One of the wonderful (and slightly scary) things about doing stuff on the web is that almost everything is measurable. Every single click, every engagement, every movement on your website and social accounts, and every electronic newsletter click-through rate can be quantified, compared and analysed.
Google Analytics, now widely recognised as the de facto (and free!) standard for measuring digital activity in the wider online world has also become the standard in our sector.
The problem we face when it comes to measuring success isn’t therefore about technology solution or capability, but about something a lot trickier: determining what “success” is.
For e-commerce sites, metrics are easy: we sold more stuff (success) or we didn’t (failure). In the online museum world, things aren’t this cut and dried. The notion of “success” depends on what we want people to do in a particular circumstance. Do we want them to spend longer on a particular page on our website or do we want more sign-ups to our newsletter?
Numbers aren’t everything, either. Ask yourself which is better: 2,000 followers on Some Social Network who don’t care much about you, or 20 who are passionately engaged with what your museum is doing?
Although funders and museum directors typically want to know the “top-level stats” (“are visits up or down this month?”), this data needs context. Until we hold these figures up next to our online strategy and ask what success is in our particular environment, they remain almost useless.
Mike Ellis is a director of digital agency Thirty8 Digital
Google Analytics, now widely recognised as the de facto (and free!) standard for measuring digital activity in the wider online world has also become the standard in our sector.
The problem we face when it comes to measuring success isn’t therefore about technology solution or capability, but about something a lot trickier: determining what “success” is.
For e-commerce sites, metrics are easy: we sold more stuff (success) or we didn’t (failure). In the online museum world, things aren’t this cut and dried. The notion of “success” depends on what we want people to do in a particular circumstance. Do we want them to spend longer on a particular page on our website or do we want more sign-ups to our newsletter?
Numbers aren’t everything, either. Ask yourself which is better: 2,000 followers on Some Social Network who don’t care much about you, or 20 who are passionately engaged with what your museum is doing?
Although funders and museum directors typically want to know the “top-level stats” (“are visits up or down this month?”), this data needs context. Until we hold these figures up next to our online strategy and ask what success is in our particular environment, they remain almost useless.
Mike Ellis is a director of digital agency Thirty8 Digital
