The key emphasis of this book is to measure effectively the success of a Web site in relation to successful customer interactions. It identifies what you can use to measure Web site success and how. These performance measures are Web metrics.
The range of Web metrics that can be applied varies according to each company’s individual technical, economic and political restraints. Clearly the reason for setting up a Web page needs to be more substantial than achieving a Web presence, and assessing its success in business terms must be based on more than “gut feel”. It is also about achieving a balance and synergy between business objectives, customers’ objectives and company resource limitations.
The variables to measure are necessarily linked to key business drivers such as achieving sales and customer acquisition. The metrics used need to target specific questions, e.g. whether new people are visiting the Web site, the conversion of browsing customers to ones that buy, customer attributes, churn rates and loyalty measures. It is a process that requires reflection of a company or organisations past present and future goals. As Sterne identifies, this needs to be a top down process and requires the support of upper management in appreciating the value of Web metrics because without this support the appropriate funding will not be approved.
Topics covered in this book include determining the stickiness of a Web site based on a formula of frequency duration and reach, the freshness factor of Web sites, optimal Web site size and advice such as the simple but clever technique of taking Web site search terms used by customers and including those terms in ad campaigns.
The book has a clear format and the intention is not that you have to read the book from cover to cover, hence the contents pages make it easy to navigate to a section that interests or is relevant to you for example “Measuring Web site performance: the need for speed” Ch. 8, “Measuring the value of online customer service” and “Maximising customer information the personalization continuum” Ch. 12. There is no list of references. These are interspersed throughout the book. Screen dumps and diagrams compliment the text and bolded headings make it easy to find sections to dip into.
The stated target audience ranges from executives, managers, to board members. It is also useful for students and academics despite its non‐academic style.
It is written in a conversational way interspersed with personal anecdotes which are not always appealing but do not detract from the information and insights that are available. The content is solid and valuable.
Jim Sterne has 20 years sales and marketing experience on which to draw on and has written several books on Internet marketing. This is a book worth buying.
