Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Without Website Analytics, You’re Throwing Darts in the Dark!

Does your company have web analytics software in place? If not, then let this be a wake-up call. You are not just missing an important component of your e-marketing campaign; you are neglecting an imperative piece of the digital marketing puzzle! Lets take a look at what web analytics is and what it can do for you.

Basically, web analytics is the data collected behind-the-scenes by your website. How many visits are you getting? Where are visitors coming from? What search words are they using to get there? What states or cities are they in? Is your traffic higher on certain days, weeks or months? How long do visitors spend on each page? Do they tend to exit on a particular page? Where are they going? Are they coming back?

This information can be compiled, reviewed and used to make decisions which could improve your website’s effectiveness. For example, if a large number of visitors are exiting on the registration page, maybe you are asking for too much information. Trim it down and see if you get more people filling it out. Maybe you have some great content, but viewers are not getting to it. Change its location on the site. Are you starting to see the power?

Google Analytics is one of the most popular web analytic services. This is no surprise, as it is very powerful and it is free. That’s correct: one of the most important components of your digital advertising and website success is free of charge. (And there’s a pretty good tutorial on how to set up Google Analytics here.)

Insurance Journal also provides analytics data (impressions and clicks) to all its clients withbanner campaigns. (How great is that?! We give you the data to figure an ROI from your advertising with us.) Personally, I use Google Analytics almost daily to help clients and prospects put together effective geo-targeted campaigns by determine how much traffic our site is getting from particular states and cities. We can also help you run multiple banner test campaigns (i.e., simultaneously running two ads with different copy and/or positioning to see which performs best for you). Valuable info when deciding where and how to advertise in the future.

I hope this post has pointed out the importance of web analytics in advertising and website success. Let me know if you have any questions. Also, I would love to hear in the comments how you’ve used web analytics to monitor and improve your advertising and company website.

About Howard Simkin

Howard Simkin is the Southeast Sales Manager for Insurance Journal and the National Sales Manager for Claims Journal. Howard grew up in Cherry Hill, NJ and went on to receive a bachelors degree from the University of Delaware in Business Administration / Marketing. He has proudly been helping others develop and improve marketing and advertising campaigns for 20 years. Howard can be reached at 800-897-9965 x162 or hsimkin@InsuranceJournal.com. More from Howard Simkin