Why you should use Google Analytics for your SME

 

The gathering and processing of data effectively could mean the difference between the survival and demise of a business. With competitiveness between brands, creating new ways to capture the customers attention is paramount, but other issues lies in the effective processing of customer data. 

Data is important as it gives us insights into the customer behaviour and expectation. But what happens when we don't know how to analyse or process this data? 

Google Analytics is web analytics service provided by Google that monitors your website data, giving real time reports in order for you to quickly and efficiently analyse your website or your app using GA4 (Google Analytics 4).

why you should use Google Analytics for your SME focusing on the health and wellbeing sector?

1) Understand and Create Goals

Goals are personal achievements you can set up using Google Analytics. They are set up by analysing the metrics (quantitative measurements of data) and by making plausible predictions to the numbers you are trying to reach. For example if a yoga website is getting 50 views per day but 20 of those are bounces (exiting the website as soon as it loads) it could mean that the website either does not have the content the person is searching for or is irrelevant to their search. It is important to segment the data as this well help pinpoint the cause of the problem. The most goals you can set is 20 unless you create a new view. A great step-by-step guide on creating goals written by Digital Marketing Institute will help you create SMART goals. 

2) Analyse and Implement KPIs

After you set up your goals the next step is to make sure you know when you hit them, this is where KPIs comes in. An acronym for Key Performance Indicators, it refer to milestone achievements. An example of a possible KPI for Salt Cave Therapy would include the number of clicks on their calls to action buttons ("Book Now"/"Buy Products").

Once you can monitor how many times the CTAs are getting clicks you can adjust wording, colour, shape and position until you've optimised those buttons. This is called A/B testing. The list of KPIs would depend on the goals you set up and would differ for every business so focus on the main aspects first and then refine them. If you'd like to know more about KPIs, Investopedia wrote an in-depth description of them and their most common uses here.

3) Improve Customer Satisfaction 

Using Google Analytics for your business will evidently improve your overall user experience and increase customer satisfaction by making the experience memorable. By streamlining, refining and updating processes on your page the user will have a positive experience which could lead to more conversions (specific actions you are aiming for) be them purchases, subscriptions and engagement. In today's customer focused market this is one of the most important aspects a business must strive for. For example, Emma's Candles could monitor the number of sales per specific product and the time it takes for a customer to complete the purchase. By making this process as quick and user friendly as possible she could improve customer satisfaction and increase sales. 

Emma's Candles

4) Improve ROI

For any business the return of investment is crucial for its survival and for small to medium business even more so. ROI defines if the business will make a profit at the end of the day. By using Google Analytics you can monitor your ROI through marketing campaigns and adjust them accordingly to ensure you are creating effective marketing strategies that are cost effective to your business. Google Analytics will help you analyse where traffic to your website comes from, this will denote your best channels allowing you to focus on them more and helping you avoid spending extra money on unsuccessful ones. 

An example would include the Happy Pear. They have various channels established but by using Google Analytics they can then further segment which channels are preforming best by bringing traffic in to their main page. 

Note that when setting up campaigns you must determine the stage of the purchase funnel with the aim of obtaining Loyalty and Advocates. If you'd like to know more about the purchase funnel, Zero Gravity Marketing explains it here.

 5) Improve your Strategical Digital Marketing

As you've probably noticed by now data plays a huge part in digital marketing. Not only does it provide insight into customer behaviours and experience but also is a vital asset for creating and managing effective marketing tactics. What Google Analytics provides for business enables them to segment this data and improve their marketing strategies, customer satisfaction and return of investment. As a marketer or even as a business your goal is to promote your product in the most efficient way and now with Google Analytics you can monitor every step  towards a conversion, analyse that data and use it for future campaigns and tactics, lowering expenditure and improving ROI. 

SmartInsights.com

One thing to note is that this is a continuous process. The more data you obtain, the more changes and improvements you can make. Think of it as a circle, perfectly explained by Dave Chaffey. The market is always evolving and as a business so must you.

To conclude why you should use Google Analytics for you SME, not only is it the most widely used system to analyse data it is also one of the best marketing assets a business can use to improve their marketing strategies, help reduce cost and increase conversions. Helping you and your business grow!