Marketing Analytics — How to Increase Your Revenue?

Marketing analytics is the process of using data to understand how your customers are interacting with your business and products. It’s about determining what works, what doesn’t work, and how you can optimize your marketing efforts to reach the most people possible.

Managers and business owners sometimes consider analytics to be multi-volume, boring reading with a bunch of incomprehensible tables, graphs, and figures. Small reports, statistics extracts, and similar stuff is not marketing analytics, especially in digital.

Everything starts with the fact there is no sense in the analysis without referencing it to some specific and measurable goals. Not to mischief, it’s better to start with simple and clear steps. Then you can create complex systems, diagrams, and segments and use super-complex tools.

What is a marketing analytics and why to use it?

It’s better to start the analysis with the definition of key indicators and the links between them. This is not about setting goals in Google Analytics, but about the systematic approach which:

1. Provides clear answers to specific business questions 

2. Finds solutions rather than stating facts from the past as a report.

Can we just generate automatic reports or quickly make decisions on the results of the A/B test? Or do we need difficulties like abstruse systems and connections? Let’s investigate the example.

Jennifer owns a small but quite popular beauty salon in her area. There are no bookings for a couple of months in advance, so she periodically arranges advertising activities. But she doesn’t want to waste her money, so she analyzes her email (not forgetting to perform a free email validation), Instagram, and Facebook advertising campaigns. We are sure entrepreneurs do so, as we always perform marketing campaign analysis at Proofy.io.

Running 2 identical ads, Jennifer decides to compare the 2 banners. The first one she did by herself using a free mobile app from the App Store, and the second one was prepared by a professional designer for a significant payment. A week passes, Jennifer compares the results.

Self-made free banner	Expensive designer’s banner
120 calls	180 calls
22 appointments	34 appointments

These numbers show her an obvious choice – the expensive banner justifies itself, more calls, more appointments. Isn’t that so? 

But if we dig deeper, it can be quite superficial. But here are several possible nuances:

1. The average check from an expensive banner can be much lower than from the cheap one. In the end, there will be more money brought by a self-made promotion.
2. In the long term, it may occur that customers who clicked the cheap banner return 3 times on average. And the ones who came from the designer’s banner come only once because of the overestimated expectations.
3. Some customers may find banners in the emails annoying and report them as spam. Bulk email validation might help you in this case. 

So here’s an obvious and simple conclusion: it is necessary to analyze different indicators and dig deeper. It’s better to look wider into the bright future, with the mom goggles taken off.

Key principles of correct marketing analysis

The main analysis tasks are to solve a specific problem, eliminate the business pain, and provide recommendations for development. In Proofy.io we always try to base it on specific principles.

Objectivity and flexibility

We need to find the data that directly affects the problem and look at them from different angles. Of course, the director’s and managers’ personal opinions are important, but numbers stand for themselves.

Relevance

We don’t need analysis because that’s what competitors do, because that’s what we heard at the training, or because it’s just the way it’s supposed to be. The analysis is needed to solve specific problems, so we should define the real “pain points”.

Proper problem statement

The more specifically we describe a task, the more useful analysis we may expect. A kind of blurry request like “I want all the metrics to grow at once” is doomed to failure. And here’s another example of the problem formulation: “the goal is to reduce the marketing costs by 10% with minimal decrease in sales”. See the difference? 

In the second case, an analyst may identify ineffective channels, and irrelevant audience segments and find the potential for improving the existing campaigns.

Simplicity

Marketing Analytics both in digital and offline business should not be perceived as an ancient cuneiform. Even a technically untrained person should easily understand the analysis results. This is a fundamental difference from reports, which give you hundreds of pages, graphs, and incomprehensible diagrams.

These principles will form the basis. But by pursuing metrics and databases, we can fall into the trap of measuring everything and considering it as something normal.

Why not measure everything at once

After all, we can reduce all the complex measures to simple metrics:

• clicks;
• users’ moves;
• brand mentions in reputable sources;
• actions at different stages of the sales funnel.

The key problem is we can’t know everything about our users at once. Arguments:

1. We can’t track potential clients’ actions on different devices if there is no synchronization between social networks and email etc. After all, the buyer can see the beauty salon advertising on his iPad, then drive a brand request (the name of the salon) in Google and forget about it. And then, a month later, having a 2 hours gap between classes, come and get a haircut.
2. We can’t track real-time brand awareness (e.g. publishing useful content for you guys and mentioning Proofy.io and email verification inside). Yes, it improves conversion, forms loyalty, increases the average check, and even can create demand for new services. But this we can only understand in the future, after a careful marketing campaign.
3. We can’t predict the results of users’ cognitive biases. E.g. when we set a specific goal and create a binding effect. Sometimes these bindings are positive and sometimes they are not. For example, you say “we have a promotion when ordering a haircut — super-styling for the price you set yourself.” And add: “for example, $10, $15, $20”. Despite its real cost can be only $6, people are more likely to pay at least $10. The same way with promotions and discounts: “I don’t need that suitcase, I came for the iron. But damn, it’s only worth $200 now, not $600, I’m saving $400.”
4. We can’t know everything about our users, and we don’t need to. Most often it’s enough to understand the results of “before” and “after” to assess the actions’ correctness. The main thing is to remember the goals and specific problems that we solve. Therefore, in most cases using simple and accessible tools is enough.

