Metrics & ROI articles by the best and brightest in the field

• The Pursuit of ROI: Will It Lead You to Rags or to Riches?by Sharan Jagpal, PhD
  It's no secret that the business world is slow to change. Sure, it has made the evolution from typewriters to computers for word processing, and from snail mail to email for written communication. But in regard to the core of doing business—from the methods and measurements that are used to the way departments are siloed—many 21st-century companies might as well be stuck in the Stone Age. And now that the recession has set in, this unwillingness to replace old business models, strategies, and metrics with new ones is causing some companies hardship and leading many others to their deaths. Given the gloomy circumstances many businesses find themselves in today, I ask CEOs and marketing executives to reconsider one popular metric: Return on Investment (ROI) as a resource-allocation tool and measure of performance (including marketing productivity). more
• The Art and Science of Web Analytics: Going Beyond the Status Quoby Chris Golec
  Companies are realizing that in today's competitive business environment, marketers must go beyond the status quo of a Web site that acts like a brochure if they are to induce user behavior and enter the world of opportunity outside of counting visitors and click-throughs. The trick is to combine both art and science to understand your customers and maximize your marketing mix. While analytics are definitely a starting point, B2B firms need to move beyond that to turn their Web sites into a lead-generation tool. more
• Win/Loss Analysis (Part 1)—A Process for Taking Revenue Up a Notchby Laura Patterson
  When done properly, win/loss analysis provides clarity and insights into customers' perceptions of your product, experiences throughout the sales cycle, and expectations created by your company messaging. more
• Talk to Me: 10 Tips for Translating PR Results Into the Language of Businessby Diane Thieke
  As communications experts, we should find it easy to convey the value of our services to the business managers in our organizations. Yet many public relations professionals struggle with expressing results in a way that allows senior executives to easily recognize the impact that PR has on the success of the business. more
• Data-Driven Campaigns: Five Ways to Leverage the Customer Data You Have to Drive Conversions and Salesby Morgan Witt
  As marketers, we are all looking to reach "nirvana": targeting the right person with the right message at the right time. It's the clear path to driving conversion rates that exceed expectations. The days of blasting promotion messages to all are dead and gone. The conversation has changed. We must put ourselves in customers' shoes and target them individually as best we can through data-driven strategies. more
• Maximizing Lead-Generation Marketing ROI, Part 3: Measuring Effectivenessby Jim Lenskold
  How do you know whether your lead-generation program is working and delivering a good ROI for the company? You may be doing some lead tracking to understand conversion rates and customer profitability, which is great. But the sales team will inevitably let Marketing know that (1) Marketing was just a small step in closing the sale so the sales team deserves the credit; (2) the sales team would have found and closed those leads anyway, so there is no incremental value; or (3) the leads are fine, but there is just never enough. We need reliable measurements to both prove and improve our marketing effectiveness. more
• Put Your Site Search to Work and Improve Your Targeted Marketing, Part 1by Shaun Ryan
  If you're like most online marketers, you may not realize that some of the technologies that power your website can be critical tools for improving the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. For example, did you know that you can use data from your site-search solution to create emails with lists of popular products that match your customers' preferences? The result: stronger brand visibility, higher conversions, and a more engaging customer experience. more
• Leapfrogging for Success: Change the Game via Innovationby Evan Gerber
  Marketers these days find themselves increasingly squeezed between a big rock and a very hard place: Their mandate is to demonstrably improve ROI, with reduced budgets, while communicating with skittish audiences that are less inclined to make purchases. Not surprisingly, people are looking for ways to change the game altogether. more
• 13 Essential Social-Media 'Listening Tools'by Clay McDaniel
  You're a marketer who's hip to the idea of social media: You have a blog, you know Facebook inside and out, and you can Tweet with the best of them. But the big question is, Are you listening as well as talking? Here are some of the top tools for listening to and monitoring the online chatter about your brand. more
• Reading Your Buyers' Digital Body Language: A How-To Guideby Steve Woods
