Understanding how data analytics impacts overall results is a key skill for marketing professionals. Professionals who master the science of analyzing raw data to draw conclusions and observations become more efficient at delivering results. Knowing the difference between web analytics and business intelligence is relatively simple, but discerning the scope and breadth of online marketing data analytics is ideal for campaign success.
Defining the Scope of Data Analytics
Online marketing initiatives are the result of key strategic initiatives, channel and audience identification, and establishing appropriate marketing goals. Establishing appropriate data analytics comes from identifying three key aspects of any online marketing campaign:
- Identifying appropriate marketing metrics, or the quantifiable measures used to evaluate the performance of marketing campaigns and assets,
- Determine the appropriate dimensions or qualitative information sought within a campaign, and
- Identifying appropriate Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), which provide indicators of progress that determine and measure success around operational, financial, and strategic initiatives.
Online marketing campaigns provide multiple opportunities to classify and determine key data points, including
- Using market segmentation to identify high-value customers, place them in specific categories, and identify key trends;
- Identifying key audience segments of your marketing funnel for appropriate data collection and data sampling;
- Determining appropriate web-based and social media metrics to measure within a given campaign; and
- Establish appropriate dashboards and marketing analytics platforms to track and report results.
Driving Website Conversions
The ultimate goal of any online marketing campaign is to drive conversions, or incidents where the user engages in a behavior either via online channels or a website and is “converted” into becoming a customer. Although many campaigns develop a conversion optimization strategy through initial activities such as developing a customer journey map, integrating strong metrics and data analytics can determine effective performance through every aspect of the campaign.
Although developing a conversion rate can aid marketing data analytics, assessing site performance despite beyond web design and search optimization focuses on multiple touchpoints. Knowing when users visit and revisit your website can determine the number of page views, but that number can be broken down into
- Bounce Rate represents the percentage of visitors who visit a website, but only visit one page before leaving. This should be a low number, and marketing efforts should focus on increasing user activity on your website improving overall engagement rate.
- Impressions are a metric used to quantify the number of digital views or engagements of a piece of content. It is a more abstract source of measurement since it focuses on potential views or “eyeballs” rather than direct ad views.
- Exit Page refers to the last page on a website that a user visits before moving elsewhere. Knowing this page can help compute a site’s “exit rate” representing the percentage of visitors who leave a specific page on your website as their last action. This rate is computed by dividing the number of exits by the total number of page views, then multiplying by 100.
It is also important to distinguish between page views and unique web visitors for a given site. Unique web visitors are a count of individual users within a set time period, and can demonstrate audience size and growth trends. Knowing the number of unique web visitors can aid in computing overall campaign reach, and provide a more accurate representation of user activity than impressions.
The Bottom Line
Online marketing campaigns focus on acquiring and engaging customers through a multichannel approach. Engaging those customers is vital for success, but establishing appropriate data analytics provides insight into customer types, behaviors, and activities. Knowing how an online campaign progresses over time can impact current marketing efforts while informing planning for future outreach. Integrating data analytics and metrics provides greater focus, effort, and insight into campaign effectiveness.
Author: Gordon Dymowski
B2B Social Media Marketing Consultant/Copywriter
Gordon Dymowski is a B2B social media consultant and copywriter working with small to medium-sized businesses around audience engagement, lead generation, and driving revenues. Gordon has assisted various organizations in social media strategy, engagement, and analytics with a specific focus on healthcare, technology, and mission-driven ventures. He is also a fiction writer who has written for various independent publishers.
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