 As we move another year into the ever-changing Internet marketplace, we'd like to offer some New Year's resolutions to help you stay focused on getting the most out of your web analytics, and to make your online marketing as successful as possible.
Here are 7 resolutions that are sure to improve your web analysis in this new year and in years to come.
Resolution #1: Be open to your web analysis showing you something surprising.
You think you know what works—what causes people to react positively, and what drives people to purchase your products. Most often you are right, but when analyzing visitor behavior, be open to being surprised by the results. Maybe people gravitate towards sections of your site that you consider less important. Or you may find that your most important visitors actually bypass beautifully designed product pages in favor of bland-looking (but information-packed) whitepapers. Without web analytics, you would never know.
In ClickTracks, you can see what pages drive visitors to your shopping cart checkout or other goal in several ways: for instance, by using the Funnel report, or by combining visitor labeling with the Site Overview. But the best way to get a definite answer to what works best is to do an A/B split. Some marketers might go as far as doing an AB split on every single campaign they run. That way, each campaign is not only a revenue generator, but also a learning experience.
It comes down to this: There is always more to learn when it comes to what works in marketing. Visitor expectations, graphics and writing styles--and thus the methods that produce results--exist in a constantly evolving landscape.
Resolution #2: Don't waste time gathering information that you cannot act on.
Sure, you can see that the email blast or campaign you just launched brought 1000 people to your site so far...now it's 1200...then 1500. You can follow the progress, and it can be very exciting. But simply watching the numbers change doesn't create revenue. You're better off if you ignore the moment-by-moment results and let your efforts run their course for an appropriate amount of time. Then, when you perform analytics, you will still get the pleasure of seeing the results of your efforts—and, you'll simultaneously learn about what your visitors prefer and how they behave.
There may be exceptions to this. For instance, if you're sending a large email blast, you probably want to check on it early on to be sure the links and landing pages are working correctly. You may also want to do another reality check on your landing page, to make sure that it's working (and converting) like you intended. But unless you are prepared to take immediate action, there's no need to consume continually updated information.
Resolution #3: Keep an eye on spending by defining your goals, and constantly measuring your success.
Online advertising, both pay-per-click and traditional banner ads, can quickly become expensive. It's important to ensure that your advertising budget goes as far as it can. You should strive to regularly check and adjust your campaigns, looking out for poorly performing ads, landing pages that are not effective, and possible click fraud. In ClickTracks, the Campaign report is a good place to start. It summarizes important information about online campaigns. To take it a step further, you should check the Click Fraud report regularly for poorly performing campaigns. Also, you will want to make visitor labels for your most important campaigns, so you can see how those particular visitors behave on your site—whether they ultimately made a purchase, and if not, what they did instead.
Resolution #4: Make sure that important visitors can find what they are looking for.
Every web site visitor is different. Some are students, looking to learn more on certain topic. Others are perusing your products, but might not actually make a purchase for several months. Some may be inclined to purchase almost immediately if they like what they see. Others have already purchased, and return to the site to read manuals and articles. All of these types of customers are important to your business, even though they use the web site in radically different ways.
Visitor segmentation can tell you a lot about how well your site navigation and content are working. Do returning visitors gravitate towards different pages or section than new visitors? Do visitors who have already made a purchase visit the support section, and if so, do they spend a long time? What pages do they view? By asking these kinds of questions, you will get answers that lead you towards a more useful, productive web site.
In ClickTracks, visitor labeling is the key to answering these types of questions.
Resolution #5: Think before changing things that have repeatedly been successful.
Over time, you've probably found that certain designs for online forms, landing pages, and ads consistently work well. Once you've hit upon a winning formula, you may be hesitant to make changes to what you already know works well. While constantly checking and adjusting campaigns (and the web site itself) is a big part of web analytics, you don't want to forget the lessons you've already learned.
Resolution #6: Consider how you'll analyze the site before you start to build it.
Often, pages implemented in a certain way (like pages that have special characters in the query strings) present challenges for analysis. Also, interactive media files, AJAX server calls, and other asynchronous server exchanges can present problems in analysis. When designing and implementing a new section of your site, you'll want to consider how you will analyze it. If there will be an external link that you want to track, you'll use a redirect that records the page view before sending the visitor to the external site. If there will be asynchronous server interaction, you'll make sure every transaction is recorded, and you'll make intelligent choices about file names, so analysis makes sense later on.
Resolution #7: Listen to customers that take the time to contact you regarding problems with your site.
While browsing the Web, we often come across a broken link, frustrating navigation structure, or even an unusable shopping cart. Most of us rarely, if ever, take the time to inform the site owner of the problem. So, for the few visitors that actually do contact you, it's worth taking the time to at least briefly investigate the problem(s) that they are describing. For every such visitor, there are probably many others who did not bother to let you know, simply leaving the web site instead. Checking on customer concerns and complaints not only have the chance of improving the web site—it also helps cement the all-important relationship between your business and your web site visitors.
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