How To Determine An Online Marketing Budget

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Chris Leone

“How much money should I spend on paid search?” As someone who runs a lot of paid search campaigns, I hear this question a lot. The answer isn’t the same for everyone, and finding it can take a little work.

Unlike most traditional offline advertising, it’s not very difficult to tie our online investment back to its return. Because we can tie our advertising dollars back to leads generated online, we shouldn’t ask how much money we should spend. We should ask how much revenue do we want to bring in.  The following questions will help you find that answer.

Question #1: ”How much new business am I looking to generate?”

Let’s say your goal is to generate $10,000 worth of new business in the next 2 months. Each new customer is worth $1,000. That means you need 10 new customers in the next 60 days to generate your goal of $10,000 in new business.

Question #2: ”What is my internal close rate?”

Not every phone call from a prospect turns into a customer. But let’s say you are able to convert 40% of prospect phone calls into a new customer. This means we’ll need 25 phone calls to generate the 10 new customers necessary to earn $10,000 in new business.

Ok, so 25 phone calls. We need 25 phone calls. Where can we get 25 phone calls?

Question #3: “At what rate does my online traffic turn into phone calls.”

A decent paid search campaign can turn 10% of visitors into phone calls. To generate 25 calls with a 10% call rate, I would need 250 new visitors to my site. 250 visitors at a 10% call rate will generate the 25 calls necessary to earn me 10 new customers worth an average of $1,000.

Question #4: “How much does each visitor cost me?”

The beauty of paid search advertising is being able to track the incremental cost associated with sending each new visitor to our site. This is determined by the cost-per-click – or the cost to us each time someone clicks on one of our paid search ads.

Cost-per-click can vary greatly, from as low as $.25 to over $10. The more valuable a customer, the higher you should expect your cost-per-click. For this exercise, let’s assume an average cost-per-click (CPC) of $4.

We know from our math above that we need 250 visitors to generate the adequate number of new customers to hit our sales goal.

250 visitors at $4 cost-per-click means we need a budget of $1000 to hit our new business goal of $10,000.

What should your budget be? $1000.

Not every business will have this level of detail about their call and close rates. If you fall into that bucket, use some conservative estimates and refine as you go. For example, try using a 5% call rate and a 10% close rate. We’ll keep the $1,000 average value and $4 CPC for now.

$10,000 revenue goal =

$1,000 average customer value =

10 new customers required =

100 calls required =

2,000 visitors needed =

$8,000 budget.

In this scenario, it’s probably not worth investing in paid search marketing. Improving the rate at which your site turns visitors into callers, improving your internal close rate (by hiring a sales coach), and lowering your cost-per-click would all make this scenario more favorable.

Having this level of clarity achieves multiple outcomes. First and foremost, it helps you make better decisions upfront. If you knew going in that every $1 spent on marketing would only get you $1.25 in new sales, you wouldn’t waste your time. Secondly, it is much easier to find truly successful campaigns. Not only are you not wasting your time with campaigns destined to fail, you’ll know when you’ve found a winner.

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YWCA Wins Impact Award in Richmond, VA

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Neal Lappe

Impact 100, a group of 100 women in the Richmond, VA area who came together to make a difference in our community, has granted the YWCA of Richmond $100,000 to strengthen the care and support they provide women in our community.

Women who are getting away from an abusive relationship come with questions about where to go, what to take and how to recover.  Fortunately this generous grant enables the local YWCA to help answer some of those challenging and emotional questions.

The YWCA of Richmond, led by CEO Linda Tissiere, will be using the $100,000 grant to Linda_Tissiere_YWCA_Richmond_VAoffer a new type of shelter to women.  The money comes from the Impact 100 Big Give—100 Richmond women who each donated $1,000. Together, the $100,000 was donated to the YWCA of Richmond.  The money will be used to help the YWCA transition its existing shelter from a community center to individual apartments, giving women a way to escape abusive situations.  The apartments will be able to accommodate women, their children and their pets.  Individual apartments have proven to be the most effective shelter for domestic violence victims and have been found to help victims heal faster.

