Most businesses invest thousands upon thousands of dollars to create strong, well-written and well-designed websites. No matter how great your site is, though, there’s almost always room for improvement.
Even if your site is high-performing now, that may not always be the case. Algorithms change. Consumer behavior patterns evolve as new platforms emerge. And you may have shifts in your own market share and audience segments you’re targeting.
Web analytics can help you ensure that your site is in top shape and identify opportunities for optimization. In this post, we’re going to discuss the five essential benefits web analytics software offers to help you better optimize your site.
1. Understand Where Your Traffic is Actually Coming From
Web analytics software is the only reliable way to determine where your site’s traffic is coming from— and that’s the only way to know what marketing efforts are actually paying off.
Without accurate web analytics, marketers and business owners are left guessing. Is your email marketing campaign responsible for driving that recent surge of return traffic to your site, or was it the semi-viral Instagram post?
Platforms like GoodMetrics provide detailed breakdowns so you can effectively track which traffic sources are most effective. You can even get campaign-level specific, with software that supports UTM parameters for granular tracking. You can receive updates in real-time so you can adjust your marketing campaigns and even shift your marketing strategies in budget to platforms that are actually working.
2. Invest More In High Value Traffic Sources
Knowing where your traffic is coming from is a good start, but it’s also imperative to know which traffic sources are sending you high-value traffic.
Featured listings in a popular directory, for example, may send you the most traffic, but the right analytics software can show you that it’s actually your LinkedIn that’s bringing you users who are most likely to convert. You can track traffic throughout their customer journey to determine which sources are actually driving the end results you want.
The definition of “high value” is unique to each business. It may mean driving the largest number of qualified leads through the contact form on your site, or attracting customers who either retain longer or have the highest average order value. Advanced web analytics software can offer custom event tracking, allowing you to track the specific conversion events that matter to your business.
3. Better Understand Your Customer Journeys
The average consumer has a complex journey to purchase for most products.
They might search for an answer to a question in Google, read your blog post, and then click away. And then they see a retargeted ad on another platform, and they follow you on social media. Then, after seeing a few posts, they click to your site, and view multiple different pages. They sign up for your email list, and after several campaigns, they convert.
So, which touchpoints mattered most?
Web analytics platforms can help you understand your customer journeys, including the path they took to find you and what helped them finally convert. This can help you identify high-converting pages. If you have a landing page that users often visit before purchasing, for example, you may want to find ways to direct more traffic to it.
You can also flag potential problem areas in the customer journey. You might notice that a large portion of traffic drops off on a specific page on your site, failing to progress further and resulting in high exit rates. This allows you to intervene before you lose more traffic, running A/B tests and making any necessary changes to keep users moving through the sales funnel.
4. Leverage Audience Segmentation
The best web analytics tools have advanced audience segmentation capabilities, allowing you to gain exceptional insight into how different users are interacting with your site.
GoodMetrics, for example, allows you to view audience-by-audience performance data based on location, browser, and device category. You can see if certain segments convert better than others, which you can use to improve the customer experience and drive more conversions.
Examples include:
- You notice that mobile devices send the highest amount of traffic, but that conversions are low, with users dropping off during the checkout process. Implementing instant pay options can decrease mobile users’ resistance to purchase, increasing those conversions.
- You notice mobile devices drive high amounts of traffic but conversions are low. In addition to offering instant pay options, you focus retargeting campaigns on desktop users, investing your ad budget in placements more likely to drive purchases.
- You notice that users of Firefox frequently visit a landing page but fail to actually complete the lead generation form. You run a test and discover that there’s a technical issue with the submission form, which can be resolved by upgrading a form plugin.
5. Conduct Trend Analysis
Real-time data is clearly important, but the ability to track trends in performance data over different periods of time can be a game-changer for marketers.
GoodMetrics, for example, allows you to compare data month-over-month (MoM), year-over-year (YoY), and seasonally. This information can help you track everything from changes in customer behavior to off-season demand, allowing you to prepare proactively instead of engaging reactively.
If you notice, for example, that your social media traffic dips every holiday season, it could mean the following:
- Your standard ad budget and/or bids aren’t enough to compete in the marketplace during peak seasons, so you need to scale up your ad spend to compete.
- You decide to invest more in new social media platforms or opt for more Google Ad campaigns instead.
- You run holiday-specific campaigns, targeting audience segments that do convert this time of year or testing new copy.
Final Thoughts
If you want to attract more traffic and drive more purchases, you need web analytics to track what’s happening on your site. Understanding which audience segments you’re attracting, how they’re finding and interacting with your site, and what you can do to optimize those processes is invaluable.
To get these results, however, you need to choose a reliable and easy-to-use web analytics platform. GoodMetrics was created to offer transparent, easy-to-understand, and highly accurate data. We offer support for custom events and UTM tracking, allowing you to track the customer journey and KPIs that matter to your business.
Want to learn more? See how GoodMetrics can help.