Digital Analytics

Analytics for Digital Marketing

"If you can't measure it, you can't improve it"
Peter Drucker

As one of our favourite quotes above suggests, you can't improve something if you're not measuring it. After all, how do you know if you have improved, if you don't really know how well you did? One of the best real life examples of this is playing Golf. You could go out every week and hit a golf ball around a course and not count how many shots you took. But then how would you know if todays game was better than last weeks game? All you've got to go on is gut feel; and trust us when we tell you this can be very misleading.

How about a business example?

One of Jarrod's coaching clients, from many years ago, was spending thousands of dollars a month on different marketing strategies. These were strategies like local papers, trade magazines, online directories, Yellow Pages etc. When Jarrod first started, he got the business owner to start asking every customer where they found him and keep a record. Within a month, the owner realised that strategies that he felt were working very well for him were in fact converting very little. So after cancelling them, he was saving thousands with very little effect on the business.

Analytics starts with a Goal

The starting point of measuring anything is knowing what you need to measure. So we need to ask ourselves what success looks like for a marketing strategy. After all, what is the point of measuring something that isn't that important and doesn't really lead to sales and enquiries? A great example of this is how many businesses (and SEO companies) put all their focus on where a particular keyword is ranking or how much traffic they get to their website. But what if it is the wrong keyword or the traffic is not from your target market?

As a general rule with Digital Marketing, there are 3 main goals a small business wants to hit. These are:

• Website Sales for eCommerce websites
• Webform Enquiries
• Phone Call Enquiries

Now if you have a huge marketing budget, you may also want to measure more generic branding goals such as market reach etc. Though our experience with small business, shows that they want their marketing spend to directly lead to sales.

What else can Digital Analytics tell us?

So now we have the main goals we want to achieve from our digital marketing plan, what else can our analytics show us? Here are just a few examples:

• How many keywords is your website indexed for in Google? Is this increasing or decreasing?
• How many visitors is your website getting?
• Are website visitors engaged when they get to your website; or do most of them just leave?
• Can you convert more website visitors into sales and enquiries?
• Is your email Newsletter generating website visitors and more importantly, sales and enquiries?
• Is your Facebook posting converting into website visitors and enquiries?

We can probably go on, but you get the picture. One of the strengths of Digital Marketing is that it is very measurable.

What tools do we use to measure digital analytics?

The internet is full of digital marketing analytics platforms. Here are just a few types that we use at Probity Web Marketing:

• Google Search Console - how your website in indexed on Google
• Google Analytics - what happens when someone visits your website
• Keyword Tracker - track important keywords
• Competitor Spy - find out what your competitor websites are doing
• Heat Mapping - watch how people interact with your website
• Call Tracking - track where your phone calls come from
• Split Testing - work out what content/layout/design etc on your web page converts best
• Reporting Platform - a way to show your digital analytics in an easy to read format

It doesn't make sense for the average small business to sign up for all these platforms; as in many cases the expense would outweigh the benefit. That's what your digital marketing company is for.

The last word on Digital Analytics

We trust that you now see the importance of measuring exactly what is happening with your digital marketing; especially your overall goals. After all, how do you know if it is working or improving?

If your current website does not have Google Analytics installed as a bare minimum, you are not really taking your online marketing or website seriously. This is a free platform provided by Google and every website should have it installed. It will not only show you what people are doing on your website, but if set up correctly, will track your digital marketing goals.

If you have a digital marketing company managing your website and you don't have access to the Google Analytics, ask them for it. If they can't or won't give it to you, you need to ask yourself if they know what they are doing or what they are hiding.