  Today's buyer is in control. This transition means that our sales teams are no longer required as a conduit of information. Industry websites, vendor sites, blogs, social media, and search all make the required information readily available and, by doing so, leave the sales representative out of the room. As a result, it's impossible for the sales rep to read a buyer's physical body language to understand what aspects of a message are of interest and determine whether the prospect wants to move forward. Marketing teams must therefore instead read a buyer's digital body language—his or her Web activities, email responses, search activities, and engagements in events and demos—to understand what messages are working. more
• Win/Loss Analysis (Part 2)—A Process for Taking Revenue up a Notchby Laura Patterson
  Part 1 of this article series examined the purpose, definition, and metric associated with win/loss analysis. This final part discusses getting started, questions to include in the discussion, when and how to conduct the analysis, and using the findings more
• Maximizing Lead-Generation Marketing ROI, Part 2: Insight, Alignment, and Actionby Jim Lenskold
  The need to better align the sales and marketing organizations is generally well known. They are connected through their shared roles in motivating customer-purchase activities and divided by different cultures that concentrate on distinct portions of the customer-purchase funnel. There's no doubt that alignment is good, but what must you ultimately accomplish to drive performance and profitability? more
• Customer Feedback to Improve Email Performance: Ingredients for Success from Betty Crockerby Stephanie Miller
  Marketers talk about asking for feedback all the time. Yet, few marketers take the time to really engage with subscribers on any level. That's why BettyCrocker.com stands out. more
• Opportunity Rocks: Establishing Your Natural-Search Goalsby John Thielmann
  Measuring your natural-search performance is definitely a good idea. However, establishing goals for your natural-search program is what will help communicate direction for the program and serve as a guide for measuring overall success. The challenge lies in establishing realistic goals in an achievable timeframe. more
• Email Optimization: How Simple Changes Increase Open Rates, Clickthrough, Response, and Average Order Sizeby Debra Ellis
  Email marketing is likely your most effective tool for improving customer relationships, building brand awareness, and generating sales. It is also the most abused one. Practitioners of knee-jerk planning rely on emails to bolster a sagging month or fill in the holes left when other marketing techniques miss their mark. Even though it works (which is why it is abused), there is a price to be paid. Customers become disenchanted when they receive numerous emails promoting one sale after another or one product over and over. Everyone's threshold is different. Some may opt out after a week, others a month, and still others a year or more. (Note: there tends to be a jump in opt outs at the start of the New Year. People want to start fresh, so they do some housekeeping. If you saw a jump in opt outs in January, then you desperately need to review your email strategy.) The best way to avoid a mass exodus from your subscriber list is to have an email strategy that works with the rest of your marketing. more
• Did My Video Ad Work? How to Use Simple Tools to Measure the Effectiveness of Online Video Adsby Diaz Nesamoney
  Do video ads work to turn viewers into buyers and passionate brand advocates? For starters, measurement of the effectiveness of video ads gets bogged down by syndication, viral distribution, viewing via social networks, and many other factors. So how can you find out if your video ad "worked"—an even more important question in tough economic times when marketing budgets are tight? more
• How to Measure Engagement on Twitter—and Savor the Tweet Smell of Successby Jim Sterne
  If you are on Twitter to represent your company, your boss will probably soon ask you to prove the value that your tweets have to your business, if he or she hasn't already asked. So how do you know whether your followers are listening or whether you're just tweeting in the wind? How do you know whether tweets about topic X have more or less value than tweets about topic Y? more
• How You Lose Sales With Bad Search Marketing Decisions Based on 'Best-Practice' Web Analyticsby Todd Miechiels
  One of the most dangerous trends emerging is that B2B marketers, and their extended search-marketing resources, are regularly making bad decisions based on "solid analytics data." All too often, marketers are deciding to spend either more or less money based solely on the conversion rate of how a certain search phrase, ad creative, or banner ad performs: in other words, the percentage of people who visited the site and requested a whitepaper, a demo, etc. While conversion rate, in the context of an analytics report, is one way to measure the effectiveness a search phrase, it can be extremely misleading. more
• Four Reasons Why You Should Be Obsessed With Your Blog's Trafficby Mack Collier
  When a company launches a blog, it wants to know all it can about the traffic coming to the site, particularly the amount of traffic. But is traffic volume the best way to measure the performance of your blog? Here are ways to measure your blog's traffic that are likely more critical. more
• Leverage the Voice of the Consumerby Evan Gerber
  There are a number of ways to measure the success of a Word-of-Mouth marketing campaign on the Web. Start by looking in the right place: where the target audience congregates online. more

