12 Uncommon Metrics forWeb Hosting Profitability

Introduction

• My Background– 1997 to 2003: ISPcheck co-founder, Web Hosting Magazine

publisher, Web Hosting Expo producer– 2003 to 2006: VP Communications at EV1Servers,

developed/managed “private racks” products– 2006 to present: Marketing consulting + lots of networking

at 10+ web hosting related conferences– Have sold to/written about/worked with 1,000’s of web

hosting companies• What I’ve learned

– Many companies excel at tracking “surface level” metrics (advertising spend per new account, average hold time on support calls, etc)

– Few notice missed opportunities on following pages

1. Search Volume for Favorite SEO/Search Marketing Keyword

Reseller Hosting

Dedicated Servers

Intel Conroe

Virtualization

Are you optimizing your website/ad campaign for out of favor keywords?

2. Search Presence for Company

Ideal combination is having your own voice with support of 3rd party opinions

Own Sites Positive/Objective

Negative Unrelated

1&1 14 4 1 1

GoDaddy 6 8 6 0

Web.com 0 4 0 16

ThePlanet 2 0 0 18

* Calculated based on top 20 Google search results for company name

3. Search Presence for Execs

Don’t forget to do the same lookup for other execs – and all public facing employees

Own Sites 3rd Party Unrelated

Andreas Gauger

13 6 1

Bob Parsons

5 12 3

Jeff Stibel 2 18 0

Doug Erwin

0 6 14

* Calculated based on top 20 Google search results for CEO name

4. Effectiveness as Media Outlet

Blue = TheWHIR.com; Green = 1&1.com; Red = DreamHost.com

TheWHIR monetizes each website visitor multiple times. What are you getting out of website visitors who don’t sign up?

5. Utilization Of On-Site Real Estate

Source: GoDaddy control panel

Customer control panel messages have higher conversion rates than email newsletters and off-site ads – yet so many companies keep pre- and post-login pages totally blank!

6. Share of Operations

• SMBLive: “running a business = maintaining 5 conversations”– Personal productivity– Intra-company collaboration/data sharing– Transaction/inventory management– Contact management– Sales/marketing/networking

• What % of customers’ requirements does your service…– Directly support?– Seamlessly integrate with?

• How to compete (or interoperate?) with… – Google Apps & Office Live?– Standalone SaaS apps with open APIs

Broadest platforms win, while oversold hosting accounts reduce your profitability

7. Add-on Deployment Ratio

“What improves retention? Not newsletters. Not follow up calls. The only thing that works is convincing them to use multiple services.”

- Hostway VP Marketing John Lee

Service usage drives stickiness, even when customers aren’t paying extra for add-ons

8. Time-to-Usefulness

“If I can’t get something up and running between my 5-year-old’s bedtime and midnight, it’s probably a lost cause.”

- Wash DC Small Business Owner

Most customers are more concerned about time than cost; bandwidth/webspace are even less relevant

9. “Lost Cause” Ratio

• What % of customers have…– Never logged into account after sign up– Stopped logging into account after first week/day/month?– Showed no account activity in last 30/60/90 days?– Showed sudden decline in time on system or resource

usage?• Salesforce.com EMEA Co-President says…

– Employees should be compensated based on not just customer acquisition, but ongoing customer activity

– If software becomes shelfware, cancellations likely imminent

10. Value Enablement Index

• How many…– Customer blogs do you subscribe to?– Customer stores have you made purchases from?– Customer apps have you tried out?

• If the number is non-existent or negligible…– Is there something wrong with the tools you provide? Too

hard to use? Not flexible enough?– Think about sites/services that do interest you; where/how

are they hosted?

11. Rate of Information Recycling

• What % of sales inquiry/support ticket responses are being captured for reuse?

• How much has your knowledgebase expanded over the past year, in terms of content and customer readership?– Saves time– Customer self service = immediate satisfaction– Frequently updated and publicly avialable information

archive is great for SEO

12. Clarity of Product Development Crystal Ball?

• Will the new product/feature you’re working on…– Attract new customers?– Generate interest among existing customers?– Have a noticeable impact on volume of sales inquiries?

Support calls? Cancellations?• Adam from ServerBeach has details on how to

estimate/quantify. See slides for session #404.