Internet Marketing and Web Analytics Strategy Avinash Koshyk

You are reading the translation of Avinash Koshyk's article: Digital Marketing and Measurement Model .

What distinguishes winners from losers in web analytics? Winners, before thinking about data or tools, create a well-structured strategy for internet marketing and web analytics. Losers - no.

From the article you will learn how to build your own strategy. Please note, I specifically emphasize Internet marketing, and I’m not just looking at collecting data on my own. I will also show you inspirational examples of such models.

So, let's begin...

Often, marketing campaigns fail not because of bad banners, TV channels or websites. And not even because of those who implement the campaign. This is due to the fact that there is no sustainable understanding of what the campaign was conducted for and what set of indicators to measure whether it is successful or not.

I have developed a simple 5-step model that will help you gain that understanding. Every step by points:

• The first step: find out in advance the goals of the business and get a broad vision of our work. We will have to interact with senior managers.
• The second step: we define clear objectives of the site based on each business goal. Here you will interact with managers.
• The third step: write down key performance indicators (KPI). It all depends on you. You can interact with a colleague who is savvy in the data area, if there is one.
• Fourth step: we define a measure of success and set targets or targets for each KPI. Here you can interact with executives, marketers, or the finance department.
• Fifth step: we define the main user segments. Understand why we succeed or fail.

Just right? In fact, it is more difficult than it seems. Before I consider each step in detail, I want to share something important with you.

The right strategy for internet marketing and web analytics covers three key areas of marketing. In each of them, she answers a number of the following questions.

1. Attraction. How are you going to attract visitors to your site, video or something else that you promote? Do you use all successful methods of attraction: social networks, search engines, paid traffic? Which ones are more important to you? Where do you put the most effort?
2. Behavior. What do you expect from people when they get to the site? What pages should they visit? What videos should they watch? How often should they return? Maybe they should perform some specific actions? What especially do you do to make the site user-friendly?
3. Targeted action. What target customer actions increase the value of your business: downloads, calls to the call center, confirmed requests from the site, email subscriptions, purchases of goods or services. Maybe the result for you is 95% of visits in which users successfully solve their problem and an additional 10 points to the brand perception.

Just ask yourself: why did we get involved in this whole digital story?

I sincerely hope that these questions will sow useful seeds of reflection in you, while you will master each of the 5 steps of the model. If your model does not cover all three marketing areas, then it is not complete. Then you should reconsider it. Don't be content with mediocre work.

After a general overview, let's look at a real example of how this concept can be applied.

Our training campaign works in the field of real estate. This is a difficult case, because the main victories are committed offline. If you can build a model for such a business, then you will definitely cope with the current project!

Step 1: Determine Business Goals

Ask the question: why does the campaign and its website exist? Think about the sources of attraction and user behavior. What do you want to get as a result?

This is difficult because it requires the skill to think ahead. If you do it right, you will end up with something like the following:

To understand business goals, communicate and get closer to company executives. Show that you contribute and are interested in their work. Try to understand why they created the company and why they need a website.

From communication, in our case, we have identified three goals: to increase awareness, attract applications for builders and cover the events of the industry.

How to check yourself? Goals should be:

• executable,
• understandable
• manageable,
• beneficial.

If this is not the case, then you will not swim far away. If they are too vague, then nothing is complete. If they are too unconvincing, they will not inspire anyone. Goals must be realistic, clear, achievable and add company values. They can be short and long term.

Do your goals seem inconclusive?

Tip: Forget about the fact that you are going to shoot a series of videos or create a file storage service, or that you are trying to copy the idea of ​​the campaign from abroad. Think about why you do what you do. Check with the boss or client.

Step 2: Identify objectives based on company goals

Let's dig deeper and define the tasks of the site. Think critically with managers, marketers, and analysts. Attract campaign management.

Definition: The objectives of the site are specific strategies with which you most likely achieve your business goals.

After a second brainstorming session with colleagues and management, our model became:

The model is clear, has a vertical connection between goals and objectives and instantly clarifies everything.

In order to “Increase awareness” of a brand, in this case, the site should help offline activities, as well as attract targeted visitors.

The goal of “Attracting applications” includes the following tasks: to inform and assist potential buyers to make a decision, sign them to an email newsletter, and receive electronic requests for a virtual tour of the house.

