Let’s talk about your digital marketing data. At RevLocal, our strategies are data-driven, and we spend a lot of time working with our clients’ analytics.
We set up Google Analytics for clients and watch the trends form. We use our marketing analytics platform, Reveal, to watch the numbers grow from month to month, and we feel successful.
But what happens when the numbers stop growing? Even worse, what happens if all those good trends start to go bad and you begin seeing negative trends in your analytics?
Negative digital marketing data often reflects poor sales, a drop in website traffic or a lack of social media interaction, but it isn’t the end of the world.
Sure, negative data is discouraging. But don’t think of it as something you have no control over.
When you see performance data trending down, think “We have an opportunity to find what’s holding us back and improve.”
Bad data is a signal that something needs to improve, so you should think of your negative data trends as a chance to come back even better than you were before.
In your quest to improve your marketing performance, you may find that you turn that negative data into positive performance (and profit).
But, you could also find that your tweaks have improved your digital marketing performance and made it even better than it was before your analytics graphs took a nosedive.
This takes us to step two.
Now that we know we have an opportunity to improve, we need to figure out where that opportunity is.
When you’ve experienced solid marketing performance for a long period of time followed by a sudden downturn, odds are something has changed somewhere.
So, what changed? Did you make changes to your website, such as moving primary links or buttons? You could move them back and see if this improves your performance.
If you haven’t changed anything, has something changed in the market?
Has a new way of doing things come along that you haven’t caught up with yet? Maybe you aren’t as active on social media as you were.
It can take time to identify what the right opportunity is, but you need to be proactive about finding it.
So don't hesitate! As soon as you see downward trends in your data, it’s time to start looking critically at your entire digital presence to figure out what’s caused this decline in performance. Only then can you begin to make changes.
A couple of steps you could take here include making sure your local marketing strategy is up-to-date and making sure your information on Google, Bing, Facebook and Yelp is correct.
Think about the different types of marketing your business uses to drive website traffic, leads and sales as well as which tends to be the most profitable. Is it email marketing? Social media? Local search marketing?
Did you stop using that channel? Has it become less effective? Analyze your data to find the culprit so that you can begin to make changes.
It’s probably going to take time to locate the right opportunity to fix your performance issues.
However, that doesn’t mean you should sit around, waiting. If you’re lucky, you might realize that you made one major change recently, and when you reverse it, everything is fine again.
In the meantime, you can track offline conversions to see how your online marketing affects your offline sales.
Most of the time, though, you’ll have to improve your marketing performance with a little trial and error. Brainstorm a list of the possible changes that could be affecting your performance data.
List the changes in order of importance, and fix them one at a time.
After you fix one, give it a couple of weeks and watch your data. If your numbers improve, maybe you’ve found the culprit of your data downturn.
If not, move on to number two and watch it. Repeat that process as many times as you need to until you find and fix the issue.
Remember, you aren’t at the mercy of your data. You are in control and you can have a meaningful impact on the performance of your digital marketing efforts.
As long as we don’t sit idly by, we will be successful. Good luck!
Learn more about RevLocal's marketing analytics platform, here.
Adam Beutel, Senior Manager of RevSite Operations
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