Not only am I happy that such a good cause was awarded with such generosity, I’m also proud that Linda Tissiere is a member of my group at the VA Council of CEOs.  Linda is a great leader and her group of dedicated employees are clearly making a huge contribution to the Richmond, VA community.

Congratulations to the YWCA, all the YWCA employees and volunteers who sacrifice and toil daily to improve the lives of women and our community.  Also, thanks to the women that comprised Impact 100.  Clearly you are making a real difference in the lives of others.

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Improve Your Selling Skills – Be a Better Listener

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Neal Lappe

Listening skills are valuable salesperson traits according to buyers in a recent survey on selling skills.  When buyers were asked about the most valued traits in a salesperson, 80% selected “actively listens to me.”  If you’re a good listener, you’ve got an important skill to be an elite salesperson.

There are 3 things you can do to improve your listening skills in a sales situation or any situation where it is important to obtain complex information: 1) focus totally on the other person, 2) take notes, and 3) use active listening techniques.

Focus Totally on the Other Person

Too often salespeople are so focused on talking about their companies or the features and benefits of their products and services, they simply don’t pay enough attention to what’s on the buyer’s mind.  They don’t ask enough or the right open-ended questions to understand the buyer’s complete perspective.

My firm provides digital marketing services and sales development programs.  When we are talking to a new prospect, we don’t immediately begin asking questions about search engine optimization or sales processes.  We start with what the company wants to achieve overall and how sales and marketing fit into their over-arching goals.  We want to
understand the bigger picture first, how the buyer envisions his future, and how the buyer feels about his situation.

By doing so, we can better understand how our offering might fit into their overall plans.  In some cases, we may find our offering is not an appropriate fit, so we avoid selling something that won’t benefit their company.

Remember, buyers buy for only two reasons; to gain something or to avoid a painful situation.  By focusing totally on the buyer’s perspective and asking profound open-ended questions, we can understand their point of view (gain or pain) before ever thinking about our product or service.

Take Notes

Taking notes has tremendous benefits in a sales situation.  When you’re in a restaurant and the waiter takes your order by memory without any notes, don’t you worry that he or she will get it right – especially if you’ve asked for some special changes?  Studies have shown that customer satisfaction increases when the wait staff writes down the order because the orders are more accurate when they come out of the kitchen.  When you are extracting important information from a buyer, don’t you want to make sure you get it
right and really capture the nuances?  Often times, the nuances and how you address them are what separates you from the competition.

Always ask permission to takes notes before doing so.  Asking permission achieves several things.  First, it sends a subtle message to the buyer that what they say is important enough to write down. Also, when you ask permission to take notes, the buyer will almost always say “yes”.  Getting a “yes” from the buyer starts an important trend in getting a “yes” all the way to when you ask for the sale.

Finally, taking good notes enables you to include the details and nuances into your proposal.  When I come back to make proposals and include in my recommendations the details and nuances from previous conversations, buyers immediately connect and engage because I am addressing the very details they discussed earlier.

Summarize and Feedback

Active listening techniques are a powerful way to connect with the buyer and confirm your understanding of what they are saying.  Statements like…

  • “let me confirm what I thought I heard you say”
  • “what I am hearing is this”
  • “it sounds like you are concerned about this”

…are powerful statements to confirm you got it right and encourage the buyer to tell you more.  Often the buyer will say you got it exactly right – another “yes”.  Sometimes the buyer will disagree. A disagreement is not a step backward; rather, it is a step forward in better understanding the buyer’s perspective.  Frequently, the use of active listening
techniques will get the buyer to divulge information well beyond what you’ve originally
asked.

The use of active listening will strengthen your connection with the buyer, which likely leads to you learning things like who your competition is, their budget, and the criteria on which the buyer will make their selection.  Valuable information no doubt.