A marketing analytics checklist for your company

Now it’s time to check how it all coincides with your company’s reality. If something is wrong — don’t worry, now you know what should be fixed.

• Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, and other analytical tools are connected to the website and gather information.
• The goals for different events are configured — not only “bought” and “ordered”, but also the other funnel stages – “downloaded a free product”, “subscribed”, “ordered a call back”.
• The UTM tags for different advertising campaigns and ads are set to understand the effectiveness of each advertising channel.
• The specific goals for marketing analytics are defined — to reduce costs, to optimize advertising, to increase the average check, etc.
• The analytics often looks like a routine ― many everyday tasks that, with a reasonable approach, help in lead generation, cost optimization, and sales increase. But it is a “must-have” for those who want noticeable business growth.

Industry Experts about Marketing Analytics

Andrew Tsionas, co-founder and managing partner of Kaizenzo Inc

Marketing analytics is a data-driven approach to measuring and optimizing marketing activities for your business.

It’s about measuring what works and what doesn’t, so you can make decisions about how you market your product or service in the future. This is done by collecting data about who is doing what, when, where, and why.

We use marketing analytics to make better marketing decisions. It helps us understand which channels are most effective at driving sales and leads, as well as which content gets the best response from customers. We can make changes to our site or social media campaigns to reach specific audiences more effectively.

This allows us to target specific customers with our marketing efforts better and avoid wasting time and money on advertising that won’t convert into sales

Gerrid Smith, Director of E-commerce of Joy Organics

Marketing decision-making. To my knowledge, one of the most effective uses of marketing analytics is to guide marketers in making better-informed decisions. As you can see, marketing analytics is mostly used to direct marketing efforts. This method can help you determine the strengths and weaknesses of your approach so that you can keep moving forward successfully. With time and practice, you may anticipate audience reaction to future advertisements with more accuracy. By revealing the patterns that underlie customer behavior, marketing analytics make developing a strategy a lot less of a guessing game. You’ll have a much easier time getting to your marketing goals if you can get the proper strategies down on the first go.

Robert Warner, Official Member of Forbes Agency Council and Head of Marketing at VirtualValley

Avoid blunders. In my perspective, marketing analytics are effective because they help businesses avoid making huge mistakes. Using marketing analytics can help you not only make better decisions but also prevent making worse ones. Investing in regular performance reviews can help you spot problems before they have a significant effect on your return on investment. Essentially, marketing analytics inspire your team to be more proactive in their approach to problem-solving. Additionally, marketing analytics can document your achievements and setbacks. This can help you not only stay away from catastrophic blunders but also from repeating the same ones. In the future, your team will be able to better allocate marketing resources because they will know exactly what factors contributed to a campaign’s underperformance.

Shawn Malkou, Managing Broker at X2Mortgage

Marketing Research. Tracking data is the first step in marketing analytics. There is an abundance of data available. However, only data created by your marketing channels will be tracked for marketing analysis. Digital marketing usually focuses on channels like websites, social networks, apps, and paid media, among other things.. So, you need to keep an eye on how customers use these channels to see how they react to your efforts. Through tracking, you get access to data regarding the effectiveness of your marketing strategies. The data that needs to be analyzed can then be gathered either automatically or by hand using a spreadsheet. After the data has been tracked and collected, it needs to be easy to get to so that an analysis can be done. Ultimately, raw data is incomprehensible, but graphs and tables make it understandable. Data visualization is a part of marketing analytics that deals with how data is shown visually. Most of the time, this is done with the help of graphs, tables, maps, and other pieces of information that are put together into performance panels or dashboards.

Ashley Chambers, marketing director and partner of ASAP Cash Offer

Marketing analytics is the strategic process of measuring, managing, and analyzing data to drive marketing decisions. How marketing analytics works in your company can make all the difference in your success. 

The marketing analytics process begins with data collection. Data is collected from a variety of sources, including customer behavior data, customer demographic data, market trend data and competitor data. This data is then cleaned and organized so that it can be analyzed. 

Next is to establish KPIs, or key performance indicators. KPIs are measures of performance that help marketing teams track their progress and identify areas of improvement. Once KPIs have been established, marketing teams can begin to analyze their data. 

Data analysis helps marketing teams understand what is working and what is not working. It also helps teams identify opportunities for improvement. After analyzing their data, marketing teams can use marketing intelligence tools to make better decisions about where to allocate their resources. 

Krittin Kalra, Founder at Writecream

Marketing analytics is the process of taking all the data that a company has collected and turning it into actionable insights. This is done through the use of dashboards, analytics software, and data visualization. The process can be broken down into three main steps: gathering data, analyzing data, and taking action. Gathering data is the process of collecting data through various sources, such as social media, SEO, and CRM. Analyzing data is the process of turning the collected data into insights and understanding what it means for the business. Taking action is the process of analyzing the insights to determine what the next steps are for the business.

