To grow your business online, you must learn to adapt your marketing strategy as times change. Whether it’s your website or social media content, you must analyze performance data to determine what efforts are and are not working. Decoding digital marketing analytics and explaining trends isn’t always so simple. Here are a few tips to get you started:
Learn the terminology
Whether you’re analyzing social media or website analytics, you may encounter terms you’re unfamiliar with. Understanding the data starts with knowing the terminology. We’ve defined a few of the most important terms:
General:
- Organic growth: traffic that occurs naturally (through direct or relevant search inquiries)
- Paid growth: traffic that occurs as a result of paid advertising campaigns
Social media:
- Reach: the number of people who see your content
- Impressions: the number of times your content is displayed
- Engagement: the actions taken once your content has been viewed (i.e. clicks, comments, shares, likes, etc.)
- Conversions: the number of times a click becomes a purchase or service inquiry
Website:
- Channels: the type of traffic or how someone discovered your website (direct search, organic search, paid search, referral, etc.)
- Medium: the specific source of traffic (Google, Bing, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
- Page views: the total number of pages viewed (this includes repeated views of a single page)
- Bounce rate: the percentage of single-page views with no interaction and immediate navigation
- Exit rate: the rate at which people exit the page(s) upon viewing
- New visitor: a user who has not previously visited your site
- Returning visitor: a user who has returned after visiting your site previously
Compare month-to-month and make note of significant changes
As you create content, make changes to your site, launch paid advertising campaigns, etc., you will notice changes in your performance analytics. One of the best ways to analyze and explain trends is to compare data from month-to-month.
Whether you do this on a monthly or quarterly basis, pulling data from previous months will allow you to see when significant changes occurred. Were there dips or spikes, and when? Were these changes gradual or abrupt? Did these dips or spikes persist and how long did they last?
Consider the possibilities
When decoding performance analytics, some trends have easy explanations, while others can be attributed to a number of things. That’s why it’s important to consider all the possibilities!
Once you have identified all the significant dips and spikes during your month-to-month analysis, ask yourself:
- “When specifically did we see this change occur? When did it level out?”
- “What strategies were we implementing at the time of this change?”
- “What channels and media saw less or more traffic during this time?”
- “With this information, what is the most probable explanation? Could these changes be attributed to several factors?”
- “If X Strategy potentially results in Y, do we want to continue implementing this strategy or go back to the drawing board?”
At Springwood Marketing, our professionals specialize in decoding digital marketing analytics. Through careful analysis, we can identify what content and web strategies provide positive results and support business growth. Interested in learning more about services like social media management, content creation, website design, and more? Schedule a no-obligation consultation today.
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