In summary, listening skills are a critical trait to becoming an elite salesperson.  Improving your listening skills will enable you to learn things about your buyers that will lead to more sales.  Improve your listening skills by focusing totally on the buyer’s perspective, taking notes, and using active listening techniques to ensure you completely understand the buyer’s perspective.
 

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Jason Cohen – Virginia Small Business Person of the Year – 2013

Posted on May 6, 2013 by Neal Lappe

I am proud to announce that friend, long-time customer and President of ILM Corporation, Jason Cohen, has been named the Virginia Small Business Person of the Year for 2013.

Jason leads the team of ILM professionals who are in the business of transforming paper and other non-digital media and documents into digital media that can be organized and indexed for easy accessibility by any authorized user with online access anywhere in the world.  ILM works with government departments at all levels and many medium and large businesses.  Based in Fredericksburg, VA, ILM has been in business nearly 40 years.

I’m also proud to say that ILM has been a customer of WebStrategies for over 5 years.  We have provided website development services including the development of their current website.  We have also been doing online marketing for ILM including SEO, paid search marketing and email marketing to attain consistent top-of-mind-awareness.  Perhaps in some small way WebStrategies has been part of ILM’s success.

Jason is wise beyond his years.  We’ve confided in and advised each other about challengesJason Cohen - VA Small Business Person of 2013 and issues in our respective companies and no doubt I’ve learned more from him.  He continues to seek better ways of doing everything and being positioned the right way in his marketplace.

He’s a maniac athlete.  Jason has competed in several Ironman Triatholons (that’s a 26.2 mile run, a 100 mile bike race and a 2 mile swim all in the same day) and competes in multiple marathons all across the country every year.  He and his wife Heather have four great kids.

The U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Richmond District Office will honor Virginia’s outstanding small business owners and champions at the Virginia Small Business Week Awards Luncheon on Monday, June 24, 2013 at the Richmond Westin Hotel.  The awards celebration is co-sponsored by the Richmond Score Chapter #12 and the Virginia Small Business Center.

Congratulations to Jason, his family and all the ILM employees for such a remarkable achievement.

 

 

 

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Melissa Ball – 2013 Henrico Community Leader of the Year

Posted on May 2, 2013 by Neal Lappe

Melissa Ball, CEO & Owner of Ball Office Products in Richmond, VA has been named the Henrico County Community Leader of the Year for 2013.

I’m proud to say Melissa is a fellow member of Roundtable 5 with the VA Council of CEOs, and I can testify to her giving ways.  Melissa has always impressed me with her willingness to give her time and intellect to help others.  Consequently, I am not surprised at all about her winning this award.

Ball Office Products is a leading supplier of office supplies and furniture throughout the state and caters well to a wide variety of businesses and industries.  Melissa, along with her husband Jonathan, have built Ball Office Products to be a very respected member of the business community.  This Community Leader Award only validates what so many already know.

Read more about this award here –  http://bit.ly/Yq7IWu

 

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Closing the Sale – The Signals to Look For

Posted on April 27, 2013 by Neal Lappe

The national sales closing rate is around 27% – WOW.  When you think about all the time and money spent meeting with prospects, studying the prospect’s situation and developing proposals, to only convert slightly more than 1 out of 4 is a problem.  Clearly, most salespeople aren’t adept in their closing skills. 

Among the top 10 selling skills we teach in our classes, knowing when and how to close the sale is the most difficult of them all.  This article focuses on how to recognize the verbal and non-verbal signals that indicate when the buyer is ready to be asked for the sale. 

Recognizing the “Buyer Shift”

In my experience selling in the B2B environment, there are few buyers who will close themselves – unfortunately.  The key is recognizing what we call the “buyer shift”.  The “buyer shift” generally occurs when the buyer has heard enough about the benefits of your products and services to his/her business and he/she is ready to take some action. 

