The Secret To A Web Analytics Career: Stop Learning Web Analytics!
This post originally appeared on Corry Prohen’s blog.
Eventually, your web analytics career is going to hit a wall. Learning interactive marketing as a web analyst, you start with the numbers and then seek context. When you stop to think about it, it’s really an inside out view, isn’t it?
You can master tags, logs and the many intricacies of implementation and that will get you so far. If you want to go from good to great, then you’re going to have to stop learning analytics.
Advance Your Career with Action
Measurement craves action. That’s why site testing (a/b and multivariate) has been such a huge hit. Your success as a web analyst is defined by the impact of the changes your work inspires: more leads, higher revenue, greater customer satisfaction.
Start your search for by following the money. In most companies, the budget is often biggest in one of these 4 channels:
1. Paid Search
2. Email Marketing
3. Organic Search / SEO
4. Landing Pages
1. Paid Search
eMarketer predicts that paid search spend will hit $10 Billion by 2010. Each year, more money migrates from offline advertising to online buys, often starting with paid search (aka pay-per-click or PPC advertising).
Who’s to blame them? PPC advertising, most often on AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing, is among the most measurable marketing investments you can make. That’s exactly why web analysts need to get up to speed… fast.
The basic structure of paid search advertising is simple: you select words, bid on them, write a text ad and send them to a landing page. The reality is far more complex. To get started, I recommend you start with a simple 5 point PPC questionnaire:
1. How are we performing against our yearly and monthly goals?
2. Which campaigns are driving 50% of our cost? Which ones are driving 50% of our revenue (or similar KPI, such as leads)?
3. What are our ad groups and how are they performing?
4. What is our impression share for the top campaigns?
5. How is competition affecting our brand campaigns?
This is a mix of simple questions, but you’d be amazed how eye opening they can be for a web analyst. I threw in “impression share”, because it’s a metric that few outside of paid search understand. It once again highlights the need to move outside of just one tool.
You can get a good overview of paid search with this guide. For free advice on measuring and optimizing paid search, check out the ClickEquations blog.
2. Email Marketing
Email is a rather unsexy channel. Most people think of it as outdated at best or spam at worst. The truth is that email is very much a part of online marketing in a basic way (support email, order confirmation) and more advanced uses (personalized offers, abandoned cart recovery).
As an analyst, you can lead the charge to maximize email ROI by asking:
• How does email stack up against other channels?
• What’s the most effective way to grow our subscriber list?
• What have we learned from past tests? How can we structure future tests to boost results?
• Which segments of our list are most valuable?
• What kind of from and subject lines boost open rates?
I usually turn to the Email Experience Council to find resources for email marketing. Their Email Stat Center is a really great collection of research and some stats for comparison. The Email Benchmark Guide is a good starting point. For more in-depth training, there is an Email Marketing Summit coming up shortly.
3. Organic Search / SEO
Of all the channels on this list, organic search is most likely to frustrate analysts. Unlike paid search and email marketing, you can’t know or measure many of the aspects that contribute to successful search engine optimization.
Search engines are fundamentally secretive about what drives rankings to a.) keep their competitive advantage and b.) reduce the amount of gaming of the system. To top it all off, it can take months (or more) before your changes produce results.
Even with those barriers, the value of measuring and analyzing organic search as a web analyst is huge. A well optimized site can drive significant traffic with no per-click cost, which means more money for your company and more kudos for you.
Start with some basic questions:
• How has our organic search traffic trended year over year?
• Which pages are bringing in the most organic traffic? Which search queries (aka keywords) drive them there?
• How does organic search drive our bottom line–profit, new customers, etc.?
Next, dig into some more advanced questions:
• What is your keyword share for our targeted search queries?
• How should we balance our organic and paid search efforts for maximum ROI?
• How do our blogging and social media efforts help SEO traffic?
I keep up with the SEO space by reading Search Marketing Gurus, SEOMoz and SEOBook. Copywriting has a big impact on organic search efforts, which is why I read Copyblogger. Their SEO Copywriting series is a good intro. For something more in-depth, try this guide.
4. Landing Pages (aka entry pages)
Every marketing campaign has to point to a page on your site. What should that page look like to yield maximum profit? Welcome to the world of landing pages.
The immediate post-click experience has a tremendous impact on the profitability (or viability) of your tactics. Paid search is getting more competitive and expensive, while display is as pricey as ever. If you want to wring out the maximum results, then regular testing of your landing pages has to be a standard practice.
The good new is that there’s tremendous upside in testing for any analyst out there. It’s all about data driven decision making instead of opinions and guesses. Not sure which headline is best? Test it!
The simplest way to get started is just to launch your own test using the free Google Website Optimizer. If you’re familiar with page tagging, the setup should be pretty straightforward. The real trick is understanding test design and measurement.
I recommend you start with Jonathan Mendez’s Expert Guide to Multivariate Testing. Bryan Eisenberg’s blog often features useful testing tips. I read Marketing Sherpa’s newsletters for new ideas and they have a handbook.
Conclusion
The fastest way to advance yourself, or your own business, is to focus on action and the bottom line business goals. The more you can partner with marketing and improve results, the more invaluable you’ll become. Take some time to expand your horizons beyond web analytics and you’ll be a better analyst for it.
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Want a Web Analyst Job?
