One of the great things about marketing online is that almost everything can be tracked. E-mail campaign management programs and Web site analytics programs will quickly give you a mountain of data about your site. With all of this information, it's easy to get overwhelmed with information or to focus on "vanity metrics" that provide little insight into the performance of your site.
Here are three items that you probably are not tracking that will give you a better insight into how your Web site is doing, how you can improve it, and where you should focus your online marketing:
1. Close rate by visitor source
Analytics tools will tell you where your visitors come from, but without comparing that traffic to real sales, you can't put a value on the traffic. A source, campaign, or keyword that produces 1,000 visitors in a month but doesn't produce any sales is worth less than one that produces 20 visitors and two sales. By tracking your site visitors from the source through the sale, you can figure out what traffic sources pay.
2. Phone calls generated from your site
Many site visitors still want to talk to you in person, so instead of filling out a form, they pick up the phone and call you. Add a call analytics package to your site that uses a special Web-only number to track which calls came to you from your Web site.
