Professionally speaking, that year-end thinking and planning often manifests as the dreaded year-end reports. For those of us in charge of marketing strategies, reports often track metrics: impressions, click-through rates, and page views. But while that may provide a clear enough picture of customer engagement with marketing campaigns, does it cover everything?
The easy answer? No.
A year-end report can never cover everything – there are just too many things for you to focus on. The key is to figure out what key metrics could serve as important plot points in the story your report is trying to tell.
It’s not just about bounce rate and number of visitors. Before you start editing your PowerPoint presentation, keep these tips on important web metrics in mind.
Start with annual goals.
Everything, and we mean everything, should be based on your annual goals.
If your company practices e-commerce, this is usually easy: your annual goals are largely tied to sales. But if you’re not a business focused on trading, all is not lost.
We encourage you to break down your annual goals and decide how your website aligns with the expected results. Are there certain user interactions on your site that suggest a user’s initial purchase intent? Is there an opportunity to demonstrate customer loyalty through content interaction?
Those metrics aren’t always the easiest to connect to your annual goals, but they do matter in the bigger picture of the customer journey and your company’s bottom line.
Report the bad stuff.
Listen to us. We all know that mistakes and failures are an opportunity for improvement. And we think year-end reports are the perfect opportunity to celebrate wins. But we must also indicate where future growth should be focused, and we encourage you to really lean towards the bad.
Ideally, your reports should inform annual goals and next year’s marketing plans in a way that continues the momentum that began this year. They should also pay because of the areas of their business that are not working as they should.
Don’t forget the less glamorous numbers.
When you’re tasked with coming up with annual numbers, the pressure is on. You may be tempted to hit the buzzwords or shiny metrics.
But health and maintenance metrics also help get a picture of your site’s performance. For example, scores related to performance or accessibility, while less interesting, are crucial to understanding the effectiveness of your marketing and the current state of your technology stack.
Ignoring these factors now can cause an annoying roadblock next year when your site’s rankings decline or you see a drop in web conversions.
Consider your internal processes.
Finally, understand that maintaining a website and its content is a team effort.
Team efforts require a process: setting expectations and ensuring things get done on time. Note any successes or setbacks within your processes. Did you enter a record number of blog posts this year? Have alt tags been added to all assets in your media library?
These may not be numerical findings, but they are important to note.
While the data doesn’t lie, numbers alone do not communicate an address; context is key. Remember that your website is an important part of your digital strategy and provides vital context beyond typical statistics.
