Why “Value per visit” is the most important SEM metric for ecommerce firms

If there was one key metric that we would recommend every search marketer to adopt, it would be “value per visit”. Value being calculated as (Revenue – Cost), visit being calculated as visits to the website driven by search engines (we have found that clicks and visits often differ, clicks > visits).

Why is Value Per Visit the most important SEM metric?

• The metric focuses on what matters to any business – revenue and profitability – and connects it with visits driven by search marketing.
• It is all about quality of visits and the conversion potential of each visit.
• This metric is valuable for creating “hyper-targeted” SEM campaigns: Example – Value per visit per Geo; Value per visit per promotion run; Value per visit per Day-Part, etc.

Value Per Visit for Geo-Targeted campaigns (an example): Helps you allocate your budget among various states in a prudent manner.