It used to be that increasing Web site traffic exponentially was the mark of success in search engine marketing (SEM). Today, that isn’t enough. Advertisers want to see an increase in conversions, requiring more accountability from marketing campaigns.
This means analyzing your Web site traffic to identify user
behavior. When you analyze this data, you’ll discover how
to serve customers better while improving 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:
It can help you make site changes to improve your conversion
ratio, and it can guide your marketing campaigns to achieve
better ROI.
What’s to Analyze?
The beauty of online marketing is that your Web site gathers
behavioral data from all visitors. You have all the information
needed 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
once the data is captured. 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 use your site. You can collect baseline information
that tells you:
Then you can look at averages such as:
E-commerce sites will find these statistics of value:
All this raw data resides in your Web logs, but it’s hard to
separate the wheat from the chaff without traffic analysis tools.
WebTrends
by netiQ is one of the most popular, and the information above
was excerpted from its Executives
“Top 10” Tables. Additional traffic analysis tools
include HitBox, LiveStats,
Urchin, and others available
from software download sites like www.download.com.
Making Site Changes to Improve Conversions
What do you want to measure to determine what site changes
might 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 site 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:
white papers, etc.
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 successfully
you are meeting your goals.
If you lead them to subscribe to a free newsletter and they
leave without registering, you need to find out why. You might
be asking for too much information, or the form might not
be user-friendly or functional. You might be defaulting to
undesirable pre-checked options or using opt-out techniques.
Your newsletter description might not be compelling enough
to generate interest. 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 adjust or eliminate content
to meet customer needs. Such actions can increase conversions
and customer satisfaction.
Evaluating SEM Marketing Campaign Performance
There are several measures you can use to analyze the effectiveness
of your SEM campaigns. Each company will have different objectives;
therefore, the key performance measures will vary. However,
below are six basic measures you can use for evaluating the
performance of your SEM or any marketing campaign.
number of visitors who responded to your campaign by coming
to your Web site.
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.
the cost of generating each desired action. It is measured
by dividing total campaign expense by the number of desired
actions generated.
of unique visitors completing your desired action. It is measured
by dividing total desired actions by the total unique visitors.
revenue generated by a specific campaign.
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 marketing message on
your site, the effectiveness of your offer, the choice of
various SEM marketing techniques (site/content optimization,
linking strategy, paid inclusion, paid placement, etc.), the
choice of search engines (MSN, AOL, Yahoo!, Google, Lycos,
AskJeeves, AltaVista, etc.), and many other elements of your
marketing campaign. Tweaking your campaign will likely result
in increased conversions, lower acquisition costs, and improved
ROI.
Paul J. Bruemmer is the CEO of Web Ignite, 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.
