Five Steps to Measuring Return from Website Marketing

The vast majority of Websites function as critical marketing channels for business. Yet, most companies fail to track the return on their investment, or ROI, from Web marketing. It is absolutely essential that any money invested in Website technology, design or marketing is measured properly and shows an acceptable return or ROI. Website marketing produces comprehensive data and stats that can easily be used to track results.

Here are five steps to getting a solid ROI from Web marketing.

1. Understand Conversions

   What is the definition of a conversion on your Website? Website ROI is driven by conversions and many sites do not have this well defined. This is the starting point because without a conversion there is nothing to measure! Most conversions are direct sales from the Website, lead generation, email signups and other measurable actions.

2. Value of a Sale

   It is important to know the value of an average Website order or lead and the lifetime value of that customer. The value of the transaction, or customer, determines ROI and determines acceptable conversion rate targets.

3. Website Conversion Rates

   It is very important to understand the expected and typical conversion rates from Web marketing. There are two conversion rates to consider. The first is based on the amount of Web traffic that comes into your site from marketing efforts and the second is based on the percentage of visitors that convert to leads or sales. These are easily tracked in Google Analytics.

4. Set-up a Monitoring System

   Schedule regular meetings to review Website stats and to track conversion rates. Google Analytics, or similar stats program, is a must have to track ROI. Filter this data to find the stats that are most important in measuring conversion rates and track the total spend back to the results.

5. Adjust Goals and Strategy

   Websites are never finished and can almost always be improved. This requires adjustments to your strategy and conversion points. These adjustments and tweaks could be as simple as moving a conversion point to the navigation menu or into content.

Web marketing allows for the development of reporting systems that can track accurately the ROI from Web marketing projects. Take advantage of this knowledge and learn to drive returns from a marketing program that can easily prove its worth.