PaulGSmith.com: Web Analytics, Usability and More

The longer a purchasing decision takes, the more important a customer’s safety and trust in a Brand, Product/Service become.

Good quote from the WebMetricsGuru blog. If you want to see the full post from Marshall Sponder, check out “Online Marketing Slow to Generate Sales - new ScanAlert study“. Basic point here is that very few web-based decisions happen in a vaccuum. I’d like to discuss the implications for measuring engagement. Is the point to get them to do things on the website or is it to get them to take an action or make a decision.

This doesn’t apply just to sales oriented site. I spend my days working on a leads-oriented site where the desired decision could take 12-24 months. Consider a sequence of visits that begin with banners linking to a landing page and a quick exit (scanning visit). Later this visitor returns to the site and looks a little deeper. Maybe reads articles and uses applications (high engagement?), then leaves. Finally, after lots of discussion and/or investigation, the visitor returns (several months later) and fills out a form requesting a contact or more information (maybe another short visit).

Is it enough to develop engagement measures or KPIs that focus on a single visit? How do we assess this over time? What if we can’t use persistent cookies? What if our users don’t allow the cookies?

Cameron Olthuis on Pronet Advertising wrote an interesting article about the 10 things you should be monitoring in your digital ecosystem. His list includes:

1. Company name
2. Company URLs
3. Public facing figures
4. Product names
5. Product URLs
6. Industry “hangouts”
7. Employee activity/blogs
8. Conversations
9. Brand images
10. Competitors

He also provides some interesting links to tools which can be used to help measure these data. As your company’s awareness and focus grows beyond concern with just your website and how it is performing, web analysts are compelled to look other places where information about your business exists. This was hard enough when advertisers and marketers were concerned with banner placements and other online media, but with the advent of blogs and sites like MySpace and YouTube, it is even more critical to try and get a handle on what is being said about your company and products everywhere on the Internet.

The original 10 things has been expanded a couple of times. While this discussion is not completed or has not reached the point of being definitive yet, it is well worth the time and consideration.

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