Using data analytics in performance marketing is of paramount importance. To succeed you need to know which data points to analyse and for what purpose. That way you will be able to create a scalable and successful optimisation strategy.
It will also give you time to unleash your creative side and design the right messaging to the audience you are targeting.
Here are the top 5 ways to use data analytics to improve performance marketing.
Measure Brand Impressions to Build Awareness and Gain Competitive Advantage
Measuring brand impression is important to brand health. It is even more so if you are a B2C brand or running an eCommerce business. Running multi-channel display campaigns might be costly. If done in isolation, it might not bring the number of sales you want either.
At the same time is important for viewers to see your ads when they consume content online. It pays off when users are looking for a solution to solve their problem and remember your brand.
What counts as an impression depends on a channel you advertise
Every time your branded ad shows in users feed on social media it counts as a brand impression.
When running PPC or display ads, brand impressions are counted when your ad is displayed.
In Google Analytics you can see the number of sessions when your page is viewed at least once.
While in email marketing impression is recorded every time your email is opened.
Be clear of the goal for each channel and know the benchmark to measure your success against it.
Distinguish between served impressions and viewable impressions. Every time your ad loads, it counts as a served impression. Viewed impressions happen when at least 50% of your ad shows and is visible to the visitor.
Low impressions indicate that you need to address your creative, tweak copy or change target keywords (if you run PPC campaigns). Or it might be the case of competitors’ aggressive bidding strategies. If that is the case your ads might not show when users search on their devices.
At the same time, high brand impressions (but no clicks) show that your bidding strategy is on point. But your ad copy, imagery, or CTAs (call to actions) need further looking into.
To resolve this, test until the data shows an upward spike in performance. Remember to do at least A/B testing when you launch your campaigns and continue to test until you reach your goals.
Track Monthly Unique Visitors (MUVs) and Clicks to Determine Interest
Be honest, most leadership teams focus more on clicks than impressions. If your goals are to increase MUVs and clicks, you need to create goals in Google Analytics to measure it.
Goals vary. One time your goal might be adding new subscribers to your newsletter or content downloads from your resources section. Other times it might be a demo booked or visitor landed on the pricing page.
Create goals that best fit your business.
Remember, you can improve anything if you are measuring it.
Check CRM/MA for Consideration
It’s a bit of relief getting to a consideration stage. Here you can cross-check your CRM or MA data with Google Analytics to create the buying personas.
Knowing your buying personas will enable you to create custom audiences and do better targeting when you advertise again.
Doing a fear bit of data analytics at this stage will boost the performance of your campaigns and help you optimise the media spend.
Track CR & AOV to Optimise Sale and Marketing Spend
Conversion rates differ depending on the industry you are in. CR is higher if you are selling gifts than if you are, for example selling health products.
They also differ depending on whether you are in B2B or B2C marketing. A good approach would be to work towards achieving the CR for your industry.
It also boils down to what you count as a conversion. On an eCommerce site, it is when order is placed. But for B2B marketer it might be playbook downloaded or video watched from start to finish.
No matter what it is. The same rule applies. You need to know what the CR for your industry is and how your CRs are in comparison with your competitors.
Then all you need to do is to come up with clever campaigns to outperform your competition.
Measure CLV (Customer Lifetime Value) and Referrals to Increase Retention and Advocacy
To complete the picture of your success you need to calculate CLV. First, you need to work out customer average order value (AOV) then multiply it by sale frequency. When you work out the customer average lifespan you then multiply it by customer value.
That way you will find out which customer segments are profitable. You will also be able to determine your cost per acquisition (CTA). It will give you the confidence to go ahead and add more customers like those.
It is lots of number crunching, data analytics, and sometimes some coding work too. But it will give you tons of confidence when submitting and managing the marketing budget. It will also help you to generate great ROMI for the business.
Please share when you used data analytics to boost your results in the comments below.