Internet Marketing Digital_marketing_for_dummies | Page 301

Crunching Numbers: Running a Data-
Driven Business
IN THIS CHAPTER
Tracking site visitors with hyperlinks
Using Google Analytics to see who’s taking action
Segmenting your audience to make your ads more specific
Drilling down on your audience to increase opt-ins
Few marketers disagree on the significance of collecting data. But for businesses to remain
competitive, they must go beyond simply aggregating data to truly gain value from it.
Simply knowing your averages is not enough. Companies need to analyze the data they
gather in a process known as data analysis. True data analysis is data with a plan. Through
data-collecting tools such as Google Analytics, you can track the return on investment
(ROI) of traffic from your email campaigns, social media campaigns, paid ads, and more.
When you have the capability to track the ROI of your campai gns, you can cut the fat and
double down on what’s actually working. That way, you transform your business from one
that spends time, money, and resources on strategies that just seem as though they’ll work
well to a business that makes smart, data-driven decisions and knows what strategies do
work well.
In this chapter, we explore what data analysis is and what it can do for your company. We
examine ways to make data useful using Google Analytics (which is free) so that you can
create accurate, consumable reports that you can actually learn from as well as share with
your team, client, or both.