Most companies found themselves in a difficult situation, going into survival mode. But there are others who work in the least impacted industry and have a strong margin of safety. Such companies thought about problems and solutions with the help of marketing technologies, which were put off for a long time. Including due to the fact that the first time it did not work.
What tool
Cross-cutting analytics is one way of evaluating the effectiveness of advertising campaigns and budget allocation, which does not always work as it should. There are those who were disappointed at the implementation stage, because they could not establish interaction between departments to systematize work processes.
For a business owner or director, several points are important – at any time log into the system and see how much money has been spent on attracting customers for a certain period of time, as well as the amount of actual profit received by the company from sales. The capabilities of the system are needed by a specialist to search for growth points and optimize costs. Especially our social media marketing experts help you to grow your business .
End-to-end analytics systems collect information:
- From advertising channels – social networks, Google Ads, MyTarget, YAN, KMS. From all sites where the company places ads to attract customers.
- From search engines – Google, evaluating the effectiveness of organics compared to other sources.
- About the user’s actions on the website of the online store, tracking his path from beginning to end.
- From a CRM system implemented in a company.
According to the results of the analysis, the cost will become clear:
- advertising on each site;
- targeted user actions on the site;
- attract one lead.
Thanks to end-to-end analytics, marketers can see the entire path of the client from entering a search query or clicking on an advertisement to the actual purchase – payment for the selected product. If the user for some reason left the site without having made a purchase, it will be clear where exactly the “scenario” failed. Questions about the conversion of a particular site are removed and an understanding of the correct distribution of the advertising budget appears.
Incredulity – lack of information
Business owners continue to neglect data from end-to-end analytics or completely refuse to use this marketing tool when they can receive voluminous statistical slices at the cost of attracting customers. Is it really all about fear of revealing your data to third-party companies, especially when you can spell out the obligations of the parties in the contract?
It is difficult to imagine a large online store without a built-in sales funnel and regular research on the effectiveness of financial investments in advertising. E-commerce giants do not just pay attention to this at their leisure, but form entire divisions within the company or turn to agencies that have practical experience in solving such problems.
For example, in one of our previous articles in the “Business World ”, we talked about how ABC and XYZ analysis will help an online store correctly assess the level of consumer demand for a particular product category and manage inventory. This is a great opportunity to analyze past performance and purchase exactly those products that will be in high demand in a specific period before resuming sales.
Distrust of the results of the end-to-end analysis of smaller market players most often results from a series of mistakes made by entrepreneurs at the stage of implementation of the system. For example:
Too early
I recommend starting using end-to-end analytics when several advertising campaigns are launched at different sites. If only Google Ads is used for online promotion, end-to-end analytics will not bring the expected result. This tool is more suitable for those who spend at least 100,000 Dollar a month on promotion.
Implementing end-to-end analytics without CRM
It’s much easier to systematize information about the promotion in terms of actual sales if you have a customer database. It is better to use popular cloud solutions if there are prospects for business scaling. Do not give preference to samonosny systems, otherwise the bonus will get integration problems.
But pitfalls can appear even when connecting end-to-end analytics to the popular and well-proven CRM companies. Be sure to set aside time for integration and debugging so that you don’t later lament over the wasted money.
New tools introduced, employees forgot to train
Using a new tool should begin with employee training. Applied to end-to-end analytics: a wrong approach to working with a tool will distort the real situation.
Despite possible difficulties, the end-to-end analytics system will begin to show results in a month or two – you will be surprised why you did not notice these errors before and spent money on a channel that does not bring applications.
Temporary efforts and financial investments will certainly pay off – all data will be systematized.
The consequences of unsystematic
Large companies in the e-commerce market have already made mistakes and paid for them, so they are now relying on a qualitative analysis of not only investments in Internet promotion, but also business processes in general. They understand that incorrect data processing or its complete absence leads only in one direction – to a drop in sales and a large outflow of customers.
“We lived before without end-to-end analytics, we’ll live somehow now,” think entrepreneurs who started their business in the early 2000s and eventually transferred it online. More precisely, they are mistaken, because now the world is ruled by information technology. This was fully appreciated by those who could not be reconstructed and, upon switching to quarantine / self-isolation, lost any opportunity to earn money.
