2 Elements Critical to Measuring your Online Marketing Efforts

Behavior & Reach - The minimalist’s approach to measuring online marketing effectiveness.  

There are two important elements to measuring your online marketing efforts; your website’s (or blog’s) traffic and the engagement level of your efforts. 

ONE: Tracking your Website’s or Blog’s Marketing Behavior

1) Take a snap shot of your current website statistics.

2) Review them monthly, or weekly if you are able.  

To start, you need to see if you currently have a website analytics tool on your website and blog. If not, add one immediately!  The effective and free tool I always recommend is www.Google.com/Analytics.  Google Analytics is simple to use.  NOTE: Ensure you identify yourself with an email which will always be your company’s, obviously, ensuring your company always has access to their Analytics.  Create an account for each of your websites or blogs.   Google Analytics will immediately generate a unique Google Analytics ID & Code for each of the accounts (or websites) you have identified.  In my workshops, I see various websites and tools, like Wordpress, Wix, Blogger, and various Website Content Management Tools.  Generally, the place to enter your Google Analytic's code is under your Search Engine Optimization account settings area.  Or, just give both your ID and Code to your website’s content manager; they will add it appropriately.  Within 48 hours, after the code has been added, Google starts collecting your statistics.  I’d wait a week after your codes been added, and then go back to your Google Analytics Accounts and look at your Google Analytics Reports.

 For each of your Blog and Website the most important statistics which will help you manage your online marketing efforts are.

• Number of Total & Unique visitors,
• How many times visitors have viewed each of your pages
• Time On Site (aim is to increase this number.) & Bounce Rate (aim is to decrease this number.)
• Traffic Sources (Direct, Google, Google Ads, Facebook, Facebook Ads, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.)
• Keywords used to find your website

TWO: Tracking the Influence and Reach of your Social Media Efforts

Measuring the effectiveness of your Social Media Efforts:  If you can remember that your Facebook Page needs to read like a “Grade Two Reader”, i.e. grade two level of text, short sentences, and animated with visuals, like a Pop-Up Book, you’ll have the type of posts people like to share and comment on.  (Assuming also, your content is valuable to them.)  Now, to measure your REACH, the simplest free tool to use is www.Klout.com.  I use both Klout and www.SproutSocial.com.  I have upgraded the Sprout Social Tools so I can get more information on my followers and link my Google Analytics to my Social platforms.  But, the free version of either Klout or SproutSocial will generate valuable graphs which shows you your reach, and gives you a score.  

Your intent is to increase and sustain a high score or “influence”.  

Each tool provides analysis and tools to help you more clearly understand your company’s social media impact, your network's influence and the topic you are most effectively posting. Using either tool, you can improve your usage of social media and reach your network.  

Choose one or both, create your account, and sign in weekly to see the impact of your efforts. Strive to continuously improve your scores.