STRA

TEGI

C ME

TRIC

S TAKING THE MEASURE OF E-MARKETING SUCCESS

Don't just cross your fingers and hope your e-marketing initiatives are paying off, measure the payoff.

Scott Cotter

TODAY, E-BUSINESS HAS

become everyone's business. The

Web is no longer a novelty, but a

mainstream business strategy being

leveraged by nearly every market-fac­

ing operation around the world. e-

Business initiatives require the same mas­

terful management that sound business

(no "e") demands in order to succeed. Just

30 | March/April 2002

as in the offline world, companies need thoughtful strategic planning and tight execution to achieve online business objectives.

But the single biggest pitfall preventing most companies from gaining a true payback from their e-business programs is the lack of a closed-loop analysis to understand if, where,

for whom, and how their Web programs are performing. Meaningful analysis of

online projects is based upon an understanding of strategy and an

execution plan that enables measurement of key per­

formance indicators (KPIs). These KPIs

are different for nearly ever)' e-busi­ness pro­gram, just as success met­rics vary for offline busi­ness processes.

Some savvy marketers, in an effort to save their souls in the face of the dot-com demise, have attempted to instill some form of KPI-based measure­ment metrics to d e m o n s t r a t e return on invest­ment from the Web initiatives. Few have succeeded. A lack of universal, sharply defined, KPI-driven e-busi­ness measurement approach has sent many marketers into a tailspin. And it helps explain why, in May

2001, the Gartner Group predicted

that 50% of all e-business initia­

tives would fail.

While

we've seen many early attempts to establish success met­rics for the Web, many of these techniques were too rudi­mentary to provide much value or depth, let alone show return on investment. In fact, there are inherent short­comings in the more common techniques currently being used to measure e-business performance. However, a new methodology is emerging that applies solid business prin­ciples to Web-based analysis: e-Business Performance Management (eBPM). Web-savvy companies are applying eBPM to evaluate e-marketing initiatives.

First-Generation "KPIs"—Hits and Clicks or Hits and Misses? Desperate to demonstrate payback from their e-business programs, marketers grasped at the traditional yardstick— capturing "hits and clicks" data. Problem is, after wading through stacks of spreadsheets plotting visitor traffic pat­terns, they had little more than a shallow correlation to buy­ing behavior built on assumptive guesswork.

Next came Web analytics tools, which ushered in a new era of "sophistication." With heavy assistance from IT, mar­keters could probe a layer deeper and perform more detailed analysis behind Web site activity. Although they provided a sharper picture of visitor behavior, these appli­cations yielded little to no translation of activity to real business impact.

For example, while the desired goal of Web-based sales and recruiting programs may be similar on the surface (e.g., to generate leads), they require unique and vastly different metrics by which to measure their effectiveness. However, the number of page views and number of unique visitors are the most common metrics used to measure the effec­tiveness of both sales enablement and recruiting content on most Web sites.

Instead of using page views and unique visitors as a common performance metric across all e-business initia­tives, marketers need to look at every initiative in isolation and assign each one a distinct set of objectives. An online sales enablement program that offers self-service informa­tion on the Web site, for example, might be measured not only by the number of leads but by its ability to shorten cycle time and lower the total cost of sales. An online recruiting effort should be gauged not merely by the num­ber of resumes it draws, but by the quality of qualified job candidates generated and the time and money Human Resources saved by not having to screen piles of resumes manually or hire a recruiter.

It's easy to become overwhelmed by the seemingly insurmountable amount of data that the Web produces— customer behavior, demographics, segmentation, prefer­ences—but the Internet can also yield unprecedented opportunities to achieve real business value. When click-stream data is married with transaction, customer rela­tionship management (CRM), or sales force automation

Journal of Business Strategy |31

STRATEGIC METRICS

data, that's far beyond what marketers usually have avail­able in the offline world to measure and manage an ini­tiative.

