Marketing is big business these days, and the largest companies in the world devote huge budgets to getting it right. But for the owner of a small business or startup, cash is usually in short supply, so marketing initiatives need to be cheap and relatively simple.
Fortunately, there are many digital marketing tools available that allow you to reach millions of consumers with relative ease. Social media, SaaS website design tools and various Cloud-based digital platforms simplify digital marketing and make it affordable.
But to leverage these online resources effectively, you need to analyze their performance in terms of ROI. And this is where marketing analytics become invaluable.
Here are five marketing analyticsOpens a new window that can help you to deliver an effective marketing campaign on a restricted budget.
1. Web Traffic
The overall amount of traffic hitting your websites is important, but to be truly effective it needs to be broken down into categories. There are several types of traffic, and they all have different implications for conversion rates and sales.
Segment your traffic analytics using the following five channels:
Direct Traffic
Users type the address of your website into the browser. These users obviously already know about your company, and may be easier to convert.
Organic Traffic
Organic traffic can be hugely valuable, as it involves people typing a query into a search engine and noticing your website on a results page. Companies can improve their chances of being found by implementing SEO (search engine optimization) measures on their websites.
Referral Traffic
Visitors who clicked a link on another website. You can create these links on third-party websites by creating guest content that relates to your products and services.
Social Traffic
Traffic that arrives at your websites via social media platforms.
Paid Traffic
Users click a link contained in a paid ad or some promoted content.
Analyze these traffic sources to look for opportunities to grow traffic. You can also perform some deeper analysis by checking how many pages people view on your website, whether they’re returning users and the device they’re using to access your site.
2. Conversions
You could have the best looking website in your industry, but if it isn’t turning visitors into paying customers, it’s not performing its primary function.
Conversion rates tell you how many of your visitors actually end up spending money, or perform the desired action. If you notice that your website is attracting traffic but isn’t delivering sales, you can analyze what’s happening by looking at your conversion rates in relation to your traffic segments.
There are many ways to improve conversion rates. For example, you could make your website more user-friendly, reassess where your calls-to-action are, and create a logical navigation system. When it comes to improving conversion rates, remember the following steps:
- Create content with value to attract visitors
- Establish trust and expertise with in-depth knowledge
- Help users to identify a problem
- Solve the problem
3. Site Loading Speed
Three seconds is the target here. There is evidenceOpens a new window that people who have to wait more than three seconds for a web page to load will simply hit the “back†button on their browser and go elsewhere for what they need.
Issues such as bad code, large image files and the absence of speed tools such as caching and CDN can slow your website down considerably. Check the your website’s load speed using the Google PageSpeed InsightsOpens a new window tool. You will be given a score for your desktop and mobile sites, along with suggestions on how to improve it. If you’re unsure about the technical side of improving page loading speeds, hire a professional web developer.
4. Click-Through Rate
Paid campaigns are very effective at sending your ideal customers to your website. However, your ads need to be relevant, eye-catching and concise if they’re going to deliver visitors that are likely to become paying customers.
The Click-Through Rate (CTR) is a key analytic that tells you how effective your paid search engine campaigns are. If your CTR is low, there’s a chance that your target audience is too general, and needs to be more specific. Other potential causes could be a landing page that isn’t relevant to the ad or a weak offer. It’s not enough to get your ads onto the screens of your target audience; you also need to deliver the right message once users decide to check out your offer.
5. Social Media Engagement
If you’re marketing on a budget, social media is probably very important to you. Thankfully, assessing the efficacy of your social media marketing campaigns is relatively straightforward. Most platforms deliver the necessary analytics in the simplest way possible — with comments, “likes†and shares.
You’ll undoubtedly find that certain types of post solicit bigger responses. Work out which types of social media content deliver results, and focus on them. Monitor these key engagement analytics to measure the success of your campaigns — and to improve them in the future.
Marketing is crucial for any organization, but particularly for small businesses trying to develop a brand and gain market share. Use these analytics to tailor your marketing messages to your target market, and you should be able to deliver a reasonable return on a modest investment.