| Each year, more and more people are coming online | | | | the store, where they came from, and once in the |
| to shop. In today's economic climate, people want the | | | | store, which products they viewed, how long they |
| best deal possible, and recognize that shopping online | | | | viewed them, which products they put in their cart, and |
| helps them accomplish that goal. Online marketers, | | | | what they looked at before exiting the store without a |
| new and old, face unique opportunities in today's | | | | purchase. This is data online retailers have in |
| economic landscape. This 26-part series covers topics | | | | abundance. |
| A-Z that will help you be a better online marketer. | | | | Once you have an analytics solution in place, you can |
| While each section is only an introduction, I will go into | | | | begin to measure 3 important areas---paths, people, |
| them in-depth in future articles. | | | | and products. |
| A - Analytics | | | | * Paths - use analytics to understand the virtual paths |
| One of the greatest benefits of the online environment | | | | people are taking in your store. What steps do they |
| is that data is captured at almost every turn. Whereas | | | | take most often when purchasing an item? This |
| traditional marketing (print, tv, radio) was much harder | | | | knowledge will help promote the pages on those |
| to measure and associate ROI, online marketing | | | | common paths. Similarly, you can improve pages that |
| provides marketers with all the data points they need | | | | get in the way of the conversion path. |
| to make correct decisions. | | | | * People - use analytics to understand demographic, |
| If you own a website, you need to, at a minimum, be | | | | psychographic, referral data and other important |
| using an analytics software like Google Analytics. You | | | | information about your users. |
| can measure how many people are visiting our site, | | | | * Products - use analytics to determine what your |
| where they are coming from, what pages are most | | | | most successful product, product groups, and product |
| popular, what pages people are exiting the most, etc. | | | | offerings are. |
| By understanding this information, you can better | | | | While analytics are not essential to running a website, |
| manage the paths on your website. | | | | they are essential to running a successful and |
| This is akin to a retail store being able to measure how | | | | effective website. |
| many people come to their store, how they traveled to | | | | |