You have probably just recently looked into advertising your business online, and, after doing some research, you came up with options such as ‘paid advertisement’, ‘organic search’, ‘video marketing’ etc.

But, have you looked into how to quantify the ROI?

This blog will clarify all your doubts and by the end of it, you will be able to have a better understanding of this fairly new method of campaigning online. The blog will include:

1. Google Analytics: introduction
2. Bounce rate
3. Click-through rate
4. Abandonment
5. Conversion rate
6. Types of conversion rate
7. Who is watching your content?

Digital marketing is becoming more and more successful with the digitalisation of our day-to-day lives.

This table above, taken from the Telegraph, shows the great increase in time spent online, especially using smartphones. In only over one decade, our interests have switched into a more digitalised version. We all know this, we can see it every day when pedestrians constantly look at their phones and nearly get killed by just crossing the road!

Right, what next?

Before choosing a strategy, many things need to be taken into consideration: what are my objectives? what are my short-term and long-term goals? how can they be achieved?

To help you clarify this, you can watch this short video.

Now let’s move into the measurement tools:

Google Analytics

I hope your company has a website page (if not, hurry up and make one!). By easily linking each web page to Google Analytics, you will be able to get a wide variety of data that you can use to check the effectiveness of your campaign. Also, this feature is free of charge!

Bounce rate

One important feature to assess the overall performance of the website is the Bounce rate. It refers to the percentage of users who have clicked on your website but have left right after, without continuing to navigate other tabs. This is a generic set of data, but, if high, it can help you to determine if changes need to be made to make this number decrease. What is avoiding users to continue navigating on the website?

Click-through rate

This metric shows how many clicks were made in relation to how many impressions were shown. To be clearer, by ‘impression’ it is meant the actual advert being shown online. This can lead to other self-assessments: is the advertisement well-written with a catchy phrase? Are only targeted people being shown the advertisement?

Abandonment

A user is navigating on your website, and he/she is about to make a purchase; but, he leaves instead. This is what it is meant by the abandonment rate. How can we avoid this? Marketers try their best to lower this number

Conversion rate

We finally reached one of the most important tools to quantify a digital marketing campaign, the conversion rate. This percentage indicates the number of users who entered the website and made a purchase. Naturally, digital marketing campaigns intend to constantly increase this percentage. For example, McDowell, Wilson & Kile (2016) argue that to increase the conversion rate, websites should promote flow as well as a psychological state of immersion into activity.

Types of Conversion rates

Now you finally know about conversion rates and I am sure you are very excited to maximise this percentage. However, before doing so, I should tell you that they can vary:

How to measure digital marketing effectiveness, available at https://www.brafton.com/blog/analytics/how-to-measure-digital-marketing-effectiveness-2018-edition/

It is imperative, to distinguish them and not mix them. Clearly, macro conversions generate more ‘short-term’ profit; however, micro conversions can lead to future sales. The main object is to get information of users navigating your website.

Who is watching your content?

When dealing with online users, it is important to understand who is watching your content. Yet again, there is various analytics that can break that down for you. For instance, if your website is linked to a youtube channel to increase engagement by creating content that is of interest to your target audience, then you should have a look at some great Youtube analytics that thoroughly displays, for example, the demographics of the users who are watching your content. Also, it can provide you with information regarding the type of content your users enjoy watching. With this data, you will be able to assess your target audience, and perhaps experiment new content of videos to realise if the latter is more engaging than the previous one.

However, there are several risks when dealing with a huge set of data. Therefore, digital marketers should carefully pick the right and most effective analytics for their campaign.

REFERENCES

McDowell, W.C., Wilson, R.C. & Kile, C.O. (2016) ‘An examination of retail website design and conversion rate’. Journal of Business Research, Vol 69 (11), pp. 4837-4842

The Intensive School of English (ISE) website gives an overview of the services delivered by the English academy. The front page contains tabs to: the resources of the company (host families, social events etc..), the varieties of courses offered, fees, ‘home’ and ‘book now’. Therefore, the website is a tool by which users can compare prices of the different courses with their respective duration.

The continuous requirement of English proficiency for its ‘lingua franca’ recognition, has led to many English academies to establish in Brighton. The huge competition leads to the delivery of an excellent website. Two competitors can be EF Brighton and EC Brighton.

The initial page of the academies shows how ISE Brighton values social media, opposed to EC Brighton that allocates the social media accounts at the end of the webpage and EF Brighton who does not include links to them.

The importance of social media is addressed in this article: The importance of Social media in Business

Also, Hyeongjin, Chihyung & Juwon (2018) argue that website features such as ‘informativeness’ and ‘design’ have a positive impact on purchases. In this case, EF Brighton and EC Brighton possess better designed websites with plenty more information. For example, both competitors use the whole space of the screen to write content and upload images; whereas, ISE Brighton only utilises roughly half of the space. Moreover, EC Brighton offers the best information for users in the front page when, for example, includes various information about ‘social activities and workshops’ as well as in-depth reviews of pupils who have spent time in the academy. ISE Brighton also offer similar content; however, it is not found in the front page and it is also less detailed.

Customer segmentation

ISE Brighton website seems to be directed to young non English native individuals (18-25) mainly, who wish to spend a period of time in the UK learning English. Another customer segment would be older individuals (parents 40-60) who intent to let their child attend a programme to improve their English.

Now, we will create two generic personas who are to access the website to find some fallacies that could occur.

Marta:

• 19 years old from Venice (Italy)
• Has recently graduated from high school in Italy, but wishes to attend University in England. She holds a B1 and she wishes to bring it up to a C1 to access University
• Relies on her parents for funds, therefore she wants to find the best deal when comparing cost/quality

Angel:

• 43 years old from Madrid (Spain)
• 40k a year
• Wishes to let her 15 years old daughter Daniela study 2 weeks during summer in Brighton
• Wants to find the best deal as Marta when considering cost and quality but is also concerned about his child’s safety

From these two personas, we will now analyse and critically comment the website.

Online Customer Experience

Gentile et al. (2007) argues that ‘long lasting competitive advantage’ can be achieved if companies focus on customers and their experiences. Therefore, we will attempt to create two customer journeys with the personas identified above.

Marta:

1. Initial Page
2. Courses
3. IELTS
4. Pay (to check the prices)
5. Goes to competitors
6. Comes back and Pay

Angel:

1. Initial Page
2. Summer School for young learners
3. Goes to competitor
4. No purchase

After looking at competitors, we see how Marta decides to buy the classes and Angel no. Why? Marta was looking for a good quality/price rapport and found what she wanted, whereas Angel was more interested in finding the best academy for his teenager. Did the quality of the website influence Angel’s choice?

REFERENCES

Gentile, C., Spiller, N. and Noci, G., 2007. How to sustain the customer experience:: An overview of experience components that co-create value with the customer. European Management Journal, 25(5), pp.395-410.

Hyeongjin, H.L.; Chihyung, M.O. & Juwon, C., 2018. Destination marketing organisation website visitors’ flow experience: an application of Plog’s model of personality. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 25, pp.397-409

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