Making friends with numbers: Why it's important to check your own analytics

Welcome to the exhilarating world of analytics, where numbers come alive and pave the way to your digital success!

Okay, okay, you got me. Numbers and analytics aren’t typically renowned for being that titillating. They are, however, mighty important.

The importance of analytics, generally

First up, it’s great — brilliant, in fact — to have reports and figures delivered to you from your marketing team. That could be your marketing manager or assistant, or an agency or freelancer to which you outsource your marketing activities.

Data, such as that from Google Analytics or GA4 serves up invaluable insights. These can be into user behaviour on your website, content performance on social media or your blog, overall growth of your leads or audiences. It might even be visits to your website via a QR code you slipped into a print ad. The list goes on.

The key benefits of knowing your numbers

Data = details that can help you assess what’s working and what’s not. As you can imagine, this has a bunch of benefits for your marketing and for your business decisions.

According to research, data-driven organisations are 23 times more likely to acquire customers, and six times as likely to retain customers.

These are the top three benefits that we believe make data such an important aspect of your marketing:

1. Measure your success

Analytics lets you objectively assess your success. Here’s a super simple example: if a pop-up on your website is getting a bunch of clicks, then you change the wording or placement and it gets 50 per cent less, that data specific to that pop-up will tell you loud and clear what you to do. Essentially, data can inform you on what to do more of and what to ditch.

2. Understand your audience

One of the most quietly valuable aspects of analytics is the insights they provide into your audience. Demographic data, observing user behaviour and noting the preferences made by your consumers can help you to craft your strategies to sit well with them and ultimately be more likely to nurture them to conversion again and again.

3. Smart and educated choices

Data-driven decisions are smart decisions backed by evidence. Numbers are a solid foundation for decision-making, whether you’re exploring the customer journey, optimising your website or designing marketing campaigns across multiple channels. Leveraging data means reducing guesswork and increasing your chance of nailing it.

Why check your own data

When you’re playing the numbers game, there’s certainly power in knowing what you’re working with firsthand. You should absolutely be able to rely solely on your marketers’ expertise in this field, but understanding what’s what can offer you a few benefits.

You can ask the right questions: When you know which figures mean what, you are better equipped to know what to ask. Plus, you’ll have a better idea of what a good answer is!

You could uncover insights of your own: Every part of your business is connected with the others, so your broad insights could help you spot a certain something in the analytics that can be useful.

You can make informed decisions: Knowing what’s what with your data means that when it comes to making decisions, you are fully informed and can decide with confidence.

You can’t be bamboozled: Hopefully, you won’t ever cross paths with a dodgy marketer or analyst. If you did though, a solid understanding of your own numbers and where to find them will soon put them in their place.

While it may seem daunting at first, making friends with numbers and regularly checking your own analytics is an essential practice. Your data can often hold the key to unlocking some seriously impactful insights, so get in there. If you need some help along the way, give us a shout.

So, how do we do things differently? We’ve broken it down into five key points that make all the difference for our clients.

1. We specialise in small to medium businesses

Every business is different, and so is every category of business. We have made it our priority to deeply understand the inner workings of small to medium businesses so that we can specifically support the needs and challenges faced.

2. We become an extension of the team

We don’t become just a random contact that one person on your team knows of. The AJ Marketing team becomes an extension of your team. We take the time to get to know you all, and understand how everyone fits together. Maybe we’re a little needy, but we do like to feel like we’re part of your business.

3. We respect your budget

Budgets are there for a reason, and we are not interested in trying to blow yours out of the water. Your budget simply informs aspects of the strategy we take — we’ll be honest and tell you what we think you should consider but you’ll never have us pushing you to kick it up a notch.

4. Expect transparency

Speaking of honesty, that’s all you’ll get from us. We pride ourselves on transparency and authenticity. No double-speak, no nonsensical jargon, no fluffing results. The real deal.

5. We deliver results

The AJ approach is one that is data-backed. We measure the impact of each marketing activity we embark on for your business and we feed that information back into your strategy. Put it this way: if it’s not working, we change it. If it is working, we look at why and we do more of that.

Of course, this is all easy to say, but hard to prove — but the proof’s in the pudding and our clients get bona fide results. We take the time to “get” their business. Then, they get leads, they get clicks, they get enquiries and they get conversions.

If this all sounds too good to be true, well, I guess there’s only one way to find out?! Let’s have a chat about your business goals and see what we can do