The Chubbies Startup: A newer brand that is taking ecommerce practices and social media by storm

 The San-Francisco based Chubbies brand became an ecommerce startup company in the summer of 2011 with humble beginnings and a unique path. The men’s shorts and swim trunks company, that produces all of its products domestically for around $60 a pair, was founded by four former Stanford fraternity brothers who initially designed the first soon to be Chubbies merchandise for an upcoming Lake Tahoe trip in July of 2011. The four founders decided to create another 20 pairs of the shorts during the vacation period to see if they could realistically sell the potential product, and the cofounders sold out immediately with a price tag of $50 each. Within the next few months the cofounders who had a variety of skills in different fields ranging from corporate retail to finance, were able to work together to create prototypes, start manufacturing, develop a “fratty branding technique,” and launch their online website in September of 2011. (Colao, 2014)

Today, the company has over 120 different designs for men’s shorts and swim wear, including designs known as the Pina Quadlatas and the ‘MERICAs, “That kind of web copy, and the company’s unabashedly fratty branding, has earned Chubbies legions of loyal customers, including millions of Facebook fans. Even former President George W. Bush owns a pair,” (Colao, 2014). 

The retro and fraternity inspired men’s shorts is also not the only product the company has in stock today. With a steady growth curve, Chubbies now has created a line for women’s shorts and swim wear as well as men’s shirts, windbreakers and sweatshirt tops. The ecommerce retailer also opened their first physical retail store earlier last year in San Francisco. The manifesto for the brand found on the company’s website, which can offer an important insight into the customer appeal, still enforces however that the brand image and company purpose remains built around the shorts merchandise:

To us, pants are a necessary evil - built for the work week because your boss just doesn't get it. You see a Chubster in pants or cargo shorts and he looks like a fish out of water; a radical fish that's probably krumping on the beach, but nonetheless OUT OF WATER. But this exact passion for shorts is why Chubbies are so righteous. We don't do pants. We don't do cargos. We don't do capris. We do shorts and only shorts. We have put painstaking effort into these shorts. We have engineered them for the toughest shorts critics - ourselves. (“The Manifesto,” n.d.)

Even with a legion of followings on social media and what is known as a growing  “Chubbies’ Community,” the Chubbies brand still faces stiff competition with large scale brick-and-mortar retailers like Gap and the Vineyard Vines brand. However, it is the way the brand has managed their presence online and their customer tracking that has largely made this startup stand out from the very beginning. Chubbies put into practice a popular online sale promotion that is hosted annually in July and can be compared to, “a summertime version of Cyber Monday,” (Kosoff, 2015). With this annual online promotion known as the "Fourth of Julyber Monday,” the company expects to produce over $1 million in sales on this day alone. The website today has a video tutorial where customers can view information on the upcoming 4^th of July sale. 

 In fact, the brand offers several unique online promotions leading up to the 4^th of July sale for its customers, as even today on June 27, 2016, Chubbies is hosting a “Giftapalooza,” where customers will receive a free gift with every purchase.

The Chubbies brand also has a unique customer loyalty program that was recently automated last year to reward customers with gifts for first time purchases. Since automating their program, revenue from repeat purchases has increased 70%, “Chubbies, which doesn’t disclose its revenue and declined to give order volume numbers, has used the automated system to cycle through 200 gifts aimed at rewarding customers’ first and subsequent purchases, up from the two gift options it offered for the past four years,” (Guy, 2016). Chubbies worked with ecommerce design firm Rocket Code to set up the program that runs on Stich Labs software to continue putting gifts and notes into customers’ orders. The programming interface automatically tracks who receives the gifts, “In Chubbies’ case, the API connects customer orders that come in through Chubbies’ e-commerce platform, Shopify, to the retailer’s third-party logistics provider. The API connects multiple pieces of software. It lets us test new gifts, change gifts when we want, add a certain gift in a customer’s first order, a different gift in the second order and keep updating the gifts,” (Guy, 2016). 