The Road to eBPM: Get There from Here in Five Easy Steps By definition, eBPM is the alignment of Web performance with overall business goals. Simply put, the same "market­ing 101" metrics used to assess offline promotional pro­grams can readily be transferred to e-marketing initiatives. Here are five simple steps:

1. Start with Strategy. How can you make your site goals come true? Look first to your corporate strategy. It's all there. Most corporate executives lay out overall strate­gic objectives every quarter or fiscal year. What are the top-level goals of your company? These might include dri­ving the cost of sales down, increasing brand awareness, growing revenues, or improving customer satisfaction rat­ings. Marketers have to be aware of these goals—even if it means scrawling them on sticky notes and slapping those notes on the office wall. Embed them in your psy­che so they become part of your mantra. The next time a product manager says "help me generate 1,000 new sales leads," you will be able to view this request in the context of corporate objectives.

2. See Success. Second, assess how your Web initia­tives can support these corporate objectives. Who is the tar­get of your next e-business campaign? Who will it serve? To whom do you expect to sell? Establishing these basic para­meters up front will build the foundation for the next step: defining success. One of the biggest mistakes many mar­keters make is to launch a new online campaign or Web pro­ject without first determining what success looks like, not only to themselves, but to their colleagues and constituents. To envision success, you must be able to mutually agree on the end result, and that result should be in tune with the company's strategy.

3. Measure Early and Often. Once you've defined success, you must be able to measure it. If your e-market­ing program were an offline rather than an online initiative, how would you measure it? Would you apply the same suc­cess metrics to a print advertisement as to a banner ad? For example, ask yourself, which would be more effective: to drive 1,000 leads to your sales force or to generate 100 bet­ter-qualified leads? If the company's corporate strategy dic­tates a goal to drive the cost of sales down, you might be surprised to find that capturing 100 more highly qualified leads yields a better cost per customer acquisition. You must also establish with your teammates what thresholds and tolerances will be used to monitor and manage your online promotions before you begin. Like all successful ini­tiatives, you have to be willing to measure early and often. Knowing when to call it quits is sometimes your single smartest move.

4. Design and Plan. With your definition of success in place, it's now time to design and plan for it. Ideally, this should be done at the inception of every e-business initiative. Too often, the process of defining the mea­sures of success is an afterthought. One of the most important principles of eBPM is planning for success. When embarking on any Web-based program, marketers need to build success metrics into the implementation plan right from the beginning. Even if you know what success looks like, how will you be able to recognize it at key intervals along the way? Where will you get the information through which to capture, calculate, and measure your success? Some sources might include the Web server content itself. Caching servers and content delivery networks provide additional venues. Several dif­ferent types of servers, ranging from application, cata­logue, ad, media, and personalization servers, can yield tremendous insights. e-Commerce transaction networks, content management systems, and CRM and other enter­prise systems that lurk "behind" your firewall can be equally valuable.

One of the biggest mistakes many marketers make is to launch a new online campaign without first determining what success looks like.

5. Make It Real. Whether you're a marketer or a pro­gram manager, you'll want to plan how best to access the information you need to measure success. Getting to the right data is the half of the battle. Gathering it in a form that is actually usable for making sound, fast business decisions is the other half. According to Merrill Lynch (March 6, 2001): "Clickstream data requires an enormous amount of pre-processing—somewhere between 60 to 95% of time is spent preparing data." When launching an e-business initiative, it's imperative that you plan not only for how your vast data reserves will be mined and stored, but also for how the company's key decision makers will be able to readily leverage this data to gain a strategic advantage.

Third-generation eBPM technology provides an exec­utive portal that converts raw data into a highly graphical depiction of salient information. Through a browser-based interface, managers can create their own cus­tomized "executive dashboard" to view what they need to see, when they need to see it, and exactly how they should see it to make the best business decision with speed and agility. In some cases, it's not only what you see, but also how you see it that can make or break a suc-

32 | March/April 2002

cessful strategy.

