Tracking Analytics and Why It’s Important For Your Business

Tracking analytics has become more than just a good idea – it’s essential for success. Every click, tap, and scroll leaves a trail of data in its wake.

Whether you’re running a blog, an e-commerce store, or a national corporation, tracking analytics is the key to marketing insights.  That can drive growth, improve user experience, and ultimately, boost your bottom line.

With so many tools and metrics to choose from, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. We’ll tell you about the best practices for tracking analytics and why it’s so important for your business. 

Why Tracking Analytics is Important

Having a regular schedule of tracking your analytics, whether it be for your website, or social media platforms is important to strategize how you will move forward.

It’s sort of like when you go to the doctor. Before you even see the provider, the nurse will ask you to stand on the scale and weigh. If you don’t get a weight, you cannot even begin to assess what needs to be improved. 

Same thing with lab work. Getting a baseline is important to determine what your baseline is. From there, we check these regularly to determine what plan of action we need to improve. 

Studies show that inadequate data management or neglecting to track analytics results in a staggering loss of $3.1 trillion from the U.S. economy each year. The repercussions extend beyond monetary losses, affecting productivity, system reliability, and maintenance expenses. These are just a few examples of the adverse effects stemming from the failure to monitor data analytics.

What portion of that $3.1 trillion belongs to your business? You don’t know until you begin tracking.

What Does Analytics Mean?

You may be reading this and thinking, “Well, I keep hearing about how I should know my analytics, but I don’t even know what analytics are.” That’s ok.

Analytics is simply, data. It is the statistics of a platform. You have probably heard of Google Analytics. This is a place where you can connect your website, and the data is presented to you, telling you about your website traffic, how people search to get to your site, and the entire customer journey from the entry point to exit. 

Pretty cool, right?

Analytics Tells You About Consumer Behavior 

If you aren’t sure why you should know about your consumer’s behavior, you should definitely read What You Should Know About Consumer Behavior on Social Media. The same can be said for consumer behavior online, via the internet. More specifically, how people interact when they land on your website and maneuver through it. 

If you find out that most of your audience, or target audience finds you via a blog post you have on “Top Ten Best Wake Surf Boards” you know that you should create more content like that. You could even develop marketing tools to turn those potential customers into customers via email marketing, sales funnels, and more!

Analytics can also tell you if the visitors clicked around to other parts of your website, maybe even your shop. It can help you determine the best way to improve conversion rates for the customer experience. 

Website Analytics

It may seem daunting when you read anything about analytics and tracking them. Some of our clients exclaim, “Just tell me if we are going ok. If not, how can we change it?” That’s an approach. You can delegate all of your website and social analytics and let Surf’s Up Social handle it. 

We also think it is important for you to feel empowered, and understand web analytics tools, why they matter in digital marketing, and overall content performance. 

If you are not set up with Google Analytics for your website, do it. You need the baseline before you can learn how to tailor your marketing strategy. 

There are plenty of other important Google Analytics metrics to consider beyond just the basics. Tracking metrics such as sessions, bounce rate, new users, average engagement time, and session conversion rate can provide deeper insights into your website’s performance and user behavior.

Sessions indicate the number of interactions users have on your site within a specific time frame. It also offers a measure of overall site traffic.

Bounce rate measures the percentage of visitors who navigate away from your site after viewing only one page, helping to gauge the effectiveness of your landing pages and content.

New users reveal the rate at which your audience is growing, while average engagement time indicates how long visitors are spending on your site.

All of this information is gold! Are you as excited about this as we are? No? It’s ok. We love this stuff!

Don’t have a website yet? Ok, that is super important. Websites are not dead. Do not allow anyone to tell you that they are. If they do, they know nothing about brand marketing. 

Social Media Analytics

Social media analytics are indispensable for businesses in today’s digital landscape. They provide invaluable insights into audience demographics, preferences, and again, consumer behavior.

By diving into metrics such as engagement rates, follower growth, and content performance, businesses can gain a comprehensive understanding of their audience’s interests and needs.

When you know your insights, you can tailor your content and marketing strategies to better resonate with your target demographic. That ultimately drives higher engagement and conversions.

Tracking social media analytics enables businesses to measure the effectiveness of their marketing efforts and adapt their strategies accordingly. The more you know, right?

Metrics such as reach, click-through rates, and conversion rates offer tangible feedback on the performance of content. We haven’t even gotten into advertising campaigns.

By analyzing metrics over time, businesses can identify trends, and optimize their campaigns, and other ad campaigns.

Bonus here, another piece of analytics is keeping an eye on competitors’ activities through social media analytics. Many tools allow businesses to stay ahead of the curve and capitalize on emerging opportunities in the market.

No secrets here, just strategy. 

Tools to Help with Tracking Analytics

Here are a few tools you can use to track your analytics. Some offer free versions, and some are paid.

• Google Analytics
• SEMrush
• FlyWheel
• Zoho Analytics
• Crazy Egg

There are others, but these are the ones we feel are the top.

Here are some tools you can use to track social media analytics. Again, some offer free versions, and some are paid.

• Metricool
• Hootsuite
• Buffer
• Tailwind
• Sprout Social

Basic Tracking Analytics

At the end of the day, you don’t have to have a tool to track. These tracking tools make it easier to manage, however, you can use a basic tracking tool. The best tool is the one you will actually use. You can create a spreadsheet of the monthly tracking you need to do. Once you track it, have a strategy session with your team to discuss the trends you see.

The best practice is to track at least once/month. We often do more, but if you are managing one business, doing it more can sort of give you analysis paralysis.

We offer a free analytics tracking tool for you to get started. If you’d like to outsource your analytics tracking, just reach out. We are just a wave away from helping you get a baseline and marketing strategy ready to surf your way to success!