Metrics & ROI: See all 269 marketing articles

Metrics & ROI case studies, deconstructing real life examples and illustrating lessons learned

• How Mobile Text Marketing Is Increasing Ancillary Revenues, Room Upgrades, and Customer LoyaltyDays for Business Alliance (Days Inn)
  CASE STUDY: Cutting-edge customer service that relies on mobile texting has helped an alliance of hotels to retain customers among the thinning number of business travelers—and avoid disaster during the economic downturn. Read on to see how. more
• How a Franchiser Automated Its Marketing Support to Improve Efficiency, ProfitabilityCartridge World
  CASE STUDY: Global ink and toner supplier Cartridge World expanded its US presence to 650 franchisee-owned stores. But its marketing support lagged behind. Here's how the company turned things around: creating a centralized marketing resource center, upping efficiency and increasing profitability. more
• How NHL.com's Online Campaign Helped Dodge Launch a New Vehicle, Exceed Sales ForecastsNHL.com
  CASE STUDY: Before any talk of bailouts, Chrysler called on 15 Web sites to help improve consumers' perception of the Dodge brand and launch its first crossover vehicle, the Journey. NHL.com cut through the clutter and delivered the brand message. Here's how. more
• How a Diving Equipment Retailer Leveraged Targeted Web Site Promotions to Lift Revenue, ConversionsDivers Direct
  CASE STUDY: Senior management at scuba-supply outfit Divers Direct weren't convinced they needed to run promotions or offer discounts to increase Web sales. A test using Sitebrand's personalization platform quickly changed that perception. more
• How New Media Helped Auction Direct USA Boost Sales 40%Auction Direct USA
  CASE STUDY: While auto dealerships across the nation struggle to survive in the new economy, Auction Direct USA's business is expanding. In fact, its fresh approach to online marketing has transformed the brand of this "used car dealer" to drive up sales. more
• How HP Boosted Product Sales 84% by Letting the Blogosphere Run Its Online Marketing PromotionHewlett-Packard
  CASE STUDY: Hewlett-Packard simply handed over a $5,000+ computer prize package to each of 31 bloggers, asking them to give away the prizes to their readers in any way they saw fit. HP trusted the bloggers' influence over the market it wanted to reach—and had faith in their creativity. Turned out, that trust and faith were not misplaced. more
• How a Telecommunications Company Used Video to Streamline Its Sales ProcessDigium
  CASE STUDY: Digium created a Web-based video that covered all the essential points of in-person presentations, but in a format more easily accessible to all of its sales outlets. The results: a more efficient sales process and an effective press tool. more
• How a Technology Company Leveraged March Madness Live Streaming to Increase Visibility for Its Own ProducteTelemetry
  CASE STUDY: When CBS Sports announced that it would once again live-stream the NCAA March Madness tournament during regular business hours, eTelemetry jumped at the chance to use the event as a prime backdrop for its own campaign. more
• How a Small Internet Publisher Doubled Its Email Database & Reduced Marketing Spend With Cost-per-LeadTripmela, Inc.
  CASE STUDY: Earlier this year, when online travel publisher Tripmela was in startup mode, CEO Jared Blank determined that he needed to achieve a $1.50 cost per acquisition if he was going to lead this fledgling to profitability. Here's how he did it. more
• How Sherwin-Williams Used Digital Collateral for a Newly Launched Product to Engage Retailers and ConsumersSherwin-Williams Company, Krylon division
  You have a snazzy new product and need marketing collateral to show it off. You want to rally your sales force around it, and at the same time excite the retailers who'll carry it. Print won't do. But digital will. more
• How a Video Podcast Series Garnered a Top Industry Award and 68,500 views in 12 MonthsTellabs
