Costa's Customs: Using Web Analytics to Enhance Online Marketing

This case study examines how Costa's Customs, a retail clothing and tailoring shop, can leverage web analytics to improve its online marketing efforts. The analysis focuses on data from Google Adwords and Bing Ads, highlighting the costs and effectiveness of each platform. The study recommends a strategy centered on Google Adwords during the first two weeks of each month, with an average budget of $4500, to maximize reach and engagement with a younger demographic. The goal is to align online marketing objectives with business goals, particularly the establishment of an online store to serve customers outside Chicago. Key metrics such as acquisition overview, bounce rate, traffic source, and conversion rate are identified as crucial for tracking and optimizing website performance and marketing campaigns. The case study emphasizes the importance of turning data analysis into actionable decisions through segmentation, tailoring website content and design to meet user needs and drive purchases. Desklib offers a range of resources, including past papers and solved assignments, to support students in their academic endeavors.

Running Head: WEB ANALYTICS 1
Web Analytics
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Web Analytics
Website analytics refers to the activities carried in the collections, measurement, and
analysis as well as reporting of data from the web with the aim of optimizing and understanding
the usage of the wide world web (Kaushik, 2007). It is vital to know that web analytics do not
just provide data related to the web traffic but is also used as a tool by organizations for the
purposes of market research as well as aid in the assessment of the website so as to improve its
efficiency and effectiveness. The web analytics may sound like a small area of any
organizational digital presence; however the impact of the data plays a vital role in the business.
This is due to the fact that, the website and other online presence act as the hub for all the web
traffic. If a company runs any digital marketing activities, such as Google ads, as well as social
media ads, there is a higher likelihood of users visiting the website somewhere within their
online activities. Since the best serves as the central hub for a digital business presence, therefore
the websites should provide a holistic view of the marketing campaigns when running a
promotion for product or services online(Kaushik, 2009).. The objective of this paper is to
provide a discussion on the importance of web analytics in relation to the case study provided,
additionally, the paper will also analyze the data provider for the purpose of optimizing traffic to
costa’s website.
There are several ways that an organization to use web analytics to reap maximum
benefits from the marketing campaigns. However, based on Costa’s case study the data collected
can be utilized to align the online marketing objectives with the business goals. While it is
evident that Costa’s have focused on traditional marketing strategies such as word of mouth as
well as a spot on the local media, indicates that the company is not using the web analytics to
their benefit. Additionally, the sales for the company is declining since the target clients for the

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business are growing older, and there is a need to target younger demographics. With the help of
the web analytics tools, the company can be able to target the younger population within around
the globe. Moreover, through ads and referral links the company can spread its presence faster
compared to using the traditional marketing tools. Costa business objective is to take the
opportunity and establish an online store, where it can be to provide its services and products to
their customers living outside Chicago. The use of the Google analytics can help in aligning this
company’s objective to meet the demand of its customers, and this is by providing data in
relation to items clicked on the online store and the traffic on each day. The data can be used to
optimize the loading time as well as the optimization of the content and the design to make it
user oriented (Kaushik, 2007).
The critical goal of web analytics is to collect as well as analyze data that is linked to the
web traffics and the usage pattern. The primary source of this data includes; HTTP requests,
application level requests, external data as well as the network and server data linked to the
HTTP requests (Kaushik, 2009). The four essential stages of processing Google analytics so that
it can align by the objective of the business are; collection of the web activities data, processing
of the data collected into useful information, development of key performance indicators (KPI),
formulating an online strategy and finally conducting experiment and tests to identify the
suitable strategy that can maximize the benefits to the organization (Kaushik, 2007).
Some of the critical metrics that Costa’s Customs should keep track of include; the
acquisition overview, the social overview, the bounce rate, the source of the traffic, the
interactions per click, the conversion rate, the exit pages as well as the objectives of the clicks.
The acquisition overview contains the number of new sessions, the average duration in each
session and how the user engaged with the website. The social overview includes the data that

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originate from the social media platforms to the website. The bounce rate metric represents the
number of users that visit the website and leave after viewing a single page of the site, and this
metric is important since it shows the commonly visited page and what changes might be
implemented to allow the users visit the other pages. The traffic source metric provides a source
of information. The behavior flow shows indicate the journey taken by the visitor to go through
the site, the information form this metric can be used to predict the behaviors of the user at each
step of their journey in the website. The exit page metric shows the page that site loses visitors,
thus indicating pages that need changes with the aim of keeping the visitors longer. The goal
metric in Google analytics is used to examine if the objective of the site is met. Google analytics
offers more than 3,000 goals that a website owner to make use of when setting up a marketing
campaign on the web (Kaushik, 2007).
The ability to collect data and provide analysis is one thing; however, turning the results
of the analysis into the actionable decision is another thing which requires the online marketer to
have different mindset and skills. One of the critical strategy the can be used to turn the metric
into actionable decision entails the use of segmentation with the aim of driving action (Kaushik,
2009). This involves grouping the visitors based on common attributes such as their exit page,
duration of the session as well as their behavior on the website. This aids in optimizing the site
based on their needs, thus driving them to make take the action of purchasing products.
Analysis of the Web analytics collected for Costa’s Customs.
Costa’s Customs experimented with two analytic platforms; that is Bing Ads and Google
Adwords. The result of the campaigns on the platform was provided on a spreadsheet, and after
careful examination, it was evident that the effort did not meet the objective as it was not
consistent. The company expenditure on Google Adwords is between $2,878.62 and $5,580.71.

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While the Bing Ads campaign expenditure was within the range of $428.87 and $2,051.87. From
the data from both spreadsheets, the number of clicks to the website increased with an increase in
the amount of paid for the campaign. A side by side comparison of the two platform it is evident
that Google Adwords is expensive than Bing Ads. On 10/22/2017 the price for Bing Ads was at
$2,051.87 which is the highest amount paid from the spreadsheet, this generated 97 clicks to the
site which is an average of $11.32 per click. At this price, the forms submitted were 12 with a
conversion of 17 sessions to the website. Comparison to the Google Adwords at a price of
$2878.62, which is the lowest amount paid, made on 3/5/2017 generated 166 clicks to the
website at an average of $9.13 per click. At that prices, the number of submitted forms to the
website was 9. This shows that at Google Adword is expensive compared to Bing Ads. However,
it generates more clicks at almost the same price. The data from the spreadsheet indicate that
campaign ads created on the first two weeks of the month generated more clicks and submissions
in comparison to the ads created in the last two weeks of the month.
In order to optimize the Costa’s Customs online presence, there is a need to develop a
strategy that is focused on taking the opportunity presented by Google Adwords. Google is the
most used web search engine across the globe thus providing more audience to the business,
enabling it to reach out to the target population. The approach to the campaign should be created
within the first two weeks of every month, and the cost should be at an average of $4500.

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Reference
Kaushik, A. (2007). Web analytics: an hour a day. John Wiley & Sons.
Kaushik, A. (2009). Web analytics 2.0: The art of online accountability and science of customer
centricity. John Wiley & Sons.