Online marketing analytics is your business’s unsung hero. Staying in touch with how your digital marketing efforts are performing is essential to continued growth and success.
Making digital marketing decisions for your business without consulting the analytics and data, and relying on hunches and gut feelings, is the quickest way to a wasted budget and disappointing results.
Equipping yourself to do an online marketing analysis for your business is imperative for seeing returns on your digital marketing efforts. From social media, to phone calls, to form fills, abandoned carts and purchases, having a birds-eye view of how each of your online marketing strategies work together is imperative for success.
In this blog, you'll learn the meanings of common analytics terms used in Google Analytics and Google Business Profile, as well as how to use analytics data to enhance your marketing strategy. We’ll go over how digital marketers use analytics to improve strategies and how online marketing analytics work.
Google Business Profile (GBP) Insights offers analytics on how your Google Business Profile is performing. Insights is where you can see valuable data points that can show you the growth of your business’s visibility in local search results.
Here's what you want to pay attention to and track in your Google Business Profile Insights:
Searches show the number of times your business listing shows up in relevant search queries.
Insights separates searches into more specific categories:
Direct searches tell you how many people typed your business name (or a close variation) directly into the search bar on Google.
The number of direct searches provides insights into the level of brand awareness surrounding your business. For example, a higher volume of direct searches indicates stronger brand awareness and a stronger association between your brand and the solutions it provides for specific problems.
If you’re unsatisfied with how many direct searches are listed in your business’s GBP analytics, investing in brand awareness strategies, like paid ads, can help get your business top-of-mind for consumers who need what you offer.
Aiming for high direct search numbers is an excellent goal. However, a better goal is to make sure the searches are translating into valuable conversions. If the number of direct searches and conversions don’t match, revisit your business’s overall brand messaging so that what you offer is clearer to consumers.
Discovery searches tell you how frequently your business listing appeared in search results related to your primary products or services.
When you see an uptick in discovery searches, you know your online marketing plan is working! High discovery search numbers mean that new leads and customers are finding your business, thus increasing your brand’s reach and impact.
If you have low discovery searches, your local search and organic marketing may need some attention. Local search marketing is foundational to your business’s online success. If you need help establishing your business online, check out our Local Search Marketing plan.
Unlike a search, which tells you how a customer found your business, a view tells us where they found your business.
A view on maps indicates that the customer located your business using Google Maps on a desktop, tablet, or mobile device. Views are similar to impressions, as they are counted when your business is displayed. Because of this, a single search could generate multiple views.
Making sure your business shows up on Google Maps for relevant and geo-specific searches is what local search marketing is all about. Consumers who search for a business on maps are more likely to visit that business right away and make a purchase. This type of high-intent search is called a micro-moment.
Marketing for micro-moments on maps can yield significant returns, and views can show you how prepared your business is at meeting consumers when they are ready to buy.
Customer actions are broken down into three distinct categories:
A click to website action happens when a customer finds your business’s GBP and clicks on the website button.
This customer action indicates how often customers discover your business listing but want to learn more information before contacting you, visiting your location or booking an appointment. Tracking "click to website" actions is important because they show consumer interest and a willingness to engage with your business.
It’s crucial that your business’s website or landing page is mobile-friendly, user-friendly and set up to encourage conversions. A click to website action is valuable in itself, however, when your business’s website is prepared to capture these leads and convert them, they add more value to your business.
A click to directions action is when a mobile user clicks on the “directions” button on your business’s GBP listing.
Mobile users will be redirected to their GPS or Google Maps app to find the quickest route to your business’s location. A desktop or tablet user will be redirected to Google Maps to input their location and get turn-by-turn directions.
A click to directions action indicates high customer intent and that they are headed to make a purchase at your business. For brick-and-mortar businesses, leveraging these click to directions actions is imperative for business growth and positive user experiences.
Creating an inviting storefront, offering clear parking instructions and ensuring that your in-store employees are prepared to assist customers all contribute to delivering an exceptional customer experience, encouraging customer loyalty and creating repeat customers.
A click to call action happens when a customer clicks on your business’s phone number to contact your business directly. Clicks to call usually happen from mobile phones, but desktop or tablet users can also call using Google Hangouts.
Customers typically call businesses to ask about various details, such as operating hours, item availability, delivery or curbside pickup options, table reservations or similar information. All of this information can be listed either directly on your business’s GBP or on your website.
Some businesses opt to not list a phone number so that they can avoid these kinds of calls. However, in the interest of both good customer service and pleasing Google’s algorithm, listing a phone number and being ready to take calls is recommended.
Google Analytics tells you what actions consumers take once they are on your business’s website. Google Analytics can provide you with a thorough look at your website’s function and user behavior.
Here's what you should be tracking in Google Analytics:
A session is when your site is visited by a user. To identify where users are finding your site, talk to your marketing strategist about more advanced analytics data reporting.
Keep in mind that one user can generate multiple sessions. Sessions last as long as the user is on your business’s website. A session ends 30 minutes after inactivity from the user.
Sessions are necessary to track because they let you know how long users are interacting with your business’s website, which is a good indicator of how valuable the content and streamlined the UX is.
If you notice many short sessions or high bounce rates, checking up on your business’s website’s overall health is a good next step.
New sessions occur when a visitor who has either never been to your business's website before or has cleared their browser cookies since their last visit, accesses your website. Google Analytics will install a cookie on the user’s browser to identify repeat traffic, new traffic and user behavior.
New sessions are indicative of healthy brand awareness and reach. New sessions mean new leads and new chances to create lifelong customers.
New and returning user data can tell you a few things:
Pageviews are how many pages of your business’s website were visited.
If your business’s website has many pages, your pageviews should be quite large since you want people to stay on your website and visit multiple pages. If your business’s pageviews are on the lower side, it could be because of difficult navigation or broken links, so you may need to troubleshoot your website to figure out the problem(s) and improve pageviews.
If you have a smaller, more focused website with only a few pages, having a lower pageview number is totally normal.
Getting started with digital marketing analytics doesn’t have to be complicated or overwhelming. With the right expertise, reviewing analytics data is a rewarding digital marketing endeavor.
RevLocal offers advanced and in-depth digital marketing analytics for small businesses and multi-location brands. We clearly communicate the data and offer recommendations for how to improve your business’s digital marketing efforts and keep scaling positive numbers. Most of all, we make sure that you’re feeling the difference in your business.
Check out our Marketing Platform to learn more about this process.
Contact us today for a free consultation or browse our website to learn about out other services.
Taylor Rice, Blog Contributor
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