In most situations, body language and tone of voice are the indicators of the “buyer shift”.  In fact, body language accounts for the majority of signals.  As you, the salesperson, and the prospect are discussing benefits, watch how the prospect’s body language shifts.  Here are some common signs of when the shift does and doesn’t take place:

 

Green Light (this shift has occurred)

 

  • Facial – friendly, smiling, slow head nod, chin stroke, pleasant expression
  • Arms – released, relaxed, uncrossed
  • Eyes – good eye contact, raised eyebrows, rapid blinking eyes
  • Hands – palms open, rubbing hands together, handling your material
  • Legs – uncrossed or crossed and towards you
  • Body Angle – relaxed, upright and toward you, sitting on edge of chair

 

  

Red Light (do not attempt to close yet)

 

  • Facial – tense, rubs eye, furrowed brow, pursed lips, nose/face scratch
  • Arms – tense, crossed
  • Eyes – raising one eyebrow, looking at watch, glazed over, poor eye contact
  • Hands – clasped/clinched, fidgeting with objects, pen tapping, in pockets
  • Legs – crossed at ankles, crossed away from you, tapping foot
  • Body Angle – slouching, leaning away, turning away from you

 

 In addition to these strong non-verbal signals, there are verbal signals that indicate the “buyer shift”.  In many cases the buyer begins making statements that imply mental engagement with you and your product/service.  Following are some verbal signals to listen for…

Buyer attachment statements – “this is a good location for the item” or “this all sounds pretty good” or “I can see how this could have an impact on our business” or “if we worked with you how do things get started?”

  • Buyer repeats a question – “can you explain once again how this element works?” or “I’d like to learn a little more about this feature.”
  • Buyer asks a risk-mitigation question – “so you said this comes with a guarantee” or “what happens if our initial actions don’t work?”
  • Buyer mentions an outside recommendation – “Bob is working with you guys and he says he’s been pleased” or “Linda mentioned that she’s been happy with what you’ve done for her.”
  • Buyer communicates unfavorable comments about a competitor – “we are also talking to XYZ company but I’m not sure they are the best choice” or “I am confused about why ABC company suggested a different approach.”
  • Buyer asks for personal details – “how long have you been with your company?” or “what will your involvement be with implementing this solution?”

When body language and other non-verbal signals indicate engagement and a connection with you, and you begin hearing statements and questions that suggest the buyer is envisioning working with you and/or your products/services, the “buyer shift” is occurring.  At that point, you need to be ready to ask for the sale or at least ask some trial closing questions to uncover any other objections before asking for the sale.

Nearly half of all sales calls end without an attempt to close the sale.  Additionally, if you are timid about asking for the sale, you have a 90% chance of losing the sale.  You should never ask for the sale until the buyer is ready.  So, watch body language and listen for buying statements to determine if the “buyer shift” has occurred.  Then and only then ask for the sale.

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Back to the Basics, III: Using Google Analytics Custom Reports

Posted on April 24, 2013 by Chris Leone

By default, Google Analytics provides us with nearly 70 standard reports. Add in dashboards, intelligence alerts, and real time reporting and that number jumps closer to 80. 80! That’s 80 different ways to slice and dice your website’s data. But wait, there’s more! Most reports will visualize your data multiple ways, including as a pie chart, word cloud, comparison chart, pivot table, and map overlay.

With a seemingly endless number of different ways to view our data, our insatiable desire for business insight must be satisfied, right? Right??

Not necessarily.

Enter Custom Reports.

What are custom reports and where can I find them?

Custom Reports lets us build our own table and charts, showing only the metrics we’re most interested in seeing. Custom Reporting can be accessed in the Customization tab found in the top orange bar.

Why should I use custom reports when there are so many standard reports already? 

Standard reports are often cluttered with extraneous information or require multiple clicks to reach the information we want. Custom Reports helps solves this problem.

Let’s jump in.

Most Google Analytics reports are broken down by metrics and dimensions. We’ll need to select at least one metric and one dimension to build our custom report. Metrics run left to right on our report and are a numeric measurement, e.g. visits, pageviews, time on site, bounce rate, etc. Dimensions run top to bottom and put our metrics into context.

