Every week, we answer a common question about marketing or business. This week, our question comes from a fan who entered our giveaway contest for a Fire 7 Tablet. Today, we will answer the following question: “how do I analyze marketing data?”
Finding Your Marketing Data
Analyzing your data is a stepping stone to improving your business. Let’s say you have a website or social media page that generates a lot of traffic. How do you know what that traffic is looking at? Tools like Google Analytics provide data with concrete answers to simple questions like that.
Through analyzing your site’s data, you can see what exactly those customers are spending the most time looking at, which products are getting the most views, which pages have the most clicks, and much more!
Now all of these numbers are great, but only when used in service of a larger goal. Data analysis, done properly, allows you find what is working and what isn’t. You can then do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.
Not sure where to start? If you use any social media, check your analytics. Most business accounts have them, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Their tools let you track engagement, activity, information about your followers, and more. This is great for beginners because social media data is pretty easy for regular social media users to intuitively understand.
How to Analyze Marketing Data
Anytime you go looking for marketing data, you’re bound to find a lot of numbers. Confusing numbers, and a lot of them!
Your data doesn’t have to be confusing! Data analytics sounds fancy, but it even a basic understanding is useful. For example, if you notice certain kind of tweets get more retweets, you may choose to make more tweets along the same line. If you notice certain articles on your blog are very popular, you may choose to do more of them.
Different marketing analytics tools will look different. Email analytics will look very different from the analytics of your Instagram page. That’s because these sites serve different functions, and therefore, will yield you different relevant data for each site.
Always remember your goals when you do data analysis. Your goals for an email campaign are different than your goals for an Instagram page. Before you look at your data, have sense of what you want to find, such as a specific question.
Sound a little vague? Let’s use Google Analytics for specific examples.
Google Analytics is used to track the website activity of the users such as session duration, pages per session, bounce rate, and more along with the information on the source of the traffic.
With session duration, you can figure out how long people stay on your website. If they stay for a couple of minutes on average, that’s pretty good! Likewise, if the average user is on your site for eight seconds, you probably have a problem.
Bounce rate is the percentage of people who view one page and leave. If this is in the high 90s, this means that the vast majority of people on your site view one page and leave.
When you start looking at acquisition sources, you can see how people find your website. Are they coming through organic Google searches or through referrals from another site?
Google Analytics is just one tool in your toolbox, too. No matter which analytics tools you use, you can gather valuable data. But once you do that, then what do you do?
First off, pay attention to any marketing efforts that are succeeding. Do more of whatever’s working. On the flip side, find areas to consciously improve. Are people ignoring your Instagram posts? Do people leave your website before buying anything?
Asking smart questions and seeking answers through data lets you properly plan, schedule, and engage your audience in the best, most effective ways.
Final Thoughts
Analyzing marketing data can be tough to learn at first. So many numbers, reports, and pages…! It’s easy to get lost.
Remember your goals. Learn about the data most important to the tools you use on a day-to-day basis. As you practice more, the data will guide you towards your goals even faster!