Achieve eBPM Midstream with Interim Metrics In an ideal world, KPIs to measure success would be clearly defined and embedded into the launch of ever)' e-business initiative. In the real world, most marketing managers are still struggling to evaluate existing initia­tives. Many of their e-business programs and Web con­tent pre-date a commitment to eBPM, but the marketers must still understand the performance of those programs today. In an effort to better understand program perfor­mance and justify their online expenditures, marketers need to find ways to retrofit success measures into exist­ing e-marketing programs.

The good news is that even if you didn't plan for eBPM, you may be able to recover quickly through the use of some less tailored success metrics. While not designed specifi­cally for your initiative, interim metrics can offer a good "sum total" picture of success surrounding a specific e-business project. These interim metrics provide a sound stopgap measure as you begin revving up your site or enabling more business processes for the Web. They exceed the capabilities of a simple hits and clicks method­ology by allowing you to make some educated deductions to evaluate your success.

Here's a simple scenario to illustrate how using interim metrics can work to measure the success of a brand aware­ness campaign. Just as in the offline arena, the goals of building brand awareness via the Web are the same. Marketers want people to be exposed to, understand, and recall their company's business, products, and services. A traditional approach to measuring brand awareness might be to do some pre- and post-focus group testing on people who saw your online ad versus those who didn't. Did it improve their image about your company? Did it spur an increased recollection of your brand?

Of course, focus group testing may not always be practi­cal or affordable, so one measure of awareness might be to analyze average dwell time on a particular piece of site con­tent related to a brand promotion. You might also look at a second metric: a higher percentage of repeat visitors to this posted content. Third, you might probe to evaluate the divi­sion between home-based and corporate-based visitors.

From these three interim metrics, you'd be able to infer that more home-based visitors are exposed to your mes­sage because they enter through AOL, spend an average of 15 minutes on your sale page, and visit your site at least two times weekly. Therefore, you could infer that their level of brand awareness is probably higher.

Fine-Tune Your Views to Make KPI-Based eBPM Work for You How can you make eBPM work for your shop? There's no silver bullet, because every e-business initiative—just like

every business—is different. There are, however, two essential "perspectives" from which a marketer should view an e-business: strategy and process. These fundamental views are the building blocks that are critical to imple­menting eBPM KPIs. They will dictate how success is going to be measured as it relates back to your overall busi­ness objectives.

The Strategy Side. First, it's important to remember

Marketers must understand, segment by segment, targeted visitor response to specific content messages, offers, or products.

that every e-business initiative must be directed by a high­er-level strategy that supports the corporate mission. The intrinsic value of eBPM lies in its capacity to tie e-busi­ness performance to corporate business goals. Within the strategy perspective of a Web-based marketing campaign, there are three "filters" (angles) you can apply depending on your goals:

■ Product-centric: What is the impact of the e-busi­ness initiative on products/services?

■ Customer-centric: How are customers/prospects/ stakeholders affected?

■ Process-centric: How is the e-business or Web-enabled process functioning?

As an example, let's say that your business objective is to target a new, more desirable demographic. In this case, your top priority would be to view your Web site strategy from a customer-centric angle. You would define your KPIs based on whether your campaign measurably enhanced your ability to target, secure, and grow a customer base that matches the corporate objective.

Let's say that you're an established manufacturer of women's beauty products with a successful track record of attracting the 30-plus age group. Now your charter is to tap into the 20-something market and expand your loyal following of online customers. Your KPIs should be defined around the ability to attract this segment. Throughout your promotional campaign, you would mea­sure your success based on driving this desired visitor demographic to your site through increased traffic, but not necessarily based on which product lines are benefit­ing most from this higher activity.

It may be interesting, even valuable, to understand which product lines are thriving under your newest Web promotion focused on women in their 20s. But you don't want to get derailed from that original e-business goal hinged to the corporate objective: to target a new demo­graphic. This must come first in your eBPM strategy.

