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VIII.
Measuring Your Results
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The Internet makes it very easy to measure the success of your online marketing efforts. Your Web hosting company stores information about your site in a computer "log" and can offer you reports. Online tracking and analysis focuses on two areas:
- Your Web site: Track and analyze the number of visitors and their usage patterns (where they go on your site).
- Your Internet advertising: Track the effectiveness of your online marketing efforts including ads, newsgroups and e-mail.
Click-throughs, Visitors and Page Views
It is possible to know how many people visit your Web site, how many are new or return visitors, where they came from and when they visited. When a visitor clicks on your ad, a click-through is counted by the site hosting your ad. So when you run a banner ad campaign, place your ad on several sites to learn which sites send you the most traffic. You can also try out a couple of different ads to learn which are most effective. If one ad doesn't provide many click-throughs, you can change or eliminate it.
The most valuable tracking method is counting site visitors. A visitor is a unique person who sees your site. Another way to measure site traffic is by page views, which refers to every "part" of your site. For instance, if a person visits your home page, and ten images are hosted there, your site received 10 page views. When you run an ad, you may direct visitors to a page that is not your home page. Learning where visitors enter your site or which particular sections receive the most interest can become very helpful in understanding the success of your advertising. When you understand how people find and use your site, you can effectively plan your online marketing budget.
Tracking the Money
The ultimate goal of marketing is attracting more customers and bringing in more revenue. It can be tricky to know exactly how well your Internet efforts are working. Often people will see useful information on your site. But when they make a purchase offline, you might not make the connection. One option is "Internet only" specials where the purchase for a promotion is made through your Web site, making it easy to track. You can also offer online coupons that customers can print and bring into your store.
Integrating your online and offline business strategy is the key to honing your Internet marketing strategy. The phrase "bricks and clicks" means that all of your real-world goals should apply and become part of your Internet marketing strategy.
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