Teresa Caro
Caro Consulting
In January's Ad Tracking issue of this newsletter, we discussed the NEED for campaign tracking. But, we did not discuss HOW to track the results. It is not as difficult as it may seem as there are many easy to understand solutions available today. In the end, once you understand the pieces of the campaign and web site tracking puzzle it is easy to pull them together and choose a direction.
The Pieces of the Puzzle
1. The Lingo
First you need to understand the difference between web analytics and campaign analytics. Why? Because you will find many companies separate website tracking into two modules or components. The basic module focuses on web site traffic or web analytics—such as visitors, page views, and clickstreams.
The upgrade offers campaign analytics or an ecommerce/emarketing module. For some companies this module offers the ability to track visitors until they perform a transaction such as registration, survey completion, or purchase. Some calculate ROI (return on investment) on the fly, and some allow you to integrate data from multiple sources—such as offline campaigns, demographics, and CRM data.
2. Avoid Duplication of Effort
Ask if your company is already using a web analytics solution. Does this solution have a marketing campaign module you should consider before you explore other solutions?
3. To Host or Not To Host
Generally a software solution comes in two forms:
- Hosted—Managed by the solution provider on its servers.
- Licensed—The software is installed on your servers and managed by your company.
A Hosted Solution offers low to no upfront payments and no need for in-house support. It is convenient if you have an ad agency and/or SEO company needing access to the data—provide them with a user id and password and they can see what you can see.
The problem...Your data is hosted on someone else's system.
Purchase Licensed Software and yes, there is an upfront payment for application software, but over time your company may save money—especially if the traffic to your site is growing exponentially. If you prefer logfiles over JavaScript, some solutions automatically pull and upload the data instantaneously. There is no reason to add javascript to all your pages—see #4.
Unfortunately for smaller companies, the upfront payment may be steep and further expenses are incurred with an in-house support team.
4. Logfiles or JavaScript
In the tech world, it is an ongoing debate as to which data gathering method provides the most accurate information. In the end, each technology is not without its faults. If you want to join in on the debate, you can learn more about it in this article from Clicktracks.
5. Tracking Down the Data
Each solution provider will have its own differentiating features and will focus on a different aspect of web and campaign analytics. To find the right solution to meet your needs, it will be up to you to create a list of requirements and prioritize it accordingly. Here are some typical requirements to get you started:
- Provides results across a range of online campaigns—Organic (Free Search), PPC (Pay Per Click), Online Advertising, and Email
- Provides unique visitor data as well as total visitor data
- Tracks from source to some type of activity—a purchase, registration, survey completion
- Automatically calculates return on investment
- Reports at both a detailed level and a summary level—such as individual keywords by search site and each creative within a campaign
- Takes into consideration view-thru rates—a visitor takes action on an ad within 30 days of viewing, but does not click on the ad again
- Reports are real-time
6. The Almighty Dollar
Consider your budget. There is a wide range of companies to choose from. Some just offer web analytics and some have campaign analytics capabilities as well. Here are just a few examples:
Excerpted from: e-consultancy, Web Measurement and Analytics, May 2003 and MarketingSherpa, Buyer's Guide to Web Analytics 2004.
Mid-High End ($7,000-$70,000+)
- Accrue - http://www.accrue.com
- NetGenesis (CustomerCentric Solutions) - http://www.customercentricsolutions.com/
- NetIQ (Webtrends) - http://www.netiq.com
- RedSheriff- http://www.redsheriff.com
- SiteCatalyst (Omniture) - http://www.sitecatalyst.com/
Lower cost ($300-$7,000)
- Clicktracks - http://www.clicktracks.com
- FunnelWeb - http://www.quest.com/funnel_web/analyzer/
- Livestats - http://www.deepmetrix.com/
- Sawmill - http://www.sawmill.net
- Urchin - http://www.urchin.com
Free
- Analog - http://www.analog.cx
- Webalizer - http://www.webalizer.com
There are many easy-to-use campaign analytics solutions out there, but finding the right one can be a time consuming process especially for someone who is already strapped for time. Not to mention, once you have it in place, knowing what to do with the data once you have it is the next challenge.
If you would like help putting all the puzzle pieces together, let Caro Consulting help you out. Send us an email or give us a call at 678-471-4472 today.
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