Yuletide Metrics Sets Marketers’ Hearts Aglow
Online retailers will pull back from the physical world and move to the virtual one this December holiday season. And as they do, the metrics they use to evaluate their demand generation efforts have evolved.
According to a white paper from WebTrends, more than a third primarily rely on activity metrics such as page and product views, visit duration or orders. Another 28% use clickthoughs from the referring media, while 10% focus on unique visits or deferred conversions-to-sale. The survey also found that more than one quarter aren’t doing any sort of demand measurement.
The increased use in online analytics comes as respondents are pulling away from print and broadcast advertising, as well as online banner ads, and embracing e-mail marketing, search engine marketing and search engine optimization.
Once visitors land on marketers’ Web sites, they are increasingly being segmented. Marketers are waking up to the value of using Web analytics to put site visitors into a variety of buckets. Half of those surveyed said doing so was either very or somewhat important. Only 11% said it wasn’t important at all.
“Retailers need to pay more attention to their underlying measurement methodologies to ensure that they have the long-term capabilities necessary for e-mail, search and relationship marketing,” according to the white paper.
“Once they can measure campaigns accurately, segment customers to identify those that will drive business, test campaign creative and execute targeted relationship marketing campaigns, retailers will be able to have a happy holiday retail season.”
WebTrends based its white paper on its Online Retail Holiday Readiness Survey. The online survey garnered responses from more than 300 retail professionals.
