How To Embrace Analytics In Digital Marketing

The use of analytics is critical to most digital marketing efforts. If you've never approached a problem with a focus on analytics, embracing it can be a challenge. However, an online marketing company can guide you through it by targeting these four things.

Data Collection

Fortunately, this part is fairly easy as long as you have analytics packages in place. You might be tempted to rely on ad placement data from providers. However, you should also use your systems to develop in-house data and third-party analytics solutions to expand on what you're gathering. By using multiple sources of data, you can increase the trust level and address disparities.

Campaigns

It is one thing to collect a bunch of data, but you also need to anchor it to a campaign. Suppose a shoe retailer wants to test different marketing appeals. Rather than just seeing what data flows in, they can tie ads, emails, and other appeals to specific campaigns. This allows you to say that a particular campaign appeared to connect better with audiences and drive more responses.

You can develop custom URLs to tie ad units, emails, social media posts, and web pages to a campaign. This will make sorting the data easier and faster.

Following the Data Wherever It Goes

Cognitive biases often undermine analytics-driven digital marketing work. People want to succeed, and they frequently focus on things that confirm their sense that something is working. However, you need to follow the data where it goes. If the data says a campaign is failing, you need to take that seriously and consider possible changes.

Similarly, some data may surprise you. A particular email marketing message might generate way more interest than you expected. You then need to figure out what was special about it so you can repeat that success.

Likewise, you should be prepared to dismiss people who don't embrace the analytic approach. If team members are making gut judgments without reviewing the data, you need to subtract those folks and find ones who embrace the new approach.

Iteration

Anyone working for a digital marketing business will tell you the job never ends. You need an iterative mentality. This means you start out with something, test it, collect data, and analyze it. Once the analysis is done, you feed the findings into a new round of campaigns, tests, and analyses. The best companies in the world are well-oiled machines that can repeat this process day in and day out for decades on end.

For more information, contact a digital marketing business near you.