Alongside every website, social media platform, and ad buy are marketing analytics and reporting showing you how it performs. However, for businesses unaccustomed to such data, especially small businesses that are already struggling with basic marketing, it can be overwhelming. In the most recent podcast episode, Most of What You’re Measuring Doesn’t Matter, co-host Laura and Julia explain what to focus on. Let’s dive deeper into two key places—website traffic and ad performance—to help you understand what to focus on.
Google Analytics is Your Website’s Friend
Much of online marketing focuses on driving traffic to your site so they can take actions that benefit your business. Google Analytics is a (arguably the) analytics platform to track traffic that comes onto your site. Once set up, you should focus on tracking important links, clicks (such as any phone number or email links), and any pages you’ve got set up for form completions (“thank you” pages) to see when leads occur.
Further Reading on Website Analytics
- The Marketing Analytics Behind Your Customer Journey
- Reviewing and Making Strategic Changes with Marketing Analytics
Tracking KPIs and Conversions for Online Advertising
All the major ad platforms—Google Ads, Meta Ads, etc.—have their own analytics, but much of the same information can be found on each if you know where to look and get it set up properly. A good place to start is CPC—Cost Per Click—but these KPIs won’t tell the whole story. You’ll also want to make sure conversion tracking is set up (to track traffic back to your website). Tracking these and other lead generation (phone calls, messages, etc.) can help you figure out where your money is best spent.
Further Reading on Ad Analytics
- Obsessing Over a Single Analytics Metric: A Marketer’s Take
- Are You Spending Too Much on Ads (or Too Little)?
If you’re still struggling to get the most out of your marketing and advertising but also want to understand its performance, it can also be worth it to work with a marketing agency that can provide reporting focused on just what you need.
About the enVisioning Success Podcast
This article is based on topics discussed in enVisioning Success, our weekly podcast hosted by Vision Advertising CEO Laura DiBenedetto and COO Julia Becker Collins. In it, they discuss all things business and marketing, from lead generation to leadership. Find us on PodBean to download from your platform of choice, or subscribe to our mailing list to get new episodes and other news delivered directly to your inbox. Interested in working with Vision Advertising? Learn more about our services and contact us today
