The beauty of Web analytics - and the promise of the Internet - is the ability to capture nearly unlimited amounts of data about your Web site. That said, without a clear strategy to "measure what matters" - and a powerful analytics tool to help you turn that information into answers - your Web analytics initiatives will quickly drown in a sea of data. So how can you turn these incredible data resources into clear and actionable insights? A good place to start is by defining key performance indicators or KPIs.
BY BRENT DYKES, SENIOR CONSULTANT, BEST PRACTICES GROUP
This paper is designed to help you understand KPIs; define metrics that support your organizational goals; and create intuitive dashboards to benchmark, monitor, and improve these key indicators. What data should you focus on? Who needs this information? How different are the data needs and delivery mechanisms between various teams and job functions? And what is the most effective and impactful way to share key metrics across the enterprise?
We'll cover these questions and show you how SiteCatalyst and Omniture Best Practices Group streamlines the process.
Understanding Your Business Objectives
Key performance indicators bridge the gap between your Web analytics data and your business objectives. Before you can determine specific KPIs, you must first understand the following:
What your business is trying to accomplish through its Web site? What defines the success of its online efforts?
Business objectives vary according to your type of business or a specific function within the business. For example, an e-commerce business is concerned primarily with driving online sales, while a content site is concerned with advertising metrics, such as reach, frequency, and online registrations. If lead generation is your key function, KPIs should efficiently capture and qualify prospects for future communications while a customer support organization should strive for efficient Web self-service. Optimizing the self-service functionality not only reduces costly call center inquiries, but can also result in greater customer satisfaction and retention.
As you can see, the business objectives and KPIs vary for each of these business models. However, as you'll see in the following day-in-the-life scenarios, once the business issue becomes clear, defining KPIs becomes second nature. Then, it's simply a matter of building the appropriate dashboard to measure and monitor each KPI and choosing the most efficient way to share these insights.
Scenario One: e-Commerce
Maintaining Good relationships with domestic and Business Partners.
Challenge: Scott is the affiliate marketing manager for an electronics retailer. In addition to his daily duties managing the many partners linking to his employer's site, he must also prepare individual reports for each affiliate. These reports require some customization to address each affiliate's unique needs and contract terms. However, with the birth of his first child, Scott doesn't want to put in extra hours at work to achieve this.
Scenario Two: Content
Monitoring traffic to Avoid a competitive Slowdown
Challenge: Tracy is a Web analyst for a content site. A new competitor entered the market recently and launched a site with similar content. Tracy's senior management wants regular updates on the performance of their content site to make sure they're not losing traffic to the competitor's Web site.
Need: Build standard dashboards for their KPIs and give executives easy access to these reports online.
Solution: Utilize the trending and improved views to show traffic patterns and set up alerts in case traffic dips below a certain level. Check the referring domains to see if a lot of traffic is coming from the competitor's site and set up the new competitor's domain in "key visitors" to discover what areas of Tracy's Web site they are viewing.
Sidenote: Dashboard Best Practices
- Trending is typically the most effective presentation.
- Use filtering to pinpoint desired content to be monitored.
- Choose the appropriate reportlet: Graph, Summary, Details.
- Display relevant time comparisons - this Wednesday versus last Wednesday (avoid seasonal and weekend effects).
- Leverage commenting options to provide background information on data or highlight targets.
Scenario Three: Lead Generation
Generating more results and less busy work.
Challenge: Janice is the senior marketing manager for a large consulting company. She often gets ad hoc request from headquarters regarding the North American Web site's lead generation success.