The Chubbies brand also has a unique customer loyalty program that was recently automated last year to reward customers with gifts for first time purchases. Since automating their program, revenue from repeat purchases has increased 70%, “Chubbies, which doesn’t disclose its revenue and declined to give order volume numbers, has used the automated system to cycle through 200 gifts aimed at rewarding customers’ first and subsequent purchases, up from the two gift options it offered for the past four years,” (Guy, 2016). Chubbies worked with ecommerce design firm Rocket Code to set up the program that runs on Stich Labs software to continue putting gifts and notes into customers’ orders. The programming interface automatically tracks who receives the gifts, “In Chubbies’ case, the API connects customer orders that come in through Chubbies’ e-commerce platform, Shopify, to the retailer’s third-party logistics provider. The API connects multiple pieces of software. It lets us test new gifts, change gifts when we want, add a certain gift in a customer’s first order, a different gift in the second order and keep updating the gifts,” (Guy, 2016).

Another portion of the online site that is a stand out for customers would be the interactive help desk and facts about the shopping experience. When entering the help desk the customer is presented with an easy to use search bar and also readily available portals for help and information such as facts on Julyber Monday, Shipping, Placing Orders, and even a quite random yet brand relatable section on Dad Jokes. 

Although the brand has proven customer engagement, a large social media following, a high regard for catering to customers through their ecommerce purchasing platform and a new age software program in place to track customer orders and activity, their SEO efforts may be lacking. When performing a search on the key phrase “men’s shorts” in Google, the Chubbies brand did not even make the first four pages of the Google search. The search phrase of “men’s swim shorts,” also did not produce results on Google. A known competitor however, Vineyard Vines, did populate on this search in the second page of Google results. Vineyard Vines is a well-known brand and after finding it listed on the second page, I am led to believe that popular brands such as Vineyard Vines and now Chubbies, relies more heavily on customer awareness through social media efforts and word of mouth popularity.

Upon further research into the Chubbies brands SEO and analytical efforts, a report on their Alexa traffic ranking (a combined measure of unique visitors and page views) shows their US ranking to be 13,304. For a comparison, Alexa traffic ranks Gap at 147. An SEO audit of the company shows that the Text/HTML ratio is at 12% which is relatively low. A total of 59 different links were found on the site, 50 of them being internal and linking to contact information, the cart etc., while the external links mainly linked to social media sites. Chubbies also does not use meta keywords, yet this can be viewed as a positive effort being that meta keywords no longer help SEO efforts and are considered by most a black hat practice,“…Meta tags, for instance, have a negligible SEO value and don’t influence a company’s position in search engine results,” (“Reasons Why You Should Stop Using Keywords Meta Tag,” 2014).

Overall Chubbies has proven to be a well-known and highly engaged brand with its customers. It is unclear at this point in their young brand life whether they need to focus more on SEO efforts, as they already have such a uniquely successful platform and strong following for a 5-year-old company. Yet for the potential customers who do not know of the brand, this is where SEO practices can become imperative. In my opinion relying on popularity methods and social sharing is simply not enough. Chubbies needs to tie in more on site text and product keywords in order to better optimize visitor searches. At the very least the key phrase of “men’s shorts” should yield a result for Chubbies within the first two pages of a Google search. Chubbies is tracking their customer orders and monitoring their revenue and retention rates, yet where are they promoting their brand online other than through their own channels? An analytical tool I would therefore recommend for the company in the future would be ChartBeat, a real time solution that monitors traffic, where it is coming from and when and where it is leaving from. With this information, Chubbies can further make an informed decision on what keywords would be best used for SEO and possibly venture into using Google AdWords or additional advertising methods depending on where the traffic is entering the website from.

