What To Look For In A Web Analytics Partner

Brent Dykes Director of Industry Consulting Adobe Systems

To become a truly data-driven organization, you can’t limit your Web analytics governance efforts to just your internal teams. That means working with an ad agency (or several) or other partners who are responsible for managing different aspects of your online marketing initiatives--display ads, paid search, SEO, social media, email, Web design, etc. But adding external participants to the mix can be even more demanding than merely managing Web analytics internally.

It's kind of like when my kids invite friends over to play. They are expected to abide by the same “house rules” as my children (e.g., pick up toys, no fighting, no bad words, etc.). As a parent, it’s hard enough to get my own kids to listen consistently, let alone getting their friends to do so as well. Friends who  repeatedly don’t observe these rules are not welcome in our home, and our kids are encouraged to find new friends to play with.

Similarly, business partners who are not willing to abide by your Web analytics program’s standards should be swapped out for those who will. And that begs the question: Are you working with the right partners? Here are a trio of qualities to look for:

>> Data-driven partners will not bombard you with lots of meaningless metrics--they measure the performance of their advertising efforts based on appropriate metrics or KPIs.  Whenever alternative metrics are used in place of the expected KPIs, you know something isn’t right. Your spider sense should tingle when you hear something like: “The conversion rate on the last campaign wasn’t as good as we hoped for, but the view-throughs were through the roof!”

>> Data-driven partners embrace the “t” word--transparency--like an overzealous Care Bear. These data-driven agencies are aware of your key business goals, understand your KPIs, and are closely measuring the success of each campaign against those key metrics. Along with increased transparency comes the client-agency understanding that some failures will occur along the journey. Without full transparency, partners and clients will not learn from these bumps in the road and can needlessly waste advertising dollars. Data-driven agencies learn, improve, and maximize your ad spend.

>> Data-driven partners also approach measurement considerations at the beginning of a project instead of rushing through them at the end. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen situations where a client’s agency is scrambling to add tagging the day before a Web site/campaign launches. Would you rather buy a new car from a manufacturer that approaches safety from the very first design of the car or one that scrambles to include safety features on the production line?

Next: Best practices for ensuring Web analytics success with partners