Journal of Business Strategy 33

STRATEGIC METRICS

Adopting a customer-centric angle will be the most direct link to measuring successful alignment of your e-business with your business goals. Remember, to make eBPM work for you, KPIs must be specific. They must be focused. And they must be measurable in relation to the overall business end goal. The rest is icing on the cake.

The Process Perspective. The second perspective is the process side. Not to be confused with a process-centric angle under the strategy perspective, the overall process perspective encompasses three basic steps:

■ Apply stimulus: Identify/drive target visitors or seg­ments to the specific site content.

■ Extend the offer: Design the site content to elicit desired online/offline visitor behavior.

■ Drive action: Enable the visitor to act upon the offer or perform a desired behavior.

Understanding your e-business initiative from a process level will allow you to determine and isolate the data that is the most critical to implementing eBPM KPIs. Consider the examples shown in Table 1, which illustrate typical, process-oriented e-business practices.

In summary, marketers need to identify and target dis­tinct visitor segments. Who is most likely to demonstrate the desired behavior? Once these targets are uncovered, the next step is to understand which creative, offer, and/or online promotional vehicles are most apt to attract and stimulate that behavior. Within that medium, what type of content will motivate someone to take action—or, equally important—to not take action? Marketers must

then be prepared to understand, segment by segment, tar­geted visitor response to specific content messages, offers, or products.

eBPM KPIs at Work in the Real World The scenarios that follow are based on some of the most burning e-business issues that many companies face. In each situation, these companies have applied eBPM prin­ciples to manage their Web-based marketing initiatives against corporate objectives. Could any of these be you?

Scenario 1: Advertising and Promotional Effectiveness. A leading online retailer recently launched an e-marketing campaign designed to attract a new audience segment likely to be big spenders with a high customer lifetime value. The vice president of mar­keting expects that the average order value will be 10% higher than the current average order and that reorder fre­quency will nearly double. The company has designed several different promotions (comprised of creative theme, placement, messaging, and offer) and used multi­ple list sources.

Goals: ■ Attract the new target customer segment ■ Stimulate the new segment to respond to a call to

action KPIs: ■ Clickthrough rate (ratio of the number of times

the ad/item is "clicked" as a percentage of all exposures to ad/item): The percentage of impressions (exposures to

promotion) that become clickthroughs is a basic metric that, alone, does not always yield an ROI-based effectiveness judg­ment, but still is con­sidered very impor­tant. Its value is in helping the marketer quantify what is other­wise a more qualita­tive "judgment call"— e.g., whether one cre­ative, offer, and/or placement is more or less effective than another. In the case of this promotion, click-through rates are com­pared across visitor segments to see if the targeted segment has a higher clickthrough rate. This particular

Table 1: The Process Perspective

Step 1: Apply stimulus

Step 2: Extend the offer

Step 3: Drive action

Sales and e-Commerce Car dealership drives new parents to site through banner ad from popular online baby magazine

Site content pro­motes benefits of roomy family sedan with excellent safety features

Visitors are directed to visit showroom to win new car and free family getaway

Employee Recruitment

Company identifies top job sites where target candidates post resumes and job hunt

Through online job listings, link candidates back to company site for detailed descriptions and benefits

Candidates receive online instruction encouraging them to apply for positions

Investor Relations

Corporation finds events/periodicals/ associations attract­ing potential investors

Offline and online teasers lead investors back to company site for news and infor­mation

Armed with facts, visitors can make decisions about company investment opportunities

34 | March/April 2002

campaign's clickthrough rate also can be compared to the results of other campaigns to see whether the new cam­paign performs better or worse.

