Part I
Next Steps (Air France)
Should Media Contacts recommend a uniform strategy for Air France across search engine publishers? Or would it be more effective to tailor each publisher strategy to maximize return on investment?
This depends on what the intention of Media Contacts is. If it is to see which Search Engine publisher is more effective for its campaigns and its business model, it may want to employ a uniform strategy across the board. However, if Media Contacts wants to maximize its ROI, it would be much wiser to tailor each publisher’s strategy to their individual expertise and unique strength. Overall, the latter would be more effective and economical, besides providing useful data in tweaking further website design and offerings.
How can campaigns be improved to increase overall value gained from investment with a search engine publisher? Should keywords be added or dropped from the campaign? Should campaign tactics or copy be adjusted to improve campaign performance?
Campaigns can and should be adjusted to improve upon its performance. The keywords should always be analyzed and tweaked to reflect the realities of the consumers’ preferences. They therefore should be able to be changed about or dropped or included at will, upon proper assessment. Good search engine publishers would be able to help leverage the visibility and performance of any given campaign, and allows for better targeting and tracking.
What are the most important KPIs, and what impact will campaign changes have on these KPIs?
The most important KPIs would be the clickthrough rate, and the rate of conversion. On any indicator, these would be the most critical to any advertising / marketing campaign, as these would reflect the successful process of yielding a successful transaction, thereby raising revenue and profitability. The key is always revenue and profitability: do these instruments show these data?
How should future SEM campaigns be structured? In the past, Media Contacts had concentrated on Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo; was there now an opportunity to optimize search advertising with metasearch companies such as Kayak?
Yes, there are various new players in the market that can perform equally well as the giants of old, especially where niche areas are concerned. Every attempt should be made in assessing different publishers’ or providers’ strengths and performance record, in terms of accuracy and timely delivery. Media Contacts can try to wean itself off the big players by having some smaller niche players carry out certain parts of the campaign and measuring their performance against that of the bigger players. Once they are satisfied with the progress and level of expertise, then Media Contacts can contemplate replacing some of the bigger players with one that is equally good or even better and yet charges more cheaply.
Part II
Metrics Objectives and Implementation
Before a Metrics programme of measurement is even begun, one has to bear in mind the rationale for even wanting to start such a programme. In most cases, the overriding requirement for using metrics is to track the performance of the websites in attracting traffic that leads to the generation of revenue. The ultimate concern is to monitor for the purpose of improving the conversion rate of the traffic flow.
There are examples aplenty of companies and marketers employing all sorts of data sets and methods to track the performance of their websites and / or web campaigns, and the end goal is always to increase revenue (Smith, Melaney. 2003). There are multiple ways and multiple areas to track, and they all serve the same goal. In effect, it is the eCommerce version of the adage ‘All roads lead to Rome.’
What you may have heard about the different areas of focus employed by the various companies is all valid. There are multiple approaches one can choose to adopt in order to track certain functions and foci – one just has to be aware of one’s needs and choose the most effective one to use. Yet, the two most critical areas one needs to track are namely, revenue and profit (Smith, Melaney. 2003). This is crucial as only this will suggest which are the most essential areas to concentrate one’s efforts on. The implication then is that one should also monitor the data daily immediately once it has been generated in order to sieve out and capture new opportunities (Smith, Melaney. 2003). Fully utilized, these tools will help one better target the more profitable niches, markets, and areas of focus, at once improving efficiency and driving revenue (Regan, Keith. 2002).
Web analytics are an essential tool for all companies retailing their offerings on the Internet (Patton, Susannah. 2002). The various offerings cater to monitor different aspects of the Internet usage spectrum, and can be as diverse as monitoring a server’s log data and calculating the net dollar per visitor (e.g. Novica), to tracking the visitor’s point of entry to their point of exit on a website (Clickstream), to monitoring the end user’s browsing habits from the user’s own desktop (Webhancer) (Patton, Susannah. 2002). Simply put, the numbers of page views and unique visitors have a direct correlation to the success of any website and business.
In order to begin a metrics plan then, one must first consider what business is being promoted on the website. Is it a retail store? Airline? Advertising firm? Though they all share common ground in terms of their need to track revenue and profit at one level, they would have different specific requirements pertaining to their industry and nature of business. For instance, the data measuring page views, unique visitors, clickstreams, and browsing habits would have different levels of importance and priority for each of the above three businesses. The retail store would necessarily rely heavily on the number of page views and unique visitors, as the business model is to have as many visitors land on the website and buy as many products as possible. The airline would focus more on the number of unique visitors and clickstreams, whereas the advertising firm would depend more on the browsing habits of the end user than the other metrics as it would be interested in how the average consumer is engaged in browsing activity.
Once you have a basic understanding of what your business emphasis is on, the next step is to decide which tool to use and which service provider to engage. At this stage, the budgeting mechanism would need to be in place as well, and the appropriate amount budgeted for in anticipation of such a campaign. The company engaged for the task should have a track record of accurate data, and they should provide an analysis of the data collected, preferably in report format. This would allow you ease of access to the data and its comprehension, and minimize the amount of time sifting through the jargon.
Once the above two steps are in place, it is time to launch your campaign. If there is an advertising / marketing blitz scheduled at about the same time, it is advisable to launch the tracking campaign a few weeks before launching the advertising / marketing blitz. This would then effectively measure also the positive or negative impact the advertising / marketing blitz has on the market.
Should the above process be adopted successfully, you should be able to track your company’s performance with a certain measure of confidence and reliability, in an accessible and almost instantaneous way. This is much better than shooting in the dark, as with traditional means of advertising, with no hope of being able to track raw data and conversion rates.
Below is the model for the above process:
Finally, it must be remembered that the last step is always to improve upon the results. Tweaking is a necessity; keep on tweaking the website, the product offering, the prices, and so on in order to achieve the best results possible.
REFERENCES
Patton, Susannah. (2002, November 15). E-Commerce Tools: Web Metrics That Matter. CIO < http://www.cio.com/article/31511/E_Commerce_Tools_Web_Metrics_That_Matter?page=2&taxonomyId=3181>. Retrieved June 5, 2010.
Regan, Keith. (2002, July 3). The New E-Commerce Metrics. E-Commerce Times < http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/18485.html?wlc=1275877737> Retrieved June 5, 2010.
Smith, Melaney. (2003, April 22). What Should You Measure? Part 1: E-Commerce Metrics. ClickZ < http://www.clickz.com/2194291>. Retrieved June 5, 2010.
