Key points to consider
Here are key principles to keep in mind as you work to drive and measure your ROI with website data:
Be a rainmaker. Avoid what I call "water-in-the-reservoir measurement." This is where you just watch activity and report on it ("water level up, water level down"). A rainmaker doesn't passively watch and report on water levels -- a rainmaker goes and fills the reservoir up. Effective rainmakers constantly adjust to the situation they are in. They tune, they adjust, they optimize. Being an online rainmaker means answering the question: "What will you change to improve performance?" Think of all the options and put everything on the table -- and I mean everything: content, messaging, colors, forms, photography, ad words, search optimization, e-newsletters, and anything else you can think of that you can change.
Think conversion. In order to be a rainmaker, you need to know when it rains. You need to think about what constitutes success. The second part of this article provides common marketing objectives and some illustrative conversion events to measure. These common examples may or may not work for you. What's more important is that you map and align your strategic objectives to conversion events to measure, analyze, report, and optimize.
Test, learn, optimize, repeat. That's how you unlock ROI. Very few people get it right straight out of the gate. Even if you do, can you get it more right by making changes and improvements? The answer is yes. This may not be the message you want to hear, but there's no rest for the weary. Following best practices in planning, design, and implementation does not mean you are at the end of the road. It means you are at a good starting point in a journey of continuous improvement.
Data is expensive to own and use. It's cheap -- almost free -- to get. The commoditization of data is a problem. When a client or colleague demands that "everything" be measured, your quick retort is simple: "Who, then, is going to analyze everything?" Don't let yourself get snared in the trap of all-inclusive measurement. If you do, you'll regret it later. So be selective. Pick your key conversion events and devote your time and attention there. Out-of-the-box top-line metrics are fine as part of the ritual of reporting on how a channel is doing. But don't get distracted by them. You've got more important ways to spend your time -- measuring and improving ROI.
You will make your life a lot easier if you design for measurement up front. In some cases, it's the website design itself that becomes the enabler for measuring performance against strategic objectives. Creating a measurement program is a lot like implementing a testing program. The right time to do it is up front, during design. A best practice is to include measurement annotations on your wireframes -- before the first line of HTML or JavaScript is written.