Google Analytics Metrics versus Dimensions

To build your own custom report, click the blue and green boxes and select the metrics or dimensions you want to use. For the first example, I’m going to analyze landing pages. The metrics I want to view are: Visits to a page, Entrances / Pageviews, Bounce Rate, and Page  Value. I want to view these metrics by page, so I’m going to select ‘Page’ as my dimension.

Landing Page Custom Report Configuration

Finally, I want to view this information only for visitors coming from organic search, so I apply a filter at the bottom to only include organic search. While adding a filter is optional, it’s a great way to add more meaning to any report. After all, data in aggregate stinks.

Organic traffic filter

Click ‘Save’ at the bottom to view the final report.

Talk about low hanging fruit. This report provides great insight as to which pages function well as landing pages and which do not. For instance, look at the Page Value of the third page compared to the fifth page (I’ve blocked out the actual page name to keep the data confidential).

For the next example, I’m going to analyze my Google Advertising campaign to see which keywords produce the best return on investment.  The metrics I want to add to my custom report are: Clicks, Conversions, Conversion Rate, Cost-Per-Click, Revenue-Per-Click, Total Cost, Total Revenue, and ROI. I want to analyze performance on a keyword level, so I select ‘Keyword’ as my dimension.

PPC Report Configuration

Since I want this report to be specific to pay-per-click, I add a filter at the bottom.

Custom Report PPC Filter

Here’s the report in its final form:

PPC Report Custom Report

This report shows me how much each keyword costs me as well as how much revenue it produces. Awesome! Don’t you wish you could view every marketing expense this way?

Did I mention you can schedule these reports to automatically email out to your team members?

Custom reporting is a crucial tool for analyzing and improving our campaign and website performance. I encourage anyone to build couple reports like the ones above that highlight investment, return, and opportunity. Use the email scheduler feature to share the reports with your team. By making the information focused yet concise, coming to a group consensus on how to improve online performance won’t be so daunting.

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Uncovering New Sales Leads & Opportunities

Posted on April 11, 2013 by Neal Lappe

Clearly one of the most challenging elements of sales is getting in front of qualified leads.  A great salesperson with terrific selling skills won’t succeed without a steady diet of qualified prospects with whom to speak.  One of the most often overlooked lead generation opportunities is your existing customers, and this article is about how to systematically identify qualified leads from your current customer base.

It is well known that selling to an existing customer is 6 to 7 times less expensive and time consuming than acquiring new customers.  After all, they know you, trust you (hopefully) and you already have a track-record of good performance.  You know their business and they know yours.  No blind-dating here – you’re in a position to get serious.

One of the best ways to identify sales opportunities with existing customers is to create an Opportunity Chart.  An Opportunity Chart is simply a matrix of existing customers, what they have purchased from you and what opportunities exist to sell them additional products and services.  Here’s an example of an Opportunity Chart in which the products/services are simply listed in order…

Sales Leads from Existing Customers

Here’s an example of an Opportunity Chart in which the products/services are listed by the amount of profit margin and the value in each product/service…

 Sales Lead Generation Chart

Looking at sales opportunities to existing customers by profit margin and value enables you to fine-tune your presentation and selling approach.  In the above example you see that Customers 5 and 8 have only purchased the “Loss Leader” product.  Since each of these products build value from the previous product, you can present the higher margin, more valued products as the next logical step in the progression of the relationship with that customer. 

Here’s a more specific example of sales opportunity by margin/value.  In our sales assessment and training business we usually begin with sales compatibility assessments of individuals.  This is a low cost, relatively low margin product – our “loss leader” so to speak – and establishes a basis for how individuals can improve their sales success.  The next natural product/service in which an individual can improve is participation in our Top 10 Selling Skills seminar.  This generates more gross margin dollars.  After that, the individual and/or company participates in our 2-day Sales & Marketing Best Practices workshop, which generates higher gross profits.  It is simply a natural progression of products and services.

In summary, before you go trekking off to find new sales prospects, look first in your own “backyard” and create your Sales Opportunity Chart of your existing customers.  It will be easier to approach them since you already have a good relationship and trust, and you’ll seize opportunities to add greater value to them and generate more sales for you.

