What is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is a digital tool that allows companies to measure and evaluate the key elements of their marketing strategies. These can include considerations such as the effectiveness of advertising campaigns, social media and other website data, and consumer participation and experiences. By gathering information in these areas, companies can tabulate the results of their efforts, and make changes where indicated. Google Analytics can be an important factor in understanding website activity, providing data on the number and demographics of visitors to sites, the behavior of consumers on the sites, and what specific content they are interested in having companies include.
As marketing blogger Shinobi has pointed out, “Google Analytics (GA) is the most popular free tool for analyzing website traffic. It provides a wealth of data that businesses can use to evaluate how their website is performing, enabling them to plan an effective digital marketing strategy and change tactics as necessary to achieve the best results.” (Ecposreninja.com). Google Analytics allows users to monitor multiple platforms, assembling the data in one place for optimal comparisons of different channels. It is a tool that can be used by a range of people, from beginning bloggers who want to track their followers, to burgeoning businesses who are concerned with developing and enhancing their products and brands.
Why Use Google Analytics in Marketing?
Google Analytics is a free tool, and one that is especially well-suited to the needs of digital marketers. It enables them to track a wide variety of crucial metrics in order to garner information that can lead to website improvement and an overall increased perception of quality and credibility in the minds of consumers. By providing advanced dashboards, users of Google Analytics can quickly retrieve the specific information being sought, and evaluate it with ease. Analyzing these factors is an effective way to gain insights that can lead to more productive marketing decisions. In the words of analytics CEO Matin Movassate, “Analytics software is uniquely leveraged. Most software can optimize existing processes, but analytics (done right) should generate insights that bring to life whole new initiatives. It should change what you do, not just how you do it.” (Heap.io).
Three areas of Google Analytics that are especially useful for marketers are Acquisition, Audience and Behavior. The Audience section provides data about people visiting websites, such as their genders, ages, and locales, as well as what their interests are. The Acquisition section imparts information concerning the ways that people arrive at websites, and how they are directed to them. And the Behavior section furnishes additional data, showing how people interact with different parts of sites, highlighting which aspects are the most popular. Reviewing these areas of consideration, as well as others made available through Google Analytics, can empower companies to set and maintain clearcut marketing goals, leading to a positive loop of increased sales and customer satisfaction. As marketing manager Modesto Ochoa has observed, “Google Analytics allows you to track and measure many important metrics that will help you to grow your business. The bottom line is that when you measure the results of your marketing efforts, then you can work towards improving your site.” (iDigDigital.com)
About the Author:
Otis Kopp
LinkedIn: @OtisKopp
Twitter: @OtisKopp617
OtisKopp.com
OtisKopp@gmail.com