Web Analytics to Your Agency’s Advantage: Data is everywhere in today’s digital landscape. Every time someone visits a website, likes a social post, clicks on a link, or adds something to their basket online, they’re generating streams of data.
As an agency that uses sophisticated web analytics technology, it’s possible to convert the available data into actionable insights that can make a big difference to your clients’ businesses.
Web analysis is the process of measuring, collecting, and evaluating web-based data to achieve specific goals. Today, countless companies use digital analytics tools to learn more about their customer journeys, what it takes to ensure a conversion, and how they can continuously improve digital ROI.
Unfortunately, not every agency professional knows how to use web analytics to their advantage – or at least they don’t know how to realize the value of the data available.
Here are some key tips for using your agency’s analysis tools more effectively.
1. Set Goals for Your Analysis
Collecting data at random won’t give you the results your clients are looking for. If you ever work with a tool made for agency web analytics to gain insights for your prospective and existing clients, one of the first things you need to ascertain is what you’re trying to achieve.
Do you want to increase the number of visitors coming to your client’s website? Are you trying to understand how their website performs in comparison to competitors? Setting objectives and reasonable growth benchmarks for your analytics strategy is how you determine what kind of metrics you need to measure.
For instance, if your goal right now is to improve an ecommerce client’s relationships with your customers and increase average order value, your web analytics might look at how long customers spend on the shop’s web pages, how many times the same customer visits the site in a set period, and how these metrics compare with the engagement that competitors within the same niche see.
With your goals in mind, you can collect and use more relevant data to guide your agency clients’ marketing and sales strategies in the right direction.
2. Stay Focused
Today’s web analytics tools can give you access to a lot of information. With the right technology, you can determine who your clients’ primary competitors are on the web, and what kind of keywords they’re ranking for. You’ll also be able to develop a deeper knowledge of your clients’ audiences, and use the information you collect to build stronger buyer personas.
Unfortunately, access to huge amounts of data can often be a double-edged sword. Staying focused is the key to making sure you don’t drown in too much data.
A good way to get the most out of your agency’s web analytics tools is to have a specific question in mind whenever you use one of these tools. For instance, your question might be, What does the competitive landscape look like for this client right now? Focusing on that question will ensure you don’t end up going off on a data-driven tangent.
3. Filter Your Data
The exact extent to which you can filter and clean your data insights will depend on the kinds of tools you use, most will allow for at least some filtering options. For instance, if you want to understand how the traffic on a given website is growing, you might want to make sure you filter out any traffic coming from partner service providers that your agency works with, or people in your corporate network.
Removing your own IP address from the mix, and any partners who are helping you to work on your conversion and growth efforts, will give you a more accurate insight into the client’s true growth over time.
You can also use some analytics tools for more specific market research. For instance, certain tools will allow you to look at current market trends in certain industries and countries, so you can collect important information relevant to a specific target audience.
4. Automate Certain Reports
Automation is a powerful tool in today’s digital landscape, and it can be a fantastic asset when you’re using web analytics too. If you’re trying to keep track of your clients’ traffic growth over time, you might not be able to go and create a new report every hour of every day to see how things are changing. However, most tools will allow you to create automated reports of the metrics you most want to track.
Getting a regular report of the latest market trends sent to your email every month, or regular updates on how your traffic share from different countries is changing over time, can help you to ensure your marketing and sales strategies are moving in the right direction.
Some web analytics technology also allows for the creation of visual agency dashboards, so you can more instantly see whether certain metrics are trending up or down – and make these trends readily available to your clients.
5. Get to Know the Software
The steps you take to get the most out of your web analytics tools will differ depending on the kind of solutions you’re using. Some tools are designed to focus specifically on things like benchmarking website traffic and ensuring you gain more attention over time. Other tools give you a more comprehensive view of your clients’ markets and target audiences.
When you’re learning how to make the most of your agency’s web analytics tools, make sure you start by taking a deep dive into the software you’re going to be accessing. Find out what kind of functionality is available, so you know exactly what you’re working with.
You might even be able to find articles and knowledge base support from the company that builds your web analytics tool, to help you get started.
Make the Most of Your Agency’s Web Analytics Tools
Web analytics can be a powerful way to leverage the data you collect in the digital world on a daily basis. With the right analytical tools, you’ll be able to learn more about what drives traffic to your clients’ sites, what kind of competitors they’re facing in the current market, and where your biggest opportunities to deliver growth are.
However, just like any tool, web analytics will only deliver the best results if you know how to use it properly. Use the tips above to ensure you’re getting the most out of your data.
