Why it's important to gather digital marketing analytics
For those involved in marketing, the Internet is a gold mine. Managers can detect those who clicked on their site, know why they did it, and how much time they spend on each page. Specialists can measure the effects of a digital campaign and identify what worked and what didn't with remarkable precision.
If you are one of those magicians, we don’t need to explain how important it is for a company to be data-driven. Now, with this idea in mind, let's highlight the importance of marketing data collection and analysis in more depth.
What is digital marketing analytics?
The goal of every marketing department is to find the best way to promote a product or service. Marketers design different strategies to attract and refer potential customers to the sales branch. However, their work does not simply stop after that. Measuring the impact and effectiveness of the gathered data is what helps to fine-tune and reinvent these processes and improve business results.
Digital marketing analytics is the field that focuses on storing and assessing the data of users who visit a website, social network, landing, app, email or any other type of digital channel of a company or business. Analysts develop a data measurement strategy and define relevant key variables and KPIs so that, after analyzing them, they can make decisions that help the development of the digital campaign. Some businesses also find R developers or Python engineers to perform marketing data analysis and visualization.
Python engineersThe importance of gathering digital marketing analytics
Each digital project begins with the analysis of a series of data that mark the roadmap of the actions to be developed. Marketing information will serve as a zero point of digital marketing analytics to start a project. Depending on its type, you will decide to measure these data on a regular basis or more sporadically, and determine what to highlight on a following analytical dashboard.
In the digital age, data is everywhere. Every single activity of the user is recorded. An enormous amount of marketing data appears useful for understanding what happens, and knowing when, where, how and why the user takes one action rather than another. Therefore, it is easier for digital specialists to make working decisions, because data-driven information provides a solid and objective basis and, therefore, brings better results. Even if you are not a wizard with numbers, marketing reports today are easily interpretable and understandable. It is enough to know the general principles and have the correct analytics tools.
Understanding your customers
With data analytics, it is possible to know what type of users browse a web page, which campaigns work best and which user profiles are the ones that buy the most at certain times. It is a way of analyzing the behavior of potential clients to the millimeter to develop the way to approach them in the most appropriate and natural way possible.
It allows us to detect new sales opportunities and retain users who have already made a purchase. A better understanding of the user profile will enable us to develop value proposals focused on their attraction and retention, typical of inbound marketing.
Making predictions
The other way digital marketing analytics helps to make decisions efficiently is by facilitating predictions. It reduces planning time and eases the creation of short-term strategies based on objective data. It means that you can anticipate, measure, and evaluate the evolution of digital strategies and anticipate the effect that certain actions will have in the short term. Analytics lets the company be prepared for future risks and opportunities.
Marketing decisions lead to several tangible benefits, such as the following:
- Specificate campaigns. You can target your marketing efforts, thereby reducing costs.
- Formulate competitive prices. You can fine-tune the price of your products according to demand and what customers expect.
- Increase personalization. Customers can choose from a combination of features or services that meets their needs.
- Reduce costs. Manage inventory better by anticipating customer demand.
- Get faster delivery. Knowing exactly when and where some products will be sold allows you to calibrate inventory movements to anticipate demand and avoid lost sales.
- Achieve greater profitability. Targeted marketing campaigns result from more competitive prices, lower costs and higher sales.
- Attain loyal customers. Delivering the right features at the proper price increases customer satisfaction and leads to loyal customers, which are essential for long-term growth.
How to actually gather marketing data?
Data analysis is a useful ally at a business level. Still, it is vital to remember that for it to be effective, you have to know how to collect quality information.
Establish the goal you want to achieve
The first thing you have to think about is what you want to measure. As mentioned, marketing data analytics is mainly based on monitoring user behavior and the trends of campaigns. But all this must always be done as a function of time: to discover and know trends, it is necessary to observe the data in different periods and therefore have a dynamic view of the data.
For instance, it is useless to know that, “The conversion rate this month is 10%...” Is it a good or bad result, high or low? On the other hand, if “10% more users converted this month than last month”, that's a positive change (a ‘trend’).
Some examples of objectives, goals and KPIs for an app and software business site to have a starting point. Increasing the number of readers is an objective. Then, the goal is to increase the time visitors spend on the site (let’s say for 3 minutes). Tangible KPIs will be the duration of the visit, average time spent on the website, and percentage of returning visitors.
Choose a data collection method
There are various complete analysis tools if you want to get all this data. Google Analytics reports offer grouped information about the traffic that reaches your platform and allows you to establish different milestones. You can create campaigns, and detect bounce rates, cart abandonments, etc. It will offer you all the information you need about the operation of your company online.
But this is not the only analytical tool on the market, although it is the best known. Other tools are used to perform digital marketing analytics and get to know your audience better on different channels:
- Hotjar, Crazy Egg: for behavioral analysis
- Google Optimize: for testing and optimization
- Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics: for web marketing analytics
- SEO reporting: Google Search Console, SEMrush, Ahrefs
- Email marketing: MailChimp, GetResponse
- CRM: Salesforce, RD Station, Hubspot
- Or you can check some data analytics consulting services that combine the abovementioned.
Collect your data
There are two types of data that can be collected and studied: quantitative and qualitative. The former are numerical and provide those who read them with an immediate picture of what is happening on the internet. The latter are highly descriptive and are useful for investigating the quality and effects on consumer behavior of the digital strategy implemented.
Quantitative data includes metrics such as page views, page view time, the set of interactions the user has made on a website or social platform, the number of active users, or the frequency rebound. The qualitative ones are more specific and can be collected through interviews, questionnaires, or reviews. This is direct feedback from consumers who have purchased the product or tried the service offered by the company. Metrics are statistics that digital marketing experts can use to understand the degree of success. They depend on the type of strategy adopted, comparing what is achieved with the objectives set or with industry standards.
How to use gathered data effectively?
A number is just a number until you can interpret it. Even if analysis tools will never be able to give you 100% accurate results, it is essential to analyze the trends and changes that occur over time to understand the performance of your platform.
Analyze the data
The main objective of data analytics is to be able to draw conclusions about the strategy that has been implemented in the company and the steps to follow to improve the business.
The main stages in a digital analysis process are:
- KPI definition. Depending on the objectives that you want to achieve, it is advisable to make a list of indicators that serve as a guide to achieving the company's goals.
- Collect data. When setting global goals and KPIs, the next step is to collect as much data as possible because the more info you have, the more accurate the analysis you perform.
- Create a marketing report. Various tools can help with reports selecting data according to your interest and analyzing them in depth. Specifically, review dashboards will reflect which were the most visited pages or other information and have a global vision of the performance of your online store, its users, types of visits, etc...
- Set clear goals. When starting a new project, the first thing to do is set clear goals and focus on achieving them. They don't have to be numerous, but precise and attainable, not setting high goals that are almost impossible to achieve.
Conclusion
Monitoring, analyzing, and optimizing is now an absolute path for any marketing activity. With the help of user-friendly analytical tools and powerful interfaces like Google Analytics reports, there is no excuse for not knowing what's going on on your site or campaign. By building a solid data collection and analytics system, you can detect critical points within digital marketing strategy, get to know your target customers and their behavior, or discover new niches to work on.