Data Web logs provide user activity information on your Web site traffic. Analyzing your Web logs will familiarize you with the way visitors navigate your site. You can collect baseline information that tells you: · Total Page Views · Daily Unique Visitors · Hourly Unique Visitors · Total Visits · First Time Visitors · Repeat Visitors · Daily Returning Visitors Then you can look at averages such as: · Average Page Views per Visitor · Average Visits per Visitor · Average Visit Length · Average Page Views per Hour of this Day · Average Unique Visitors per Hour of This Day · Average Visits per Hour of This Day E-commerce sites will find these statistics of value: · Total Revenue · Total Orders · Total Unique Buyers · Most Active and Least Active Time Period · Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate · First Time Visitor Conversions · Repeat Visitor Conversions · Buyer to Browser Ratio All this raw data resides in your Web logs, but it's hard to organize without traffic analysis tools. WebTrends by netiQ is a popular analytical tool, and the information above was excerpted from its Executives "Top 10" Tables. Additional traffic analysis tools can be found on download.com, including some low-end tools like HitBox, LiveStats, Urchin. Many high-end tools with advanced functionality are available as well. Site Changes to Improve Conversions What can you measure to identify the site changes that will improve your conversion ratio? This depends on the nature of your site, whether it's an e-commerce site selling products and services, a media publishing content site, or purely an informational site. Each site will have specific goals. The best way to determine how well your site attracts and retains visitors to meet these goals is to identify all possible reasons why a user would visit your Web site, such as: · Gather in-depth information on products/services · Look for email or phone contacts to ask questions about products/services · Purchase products/services · Compare pricing of products/services · Check status of pending order for products/services · Get more information or tips on using purchased products · Look for customer service assistance · Report a malfunction of online forms or shopping cart · Register for newsletters, product updates, marketing brochures, white papers, etc. · Research next-generation products · Join an online community · Read news headlines, industry news, business articles, etc. · Research information on accessories for purchased products/services · Check out new product offerings · Troubleshoot problems related to purchased products/service Once you identify the reasons why users visit your site, you can assign desired actions to visitor clusters and follow their movements within your site to determine how successful you are in meeting your goals. If you lead them to subscribe to a free newsletter and they fail to register, you need to find out why. You might be asking for too much information. The form might not be user-friendly or functional. Maybe your description wasn't compelling enough. Identify the roadblocks and take whatever action is necessary to improve your conversion rate. Path navigation analysis can give you the information you need to make navigation easier and to adjust or eliminate content to meet your customers' needs. These changes can increase conversions and customer satisfaction. Evaluating Campaign Performance There are several measures you can use to analyze the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns. Each company will have different objectives; therefore, the key performance measures will vary. Below are six basic measures you can use for evaluating the performance of any marketing campaign. · Total Unique Visitors - This is the number of visitors who responded to your campaign by coming to your Web site. · Total Desired Actions - This is the number of visitors who responded to your call-to-action. The call-to-action depends on your objectives. It might be registering for a newsletter or trial, purchasing a product or service, registering for a seminar, or subscribing to paid services, etc. · Cost Per Desired Action - This is the cost of generating each desired action. It is measured by dividing total campaign expense by the number of desired actions generated. · Conversion Rate - This is the percentage of unique visitors completing your desired action. It is measured by dividing total desired actions by the total unique visitors. · Total Revenue - This is your total revenue generated by a specific campaign. · Percentage ROI - Calculate the return on investment for each campaign by subtracting total costs from total revenue, then dividing by total cost. Once you've defined your performance metrics, you can use visitor behavior analysis to test the success of your marketing message or the effectiveness of various offers. If you want to know how effective your search engine marketing techniques are, you can compare your choice of various strategies: · Site analysis and optimization · Offsite development · Linking strategy · Paid inclusion · Paid placement · Manual search engine submissions (Inktomi, Google, Lycos, AltaVista) · Manual directory submissions (Yahoo!, Open Directory Project, LookSmart) You might find that paid placement is less cost effective over time and can be dropped as paid inclusion and manual submissions take hold. By making use of Web analytics, you can tweak your marketing campaigns for increased conversions, lower acquisition costs, and improved ROI. ================================================================ Paul J. Bruemmer mailto:paul2@web-ignite.com is the CEO of Web Ignite, http://www.web-ignite.com/ a search engine marketing company founded in 1995. Web-Ignite earned a top grade in the Buyers' Guide to Search Engine Optimization Firms and has helped promote over 15,000 Web sites. Client testimonials report traffic increases of 150 to 500 percent. Bruemmer's articles have appeared on ClickZ and other publications. ================================================================