Marketing analytics is measuring and managing marketing performance, and then going over the metric data to determine the efficiency of your return on investment (ROI). Analytics gives insight into improving how well a business reaches its clients through their marketing initiatives. Overall, marketing analytics provides statistics to help a business understand how their marketing programs are performing and maps out an idea of what to change. The practice takes into account all marketing efforts over a span of time and creates web metrics, social media data and more.
Why it matters
Marketing analytics can answer many questions for a business going forward, such as how the initiative is performing during any moment and what can be done to better the performance in the future. It can also determine how other businesses compare, where they focus their resources and what marketing practices your business may be missing. This practice will give an idea of how to shift investments for the next year if there is need for improvements. A spreadsheet of bare metrics doesn't tell the entire story.
Map your strategy
A well-rounded program can determine how well specific efforts actually affected your business, such as different campaign strategies, social media, blog posts and mailing initiatives. Analytics can give insight into current strategies with real time results and address where to find a higher volume of customers or which method of marketing carries the most valuable clients. Going forward, analytics can help predict if more salespeople should be focusing on a specific area and where a future target could be while making sure you're spending each dollar effectively. If something is costing more than it is returning, a better strategy is needed going forward.
Get help if needed
A marketing organization can be helpful in organizing existing data such as point of sale transactions and online presence. It's helpful to understand where your business stands in your industry to help focus on developing different strategies. It's important to stay informed and act on any channels that are lacking strategy and to adjust as needed. You may find that tactics that are currently successful can be adjusted for maximum reach.
The numbers matter
Marketing analytics helps understand the big picture, determining which initiatives work and why others don't. It collects data over time and monitors trends while also providing data on ROI of each initiative, effectively helping your business forecast the future.