Why do marketing folk need Digital Marketing Analytics and Data?

Posted on by Lucy Smith in Working in Commercial Roles

Whilst data and analytics isn’t a marketing tactic per se, you can’t do digital marketing without it. Digital marketing analytics underpins everything we do, and making sure the data is “good data” is mission critical.

It’s the information, metrics and numbers that you get from the various marketing activities that you undertake and how you make sense of this information and base future decisions upon it. Businesses that succeed and thrive are usually very good at this. Think Amazon.

Amazon measure absolutely everything. They have got so good at it that they now test the on page minutia. For example, if they move the buy button a fraction or change it’s colour what does that do to their conversion rate and so on. Ever noticed their ‘people who buy this also buy this’? That’s their data at work again, making you buy more stuff.

There are so many marketing tools for so many different things, all with their own proprietary reporting and measurement that you’ll never be short of a report or twenty. But, there’s one tool that is pretty universal, tracks most things you need to track (at least when you are starting out) and is free to use. It’s called Google Analytics. I’m sure you’ve heard of it.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free tool offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. It was launched in 2005 after Google bought an analytics company called Urchin. You will still see urchin in the web tracking code today. You put a simple piece of code on every page of your website and Google starts to gather information about your website visitors by dropping a cookie onto the user’s device and recording what they do. Simple!

The best place to read more about Google Analytics is on their website at their help centre  or their blog  – although beware, it can sometimes be a bit technical.

AND they offer free training for anyone who is super keen to learn how it works. If you’re serious about digital marketing you will have to learn this, so you may as well start to learn before your first interview.

If you have any questions about any of this stuff head over to our ASK US ANYTHING page on Facebook.

About post author

Lucy Smith

Hello. My name is Lucy Smith. I recently quit my full-time Marketing Director role at a tech start-up in London, (after 13 years hard graft getting there), in favour of starting up on my own. Why? The journey from graduating with a 2:1 in Media and Cultural Studies to Marketing Director hasn't all been plain sailing, but is has been challenging and tremendous fun. A career path that I heartily recommend to anyone who will listen. Digital Marketing For Graduates is my brain-child. I'd like to give something back, as well as have the experience of starting my own business. I will give it my all. Provide and source the very best information I can, but I know I can't do it all alone. For Digital Marketing For Grads to evolve I will need some help. Please get in touch if you'd like to be part of the idea.
Posted in Working in Commercial RolesTagged , ,