References:

Ali, F. (2016, June 15) How Chubbies uses social media to build its brand. Internet Retailer (Online) Retrieved from: https://www.internetretailer.com/2016/06/14/how-chubbies-uses-social-media-build-its-brand

Colao, J. (2014, May 6) Meet The Stanford Bros Conquering Men's Shorts: Inside The Frat-Empire Of Chubbies. Forbes (Online) Retrieved from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jjcolao/2014/05/06/meet-the-stanford-bros-conquering-mens-shorts-inside-the-frat-empire-of-chubbies/#179b5cc0727a

Guy, S. (2016, May 17) Men’s casualwear e-retailer Chubbies boosts its loyalty game. Internet Retailer (Online) Retrieved from: https://www.internetretailer.com/2016/05/16/mens-casualwear-e-retailer-chubbies-boosts-its-loyalty-game

Kosoff, M. (2015, June 20) This startup is getting frat guys across America to wear short shorts — and they love it. Business Insider (Online) Retrieved from: http://www.businessinsider.com/chubbies-founders-on-why-they-started-a-mens-short-shorts-company-2015-6

N.A. (n.d.) The Manifesto. Chubbies (Online) Retrieved from: https://www.chubbiesshorts.com/pages/manifesto

N.A. (2014, January 5) Reasons Why You Should Stop Using Keywords Meta Tag. Cohlab (Online) Retrieved from: http://cohlab.com/blog/stop-using-keywords-meta-tag.html

The Leadfeeder App: Exploring a Google Analytics Tool and its value from a marketing perspective

The Google Analytics application that caught my eye this week, out of the several available, was the Leadfeeder App. Leadfeeder, a GA tool based in Helsinki, Southern Finland and founded in April of 2012 (launched in 2014), functions exactly as the name insinuates it would. The application is used to generate prospects and sales leads for B2B companies by analyzing the unique visitors to a company’s website. Features of the basic “free” application include tracking capabilities on visitor flow, page flow, team collaboration, filtering and custom feeds, as well as customizable notifications. The application proves to be a helpful tool for sales management teams identifying promising corporate network visitors into future sales leads by showing page-by-page visit routes and filtering out traffic from generic home based users.

 Leadfeeder especially boasts its sales team features, as it showcases an assignment portal for following interesting leads as well as tagging and commenting features to use in team member communication. The powerful filtering features also allows the user to define what kind of behavior would indicate a good sales lead, and furthermore receive email notifications on those leads straight in to the inbox.

The application review on GA to date has 58 5-star reviews in which the users speak highly of its functionality in website monitoring and lead generation. In one case study reviewing the client Lastmile Connection Service, Leadfeeder obtained the pictured below stats for the client, overall generating 156 leads, 14 appointments and 12 offers. (Lepojarvi, 2016)  

Social media has also played a part in establishing a good reputation for Leadfeeder, with positive  customer “tweets” on the social platform of Twitter, along with a personal shout out from Google Analytics itself. Leadfeeder also has a blog with helpful tips on creating the perfect social media profile for selling, or how using a live chat platform can help increase online sales.

Although the basic version “Leadfeeder Lite,” can be downloaded for free with the features previously described, it is important to note that the application does initially come with a premium trial. Leadfeeder Premium starts at $59.00 per month, and increases in costs per month based on the amount of unique companies tracked. The Leadfeeder Premium application features CRM integrations, LinkedIn connections for social selling, an unlimited number of users and premium support. Leadfeeder Premium also shows application users in detail which web pages leads visited, and there is also no limit to viewing sales leads past a certain date. While in Leadfeeder Lite however, the application is limited to viewing only 7 days of sales leads. Subscriptions however to both the free and premium applications are uniquely month-to-month, allowing users to sign-up at any time, upgrade at any time or cancel when needed.

