Mike and Kim have decided to join the "gig" economy. Both he and Kim are fascinated by toys, especially Christmas toys. The two met at a flea market about ten years ago and found themselves vying for the same antique dancing snowman. After Kim managed to win the coveted toy, Mike asked her out for lunch and decided that they both needed an extra influx of cash, and maybe a partnership would be good for both of them. So, they launched K&M Toys, Inc.

After a couple of years as partners, Kim began to become fascinated with the internet as a considerable method to generate awareness of their company - and, to increase their sales. She asked Mike if he ever bought anything over the internet and what he thought about expanding their venture to include a digital marketing branch to their enterprise. He replied that he had not, but he has scanned the web looking for extraordinary toys for his private collection. Kim confessed that she had but primarily for clothes and books. However, after some research, they concluded that there were few vendors selling the type of goods they sold and that a gap in the market existed.

They designed a website and began selling toys over the site. They focused on those toys that were traditionally hot sellers. But they quickly realized that simply using sales as the sole metric of success probably wasn't giving them enough information for which to make a forecast, retool pages within the site, or have a deep understanding of the various aspects of customer visits.

Kim and Mike have hired you to consult with them on measuring the power of traditional advertising to drive traffic to their site, as well as help them with selecting measurements that may provide insights on what happens when someone enters their site.

What initial advice might you give them and why? What is a good metric for them to understand in forecasting what magazines to use? And, what is a good metric to measure customer interaction on the site?