Using basic analytics can help you maximize your marketing success.
Successful marketers know that the foundations of online marketing rely on data. But though your digital marketing strategies may be data-driven, you need to take the wheel every now and then and steer for yourself.
After all, marketing isn’t a “set and forget” game running only on automation; it’s a game of innovation drawn from sources of inspiration – or in this case, your data.
Sources of Actionable Data
So where do you find these wellsprings of inspirational data? Google Analytics and Webmasters tools are two starting points. These free tools are quite powerful, given that you know what to look for with them. Even Hootsuite and similar dashboards that aggregate multiple channels (in this case, channels of social media) can also be treasure trove of actionable info for your marketing.
If you use multiple marketing strategies in your campaigns, you can cross-reference your data with these tools to check for any anomalies or similarities that confirm the effectiveness of your campaign tactics. This information also allows you to show the effectiveness of your marketing programs to any senior management that asks.
Reading between Data Lines
These tools will rarely point something out to you on their own; instead, they’ll show you pattern that you’ll need to look for in the underlying factors that they reflect.
The key to turning data and patterns into insight is similar to our natural behavior of reading between the lines. For instance, analytics can show you your customer’s acquisition behavior flow (how your visitors may land on one page on your site, go to the next, and the next, and then exit), but it’s up to you to look for the insights from that information.
For instance, it’s easy to see high performing landing pages and any poorly designed (or written) exit pages, but you can dig deeper than that. Let’s say some landing pages are magnets for new visitors, while some attract returning visitors and lead to increased page depth and purchases. You may want to adjust that first landing page to link to the second, and also add some compelling new copy to that page as well in order to persuade new visitors to hop into the engagement bandwagon that your returning visitors are returning to.
You may want to also check your keyword targeting. For instance, what keywords are your successful landing pages optimized for? Do they appear in your Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) lists for those keywords? Is the first landing page a suitable “brand discovery” or “awareness” page? Is the second landing page targeting keywords for searchers further down the sales funnel? If so, you want to be sure your visitors are finding and reading that second landing page as well.
Adjusting Marketing Strategies and Tactics in Real Time
These insights that are drawn from actionable analytics can redefine your marketing strategies in real time – for the better. No automated systems can come to these conclusions for you or make good judgment calls on adjusting your campaigns without your intervention.
So what sort of actionable data from analytics can result in positive adjustments of your marketing strategies?
Here are a few you can look for:
- Unexpected sources of referral traffic – this may indicate timely interest between the search engine referring your visitor and your landing page which you can leverage for a longer relationship between your pages.
- Surges in keyword performance – Check for seasonal patterns, related news breaks, and other online phenomenon that may be affecting your keyword performance and then tweak your campaigns to ride the trend or counteract it (if it is detrimental, e.g. a very negative news break is sending traffic your way)
- Increases in social referrals – You may have an influencer doing you a favor by sharing your content with their network. You’ll want to be sure you establish a stronger relationship with this influencer.
- Fluctuations in page depth or time spent – both are indicators of engagement. These metrics show you how your current audience may or may not be interacting with your content. This gives you the insight you need to add additional content or adjust your current content.
Bottom line: online marketing strategies should be data-driven, but they also need a human touch in order to maximize your potential for success.
Greg Sherwood is CEO of DBC Digital, a marketing agency based in Denver, Colorado. With over 30 years of marketing experience with traditional and inbound (internet) marketing, Greg helps mid-sized businesses get a better return on their marketing dollars.
You can reach Greg at (303) 357-5757 or at dbc@dbcdigital.com