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Google Analytics – Back To The Basics pt. 2 – Advanced Segments

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Chris Leone

In this installment of “Back to the Basics,” I want to share with you one of my absolute favorite features of Google Analytics: Advanced Segments. (I realize the irony in spotlighting a feature that uses the word “advanced” in a segment called “back to the basics” – just roll with me here).

Why would we want to segment our data? Because data in aggregate stinks. It’s deceptive, it’s incapable of providing real insight, and it’s not actionable.

Enter: Advanced Segments.

With a couple clicks, Advanced Segments quickly turn an ordinary report into something much more useful and meaningful.

Let’s dive in.

Google Analytics provides 13 Advanced Segments by default, allowing users to view up to 4 at a time. You can find the Advanced Segments feature in the top left of most reports.

Google Analytics custom segments location

Last time I wrote about the Overview Report, so let’s begin there. Without applying any segments, this report shows data for every single visitor no matter how they came into the site – pretty boring, right? Let’s go deeper. I’m going to select Search Traffic, Direct Traffic, and Referral Traffic from the Advanced Segment box.

Google Analytics default segments

After hitting “Apply,” this top level Overview Report suddenly becomes a bit more interesting. We now see these metrics separated by search engine, direct, and referral site visitors.

Google Analytics overview screenshot

Scrolling down to the behavioral metrics, we can see side-by-side, the difference in how visitors from these different channels behave on the site.

Google Analytics behavioral metrics

Notice the lower bounce rate for referral visitors but how less than half of referral visitors are coming to the site for the first time, the lowest of the 3 segments. We are not limited to the Overview Report either. We can click through to almost any other report in Google Analytics and see each report broken down by these three segments.

This is just a very basic example. So let’s take this a step further. Let’s create our own Custom Segments.

Creating a Custom Segment allows us to filter all information in a report by a condition decided by us (you!). To set up a new custom segment, click the Advanced Segments button in the top left and click “+ New Custom Segment” over to the right.

Google Analytics new custom segment

Let’s look at a couple examples:

Impact of Offline Advertising:
As I wrote about in the past, Direct Traffic and Branded Traffic are good ways to measure offline impact online. Normally, we’d have to look at these two traffic sources separately, but with advanced segments we can group them together and take them with us from report to report.

The conditions we set in our Advanced Segments would be as follows: came to our site directly or came from a search engine using our brand name.

In Google Analytics, it would look like this:

Google Analytics create new custom segment

By applying this segment, we can see what pages these visitors view, how frequently they convert, and where they’re located geographically. By applying this segment on the Location report, we could determine which markets saw spikes in traffic over the course of our offline marketing campaign.

Visitors from another site:
Let’s say your product was reviewed by a well known blogger (popularblog.com), and as a result you received an influx of traffic from their site – not to mention a great link for SEO. Now you want to view different reports in Google Analytics but only for people who came from this blogger.

Condition: Source = popularblog.com

Advanced segment source containing

By applying this segment to any reports, we can not only see how many visitors came from this site, but how well they convert, where they’re located geographically, what kind of devices they’re on, and whether they visited the site multiple times. You’ll find out if this review just got you a bunch of high-bounce traffic or if it turned into something meaningful.

Big spenders:
For our final example, we’ll isolate visitors who made a purchase worth more than $50. Condition: Revenue = greater than 50.

Advanced segment revenue greater than

Analyzing based on purchase behavior can be extremely powerful. With this segment applied, we can understand what these visitors do differently compared with someone who makes a small purchase, or none at all. You may find that visitors with a purchase value over $50 view a particular page more often than those who don’t, or that these visitors are within a certain distance of your store.

Let your imagination and curiosity run wild. Ask questions about your visitors, segment your data, get answers.

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Google Analytics – Back To The Basics pt. 1

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Chris Leone

The Audience Overview report is the first page we see upon opening our Google Analytics. But what do all these numbers mean and why should we care?

