The Single Biggest Marketing Mistake Online
I have been marketing online since 1990.Long before the Web came about. I havebeen actively marketing on the Internet aswe know it today since 1994.
Yes, I'm an Internet Marketing old geezer.
I have pretty much tried it all and seen itall online when it comes to marketing tactics.
Certainly, there are new strategies and tacticsbeing thought of and tested everyday, and that'swhy I continue to buy new ebooks and teachingproducts from others because ...
...you can neverknow it all -- no matter how successful you are.
But the single biggest mistake I see online, andhave seen for many years, regardless of thestrategy being used, is one simple thing...
POOR TRACKING!
People often ask me...
"John, is there any ONE thing that you canattribute your online success to?"
The answer is simple... TRACKING.
I am a tracking FREAK. I track everything. And I mean EVERYTHING.
As my good friend Jonathan Mizel likes to say...
"As online marketers we are not in the 'marketing'business we are in the MATH BUSINESS."
If you want to know the difference betweensuccess and failure online it comes down toone thing.
If you want to know the difference in making10 dollars online or $10,000, it comes downto one thing.
If you want to know if your hard work is notgoing to waste, its comes down to one thing.
TRACKING.
I like to joke that the secret to beingsuccessful in Internet Marketing is thisreally complex "formula."
Then I go on to explain this exact formula...
When we do things online, such as our marketingtests, site changes, place ads, buy clicks, doa JV, whatever, one of TWO things happenEVERY TIME.
Yes, only one of two things happen.
1. THEY MAKE US MONEY2. THEY LOSE US MONEY
Amazing rocket science isn't it?
The fact of the matter is Internet Marketingis EASY. It's an absolute JOKE to make moneywhen you have the basic fundamentals down, andthat you TRACK your efforts.
The tracking results will tell you whatworks and what doesn't. Then it's EASY...
YOU KEEP DOING WHAT WORKS AND STOP DOINGWHAT DOESN'T!
In order to be extremely successful onlineyou must learn to track everything. Youmust learn the value of tracking and getused to doing it.
You make a change to a headline on yoursite you must track it.
You test a different price you must trackit.
You use a different description on yourWeb Site to get people to opt-in to yourlist you must track it -- not just thepercentage of people that opted in, butalso the QUALITY of the people that optedin. I.e. Are they buying or taking thenecessary ACTION you want for them totake AFTER they have opted in?
The biggest tracking mistake peoplemake is lumping all of their TRAFFICSOURCES together when trying to determinetheir conversion rates.
In other words, when someone is tryingto figure out how many people are buyingor taking a specific action when they visita site, they are taking their totaltraffic numbers and doing the mathbased on the total number of buyers(or whatever the desired action was.)
BZZZZZZ THANKS FOR PLAYING.
Major mistake. Huge. Yet marketers aredoing it everyday. And ironically, it'sbeing done by some people that are makinga lot of money!
I know, because many of these people arefriends of mine and I've given them a hardtime about it. We laugh about it, but theyknow it's true and they are working hardto become better "trackers" as I hopeyou will too.
(Don't worry I'm almost done with this articleand will stop rambling in a moment.)
The problem with not tracking traffic sources(such as individual pay-per-click keywords,link partners, search engine listings, JVlinks, affiliate links, etc.) is this...
YOU CANNOT ACCURATELY DETERMINE WHAT IS*WORKING* WHEN YOU TEST.
For example, if you run PPC campaigns formultiple keywords (and if you track themproperly) you will find that some keywordsgenerate great conversion rates and sales.
Others will create sometimes NOTHING.
In fact, many will be losers. I.e. they don'tturn a profit. Yet many PPC advertiserswill continue to just lump all their PPCtraffic together, and as long as they aremaking more than they are spending theyconsider it a "Victory."
DUMB.
Tracking allows you to MAXIMIZE your efforts.It allows you to SQUEEZE every last pennyof profit our of your marketing.
The other major pitfall with lumping allof your traffic sources together is whenyou go to make changes -- such as testingprices, or different headlines, or newbonus offers, or another guarantee, oranything else.
If your traffic fluctuates on a given dayfrom a given traffic source (which it WILL)your results will always be SKEWED.
Your conversion rates for a specific testmay in fact be HIGHER for that given day.OH JOY!
But, guess what? If the traffic to yoursite happened to fluctuate so more of ithappened to come that day from a sourcethat typically converts higher than therest of your traffic, it's very possiblethat your "test" may have...
DECREASED YOUR CONVERSION.
That's right, DECREASED! But you'd neverknow it because looking at your overalltraffic stats "appears" as if youraverage daily conversion rate increased.
So what do you end up doing? You KEEP thattest because you think it is makingyou more money.
99.999% of online marketers are making thismistake. And people wonder why it canbe difficult to make money online.
Reason #1: Poor Tracking
We'll touch more on this topic in the nearfuture. I strongly believe it's the singlemost importance element of Internet Marketingsuccess.
I know for a fact I would not have made 10%of what I have been blessed to have made frommarketing online if I wasn't a tracking freak.
I am going to teach YOU how to become a trackingfreak for your business. It's the ONLY thingthat matters when marketing online -- becauseit tells us what works and what doesn't. Thereis no guesswork.
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John Reese is an Internet Marketing pioneer that hasbeen actively marketing online since 1990. John hassold millions of dollars worth of products and servicesonline and his network of Web Sites have received over1.4 BILLION Web Site visitors since their inception. Youcan learn more about John, his home study courses,and subscribe to his free ezine by visiting:
http://www.marketingsecrets.com
(c)2003 MarketingSecrets.com. All rights reserved.
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