Comments on: It’s About Traffic! (Isn’t It?) http://bobpage.net/2005/10/06/its-about-traffic-isnt-it/ Sun, 04 Dec 2011 16:01:31 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Jonathan http://bobpage.net/2005/10/06/its-about-traffic-isnt-it/comment-page-1/#comment-62 Jonathan Mon, 10 Oct 2005 00:29:15 +0000 http://bobpage.net/?p=129#comment-62 Well, traffic could certainly be an interesting metric without being a key performance indicator. What's the difference, you might ask? More than semantics, in my opinion. In fact, I'd say KPIs differ from metrics in at least 3 ways: 1. KPIs are explicitly tied to at least one specific goal. Is it a goal to drive more traffic your Web site or is the objective really to have more employers hook up with more potential employees. In the latter case, traffic is less interesting than some kind of conversion measure. 2. What's the specific target for the KPI? Perhaps a 10% increase over the previous month? Without targets, there is no context for the numbers so they become difficult to interpret without an expert. 3. How close do we have to get to the target before we start to become happy? If the goal for conversion rate is 50% and we're at 43%, is this poor performance or excellence performance? Well, traffic could certainly be an interesting metric without being a key performance indicator. What’s the difference, you might ask? More than semantics, in my opinion. In fact, I’d say KPIs differ from metrics in at least 3 ways:

1. KPIs are explicitly tied to at least one specific goal. Is it a goal to drive more traffic your Web site or is the objective really to have more employers hook up with more potential employees. In the latter case, traffic is less interesting than some kind of conversion measure.

2. What’s the specific target for the KPI? Perhaps a 10% increase over the previous month? Without targets, there is no context for the numbers so they become difficult to interpret without an expert.

3. How close do we have to get to the target before we start to become happy? If the goal for conversion rate is 50% and we’re at 43%, is this poor performance or excellence performance?

]]>