Posted on 04 February 2009
Posted in Optimization, Web AnalyticsComments (0)
Tags: advice, Giovanni Gallucci;, New Media, online buzz marketing;, online marketing, seo tools, Social Media, www.gallucci.net;
Giovanni Gallucci – Social Media Strategies – News Aggregation Part 4
Posted on 03 February 2009
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Presentations from the Slideshare community
Posted on 02 February 2009
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Tags: Joe Pulizzi;, media, online marketing, year social media;
2009 Will Be the Year of Content Marketing..are you prepare?
Posted on 28 January 2009
quot;If 2008 was the year social media went mainstream, 2009 should be the year of content marketing, the corporation as media company, the brand as publisher and broadcaster, quot; says Junta 42 publisher Joe Pulizzi. It s true that much of what you read these days about online marketing is about using Twitter, Facebook and social sites effective
Go to Source
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INTERNET MARKETING Inside Secrets 101 Part 2 of 2 (YouTube Internet Marketing)
Posted on 27 January 2009
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Inside Secrets Responsive Internet Marketing pt 1-3 (YouTube Internet Marketing)
Posted on 27 January 2009
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http://www.InternetMarketingInsideSecrets.com Inside Secrets Responsive Internet Marketing pt 1-3 (YouTube Internet Marketing) with guest Jim Lutes talks about conscious & hypnosis marketing, highly responsive to suggestion or direction internet marketing, marketing, marketing strategy, marketing strategies, marketing, internet marketing, engine marketing, search engine marketing, marketing services, online marketing, marketing strategy, email marketing, network marketing, marketing service, site marketing, web site marketing, marketing strategies, business marketing, marketing firm, on-line marketing, marketing research, marketing plan, marketing agency, and marketing, direct marketing, internet marketing strategy, on line marketing, marketing online, website marketing, marketing company, affiliate marketing, search engine marketing firm, web marketing, marketing business,
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Inside Secrets Responsive Internet Marketing pt 2-3 (YouTube Internet Marketing)
Posted on 27 January 2009
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http://www.InternetMarketingInsideSecrets.com Inside Secrets Responsive Internet Marketing pt 2-3 (YouTube Internet Marketing) with guest Jim Lutes talks about conscious & hypnosis marketing, highly responsive to suggestion or direction internet marketing, marketing, marketing strategy, marketing strategies, marketing, internet marketing, engine marketing, search engine marketing, marketing services, online marketing, marketing strategy, email marketing, network marketing, marketing service, site marketing, web site marketing, marketing strategies, business marketing, marketing firm, on-line marketing, marketing research, marketing plan, marketing agency, and marketing, direct marketing, internet marketing strategy, on line marketing, marketing online, website marketing, marketing company, affiliate marketing, search engine marketing firm, web marketing, marketing business,
http://www.seoinsidesecrets.com Internet Marketing Internet marketing – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Internet Marketing Blog Also Visit: |
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INTERNET MARKETING 201 part 2 of 2 (YouTube Internet Marketing)
Posted on 27 January 2009
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http://www.InternetMarketingInsideSecrets.com INTERNET MARKETING Inside Secrets 201 part 2 of 2 (YouTube Internet Marketing)
1) HOW do you get to compete with corporate America's big budgets in advertising 2) Which sites come up #1 or first page lists for almost any keyword search at Google 3) How does a 25-50 page web site complete in a land of Big Business? 4) Who are the winners? Well we have identified them it's the Big sites it sites that have content like Wikipedia, eBay, Amazon.com and YellowPages 5) So how are people competing — They are using BLOGS and developing content everyday manually. And after a few years they may even have some traffic. 6) So we have identified what Google and Yahoo want. Lots of pages and lots of content..We've heard this expression before CONTENT IS KING!!! 7) CHECK for yourself if you are successful at Google do a site:domain.com and see the results. Or visit our FREE search engine tool: http://www.internetmarketinginsidesecrets.com/tools/index.php?page=pagesindexed  Examples of site:Amazon.com Ebay and Wikipedia.com BROAD MARKETS9) Individual opportunity seekers simply need a NICHE Market and tons of content in that NICHE MARKET be successful. 10) A yellow page book 2,000 pages printed in 9 point with display ads and you have one listing in it. WILL YOU BE FOUND? 11) Simply Google needs to love you. marketing, internet marketing, search engine marketing, marketing services, online marketing, marketing strategy, web site marketing, marketing strategies, marketing, internet marketing, engine marketing, search engine marketing, marketing services, online marketing, marketing strategy, email marketing, network marketing, marketing service, site marketing, web site marketing, marketing strategies, business marketing, marketing firm, on-line marketing, marketing research, marketing plan, marketing agency, and marketing, direct marketing, internet marketing strategy, on line marketing, marketing online, website marketing, marketing company, affiliate marketing, search engine marketing firm, web marketing, marketing business, Internet Marketing Internet marketing – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
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INTERNET MARKETING Inside Secrets 101 Pt 2 of 2 (YouTube Internet Marketing)
Posted on 27 January 2009
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User Choice and Music Licensing
Posted on 18 January 2009
Music licensing can get very complicated, but we try to make your experience as simple as possible. We want you to have options when uploading videos with music in them. And if your video is subject to a copyright claim, you should have some choices too.
Previously, when a music label or other rights owner issued a copyright claim to block audio, the video was automatically taken down. Uploaders had two choices: dispute the claim (in the case of fair use, for example) or use our AudioSwap tool to replace the track with one from our library of pre-cleared music. Now we’ve added an additional choice. Instead of automatically removing the video from YouTube, we give users the option to modify the video by removing the music subject to the copyright claim and post the new version, and many of them are taking that option.
Our content management tools have revolutionized the ways in which users and content owners are distributing, marketing, and making money from video online. As we continue to build out this system, we are working to find the right balance between encouraging creativity and free expression and respecting the rights of copyright holders and the law.
Posted in Uncategorized, VideosComments (0)
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