There really is a little geek in all of us especially when it comes to free tools that provide useful insights, who isn’t going to get excited about that? There was a recent Google Analytics summit which revealed a lot of new features that got the audience clapping and cheering, okay so maybe a bit more geeky than most but anyone using online marketing can really benefit from the information within Google Analytics. At the summit, there were some case studies presented and the message was clear, with all the information available through Google Analytics, businesses who knew how to use this were winning.
Take a small family owned business with just a few employees, how do they do market research? Do they employ a full time marketing manager? They probably don’t and try to fit marketing into their spare time. For many small business owners, time is a luxury they can ill afford but every business needs to know their audience. Google Analytics is available on many devices and the data can be studied absolutely anywhere and at any time of the day, there is even real time view but be warned this can be addictive! Google Analytics can provide data on ages and male/female ratio and even stats on what time of day most people visited a website. For a small business owner, this means that expensive market surveys might not be needed and ultimately this could be very beneficial on bottom line sales figures.
Another critical element of online marketing is having some tracking put in place. It is all well and good having potential customers visit a website or read a newsletter but what action did they take after that? There are many variations on what is considered a goal or action on a website. Some examples are filling in a contact us form, purchasing something through an online store or even registering for a newsletter. Setting up goal tracking can help identify how frequently and very importantly how many people complete actions off a website. Alongside goal tracking is a slightly more in-depth ecommerce tracking which can be set up to provide more details on what kind of purchases people are making and the value of these goals. Custom tracking can also be placed onto email newsletters and this information and any goals that came about, is pulled into Analytics.
Google Analytics is not just for the corporates and the geeks of the world, it can really help with marketing insight and small business profitability. If you are using any online marketing strategies, especially Google AdWords campaigns then this free tool is definitely for you!
For more information on how we can help with your Google AdWords campaigns and setting up of Google Analytics please email the MJ Media team on info@mjmedia.co.za or visit our website on www.mjmedia.co.za.
