The Power of Digital Marketing Analytics: When, How, and Why to Use

When companies start to see a plateau or stagnation in growth it’s usually due to one of two things: 1) the refusal to implement new ideas or 2) guessing at which new ideas to implement. We’ve helped dozens of businesses through both hurdles. The key to pushing through that growth plateau is to use the power of digital marketing analytics to guide your growth. Understanding how to leverage data analytics to drive marketing decisions and strategies can lead to considerable growth in companies of any size.

What is digital marketing analytics?

Digital marketing analytics refers to the practice of measuring, managing, and analyzing marketing performance data to maximize its effectiveness and optimize return on investment (ROI). In other words, it’s crucial to helping businesses understand the impact of their marketing efforts and make informed decisions to drive growth and customer engagement.

A few key components of digital marketing analytics include:

• Data Collection: Gathering data from various digital marketing channels such as websites, social media, email campaigns, digital advertisements, and more.
• Data Analysis: Analyzing the collected data to understand user behavior, campaign performance, and the effectiveness of different marketing strategies. This often involves the use of analytics tools like Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, and others.
• Performance Measurement: Tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) like click-through rates, conversion rates, cost per acquisition, engagement metrics, and others to evaluate the success of marketing campaigns.

How is analytics used in marketing? Choosing the right data.

Data analytics can be intimidating at first, especially if you don’t quite know what you’re looking for or where to start. The good news is that there are hundreds of ways to gather marketing data analytics for your business. (Unfortunately, that’s also the bad news.) It’s critical to know which analytics are valuable to consider for your business and target audience and which ones won’t move the needle for growth. Getting caught up in trying to collect all the data and then getting lost in mountains of numbers that you’re uncertain of how to even use is an easy trap to fall into.

Some common types of data analytics used in marketing are:

• website analytics
• social media platform metrics
• CRM/Sales data
• Email service platform metrics
• geographic stats
• audience demographics

Data such as how many website hits and bounces you’re getting, the number of email opens and clicks, and social media followers are pretty simple to follow. Where too many businesses go wrong is thinking that’s all they need to consider. Additionally, a common misstep is mistaking vanity numbers for strategic data.

In other words, the number of followers on your social media or the number of subscribers to your email newsletter doesn’t necessarily convert to actual revenue.

Our fractional CMOs leverage their expertise in marketing and data analytics to make sure the right metrics are being tracked so that all the data being gathered can be impactful in making decisions about where to focus your time, energy, and money to combat that stagnant growth you may be experiencing.

Connecting digital marketing analytics to strategic decisions

When the best data is gathered and analyzed, you can connect those marketing analytics to strategic decisions. Instead of attempting to collect all the data, or guessing at which data you should pay attention to, our fractional CMOs get to the heart of which metrics matter so you can do things like:

• Enhance cross-functional marketing strategies so that your multiple touch points actually move your potential customers along a journey instead of simply bombarding them
• Identify cost savings within digital campaigns to maximize each dollar spent on paid ads
• Identify target audiences to ensure that you’re only reaching out to your actual potential customers and clients
• Equip sales teams with warmer leads to shorten the sales timeline and increase revenue faster
• Provide intel for potential expansion areas and insights needed to create a strategic roadmap for growth

Leveraging the power of data analytics for growth

When you identify the right data analytics to track and know what meaning to attach to that data, you can confidently create a strategy that will lead to overall growth. There are a multitude of options available to assist you in gathering the data you need. Several platforms you’re currently using may already give you marketing data analytics, but we also have some impactful software in our toolbox like:

• Power BI: a unified platform for data visualization and sharing
• Stata: an integrated software that provides data manipulation, visualization, statistics and automated reporting
• Semrush: a SaaS platform specializing in keyword research, competitor analysis, and ad campaign optimization

Our fractional CMOs use these and other data-driven tools to give you the kind of power boost that takes companies from a plateau to exponential growth to become industry leaders.

Getting Started

When you know what your numbers are and what they mean, you can take actual confident action toward growth. No more guessing at the next steps or sifting through tons of information to try to figure out which data to focus on. Data analytics in marketing doesn’t have to be cumbersome or time-consuming. Contact us to find out how a fractional CMO can help guide your business growth using the right data in the right way at the right time.

About &Marketing:

&Marketing provides the robust outsourced marketing department growing companies need without the high overhead costs of big agencies or full-time employees. Our variable model empowers businesses to reach their growth goals through access to the guidance and expertise of senior level strategists and a flexible execution team.