Updated 8-20-2013
Measuring visitor interactivity on your web site can be a daunting task. Google has provided some helpful tips on tracking user behavior in web analytics to help you gain insight into the effectiveness of your campaigns. Visitor metrics like depth of visit, length of visit and returning visitors, all help you quantify the level of interactivity visitors are having with your site. What are other metrics that can help you determine if your campaigns are having a positive impact?
Tips for Measuring Brand Lift
Below are a few tactics to consider when attempting to measure the impact of your brand campaigns:
- Branded searches – Review your list of organic searches. Are the number of branded terms like “ABC Company” or “ABC” + product name increasing or decreasing over time? Increasing branded search keywords are a great way to help measure brand lift. Track this metric over time and see where these visitors originated. If you are running an off-line campaign or visiting a conference, this is a great way to show the value of that trade show to your boss.
- Social Profiles – Since your social media profiles appear next to your brand searches in search engines, you may want to start tagging these social profile visits from the profile URL listed on the bio.
- Brand-only campaigns – Are you running an awareness campaign? Make sure you are tracking these with a tag to group these with your brand reports.
- Track all PDFs and other downloads – Make sure you are tagging downloads and other important assets used in the campaign. These may not generate sales in the short term but could turn into sales later in the campaign.
- Create a brand dashboard – Google Analytics provides the option for custom dashboards. Use this tool to help you create a brand-only report. This brand-only report can track a variety of important signals related to your awareness campaigns.
When faced with the task of showing brand value to your campaigns, these metrics should help greatly. You can begin to view your visitors based on their brand interaction behavior, rather than on a conversion basis alone.