CopyDiva

As someone who’s worked on the sales and client services side of marketing companies, Jim Sterne’s post today on Metrics Insider really resonated with me. What he talks about is that sometimes it is difficult to get a decision about contracted metrics goals for online marketing, because there are so many things to measure — you can really get off track quickly, trying to resolve organizational goals with what the metrics are hoping to achieve. Meaning, there can be a disconnect between how you are compensated (as a project leader) and the organizational goals. Case in point: organizational goals for a web site are to increase inbound leads by 10%. But, your bonus, or the metrics you’re being measured against are to improve the lead-to-conversion rate, or to cut the cost-per-lead.

The point is that its key to align the metrics on both sides — the organizational ones and the manager bonus ones as well.

Another good point to remember is that you can measure so granularly on a web site now, that you need to be careful not to get too hung up on measuring so many pieces. Measure and analyze within reason so that the metrics are trackable, but don’t get too bogged down in the endless details.