Leadfeeder also has aspirations to expand its operations globally and has recently partnered with other growing tech startups (Vainu) in the last six months. With a seed investment of 530,000 euros from Finnish investors, Leadfeeder was able to launch its operations in Sweden this past March, focusing on making B2B marketing and sales more data-driven:

Last year Leadfeeder’s revenue grew by 300% and the company now has over 2,500 active monthly users and over 400 monthly-paying customers around the world. Leadfeeder’s innovative approach to online lead generation has caught the public’s attention during the past 12 months and the tool has featured in notable publications like The Next Web, Computer Weekly and Kissmetrics. Lennart Svanberg, the leadership representative in Sweden, believes that he can build on the success that Leadfeeder has had from their Helsinki office with a new dedicated website for Sweden, new blog content in Swedish and partnership handling in Stockholm. With 80% of Leadfeeder’s business outside Finland, expanding globally is a top priority for Leadfeeder. (Seenan, 2016)

Leadfeeder today is attributed to breaking free of the traditional sales funnel and working to promote social selling and engagement. From a marketing perspective, this allows a company to focus more on the social communication (through platforms like LinkedIn) rather than using email lead captures. In an article from Tech.Co, the author passionately proclaims about Leadfeeder, “Imagine a world where there is no need for the traditional sales funnel, whereby marketers seek to capture email addresses from website visitors for nurturing and closing. What if you could nurture leads without needing to drive opt-ins first?” (Costa, 2016)

Social selling over email lead capturing is a big part of what Leadfeeder can offer its clients, “Today, nearly everyone is active on social media, and 75 percent of B2B buyers turn to social media to support their decision-making, with studies finding that 82 percent of prospects are active on social media. Rather than going through periods of non-communication like you would with email marketing, social selling allows you to stay top-of-mind with prospects, gradually building strong relationships of trust with them.” (Costa, 2016) Since Leadfeeder is integrated with CRM at the premium level, the user can track their efforts with the potential lead using LinkedIn messages to communicate with the sales lead and set up future meeting dates.

Although Leadfeeder is built around tracking sales leads and for prospecting potential clients, in my opinion, the GA tool could take it one step further and offer clients a chance to track competitor visits as well. In the world of sales, it is not only important to generate leads, but to also know what your competitors are doing to also attract these leads. If Leadfeeder could offer a feature that filters only competitor site visits, along with what other webpages those competitor companies were visiting, a sales team could have at their fingertips valuable insight into what their competitors were searching for. Other features of tracking competitors through Leadfeeder could be the offering of data alerts on new competitive pricing, promotions, and new products offered by other companies in the competing industry. 

Spring Engage Analytics: Exploring an industry specific tool outside of Google Analytics

         With a plethora of web analytic tools available for use today, it was a difficult choice to narrow down any tool in particular to compare to Google Analytics; which already has a wealth of free reporting and tracking capabilities. Therefore narrowing down these options to simply one analytical tool for actual use, I can imagine would be quite difficult. A web analytics tool can determine the integrity and relevance of any future data and tracking capabilities a company may need. Finding the “best fit or solution” for the company’s needs and what tool best integrates into the working environment can initially make for a daunting decision.

Yet with all of the web analytic tools available, it is important to note the different features and attributes of each. Perhaps it is therefore not as convoluted of a marketplace as it first appears, but rather a chance for larger companies and smaller businesses alike to find the exact tracking tool that matches their individual needs.

Spring Engage, founded in 2010 and based out of Raleigh, North Carolina, is one of those “exact analytical tools” as previously discussed. Formerly known as Spring Metrics before re-branding just last October, this marketing technology provider caters to the hospitality industry specifically. Their unique specificity in tracking capabilities and focusing on building a relationship with hotel guests, already proves to be an asset over other tools such as Google Analytics.With a review of the Spring Engage website, several testimonials speak to the tools’ ability to hyper-target web traffic and increase bookings. Testimonials have also sighted that the tracking is very detailed, offering new levels of targeting visitors based on sources and behavior. 

