How to measure absolutely everything

Nick Valentino • Office of the Vice-Provost Students • nickv@yorku.ca • @nickwebguy
So…
what's the big deal about analytics?

58%
check email first thing in the morning
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/wrap-up/top-5-takeaways-email-summit-2013

$1
Amount spent converting customers for every
$92 spent acquiring them.
http://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/report-2012/

People are more likely to survive a plane crash
than click a banner ad
http://prestigemarketing.ca/blog/who-looks-at-banner-ads-infographic/

66%
prospective college students that believe schools should
have a social media presence
http://cursivecontent.com/7-content-marketing-stats-that-should-shake-higher-education-and-5-ways-to-act-on-them/

1 / 5
students removed a university from consideration after a
bad experience with the school’s website
http://cursivecontent.com/7-content-marketing-stats-that-should-shake-higher-education-and-5-ways-to-act-on-them/

79%
of N.A. universities don’t know their email
clickthrough rate!
Email Marketing for Educators, Benchmark Email: http://www.benchmarkemail.com/resources/manualinfo/education

These are examples of...
DATA!

How to Measure
Absolutely Everything

How to Measure
Absolutely Everything
… and do it effectively

You don’t know...

...why things aren’t working

…why things ARE working

...with whom you should be communicating

The Fundamentals
Determining your goals:
● What do you want to measure?
● Why do you want to measure?
● Is your marketing performing?

The Fundamentals
Determining your goals:
● Is your marketing performing?
● Why do you want to measure?
● What do you want to measure?

Is your marketing performing?

“A lot of marketers don’t listen to their
prospects’ digital body language. They don’t
measure and match the behaviour of their
prospects on their website and follow up.”
Jordie Van Rijn
Email Monday

Process funnel
Attract/Convert/Measure

R.O.I.

R.O.I.
● Students are “revenue sources”
○ in other words, our customers
○ measure them as such

R.O.I.
● Austerity demands ensuring we maximize
revenue generating potential
○ “do more with less”

R.O.I.
● Communication activities have
monetary value

S.E.M.
● strategic enrolment management
● attract students who will succeed
○ ...and keep them!

Why do you want to measure?

Understand
Decide
Control
http://www.slideshare.net/HubSpot/marketing-analytics-101-how-to-measure-the-effectiveness-of-your-website

Understand
What’s happening with your marketing.

Decide
What to invest in.

Control
Your growth.

“Half the money I spend on advertising is
wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”
John Wanamaker
Merchant, former U.S. Postmaster General

Use measurement of your marketing tactics to
inform future spending

What do you want to measure?

Key Performance Indicators
quantifiable measurements,
agreed to beforehand,
that reflect the critical success factors of an
organization

Must be quantifiable

Define the KPI and stay with the same
definition from year to year

They will differ depending on the organization.

Reflect the organizational goals

Key Tactics

Key Tactics
● Leads
■ prospective students
■ parents of prospective students
● Contacts
■ applicants and current students
■ teachers and counsellors

Key Tactics - Attract
SEO
● use keyword analysis tools to see density
● review the keywords used to find your site
● inbound links (especially the text)

Social Media Analytics
● Reach
○ The number of people who could have seen a story
about your page.
○ This is counted for each person who loads the story
about your page while browsing Facebook.

● Influence
○ Influence is the ability to cause desirable and
measurable actions and outcomes.
○ This definition incorporates the line of thought that
we can consciously influence things and people.

● Sentiment
○ Natural language analysis that determines the
opinion being expressed by the poster

● Tracking referrals
○ URL shorteners
■ shorter, easier-to-remember urls
■ click tracking

https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en
http://bit.ly/urlbuilderlink

Traditional Media
● Your goals determine how you use this tactic
● Another good use for your url shortener

Traditional Media
○ need to evaluate effectiveness of specific media?
i. e.g. display ads versus mailouts
ii. buy specific urls for each medium

Traditional Media
○ campaigns vs. standard marketing materials
i. special campaign-specific urls
ii. landing pages
iii. reserve home page url for standard marketing

Traditional Media
● QR Codes
● FAIL!

Traditional Media
● QR Codes
● Don’t use them!

Traditional Media
● QR Codes
● No, really, I mean it

Email

11.5%
general open rate
Technology Leaders, LLC

2%
general clickthrough rate

40.5%
York U open rate

8%
York U clickthrough rate

2x
better open rate when using a subject line with
less than 40 characters

42%
of North American universities email monthly

6%
email to distribute information and to fundraise

47%
report open rates greater than 40%

79%
don’t know their clickthrough rate!

25 email elements you can consider testing:
1. Subject line
2. From name
3. Day of the week
4. Time of day
5. Frequency
6. Mostly-images vs. mostly-text
7. Short copy vs. long copy

4. Time of day
5. Frequency
6. Mostly-images vs. mostly-text
7. Short copy vs. long copy
8. Links vs. buttons
9. Number of links
10. Unsubscribe at the top
11. First name personalization — in the subject
line
12. First name personalization — in the email
body

line
12. First name personalization — in the email
body
13. Animated gifs
14. Font colors
15. Font styles
16. Opt-down
17. Social sharing icons
18. Social connecting icons
19. Delivery by time zone
20. Call to action — number

16. Opt-down
17. Social sharing icons
18. Social connecting icons
19. Delivery by time zone
20. Call to action — number
21. Call to action — placement
22. Post-click landing page
23. Social proof
24. Tone — human vs. corporate
25. Copy length

Key Tactics - Convert
Web-based lead collection

#1 & #2 on the list of 15
Web Form Fails…
...don't try to collect every
detail all at once
http://blog.straightnorth.com/15-web-form-fails-ceo-marketing-tips/

#10 No privacy message
#13 No motivation:
Give me one good reason to
complete the form
http://blog.straightnorth.com/15-web-form-fails-ceo-marketing-tips/

A/B Testing
● email calls to action
● design changes on your site

A/B Testing
● Email
○ subject lines
○ call-to-action message
○ link positioning
○ email distribution systems generally make this easy

A/B Testing
● Website design
○ key element positioning
○ Google found the optimal shade of blue

Usability and accessibility
● card sort tests
● direct user testings
● accessibility
○ screen readers
○ monochrome
○ increased font size

Big Red Button

Big Red Button
Analytics said “Programs 1st”
Make it as easy as possible to
find the content they need
Radical solution

Big Red Button
Worked!
Improved flow through
program pages
But… user blind spots

Print marketing “failures”

Use # of pieces mailed/
distributed/given out as
indicator
Use unique urls to track
usage

Use # pieces mailed/
distributed/given out as
indicator
Use unique urls to track
usage
Results seemed low
In reality, response rates
excellent compared to
industry standards
True evaluation elusive
}

Thank you!

How to measure absolutely everything

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