by Marketing analytics is the practice of managing and studying metrics data in order to determine the ROI of marketing efforts like calls-to-action (CTAs), blog posts, channel performance, and thought leadership pieces, and to identify opportunities for improvement. By tracking and reporting on business performance data, diagnostic metrics, and leading indicator metrics, marketers will be able to provide answers to the analytics questions that are most vital to their stakeholders.
Regardless of business size, marketing analytics can provide invaluable data that can help drive growth. Enterprise marketers at first may find the process too complicated, while small and mid-sized business (SMB) marketers assume a company of their size won’t benefit from implementing metrics, but neither perception is true. As long as marketing analytics is carefully curated and properly implemented, the data collected can help a business of any size grow.
With proper marketing metrics and analytics in place, marketers can better understand big-picture marketing trends, determine which programs worked and why, monitor trends over time, thoroughly understand the ROI of each program, and forecast future results. With 78% of B2B marketing executives currently measuring the impact of their marketing programs on revenue, it’s clear that more businesses are getting on board with marketing analytics, even if they were a bit hesitant before.
Importance of Marketing Analytics
Marketing analytics, Internet (or Web) marketing analytics in particular, allow you to monitor campaigns and their respective outcomes, enabling you to spend each dollar as effectively as possible.
The importance of marketing analyics is obvious: if something costs more than it returns, it’s not a good long-term business strategy. In a 2008 study, the Lenskold Group found that “companies making improvements in their measurement and ROI capabilities were more likely to report outgrowing competitors and a higher level of effectiveness and efficiency in their marketing.” Simply put: Knowledge is power.
In search marketing in particular, one of the most powerful marketing performance metrics comes in the form of keywords. Keywords tell you exactly what is on the mind of your current and potential customers. In fact, the most valuable long-term benefit of engaging in paid and natural search marketing isn’t incremental traffic to your website, it’s the keyword data contained within each click which can be utliized to inform and optimize other business processes.
- Customer Surveys: By examining keyword frequency data you can infer the relative priorities of competing interests.
- Product Design: Keywords can reveal exactly what features or solutions your customers are looking for.
- Customer Support: Understand where customers are struggling the most and how support resources should be deployed.
- Industry Trends: By monitoring the relative change in keyword frequencies you can identify and predict trends in customer behavior.
Online Marketing Tips:
Set up some Paid Search Marketing Campaigns: Group keywords in relevant groups and write appropriate ad text to help improve your Quality Score, which will lower your bid and improve ad position.
Start with Keyword Research: A stagnant keyword list is dangerous as it neglects trends and information on new products or developments.
Analyze the Results: Displaying your keywords in ad text prove to the searcher and to Google that your ad is relevant to their search.
Repeat Ad Nauseum: Negative keywords are great because they prevent unnecessary clicks and spend, ensuring your advertisement displays only for applicable searches.
Implement Natural Search: Google estimates that 80% of searchers click on an organic result over a paid advertisement. Incorporate your best performing keywords into your website and continue to generate relevant content.