With the re-branding of the company and expansion into the hotel market, the company has its sights set on expanding further into the European marketplace, “Spring Engage is already working with several of the top hotel brands in the world and many of the leading management groups, including two of the top three in North America. They will continue to grow their client base in the United States and Canada, with an eye on European expansion.” (Harvey, 2015) An overview of Spring Engage on CrunchBase also shows that the provider is ready for further expansion with an agreeable equity funding of $1.36M from two investors, LaunchBox Digital and Zelkova Ventures.

Although Google Analytics is a free solution that can perhaps offer more variable reporting options than Spring Engage, it simply does not have the unique capabilities to track the targeted information those in the hospitality industry are looking for. Spring Engage for example bases their pricing plans on total rooms per hotel. This in itself reinforces what the tool is made for and which industries would benefit best from the features of this tool. The provider also offers a 14-day test trial to allow potential clients to first test the results in order to make sure their features are the right fit for the potential client. On the provider’s website, case studies, campaigns, info-graphics and white papers are also available in bulk for a potential client to review. Whereas Google Analytics can only provide background on their dashboard features and different reporting options, Spring Engage can provide case studies and proven success through current client campaigns. An overview of one such campaign can be viewed in the graphic below. 

Although some analytical tools may be more industry specific, while others can offer more generalized tracking, it is in my opinion that two tools such as Google Analytics and Spring Engage can be used in conjunction for an overall enhanced view on customer data. According to one internet marketer, using more than one tool can also provide for a more stable baseline in case of undesired or unexpected changes within the analytical tools. (Wall, 2011) For a potential client using Spring Engage, I would recommend Google Analytics as a “Back-Up Web Analytics.” Google Analytics fits as a back-up plan in this case as it is does not use significant server resources, is low-cost (free),  can provide a general overview of customized reporting and can offer real-time data. (Wall, 2011)

It also appears that on average marketers use more than 12 different tools, while some on occasion use more than 31 tools to manage data. (Oetting, 2015) Although I am a proponent of using more than one analytical tool, I would draw the line at using more than a handful. Data collection can be an overwhelming process, and adding more than what is valuable to the mix can only water down the true results making accurate information difficult to sort through and find. This is supported by the Harvard Business Review that states:

Many organizations lack a coherent, accessible structure for the data they’ve collected. They’re like libraries with no card catalog and no covers on their books. The rise of social media, new selling channels, and devices such as tablets and smartphones has made it even harder to manage analytic content. Fewer than 44% of employees say they know where to find the information they need for their day-to-day work. (Capella, Horne and Shah, 2012)

In summary, we without question need analytical tools to sort through the inner workings of our websites, and there are a vast amount of these tools available in the marketplace capable of meeting several diverse needs. However, as marketers we also have to be able to interpret the features of the selected tools and know how the data retrieved can best be integrated into finding lasting marketing solutions. Whether we choose Google Analytics, or an industry specific provider like Spring Engage, what truly matters in the end is the analyst and marketing team interpreting the collected data.

References:

Capella, J., Horne, A., and Shah, S. (2012, April) Good Data Won’t Guarantee Good Decisions. Harvard Business Review (Online) Retrieved from: https://hbr.org/2012/04/good-data-wont-guarantee-good-decisions

Harvey, B. (2015, Oct. 30) Marketing Technology Provider, Spring Metrics, Announces Rebrand as Spring Engage. Spring Engage (Online) Retrieved from: http://www.springengage.com/news-1/2015/10/30/marketing-technology-provider-spring-metrics-announces-rebrand-as-spring-engage

Oetting, J. (2015, February 17) Too Many Tools? New Data on the Complexity of Marketing Technology. Hubspot (Online) Retrieved from: http://blog.hubspot.com/agency/tools-data-complexity-marketing-technology#sm.000001kv6y9o8fvflsrl64rk8oqta

Wall, A. (2011, August 17) Why you should use multiple web analytics tools. SEO Book (Online) Retrieved from: http://www.seobook.com/multiple-web-analytics

Finding the Right Social Platforms: A look at Lindale ISD and the decision making process

