WebProNews

You may recall Feras Alhlou, who chatted with WebProNews earlier this year after contributing a guest post to Google's Analytics Blog about using advanced segments in Google Analytics. Alhlou is the president of E-Nor, and he presented at an analytics session at SES this week.

Alhlou says there is a quote from Albert Einstein that C-level executives, marketing managers and analysts should keep in mind when it comes to establishing and nurturing a web analytics culture in their organizations. That quote is:

"Not everything that can be counted counts, and, not everything that counts can be counted."

With that in mind, Alhlou provides the following seven practical tips:

1. One size fits none

You need to understand and identify what is important to the organization. Time, money, and resources are limited, so you must use them wisely.

2.Know your audience

Don’t try to impress your boss with a radar map or a 5-dimentional motion chart. The following is an example of what not to start off with, unless your management is very "visually inclined."

3. Help your audience understand

Try to help your audience understand the basics. Start off with some common web metrics, and then move into task completion/conversion concepts.

4. Plan to integrate cost data

This refers to click spend, banner ad costs, etc. Have a model for ROI (return-on-investment) calculations.

5. Don't forget non-web Leads

Your site visitors are not all the same. Some of would buy online or submit a form online, while some just like to call and speak with someone. Bring phone data into the mix.

6. A CRM system

For lead generation sites, a CRM system is must. Classify your leads into categories (high quality leads, junk leads, etc.) and bring this insight back into your campaign conversion and ROI calculations. It's one thing to get 10 leads @ $1000 from campaign A, it is a totally different picture when 7 of these leads are junk!

7. Tie it all together

Tie it all together into business metrics that C-levels and business owners/managers can relate to. At the end of the day, it is not about visits, pageviews, conversions! It is about revenue and net profits!

I would like to thank Feras Alhlou for sharing these tips with WebProNews readers. There's no question that analytics can make a great impact on marketing, and if you work in a company that isn't doing all it should be in this department, these are some good tips to help change that.