Managing site performance can be a very tricky thing especially if you are using no analytics. Some think installing analytics on their website, then checking to see how many hits they have received and finally changing their marketing efforts based solely on hits alone will increase performance. I’m sorry to say but that is the wrong way to use analytics. The title of this blog “Looking Beyond the Dashboard” is exactly how one must use analytics. Checking to see what pages on your website have the highest bounce rate, finding out where your traffic is coming from or not coming from and looking at the conversion rates are just three ways of looking beyond the dashboard and into the guts of your website.
Take for instance a website that focuses heavily on ad banners to promote their site but only looks at their hit count to figure out their performance. The hit count may be high and the site might produce a very high number of sales and conversions but what the website owner might fail to realize is that the majority of his traffic might not be the result of the ad banners. Meaning, all that money being spent on the ad campaign is being wasted. Someone who uses analytics effectively would be able to find out that the majority of their traffic is coming from search engines and barely no traffic is coming from the ad campaign, which would then prompt them to significantly lower or cancel the amount of money being put into the ineffective ad banners. This is just one example of the amount of information analytics can provide.
Solid Cactus will be hosting a Webinar on Google Analytics, one of the most popular analytics programs on the web today on Wednesday June 3rd, 2009. The discussion will talk about how to pull detailed reports and how to read them. The more you know beyond the dashboard of your analytics, the more you will be able to make the decisions needed to run your website effectively.
Posted by Ashley Motter on May 11, 2009
KFC gave their famous acronym a new meaning with the disastrous launch of their newest product: Kentucky Grilled Chicken.
When spending millions on a television advertising campaign didn’t seem like enough of a force to take the ‘F’ out of KFC, they pulled in the mother of all marketing reinforcement: Oprah Winfrey. (I guess they figured [...]
Posted by Ashley Motter on Apr 15, 2009
When it comes to customer service, there’s nothing worse than treating all customers the same. Customers like personalization and attention. If your business can’t provide it–they go elsewhere.
Short on time and resources, most companies can’t optimize customer service as much as they would like to. I recently read an article on Inc.com which warns companies [...]
Posted by Ashley Motter on Mar 30, 2009
Ironically, after posting my last blog entry regarding Microsoft’s newest marketing strategy, I had an encounter this weekend that proved the $1000 challenge true.
My boyfriend is in the market for a new computer, and since he has always been a PC he decided to try a Mac (even after I warned him of the $1000 [...]
Posted by Ashley Motter on Mar 27, 2009
Recently it seems we’ve been following Microsoft through an advertising maze. Starting Point: Jerry Seinfeld. Finish Line: Some chick named Lauren.
In an effort to one-up its healthy-wealthy competitor Apple, Microsoft hired Crispin Porter & Bogusky (No, those aren’t the three elves in the Rice Crispies commercial) to find an open position in the market and [...]
Posted by John Dawe on Mar 22, 2009
Back in December, I put together a “Cactus Culture” survey based on the famed Zappos Culture Book. I then saw this commercial on TV for Chili’s and thought, “You know, musical chairs is the type of thing we would just spontaneously do at Solid Cactus.”
Here are two “Culture” Survey responses that support this thought:
“What is: [...]
Posted by scott.carey on Mar 13, 2009
Inside the Software as a Service (SaaS) department of Solid Cactus lies the ultimate solution in Comparison Shopping Engine management – FeedPerfect. FeedPerfect is a fast and simple intuitive web-based application that gives e-Merchants the ability to import products and track performance on multiple CSEs at a time. Unleashed by Jason Longo,General Manager of the [...]
Posted by Ashley Motter on Mar 6, 2009
If you haven’t joined the Twitter craze yet, a new article from Website Magazine speculates there is a good chance you never will. Thanks to the latest version of Facebook, which includes real-time news feeds and status updates, Twitter is about to be out-twitted.
Compared to MySpace and Facebook, Twitter’s competitive niche is (or was) the [...]
Posted by scott.carey on Feb 27, 2009
Its no secret that Comparison Shopping Engines and E-merchants are in a love/hate relationship. Almost everyone selling online is using them but if not monitored effectively, there is the potential to lose money on them. This is because the majority of CSEs are Cost Per Click, meaning for every one click, you pay up a [...]
Posted by Ashley Motter on Feb 20, 2009
O.K…spill it. We’re almost two months into the new year. What kind of breakthrough enhancements do you have planned for your site? If you haven’t made up your mind yet, perhaps it would help to know what other online retailers are considering? (Forget about the voices in your head…curiosity only kills cats in Tim [...]