Today there is an ample amount of free social media platforms to choose from when making a marketing decision for your company. Yet the question at large remains which social platform to choose and should only one social media platform serve as the main point of communication and engagement between the business and customer? In my opinion derived from experience with this process, several social media platforms can be used to boost customer engagement as long as their purpose aligns with company goals and reaches the desired audience. The content that needs to be promoted should also be nurtured on the selected platform and fit within the features offered. Therefore it is important for the company to first identify their target audience and become familiar with the social platforms available, as well as the desired features that each platform can perform. This thought process is supported by a 2016 Marketer’s Guide on social platforms for businesses as it claims, “If you want to create a successful social strategy, you need to familiarize yourself with how each network runs, the kinds of audiences you can reach and how your business can best use each platform,” (Helmrich, 2016).

According to the 2016 Marketer’s Guide, the top social media platforms consist of Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. With Facebook currently maintaining their position as the largest social network with over 1.55 billion active users, it has been identified as “…a great starting point for your business, regardless of your industry,” (Helmrich, 2016). Although Facebook may be a starting point for a company looking to dive into social media marketing, choosing the right platform however is not a process that should be carried out at random. In order to identify the right platforms to allocate marketing resources and to find where the focus of customer engagement should be, Lake’s List of Social Interaction Metrics/KPIs can be taken into account along with identifying company goals and the brands key audience as previously noted. With Lake’s list of KPIs, (including comments, followers, email subscriptions and direct messaging) a company can decide which of these metrics would best fit the desired functionality for audience interaction and tracking this engagement through the social platform that contains these tools.

Ironically, during my employment with Lindale Independent School District I have implemented all four of the social platforms that the 2016 Marketer’s Guide identifies as the top social media networks. In order to make the marketing decision of which social media platforms would be best used for our school district, the process of choosing the social platform that fit best was similar to the path a larger company or business may take. With a staff of 550, a student population of 4,000 and a community made up of business owners, parents and stakeholders of the school district, the goal after identifying this range of target audience members was then to find the tools and social platforms that met the needs of this audience.

With such a large audience range for our district, I knew that a wide range of social platforms would need to be implemented in order to offer this audience different methods of interaction. With this two-step process in mind, a specific focus then needed to be identified for content output, and what kind of content would be applicable enough for the district to generate engagement. A focus that was then identified for the Lindale ISD was on parent interaction and engagement with student focused content. According to a summary of findings regarding parents and social media, 75% of parents use social media and are more likely to respond to postings and answer questions. (Duggan, Ellison, Lampe, and Lenhart, 2015) Parents also use a variety of social media platforms, and from the Pew Research Center statistics included below it can be seen that Facebook is again not only the biggest social network amongst social users, but amongst parents as well. Pinterest follows next as a distant second, while Instagram and Twitter bring up the lower half. Instagram also proves to be a social network followed by a younger group of parents, “Younger parents (those under 40) also are more likely to use Instagram than older parents, 33% vs. 18%,” (Duggan, Ellison, Lampe, and Lenhart, 2015)

With this data in mind, Lindale ISD has a primary focus on Facebook with over 2,000 followers and daily interactions from parents and community members regarding pertinent school information and student accomplishments. The Lindale ISD Twitter account is also linked to the Facebook account creating unanimous social postings and content output. The Lindale ISD Instagram account is a relatively new account implemented in the last year with a focus on our younger students and gaining followers daily. This social network that allows for the sharing of photos and short video clips is used for generating content pertaining only to Lindale ISD students and not the added school information content. The photos and video clips of our younger students have received thus far much positive reaction from parents and community members alike with the occasional comment. The Pinterest account for the district pertains to staff and parents where the boards created range from classroom décor ideas, to summer learning activities for parents. With this brief overview of Lindale ISD social media platforms and how several networks were chosen for the marketing mix over one platform specifically; it is important to also note that with Facebook as the biggest network, it is also the main point of content promoted conversation for Lindale ISD.

