Why do you need data analytics?
By Simone Sangha, Liniar
The ability to harness data from marketing campaigns and from your website can bring benefits and new opportunities. However, many companies ignore data, often due to a lack of understanding of its impact on ROI.
Best described as the science of analysing sets of information, data analytics can help you to draw conclusions that could enhance existing or potential systems or processes. Methods don’t have to be difficult or overcomplicated and any amount of data can give you insights that can be valuable to your business.
Analysis of data can cover three main elements: reporting of past activity; analysing the current market; and predicting the future.
Why does it actually matter?
Efficient problem-solving. Data analysis can assist you in making a fully informed decision when running into any challenges, and could help you in finding a more efficient fix, thanks to the information collected. This isn’t necessarily restricted to marketing. Analysis from data can be used in various other departments to further streamline processes, such as sales or operations.
Better targeting. Data can give you an understanding into which individuals or groups are more engaged or interested in particular products or services. By targeting the right people, with the right content, you’re more likely to convert a lead to a sale. Additionally, getting better insights into to your target markets can help with innovations such as new product ideas; identifying future trends in the industry and gaining feedback.
Cutting unnecessary costs. By understanding what’s working in terms of ROI, you can cut out costs for activities that aren’t as effective. This gives businesses an informed choice on which campaign, channel or media type to use, based on the relative returns; meaning you save money that could be better spent elsewhere.
There are many more reasons why analysis and use of data can be a huge asset to any business. I’ve only skimmed the surface here. Everything needs to be balanced too, as an abundance of marketing analytics software can easily become overwhelming.
There are many tools you can use to analyse your data, including Google Trends and Google Analytics. The main social media channels all offer insights that can help you to fine-tune and target reach, including impressions, engagement and actions.
If you don’t currently use data analytics, I’d definitely recommend giving this area some focus in order to improve the ROI of your digital marketing.
Bonus tip: Use Google Tag Manager to fire specific tags onto your website in order to collect the data you need.
