By Chrisella Herzog, CEO of Humble & Hustle Studios
Analytics are key to success in your digital marketing, no matter what industry you’re in or what size your business is. Digital platforms provide so much data and it’s revolutionary for small businesses to have access to all this information and relatively cheap market research.
But data is only as good as what you do with it. If you don’t understand what your data is telling you, you’re missing out on key business insights that can help you grow.
When you start to look at your analytics, there are three basic steps you can take:
1) Define your goals. If you start with your goal in mind, the data will tell you much more clearly how your business is doing in reaching those goals. Different goals will require you to collect and track different data points.
2) Understand which statistics match your goal. If your goal from an ad campaign is to increase your sales, then running an ad and tracking data that increase your follower count isn’t the most effective way of reaching that goal.
Here are a few basic terms you should know and understand when starting a new campaign:
a) Clicks vs. Landing Page Views: Have you ever accidentally clicked an ad, then hit the back button before the page loaded? You’re not alone! Digital platforms measure clicks and landing page views differently. A “click” is every time someone clicks your post or ad; a “landing page view” is when they click and allow your site to load before navigating away.
b) People Viewed vs. Impressions: These two data points are related, but not quite the same. “People Viewed” is the number of people who have seen your post or ad. “Impressions” can be much higher, but that can be because the same person could have seen the post multiple times.
c) Lead: A lead is measured as someone who clicked on a button that entered them into your sales cycle. That could mean they downloaded a lead magnet or they scheduled a call with you.
d) Conversion/Purchase: A conversion is measured as someone who came to your website and made a purchase or signed up for a service. Depending on your sales funnel, this could also be someone who requested an estimate.
3) Track your data. This is so important to know how your marketing campaigns are performing. Are you increasing the number of people coming to your website? Are your ads working, but getting more expensive? Create a simple spreadsheet where you can bring all this data together to look at over a period of time.
All of this information can be confusing and overwhelming — not to mention time-consuming — for an entrepreneur or small business owner trying to serve their customers well. This is where a marketing expert can step in to guide you to the most important data points.
If you’re ready for some assistance in this area, schedule a call with the Humble & Hustle Studios team!
