Set it and Forget it – Only Works for Ron Popeil
http://www.isedb.com/db/articles/1821/1/Set-it-and-Forget-it--Only-Works-for-Ron-Popeil/Page1.html
Rob Aronson
Rob is the founder of Avenue A| Razorfish’s search engine optimization department.He serves as the senior search engine optimization expert for the agency, and oversees the agency’s feed management offering. In addition he sets the strategic vision for all organic search technology product development initiatives for Avenue A| Razorfish.
Rob has over 7 years of experience in planning, executing, and tracking search engine marketing campaigns for clients across a wide range of industries. He dedicates his time to researching the rapidly changing search industry so that the team can anticipate, and respond accordingly to, changes in the search engine marketing landscape. Rob conducts frequent training on best practices in search engine optimization, working with our clients’ in-house optimization, marketing, web services and IT teams.
By Rob Aronson
Published on 04/1/2008
With all of these dollars being spent on search marketing why is it that so few can really answer questions such as should I buy my brand name on paid search? Or what impact does organic search have on my paid search performance and vice versa?
Set it and Forget it – Only Works for Ron Popeil
I once read a quote that sums up the frustration that many companies have when it comes to truly measuring online performance:
”I know that half of my advertising budget is completely wasted, I’m just not sure which half.”
If you care to know which half is which, I suggest you continue reading.
One of the reasons that search marketing is expected to grow within the next 5 years from a 15.8 billion dollar industry to 44.5 billion dollars is that advertisers love the fact that they can succinctly measure the ROI garnered from this medium of advertising. Or at least they think they can….
With all of these dollars being spent on search marketing why is it that so few can really answer questions such as should I buy my brand name on paid search? Or what impact does organic search have on my paid search performance and vice versa?
The answer is fairly simple. Companies spend millions on web development initiatives, site maintenance and marketing, while far too often the proper implementation and monitoring of web analytics is regarded as an afterthought.
Planning with Purpose
Very few enterprises have a process in place for ensuring accurate web analytics data capture, or that consistent reporting and analysis occurs on a regular basis. Even fewer organizations are able to yield actionable results from their web analytics investment. There are many different tracking products that isolate a single campaign’s performance, but the only way to gauge return on investment (ROI) for your entire Web site is through a properly implemented web analytics platform.
Everything your organization does online is measurable, but not everything needs to be measured. Without planning for measurement of your digital property – whether consumer site, business portal, intranet, blog, or display media campaign – any optimization actions you take are done in the dark. Simply put, you must maintain an ongoing understanding of your target audience by measuring their interaction with your organization, your brand, your corporate messaging and your product.
You need to measure with the purpose of serving your customer better, or someone else will. Simple metrics such as unique visitors, visits and even referrals tell us very little alone, unless you can correlate them to a richer data set that better illustrates significant events. Leveraging web analytics for your brand or organization entails:
The platform your organization employs for web analytics is important, but it’s only part of the equation. Many organizations deploy a web analytics platform and expect it to automatically yield results. Every web analytics platform on the market, however, requires a planned implementation and on-going maintenance to truly be beneficial to your Web initiatives.
There are differences in today’s web analytics systems. They interface differently in terms of creating user segments, correlating data across metrics, importing external data and automating report distribution.
When selecting a new platform or expanding an existing one, careful planning should be part of the process. Many times companies struggle with their platforms when the real issue is with process or lack of planning. For a platform to succeed within your organization, the following best practices should be adhered to:
A Tier-1 platform will offer structured reports; tools to build and distribute automated dashboards; and the ability to set up tracking and report filters for search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC), display media, shopping feed, and email campaign analysis.
Depending on how evolved your organization’s web analytics practice is, you may need a platform with data warehouse capabilities that allow you to run queries against full click-stream data sets. Advanced web analytics will require a platform that offers a multi-dimensional analysis interface – such as Omnitures Discover application – and the ability to import many types of data.
Action Driven Performance
Through a planned approach with the right people, with an optimized web analytics platform in place, your organization can begin to tame digital chaos. Of course, this requires commitment, focus, and budget. To increase brand performance, sales, lead volume, or subscriptions the data must be mined and analyzed in a usable format.
Most importantly, once a site-side or campaign-based action has been defined it should be implemented as reasonably fast as possible. Then the analysis process should start again to determine outcomes.
