Using analytics in marketing

5 min read

One of the questions you will be asked most frequently as a marketer is how a marketing campaign is performing. Having the data available to measure the effectiveness of your marketing strategy can help to support your decision-making, and serves as evidence of your hard work too. 

Analytics in marketing is the study of data to assess the performance of a marketing activity, such as a brand campaign or promotion. Having a solid knowledge of how to use analytics can help you and your business understand what drives consumer actions, and help to measure ROI and engagement, so you can make informed decisions and changes to your marketing where needed.

Here, we’ll look at the importance of analytics for marketing and how analysing data can help both your business’ reporting and marketing decisions.

What is analytics in marketing?

Analytics in marketing means looking at data to evaluate a marketing activity’s performance. It involves applying technology to marketing-related data to assess what drives consumer actions and allows you to determine what’s working in your marketing strategy and what needs refining to optimise your return on investment (ROI). 

Analytics also allow you to spot trends in data, such as seasonality (perhaps you sell more products in January than in August, for example) and how often users add items to their basket but don’t make it to checkout.

These insights can help you identify what changes you need to make to the sales process to improve customer experience and ensure your marketing efforts are effective. With two out of three marketers saying that data-driven decisions are more effective than gut instincts, using analytics is a great way to evaluate every aspect of your marketing campaigns - giving you and your business a complete 360-degree view of the customer’s journey. 

How is analytics used in marketing?

Analytics in marketing employs statistics, machine learning, and predictive modelling to reveal insights into your customers’ buying habits. Having customer data to hand can help you better understand your customers, make data-informed predictions and decisions, and prevent repetitive losses from happening. 

Analytics are used across all types of businesses and industries, from weather predictions to life insurance policies. In the marketing world, analytics is crucial to understand marketing impact, predict marketing trends, recognise user behaviour and optimise the user experience (UX) to increase ROI and drive sales. 

Here are some prime examples of how analytics can be used in marketing: 

Customer behaviour analytics

Behavioural data can help you to examine how your customers interact with your business. The goal here is to gain a full picture of your customers so you can optimise customer conversion, engagement, and retention. Customer behaviour data includes purchased products, page views, email sign-ups, and ad clicks. These analytics are gained from websites, CRM systems, call centres, marketing automation systems, and billing systems. Each of these data sources offers insight into how your customers are best interacting with your business or brand, and where changes need to be made to your marketing.

Predictive analytics

Predictive analytics uses data algorithms to predict the likelihood of future events or results based on historical data, such as customer behaviour. This allows marketers to identify future opportunities and risks ahead of time in order to make effective data-driven decisions. For example, you can predict engagement points where a customer may convert by looking at existing customer data. Predictive analysis software tools can help you target the right audience, and attract them with the messaging that is likely to have the highest conversion rate and ROI. These tools can help to analyse and forecast seasonal customer behaviour, particularly for online sales.

You’ll be able to identify which consumers are most likely to purchase again at a particular time, and how to prioritise certain customer demographics for certain times of the year. You’ll also be able to identify which marketing channels, from CRM to PPC, deliver the best results in terms of engagement and response rates. 

Personalised marketing

Marketing personalisation can completely transform your customers’ experience. It improves customer experience by maintaining consistency across all channels while strengthening brand loyalty. And in today’s world, personalisation is more important than ever as consumers have access to content from several channels, particularly social media. It’s easy for them to feel overloaded with information meaning they’re less likely to engage with it. But when they see their name, and content that speaks to them directly, it’s more likely to capture and hold their attention. 

But building a personalised customer journey can be tricky without the use of analytics. Data analytics software can help you understand your customers’ behaviour, to then offer personalised recommendations to them. This allows your buyer to make purchase decisions quickly, as the product or content offered to them meets their needs and interests. Marketing personalisation can include targeted ads, personalised emails, product recommendations and targeted notifications. With personalised marketing, you’re delivering a personal and unique customer experience.

How can analytics help your business?

Making use of analytics can help your business with everything from personalising customer interactions to mitigating risks. Here are just some of the benefits of using analytics in marketing:

• Informed decision-making: Businesses can use analytics to guide their marketing decisions and minimise the chances of financial loss. Predictive analytics can help forecast what could happen in response to changes to the business. For example, if a business were to change its product offerings, it could A/B test this across its site to see how the change would affect customer demand. They could then collect sales data and use data analytics to determine the success of the changes to help them decide whether to roll out the changes across the business. 
• Stages of the customer journey: A customer’s journey is likely to involve several touchpoints across a variety of channels before they purchase. Marketing analytics can help you identify what channel your customers use for what stage of their journey. For example, they may use social media for brand awareness and search engines for consideration. With these insights, you can ensure offer your customers information that is relevant to them at each stage of their journey. 
• Attribution modelling: Attribution modelling reveals which touchpoints (the steps your customer took to get to the checkout) were present in the customer’s journey. It also assigns credit to each touchpoint depending on how influential it was in getting the customer to buy. With these insights, you can direct investment towards the efforts that have been successful in getting customers to buy and ensure profits are being invested in the right channels.
• Customer segmentation: Each of your business’ customers will have their own demographic profile - this means you can’t adopt a one-size-fits-all marketing approach. Segmentation allows you to group similar prospects and create targeted marketing campaigns that resonate with their preferences. You can then analyse your campaign data and amend your customer profiles according to how they responded to your campaigns.

Take control of your data with Apteco software  

Want to get to grips with your data to improve your marketing strategy? With Apteco’s intuitive platform, you’ll be able to dive deeper into your data than ever before. Understand your customers’ behaviours, forecast potential pitfalls, and identify patterns to ensure each one of your customers receives the best possible experience. 

You can even integrate Apteco software with your existing applications, such as Instagram and Facebook, for a complete picture of your data. Unlock new data possibilities and learn more about Apteco software today.