The site database is not only the number of visitors to the site. The number of analytics tools that can replenish this base is great, but how can this be used for business analysis?
Determine where you are using your data processing methods and find out how to proceed to the next step in analyzing your website.
Large databases - it always sounds scary. After all, this requires specialists who process personal data, develop a privacy policy, conduct business analytics.
While some technologically minded companies have taken responsibility for analytics, metrics and measurements, many companies still continue to torment the questions: How much data should I collect? What indicators are important to me? How to get the most out of my investment?
It's time to determine where you are and find out how companies reach their desired level. We will look at four main steps that companies go through when scaling website analytics.
Stage 1: Scan
Every process must start somewhere. For your site - this questions about the goals of the organization, which it pursues on the Internet and an assessment of their achievement. What are your key performance indicators (KPI)? What are the driving factors that influence our business? How do different business sectors affect your success?
Two factors to consider:
1. Important questions like these should be asked to all sectors of your business. Otter marketing alone will not be able to answer these questions holistically without the cooperation of other departments. For example, a marketer might discover something new by contacting the shipping department or the customer service department, who can offer solutions to better understand the business. The marketing team may decide that the target audience of the company is young consumers, while store employees can tell them that the reality is that the majority of buyers are their parents. Standard analytics from Google Analytics are often not enough to answer all the questions about advertising campaigns, traffic sources and visitors.
2. No wrong answers! First you have to establish these hypotheses, no matter how insane they may seem, then to test them. Re-examine the company in which you work. Do you think that the time of year really affects the response to marketing campaigns? Great - check out these theories.
By setting benchmarks, organizations can determine the correct way to collect the necessary data to verify these assumptions. To do this, find the largest whiteboard available or create as many columns as possible on an Excel sheet - no matter what you like.
Most importantly, this data should reflect aspects of your business that you can influence. In other words, working within your competence allows you not only to use the same process for each new test, but also to apply the results faster and on a scale.
Stage 2: Walk
Now you can determine which tools are needed for your organization, and then what data will be needed to test your theories. This may include general site metrics data, such as time spent on the site or bounce rate, geolocation of target visitors.
Here are a few factors to consider when starting this process:
• There are many data collection tools. They are all good in their own way, but in many cases the data they provide is much more than you need. This leads to the fact that companies that are trying to collect all the possible indicators are overloaded with results and paralyzed data. For example, Google Analytics may provide data on site trends, but it is meaningless if the information is not related to a business issue.
• The data analysis space is overly cluttered with many competing solutions and services, so do your best to find the right tools to meet your needs. The tool is just the beginning; their implementation and training in working with them will result in a great investment of time and money, and requires a larger number of team members or even companies to outsource.
• Give yourself enough time to put together a good database before exploring the results to avoid mistakes or external influences on your results, such as the holiday season or the summer lull.
Stage 3: Running
Now the most interesting thing is to take this data and work with it. Create an organizational plan for making adjustments and changes based on your results to impact your business. Do you think that the average size of the consumer basket for sales increases over the weekend? If so, then create a marketing tactic to attract users on weekdays, which includes the methods "2 for 1" or "Buy 1000 rubles and get 100 as a gift", designed to increase the total order quantity. The next step is to launch a new experiment to see if this tactic worked to increase sales on weekdays. Buying stops at the very last stage? Check if the feedback form works? Perhaps it’s all a programmer’s mistake! Search engines do not like you? Order SEO promotion!
The time has come when you can take everything into account. You believed that your loyalty program influenced repeat sales, but it turns out that it does not? This may mean that your loyalty program should be revised or canceled altogether. It is important to determine not only what works, but what does not work!
Working with data, do not forget about the law on personal data for legal entities involved in their collection for the purpose of marketing.
Stage 4: Flight
Time to soar. Many marketers see their site in a bubble. The truth is that a website is just one channel with which users will interact when interacting with your brand. And not all users are the same - some will use it for research, and buy in a store, while other buyers will look for information on your site, and buy on another.
Now that you can correctly track the work of the website using the found tools and methods to other channels of interaction with customers! Connecting all channels into one sales funnel at first can be a daunting task, so start with site analytics, use these powerful data tools to find out what you need before moving on to the next channel.
Well, are you ready?
You will not become an expert for the day. You can worship companies like Amazon and Google that seem to know better about you than you do. But it took them years to achieve this. Enjoy the process, take your time, and you will achieve the desired level of success.
Futureinapps company develops websites for business and is engaged in their promotion!
