Mastering Marketing Analytics to Drive Business Success

Data is the lifeblood of modern business success – and every marketer knows it – but getting your hands on it is only half the battle. The biggest challenge is less about getting data in and more about making sense of that data to make smart decisions. And this is exactly where marketing analytics plays its role. When you master marketing analytics, however, you can optimize your strategies, invest your resources wisely and realize your full potential.

If you don’t know where to start, this post explains everything. You’ll discover:

• what marketing analytics is

• what metrics you should be tracking

• tools for analyzing data

• real-world success stories

• and what the future holds for analytics

What is Marketing Analytics

Analyzing marketing is the act of monitoring, measuring and managing marketing performance to maximize its effectiveness and optimize Return on Investment (ROI). It tells you how well your campaigns are doing, answering important questions such as:

• Is your target market finding you?

• Which channels are making them the most money?

• How involved are your customers in the process?

You can think of marketing analytics as a compass. You’re operating blind without it — you’re just blowing in the wind. Data and analytics provide hard evidence that can shape clearly defined tactics and strategies, as opposed to flying blind.

Key Metrics to Track

Knowing what to monitor is essential when it comes to results-oriented marketing analytics. Here are a few key metrics to consider when measuring your marketing:

• Cost of Acquisition (CAC)
  CAC is then the cost to acquire a new customer, including your marketing and sales investments. The cheaper the CAC the more efficient your model.

• Return on Investment (ROI)
  This is your campaign’s profit, or lack thereof. ROI is calculated as:
  ROI = (Revenue – Cost) ÷ Cost
  A positive ROI means your efforts are making you more money than they’re costing.

• Website Traffic and Sources
  By monitoring how many visitors are coming through and affiliated with which channel, you can figure out which channels are most effective at driving traffic.

• Conversion Rate
  Don’t just be satisfied with bringing visitors to your site; monitor the number that actually take an action, such as making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or downloading a lead magnet.

• Client Lifetime Value (CLTV)
  CLTV is the predicted value a user will bring to the business. It informs retention strategies and how much you should spend to acquire new customers.

• Engagement Metrics
  For social media and email, these can include click-through rate (CTR), engagement rate, and open rate – and can tell you how effective your content is at capturing your audience’s attention.

Tools for Effective Analysis

If you can measure it, you can manage it – even better when measuring performance is made easier! with marketing analytics tools! Below, is a list of the top 10 tools that are able to replace traditional human translators for specific usage, sorted by their main functions:

Web Analytics

• Google Analytics (free): Offers detailed information about the performance of your website, such as traffic sources, user behavior and conversion rates.

• Matomo (open-source): Another good option if you want more control of your data.

Social Media Analytics

• Hootsuite Analytics: Monitors social performance on numerous networks so you can better optimize for engagement.

• Sprout Social: Offers in-depth social media analytics and audience behavior.

Email Analytics

• Mailchimp (freemium): Measures open rates, CTRs and other metrics in order to optimize your e-mail campaigns.

• SendinBlue (freemium): A strong email tracker with marketing automation capabilities.

Comprehensive Marketing Tools

• HubSpot (freemium with paid tiers): This all-in-one tool includes components for CRM, email campaigns, social media and web analytics.

• Adobe Analytics (premium): Best-suited for big businesses with more advanced analytics needs and a larger budget.

Heat Map Tracking

• Hotjar (freemium): Tracks on-site user activity by heatmaps and recordings of user behavior.

• Crazy Egg (premium): Rich graphical representation of where users are clicking and how far they’re scrolling.

In addition to their individual strengths, these tools work together to give you a big-picture view of your marketing.

Emerging Trends in Marketing Analytics

The marketing analytics space is still changing. Here are some trends that will likely be factors in the future:

• AI and ML
  Data interpretation is being transformed by AI. With predictive analytics, organizations can be able to predict customer behavior or market trends with remarkable accuracy.

• Real-Time Data
  Marketers have now come to demand instant insights. The emphasis on real-time analytics is growing, providing instant feedback to optimize existing campaigns.

• Privacy-Centric Analytics
  As data-privacy laws have become more stringent, with the European Union’s GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) serving as popular examples, organizations need to adjust by employing privacy-centric tools they can use to stay compliant while ethically collecting user data.

• Multichannel Attribution
  Precisely identifying which channels should receive credit towards a conversion will get more precise. Sophisticated attribution models will enable companies to better allocate budget.

• Search Analytics for Voice and Visual Content
  As voice assistants and visual search tools surge, marketers will also need analytics platforms capable of measuring the impact each one has on consumer behavior.

Scale Your Business with Data-Driven Decisions

Today, marketing analytics isn’t a nice-to-have, but a must-have tool, if your company wants to survive in the fast-paced digital world we live in. Whether you are measuring conversion rates, or you’re looking to gather more insights from advanced predictive analytics, the information you collect will help you optimize your methods so you can make more money.

The question is not whether you should invest in marketing analytics, but rather how soon you can begin to implement it. With the appropriate metrics, tools and techniques, you can differentiate from the competition and position your business for growth.

Looking to get started with data-driven marketing? Begin researching one of the above tools and see how data shapes the future of your business.

Learn how a targeted approach like account-based marketing can align sales and marketing for greater efficiency and results.
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