Web Operations

Visitor Outcomes: Analytics

So far, we've looked at the metrics you need to collect for web performance. These metrics don't mean much, however, unless you tie them to business outcomes. For successful web operators, monitoring is all about knowing the impact. And when it comes to web businesses, the place where those impacts are measured is within the practice of web analytics, which is where we'll spend the rest of this chapter.

How Marketing Defines Success

One of the best descriptions of marketing, by Sergio Zyman, formerly the CMO of Coca-Cola, is that it's about "selling more things to more people more often for more money, more efficiently." Not every website is focused on e-commerce, though, so it's perhaps more accurate to define online marketing success as "getting people to do the things you want them to efficiently."

Of course, what you want visitors to do depends on the business you're in.

The Four Kinds of Sites

There are four fundamental web business models. Your site might fall into more than one of these—indeed, most sites do—but these four archetypes underlie every web property. Before you can decide what metrics marketing needs to analyze, you have to know what kind of site you're running.

Transactional sites

Involve the completion of some kind of transaction, often a purchase. They define success by revenues from sales that happen on their site.

Collaborative sites

Involve the creation of content. When valuable new content is added to the site, it benefits. On the other ...