This article is composed to let you know and answer the question “how to monitor marketing performance?”. In this case, I am only focus on web monitoring and analysis with web monitoring and analysis tool, namely Google Analytics. If you want to monitor marketing performance, especially  SEO marketing or PPC marketing, you will gain more insight about your marketing performance using this tool.

Google Analytics Terms

It’s better for you to understand the terms in Google Analytics. Below are the term definition in Google Analytics:

Dimension = data characteristic. For examples: campaign, landing page, etc. To obtain specific report you can filter the dimension.

Metrics  = It is similar with KPI (Key Performance Indicator). This is the things that you want to monitor.

Entrances = number of times a session in GA (Google Analytics) begins. For examples: visitor who visit your homepage instead of landing page then leave your website, the entrance is one for your homepage and zero to landing page.

Bounce rate = Rate/percentage of visitor who visit your landing page and then leave your page and go to search result to find another page.

Engagement Rate = how long visitor is on your landing page and/or website and perform particular calculation, like the number of pages viewed.

Session = Group of activities that visitor do in a particular time. By default the duration of one session is 30 minutes. Please see here for detail.

Organic Search = Visitor's origination when visit to your landing page or website. Visitor come from a search engine like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and so on. 

Paid Search =  the visitor's origination, particularly they come from a paid search advertisement.

Referrals = The source of your landing page / traffic sources. Visitors may visit your landing page from search engine, social media site, your PPC campaign, or directly type your URL from their web browser.

Pageview = A number of pages that are loaded or reloaded.

Goals = The visitor’s behavior on your web that you define or desire, such as: sign-up newsletter, download a file, click a buy button (purchase something), etc.

Funnel = Channel or path which taken by users to reach the goal.

Conversion = the point or the moment that user reaches the goal.

User = visitor who visit your landing page.

Google Analytics benefits for your web monitoring activities

Who (demographic, user segment), what (device to access), where (visitor coming from), when (traffic and usage related to time), how (how people using your site)

The fundamental benefits are you may know and understand about these things:

- Visitor’s dimension or attribute = demographic, behavior, interest.

- Visitor’s device to browse your landing page = mobile device, PC, smart phone, etc.

- Visitor’s location = visitor’s location/place and language.

- How visitor engage with your landing page = bounce, deep reading, etc.

Marketing Monitoring Plan with Google Analytics

I assume you want to monitor your web site from scratch, so I will compose the plan step by step below.

1. Understand what type is your web site.

These are the sample website type: lead generation, e-commerce, help-desk / support website, blog / content website, etc.

2. Understand your ultimate goals.

For instance: buy button or confirmation page (for e-commerce site), thank you for subscribing page (for lead generation website), and so forth.

3. Define your target audience.

This is similar to visitor demographic, Geo and interest.

4. Choose your metrics.

For examples:

Site usage metrics: number of session, how many user repeatedly visit, etc

Referrer metrics: website referrer, social media referrer, search term (keyword) that people use to find your site, etc.

Content metrics: top entry pages, the most popular pages, etc.

5. Select the right KPI (Key Performance Indicator)

For example:

Suppose your site is commerce site, the KPI should be average visit value, bounce rate, average order value, conversion rate, etc.

If your site is lead generation site, the KPI should be bounce rate, cost per lead, conversion rate, etc.

6. Monitor your marketing activities.

This is the fundamental step, you can monitor your web daily, weekly, monthly, etc. Measure your KPI, analyze the data, and finally make an improvement based on analysis result.