Web Analytics:

Track, Test, and Optimize

By James Atkinson, LLB

Track, Test, and Optimize means track how you’re currently doing, test new ideas and options, and implement what you’ve learned to improve or optimize results:

• Tracking provides the benchmarks to measure and improve performance. You can track how you’re doing now.

Tracking also provides a baseline so you can properly measure all your improvement efforts.

• Testing is the process that lets your prospects and customers vote for what they want - rather than you guessing what you think they want.

Testing is fundamental to achieving high, sustained growth. Online market leaders test religiously.

Testing is the most reliable way to improve performance across all your business and marketing processes. Testing “winners” as well as “losers” provides opportunities for change.

• Optimization is applying what you’ve learned from your test and track process. You use your insights to improve future testing and your larger business strategy.

  That is, you use what you’ve learned from your testing and tracking to endlessly refine all marketing and business processes.

Thus, analytics becomes the foundation for your entire online business. All problems become testing opportunities.

You make business decisions based on facts - not instinct, or guesswork.

Until you adopt a corporate culture of analytics you are leaving a lot of money on the table. For example, if you don’t do market research before entering a market, you have no idea whether the market is a gem or a dud.

Even in a great market, if you don’t know who your prospects are and what they want and need, you can’t create the right products or market effectively.

And in your marketing if you don't test your ideas against conversion and return on investment you'll never know if your expenditure on a particular marketing campaign is justified.

Web Analytics > Setting Up an Evidence Based Business > Track Test and Optimize > Planning and Process >