digital balance

Measurement Strategy

The first pillar is the most important. Organisations should have a formal measurement strategy in place, and ensure the strategy aligns with their overall business objectives. This helps ensure all digital marketing activities contribute to an organisation’s bottom line – and demonstrates value of digital measurement to executive management.

Select an answer that best suits your organisation:

	No measurement strategy. No recognition that a measurement strategy is necessary for a successful program.
	Recognizes value of a unified strategy, but unsure how to create one. Some groups may have beginnings of a strategy, but it is limited in scope.
	Advanced groups with the company develop and follow an internal strategy, but there’s no alignment among groups. Strategies do not align with overall company objectives.
	One shared, unified measurement strategy is used throughout the organisation. Strategy fully aligns with the organization’s overall objectives. All digital marketing activities support one or more objectives.

Resources

People determine the success of a digital marketing analytics programs: the number of employees dedicated to measurement and analysis, the resources at their disposal and their ability to troubleshoot issues and respond to requests throughout the organization.

Select an answer that best suits your organisation:

	No one within the organization knows how to configure or use measurement tools. Outside assistance is required.
	One primary administrator spends 10% to 20% of his or her time supporting measurement tools. This administrator: - Doesn’t know the tools very well and makes frequent mistakes. - Relies heavily on vendor support. - Needs step-by-step instructions for most tasks.
	One or more administrators spend 50% to 75% of their time supporting measurement tools. They: - Know the tools well – infrequently make mistakes. - Use vendor support consistently. - Do not or cannot offer creative workarounds or solutions.
	One or more administrators dedicate more than 75 % of their time supporting measurement tools. They: - Know the tools very well, infrequently makes mistakes. - Offer creative workarounds and solutions.

Domain Expertise

Select an answer that best suits your organisation:

	No one in-house is dedicated to digital marketing analytic. Outside help is required for analysis and interpretation of data.
	One employee spends 50% to 90% of his or her time dedicated to digital marketing analytics, and may also handle technical administration. Resources are stretched very thin, and requests are turned around slowly. Outside help is required for special measurement projects.
	At least one person – not the technical admin – is dedicated to digital marketing analysis. This person has resources to deliver reports and ad hoc requests relatively quickly. Within larger organisations, this person is part of the business intelligence or analytics team.
	A team of employees – separate from analysts – works with digital marketing data. This team: - Works with other types of data. - Provides proactive resources to others throughout the organisation. - Includes an executive-level champion.

Data Integration and Visualisation

Effective measurement of digital marketing frequently requires organisations to integrate multiple sources of data to gain a more complete picture of their customers and business. Data integration – the passing of key values between systems – enables organisations to create a more complete picture of their marketing efforts. 

Data Integration

Select an answer that best suits your organisation:

	No integration of data sources. No in-house technical ability to integrate online data sources. Limited or no understanding of integration opportunities.
	The value of data integration is understood. Limited or no ability to design or configure data integrations. Possibly doing some very limited integration with tools like Excel.
	Understands available sources of data, how they can be integrated and their relationship to other sources. Adept at planning and executing basic integrations using various measurement and data storage/access tools.
	Data integration plan aligns with measurement strategy and business objectives Knowledgeable in-house staff integrate multiple online and offline data sources Data from integrations provide critical views into visitor interaction with the brand.

Data Visualisation

Visualization involves the organisation, presentation and delivery of digital marketing data to meet the needs of different groups throughout an organisation.

Select an answer that best suits your organisation:

	Vendor interfaces and standard reports are the primary delivery methods. No custom dashboards or reports are used, only standard views.
	Minimal consideration is given to visualisation and delivery. Vendor interfaces are the primary delivery method. Limited use of dashboards and reports configured within vendor systems. No (or few) emailed or scheduled reports.
	Reporting requirements are based on KPIs of stakeholder groups. KPI data is manually added into a consistent report format delivered in Word or PowerPoint. Vendor interface supplements other delivery methods. Custom dashboards and reports are used within vendor solutions. Reports are often emailed or scheduled.
	Specific work has been done around visualisation and delivery of data. KPIs and detailed data from multiple sources are automatically integrated in Excel or custom web applications and delivered as an interactive scorecard to key stakeholders. Vendor interface supplements other delivery methods, which are used only by analysts. Custom dashboards and custom reports are used extensively within vendor solutions. Formal processes for emailed and scheduled reports in place. Automated custom reports and dashboards used within measurement tools.

Data Analysis and Insight

Data analysis skills are essential to turn web-based data into the understanding organisations need to optimise their web sites and drive smarter marketing and business decisions. However, different types of data require different types of analysis skills.

