Reason #5762 - Why the Internet is Better for Marketing than all other Media:

STATISTICS. HARD STATISTICS.

Television networks have to guess at the number of viewers based on sample surveys and a few Nielson boxes, scattered across the nation. Magazines and newspapers provide reader totals, supported by subscription fees and retail sales. Once again, radio broadcasters have to depend on survey-oriented market research to get an idea of their listener numbers. Cable and Satellite providers know how many set-top boxes are working but they cannot prove a direct link between a commercial aired and a product purchased.

The Internet can.

"Analyze your deeper traffic. Don't just stop after you check out your overall hits and your signups. Poke around. Dig further and connect the dots. "

If you know little about website statistics then it's time for school. Raw hits. Unique hits. Click-thrus. Signups. These are just the tip of the iceberg. Analyzing your stats involves so much more than tracking how busy your site is on a given day. Web stats, affiliate stats and even free site counters will tell you more hard facts about your audience than any marketing firm on Madison Avenue. This wonderful medium gives you access to solid user data that television networks and magazines would die for.

Where do you find these fabulous statistics? Just about anywhere.

If you are an affiliate webmaster, your sponsor will provide you with a special webpage for viewing your program statistics. Remember how your sponsor gave you that affiliate ID and your own, personal referrer code? Well, your sponsor tracks the activity on your website through that referrer code. That data can cover everything from if a surfer clicked a particular ad banner, all the way to paying for a signup. You log into your affiliate account and can see which text links or gallery pages are getting the most play. Usually, you don't even have to calculate your signup ratios because your sponsor does it for you.

There are bunches of site counter providers out there and the adult Internet offers a fair share. Once again, the counter program will assign you with a unique ID, embedded in a code. You post that code on your website and the counter tracks your traffic. Quite often this type of code downloads a cookie to the surfer's browser. A cookie is a small text file that gathers innocuous information about an individual computer. Innocuous to the surfer but as valuable as gold to you. Learn how many surfers are viewing your site through Firefox. See if you have a lot of traffic from a foreign country. Pin down your busiest time of day.

Some site counters will let you embed their code across your network, therefore giving you one-step access to all your site statistics. The more features that a counter service provides, the more likely you'll either have to pay with money or with traffic leaks via offsite ads, embedded in your referrer code.

Web hosting logs are the optimal statistics source. Any self-respecting adult host throws in server stats as part of the paid package.

You see, a webhost is able to provide site data directly from their server logs. You can see statistics on every surfer and track every move they make. You can determine everything from IP addresses to the sites where your visitors go when they exit yours. All accurate and all vastly informative.

For instance, exit stats will tell you if you're losing potential customers to outside links. You can know exactly how long each surfer spent looking at your page. You will find out if another site is hotlinking one of your images. You'll ascertain if you're receiving Google traffic and be able to see which keywords were used to find you.

Best of all, your site statistics will track the path of:

That Search Engine > Your Site > That Gallery > That Layout/Content > That Sponsor Banner > That Sale.

With web stats, you know positively what works and what doesn't work. No waiting for surveys. No guessing with fuzzy math. On the Internet you have access to more customer information than any other single medium. Use it.

Analyze your deeper traffic. Don't just stop after you check out your overall hits and your signups. Poke around. Dig further and connect the dots. If you find that 10% of your surfers are coming from Norway then maybe it's time to read a book on Norwegians. Dig down more and you might find some Norwegian bastard is hotlinking your images. Offer a sponsor that processes online payment via SMS billing and you might gain some customers. Every step your surfer takes is a clue and only the Internet can give you the power to follow the trail.

Use your sponsor stats. Use a counter service. Use the hell out of the server stats, provided by your web host. Use all three. Keep track of your overall hits and sales but stay a little longer to take full advantage of the finer data. Analyze Your Deeper Traffic!