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You are here: Home / blog / Who needs analytics anyhow?

Who needs analytics anyhow?

in blog, pay per click advertising on 02/26/14

google analytics is your marketing campaignI’ve come across many clients or business owners who have their website, have their social media and may even have a paid advertising campaign.  All of these things are great if that works for you and your business.  One thing that seems to be missing is some sort of analytics to help prove that what you are doing is working for your business.

You want to see if there is some sort of return of investment, right? How do you determine where your leads are coming from? Where is your traffic coming from? You are running a paid campaign and you can easily tell how many visitors are clicking thru on your ads, but are they leaving as soon as they get there, how many pages do they visit, is your landing page the right page for your campaign? So many questions, how does one know?

Google Analytics is fairly easy to set up and it’s FREE! It is a great tool to determine how many visits (# of people to your site), how many pages views (total number of pages that are seen via all of the visitors to your site) and how many of those visitors are new or is returning (within the selected time period). Another data point that is helpful is where your traffic is coming from. You can find out if it is coming from someone directly typing in your web address, whether it is coming from organic search (a means of search engine optimization efforts), from paid advertising if you are running a campaign and if it is referral traffic, among many other things.

Referral traffic can be a number of things – such as social media like Facebook or Google +, it could be from Superpages, Yelp or basically any number of pages. The thing that would be helpful to know is who these referrals are. What if you are running an Adsense campaign and you want to know which sites are referring the most traffic?  What if you have an ad or just a listing/citation like on Yelp and you see you are getting traffic there? A good thought here would be to ensure all of your information that is listed there is correct.

In my business, seeing the traffic from social is important so I can track whether my efforts from social to my site are working.  Ideally I want those that go to my website to follow me on at least one social media platform. Those that follow me on social media, I’d like to get to know more about my business in hopes of converting and/or sharing with others. So, having this information can be helpful in my business for me personally and for clients that I am helping. I always ensure clients that I am working with have some form of analytics!

So, my parting thought, Google Analytics if free but costs your time; however if you are spending money on any form of marketing, it is worth your time to verify that your money and efforts are working…. unless, of course, you don’t care, then by all means, throw your money away! 😉  Check out my time is money blog for more on this sort of thing. 😉

Thanks for reading; I’d love to hear what you have to say so please feel free to leave a comment. If you need any help with your website as far as search engine optimization, paid advertising or social media marketing, I’d love to help so contact me and we can chat!

~Kristen

25 Comments

About Kristen Day

Kristen is a small business owner and thus dedicated to other small business owners by helping them improve their online presence with having a professional and mobile responsive website, then implementing search engine optimization and pay per click advertising all of which are necessary 'evils' in the digital marketing sphere but enables small business owners the opportunity to compete with larger companies. When not in the digital arena, you can find her hanging with her girlfriends, husband, drinking a margarita or shooting competition (not in that order).

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Comments

  1. Patricia says

    02/26/2014 at 9:41 AM

    Absolutely! I use google analytics to show me which pages on my website get visited or left! Offers me a visual that I need to change up or do more research about who comes in!! great article! p

    Reply
    • Kristen Wilson says

      02/28/2014 at 11:42 AM

      You nailed it.. it is great to A/B testing!

      Reply
  2. Patricia says

    02/26/2014 at 10:11 AM

    Great article! I agree, analytics are a great tool to measure traffic! Thanks for sharing!

    Reply
    • Kristen Wilson says

      02/28/2014 at 11:41 AM

      Thanks Patricia and you are welcome! 😉

      Reply
  3. Heather says

    02/26/2014 at 11:09 AM

    I have Google Analytics right in my dashboard on both of my blogs too so I can see where the traffic is coming from. In the dashboard from GA I can see the demographics and the age range and what device they are using. It’s just amazing. Its an underutilitzed FREE tool!

    Reply
    • Kristen Wilson says

      02/28/2014 at 11:41 AM

      It IS underutilized… what are you finding your demo to be?

      Reply
  4. Michael Kawula says

    02/26/2014 at 12:28 PM

    Great post and it’s all so true. Who wouldn’t want to see what is working and what is a waste of money?

    Reply
    • Kristen Wilson says

      02/28/2014 at 11:41 AM

      Right!

      Reply
  5. Jackie Harder says

    02/26/2014 at 2:31 PM

    Reminds me of a lament I used to hear when I was president of the local chamber of commerce: “I’m wasting 50% of my advertising budget, but I don’t know which half.” The only way you’ll find out is if you track, and if you’re measuring your online efforts, Google Analytics is the way to go.

    Reply
    • Kristen Wilson says

      02/28/2014 at 11:40 AM

      So true Jackie and thanks for adding that extra little bit… love the quote! 😉

      Reply
  6. Melissa Michel says

    02/26/2014 at 2:39 PM

    Thanks for sharing! I just recently got into analyzing my Social Media and boy do I love it! I find it hard to believe that I let so much time pass where I wasn’t doing it!?! We definitely need to benchmark so that we can see what’s working and what’s not!

    Reply
    • Kristen Wilson says

      02/28/2014 at 11:40 AM

      Did you use the tool that Rod mentioned – Social Metrics for Word Press? It’s fabulous!

      Reply
  7. Crystal Peteson says

    02/26/2014 at 10:17 PM

    Google Analytics is such an awesome tool. Its so great to identify what is working and what’s not working so that valuable time and resources aren’t wasted.

    Reply
    • Kristen Wilson says

      02/28/2014 at 11:39 AM

      So true, it does give you insight into where thins are coming to help determine what you need to change, very true! Don’t want to waste time!

      Reply
  8. Daveda says

    02/27/2014 at 11:00 AM

    I think Google Analytics is a MUST HAVE! And, I’m not even all that into the technical side of things 😉 Great post!

    Reply
    • Kristen Wilson says

      02/28/2014 at 11:39 AM

      Thanks Daveda.. I agree, it really is, even for the non-techies, it still provides valuable info!

      Reply
  9. Clive says

    03/01/2014 at 2:54 PM

    Totally agree Kristen. Test and measure is key.

    Reply
  10. Beth Blacker says

    03/02/2014 at 2:09 PM

    I am horrible at consistently reviewing my analytics but like balancing my books once a month, I try to schedule a little time to do it. It must be a right-brained vs. left-brained thing because there are a lot of people who love it…me, it’s just another necessary evil 🙂

    Reply
  11. Christy Lee says

    03/05/2014 at 3:39 AM

    I have just started using Google analytics and I love it. It is a great tool.

    Reply
    • Kristen Wilson says

      03/05/2014 at 9:40 AM

      That’s awesome Christy. Are you finding out new and interesting tid bits on your business?

      Reply
  12. Vicky says

    03/05/2014 at 3:56 AM

    So true! It’s important to measure so you know if its working. Thanks for sharing.

    Reply
    • Kristen Wilson says

      03/05/2014 at 9:40 AM

      Agreed, do YOU measure? 😉

      Reply
  13. Holly Jean says

    03/05/2014 at 5:30 AM

    Google Analytics is an important tool for business! Admittedly, I need to get better at understanding them!

    Reply
    • Kristen Wilson says

      03/05/2014 at 9:41 AM

      Well, let me know if you need any help Holly! 😉

      Reply
  14. Edmund S. Lee says

    03/06/2014 at 2:30 PM

    Totally agree with you, Kristen! Analytics are an important piece of the puzzle since they allow us to operate out of efficiency and really know what is happening from a scoreboard perspective.

    Reply

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