Metrics are important, both
in online and traditional marketing but it's the trackability which
makes online marketing so exciting. What's even more exciting is that the technological advancement in online marketing has enabled maximization of multiple success metrics simultaneously.
Track right metrics
Tracking provides
visibility on business relevant metrics like return on investment (ROI), cost
per order (CPO), return on ad spend (ROAS) and user lifetime value (LTV). You
should try to track as many metrics as possible, even if they are not needed at
the time the campaign is set up. It's frustrating not to have the data you need at a
later time.
Conversion data on various
steps in the process can provide useful insights on visitor bounce rates, page
views, links clicked and actions taken. Having this information can help
understand how users navigate through the site and the pages where users drop
off.
Optimize to success metrics
If the conversion is a
single step process, it's easy to choose the optimization metric. However, often the conversion cycle involves multiple steps. Marketers are faced with the challenge of selecting the best
optimization metric in such situations.
For example, for an online dating advertiser it could be confusing
whether the optimization metric should be registrations or subscriptions. By
trying to maximize only subscriptions, the advertiser runs the risk of ignoring
registrations which could potentially bring subscriptions. On the other hand, by trying to
maximize only registrations, the advertiser might end up with too many
registrations which may never turn into subscriptions.
These metrics are
interdependent and for optimization purposes one can not be chosen over the
other. This is when multi-metric or "blended" optimization is necessary.
Blended optimization
At Efficient Frontier we use a blended optimization approach which allows our clients to optimize their ad campaigns concurrently to multiple business metrics. For example, the marketing objective for one of our banking clients is to maximize new customer sign ups. The sales process involves three steps: application form completion, approval and final sign up. The campaigns or keywords driving final sign ups are more valuable than the ones driving approvals and form completions. With Efficient Frontier's tracking technology, the client is able to track entire sales funnel and the user drop off at each stage in the funnel.
Efficient Frontier's optimization technology allows our clients to assign different weights to different stages in the sales funnel based on the value of each stage. Using this technology, the banking client is able to maximize customer sign ups while maintaining the constant inflow of the leads or application form completions.
Web metrics can tell the
advertisers exactly where the marketing budget is being spent and what they are
getting out of every marketing dollar. If implemented, tracked and optimized right,
these strategies can certainly help increase the return on investment.
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