Online analytics tools are a valuable resource used by online and ecommerce teams to gain a deeper understanding of the overall visitor experience, inbound marketing channels attribution and web performance.
With online analytics, you can:
• Examine the data to determine what is or isn't working on your website.
• Analyze which PPC advertising campaign results in the most conversions.
• Track keywords which are triggering the most ad displays and which ads have the highest click-thru-rates.
• Observe paths that visitors take and see how frequently visitors achieve or abandon your stated goals and where they deviate from the path.
• Learn more about visitor trends, traffic sources, content performance, ecommerce interactions, systems and identify poorly performing pages.
Make your online initiatives measurable and goal-driven
As visitors navigate a website that has been tagged with an online analytics tool, each page loaded and, in some cases, each action taken is recorded in a database. The first step to examining the data is to set your specific goal defined as a visit to a particular page. When a visitor arrives at a goal page, a conversion is achieved - i.e., your goal is accomplished. For a purchase, the goal page may be the purchase confirmation. For a form, it may be a thank you page appearing after the person has submitted the form. The path you expect a visitor to take on their way to reaching the goal is called the funnel. You can also define events (specific user actions) like flash-driven elements including menu and video players, widgets, and file downloads.
Capture data on key metrics:
• Site Usage: bounce rate, entrances, exits, visitors, new visits, unique visitors, time on page, average time on page, pageviews, pages/visit, time on site.
• Content: unique page views, total unique searches, visits with search, search refinements, time after search, search depth, search exits, unique event.
• Goals: starts, completions, value, conversion rate, abandonment rate
• Ecommerce: unique purchases, product revenue, quantity, revenue, per visit value, revenue-per-click, average value, shipping, tax, and transactions.
• Advertising: clicks, cost, impressions, click-through-rate, cost-per-click, cost-per-thousand, cost per goal conversion, return-on-investment and margin.
Maximizing web performance for online ROI
Once your goals are set, you can collect your data on key metrics using your online analytics tools, facilitate data interpretation by creating standard or custom reports (visual dashboards), and analyze your results against stated goals. Now, you're ready to socialize the data insights within your organization and take action to optimize your conversion funnel, content and advertising to create more meaningful visitor interactions.
Armed with analytical insights, you can make more informed decisions about the effectiveness of your website and online advertising strategy for optimizing the web and maximizing online ROI.