Statistics, metrics, reports, oh my! If the thought of all these numbers tends to freak you out, but you also know they’re important, then read on so we can turn them from a frenemy into your best friend.
To clarify, we don’t mean just for your website. Insight about how your website is performing, such as number of visitors or page views, is important, but it is only one small piece of the digital marketing analytics you want to be measuring. These will measure the impact of everything you are doing and give a clearer picture of how each aspect of your marketing works together. 
Prove Your ROI
Why are analytics so important? A major challenge facing marketers is how to measure the effectiveness of their marketing. 46% of marketers say that proving ROI is their top challenge. It’s important to understand what the results of your marketing efforts are and how they are contributing to your company. Measuring where your marketing campaigns have succeeded or failed is a key part of demonstrating ROI.
Your metrics need to align with overall business goals, and will help to inform decision-making. By providing evidence for how marketing has performed, it becomes easier to justify resources and spending. McKinsey & Company argues that without a strategic basis for marketing, budgets fall into “‘beauty contests’ that reward the coolest proposal or the department that shouts the loudest rather than the area that most needs to grow or defend its current position.”
Take A Personal Approach
For many people, all the data and metrics collected just seem like gibberish. The benefit of this information comes when you can look beyond raw numbers, like how many “likes” did a post receive on Facebook, and recognize what those “likes” represent. Personalize the numbers by answering, “How are contacts and customers engaging with us?” Just like the rest of your marketing efforts, focusing on your buyer persona will help turn those metrics into useful insights.
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By tracking how individual people interact with your marketing across all of your channels, you will learn what appeals most to your buyer persona and understand how people are finding your company.
Which Channels Work Best?
Digital marketing analytics bring together all of your marketing channels (email, PR, social media, your website, etc.) to give you a clearer picture of how everything is working together, and allow you to make adjustments individually.
How are people interacting with your company? Do they find you through a blog post or social media? Did they come directly to your website through a Google search? This will help you to design marketing initiatives that will reach people where they want to be reached. You can’t get to these potential customers if you don’t know where to find them.
Optimize Your Marketing
Once you understand which channels work best for you and which marketing initiatives are reaching your desired customers, you will know where to invest your time. Have you noticed that people are opening your emails, but not converting on the CTA? Or that you are receiving more engagement on your blog through people who find it on social media? This information gives you the opportunity to adjust and continue doing what works.
There are plenty of options for platforms you can use for analytics, and for best results, they should be integrated with your CRM.
Don’t Forget About Sales
Showing the clear connection between marketing and sales is another argument in favor of keeping close tabs on analytics. When you collect closed-loop data between your analytics tool and CRM, it is easier to determine how marketing efforts are helping sales by giving them more qualified leads. You can see if people who read your blog or subscribe to your emails actually become customers.
Improve Future Campaigns
Aside from impressing your boss, the information you gather will help you to put together better marketing campaigns in the future. You will know what has worked in the past, and can back it up with data, so you aren’t wasting your time on something that won’t give the results you need.
By ignoring this data, you only see part of the picture resulting from all of your hard work. Open up both eyes and take it all in.
