This document analyzes the marketing effectiveness of 64 NCAA men's basketball tournament teams' websites by auditing their university and athletics sites. Key metrics like audit scores, tagging implementation, and load times were compared. General trends found most schools using analytics tags but fewer using tag management. The bracket competition evaluated sites at each round based on a different metric like audit score or tagging percentage. Northeastern, Wyoming, Xavier, and SMU emerged as the final four highest performing sites according to this analysis of their digital marketing technologies.

1. Our March Madness Bracket by Audit Score
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2. Our March Madness Bracket by Audit Score
ObservePoint ObservePoint DataAssurance
Congratulations to the Duke Blue Devils on their amazing season and the 2015 NCAA Men’s Basketball national
championship. They proved on the court that they are indeed the number one team in the land. Getting into
the big dance is no easy feat. Each of the schools in the 64 team field put countless hours in the gym, in the
film room, and on the road. The results of their hard work, dedication, blood, sweat and tears were showcased
over the past two weeks.
While we know that each school’s basketball teams can play ball, we wondered if their digital teams were also
ready for prime time. Basketball is front and center every March, but university websites are working and
public facing each and every day. We wondered, “Who would be the last schools standing if their websites
marketing technology was put head to head?”
The 2015 NCAA Men’s Basketball national championship

3. Our March Madness Bracket by Audit Score
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In order to quantify Return on Marketing Investment (RoMT), ObservePoint and Lima Consulting Group (LCG)
used ObservePoint’s Audit Score along with several other key metrics such as percent of pages tagged, number
of duplicate tags, average load times, and java script errors.
We audited both the official university and athletics websites of each of the 64 teams in this year’s tournament.
The audited sites are listed here:
Official university and athletics websites

4. Our March Madness Bracket by Audit Score
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64 teams in this year’s tournament
School University Site Athletic Site
Albany http://www.albany.edu/ http://www.ualbanysports.com/
Arizona http://www.arizona.edu/ http://www.arizonawildcats.com/
Arkansas http://www.uark.edu/ http://www.arkansasrazorbacks.com/
Baylor http://www.baylor.edu/ http://www.baylorbears.com/
Belmont http://www.belmont.edu/ http://www.belmontbruins.com/landing/index
Buffalo https://www.buffalo.edu/ http://www.ubbulls.com/landing/index
Butler https://www.butler.edu/ http://www.butlersports.com/landing/index
Cincinnati http://www.uc.edu/ http://www.gobearcats.com/
Coastal Carolina http://www.coastal.edu/ http://www.goccusports.com/

5. Our March Madness Bracket by Audit Score
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64 teams in this year’s tournament
Davidson http://www.davidson.edu/ http://www.davidsonwildcats.com/
Dayton https://www.udayton.edu/ http://daytonflyers.com/
Duke http://www.duke.edu/ http://www.goduke.com/
Eastern Washington http://www.ewu.edu/ http://www.goeags.com/landing/index
Georgetown http://www.georgetown.edu/ http://www.guhoyas.com/
Georgia http://www.uga.edu/ http://www.georgiadogs.com/
Georgia State http://www.gsu.edu/ http://www.georgiastatesports.com/
Gonzaga http://www.gonzaga.edu/ http://www.gozags.com/
Hampton http://www.hamptonu.edu/ http://www.hamptonpirates.com/

6. Our March Madness Bracket by Audit Score
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64 teams in this year’s tournament
Harvard http://www.harvard.edu/
http://www.gocrimson.com/landing/i
ndex
Indiana http://www.iub.edu/ http://www.iuhoosiers.com/
Iowa http://www.uiowa.edu/ http://www.hawkeyesports.com/
Iowa State http://www.iastate.edu/ http://www.cyclones.com/
Kansas http://www.ku.edu/ http://www.kuathletics.com/
Kentucky http://www.uky.edu/ http://www.ukathletics.com/
Lafayette http://www.lafayette.edu/
http://www.goleopards.com/index-
main.html

7. Our March Madness Bracket by Audit Score
ObservePoint ObservePoint DataAssurance
64 teams in this year’s tournament
Northeastern http://www.northeastern.edu/ http://www.gonu.com/
Notre Dame http://www.nd.edu/ http://www.und.com/
Ohio State http://www.osu.edu/ http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/
Oklahoma http://www.ou.edu/ http://www.soonersports.com/
Oklahoma State http://go.okstate.edu/ http://www.okstate.com/
Oregon http://uoregon.edu/ http://www.goducks.com/
Providence http://www.providence.edu/Pages/default.aspx http://www.friars.com/
Purdue http://www.purdue.edu/ http://www.purduesports.com/
Robert Morris http://www.rmu.edu/ http://rmucolonials.com/
San Diego State http://www.sdsu.edu/ http://www.goaztecs.com/

8. Our March Madness Bracket by Audit Score
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General Trend among websites
Before we dive into the brackets and reveal our Final Four, we wanted to look at some general trends across
the 128 websites. Among the 64 schools in the tournament, the average website had 23 tags. Leading the
pack were the Wofford Terriers with 53 tags.
So what are the schools using their tags for?
While almost all of the schools in the tournament are using Analytics, Social Media, and Advertising Tags on
their websites only 84% of the schools are using a tag management system (TMS).

9. Our March Madness Bracket by Audit Score
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What tags are being used?
The tree map below gives an indication of which tags these universities are using and how thoroughly they
are being implemented. The top number in the tree map box represents the number of schools using the
particular tag; the bottom percentage represents the average percent of pages containing the tag. We can
see that Google Analytics is deployed by all 64 schools in the tournament.
The top notch resources and facilities of the nation’s largest schools make it challenging for smaller programs
to compete at the elite level on a consistent basis. We also wanted to know if schools with more students or
bigger endowments outperformed there smaller, less endowed counterparts in the online space.
As we can see in this chart, there is no clear correlation between resources and Observe Point audit scores.
We found that athletic sites received higher audit scores than .edu counterparts. We also see that private
schools outperformed their public counterparts.

10. Our March Madness Bracket by Audit Score
ObservePoint ObservePoint DataAssurance
What tags are being used?
And now, what you’ve all been waiting for- The LCG/Observe Point Bracket. In order to make it to the Final
Four, schools were evaluated using a different metric each round.
Second Round
Observe Point Audit score (university .edu site)
Third Round
Observe Point Audit score (official athletics site)
Sweet 16 %
Pages Tagged (university .edu site)
Elite 8
Pages Tagged (official athletics site)
Congratulations to Southern Methodist University, Xavier, Wyoming, and Northeastern!