Visibility

Anyone can report data in a fancy spreadsheet or glossy charts, but obtaining actionable information and satisfying questions from C-level execs can be more challenging.  Gleaming real, actionable insights into your web analytics data is gold-- but why is it so hard to extract the true meaning, and determine the best next steps?

Identify Your Business Objectives
Follow a process for analysis of your web analytics data and you will sleep better at night.  It starts with defining your business objectives.  Framing the data around business goals is critical before diving into your data and deciding on any Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).  Get management involved in identifying what your three most important priorities are for your website and the answer will be your business objectives. 

Define Your Goals and KPIs
Next you’ll want to define more tangible ways in which you’ll measure your business objectives.  Break down the goals and KPIs as shown in example below.  This is not an all-inclusive list but gives you some ideas on where to start.  Your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are measures that help you understand how you are doing against your objectives. The fourth step is to outline a KPI target or benchmark, and then segment the data into highly relevant, timely and useful data.  In short, the web data analysis process should be defined in the following order:  Objective  Goal  KPI  KPI Target  Segment  Outline Action Steps.  At each step of the way, your metrics should be relevant to your specific business.  If content is king to web marketers, then context is king in the web analytics world.  

Business Objective: Increase revenue
Goal: Sell more product

•    KPI Options: Average Order Value (AOV), Conversion Rate, Gross Margin per Visit, Sales per Session (measuring both AOV and CR), Bounce Rate (on product pages and pages on conversion path), and Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate

Warning: Be aware that the better you optimize long tail content, the higher (less favorable) your bounce rate is likely to go because more visitors are coming in direct rather than navigating through multiple pages to get to the content they want.

Business Objective: Build brand recognition
Goal: Engage visitors

•    KPI Options: Visitor Loyalty, Visitor Recency and ad clicks, number of Facebook Likes, number of re-tweets or company brand mentions, number of branded searches, growth in number of websites linking to yours

Business Objective: Achieve effective marketing and positive ROI on marketing
Goal: Attract more leads online

•    KPI Options: Email registrations per month, online contact form completions, Visitor Loyalty (frequency of return visits), Path Length and Days or Visits to Purchase (how long it takes to purchase)

Business Objective: Making the customer happy
Goal: Improve tech support or reduce call volume

•    KPI Options: Task Completion Rate or Customer Satisfaction Rate, average number of calls per month, repeat orders, reduced complaints or greater positive feedback and average length of time on support web pages

This should give you an idea of how to align your business objectives with your KPIs.  Ideally, don’t focus on more than 4 KPIs at a time, but it is important to measure them against a few different time periods.  Reporting these metrics monthly is ideal then comparing data against the previous 2-3 months, the same season last year (especially if your business is seasonal), your target or forecast, and if possible, some competitive intelligence data.   As your business and the competitive landscape evolves, it may require you to eliminate, adjust or replace certain KPI’s with a different measurement of success.  Ideally you will re-evaluate these KPIs every 6-12 months so that your business becomes more efficient, and succeeds beyond just revenue targets.

Set Benchmarks
The next step in the process of web data analysis is setting benchmarks for the goals outlined for your business. These benchmarks are often called “targets”, which are pre-determined indicators that inform us what is green and successful and what is failure.  Try to create monthly or quarterly targets that provide insights on how well or poorly the business is doing.  Along with looking at the last year or two of your past business activity, take time to research what your competitors are doing and learn what your potential could be.  There are several competitive intelligence tools available.  I recommend looking at Compete.com, Google Trends, Google Insights for search, FireClick Index, Google Analytics Benchmarking report (opt in to data sharing required), and the paid tool Hitwise. Doing this research helps put your data in context and makes the decision-making process easier when doing weekly or monthly analysis.

Segmenting for Real Insights
After you determine where you stand in meeting your KPI target, then it is time to segment and pull out the real actionable insights from your data.  A segment is looking at a group of attributes of a visitor to your website.  Segmenting your data and pulling out the specific acquisition strategy highlights the answers you need, and shows what was most successful to contributing to your goal.  For instance, segmenting your Conversion Rate by acquisition channel (i.e. organic search, paid search, affiliate marketing, email marketing, etc.) helps you determine which channel is driving the most value and quality traffic or leads.  For instance, if you segment the Conversion Rate by paid search, email marketing, direct traffic and affiliate marketing you might realize that the average is down from last month overall, but the conversion rate is up for affiliate marketing and is worth investing into. This is where you will inspire lively conversation around making new, positive changes in the business.

Taking Action
After working the web analytics analysis process as mentioned above, it is time to present the actionable findings to the decision makers.  In a graphical format, show all the pieces of the process including (1) metrics for all data including customer satisfaction, (2) trending over time, (3) where you stand against the KPI target and a (4) segmentation breakdown.  While the picture may say a 1000 words, it is critical to also include a write up explaining your actionable insights.  This step often gets lost or forgotten but is the holy grail for all the initial work done.  In the dashboard, write out key trends and insights, the impact on the company and the recommended next action steps needed to be taken to improve the presented KPIs and ultimately the success of the business. Best of luck to you and the success of your business!