I was at a conference the other day and one of the main points of discussion was around the success of Online Marketing and how best to measure it. It’s a real issue that marketers and brands face every day. Most businesses now know that everyone needs an online campaign, but with it comes a new worry: we throw money at these campaigns with little or no idea of how to measure the ROI. Fortunately, at Quirk, we’re a little more precise and have found a bunch of ways to make sure that we can measure and report on online success. Here’s the low down on where we begin…

1). Start at the Beginning
In all my reading around measuring online success the clearest message that emanated through the confusion was that knowing the goals of your Online Marketing campaign is step one. Doing it simply because everyone else is doing it is a little like smoking a cigarette behind the sports pavilion at 14: fairly pointless. So when it comes to online strategy, define your goals and plan with these is mind - focus on your return on objectives rather than on your return on investment. Specific objectives could include visiting a certain web page, subscribing to a newsletter or completing an online form.

2). Get Comfortable with the Lingo
Understanding the lingo is critical to grasping the principles behind measuring the success of your online campaign so I’ve put together a list of some of the vital terms to get you started. For more, check out the eMarketing glossary on the Quirk site or the one in the back of our textbook, eMarketing: the essential guide to online marketing.

• Conversion: A user successfully fulfilling one of the site’s predefined goals. 
• CPM: Cost Per Mille. This is the amount of money that an advertiser pays for every 1000 views of an advertisement.                                                      
• EPC: Earnings Per Click. This figure is derived by dividing the total earnings by the number of clicks on an advertisement.                                                                                                                                                 
• Log Analyser: This is software that helps you to measure the success of your website and Online Marketing campaign. It provides information about visitors to a site, their onsite activity, click through paths and other data that allows you to analyse the user’s behaviour.     
• Page Views: The number of times that a page was successfully requested.                                                            
• Pass On Rate: The number of times that a user passed on content or information to other users.  
• Traffic: The visitors who land on a site.                                                                                                         
• CPC: Cost Per Click. In PPC and online advertising, CPC is the amount that an advertiser pays when a potential client clicks on their advertisement.                                                                                                
• CPA: Cost Per Action. This refers to the costs involved in acquiring a new customer. In this scenario, advertisers only pay when a predefined goal is achieved.                                                                         
• Conversion Rates: The percentage of visitors to a site that complete a desired action or fulfil a goal.                              
• Click Path: The clicks that take a visitor through a website during a visit.

3). There’s More to Life than Direct Sales
Traditionally, marketing efforts need to translate into sales in order to be regarded as successful. This misconception should be chucked out along with the notion that Email Marketing is the same as spam (which, for the record, it is not). This is not to say that sales aren’t important – obviously they are – but the road to selling is not always a straight and narrow one. A well executed Online Marketing campaign will not only pave the way to direct sales but will also improve brand awareness, build your online reputation and increase the interaction that your brand has with its target market. All of these things are important, because when combined with direct sales, these are the elements of marketing that result in loyal customers who have lasting faith in your brand.

4). Use the Right Tools to Measure the Success of your Campaign
There are a number of tools and methods to help you measure the success of your online campaign. Check out Tim's latest post which details some of these tools and methods for more info on the topic. In the meantime, things you need to look at include the number of conversions that occur onsite, as well as the level of engagement (time spent) on your site, blog or newsletter. You can also use Online Reputation Management software (spoiler alert – sales pitch occurring in next 5 seconds) like BrandsEye to assess how marketing campaigns affect your online reputation. Using a package like Google Analytics can also be really helpful because it provides you with information about the traffic to your site, where your visitors came from, where they went and how much time they spent browsing. This is only the beginning too; Google Analytics is a regular goldmine of information if you know how to use it.

So that’s measuring the success of Online Marketing in a nutshell. Please comment and add anything you feel that I’ve omitted.