Web Site Measurement Hacks

Understand Marketing Terminology

Online marketers have their own language and lingo, always asking about your “CPA” and the “CPC” for a campaign.

Online marketing is a pretty well-established activity, but one full of sometimes vague and often confusing terminology. While you’re already able to talk the talk [Hack #1] using web measurement lingo, here are a handful of marketing specific terms that you need to know.

Reach and Acquisition

The first terms we’ll examine are the “big picture” measures and metrics for visitor reach and acquisition—the measurements that help you understand how well or poorly a campaign is doing in helping you find and attract prospects to your web site.

Click-though rate (CTR).

Your campaign click-through rate is the ratio of impressions you serve to the number of clicks those impressions generate (clicks divided by impressions measured in page views). Click-through rate tells you whether the particular message you’re using is well written, well presented, and well targeted to the particular audience you’re trying to reach (Figure 3-1).

Figure 3-1. Paid keyword marketing dashboard

Your campaign click-through rates can be difficult to calculate because impressions are often served by external servers and usually require that data is imported into your measurement solution. Also, some advertising servers don’t actually measure or report on clicks, forcing you ...