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PERSPECTIVE
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Number Crunching: Know the Data
From the biggest boardrooms and the smallest business offices, executives gather around tables asking the same question, “Where's the data to prove it works?? Gauging return-on-investment, or ROI, for marketing dollars spent is one of the most-confounding parts of any marketing campaign.
It's more than understandable for investors, managers and owners to want hard feedback on their investments. And in my experience, it doesn't matter whether the budget is $25 a month, the make-or-break investment for some small start-ups, or $25,000 a year, the significant budget of many medium to large corporations. All of them want to see success through numbers.
To address ROI requirements on pay-per-click and search optimization campaigns in the Internet marketing industry, Web developers incorporated highly sophisticated analytical tools. Web analytics collect data for translation into hard quantifying and qualifying numbers upon which clients can justify budget, build trends, adjust strategies and plan future campaigns.
When a company engages in PPC or SEO strategies with a reputable search-marketing firm like Whoast, two Web-analytics options are presented for tracking effectiveness. The first is a do-it-yourself model that allows clients to install a software package on their in-house Web server. The onus falls on the client to install, configure and update the software as another element of the internal staff's administration responsibilities. While this option does allow the client to oversee and control tracking on a more-intimate level, it also requires an in-depth knowledge base for maintenance and troubleshooting.
The second model relieves daily upkeep responsibilities for the client. It relies on the provider to install the customized analytics software on their machine while the Web developers add appropriate coding to enable tracking. Each page of the Web site is viewed, and data is sent to the provider's server. Most often, the analytical tools offer conversion data, which, when turned over to the client, can be used as detailed statistics for ROI calculations.
Some PPC bid-management tools also can integrate with analytics platforms to automatically adjust bid pricing and position, based on history. For instance, if a company finds most of its Web site traffic and Web-generated sales happen during normal business hours, the tools can set ads to appear only during those peak times.
Pricing and features for provider-hosted Web analytics vary greatly. Companies with more-conservative budgets can participate in tracking for about $35 a month. The most-advanced analytical tools require an annual investment of more than $15,000, providing conversion data that is highly sophisticated and very specific.
I believe Web analytics is perhaps the best part of Internet marketing. It represents one of the only concrete methods for determining return-on-investment in today's entire marketing industry. It helps businesses of all sizes, in all markets and with all management levels to participate in a serious marketing campaign without worry of wasted budget.
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