Know-How Exchange : Research/Metrics

Unique hits vs site visits is a good metric to look at. This info can be found on Alexa.com

There is no benchmark for micro sites. Every site is different. What you want to measure are site visits and then clicks to various pages. There is little value in "hits"

I assume you are using Google Analytics or something like it. You can set goals on Google and measure what percentage of visitors do as you want.

I mean a new site has a history of no visits, so if you want you can use that. (:-) I agree with you waiting 6 months to get numbers you can measure against.

I guess what you're looking for is 'uplift' as a result of the marketing activity since you have existing data. Then a baseline of average hits and visitors per day over six months would be a reasonable comparison point (you might even consider the three month or monthly equivalent as a rolling average).

Most microsite based campaigns I've seen though have been greenfield sites and landing pages deliberately set up for the purpose of communicating the campaign and measuring customer behaviour - so no prior data. You work out cost/visitor with marketing agency and set them targets on this number.

Unique hits is the most important factor in terms of monetizing a site. For example, if you have a mini site which is a site dedicated to say Pop Art as part of the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum -- I would say this data would be very important for attracting advertisers who may want to flog unique pop art inspired shoes, bags, etc.