The Online Marketing Company
Victoria & Vancouver SEO

Web Analytics 101—Understanding Which Key Performance Indicators to use (Installment 1)

Setting up your web analytics tracking tool is easy, but to use it as business decision tool is another thing entirely. Most of the clients we provide monthly reporting to are surprised to see what visitors are doing on their site and how they are using it.

In this installment we’ll cover the different key performance indicators (KPI’s) you’ll need to use to track the performance of your website. What is a KPI, you may ask? Well, it’s a metrics tool that analyzes your traffic data and creates a number which will allow you measure your performance with monthly benchmarks.

The best way to imagine a key performance indicator is as the important indicators on the dashboard of a car.

What kind of website do you have?

Selecting what kind of website you have you can determine what key performance indicators (KPI’s) to use for your web analytics reports.

• Commerce: Convert visitors to buy a product or service online through your website.
• Lead Generation: Convert your visitors to submit their information into a contact form.
• Content/Media: Online advertisers are paying to be on your site and paying via click or impression.
• Support/Self-Service: Provides your customers with the ability to find answers.

Commerce

• Conversion Rate: The ratio of visitors to orders. It is important to benefit from this traffic by actualizing real revenue
• Average Order Value: This is the ratio of revenue to orders.
• Visit Value: This is the ratio of all visits to revenue.
• Customer Loyalty: This is the ratio of new to previously acquired customers.
• Search Engine Referrals: This is the ratio of referrals to the site from search engines such as Google and Yahoo compared to industry averages.

Lead Generation

• Lead Conversion Rate: This is the ratio of site visitors to leads generated. Leads may be captured in the form of direct requests for a follow-up sales contact or via requests for content downloads, signing up for mailings, or subscribing to newsletters. This is especially important to track at the campaign level to see which promotions work and which do not.
• Cost-per-lead (CPL): the ratio of marketing/promotional costs incurred to leads generated.
• Traffic Concentration: the ratio of visitors to a page or content area to overall site visitors. This is a good indicator of which areas of the site are generating the most interest.

Content/Media

• Depth of Visit: the ratio of page views to visits. This metric measures the level of interest in the content provided. The more engaged visitors are, the more page views are consumed – directly affecting ad revenue.
• Returning Visitors: The number of Unique Visitors with activity consisting of a visit to a site during a reporting period and where the Unique Visitor also visited the site prior to the reporting period.
• New Visitor Percentage: The ratio of new visitors to unique visitors, which measures the success of the site in attracting new viewers.
• Page/content Depth: The ratio of page views to visitors at the page or content level. Key site content should be measured separately to measure interest in content areas over time.
• Duration: How long visitors stay on a page or the site. Duration is particularly important where the primary concern is “brand exposure” or “interacting with the brand.”

Support/Self-Service

• Customer Satisfaction Metrics: These are collected through actual online surveys or by allowing users to rate support content.
• Time on Site and Content Depth: In contrast to media sites, the goal should be to make it quick and easy for a user to find the information they are looking for or to perform the self-service task.
• Percentage of Visits under 90 Seconds: The site should be efficient but not difficult to use. A high percentage here may indicate that users get frustrated and cannot find what they are looking for.
• Top Internal Search Phrases: Not a traditional KPI but important in identifying areas that may require better navigation or more content to meet customer demands.

Why use Key Performance Indicators?

We use these indicators because it tells us what is working and improving the bottom line.

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