You just invested your entire interactive marketing budget on a complete overhaul of your website. Even better, you have a marketing strategy in place and have a killer web analyst to report website behavior mapped back to your business objectives. The site launches and everyone is anxiously awaiting the first analytics presentation. Let the web analysis begin!
Wait! Not so fast.
The basis of many web analytics programs these days is the KPI scorecard. Short for key performance indicators, KPIs are metrics that are tied directly to your business objectives. These are very powerful tools for communicating visitor behavior and gaining executive buy-in when major changes are needed on your website. Your KPI scorecard likely has some of the basics like traffic volumes, conversion rates, landing page “stickiness” (visits that go beyond the landing page), visits to key content, online campaign performance and several others depending on your site objectives.
Without a doubt, KPI reporting allows analysts to really quantify the activity on your website. It does not, however, provide a clear picture of the “why” or the “how” behind the “behavior”. You may be scratching your head…that’s okay, I’ll explain.
Take a step back for a moment and ask yourself this: