The Joy of Incremental Gains

Inbound marketing is about driving results, which means you should be deeply invested in monitoring meaningful analytics and the business impact of your inbound marketing programs. The great thing about online marketing is that existing measurement and ad serving programs provide a near-instant view of how your efforts are impacting business results (heck, even Google Analytics data is now available in "real-time").

The problem with this ability to see immediate results is that we also often look for huge returns, immediately. Many think that just turning on a paid search campaign will boosts sales by 200% over night, or creating a Facebook page will result in 6,000 "likes" in a day, or writing a single blog post will dramatically increase traffic as soon as it's published.

I'm not saying these things aren't possible and don't or can't happen. They do, and they can; all I'm saying is, don't count on it, be patient, and strive for incremental gains.

Small improvements lead to big results over time.

The beauty of a good inbound marketing campaign is not just in the immediate returns, but in how your campaign improves over time, and how those returns accumulate to eventually represent a significant amount.


A good inbound marketing campaign builds upon its successes and improves over time. It learns and optimizes and is always moving forward.

How to strive for incremental gains:

1. Identify small, "under-the-radar" opportunities. Once you've made the big-ticket optimizations to your website or marketing program, the biggest chance to succeed is to find the minor areas that need tweaking. By identifying and optimizing many of these opportunities, you'll find a cumulative positive effect on your results.

2. Be patient. Don't get stressed if your campaign doesn't see significant gains over night, and don't make rash judgments without a decent sample size. Obviously, you should see some early signs of positive growth, but be realistic and continue to make smart improvements that will result in long term success.

3. Look at long term trends. When measuring results, don't confine your view to just the past week. Look at the last 2 or 3 years and measure the macro-trends. If your campaign has been running for a while, it's a beautiful thing to look at a slow but consistent upward trend. Instead of comparing this month to last month (only a .5% growth in business?) look at this month vs. the same month last year (30% growth!) or even before then.

4. Aim for consistency. Your goal should be to constantly improve results, not just provide a big jump which plateaus or drops off. Think about how you can drive sustained website visits, return visitation, or consistent content sharing. Remember: a one-day spike is great...for one day. Sustained growth is more meaningful and valuable in the long run.

5. Run small tests. Experiment with minor creative changes for CTR improvements, make small changes to your website and look for a lift, or try to improve quality scores for individual keywords (again, cumulative results are key!).

6. Set benchmarks and goals. Having something to aim for and compare against is a great way to stay on track and maintain an upward swing. It is unbelievably motivating when you realize you're falling under goal, and it provides a quantifiable way to prove sustained success.

As the idiom goes, "Rome wasn't built in a day", and neither are your inbound marketing results. Strive for incremental gains and watch your results grow (slowly, but surely).

Video of the day! John Mayer covering Gun's and Roses' "Patience". Enjoy!

Why User Path Analysis is Important: Google Analytics' New Flow Visualization

Google Analytics Flow Visualiztion: The Next Frontier in free web analytics

Well, this is a pleasant web analytics development.


Google Analytics recently introduced new features allowing users to view a more complete picture when it comes to website user experience.


Why is user path analysis important? 

Google is coloring in the picture of user experience

For one thing, it makes my job more interesting and less tedious, which is always fun. 


On a grander scale, Google is conceding that it is becoming more and more important to understand the entire user experience. As web analytics mature, so do its analysts. We are starting to dig deeper into each user's path once they reach the site. 


It is, put simply, no longer good enough to see what the best converting traffic source is, or which individual page leads to the most sales. We know there were other sources which led them to convert, or other pages that encouraged that next step forward. It is now about understanding all of the predominant paths that users follow when completing certain actions. Understanding these paths helps to color in the picture of each visiting segment, making it easier to bucket, target and optimize towards specific audience segments on the website.

We all win in the race to achieve full user experience modeling

So, first there was the announcement of the Google Multi-Channel Funnel, which aims to measure visitor sources beyond just the last-click, down to the original interaction that drove to that click and conversion.


(Side note: Multi-channel attribution modeling has been a hot-topic in analytics and online marketing for quite a while, and there are some solutions out there right now, but they are often expensive and require serious tagging mechanisms to work. Obviously, this does not lend itself to small and midsize businesses, who may not have the resources or buy-in to make such a drastic decision.)


Now comes user path flow visualization with Visitor Flow, which, "...provides a graphical representation of visitors’ flow through the site by traffic source (or any other dimensions) so you can see their journey, as well as where they dropped off" and Goal Flow which, "...provides a graphical representation for how visitors flow through your goal steps and where they dropped off."


Google Analytics, as it has always done, brings the new technology to the masses at minimal price of entry. 


This is important, because it opens new doors to analysis. It is important because it paints a clearer picture of your audience. It is important because it is a step forward in seeing the whole experience of each user.


By accomplishing all of these things, Google Analytics Flow Visualization will help your bottom line.


(...as long as you use it the right way. More on that later.)



Phil Decoteau is the Founder and President of Deco Dig, an Inbound Marketing Services Company based in Connecticut. Learn more at www.deco-dig.com.