Website Goals From Top to Bottom

By Jim Sterne

Measuring the success of anything is impossible without a clear goal. A simple enough dictum. But measuring the success of a website - and using a web analytics system to do it - is impossible without a rather well considered series of goals. Not quite so simple.

Identifying the “Big Goal” is the easy part. The Big Goal is based on the area of the website under consideration at the moment. The portion of our website that sells low cost items and takes credit cards measures its success in income. The area on the site dedicated to considered purchases measures qualified sales leads. The customer service area is after cost avoidance and increased customer satisfaction. The human resources bit hopes to attract more experienced potential employees. These are fairly straightforward objectives to quantify. Optimizing these site areas requires a little digging.

I’ve been asked to address these issues at the Knexus Community round table in London on 16^th November. See http://www.knexusgroup.com/. Senior executives from the UK’s major corporations, are getting wise to the business of optimizing areas of their site and want to know how it can help their business.

A web analytics tool becomes much more effective when each Big Goal is parsed into its various components. Given the goal of bringing in more and better sales leads, we slice the process into discrete milestones:

- Attract Attention

- Build Desire

- Engender Contact

- Evaluate Quality

A web analytics tool can help determine which method of getting the word out is bringing in the most potential customers. But merely investing more in the technique that generates the most traffic will be harmful to the bottom line unless that traffic is properly evaluated.

The end goal is qualified sales leads. Offering a chance to win a Jaguar XJ will certainly bring more traffic to our website. But we must be sure that somebody who desires a "truly sensuous driving experience" is also a likely buyer of what we have on offer. Our first milestone must be matched with the last to determine the value of the first.

A web analytics system will help identify which promotions bring in which prospects. Once the sales team identifies the best prospects, it's time for the web analytics tool to do the work it does best: the bits in between. Having identified which campaign brought in the most qualified prospects - the ones we want our sales people to spend the most time with - the ones who are most likely to buy - the focus can shift to the persuasion process.

From a given banner ad or link, how well are we moving prospects from click to consideration? How well do we move them from curious to interested to desirous? A web analytics system can monitor a series of tests to optimize the words, the layout, the calls to action, etc., which lead the best qualified to our sales representatives' desks.

One test-landing page might focus on the low cost of our offerings, another on the high quality, while a third one describes the successes other customers have enjoyed. Which of these encourages the best-qualified visitor to click deeper, learn more and, eventually, fill out the form asking to speak to a representative?

Is it better to publish a large number of benefits and let the prospect ask the sales team for clarification? Or is it better to publish detailed information online and answer those questions in advance of the call? Which produces the most sales calls with the most qualified prospects?

Web analytics shines a light on the sales cycle and allows us to quantify the steps. The ability to run multiple, continuous, side-by-side tests gives us the chance to try a multitude of messages highlighting different features and benefits, different offers, and different interest generating approaches. Imagine the time and cost of doing that across multiple trade shows or magazine advertisements.

And yes, there are technologies that can automate the whole procedure. Firms such as Touch Clarity take it a step further, matching offers to website behaviour. Rather than simply measuring which landing page layouts and features encourage the most qualified prospects to contact the sales team, this system builds a profile of each visitor in real-time and learns which offer will spark the greatest interest from that visitor.

The World Wide Web is starting to get more interesting.

About Jim Sterne

Jim Sterne will be hosting the first round table on web analytics for the

Knexus community, Europe's leading corporate business club and network. http://www.knexusgroup.com/.

London 16 November 2005.

Jim Sterne is an internationally known speaker on electronic marketing and customer interaction. A strategy consultant to multinational companies and online companies, Sterne focuses his twenty years in sales and marketing on measuring the value of a web site as a medium for creating and strengthening customer relationships. Jim is the Founder and Director of Target Marketing http://www.targeting.com/