  Last spring, telecom player Tellabs launched its "Get Schooled" video-podcast series as both a way to communicate with customers as well as showcase the depth and breadth of its offerings. Get Schooled did that and more... generating tens of thousands of views, landing a coveted interview, and garnering an industry award. more
• How One Whitepaper Generated 500 Leads and Significant PR for a B2B ManufacturerJER Envirotech
  JER Envirotech, a manufacturer of environmentally friendly thermoplastic biocomposite materials, needed to stand out in the green manufacturing industry. Its solution: create a white paper to both explain and build credibility for its offerings. Here's how that led to 500 new leads over 60 days. more
• A Niche E-tailer Sizes Up Glamour... One Customer at a Time, Boosting Sales with a Personalized Web Site ExperienceSydney's Closet
  Five years ago, Sydney's Closet sold only plus-size prom dresses. Since then, however, the company has significantly expanded its lines, and it sought to segment its customers to help deliver content and offers that would be specific to their interests and needs. Here's its approach. more
• How a Bed & Breakfast Inn Boosted Its Bookings with One Video AdMorning Glory Inn
  As a B&B in the highly competitive historic Pittsburgh area, the Morning Glory Inn needed a way to attract more recreational and business travelers. Its Web site, the Yellow Pages, and direct mail initiatives continued to bring in some new customers. But here's how the inn boosted its online visibility through rich media, and learned three valuable lessons on the way. more
• How a Consumer Electronics Company Leveraged the Power of Community to Uncover Market Preferences and Build Excitement for a New Product LineEastman Kodak Company
  When it chose to enter the saturated inkjet market 20 years late, Eastman Kodak had a few surprises up its sleeve. Still, the company found it also needed a little marketing ingenuity if it was to gain market share. more
• How a University Embraced Social Media and Scored Millions in YouTube ViewsCarnegie Mellon University
  How does a university up its visibility with an increasingly wired target market of both students of alumni? By orchestrating a Web 2.0-focused Web site redesign that set the foundation for an ongoing social media campaign. more
• How a Web-based Company Increased Leads 90%—and Sales 23%—via PPC-Visitor Profiling, Landing Page PersonalizationCompany: Continental Warranty
  Continental Warranty used pay-per-click ads to generate leads by providing free quotes for extended-warranty coverage. But lead volume had plateaued. So it began to profile its web visitors, then direct them to microsites matching their profiles—and nearly doubled leads. more
• How MyFax Upped Customer Engagement, Achieved a 79% NetPromoter ScoreMyFax
  Internt fax service provider MyFax wanted to tap into the power of word-of-mouth referrals by improving the customer experience and maintaining highly personalized customer interactions. But as an online company, it faced the issue of how to individually engage customers to ensure long-term relationships. Here's what it did. more
• How a Finance Director Left Her Day Job and Launched an 'Engaging Brand' Online via a Podcast and BlogThe Engaging Brand
  A finance director, feeling stifled by the corporate world, launches her own business based in branding and egagement... with only $1,000 to spend. Two years later, she's a blog and podcast star with a successful business. more
• How a Small-Business Consultant Leveraged a High-Profile TV Commercial to Generate New Traffic and Win New BusinessLocalZing
  As a tiny Florida player in the field of advertising for small businesses, Karl Long knew he should consider unconventional ways to promote his company. Taking a cue from a competitor, Long launched a campaign that upped traffic to his blog 500%, raised his Google profile, and led to new business. more

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Metrics & ROI online seminar broadcasts from the best minds in marketing

