In the previous part of my digital survival guide for the recession, I looked at how to choose a search engine marketing (SEM) agency in the region.
Together with SEM, web analytics became mainstream here sometime in 2008. However, just like SEM, the understanding of web analytics is rather limited in this part of the world compared to other mature markets. Web analytics evangelists like Avinash Kaushik, Dennis R. Mortensen and others have been preaching a great deal about best practices. Personally, I would think that the best way to take advantage of web analytics in the context of this region is to gradually build a company culture that embraces actionable analytics and tracking.
It's absolutely essential that the marketing team has access to web analytics
Not only do they need to have access -- everyone needs to be trained, buys in and actually uses the tool. One of the fundamental advantages of online marketing is accountability, which demonstrates through the use of web analytics.
More often than not, I come across companies who have spent millions of dollars on expensive technologies on a global scale. However the tool is hardly used at the regional or country level. Another scenario is that people from the IT department receive training on how to use web analytics, but not marketing people or sales managers! These are people whose decisions can directly affect a company's bottom line. However, they either lack the understanding or do not appreciate the value of web analytics.
Most companies rely on their agencies to be proactive and report on the campaign's performance. However, the fact is that not many agencies have the human resource capabilities to explain and make use of tracking on the client's behalf. At the same time, web analytics can do much more than just show impressions, page views or clicks.
Actionable dashboard for each marketing director, marketing manager, product manager and project manager
In order to build good dashboards, one needs to understand the company's acquisition strategy. A company which sells most of its products online will probably care very much about online conversion rates, average basket value, and so on -- compared to a nationwide fashion chain that sells most of its clothes through physical stores. For them, the use of a store locator function on its website might be of great value, especially if promotions are only available at certain stores.
A good, well structured web analytics solution will be able to integrate and report on virtually all of the marketing campaigns, including the most three common activities like EDMs (electronic direct mail), display media and SEM.
A company should build dashboards for different management levels to ensure that they have a full view of how multiple online channels are performing and their ROI, and are able to zoom into a particular product portfolio. The lack of customized dashboards is probably one of the top reasons why a director or marketing/sales manager does not use web analytics often. It's too confusing and often contains too much information that they do not require.
As for competitive analysis, there are a couple of ways to build meaningful analysis:
- Analyze consumer behaviour through their search keywords, volume of searches related to different brands, or the type of keywords being used when they are in different purchasing cycles. These are people who actively research for information about a particular topic. Free tools available include: Google Trends, Google Insights for Search, Google keyword generation.
- Analyze performance of competitor's sites through services provided by Hitwise, comScore or Compete. These are companies who track user behaviour across a wide range of sites.
Chandler Nguyen is a search engine marketing specialist at dgm Asia Pacific.
