Chapter 11 Review: Measuring and Evaluating Web Marketing Programs
Click Stream Data. Click Stream: The complete data record, made up of mouse-clicks, of consumer activity on the Internet during a specified period, usually the duration of a visit to a single Web site.
Server log: record kept at the server level that records each file requested from a Web site.
Click Stream data can help with:
1. The date to possible usability problems that need to be examined and corrected.
2. The date are used to generate site effectiveness measures that are essential for a number of marketing purposes. These “metrics” are used in managing the site. They are key in determining advertising rates for the site. They are also essential to understanding the impact of various Internet marketing programs like e-mail and online advertising campaigns.
3. They provide a mother lode of data that can be mined to develop an in-depth understanding of visitor behavior on the site. These data can be used to improve the site and to guide the way to useful new site features and marketing programs.
4. The fact that these data exist is becoming widely known to Internet users. Although they may not entirely understand all the ramifications of its use, they are concerned about a perceived loss of personal privacy.
Evaluate Web Site Effectiveness: Site Usability
–This is the way visitors look at the site, the way they gauge its ease of use and value to them.
–If visitors find the usage experience satisfactory, the site has a greater chance to be successful in the long run.
Usability Test: Ensuring that it is easy for visitors to navigate and, in general, to find desired content quickly and efficiently on a Web site.
Usability Test: Similar to the testing done by direct marketers or in advertising laboratories than to the marketing research typically used by mass media marketers. (Qualitative research).
–Usability testing is exclusively designed to see if the site works in a user-friendly fashion according to the expectations of members of the target market.
Stages of Usability Tests:
• Concept testing: Research performed on the idea behind a product or a communications program.
o One ore more concepts boards are shown to respondents, who critique it from the perspective of how logical they perceive it to be and how easy they think it would be to use.
• Prototype testing: the site design is complete and at least some parts of the site are fully functional. Testing a prototype affords an opportunity to get reactions to the appearance of the site and to get some information about the degree to which the site structure is consistent with customer expectations.
• Full usability testing: site has been uploaded to a server and is fully functioning, even though it is not accessible to the general public.
Usability Tests are done in focus groups, and usually administered by one person.
Pareto Curve: A plot of number of occurences against percent of total; the source of the 80/20 rule.
Site Metrics fall into 2 basic categories: measures of business performance and measures of site performance. The business effectiveness measures provide data by which marketers can judge the success of various parts of the site itself and of Internet marketing programs. They are key to managing Internet marketing activities and demonstrating ROI on those activities.
DNS: Domain Name Systems; the process for converting the name of a Web site into its IP address.
Redirect—sending one URL to another Internet address.
Traffic, Audience, and Campaign Data:
An important measure of the business effectiveness of a site is the number and quality of its visitors. Site effectiveness can also, of course, be measured by sales if it a transactional site.
• Traffic data describe activity on the site. These data include metrics such as number of visitors, sessions, and page views.
• Audience data describe both the behavior of people on the site—where they come from, what paths they take through the site, and whether thy take desired actions—and the people themselves using both anonymous and identified profile.
Hit Counter: A piece of software inserted onto a Web site that measures the number of visits to the site.
Coded Web page: A technique in which a small image, usually a 1-pixel transparent image (called a pixel tag or transparent GIF), is placed on a web page. Used in conjunction w/ a cookie on the user’s computer, the image retuned data about user activity on the Web page.
Page View: A page actually seen by a visitor; currently measured as a page being delivered to the visitor, which is not exactly the same thing.
Unique Visitor: An identifiably distinct, although not necessarily identifiable, visitor to a Web site within a specified period.
Pixel: One dot in the matrix of dots that makes up the display on a monitor.
Cache: High-speed storage for data that is reference frequency.
Cookies: the visitor to be recognized when he/she returns to the site, making it possible to serve ads or contend based on data provided by the cookie.
• Session cookies are effective for only one visit.
• Persistent cookies remain for a specified period (a year, perhaps), and then expire
• Third-party cookies are set by an outside service provider like an ad serving firm or a metrics service.
• First-party cookies are set by the Web site itself.
Traffic measures simply document site activity:
• Hits: number of files requested
• Impressions: the number of times an ad banner is requested by a browser
• Page views or deliveries: the number of times a Web page is requested
• Session: the amount of activity on a site during a specified period
• Click-throughs: the number of times visitors come to the site by clicking on an ad
Audience measure provide data about the people who visit the site:
• Visitors: the number of people who visit a site
o Total (included multiple visits) or unique (different people) during a specified time frame
o Unidentified (anonymous) or identified (registered or customer)
• Unduplicated audience: the visitors that are unique to a Web site
• Behavior on the site
o Number of page views
o Session Time
o Path through the site
o Shopping cart abandonment
o Entry page (many visitors do not enter through the home page)
Campaign measures provide data about the effectiveness of marketing efforts.
• By communications channel: e-mail, mail, online banners, and so forth
• By offer: free shipping versus 25% off, for example
• Search effectiveness by keyword.
Metrics:
• Average number of visits per day
• Number of page views per month
• Average visitor session length last month
• Number of hits for each hour of the day
• Paid search results for the most recent 7-day period
Dashboard: customizable display of summary data on a computer screen. Because the summary data are always present on the specified screen, it prevents user from having to activate a function or program or visit another web site to obtain data.
Clickstream data is based on server logs and coded Web pages provide metrics for all users of the Web sites of a single business, large or small.
The most familiar response metric is CPA (cost per action) or CPC (cost per click):
• Cost per click-through
• Cost per order (synonymous with cost per sale and cost per conversion)
• Cost per lead
• Cost per qualified lead
CPM: Cost per thousand
CPA: Cost per action; a media pricing mechanism based on the number of visitors who take a specified action, for example, clicking through on an ad or making purchase.
CPC: Cost per click from an ad or referring Web site.
Consumers are concerned about cookies, and some are deleting them.