E-commerce is a fast-growing industry. Consumers spent $231 billion on products purchased by online retail in 2012, and that number is expected to grow to $370 billion by 2017. But, in an industry with so much potential for business owners, there’s also quite a bit of competition. So, how can your brand stand out to shoppers? The answer lies in marketing analytics. Analytics allow you to understand different trends and optimize your marketing strategies to get a leg up on the competition. Here are 6 ways to improve your e-commerce analytics and boost your business:
1. Market More Effectively
A crucial component of marketing is figuring out which of your marketing strategies is the most effective. Using marketing analytics can show you how many people visited your site via a certain method – this could be an organic search, a social media post, an email, or any of a number of other possibilities. By figuring out which method attracts the most visitors, you know which strategies deserve more resources, and which you might want to stop using to avoid wasting your time and money.
2. Use the Best Keywords
Using the right keywords keeps your website ranking high on Google so that potential customers can find it easily. You should have well-integrated keywords on your website’s homepage, describing your company’s niche within the e-commerce industry, as well as product-specific keywords in each product description. But, without any analytic reports, it’s hard to know which keywords you should be targeting. Using marketing analytics allows you to see where you rank with each keyword you use, as well as the difficulty levels associated with improving your rank. In addition, you can find out what other search terms people might be using to discover your website organically. Sometimes they can surprise you, and they might be good keyword opportunities as well.
3. Discover Customer Trends and Preferences
With marketing analytics, you can also track visits to certain pages on your e-commerce website and figure out which of them get the most traffic. This means that you see what products are enticing the most visitors, and from there you can begin to piece together trends and preferences. It shows you what your customers are looking for so that you can give them what they want. This can also help you with building buyer personas for your online retail business and creating content that caters to those personas.
4. Understand Mobile Users
Mobile use for online retail shopping increased 35% from 2013 to 2014, so it’s important to consider whether you have any customers visiting your site from a mobile device. Marketing analytics can allow you to track the number of people who reach your mobile site, and if that number is high, you know you need a responsive design to keep those users happy. And, checking to see how many mobile users stay on your site can help you decide if your responsive design is effective, or if it needs to be redone.
5. Find the Visits to Leads Ratio
Out of the number of people who visit your site, a smaller number will ultimately purchase something from you. Knowing the difference between these numbers tells you whether or not your website is turning its visitors into your customers. If you have far fewer leads than visitors, you know that your site isn’t attracting the buyer persona that you want. If your numbers aren’t what you want, you’ll know that you need a better strategy to move visitors and leads down the sales funnel. You can revisit the earlier entries on this list to improve your marketing plan, or you can try to find out what went wrong.
6. Learn Why Customers Leave
If you don’t have enough leads, sometimes marketing analytics can tell you exactly what goes wrong. If a high number of visitors leave your site after a specific action, that might alert you to the problem. For instance, if several potential customers add products to their cart but never check out, there might be a design flaw in your website’s shopping cart page that’s driving your customers away. Using analytics to discover any potential problems allows you to correct the problem before it has too great an impact on your business.
So, now that you’ve learned why marketing analytics are so important for your company, don’t waste any time in making your own analysis report! Your e-commerce business will reap the benefits.
Want to know more? Find out what metrics really matter by downloading this free cheat sheet!
