What Are Key Performance Indicators (KPI)?

Key Performance Indicators are quantifiable measurements, agreed to beforehand, that reflect the critical success factors of an organization. They will differ depending on the organization. A business may have as one of its Key Performance Indicators the percentage of its income that comes from return customers. A school may focus its Key Performance Indicators on graduation rates of its students. A Customer Service Department may have as one of its Key Performance Indicators, in line with overall company KPIs, the percentage of customer calls answered in the first minute. A Key Performance Indicator for a social service organization might be number of clients assisted during the year.Whatever Key Performance Indicators are selected, they must:

• Reflect the organization’s goals
• Be key to its success
• Be quantifiable (measurable)
• Be long-term considerations

The definition of what KPIs are and how they are measured do not change often. The goals for a particular Key Performance Indicator may change as the organization’s goals change, or as it gets closer to achieving a goal.

Key Performance Indicators Reflect Organizational Goals

An organization that has as one of its goals “to be the most profitable company in our industry” will have Key Performance Indicators that measure profit and related fiscal measures. “Pre-tax Profit” and “Shareholder Equity” will be among them. However, “Percent of Profit Contributed to Community Causes” probably will not be one of its Key Performance Indicators. On the other hand, a school is not concerned with making a profit, so its Key Performance Indicators will be different. KPIs like “Graduation Rate” and “Success In Finding Employment After Graduation”, though different, accurately reflect the school’s mission and goals.

Key Performance Indicators Must Be Quantifiable

If a Key Performance Indicator is going to be of any value, there must be a way to accurately define and measure it. “Generate More Repeat Customers” is useless as a KPI without some way to distinguish between new and repeat customers. “Be The Most Popular Company” won’t work as a KPI because there is no way to measure the company’s popularity or compare it to others.

Get certified in Google analytics

Google is currently offering a new program. They haven’t done such a great job at promoting it. But it nonetheless, it is a fantastic opportunity for people within our industry to gain some other certifications from Google. Also below , I have a link to google analytics university. It also has alot of great info, regarding Google analytics program. I have taken all of the courses and find that all though I had worked extensively with GA, I still learned alot.

http://www.google.com/analytics/support_partner_provided.html

http://www.google.com/analytics/conversionuniversity_dt.html

Also in all fairness, clicktracks is also offering certification courses.

http://www.clicktracks.com/services/certification.php

I am currently enrolled in the ROI revolution course that google calls it a master level course

Setting up Google analytics was easy, but now what?

Next comes interpreting data to achieve goals, next you might want to start setting up goals. What’s the point of tracking web-site metrics if you don’t have some reason for racking them? What you need is a goal or set of goals that specifically track the behavior that leads to the sale of the nesting dolls. So the goal (to increase sales by 20 percent and do it using Google Analytics — is more measurable than a goal of simply selling more product). To be effective, you need a goal you can measure. If it can be measured it can be managed.

Is your site generating leads or E-retailing or just drawing eyeballs to convert to advertising revenue?

Any of the above can be defined as a goal. A quick reminder: make sure to put the Analytics code close to the bottom of your code but before the </body> tag. This will help google crawl the entire page before calling the urchin.js

Creating Internal Traffic Filters in Google Analytics

Too much data can make your reports cluttered. By using filters you can organize data effectively. You should commonly try to filter out internal traffic, this can be accomplished by filtering by static IP address. You can also visit www.whatismyip.com

you can execute the filter by ip address by ‘escaping’ the periods in the IP address by using the backslash. For example an IP address: 19.168.0.10 becomes 192\.168\.0\.10 as a regular expression

Don’t forget to name your filter with something meaningful!

The Importance of Measurement (ROI)

Any professional marketer will tell you that it’s not worth going to the effort of implementing an Internet marketing strategy (which is going to cost you time and money), without also implementing a system to track your progress and determine what is working for your particular business. By tracking each strategy you implement, you will be able to measure your return on investment (ROI) and determine whether or not the strategy is effective.
What is ROI?

Consider the following example: Let’s say you invest $500 in an online advertising campaign that generates $1,500 in revenues. Your profit (sales minus expenses), or ROI, is $1000 or 200%.

Here’s an easy way to track targeted campaigns. First, purchase a good statistics package to measure your website traffic. The statistics generated should tell you where your website visitors are coming from, where they are going, how long they are staying, and from which part of your site they are leaving. Then, use dedicated promotional codes for different campaigns that you test so that you can follow which campaigns are drawing customers to your site.

You may want to measure your progress weekly, monthly and yearly to determine whether you are achieving your objectives and meeting the targets you have set for your business. Here are some popular website analytics and statistic packages you may want to consider using:

WebTrends – DeepMetrix