■ New versus repeat visitor ratio: Often overlooked, this metric is especially important if a goal of the program is to attract first-time versus repeat visitors. In the case of this scenario, a new segment is being targeted. If the cam­paign attracts a higher number of return visitors than new visitors, it might be inferred that the list source was bad or the offer/message/creative appeals more to the company's

Toss out your hits and clicks spreadsheets and forget about trying to justify e-business investments that are not tied to your strategic company goals.

traditional target segment than to the new target segment. ■ Conversion rate: The percentage of people exposed

to the promotion who respond to the "call to action" is another basic metric that every marketer must use. Beyond clickthrough rate, which only measures initial response to the promotion, conversion rate measures the ability of the promotion to stimulate the desired "end behavior"—typi­cally a purchase, request for more information, or registra­tion. In the example above, there may be several list sources or different offers to encourage visitors to respond to the call to action. It's important to understand which stimuli have the highest rate of success at driving visitors to respond to the call to action.

■ Cost per conversion, customer acquisition cost: In conjunction with conversion rate, this metric gives the mar­keter the "cost side" of the ROI calculation. In this sce­nario, while one particular promotion may have a very high conversion rate, its cost per conversion might still be much higher than other promotions with far lower conversion rates. For example, let's say the retailer spent $500,000 on a program that yielded 2,500 conversions of 100,000 impressions, for a conversion rate of 2.5%. The retailer's second promotion yielded only 500 conversions of 100,000 impressions, for a much less impressive conversion rate of 0.5%. However, the second promotion cost only $10,000, so the cost per conversion was only $20, compared to $200 for the more expensive promotion. This illustrates why more than one KPI is necessary to truly judge program effectiveness.

■ Revenue/value per conversion/customer acquisition: Matching unique site visitors to transaction information is usually a very difficult calculation, but it's not impossible if an organization has the right processes and analytics tech­nology. More sophisticated organizations recognize that

this KPI is necessary to make truly ROI-based decisions about program effectiveness and invest in the processes and technology to calculate and use this KPI.

■ Abandonment rates: While not a ROI-based KPI, abandonment analysis is still valuable in that it allows mar­keters to model and understand how a Web-enabled process does (or does not) work. In the case of this online retailer, suppose visitors who click through are presented with a "landing page." From there, they are asked to review information on a second page, then input information on a third page, and finally consummate a transaction on a fourth page. It is helpful to know that 85% of the click-through visitors proceed to the second page, but 68% aban­don after the second page. This way, the messaging and/or content on that page can be adjusted to increase effective­ness of the Web process overall.

Scenario 2: Content Effectiveness (in context of conversion events). A major banking institution just com­pleted a site redesign. The goal was to enhance visitors' online experience in order to drive specific behaviors. Some of the site content was designed to motivate visitors to pro­vide the bank with information about themselves through opt-in registration. Other content was created to educate visitors about the organization's financial services.

Goals: ■ Promote opt-in visitor registration ■ Educate visitors about the bank's unique services KPIs: ■ Page dwell time duration analysis: Every page has

an average dwell time. In the case of the opt-in goal, a low page dwell time may be desirable. The longer visitors are "distracted" from the conversion event, the more likely they will abandon. Alternately, a longer dwell time may be desirable for those pages that offer educational informa­tion. The longer people view the content, the more likely it is that they are thoroughly absorbing the material. This demonstrates that calculating the KPI is not the "end game." The business person, now armed with this metric and his/her knowledge of the subject matter and context, can make a decision. This is similar to golf and basketball scores. Someone who knew nothing about golf and bas­ketball would not know how to determine who the "win­ner" was from the scores—the lower score wins in golf, while the higher score wins in basketball. But someone who understands the subject matter and context of the scores knows at a glance who won.