Finally, the purpose of “Cover events” refers to future buyers who come to our site. Make them happier and invite to bright events. Drive to a construction site or show models of typical houses. So you will most likely achieve that they tell others about you and are more likely to prefer you.

These tasks provide clarity. Portions of ideas and concrete actions for marketers and analysts follow from them.

Tip: consider not only targeted actions, but also auxiliary actions or microconversions. If you have defined tasks and feel that they do not cover all site assignments, you may need to supplement your model.

Step 3: Identify key performance indicators.

We finally got to the data! I know you have been waiting for this. It all depends on your ideas.

Definition: A key performance indicator (KPI) is a metric that helps you understand how far you are from your goal.

Take the trouble and select the most significant KPI for each site task. Here's what it looks like:

Incredible, yes?

I’m sure your head is buzzing with ideas from new user reports and what can now be counted or unloaded. You better understand what to do next! Fine, but hold the horses. There are still 2 steps left. Let's continue.

Want to choose the right KPI? Study the following examples ...

Choose KPIs that make it clear that you have succeeded or fail.

Step 4: Set Targets.

I hurt the fact that so few people perform this step. This is important in many ways.

Definition: Targets are the KPI value at which you will understand that you have achieved success or vice versa.

Why do you need goals? Consider the following: you have carried out an amazing campaign on YouTube. Received 1.2 million views. Is it good or bad? How do you define? For this purpose, we need targets.

They are needed to better plan the further development of your website, campaign or marketing in general. When you are expected to have 5 million visits per month, then you act differently than if it were 500 thousand. If you had to reach out to thousands of marketing directors, would you not use social. network first? That's why you need targets.

Targets can be taken from historical data. Did you do something similar before, what were the numbers then? It is possible to count in another way. If my watch boring video received 30 thousand views during the week, then your 2 short explosive videos, wouldn't it get 1.2 million views?

Let your colleagues, who like to count, help you: financiers, managers.

Your internet marketing strategy and web analyst look like this ...

It is immediately clear where the company is aimed, and when you see KPI in Google Analytics or another tool, you jump for joy or get upset. You immediately understand how well things are going or bad.

Tip: If you do not have targets, do something about it. Choose a realistic figure that will not confuse you and your superiors. This will be a good start. You will be able to revise this figure next month after the first wave of data surges. There is no point in measuring, it is not clear yet which numbers are good and which numbers are bad. With experience, you will be better set targets - good targets.

Step 5: Identify the main segments to analyze.

This last part means a lot to me because it has an incredible value.

Definition: segments are individual groups of visitors. Segments can be distinguished by the source from which the user comes, the behavior on the site or targeted actions.

When you open Google Analytics or any other data collection tool, you can select segments in millions of ways. Remember that we want to not just select different groups of users, but to do it as accurately as possible.

Take 10 more minutes with key executives. Talk to them about what important segments we can identify for each of the tasks on the site.

Determine the main sources of traffic, the desired portrait of the audience, their attributes, their behavior, the most important target actions for the business. What do you think users want from the site? Find a balance between company and customers.

So you take the initiative and if you do a good job, the strategy will look something like this:

Which groups of visitors are the most important? What behavior should they have? What traffic source is your marketing strategy based on? Who do we want to attract? What is important on our site, at least in our opinion? Ask such questions to choose the right segments.

So you have finished!

Yes, there was a lot of work. I assure you, you will not regret that you tried so hard. You now have a system that will serve as a guide for data collection. The knowledge you gain will matter. They take root in what is important for business and bosses. And when you make recommendations based on the data, then colleagues will act. It's worth it, right?

You know what is important, where to start and what tasks to focus on. Your boss or client understands what is success and what is failure, and how to link business goals with data. You deliver analytics and conclusions according to business priorities.

So you strengthen the foundations of a stable labor contract. Ensure that the model is accepted by all participants and that it is clear to all who is responsible for what.

Fat point: always work with the model at hand.

Can we now run the most fantastic web analytics program in any company? Yes we can!

When you create your own internet marketing and web analytics strategy, it is not necessary to use the format that I used. You can add something of your own.

I hope that the example in this article will inspire you to use the model as the basis of all your web analytics efforts.

I believe with my every cell that it will bring you tremendous success.

Good luck.