“What do you do when you cannot find a job or have no experience or education? You get into ‘Sales’.” - Brian Tracy.
In 1996, I am introduced to sales and marketing. Surely, the best kind, “Door-to-door Selling”.
I sold advertising space on the back of grocery store receipts, shopping carts…etc, to local businesses in the suburbs of Long Island, New York.
Strip malls, hair salons, mom and pop stores, you name it I walked in ready to go. I worked like a dog, spent most of my earnings on gas and lunches in a week, than I made in a whole month. Always struggling and broke.
I still can not believe how I did it. Worked 9 to 12 hours in the cold winter months, and during sweltering hot summer months, I had to wear a tie and a jacket, walking miles in the streets of NY.
Law Of Averages, Not Law Of Attraction.
My manager at the advertising company insisted on seeing at least 70 business owners a day. That was the ‘magic number’ where the ‘Law of averages’ kicked in. (I wish I knew about the ‘Law Of Attraction’ principles instead of ‘Law Of Averages’ then…
If I pitched 70 business owenrs per day, I should average a minimum of 5 closed sales. If I did not close 5 sales in a day, that means my sales process was flawed in some way.
That seemed to be the ONLY metrics ‘door-to-door’ sales companies cared. They did not care about their people they cared about the metrics.
Anyhow, I did learn ‘selling’ and the importance of ‘metrics’ in sales from my door-to-door days, and I am glad that I did.
If you have been marketing online, you are probably familiar with the advertising metrics and tools of measurements. However, there are many who are new to these jargons.
When we think about ‘advertising metrics’, one person comes to mind, Claude C Hopkins.
To my knowledge, he is the first person to outline an advertising approach based on testing and measuring. In his book published in 1923, “Scientific Advertising“, Hopkins writes, “The time has come when advertising in some hands reached the status of a science.”
We have come a long time since Claude Hopkins, but ‘Scientific Advertising‘ is still a must read for anyone who wish to profit from any business.
Although it is useful to know the history of how these metrics evolved in time and technology, in this article we are just going to discuss the terms that an online marketer needs to know.
Let’s take a look at some of the metrics used in online advertising, that will allow us insight into the ads and messages that we are publishing using the Internet Media.
Impression – A single instance of an online advertisement being displayed on a web browser.
CPM - Cost per thousand impressions.
Click-through (CT) - The process of clicking through an online advertisement to the advertiser’s destination.
Click-through rate (CTR) - The average number of click-throughs per hundred ad impressions, expressed as a percentage.
Cost-per-click (CPC) - Cost or cost-equivalent paid per click- through.
Cost-per-action (CPA) - Online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely on qualifying actions such as sales or registrations.
Conversion rate - The percentage of visitors who take a desired action.
Estimated cost per click (eCPC) - The average cost of one click- through per one hundred.
Customer acquisition cost - the cost associated with acquiring a new customer.
Hybrid model - A combination of two or more online marketing payment models.
Page view - request to load a single HTML page.
pay per click (PPC) – Online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely on qualifying click-throughs.
Pay per lead (PPL) – Online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely based on qualifying leads.
Pay per sale (PPS) – Online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely based on qualifying sales.
Site stickiness – The amount of time spent at a site over a given time period.
Unique visitors – Individuals who have visited a Web site (or network) at least once in a fixed time frame, typically a 30 day period.
Web site traffic – The amount of visitors and visits a Web site receives.
Dwell Rate - According to eMarketer, “dwelling” on an ad is spending time with it, including mouse-overs, user-initiated video duration, user-initiated expansion duration and other user-initiated custom interaction durations.
Use these metrics to determine the effectiveness of your advertisements, the advertising sources, and most importantly to come up with new marketing strategies.
If you are not a fan of metrics, stick with the basics. The basics will give you a snap shot of where you stand and where you want to see your business.
For instance, we can determine where in the sales process your weakness lies. Simple tweaks can dramatically increase the results of your ad campaigns.
Sometimes I think about my door-to-door selling days. I am grateful for those tough times in my life. For if it wasn’t for those desperate days, I would never have looked for an alternative solution on the ‘Internet’.
Peace & Happiness,
Abe Cherian
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I did door to door sales too, I hated it. But, I guess I did learn something from it, I never want to do it again.
It’s not easy on line either, I keep digging away. Eventually, ” I’ll hit gold ”
If you know these terms, IT IS A LOT EASIER ON LINE.
Thanks for the tips.
Hello Abe,
I actually started out with door to door sales as well :-) Thanks for laying out the metrics used in online advertising. Some of them I was not sure what they were until Now.
Look forward to reading the next post.
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