How did you determine the success or failure of last year’s digital marketing initiatives? Whether you deemed 2016 a runaway success or a frustrating failure, did you actually dig into the data? Are you using web analytics to shape future campaigns and monitoring key performance indicators to generate measurable success?

Tracking web analytics to glean valuable business intelligence shouldn’t be a short term initiative. These tactics should guide your strategic direction, now and in the long term. Collecting and investigating website analytics frequently can help you to gain valuable insights into what is working well, what needs to be changed, and how to provide a better user experience for potential customers. The results will speak for themselves in increased traffic, lower costs and higher conversions.

Web Analytics Can Bring Huge Returns
According to a study by Nucleus Research, companies can expect to generate a 10:1 ROI for every dollar invested in web analytics. This data applies to businesses of all sizes and across all industries, and shows the tangible results these insights can bring.

The Analytic Data You Cannot Afford to Ignore
Google Analytics is the most popular web analytics tool available, and for good reason: It’s free; has an intuitive user interface; offers a wide range of business intelligence reports; and can be customized to suit your business model, target audience and goals.

Here are some high level (yet important) metrics you should pay close attention to:

Traffic
Most marketers know that traffic is never the end of the story. Lots of web traffic is great, but the right traffic is even better. Traffic metrics can show you the total number of visits, spikes and dips, and new vs repeat visits. You can also drill down to view traffic sources, which is useful when you want to know how visitors landed on your website.

Bounce Rate
Your bounce rate is indicative of how well your website is being received by visitors. The lower the bounce rate, the more visitors are likely stay long enough to (hopefully) convert to customers.

Top Pages
The top pages metric details where visitors are spending the most time on your site. When you know which pages are getting the most attention, you can repeat that success across other pages.

How These Companies Used Web Analytics to Their Advantage
If you’re wondering how Google Analytics could work for you, here are just a few examples of how some of the world’s largest organizations have leveraged the power of their data:

  • The American Cancer Society experienced a 5.4% increase in revenue after analyzing user segments and adapting their website to represent different user personas.
  • Domino’s, the well-known pizza purveyors, enjoyed a 6% increase in monthly revenue and an 80% reduction in ad costs as a result of assessing the effectiveness of their ads through Google Analytics.
  • Fairmont Raffles Hotel Group used a number of different metrics to track where referral traffic was coming from and gained a deeper insight into the effectiveness of their social media marketing campaigns.

Make 2017 a success, and put your website analytics to good use. The information can guide your strategic direction and generate a measurable ROI in the near term.

Now, go to Google Analytics!