MeaningfulNoise.com

Metrics is a funny business. Logic states that if a measure like page views goes up, then we’re doing well; if it goes down, we’re doing something wrong. I encounter this thinking everyday with requests for total volume of [insert your metric]. But here’s the thing – every metric influences another and the results can be contrary to what you are trying to accomplish. It’s near impossible to find meaningful results that don’t have a flip-side.
 
Let’s say that a website runs a promotion for its lifestyles section… “Visit our lifestyles section and enter to win a free makeover for you and 15 of your ugliest friends.” The marketing department spends beaucoup dollars on creative, puts out a six week run of print and out-of-home ads to drive people online. After the promotion ends, one of our marketing professionals asks for results. Your humorless, literal analyst of course throws the question back as “what results for when?” and said marketer asks for page views for six weeks pre and post promotion. The result of the promotion was an increase in page views by 25%, which historically is unheard of for this particular section. Success!!! Right?
 
The marketing department put a stipulation on the promo that said a visitor can enter once a day. As a result, visits also increased by 20%. We dig a little deeper and see that pages-per-visitor increased like 30% for the section. So, all signs point to success. Oh, but wait… the pages-per-visit metric cratered. And now we’re six weeks out from the contest close and traffic is back to its pre-promotion levels. What does this mean?
 
A metric by itself is a color and color alone can’t tell the whole story. Even if you take a look several metrics all you really get is another color. But put those colors into a context and you have color and shape. Metrics are nothing without context. Your business objectives are the context… what are you trying to accomplish by giving away a makeover? Are you trying to acquire new audience, increase awareness, or maybe you’re just trying to get some additional eyes on the site so you can run a survey with a wider sample of visitors.
 
In the above example, awareness was up and drove additional traffic to the section – if that was the business goal, then we’re a success. Pages per visitor for that section went up which means people were visiting more often – if that was the goal, then we were a success.
 
If the goal was to gain new audience, it didn’t work – traffic returned to pre-promo levels once the contest ran its course. And since your pages-per-visit fell off the map, visitors were probably just hitting the promo page and then immediately leaving.
 
Metrics have to be seen within a context. Your business objectives are of utmost importance and need to be defined way in advance of your initiative launching. Try to understand what aspect of visitation you’re trying to effect (awareness, engagement, loyalty, or some combination thereof). You don’t have to know and predict every outcome from every metric mix. You just need to know why you’re doing what you’re doing and keep top of mind that you will color the results of other aspects of visitation.
 
Define your objectives, do the work, learn from your results.