Marketing

Sarah Worsham / Apr 8, 2009

Web-based Tools We Use Everyday

We’re an Internet company, so we’re on the nets pretty much all the time. Many of the tools we use every day and couldn’t work without are web-based. We thought we’d share them and find out what you use and like.

Analytics, Statistics & SEO (oh my!)

Firefox plugins/clients

Productivity

Images & Design

News

Google Reader

Social Media

What are your favorite tools?

(photo by batega @ Flickr CC)

Technorati tags: analytics, web tools, productivity, social media, business, SEO, marketing

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Sarah Worsham / Apr 6, 2009

Important Metrics for Your Pay-Per-Click Campaign

Many businesses run pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns in order to increase traffic and sales to to their websites. However, many are not looking at how effective those campaigns are. I’ve run across several websites which thought they were doing ok with their PPC campaigns, but upon closer examination, we found they were spending more than they were getting out of the advertising.

Conversions

A conversion is when an action that you’re advertising is actually taken on your website. So if you’re advertising a product, it’s when someone actually purchases that product. This is usually tracked by putting a script tag from your PPC ad on your thank you page that happens after a purchase is made. Conversions are the whole reason you’re advertising, so they are very important to track.

Cost Per Conversion

For the number of conversions you get in any time period, how much are you spending on advertising? Taking the total amount spent and dividing it by the number of conversions will give you how much you’re spending per conversion – or cost per conversion. This metric is extremely important for knowing whether you’re spending too much on your advertising for what you’re getting out of it. If this number is too high, it’s time to look at optimizing your ads, website and landing pages. (As an aside, sometimes people will click on an ad and purchase a product much later – days or weeks – this is not tracked with this metric).

Conversion Rate

How many clicks do you have to get before someone purchases from you? How effective is the path the visitor takes to purchase the product? The number of conversions divided by the number of ad clicks gives you the conversion rate.

Clicks

How many times people are clicking on your ad- how much interest and traffic it is generating. If you are using advertising for branding or just for traffic, and are not tracking conversions or sales, this is an important metric.

Cost Per Click

How much each click costs – or how much you’re paying for each person that your ad brings to your website. Taking the total amount spent and dividing it by the number of clicks will give you this metric.

Click Through Rate (CTR)

How effective your ad is – in message and targeting (keywords, placements, etc.) Measured by the number of clicks on an ad divided by the number of impressions (number of times it is shown). A low CTR can indicate poor messaging or targeting (keywords, placements, etc.).

(photo by The Ancient Brit @ Flickr CC)

Technorati tags: pay-per-click advertising, internet advertising, internet marketing, search engine marketing, business, SEM, SEO, PPC, marketing

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Sarah Worsham / Apr 2, 2009

Why Customer Satisfaction is the New Marketing ROI

No one is certain why business valuations keep climbing above assets, but there is a good hypothesis. The theory is that businesses are realizing an increasing level of value from intangibles—things that help a company create value, but that don’t show up on the balance sheet. Identifying those intangibles so they can be modeled, measured and optimized is a powerful market driver that is sending managers scrambling into every corner of business operations. – Christopher Kenton – What’s Really Behind The Drive Towards Metrics

satisfactionandrecharland Thanks to the Internet and social networking, customers have more input than ever before into a company’s intangible valuation. Marketing and brand management are no longer done in a vacuum with a company broadcasting how it thinks customers should feel about its products. Customers are talking directly to each other about companies and products. Word of mouth marketing is trusted much more than anything a company says about itself. Therefore, how customers feel about a company (customer satisfaction) is an important measure of a company’s intangible valuation.

Luckily, increasing customer satisfaction usually has a direct effect of increasing sales and profitability. When customers have a good experience, they will share that experience with others who trust their judgement. They are also more likely to purchase from the company again. And vice-versa for poor experiences. Successful marketing strategies take into account the customer experience and satisfaction to create long-term gains for the company.

(photo by Andre Charland @ Flickr CC)

Technorati tags: customer experience, customer-centric, experience centric, business, strategy, marketing

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