Why Analytics is So Important to a Business

Featured article by Calvin Page, IT Specialist

The majority of business owners are somewhat familiar with analytics, and most analytic services such as Google Analytics, Facebook Insights and YouTube Analytics are free to use. However, not all businesses are aware of just how useful analytics can be. When using analytics it’s important to realize that they are an effective way of gaining inside knowledge regarding your audience and your brand and company’s marketing campaigns. No company can afford to ignore analytics as the data gathered from them is a legitimate way of tapping into the minds of your consumers. Many business owners agree that the time spent checking their analytics throughout the day could be the most important fifteen minutes or so that they spend.

There is a large variety of analytical data available to businesses, and this can be quite overwhelming. Because of this, it’s understandable why many business owners who aren’t very familiar with analytics can become confused or frustrated when trying to work out what it all means. Due to this, it’s crucial that you have a clear objective when it comes to determining what it is that you’d like to find out about your audience. Analytics can be split into two main groups: web analytics and marketing analytics.

Web Analytics

The purpose of web analytics is to enable you to find out exactly how your website is working and performing. Google Analytics is the most commonly used tool for this, however there are a range of other effective tools out there that can be used with excellent results, such as Web Action. Many tools will be able to also expand on the data provided giving you access to further, in-depth options such as Eye Tracking or Heat Maps.

Using web analytics will allow you to discover how users have initially located your website, how they behave once they are browsing your site, and why they leave. Knowing and understanding each of these factors is important to building and maintaining a strong online presence. Once you know how users have located your site, it will be easier for you to successfully pinpoint which strategies are working and which are not.

Simply building a website does not guarantee that traffic will automatically come to it, which is why understanding the basics such as traffic and bounce rate are crucial. Web analytics will provide you with information about how many site visits you have received, how many visitors were unique, and whether or not your site is capturing new audiences. Web analytics can also help you to determine the best time of day to connect with your audience, and can enable you to identify any navigation or lack of content issues by determining the bounce rate – the number of users who visit your site and then quickly leave.

By using web analytics, you will be provided with the information that you need in order to tweak and make necessary changes to your website so that you can give your visitors exactly what they are looking for.

Marketing Analytics

The purpose of marketing analytics is to measure and optimize your business’ marketing activities. Having a good understanding of marketing analytics is crucial to allow your business to become more effective and streamlined and is also used to help minimize unnecessary marketing costs.

The use of marketing analytics will enable you to delve deep into the performance of your marketing activities. You will be able to discover the ROI of each specific marketing channel that you use and gauge the amount of shares, views and like that your Facebook page and posts have gained by type of content. Marketing analytics also enable you to measure how many signups and conversions are received by an email along with much more.

Unlike web analytics, marketing analytics enables you to determine exactly how your audience decided to visit your site. The use of marketing analytics go further than indicators on-site, and use a variety of other tools including the use of offline efforts. Marketing analytics take a whole-picture approach to measuring your marketing campaigns, allowing you to use the information gained from them in order to drive more targeted traffic and increase revenue.

For businesses, web and marketing analytics are of equal importance. Both contribute to business growth and development, and play an important role in keeping and building your customer base. Finding where the two meet will allow you to create ‘sweet spots’ in marketing that will allow you to stay a step ahead of your competitors, crucial in most fast-paced industries.