Web analytics systems provide the data to allow for measured experimentation. It is crucial to the success of your program to act on the data when necessary. Determining what actions are required – such as site design modifications, natural search content expansion, form field changes, etc. – should be built into your group web analytics report reviews.
So now that you know what it takes, you tell me, which half is which.
”I know that half of my advertising budget is completely wasted, I’m just not sure which half.”
If you care to know which half is which, I suggest you continue reading.
One of the reasons that search marketing is expected to grow within the next 5 years from a 15.8 billion dollar industry to 44.5 billion dollars is that advertisers love the fact that they can succinctly measure the ROI garnered from this medium of advertising. Or at least they think they can….
With all of these dollars being spent on search marketing why is it that so few can really answer questions such as should I buy my brand name on paid search? Or what impact does organic search have on my paid search performance and vice versa?
The answer is fairly simple. Companies spend millions on web development initiatives, site maintenance and marketing, while far too often the proper implementation and monitoring of web analytics is regarded as an afterthought.
Planning with Purpose
Very few enterprises have a process in place for ensuring accurate web analytics data capture, or that consistent reporting and analysis occurs on a regular basis. Even fewer organizations are able to yield actionable results from their web analytics investment. There are many different tracking products that isolate a single campaign’s performance, but the only way to gauge return on investment (ROI) for your entire Web site is through a properly implemented web analytics platform.
Everything your organization does online is measurable, but not everything needs to be measured. Without planning for measurement of your digital property – whether consumer site, business portal, intranet, blog, or display media campaign – any optimization actions you take are done in the dark. Simply put, you must maintain an ongoing understanding of your target audience by measuring their interaction with your organization, your brand, your corporate messaging and your product.
You need to measure with the purpose of serving your customer better, or someone else will. Simple metrics such as unique visitors, visits and even referrals tell us very little alone, unless you can correlate them to a richer data set that better illustrates significant events. Leveraging web analytics for your brand or organization entails:
- Planning your initial implementation and configuring the system per your sites requirements
- Assigning resources responsible for implementation, reporting, analysis and maintenance
- Making Key Performance Indicator (KPI) definition part of your planning and marketing process
- Consistently applying tracking codes to all digital marketing campaigns
- Incorporating page tagging of new content and site(s) into your maintenance process
- Ensuring that web analytics report templates and dashboards are part of the planning process
The platform your organization employs for web analytics is important, but it’s only part of the equation. Many organizations deploy a web analytics platform and expect it to automatically yield results. Every web analytics platform on the market, however, requires a planned implementation and on-going maintenance to truly be beneficial to your Web initiatives.
There are differences in today’s web analytics systems. They interface differently in terms of creating user segments, correlating data across metrics, importing external data and automating report distribution.
When selecting a new platform or expanding an existing one, careful planning should be part of the process. Many times companies struggle with their platforms when the real issue is with process or lack of planning. For a platform to succeed within your organization, the following best practices should be adhered to:
- Marketing and information system management must collaborate around the platform
- Enterprise wide implementation and configuration best practices should be documented
- KPI development and implementation should be planned for every site within the organization
- The system should be properly configured on the front-end specific to individual site needs
- High level summary report distribution should be automated via dashboards
A Tier-1 platform will offer structured reports; tools to build and distribute automated dashboards; and the ability to set up tracking and report filters for search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC), display media, shopping feed, and email campaign analysis.
Depending on how evolved your organization’s web analytics practice is, you may need a platform with data warehouse capabilities that allow you to run queries against full click-stream data sets. Advanced web analytics will require a platform that offers a multi-dimensional analysis interface – such as Omnitures Discover application – and the ability to import many types of data.
Action Driven Performance
Through a planned approach with the right people, with an optimized web analytics platform in place, your organization can begin to tame digital chaos. Of course, this requires commitment, focus, and budget. To increase brand performance, sales, lead volume, or subscriptions the data must be mined and analyzed in a usable format.
Most importantly, once a site-side or campaign-based action has been defined it should be implemented as reasonably fast as possible. Then the analysis process should start again to determine outcomes.
Web analytics systems provide the data to allow for measured experimentation. It is crucial to the success of your program to act on the data when necessary. Determining what actions are required – such as site design modifications, natural search content expansion, form field changes, etc. – should be built into your group web analytics report reviews.
So now that you know what it takes, you tell me, which half is which.