Track it. Track it. Track it.

I know there has been a lot of talk about Google Analytics and how great of a tool it is. Personally, I love Google Analytics, I have used several other web analytics programs and none of them compare. No this isn’t a Google advertisement, but it is an article on the benefits of using web analytics software.

Analytics gives you the ability to track where a user comes from, what they look at on your site and inevitability whether or not they choose to convert into a sale or a lead. You can track users from referring websites, search engines, online campaigns and paid search results. But the real beauty is being able to track more than just your online efforts.

Imagine tracking your print ads, radio ads, commercials, yellow book ads, billboards and any other form of advertising. Using unique domain names for each type of advertisement, and specifying the campaign in your analytics program, you will setup a page at each domain that attaches a tracking code to the users browser and passes them to your website.

Now that you have that all setup you will be able to compare how well your different advertising efforts compare to each other. The key is giving you the data to be able to make effective marketing decisions.