Goals First, Analysis Later: Setting a Web Analytics Measurement Framework

Before you can have tools, metrics, or analytics you must have goals and objectives. Without goals and objectives, web metrics are nothing more than a compilation of interesting data points. You may know how many people visited your site, where they were from, and what pages they looked at, but without goals the data is nothing more than anecdotal.

Avinash Kaushik writes on his blog that before he even looks at any web analytics tool he creates a web analytics measurement framework specific to that business, organization, or project.

This framework consists of five parts or steps, all of which become necessary to check any metrics or analytics information against. The framework puts everything into perspective.

Kaushik’s web analytics measurement framework consists of the following parts:

1. Business objective
2. Goals
3. Key performance indicators (KPIs)
4. Target
5. Segments

For a complete discussion of each of these see Kaushik’s Web Analytics 101 blog post from 2010.

Each piece of the framework builds on the next. Let’s look at an example. Say I work for the admission office at a small liberal arts college in Pennsylvania. My framework might look something like this:

Business objective: Prospects in admission inquiry file
Goals: Increase number of signups for inquiry file via web form
KPIs: Number of signups via direct traffic on website, number of signups via email campaigns, number of signups via social media referrals
Target: 1,000 signups a month via direct traffic, 750 signups a month via email campaigns, 500 signups a month via social media referrals
Segments: Acquisitions: Organic search, email campaigns, Facebook, Twitter
                  Behaviors: Visits to conversions (signups via web form)

This is a simple example, but it shows the need to set goals before employing the use of web analytics just because we think we should or because everyone else is doing it. Using a web analytics measurement framework as Kaushik has outlined, any organization is able to put web analytics platform to good work.