Marketing Analytics

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A Guide to Marketing Analytics

Marketers are always trying to improve, grow, and reach more


customers. What’s the best way to do that? Well, you certainly have
to start with a great product or service, but you also need data. Data
analytics in marketing tells you what’s working, who your customers
should be, and where to focus your marketing resources.

The marketing skillset doesn’t usually include number crunching,


but it does include understanding and acting on a range of
marketing analytics in order to maximize a marketer’s time and the
company’s resources.

What is marketing analytics?


Marketing data analytics is the use and study of data related to
marketing activities. Data analytics in marketing is used to
determine the success of past campaigns in terms of ROI,
conversions, customer behavior and preferences, and organic traffic.
By analyzing the data regarding past campaigns using marketing
analytics, marketing departments should be able to use patterns or
trends to improve activities, resource allocation, and campaign
planning.

The marketing data analytics sphere usually includes three


components: analyzing present the, reporting on the past and
predicting for the future.

 Analyzing the present: Marketers need to assess marketing


analytics from current campaigns and activities in order to get
a clear picture of where the marketing activities stand and to
compare them to past campaigns. In this case, they’ll be
focused on website traffic and sources for it, social media
engagement and click-throughs, as well as the current state of
the sales pipeline and revenue metrics.

 Reporting on the past: Marketing departments also rely on


reported marketing data analytics at the completion of
campaigns, focusing on information such
as lead conversion, customer lifetime value, and sales funnel
churn rate.

 Predicting for the future: Finally, marketing departments


rely on marketing analytics to plan future projects. This type of
data analytics in marketing will include lead scoring, targeted
content distribution, and upselling readiness and relies
on datasets as well as modeling and AI.

Why is marketing analytics important?


Marketing analytics gives marketers the insights they need to plan
successful campaigns and carry out activities that will help them
reach their strategic goals. Without marketing data analytics,
marketing departments would be reliant on guesswork or anecdotal
evidence to make choices about how to spend the budget, what
channels to use to promote their brand, and what customers to
target to reach the best outcome.

Who uses marketing analytics?


Every member of the marketing team can use some form of
marketing analytics. When the chief marketing officer and top-level
managers are putting together the company’s marketing strategy,
they’ll use marketing data analytics to design the right strategy.
When a marketing manager is putting together the marketing plan,
they’ll use marketing analytics to determine which channels should
receive the most focus when it comes to content distribution. When
an SEO specialist is creating a plan for keyword optimization, they’ll
use marketing analytics to choose the correct keywords to include
and important competitor behavior.

In short, every marketer can benefit from using data analytics in


marketing if they take the right actions based on marketing
analytics information.

What actions can you take based on


analytics?
Marketing departments can take an almost unlimited number of
actions based on marketing analytics, but this is a selection of some
of the more common options:

 Incorporate keywords: Marketers can use keyword analytics


software to determine the specific words and phrases they
need to optimize in order to gain organic traffic through web
searches.

 Replicate successful campaigns: Social media data analytics in


marketing (there are often basic versions built into each
platform) can give marketing departments an understanding of
what types of content or topics resonate with followers and
result in traffic to the website or newsletter sign-ups. Marketers
can then increase that type of content to increase traffic.

 Engage new markets: Marketing departments can engage with a


new segment of the market or launch a campaign that targets
a different demographic if analytics show prospective
customers in those areas.
 Optimize CRM: Agencies can also address bottlenecks in
customer relationship management as marketing analytics are
included in those platforms to help assess funnel and churn.

 Adjust product fit: Because marketing departments can access


behavioral, purchase history, and website journey data for
customer bases, they can better predict customers’ needs and
purchase preferences.
Marketing departments have a range of marketing analytics tools
and software at their fingertips. They should be using as many of
those as are appropriate to improve marketing activities and plans
every day.

Introducing B2B marketing analytics


B2B and B2C marketing are similar in many ways, but they are also
quite different. B2C marketing involves appealing to a customer’s
emotional reaction with the transactional goal of them purchasing
your product or service. On the other hand, B2B marketing involves
building brand recognition and relationships that can turn into leads
to generate sales.

To that end, B2B marketing analytics relies heavily on keyword


analysis, target market data, lead generation, lead scoring, and
optimizing the lead-to-customer ratio. One basic element to consider
with B2B marketing data analytics is using data to get a better
picture of the specific demographic of your target audience, which
will likely include one or more decision-makers at a company. Using
keyword analytics as well as Google Analytics, the marketing team
will be able to get a broad understanding of the branding required
for this audience.
Marketing analytics can help B2B marketers determine the optimal
top-of-funnel prospective list, as well as the most successful forms
of repeated communication.
Important concepts within marketing analytics
Certain concepts within marketing analytics can be critical to
maximizing efforts and resources. These important concepts within
marketing analytics can mean the difference between an average
marketing team and one that truly excels in research, planning, and
execution.

 Customer lifetime value (LTV): Marketing departments can use


predictive data analytics in marketing to determine the
customer’s lifetime value to the company based on past
purchases, purchase frequency, and average customer
lifespan. This allows them to make predictions about future ROI
and customer engagement.

 Return on investment (ROI): In marketing terms,


analyzing ROI refers to the amount of profit or revenue growth
that can be attributed to marketing activities. Capturing this
ROI data gives companies another metric for marketing teams’
success.

 Cost per lead: To determine how cost-effective a campaign is,


a marketing department must understand the cost per lead
data. Cost per lead refers to the average cost for generating a
new lead. Cost per lead can be used to help calculate the
marketing ROI.

 Lead-to-customer conversion rate: Another metric marketing


analytics can help measure is the lead-to-customer conversion
rate or the percentage of leads that resulted in sales. This type
of data can help direct marketing departments to increase
marketing that generates specific types of leads that are
proving most successful in converting to sales.

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