• Cracking the Code: Web Analytics for Paid Search AdvertisingAttendee rating:  - Jun 25, 2009
• How to Craft a Winning Business Case for Your Marketing InitiativeAttendee rating:  - Apr 16, 2009
• When the Budget Axe Falls: What to Cut, What to Keep, What to GrowAttendee rating:  - Mar 12, 2009
• Creating a Customer-Centric, Measurable Marketing PlanAttendee rating:  - Oct 16, 2008
• Prove It: Tools and Techniques to Measure the Effectiveness of Social Media CampaignsAttendee rating:  - Jul 24, 2008
• Beyond Trade Show Metrics: Improving Your Event Marketing ROIAttendee rating:  - Jul 10, 2008
• Using e-Metrics to Optimize Your All-Around Marketing StrategyAttendee rating:  - Apr 3, 2008
• How to Make Marketing Indispensable to SalesAttendee rating:  - Feb 7, 2008
• Brand Metrics: Three Pathways to Measure ROIAttendee rating:  - Apr 5, 2007
• Testing, Testing -- The Last (and Best) Direct Marketing TacticAttendee rating:  - Mar 15, 2007
• Evaluating Marketing Mix TradeoffsAttendee rating:  - Oct 5, 2006
• How Marketers Win Friends and Keep Profitable Customers Through ROI AnalysisAttendee rating:  - Sep 21, 2006
• The 3 Big Secrets Behind Successful Marketing DashboardsAttendee rating:  - Sep 7, 2006
• Web Analytics All Over Again: What's Old, New, Tried and TrueAttendee rating:  - Oct 20, 2005
• Managing Customers As Long Term InvestmentsAttendee rating:  - Sep 29, 2005
• CFO vs. CMO Smackdown: How to Win the Budget BattlesAttendee rating:  - Aug 4, 2005
• Marketing Metrics: Linking Marketing to Financial ConsequencesAttendee rating:  - May 5, 2005
• Web Analytics: Best Practices in the Real WorldAttendee rating:  - Oct 22, 2004

Metrics & ROI: See all 18 seminars

Metrics & ROI mini articles distilling bite-sized advice (from our Get to the Point newsletters)

