What is the role of analytics in the marketing process?
Image via CrunchBase
I just finished a web project for a new client. They wanted me to rewrite some of their pages, and think about the route people take into the pages.
As part of the process, I did a deep dive into their analytics. I studied how people entered pages. I looked at how people exited pages. And I especially look at how they clicked on links within the pages.
All of that information allowed me to make copy decisions that are based on consumer behavior.
These are not insights.
Looking at how people look at a page, and how they click isn’t generating insights. It is simply charting behavior. Google analytics has been free for a number of years, and most websites have it. That means there are more than a couple of years of consumer behavior on the pages. A couple of years of looking at how people enter web pages. How they leave, and what they do on the page.
All this information can and should inform the content on the new page – it can even inform other marketing. Indeed, the strategy of the page I created was to use Google Adwords to drive people to pages that were optimized for Google and people.
For Google, they have the keywords that are critical to keeping a good quality score on the ads. For people, the content states clearly what the purpose of the page is, and what is required of the person.
Both of those things can then be measured using the same Google Analytics program.
I have often argued that websites are useless unless they have a goal. But that isn’t true. With all the data in them, websites are a gold mine of data. Use that data wisely.
Now it is your turn. Do you look at your analytics? Or do you just get a printed report once a week?
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- How Google Analytics Custom Reports Helped My Client to Increase His Revenue (mt-soft.com.ar)
- Beginners Guide to Google Analytics: Part I (problog.weddingwire.com)
- Google Analytics Demystifies Visitor Behavior With Multi-Channel Funnel Reports (searchenginewatch.com)
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