Branding is great for your business, and everyone appreciates having a website that looks good and communicates what your business does. However, this isn’t the reason that you’ve forked out your hard-earned money to have one built – and it’s not why you devote cash to marketing your business either. You want to get something out of it in the form of an ROI. Every form filled, button clicked, and page scrolled through is being recorded in Google Analytics, and this data can be very beneficial for marketing decision making. The trick is to know where to look – and what to look for.
Before You Begin
Before you can start tracking your current efforts, you need to think about what kind of ROI would be realistic based on your current spend. If you have no online presence, you’re looking at a larger, one-off investment while if you already have a website, you’ll probably spend less optimising it. Decide on specific, numbered goals that you can work towards achieving. Do you want more traffic? More leads? More sales? Pick specific dates and percentages and create your ROI goal.
Using Google Analytics
Google Analytics tracks your website activity. Logging in and viewing your dashboard will give you dozens of results – but not all are relevant. For example, someone visiting your page only means something if they take a valuable action – or return at a later stage to do so. You want to focus on elements that you can use to generate a profit or grow your business. Once you’ve decided what to track, set a benchmark against which you can compare future efforts.
Watch And Wait
Analytics isn’t magic and it won’t tell you how to increase your annual sales by 30%. Instead, it offers nuggets of wisdom for those that pay attention. Where do customers linger on your site? How many times do they return before making a purchase? What would be the next logical step you’d have them take? Why are so many users abandoning their carts?
Test Your Theories
Now that you have the information, you can make educated decisions. However, we always recommend you test them first. Say, for example; your analytics indicates that customers are placing items in their online cart but not completing the purchase. You could try sending them a reminder or discount email. If this doesn’t work, you could revisit the simplicity of your online payment processes, as these could be putting people off. Only time, trial and error will tell.
As we’ve already said, no amount of analytics can tell the future or guarantee a good outcome. Focusing on analytics won’t make you a millionaire overnight, but it will point you in the direction of steps you can take that will make you money.
To learn more, talk to the Team at Sprocket Digital.