We use Google Analytics to track our website traffic and the conversion rates of our marketing campaigns. We use Adwords and Facebook Ads to drive traffic to our website and to generate leads. We use Google Analytics to track our website traffic and the conversion rates of our marketing campaigns. We use Adwords and Facebook Ads to drive traffic to our website and to generate leads.

James Angel, Co-Founder of DYL

Design your own dashboards for monitoring key metrics. Creating personalized dashboards in your chosen analytics software is a great way to monitor and analyze your marketing data in real-time. You can quickly zero in on the specifics you need and ignore the fluff, saving valuable time. The most effective analytics dashboards consider their target audience throughout development. Key stakeholders outside of marketing at most, if not all, firms weigh in on important business and marketing decisions.. Marketers, in my opinion, will increasingly use reporting and data visualization tools to better communicate their findings and suggestions to decision-makers.

Jamie Penney, CEO of ShoppingFoodie

Establish the key performance indicators. Metrics are a vital part of marketing analytics, therefore it’s important to choose the right ones to track the progress of your whole marketing effort. The measures you use to compare the success of different platforms or approaches should be clearly defined before you begin your analysis. If you’re collecting and analyzing data that doesn’t pertain to your company, you’re wasting your time. Further, you shouldn’t let yourself get overwhelmed by data. Set some objectives to guide your metric selection. To what end are you running these marketing campaigns? Once you know what you want to accomplish with each campaign, you can decide which metrics to track. Choosing more effective marketing strategies As you can see, marketing analytics is most useful when it serves as a roadmap for future campaigns. In doing so, you may learn not just where your plan is succeeding but also where it can be strengthened to ensure continued success. With time and practice, you’ll be able to gauge the likely response of your target audience to each next campaign with more accuracy. By revealing the patterns that underlie customer behavior, marketing analytics make developing a plan a lot less of a guessing game. That way, you can get your marketing strategies off the ground quickly and successfully.

Laurice Constantine, Digital Managing Editor @ Forbes Middle East, ex-executive producer @ CBNC Dubai and founder of www.casadar.com       

Marketing analytics assists businesses in understanding the big picture. It also allows them to delve deeper into their industries’ more specific, micro-marketing trends. The data can help businesses increase the number and quality of leads by advising them on how to optimize their advertising and target the most desirable clients.

Every marketing project is a procedure. Marketing analytics can help you determine where your attention should be focused during the process as well as the best marketing mix for your company. Remember to follow best practices in analytics by specifying the questions that need to be answered, gathering high-quality data, and selecting the information that is important to you.

Sometimes you end up having more questions, leading you to repeat the analysis process to learn more about your marketing efforts.

Dan Thomas, the Sales Director at AIQuoter

Building Customer Loyalty. Marketing analytics provides information about how customers interact with our brand, social media, and what they search for. Such information takes getting to know our customers to a new level, making specific marketing targeting possible. Having these insights helps in converting more leads and setting up personalized campaigns, which increase customer loyalty, so every buyer keeps on returning. In addition, it helps in mapping customer behavior and preferences, from which we can tailor our marketing initiatives to meet the needs of individual customers.

Julianne Stone, Co-founder of Cicinia.fr

Marketing analytics is often used by companies to gain a better understanding of how customers think, what they’re interested in, and what they’re doing. It can help marketers understand who their customers are and how they’re engaging with their business. This can help them better tailor their campaigns to different audiences and create more effective ads.

A common use of analytics is to measure the effectiveness of a campaign. Through analytics, you can see if your ads were seen by the right people, as well as how many people clicked through to your website or app. This can give you valuable insight into how to improve your campaign.

Another function of marketing analytics is to predict future trends based on past data. For example, you might use it to determine which products are likely to be most popular in the coming months or years. You can also use it to understand what consumers want or need, and how that differs from current offerings.

Jonathan Merry, the Vice President & Co-Founder at Bankless Times

Market analytics is a study purposed with determining and evaluating data connected to the performances of marketing activities. It entails applying technology and analytical processes to marketing-related data. These activities assist businesses to understand what drives consumer actions and also refine their marketing campaigns and optimize their ROI. To understand how marketing analytics works, one has to grasp more than just the technological tools used in the analysis.

Identifying what you want to measure is the first step in trying to understand the marketing processes. Some of the metrics to be included in this approach include ROI, conversion rate, click rate, or brand recognition. Assessing your analytical capabilities, and filling in the gaps marks your second step. This is where you scrutinize and choose the marketing technology that is on offer in the market and utilizes them in your cause. Acting on the data collected is the final process. Marketing analytics allows for more successful marketing campaigns and a revamped customer experience, – all of which lead to greater profitability.

Conclusion

Marketing analytics is the process of gathering, analyzing, and reporting on data about customers and their behavior. This data can be used to improve marketing campaigns and predictions about future customer behavior. Marketing analytics is a valuable tool for business owners because it can help them understand what’s working and what’s not in their marketing efforts and provide insights into customer behavior that can help inform product development and other strategic decisions.

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