Others may be ready to provide quick and safe door-to-door delivery, but they don’t know where to look for customers now, because the thoughts of most of the target audience are worried about the virus and the impending economic crisis. And in such a situation, each invested dollar must either immediately return, or contribute to the growth of loyalty, which in the near future can be converted into a sale.
Now is not the best time to talk about scaling – many people think about how to save their business. But it is extremely disappointing to lose customers due to the fact that over the years the company has not been able to build a development strategy taking into account accumulated data on sales, demand, target audience, seasonality, when there was time and money for it.
5 useful indicators
There are at least a dozen analytical metrics today. Consider only those whose calculations will definitely not cause difficulties:
- ROMI is an abbreviation of the term Return on Marketing Investments. That is, the return on investment in advertising.
Calculation formula
Actual company profit minus expenses. Divide the resulting difference by the amount of investment and multiply by one hundred percent.
We interpret the result:
- Less than 100% – investments do not pay off. Serious adjustments to the marketing and advertising strategy are needed.
- More than 100% – all investments pay off. It is possible to say exactly how much advertising brings profit, if you understand a specific figure.
- Exactly 100% – advertising goes to zero.
- CR stands for Conversion Rate or Conversion Rate.
This metric is used for the performance of each stage of the sales funnel. It gives an understanding of what proportion of users went to the next stage, and how many “fell off”. If there are more who have fallen off than those who are late, then something urgently needs to be changed.
Calculation formula
The number of site visitors who have moved to the next stage of the sales funnel should be divided by the total number of visitors.
- CTR – an abbreviation for the English marketing term Click Through Rate. Translated means the ratio of clicks and impressions.
This indicator is used to analyze the effectiveness of contextual advertising. The higher the result, the more leads online advertising.
Calculation formula
The number of clicks on an advertisement must be divided by the number of its impressions. For each site is calculated separately.
- Churn Rate or customer churn rate.
He will tell about the dynamics of the outflow of customers of the online store in the context of the studied time period.
Calculation formula
The number of customers who left at the end of the analyzed period should be divided by the total number at the beginning of the study period. The result is multiplied by one hundred percent.
- CAC – abbreviation for Customer Acquisition Cost or lead acquisition cost.
The indicator gives an understanding of how much it costs to attract one client.
Calculation formula
Determine the study period. Calculate how much you spent on online advertising – this is the first indicator. The second is the actual number of customers who arrived. Divide the result of the first calculations by the second indicator.
End-to-end analytics tools
Specialized end-to-end analytics services include a fairly wide range of tools, which you can write a separate article about. If you are seriously determined to dive into the details and systematize work with data, then I recommend using one of four popular systems on the market
And if you are not yet ready to invest in the connection and spend time implementing specialized end-to-end analytics systems, you can evaluate the effectiveness of advertising and control business processes using the tools below:
Google Analytics
Analytics systems from Google are the foundation of the basics, without which online business has nothing to do. Free, multi-channel, with the ability to integrate call tracking and a client database. But you have to seriously work with the settings in order to squeeze the maximum.
Call tracking
Today, telephone call analysis systems are not limited to collecting information about calls. The cost and installation speed is incomparable with end-to-end analytics, although you will see much less – work in the first two stages of the sales funnel. On average, from 30 dollars per day, you can connect a boxed solution from leading American suppliers and receive data in a single window.
Excel
Good old Excel. Reliable free solution for companies conducting client and financial accounting in 1C. Nevertheless, it is better to live up to date and use modern tools that have long been helping market leaders succeed.
What exactly to use the tools you better tell the Internet marketer, whom you can hire or seek help from the agency, so as not to drain the advertising budget in an attempt to figure out the situation on their own. I increasingly meet entrepreneurs who have lost money due to such experiments.
Summary
Using end-to-end analytics will help clean up business processes and increase control at every stage of the sales funnel. The data obtained will open up great opportunities for strategic planning and informed decision-making.
Start the implementation gradually: hire a competent Internet marketer or find an agency, determine the tools, train employees and build a system step by step. Correct work with data will not only save the business, but also contribute to its achievement of a new level.
