Holistic Marketing Impact Analysis

Holistic Marketing Impact Analysis (HMIA), aka Web Analytics 2.0, designed by Avinash Kaushik, author of Web Analytics 2.0, is the path to advanced data analysis that moves beyond simple clickstream analytics.

In addition to clickstream analysis, HMIA includes multiple outcome analysis, experimentation, testing, voice-of-customer surveys, and competitive intelligence. When the data is combined, it creates a more complete and measurable picture of your marketing efforts, which in return provides more precise answers to those problematic business questions.

The Four Questions of Holistic Marketing Impact Analysis

Four questions need to be considered when performing an HMI Analysis. Each question focuses on a different aspect of Online Performance and User experience. These questions are;

1. 1. What is being clicked on? Clickstream analysis.
   2. How much engagement on each click point? Multiple outcome analysis.
   3. Why are people doing what they are doing? Understanding behavior.
   4. What else can be done? Expansion and optimization.

Let’s take a closer look at each one of these questions.

• What on the website is being clicked on
• What within referral channels is being clicked on
• What within campaigns is being clicked on
• What offers are being clicked on
• What keywords are driving clicks
• What content is getting clicks
• Which videos are people clicking on
• What else is getting clicks

The goal is to understand what people are engaging with, and where the engagement is happening. 

• What’s the Users perspective
• What’s the Company’s perspective is it aligned
• What click points are strong
• What click points are weak
• What should we do more of
• What should we do less of
• Are clicks falling as planned within the funnel
• What else can we quantify

The goal is to understand what your Macro and Micro desired outcomes are producing.

• Experimentation and Testing
• Usability Studies
• Heuristic Analysis
• Voice of Customer Surveys
• Buyers Persona Profile Development

The goal here is to understand why people do what they do? What do they like, what do they struggle with, and how can we improve their experience?

The goal here is to align with the audience in every way possible. The more we can align with the audience and build rapport, the better our marketing results will be. The bottom line here, which Amazon has proven – the best user experiences win!

• What are competitors doing with their marketing
• What sites are driving traffic to sites in the market
• What keywords are the most important
• How do we stack up to the rest of the market
• Are our optimization programs better than competitors
• What else could we do

This is the “what else” question. What else could we be doing? What else should we be doing? A Share of Voice analysis is a great tool for helping answer these questions.

HMI Analysis Insights

A great analyst once said, if you can’t measure it, you can’t optimize it – Avinash Kaushik.

That said, the better you understand your audience, the better you can optimize the experience,  the better the results you’ll receive; and this is the goal of a holistic marketing impact analysis. Through this type of in-depth study, marketing success and how to spend your marketing budget become clearer and more controllable.

When a company truly understands its digital presence in-depth, they understand what it must do to create more success, which is the kind of stuff business leaders crave! Unfortunately, clickstream data alone cannot provide this clarity, and why Web Analytics 2.0 is needed.