Are you using your analytics system effectively? If you only think about business when you’re reviewing the numbers, then the answer is no.
As the leaves begin to turn colour this year, I find myself thinking back to where I was and what I was doing last year at this time. Let’s see: I was engaged and was just striking out on my own from the comfort of a regular paycheck into the whole world of freelancing/consulting. I spent a lot of time wondering whether or not I’d made the right move.
That seems like a lifetime ago. I have zero regrets about my decision to freelance, and am still loving it, but I’m officially married now, have a whole new set of family members, added a kitten to the hubby plus two dog family we have, and spent a whole lot of time renovating our home, which is a whole other tangent for some DIY blog….
Seasonality is a trend that many marketers talk about: how did you do year over year? It’s a great question and an important one – but one that sometimes has to be taken into consideration against several other factors.
Sure, you go into your analytics system and can pull data for the same date ranges from last year and this year, and look at the numbers. But what does that tell you? It’s just numbers.
You need to look at the numbers in context to what was happening at that time and what was different year to year.
1. Were there any major staffing changes (especially on the web/marketing team or even agencies?)
2. Did you have any product launches?
3. What about marketing campaigns? Did you use the same vehicles? Same time frames? How different was the message and/or the campaign itself?
4. For social media, how were you using it last year versus this year (or were/are you?) Were you even aware of how your company/product was perceived in this regard?
5. What was going on in the world?
At first glance, this last point doesn’t have much to do with your business – yet it absolutely has everything to do with your business when you think about it. What happens in the world, even locally, can affect the behaviour of your customers.
Many of my U.S. clients who are either in the financial sector, or have their stocks traded, are noticing a lot more activity on their sites right now. And as much as I’d like to take credit for that, it has nothing to with any marketing campaign; it has to do with what is taking place in the markets and the current financial crisis, which is an important distinction to note when we go back and look at data from last year – or what we plan to look at next year.
It’s also a key thing to factor in when setting benchmarks: how will some of these things affect the goals and KPIs you set for your business in the coming year?
Here’s where you can use your analytics system to your advantage – most systems give you the ability to make notes or add little flags so you can keep track of any major changes. Here’s where many companies fail at using this option effectively. They use this only for business or marketing changes, or in some cases don’t use it all, because they think they know or will remember any major changes.
Making notes in the system that correspond to major political changes or happenings, major disasters or even changes that affect your local community if your business isn’t national is just as important as noting site redesigns or marketing campaign changes. In fact, noting significant staff changes is not a bad idea either.
The more data you have the better, the more you might be able to start understanding the “why” behind certain things and not just state the facts. There’s a story behind every number, and using your analytics system to look at the bigger picture can help you discover what that story is.
Photo Credit: Ralph Atkinson
Rebecca Atkinson (Muller) is a freelance web marketing/analytics consultant with more than seven years of direct experience helping businesses create and implement online marketing and communications strategies. Her clients come from all industries including finance, technology and not-for-profit. She specializes in helping her clients determine how to improve their advertising programs, focusing on visitor behaviour – beyond the inital click-through. Full bio available
Interesting post Rebecca. Our traffic fluctuates around the school calendar so seasonality is definitely something we track. I didn’t realize I could add flags as a reminder of what marketing/promotions we were doing at the time – I’ll check into that. And your suggestion of noting big news that might affect traffic is a good one.
Thanks Kathryn!
Most analytics tools have an option to add a note in the report interface, you can often find this at the bottom of the report making it easy to miss. You can go in and add notes as things come up and/or by month and keep a running tally or diary.
Other systems have the ability to add flags or marks on any/all reports you choose that indicate some sort of change, making it easy to compare results against “factors” in a nice visual format.