Data and Measurement Considerations for Product Marketing

Creating great supporting documentation requires many decisions, like pdf or html, public or gated, and internal or external.  These decisions affect what is measured and how.  Some require preplanning and some are simply built in.

PDF v HTML

You are tasked with creating online tutorials.  Do you want users to view the tutorial on the website in HTML or do you want them to download the tutorials as a PDF?  Often site structure, templates, engineering or development resources and time constraints will impact and decide for you which option you choose.  The choice made will impact how you measure the success of the content.

For HTML web page tutorials measurement is the same as it would be for any web page.  You can gather metrics on Unique Visitors, Visits or Sessions, Page Views, Repeat Visitors, time on page, shares, etc.  HTML tutorials are often bookmarked, bringing visitors pack to the site repeatedly and creating opportunities for onsite advertising later.

The PDF format limits available KPIs.  You will have the standard HTML metrics, listed above, for the page that the PDF is linked from and the number of times the PDF was downloaded.  PDFs are great for when you want to give the visitor something they can hold on to, save locally or print in a nice branded format.  

Public v Gated

You are tasked with creating a technical asset.  Do you make it Public and generally available on the website with other web content or will it be Gated and available only after the visitor fills out a lead capture form?  The general rule of thumb is that highly rare, sensitive or valuable content (analyst papers, comprehensive research, etc) should be gated so that the visitor is providing the company with value in exchange for the value they are receiving.  Gating or not gating content will impact options for measuring success.

Public html or PDF content is available just like any other page on the website and is measured with standard metrics, like Unique Visitors, Visits or Sessions, Page Views, Repeat Visitors, time on page, shares, PDF downloads, etc.  

Gated content is provided only after a form-fill is completed.  Measurement acts more like a funnel.  In order to measure this properly, you will need to understand the full process, so ask these questions:

•    Are there any online campaigns for this?
•    What is the URL of the form page?
•    Where is the URL of the file?
•    What happens when the user submits the form?  

o    Is the file opened in the browser immediately?

o    Is the user emailed a link directly to the file?

o    Is the user emailed a link to a web page to download the file?

For gated content, you want to collect leads and promote it with online campaigns. In order to measure what is working best, you will need to add a campaign parameter to the link. The parameter content you will need for your links depends on what analytics software you have installed on the site. 

You can track the page metrics for the form page without any additional tracking, but tracking completions will require either a confirmation page or a snippet of code on the submit button.  

Whenever possible, I request that an HTML confirmation page be created.  Since this page is only displayed when a form is submitted, it is usually a fairly accurate measure of form completions.  

When a popup is displayed instead of a page, then you will need to place a snippet of code on the form submit button in order to know how many forms were submitted.  The type of button code you will need will depend on what analytics software is installed on the website.  You can ask your web analytics team and your IT developers or engineers for assistance.

As a best practice, I request both a confirmation page and code on the button.  

If you know the URL of the file, you can track the downloads of the file in the web analytics software.  With this plus implementing the paragraphs above, you will know referring campaign, form arrivals, form completions and file downloads.  This is a solid basic funnel.

What happens when the user submits the form will determine how detailed your measurements can be.  
•    If the file is opened immediately and you have completed work in the paragraphs above, you have done all that you can do and you will have the solid basic funnel described above.  
•    If the user is emailed a link directly to the file and you have completed the work in the paragraphs above, you have done all that you can do and you will have the solid basic funnel described above.  
•    If the user is emailed a link to a page to download the file, you have a few more options.  You will be able to track views of this intermediary page and downloads of the file.  If you have control over the link in the email, you can tag that link with a URL parameter that lets you see how many clickthroughs came from that email.  This option adds a bit more detail to the basic funnel and helps you understand where the process may break down.

Gating or not gating drastically changes what is measured and the amount of effort put in to measurement.  When deciding to gate, please allow yourself a little time to work out the details of the tracking codes you will need.  A world of helpful information will be missing if you don’t.

Internal v External

Some content is made for telling the world about your product and some is messaging only for internal sales and marketing staff.  External content is easy enough to track by using standard metrics discussed above.  Internal content can also be tracked, but it may take a little more work and will depend on what tracking mechanisms are available where the internal content is stored.  If it’s linked from HTML on an Internet website or wiki, it’s possible to have web analytics installed there to provide familiar metrics.  Also, if a content management tool is used, useful stats may be available there as well.

Summary

Product marketing managers have many decisions to make when delivering content, and the types of performance metrics needed can help guide those decisions.  Having a good relationship with web analytics professionals in your company can help ensure that you will know how your assets are performing in any circumstance.