I mentioned this to a couple of entrepreneurs at the Unconference and was surprised they didn't use it..
I'm customer development metrics nut so I like to track how people get to my site, or how interested they are once they've met me. If you just put your website/blog link on your business card you'll get a bunch of "empty" direct hits on your home page.
Where did they really come from?
I have a pretty basic card that sums me.. "A Passionate Geek". It has my basics but a blank back which I personalize based on the focus of the event I'm attending and the people I want to engage.
bit.ly is a great shortener but they also have a customize link so you can make easy to type short links. On the back I type something unique that would normally be long or difficult to handtype.
I can embed the full tracking codes used by Google's Analytics utm_source=masstlc&utm_medium=direct&utm_campaign=masstlc%20unconference into the bit.ly link to track/judge the "effectiveness" of my campaign. They are usually really interested to remember the bit.ly link and type it in. I think it gives me a much better chance of continuing the real-world connection/engagement than just dropping them on my blogs home page (and what ever happens to be there).
What about sites you don't control analytics on?
The same thing can be used to track click-throughs to google docs, plancast, tungle.me and any other site you want to monitor interest level in. I have a simple one to track reader's interest in my schedule based on click-throughs to tungle.me but I could also use tracking parameters above for "campaigns" (I'm not that important).
I just tried using a bit.ly link to track interested generated based on my Simple Advice for Entrepreneurs. You can do the same thing for different tweets messaging styles etc.
Cautions
Once you set a bit.ly link you can't change it.. so chose wisely. Each unique url is matched to a single bit.ly link, but you can always adjust the parameter values to generate a unique trackable URL.
Real world to Web and link tracking for pages you don't control.. now that's pretty powerful stuff.
Oh yeah, don't forget to add page breaks to force people from your blogs home page to the actual post so you can track those metrics that too.
What do you think? Geeky or Valuable? What tricks do you have up your sleeve?
I'm customer development metrics nut so I like to track how people get to my site, or how interested they are once they've met me. If you just put your website/blog link on your business card you'll get a bunch of "empty" direct hits on your home page.
Where did they really come from?
I have a pretty basic card that sums me.. "A Passionate Geek". It has my basics but a blank back which I personalize based on the focus of the event I'm attending and the people I want to engage.
bit.ly is a great shortener but they also have a customize link so you can make easy to type short links. On the back I type something unique that would normally be long or difficult to handtype.
I can embed the full tracking codes used by Google's Analytics utm_source=masstlc&utm_medium=direct&utm_campaign=masstlc%20unconference into the bit.ly link to track/judge the "effectiveness" of my campaign. They are usually really interested to remember the bit.ly link and type it in. I think it gives me a much better chance of continuing the real-world connection/engagement than just dropping them on my blogs home page (and what ever happens to be there).
What about sites you don't control analytics on?
The same thing can be used to track click-throughs to google docs, plancast, tungle.me and any other site you want to monitor interest level in. I have a simple one to track reader's interest in my schedule based on click-throughs to tungle.me but I could also use tracking parameters above for "campaigns" (I'm not that important).
I just tried using a bit.ly link to track interested generated based on my Simple Advice for Entrepreneurs. You can do the same thing for different tweets messaging styles etc.
Cautions
Once you set a bit.ly link you can't change it.. so chose wisely. Each unique url is matched to a single bit.ly link, but you can always adjust the parameter values to generate a unique trackable URL.
Real world to Web and link tracking for pages you don't control.. now that's pretty powerful stuff.
Oh yeah, don't forget to add page breaks to force people from your blogs home page to the actual post so you can track those metrics that too.
What do you think? Geeky or Valuable? What tricks do you have up your sleeve?
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