Below I’ll spotlight each metric and what you need to know about it:

Dashboard - Google Analytics

Visits versus Unique Visitors - Google Analytics

Visits: the total number of times your site has been visited.

Unique Visitors: the number of individuals who have visited your site.

“Visits” are not the same as “unique visitors.” For example, if Santa visits a house 12 times, Santa is considered one unique visitor with 12 visits.

Do not use these terms interchangeably. Consider the difference between: “I’ve had 12 people come down my chimney” versus “this one guy has come down my chimney 12 times.”

Why should you care?If you want to measure activity in the context of people, use the unique visitors metric. This is best way to measure how many individuals have come to your site.

Pageviews - Google Analytics

Pageviews: the total number of pages viewed on your Website by all visitors.

Why should you care? You shouldn’t. This metric is useless to most people. The exception is site owners who are paid to run ads on their site. The more pageviews, the more ad impressions and the more revenue. If you don’t run ads, you’re best off ignoring this number.

Pages per Visit - Google Analytics

Pages/Visit (Pages per Visit):  average number of pages viewed on your Website per visit.

Why should you care?This metric can be a loose indication of how engaging your site is. The more pages people view when coming to your site, the more engaged they are, right?

Not necessarily.

Visitor A may be in love with your content, clicking through to five different pages. But Visitor B is incredibly frustrated with your site navigation, and has clicked around to five different pages. Ultimately, they leave without converting. Both visitors viewed five pages, but each had a very different experience.

Is Pages per Visit a useless metric? No, but don’t use it by itself. Compare it with outcomes, such as conversion rate.  Do people who visit more pages per visit convert at a higher rate? If so, what page combinations result in more conversions? Are there ways to make these pages more accessible via changes to your navigation or links in your page content?

Pages per Visit is also useful for sites who host ads. The more pageviews, the more ad revenue. This is why many sites divide one story into multiple pages, or why you see so many “The 25 Best ________ Of All Time” or “The Worst _____ of the Year” articles, which require you to click through to a new page for each item on the list. Each visitor turns into 25 pageviews, which results in 25x more ad revenue.

Average Visit Duration - Google Analytics

Average Visits Duration: the average length of time someone spent on your Website.

Why should you care?Just like Pages per Visit, this metric should be used to find meaningful correlations. For example, do visitors who spend more than two minutes on the site convert at a higher rate than visitors who stick around for less than one minute?

If so, what do they spend their time doing? What pages are converting visitors spending the most time on? What is it about the content on those pages that is increasing the likelihood for conversions?

Also, like pages per visit, a high average visit duration can suggest difficulties in navigation layout or the ability to find key pages. Be cautious when using this metric by itself (as tempting as it may be). Put it in the context of outcomes whenever possible.

Bounce Rate - Google Analytics

Bounce rate:  the percentage of visitors who viewed only one page before exiting your site (I walked in, I took one look, and I walked right back out).

Why should you care? Unlike most metrics, bounce rate can be used by itself, without the context of other metrics. It is a wonderful way for measuring the first impression made by your site.  A site that cannot capture someone’s attention right away will likely result in them turning around and walking right back out (a bounce).

Aim for a bounce rate in the 30-40 percent range – the lower, the better. Anything below 30% is great, but can be very difficult to obtain. Sustaining a bounce rate below 20% is unrealistic is most cases. Get your bounce rate in the 30’s and you’re in good shape. If you’re above 60%, you may have major issues with your site.

Percent New Visits - Google Analytics

% New Visits: the percentage of visitors who are coming to your site for the very first time.

Why should I care? A good website that’s marketed well should be capturing new visitors on a regular basis. It should also provide a pleasant enough experience that makes visitors want to return.

A very high distribution of new visitors (>85%) means your site does a poor job of convincing people to come back. A high distribution of returning visitors suggests your online marketing is not effective or aggressive enough.

Loyalty is important, but gaining new customers is what it’s all about. I consider a healthy mix to be around 70-75% new visitors and 25-30% returning visitors. Based on your industry, your mileage may vary.

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