Site Performance Analysis

Select an answer that best suits your organisation:

	A single source of data is used, usually metrics such as hits, page views and visits are used to assess site performance. Data has inaccuracies due to tagging or other technical issues.
	Metrics/views such as page performance (Top-10, Entries, Exits, Abandons, Duration), Unique Visitors are used. One or two data sources are used, but not integrated. Data for the most part is accurate, but infrequent data issues take a few days to a week or more to address.
	KPIs align to business objectives, and are relatively standard for your industry. Engagement- and conversion-related metrics (Views/Visit, Visit Duration, conversion rate) are used. Next-page path analysis is performed. More than one data source is used, and the data between systems is sometimes integrated. Data is very accurate, and any issues are resolved within a few days.
	A visitor-centric approach to measurement uncovers the interactions that individuals have across a brand. Metrics from various data sources are combined to create custom KPIs that are directly related to the business (i.e. cost per site visit, support pacing vs. call center, etc.). Multiple data sources are used, and truly integrated. Data is highly accurate. Issues are uncovered automatically and fixed in less than one business day.

Online Marketing Analysis

Select an answer that best suits your organisation:

	Not doing online marketing or not tracking it, except possibly online search.
	Online marketing is assessed separate from web analytics. Some programs are tagged but not consistently. No formal process for creating, using, or managing campaign IDs. No tracking of online search or differentiation between paid and organic search.
	Online marketing is assessed separate from web analytics, but teams readily communicate and share information. Most digital media programs are tagged and basic activity is tracked in the web analytics application. Formal processes are in place for creating, using and managing campaign IDs, but not used consistently. Basic tracking of engines and and keyword/phrases. Differentiate between paid and organic search.
	Skilled analysts integrate multiple data sources and continuously optimise all digital programs. All digital advertising is tagged with campaign IDs. Custom drilldown reports and event tracking by campaign ID are set up. Campaign IDs are managed in a database and are described in multiple fields. Paid and organic search data is used in custom reports. Organic data is used to optimise landing pages.

Social Media and Competitive Analysis

Select an answer that best suits your organisation:

	No understanding of social media, its importance or how it can be used. No benchmarking against industry competitors.
	Limited understanding of social media, limited manual analysis of available data. Limited benchmarking against competition.
	Good understanding of social media and how it can be used to the organisation’s benefit. Manual analysis of social media data and limited participation in community and discussion. Benchmarking against competition is done consistently, using available data.
	Social media plan is followed consistently. Fully participates in community discussion and available via all popular forums. Specific tools are configured to provide alerts and reports on social media activity. Benchmarking against competition across a number of critical areas on a consistent basis.

Adoption and Governance

Digital marketing data has little value unless rules are are in place to ensure its consistency and quality over time – and that it gets to the right people at the right time throughout an organisation. Role-based training is essential to ensure people who need to use data know how to. 

Adoption

Select an answer that best suits your organisation:

	Measurement tools are used only by few people. Data is not shared across the organisation.
	Measurement tools are used by several people, but there are groups who should be using the data who are not.
	Measurement tools are used by everyone in the organisation who has a need for it. A central analytics group (or person) distributes data to most key stakeholders. Digital marketing data is used inconsistently to make business decisions within non-executive levels of the organisation.
	Measurement tools are consistently used both by a central analytics group and individuals within every key stakeholder group. In smaller companies, tools may be used only by a central group or individuals within every stakeholder group. Data is shared across all levels of the organisation. Digital marketing data is used pervasively to make business decisions at the highest levels of the organisation.

Governance

Governance provides defined processes for managing various aspects of digital marketing programs, including change management, security and data consistency.

Select an answer that best suits your organisation:

	No governance or processes are used in the digital marketing measurement program.
	The need for governance is understood, but few if any processes and procedures are implemented or consistently followed.
	Governance guides some basic activities, such as management of campaign activities or requesting logins or changes to measurement tools.
	Governance is used pervasively to guide tag changes, tool configuration management, user levels and data quality audits, etc.

Ongoing Optimisation

Ongoing optimisation ensures the data measurement processes that organisations put in place are consistently applied over time. This includes using digital marketing data to identify optimisation opportunities and test different iterations of site/ad content. Mature optimisation should span all digital marketing channels, from web sites to paid search, email to mobile, and include automated A/B testing of multiple marketing updates prior to implementation.

Select an answer that best suits your organisation:

	Data is used to measure the current status of digital marketing activities, but not to guide optimisation.
	Decisions are based on perceived need. Data is used to validate decisions.
	Data is consistently used to manually address performance issues identified by analytics. Most forms of digital marketing, but not all are regularly optimised. Thresholds have been setup to uncover web site issues, based on important KPIs, along with triage instructions for how to troubleshoot issues. Data is delivered in a timely manner so it can guide ongoing optimisation.
	An automated optimisation engine uses historical and real-time data to dynamically serve site content to individuals. Data is sometimes shared with partners that run other parts of the digital marketing program. All forms of digital marketing are optimised, including digital advertising, paid search, SEO and web site assets. Data is delivered in a timely manner so it can guide ongoing optimisation. A/B/Multivariate testing is regularly performed before data-driven changes are made to marketing.