In this video, Bo from the WebFX Internet Marketing team will take you through some of the main benefits of marketing analytics. Keep reading to learn more!
Transcript:
Hey guys! When you were in school, did you ever have to do a science fair project? If you did, you probably remember having to learn the scientific method. You start by observing something, then you come up with a question about it, then you create a hypothesis, and then you test it.
The testing part was always fun â at least, if you didnât end up setting your bedroom on fire, something I have definitely never done. Ahem.
⊠But anyway, the project didnât end once you ran the test. Actually, the most important stage was the analysis. Thatâs where you took what you learned from the test and drew some conclusions from it. Without the analysis, the project wouldnât really benefit you.
You know, itâs kinda the same with marketing. Itâs all well and good to run some campaigns, but you also want to test and improve them over time. That wonât happen unless you take the time to analyze their performance. Thatâs the idea behind marketing analytics. But how exactly do analytics help you?
Well, thatâs what weâre here to talk about. In this video, weâll go over six of the biggest benefits of marketing analytics.
1. Analytics help you better understand your audience
If you know anything about marketing, you know that the first rule in the marketing handbook is âKnow thy audience.â Youâve got to know who youâre marketing to, or youâre not gonna have much luck. Thankfully, analytics can help with that.
By analyzing your marketing and your sales, you can gain a better understanding of who engages with you the most. Maybe you start off marketing primarily to, letâs say, people between 30 and 50. But then you see that most of your website visitors are actually in their twenties.
Based on that new info, you now know to readjust the groups youâre targeting with your marketing efforts. Thatâs just one example of what you can learn about your audience. Other types of audience data include:
- Which devices people use
- Which pages people are most interested in
- Which geographical areas people are from
- And more!
2. Analytics help you connect cause and effect in your marketing
If youâre confused by what I mean when I say âcause and effect,â let me explain.
Youâll undoubtedly try out different things in your marketing over time. Youâll use different designs, different strategies, etc. As you try new things, youâll see different responses from users.
So, maybe one month you roll out a whole bunch of new marketing changes. That same month, you notice a big uptick in website visitors. Okay, so, it seems like something you did really helped you drive traffic. But what was it? You made several changes â which one drove up traffic?
Only marketing analytics can provide the answer to that question. By sitting down and looking at the specific impact of each factor, you can figure out which changes led to which results. That, in turn, helps you make more informed decisions about which tactics to use down the road.
As a side note â try not to make too many changes at once. This will make your life easier when you try to pinpoint what got the positive results. This matters a lot when you dive into A/B testing. Speaking of testingâŠ
3. Analytics help you understand A/B tests
A/B tests are a super helpful tool for digital marketing. The basic idea is that you try out two different tactics and see which one performs better. So, for example, maybe you test two separate versions of a paid ad to see which one earns more clicks.
These tests are great because they can help you continuously improve your marketing. You can weed out the less effective tactics in favor of the ones that really drive results.
But A/B tests donât really work if you donât, you know, look at the results. Thatâs like if you took a final exam for a class in high school and then the teacher didnât even bother to grade it. Youâd be asking, âWhatâs the point of the test, then?â
When you take the time to analyze your A/B test results, youâll actually get something out of it.
4. Analytics show you how to improve your campaigns
One of the absolute biggest benefits of marketing analytics is that they help you figure out the weak spots in your marketing. If you think your marketing is flawless⊠Iâve got some news for you, buddy. No matter how good you think it is, it has some weaknesses youâll want to patch up.
Thatâs where analytics come in. By analyzing your marketing campaigns, you can figure out which parts of those campaigns arenât meeting your benchmarks.
You can also check to see which tactics are working well for you so you can keep doing them.
5. Analytics help you budget your money
Not all marketing analytics benefits have to do with earning money. This one is about how you spend the money in your budget â more specifically, how much you spend relative to how much you earn, or your return on investment (ROI). You want to be sure youâre earning an overall profit.
When you analyze your marketing results, you get a chance to see exactly what your money is getting you. Maybe youâve poured a huge chunk of your budget into a particular strategy. Analytics show that that strategy isnât really working for you.
When you find out that youâre not spending your money in the most efficient way, you have an opportunity to reevaluate your budget. Maybe you want to stop investing as much in, say, paid ads, but you find that you want to budget more money for your social media.
6. Analytics let you plan for the future
If you want to plan for the future of your marketing, you need to know what to expect. Thatâs why Iâve invested heavily in dice. I use them to make all my business decisions.
I⊠I donât know what that means.
All right, you know what, maybe you shouldnât roll the dice with all your business decisions. If we want to predict our marketing future, we need something that uses hard data.
Thatâs one more reason to use analytics. Your analytics can reveal trends in your marketing that help you come up with predictions for the future. For example, you might notice that you earn more sales of a certain product during a particular season. You can plan your marketing for that product accordingly.
WebFX can help you optimize your marketing analytics
That just about does it for our list of marketing analytics benefits. If you want to learn more about analytics, subscribe to our YouTube channel and our email newsletter, Revenue Weekly. Plus, for help harnessing all these analytics advantages, get in touch with us about our marketing analytics services.
Thanks for watching â see you next time!