Monday, September 12, 2011

Accuracy in ROI

Last week on the Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo, I shared the story of using technology to modernize a retail operation.

I admit, when I moved from the radio business to the web world this year, one of the reasons was the ability to measure with accuracy the Return On Investment of the actions we do online.

But you have to connect all the dots.....

The Truth?


Recently I was doing some exploratory work at a car dealership and was amazed at how they manage inventory, and their internet presence.

They can tell how many people have visited their website, which vehicles they looked at, what links they clicked on, etc.

I mean, this is one slick technology rich business.

But there was one part that stuck out as a fatal flaw.

The final tracking device.

They hand the customer a piece of paper with several options of how they heard about the dealership and ask them to circle one.

At first I thought using pictures and drawing a circle was clever. It is.

But.

It's not accurate.

It relies on a customer to recall something that they really don't care about.

And this type of tracking is highly unreliable.

If you have the technology to track but then end up with a flawed link, then you better find a better way, or at least realize that you're dealing with bad data.

The words of Scott Howard aka ScLoHo

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