All about Analytics and Why Your Business Needs Them
Analytics are one of the most valuable tools available to just about anyone with a website, social media presence or digital marketing campaign. And yet while they have incredible ability to illustrate value, save you money and increase your profits, many brands still aren’t using them properly— or even at all.
They might seem confusing, but they really don’t have to be. With the right setup, analytics have the potential to take the headache out of marketing and totally revamp your business strategy.
What Are Analytics?
Analytics are data that measure how something is performing.
In marketing, this data takes everything you need to know and presents it to you in a way that even the most numerically illiterate can understand.
The most commonly used tool to track this is Google Analytics, which is a free solution available for every business with a website.
Most advertising sources, eCommerce platforms, email marketing software and other solutions have some sort of analytics attached to them. The more these services can showcase that they’re working, the more likely you are to stay with them.
This information can help you decide any future actions to take with your online presence. This applies whether you’re running a full-blown marketing campaign, publishing blog posts, or want to bring more traffic to your website.
It can’t be stressed enough just how much time and energy this can save you. It’s campaign optimisation, minus the stress.
Analytics can be used across many different aspects of your business, including:
- Content writing
- Search engine optimisation (SEO)
- Search engine advertising
- Social media advertising
- Social media management
- Website performance
For example, you can use analytics to see how people are finding your website or blog posts. Is it from a link on social media? Keyword searches? Which keywords have they used?
For social media, analytics show insights on your following and content. This includes how your content is performing, your audience’s behaviour, and how followers are engaging with your account.
“It can’t be stressed enough just how much time and energy this can save you. It’s campaign optimisation, minus the stress.”
Analytics can also reveal valuable information on performance indicators in digital marketing. Whether it’s comparing different variables with A/B testing or locating profitable new audiences, analytics are invaluable in any marketing campaign.
Understanding how your website is performing can be the most critical aspect of your entire business.
No matter how you use this tool, analytics take the stress out of decision making by putting everything into perspective. With the right expertise and software, analytics can optimise your efforts and strategy for the very best return on investment.
Why Your Business Needs Analytics
If you’re uncertain if your business really needs to track analytics, ask yourself this: How can you know if you’re improving or even working towards your goals if you’re not tracking any data?
Here’s the obvious answer: you can’t.
“Without analytics, any decision you make about your digital presence or marketing efforts isn’t going to come from an educated, informed perspective.”
Still unsure about using analytics? Take a look at some of the benefits that could prove useful to your business.
Analytics can:
- Show you what’s working and what isn’t
- Reveal where you’re wasting money and where to invest it instead
- Demonstrate growth
- Help you understand how your website performs on different devices
- Increase your conversion rate
- Evaluate campaign efficacy
- Help attract new audiences
- Make recommendations on optimising your results
- Help generate a good return on investment (ROI)
On the other hand, neglecting analytics can have serious negative consequences.
Without analytics, any decision you make about your digital presence or marketing efforts isn’t going to come from an educated, informed perspective.
That means you miss out on all of these benefits and in turn, a big opportunity for growth.
How to Get Started with Analytics
Getting started with analytics is a two-step process.
The first step is to conduct an analytics audit on your current marketing efforts and digital presence. This will reveal initial information about how your website, channels and different platforms are performing.
At Emote, we can take care of this entire process by providing a complimentary analytics audit to anyone who is interested in it. We also constantly use Google Analytics as part of our reporting, meetings, marketing and other aspects of working with our existing clients.
The next step is to decide on how you want to collect all your data going forward. This is where most people shy away from analytics. Many businesses find themselves juggling multiple programs and platforms, since they think this is the only way to keep track of the data across every area.
However, this method isn’t ideal, since it requires you to look at data through an often overwhelming number of sources. This also makes it more likely that a business could miss something crucial. Who has time for that?
“We present the most relevant data, in context, so we can help them to make the best decision possible for the future of their business.”
This is exactly why we provide all our clients with a 24/7 live reporting dashboard where they can see the most important information all in one place. We have experts dedicated to providing the numbers from each service, whether that be SEO or social advertising.
All of the data is pulled from a number of different sources, such as Google Analytics, Search Console, Facebook Business Manager, Shopify and more. Wherever your data is, we can present it to you in one unified live dashboard.
Our clients can log in anytime they want and see how everything is performing. We don’t just pull random numbers, either. We present the most relevant data, in context, so we can help them to make the best decision possible for the future of their business. Because that’s what analytics are for— to make informed, profitable decisions.