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Online Marketing tools: Key Performance Indicators at a glance

Range, dwell time, engagement or conversion rate: these are only four examples of key performance indicators which marketers can use to monitor the success of their measures or the design of websites. Defining KPIs alone is of course not enough. If you define goals for your online marketing you should also be able to measure and analyse them. There are an infinite number of different tools available to marketers for this purpose. Here we present a selection of tools which can be used by small and medium-sized companies – and we explain who they are suitable for and what you have to note when handling them.

August 2018

Google Analytics: The dependable classic tool

Tools

A marketer can hardly ignore the Google platform for online marketing. Google Analytics is something like the standard among KPI measuring tools. To get an overview of the basic performance of a website and to check the base indicators Google Analytics is an ideal tool. For example it counts how many visitors have visited the page, in other words the page impressions, or gives the dwell time . Furthermore it provides marketers with information such as the users' age, sex or country of origin. Google Analytics also breaks down how they have arrived at the page, whether via Newsletter, social media or organically, in other words by clicking the page. If you are seeking a dependable overview of the basic performance of a website you can go a long way with this tools. Google Analytics displays the results graphically in an attractive way and has an intuitive structure. For purchasing transactions or conversions Google also offers the Conversion Suite an.

  • It measures the quantity and quality of user behaviour (Dwell Time, Page Impressions, Bounce Rate)
  • It gives information on the demographics
  • The basic version is free
  • Link to Google AdWords

Webtrekk: Alternative with KI and data protection

Webtrekk is an analysis suite which is subject to a charge. It is fully equal to Google Analytics in almost every respect and places the focus on important customer data, such as purchases,  interactions, devices used and sessions. In this way it is possible to bring together web and app data in order to obtain a comprehensive impression of the users' cross-device behaviour. Like various other tools Webtrekk has diverse interfaces and plugins to integrate web data from shop and content management systems and Google AdWords. Webtrekk also provides predictive analyses through machine learning: here it is possible to make statements about the lifetime value of a user and conversion probabilities. Prices are quoted on request in an individual offer. Webtrekk works in conformity with DSGVO. The company guarantees contractually that page operators have full control of their data. In addition Webtrekk does not track any personal, identifiable data.

  • Analyses behaviour and wishes of all internet visitors
  • Predictive analyses possible
  • Subject to a charge

Matomo: The open-source alternative

This open-source tool can in principle do what Google Analytics does. This open-source tool enables you to conduct informative and precise analyses of overall performance and user behaviour as the basis for further optimisation. Every customer journey  is also recorded 1:1 and so the movement data of each visitor can be observed except on the personal level. That advantage of Matomo as compared to Google Analytics is that it can be installed on its own server and does not therefore transmit any customer data abroad. Thus Matomo complies with German data protection laws. This is especially important for companies who are committed by law to data protection and are therefore exposed to a high warning risk.

  • Tracking website performance (including visits, page impressions, dwell time)
  • Goal tracking (click-through rate)
  • Free software to download
  • Cloud variant subject to a charge

Hootsuite: The all-round tool for social media

Hootsuite provides marketers with the complete toolbox for your social media management: content plane and distribution as well as monitoring as well are available from a single source, Hootsuite. With Hootsuite Analytics it is possible to track and display across platforms. Whether it's Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, with the basic variant marketers can track user engagement for up to ten profiles simultaneously, and in real time. If you have to keep an eye on fewer profiles, it is normally sufficient to use the monitoring dashboards of the individual platform providers such as Facebook.

  • Subject to a charge
  • 30-day test version available free of charge
  • Content distribution
  • Monitoring (up to 10 profiles, real-time analysis)

Meetrics: Transparency specialist

Theoretically with ad impression you can measure how many users have seen a display ad. But it is not always possible to how high the viewability of an ad actually is. The counting only covers how often it was delivered. Furthermore the online world specifically offesr a whole series of improper ways to falsify figures. In the specialist jargon this is called ad fraud. Clickbots, or robots which automatically click an ad fall under this heading. The idea with Meetrics is to expose such tricks using its comprehensive transparency package and hence design the ad planning more transparently for marketers.

  • Viewability check
  • Ad fraud prevention
  • Target group check
  • Subject to a charge

Optimizely: The tool for performance tests

If marketers want to know where they can best place the call-to-action button on a website they can choose from various tools. Optimizely, for example, provides a test editor which can be used to test such things as the performance of recommendations or content under nearly realistic conditions.

  • A-/B tests for user experience, content, search algorithms, etc.
  • Subject to a charge

Test first then buy

For a wide range of requirements with respect to performance measurement there are a large number of solutions in online marketing. But if you are looking for the best result for you, you should not only trust your gut feeling. You should gather all the relevant information, look for references and test several variants of an idea. With the test version this is also possible in most cases. Only in this way can users be certain that they are working with the tool that is right for them.
You can find an overview of other tools here:

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  • Digital Marketing
  • Digital Trends