Part 3: What do my Key Performance Indicator (KPI) measurements mean?
Congratulations! After reading Part 1 and 2, the challenging part of web metrics is done. There is still ongoing work required but the methodology of identifying clear goals and assigning applicable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is a sound business practice.
In addition, make good use of a continued improvement process. Realize that company objectives will change and therefore your web objectives and KPIs may need to be modified. Changing objectives and KPIs may seem a daunting task to manage but they are not. If you focus your web site around a small number of changes, your web metric program will become more manageable. In a previous position, I was managing Symantec’s enterprise online marketing worldwide. During the crazy days of the Dotcom boom, quarterly web objectives were set and then changed within the first month. With rampant growth in new markets, “changing the tires while driving” was our company’s modus operandi. But this should not be the case with you…hopefully.
Using actual numbers, let’s look at the example I used on my previous blog posting “Part 2 – Where do I begin to start analyzing web data?” Our company objective was to improve online customer retention for the 1st quarter of 2009. We will measure this objective by using the following KPI, with a target goal to increase by 10%:
At first glance, we failed on meeting our objective of improving customer retention. However, you should be more interested in understanding what could contribute to a lower website customer satisfaction level – therefore further research into the data is required. We soon learned that a national marketing launch occurred in January. As a result, there was a huge spike in new visitor traffic to the website. Marketing and public relations were successful in driving new visitors to the site but was the cause for the drop in % returning customers.
During hard times, there is great pressure to justify every marketing dollar that is spent. A web analytics program that binds company objectives with measurable KPIs, is now expected by Senior Management.
~Michael Senger
