Harmonizing KPIs and Web Analytics

Business KPIs and web analytics are two different things. Your KPIs, or key performance indicators, probably include things like these:

• Revenue per month
• Average billing per visit
• Percentage of clients who return for a second visit
• Number of participants who re-subscribe for monthly classes
• Percentage of patients who make a purchase (of glasses frames, for example, or supplements)
• Percentage of denials of insurance claims
• Number of no-shows
• Number of rooms in use at any given time

This could be a very long list, and it will vary based on your industry, as well as the specifics of your practice or company. But what are your website goals? What metrics do you use to decide whether your website is doing its job?

• Number of Facebook Likes
• Site load time
• Total traffic
• How much you like your bio
• What your friends say about your bio

There’s very little connection between the first list and the second list, but the second list is in fact how a lot of people judge the performance of their websites. 

You can do better. 

Web performance

Your IT department probably thinks of website performance in terms of site speed, load time, and the likelihood of seeing an error message. These are important metrics which affect overall user experience. However, they don’t really connect with your business KPIs. 

Web performance, from the standpoint of healthcare marketers, needs to focus on user actions — what people do at your website. At a recent Meetup, we heard from a website owner who wanted to increase his thought leadership in order to increase the number of organizations hiring him as a consultant.

Good business goal. But how can he connect that with his website’s goals? He had some anecdotes that showed his visibility within his field is increasing, but no metrics that help him measure that visibility. Here are some measurable KPIs that can show an increase in his level of thought leadership:

• Publications in his field sending his website traffic through editorial links
• Visits from .edu or .gov networks
• Number of visitors filling out a form to get more information about his consulting services

He can track that referral traffic through Google Analytics Acquisition reports. He can track the high-value networks visiting him through the Audience> Technology> Network report. Tracking his leads can take place through the Google Analytics Conversion report. All these things can be measured confidently, and all of them provide evidence that his influence is increasing. 

Connecting the web and IRL actions

Some business KPIs are not connected with your website. The denial rate of insurance claims for your practice probably has nothing to do with your practice website. However, there may be ways to connect clients’ actions in the physical world with their actions at your website. 

For example, let’s imagine a physical therapist who sells exercise balls and rollers. Add these products to your website in an e-commerce section. Include a link to the product page in the communications you email to your patients. See whether there are more sales of those items.

Do you text appointment reminders? Add a link to a blog post about what the appointment will entail or other useful information and see whether visits to those pages increase and no-shows decrease. 

Sometimes it takes a little creativity — or a lot of knowledge about web analytics — to identify SMART website goals that support your business KPIs. We’re happy to help. Contact us to begin the conversation.