• Time After Time After TimeEmail Marketing
  "We fuss over subject lines, offers, calls-to-action, and targeting, but sometimes a lack of response is simply a matter of timing," says Mark Brownlow in a post at the Email ...
• Limit Your Negative ExposureMarketing Analytics
  In a post at the MineThatData blog, Kevin Hillstrom poses a scenario in which 100 of your online customers abandon their shopping carts on a Monday. The following day, after ...
• Analyze ThisMarketing Analytics
  When analyzing the success of your email campaigns, you might be staring right at useful data that goes unused. Take, for instance, the amount of newsletter copy used to tease ...
• The Budget-Cutting BluesMarketing Analytics
  "[T]he degree of uncertainty in business and consumer markets has soared," says John Quelch in a post at Harvard Business Online. "Yet, to conserve cash, most firms are reducing spending ...
• Short, Sweet and Clicked-ThroughEmail Marketing
  In a post at the DIRECT website, Ken Magill discusses the results of a survey conducted by MailerMailer. Among its more interesting findings: Subject lines containing up to 35 characters ...
• Get Them to Give a HootEmail Marketing
  "Very few executives give a hoot about opens and clicks," says Stephanie Miller in a post at the Daily Fix blog. "In fact, very few marketers even look at their ...
• Take a Deep BreathMarketing Analytics
  In a post at the iKnowtion blog, Sreekanth Sampathkumaran tells a story about healing his back: though the injury was minor, simple movements became painful. "While searching for relief, instead of ...
• Meet the SEO Royal FamilySearch Engine Marketing
  We all know that content is king in search engine optimization, but in a recent Search Engine Land post, Daniel Waisberg reminds us that "usability is queen." According to Waisberg, ...
• Analytics Success: Just Steps AwayMarketing Analytics
  In a post at the Internet Marketing Strategy blog, Ian Lurie claims that you can create a successful marketing analytics program in just 27 easy steps. It sounds like a ...
• Basic Tips for Fighting Click FraudSearch Engine Marketing
  Click Forensics has released statistics for the first quarter of 2009 revealing that 13.8 percent of clicks are a result of fraudulent behavior. Although that figure is down from 17.1 ...
• Keep in Touch This Summer, OK?Email Marketing
  As summer approaches, and your subscribers begin to go on holidays, you might wonder whether you should scale back your email campaigns. But in a post at the Email Experience ...
• Let the Sun Shine InMarketing in a Downturn
  When hunkering down to face a challenging economic climate, you might become so focused on survival that you don't notice when the storm begins to weaken. In an article at ...
• Slice and Dice with Advanced SegmentationMarketing Analytics
  In a guest post at the Solutions for Southeast Asia blog, Barbara Pezzi of Swissotel explains how the introduction of advanced segmentation in Google Analytics enables her to group website ...
• Just Ask the Man Who Owns OneEmail Marketing
  You've probably made a practice of asking customers to review your products, but are you using their praise to its full advantage? "Recently," says Kelly Lorenz at the Bronto blog, ...
• TLC for the CFOB2B Marketing
  As B2B budgets tighten, CFOs are becoming more demanding. Show me the results! Justify the expense! What more can a CMO do? In a recent post at the Marketing Interactions ...
• Conversionary TacticsEmail Marketing
  While most retailers have experienced various degrees of tumult during this recession, the picture isn't entirely gloomy. A recent survey by Internet Retailer, for instance, shows many online-only businesses have ...
• Look Beyond the Rear-View MirrorMarketing Analytics
  "I run into lot of people who confuse web reporting with web analytics," says Anil Batra in a post at his Web Analysis blog. He illustrates the confusion with the ...
• The Raw and the CookedMarketing Analytics
  "For marketers, it's very easy to get caught up in raw numbers," says Prashant Kaw in a brief video embedded in a post at the HubSpot blog. "Such as, 'Oh, ...
• Put a Bug on That WOM!Interactive Marketing
  Clearspring Technologies, which has helped everybody from WaPo to UCSF bring their branded wares to the mainstream, has put out a new tool that tells you how popular your widgets ...
• Your ROI's Sick? Don't Blame the Downturn. B2B Marketing
  Jon Miller wrote an interesting article for MarketingProfs last summer that deserves a second look. Its title: "The Definitive Guide to B2B Marketing in a Recession." ('Nuff said?) One point ...

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Metrics & ROI marketing downloads for the busy professional

• Small Biz How-To Guide: Avoiding Key Pitfalls
  Let's face it, more small businesses fail than succeed. Make sure yours is one of the winners with this guide to getting your small business off the ground and solidly on the road to success.
• E-Newsletter How-To Guide
  The e-newsletter has become ubiquitous. Almost a dime a dozen. How do you make yours not only stand out in the inbox, but make a positive impact on your bottom line? This guide will show you how.
• Marketing Metrics How-To Guide
  Metrics is the guiding light of your marketing efforts. Without measurements, you're operating in the dark. Make sure you are tracking the right metrics, and get tips on interpreting the data with this comprehensive guide.
• B2B Direct Marketing How-To Guide
  Direct marketing is one of the fastest changing disciplines within marketing today. What worked 10 years ago, isn't working today. Heck, what worked last week sometimes doesn't even work today, so keep your skills sharp with his How-To guide, focusing on the B2B market.
• Marketing ROI and the Sales Funnel
  In this guide, you will learn how to structure, motivate and measure the marketing and sales functions to maximize profit. Topics include: 1) a high-level self-assessment to determine potential sources of profit leakage; 2) how to map out and improve strategies related to the buying cycle; 3) how to apply marketing ROI principles to create strategies to reduce and recycle leakage from the buying cycle; and 4) how to leverage insight on your key profit drivers and customer-level analysis to improve profitability.

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