■ Visitor behavior content conversion analysis: Content is usually "classified" by its objective or purpose on a site. For instance, content designed to aid in self-service problem resolution may be classified as "customer support" content. Content that entices people to share information about themselves may be classified as "registration" con­tent. Given the objective or event, specific content items are analyzed to see how effective they are at triggering or

Journal of Business Strategy | 35

STRATEGIC METRICS

driving visitors to that event. This visitor behavior pattern analysis is similar to a conversion rate KPI for promotional content in its ability to entice visitors to complete the "call to action." In the cases above, we would compare the num­ber of times the registration page/information was viewed to the number of completed registrations to calculate the

Every e-business initiative must be directed by a higher-level strategy that supports the corporate mission.

content conversion analysis. ■ Common paths analysis: Taking the above con­

cept further, the bank can not only look at a specific piece of content and an end desired event, but also study the way visitors traverse the site to get there. Knowing what other content is part of the visitors' experience and drives the "conversion" helps marketers know where to fine-tune messaging, optimize site structure and design, and, in general, where to focus efforts to drive a higher conver­sion rate.

■ Abandonment analysis: A companion to path analy­sis, abandonment analysis allows marketers to see what content items deter or demotivate visitors from the conver­sion event. This enables the bank's marketing department to pinpoint where to improve site structure and design as well as to understand what needs to be modified to produce a higher conversion rate.

Scenario 3: Merchandising and Offer Optimization. The tactics used in the bricks-and-mortar world don't always work online. One leading distributor of discounted personal computer products found that it need­ed to do a better job of optimizing its offer for online visi­tors in order to maximize online revenue. The company wanted to know: What gets people to spend more when they visit our site? Product mix and assortment, discount­ing, bundling, and accessorizing—all these are levers to apply. How can we understand which is the right lever?

Goals: ■ Drive increased online revenue through offer

optimization ■ Apply the best levers to the best target audience KPIs: ■ Clickthrough rate: The same principles apply

here that do for general advertising and promotional effec­tiveness. A cross-sell or up-sell offer can be measured just like a promotion. It has some combination of creative, placement, targeting, and distinct offer designed to drive users to add to their shopping baskets (the call to action). For instance, the distributor may see that offers of dis­

counts on end-of-season items are more likely to be accepted than add-on accessories to items already in a shopping cart.

■ Conversion rate: Like clickthrough rate, the princi­ples for conversion rate as a KPI for promotional effective­ness also apply to merchandising and offer optimization. Whereas the "clickthrough" is the action of adding an item to a cart, the call to action here is to complete the purchase.

■ Segmentation and correlation: Building upon click-through or conversion rates, the ability to define and corre­late KPIs by segment allows for better targeting. Examples include:

• Behavioral-pattern-based visitor groupings— Visitors who have exhibited a certain past behavior generally have a higher propensity to perform a similar future behavior. In this example, the site devoted a section to promoting a top-of-the-line printer/fax/copi­er and noticed that visitors who viewed this content were more likely to purchase accessories from the same manufacturer. We would expect higher conver­sion rates for up-sell offers within this visitor segment than in others. • Attribute-based visitor groupings—Similarly, visitor characteristics such as gender, age, income, or indus­try can influence likelihood to click through or con­vert. A specific online campaign promoting a low-end laptop might reveal that the majority of online pur­chases are made by college freshmen.

Scenario 4: Targeting: Visitor Behavior and Demographics. A time management products company just introduced a new hand-held personal productivity device. The company wanted to know how it could best tai­lor online promotions and content to the "right" visitors. The marketing department assessed that the ideal cus­tomer profile would be young, technology-savvy, well-edu­cated individuals in urban areas with white-collar jobs. While targeting is critical in the campaign design phase, it is also important in the analysis phase.

Goals: ■ Identify the "right" target segment for this specific

device ■ Maximize online revenue through highly targeted

buyers KPIs:

■ Attribute-based segmentation: Knowing that peo­ple who come to this site are likely to exhibit a particular attribute helps the company refine its targeting. The mar­keter might be able to further segment the desired audi­ence based upon personal interests (from a registration form), the operating system of the visitor's computer (from clickstream data), or other attribute that could produce valuable insights that may have not been readily apparent. For instance, there might be an unusually high percentage of visitors with a Unix operating system. Or perhaps regis-

36 | March/April 2002

tering visitors find personal finance a topic of interest. These facts can be used to focus targeting, messaging, and content for even greater promotional success.

