In a previous post here at the LEWIS PR blog, we explored why web analytics for public relations is critical. Continuing that thread, today let’s consider how companies and communications pros can get started with web analytics to create accountability, enable data-driven decision making and allow for meaningful reporting and analysis to stakeholders.
Invest in education and training
First up, it is essential to lay the groundwork. To be competitive your organization, specifically your communications department, must understand modern metrics available to them and their meaning. Through a mix of hands-on training, conference attendance, subscribing to web analytics blogs (such as the Google Analytics blog) and reading books (we highly recommend Avinash Kaushik’s Web Analytics 2.0) your team should work to become fluent in web metrics.
Even beyond education, a hands-on approach is critical. Make sure your whole team has direct access to your web analytics tool (or a client’s web analytics tool). This data is nirvana for modern communications professionals compared to what was available in the past. Those working without data and ability to manipulate it are flying blind compared with those fluent in it and allowed access. Limiting analytics access to few team members hurts everyone’s ability to achieve results.
Establish KPIs and objective metrics at the start
Before trending anything, establish the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and objective metrics of your program. These two are not the same thing and will vary based on initiative. It is up to the communications team to define these in such a way that objective metrics are what will actually impact business.
For example, in a B2B social media program – objectives could be inbound leads to the website (through items such as white paper downloads, demo requests, and organic contacts) and inbound PR achieved (such as organic media mentions) while KPIs could be web unique visitors, search engine traffic, followings in social channels like Twitter and Facebook, etc. It depends on the program and what you’re after. As a note, KPIs might be exciting to the marketing and PR team, but objective metrics should be something easily understood by the C-suite. If set properly they work together.
Focus on less – create simple, actionable reports
It’s easy to track lots of different metrics, and it’s easy to add more metrics to your reports. Unfortunately this can create confusion and the feeling of being overwhelmed with data. The good news is you don’t have to worry about everything in the reports you are creating. A simple report focusing on core metrics that matter is a far more elegant way to track/trend data.
Develop reporting for your stakeholders and internal teams that accomplish the goals of both: showing results of efforts and providing actionable data. Leave the details in your web analytics tool of choice for those analyzing the data to slice/dice, just trend what matters in reports produced. The metrics that matter should be created in a dashboard (and benchmarked) before any initiatives to show where you’re starting. Also, don’t add additional metrics for the sake of adding them without a good reason – stay simple.
Speaking of simplicity: tracking metrics on a monthly basis is likely to be the most efficient and useful method of comparison. Daily isn’t going to show any real trends (but do create alerts in your analytics tool in case spikes or dips occur so you can react) and weekly is going to mean extra reporting work and not likely to provide the range necessary to show meaningful changes.
Don’t just report, analyze and interpret
Be sure each report is accompanied with meaningful insights to provide context for those receiving them. There is a huge difference between reporting data (which can be automated) and truly looking at data from an analyst perspective. Analysis, interpretation and action are what companies are looking for vs. simply reporting data on a monthly basis.
Start with web stats, not social analytics on external sites
Don’t even bother thinking about data from external sources or tools that monitor the social web like Radian 6 until your team is fluent in your own web analytics. There is far more value and detail in existing web data anyway, and while there is also value in data external of your site – you are jumping the gun if your team isn’t already savvy with basic web stats.
External data should ultimately be used to improve marketing and PR initiatives, but until your team has a tight process around owned property metrics (like your website and self-hosted blog) it makes little sense to trend data in other platforms where you don’t get the same depth, breadth or accuracy.
Next up in this series on web analytics for communication professionals, we’ll start exploring specific metrics that matter for PR and social media pros to analyze and insights you should be taking away.
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Tags: web analytics