The Facebook social media network has provided a large space for Lindale parents, staff and community members to engage in conversation regarding the output of student-focused content. Statistical data shows that “94% of Facebook-using parents share, post or comment on Facebook (as opposed to simply reading or viewing content), with 70% of parents doing so “frequently” or “sometimes,” (Duggan, Ellison, Lampe, and Lenhart, 2015). In this weeks readings on content vs. conversations, Novak provides support for the phrase that “Content is King” yet also makes the point that conversation is just as valuable. This is a notion that I also strongly agree with, yet even with an excellent output of content, the platform on which the conversation is intended to take place is equally as important, (where is your biggest social target audience?) Lindale ISD has a larger parent audience grouping and focus on the Facebook social platform; therefore we generate more content for this group of social users. Without this outflow of engaging content and without considering where this content should be shared, enduring conversations would not take place, “Content without conversation is just broadcasting, or just advertising,” (Novak, 2010).

Yet content (no matter where the content is shared), cannot just be “content,” there has to be a strategy and a reasonable amount of desired knowledge or interest behind the postings in order to generate this type of social conversation. Taken from a real content post example, Lindale ISD could make a post about the Speech and Debate Team winning the 5A State Championship, with a photo of the student champions. This would result in much social engagement, post likes and post comments ultimately leading to a conversation about the accomplishments and success of the district. Lindale ISD could also hypothetically make a post about the High School’s lunch menu for that day, which from a marketing perspective and knowing the focus of the content output, would not generate a great amount of interest from LISD’s social following.

Therefore content vs. conversation when being taken into the decision making process can simply be narrowed down to ultimately where the content focus and biggest engagement platform is for a particular business. This however factors into the decision making process only after a company’s goals and audience has been identified in order to learn what content is best used, and what platform is this content best shared on in order to promote the desired conversation.

References:
Duggan, M., Ellison, N., Lampe, C., and Lenhart, A., (2015, July 2016) Parents and Social Media. Pew Research Center (Online) Retrieved from: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/07/16/parents-and-social-media/

Helmrich, B. (2016, Jan. 29) Social Media for Business: 2016 Marketers Guide. Business News Daily (Online) Retrieved from: http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/7832-social-media-for- business.html

Novak, C. (2010, July 27) Why Conversation, not Content, is King. Social Media Today (Online) Retrieved from: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/wordspring/152636/why-conversation-not- c

Why the Click-Through-Rate Counts

Gathering click-through-rate data is an often-debated metric of importance. While some analysts believe in the relevancy of the data, others may deem it as unreliable. This is supported by an article that evaluates the importance of the click-through rate as its author claims, “Click-Through-Rate (CTR) is one of the metrics which some advertisers swear by, while others discredit,” (Hadden, n.d.)

The click-through-rate is simply the number of click-throughs for that specific link calculated through a division of the number of times that link was actually viewed. Marketers often use this metric for tracking email marketing campaigns where the rate is typically presented as a percentage of the total number of customers that opened the campaign email. For example, “a 40% email click-through rate would mean that for every 10 people that opened your campaign, 4 people went on to click a link in that campaign,” (“Reporting on your email marketing campaigns,” n.d.) A graphic example of the click-through-rate from an email marketing campaign is presented below.

Click-through-rate data gathered from email marketing campaigns can also be described as a key metric. Key metrics are, “…the high-level data points that show the overall success of your email marketing campaigns. These include open rate, click-through rate and unsubscribe rate among others.” (“Reporting on your email marketing campaigns,” n.d.) This key metric data can help businesses to understand their ROI efforts, as well as show marketers what content is engaging to the customers and what can be improved upon in future marketing campaigns.

The click-through-rate metric is also important for internet marketing and advertising campaigns, in which the metric can show advertisers the number of clicks they have received on their ads per number of impressions. A pay per click or PPC click-through-rate is a form of internet marketing where advertisers pay a fee when one of their advertisements is clicked on. In most cases, a high click-through-rate is a great insight for advertisers to see as it shows that a high percentage of potential customers who see the advertisement are intrigued enough to click it.