■ Behavior-based segmentation: Observed behavior can yield a lot of clues. In this scenario, marketers may notice that a high percentage of people respond to (click on) a case study featuring the product's use in transporta­tion logistics systems. While the company may not have tar­geted or developed promotions for this type of use, this insight opens a new avenue.

■ Customer acquisition cost: When evaluating the company's promotional programs, the marketer might dis­cover that the firm needs to offer far more valuable give­aways or attract higher repeat/frequent exposure to convert members of one specific segment. Knowing the average customer acquisition cost for each segment is important to tailoring the marketing strategy and making sound budget decisions.

■ Visitor lifetime value (LTV): Similar to under­standing average customer acquisition cost, having a handle

Abandonment analysis allows marketers to see what content items deter or demotivate visitors from the conversion event.

on visitor LTV helps the company make good marketing strategy and budgeting decisions. Although one customer segment might show a high conversion rate and low acqui­sition cost, these customers place small and infrequent orders. A segment with a much lower conversion rate and high acquisition cost may generate very frequent and large orders once captured.

Scenario 5: One Customer, Multiple Touchpoints. A large national sportswear manufacturer knows that while people shop on the company's Web site, they also buy in the bricks-and-mortar world. Its Web reporting system doesn't tell the marketing and sales department about those purchases. The company's enterprise systems report sales figures, but have no means of tracking whether customers bought as a result of something they experienced on the Web site.

Goals: ■ Understand marketing effectiveness across

touchpoints ■ Integrate online and offline systems KPIs: ■ Conversion Rate: As opposed to conversion to an

online event, as noted in the earlier scenarios, conversion to an offline event is main goal to track as a KPI in this exam­ple. For instance, on an automaker's Web site, it is useful

to know what percentage of site visitors who "designed" the auto online actually then proceeded to a dealership to get a quote for a similar auto.

■ Transactions with "Web event" impact: Also important to understand is when/if the company's site plays a role when a transaction occurs. Simple KPIs such as "percent of transactions that had a Web event" and "number of Web events per transaction" help us to under­stand this. For instance, in the example above, marketers may find that 40% of transactions had a Web event (a site visit, information download, etc.). Further, they might see that of the largest transactions, 50% or more had at least three Web events prior to the transaction. This, of course, assumes that the site visitor has previously registered and all subsequent sessions are tracked. These KPIs help a marketer understand e-marketing program effectiveness across all touchpoints. While integration of tracking sys­tems across touchpoints can be tricky, many organizations recognize the value and have deployed processes and technology to do so.

■ Customer LTV and average sales price (ASP): A variation on LTV or ASP for segmentation purposes, these measures can also be used to understand the lift from the Web. Comparison of LTV or ASP where the site did not play a significant role (no or few Web events prior to trans­action) to LTV or ASP where the site was involved is help­ful. One may see that offline transactions with Web event influence have higher dollar values and contain more add­ons than transactions that did not have Web events. Marketers can see that their site is effective at increasing LTV and ASP and make strategy and budget decisions, as well as promote and design sales support Web site content, based upon that information.

A Final Note It's time to toss out your hits and clicks spreadsheets and for­get about trying to justify e-business investments that are not tied to your strategic company goals. Today's busy executives know that masterful management of the Web applies the same smart business practices from the offline world to the online world. To succeed, you must be willing to step up to the chal­lenge and embrace the power of eBPM from the start. And even if you didn't integrate e-business KPIs when you origi­nally built your site, it's not too late. Marketers today can take advantage of interim metrics to build a bridge to full-fledged eBPM. They can begin not only to see, but also to seize, suc­cess in small steps. Next- generation eBPM technology is now making this a reality. What are you waiting for? ♦

Scott Cotter is vice president, marketing for Visual Insights. He has more than 15 years' experience in e-commerce strategy, interactive marketing, Web development, and new business and technology product deployment.

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