Analytics programs are great, but they can quickly have you drowning in a sea of numbers. Generating lots of data isn’t very helpful if that data isn’t actionable. You need information that gives insights that you can feed back into your campaign. One way to tame your data is to massage it into a spreadsheet.
Data comes from all directions — web log analysis, marketing campaign analysis, shopping carts, and other ecommerce tools. Luckily, most analytics tools allow you to export that data into spreadsheet format. That’s the first step. Make sure you export the data into a spreadsheet at regular intervals. The next step is to merge that data into a format that provides actionable information.
If you’re not a spreadsheet guru this can be a hurdle. If pivot tables, charts, and macros make you cringe, fear not, as many turn-key solutions exist. One of the best is the Digital Sales Calculator from Future Now. This spreadsheet has been carefully designed to provide meaningful metrics that you can track and compare. If you’re rusty on metrics you might consider their Common Sense Guide to Emetrics which is a blow by blow introduction to all the metrics present in the digital sales calculator and makes a great companion guide to the Excel spreadsheet.
The Pay-Per-Click Marketer offers an ROI calculator in spreadsheet format. This lets you easily track your return on investment through online marketing campaigns, but lacks the power and depth of Future Now’s solution.
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