However, it is important to note that this metric can vary by industry and there is no magic number that can determine what a good click-through-rate is. According to a definition by Yahoo found within the following article by author Larry Kim, “Click-through rates are naturally going to vary from campaign to campaign, and even from keyword to keyword. Everything involved in the way your ad is displayed plays a part, from your ad copy to the ad’s ranking on the results page.” (Kim, n.d.) A distinction Kim also makes is that a high click-through-rate is not always a good metric for businesses in the case of having irrelevant keywords. Therefore it is important to have a good “high” click-through-rate on keywords in advertisements that are relevant and also affordable, “cost-effective clicks,” (Kim, n.d.)

A graphic example also found within author Larry Kim’s article on PPC and CTR shows below an insightful benchmark of click-through-rates in AdWords across 20 different industries. 

 

Page Views: An Important Metric to Understand

Although my knowledge of web analytics is very limited at this point, I have often come across the metric of “page views” that is categorized as a foundational analytical tool. To some extent, prior to my research, I even had a basic understanding of what the page view metric consisted of. This is therefore why I decided to further explore and gather a greater understanding of the importance of page views.

Under the most basic of definitions, a page view can simply be understood as the number of times any page on a website has been viewed. A more in depth look at the metric describes page views as, “The number of times any page on a website has been loaded in a visitor's web browser, and the analytics code has successfully recorded the fact that page was loaded,” (Louis, 2012). Louis then goes on to explain how this metric is one of the more important ones to consider as it will be the general indicator of demand for a business’s website and the relativity of the content on it.

Page views can provide much needed feedback and diagnosis of what content is working for the customer demographic and what content is not. For example, a high count of page views could indicate both good and bad scenarios for website content. A high page view count when coupled with a low amount of time spent on the website page could mean that the page visitor is not finding the content they were looking for and are subsequently searching continuously for it. (Louis, 2012) Yet a high page view count could also indicate to market research teams that the content provided on the given page is engaging to the customer. Therefore, it is important that this metric is also coupled with other metrics in order to complete the larger picture at hand. Page view metrics are only one piece to the puzzle that requires many pieces in order to fully reach a true diagnosis.  

Another metric that is commonly mistaken with page views is known as “hits,” and it is important to understand the difference and reliability between these two metrics. A hit on a website is simply known as a request to the server for a single file, with single pages therefore able to create dozens of hits which can become often misleading. According to an article on the common misconception between page views and hits, the author claims that “…the number of hits doesn’t tell you much about your Web site’s traffic. Page views, on the other hand, are a solid measurement of traffic. If you send out a marketing piece, watch the page views and not the hits. Keep your focus there and forget the hits.” (Martin, n.d.)

Below I have included a real world example provided by Shawn Roering in 2012 of the differences between hits and page views and illustrating these calculations. The tables below visually showcase two different websites (Mcafee and Youtube) whereas the first tables in this set show 79 requests (hits) for 2 web pages, the last two tables of data only show the actual number of page views. It is fascinating to see how the data can be interpreted from 79 total requests to 17 different sites and then reduced to just 2 requests, providing a much more accurate depiction of the visitor’s actions. (Roering, 2012)

References:

Louis, J. (2012, April) A Web Analytics Primer - What Does It All Mean? Online-Behavior (Online) Retrieved from: http://online-behavior.com/analytics/web-analytics-primer

Martin, M. (n.d.) Pageviews vs. Hits. Hostways (Online) Retrieved from: http://www.hostway.com/web-resources/web-analytics/pageviews-vs-hits/

Roering, S. (2012, March 8) McAfee Web Reporter – Page Views A Real World Example. Mcafee (Online) Retrieved from: https://community.mcafee.com/docs/DOC-4662