The technology now exists to read peoples minds! If that statement were true, marketing would be much easier. It may have even avoided companies in this years Super Bowl to shift away from ads that made you want to cry instead of enjoy the game with your friends! (just my opinion). While the technology doesn’t exist to read minds, it does provide us with room to have the ability to track our advertising. We can analyse data and understand the psychology of our consumers online. This ranges from tracking clicks, likes, #’s, follows, and yes analytics. No matter what measurement you use it is detrimental to analyze your traffic to remain competitive. That is why having analytics on your website is one of the most important things that you can do.

The above image is one that I keep at my desk to remind me that most don’t fully understand what they are looking at in their own analytics. In fact, most clients are resistant to the idea because of the misconceptions about analaytics difficulty and cost. First off, a lot of analytics systems are free! Another misconception deals with the above picture. There is a lot of data that is collected within any system. The beauty of this is that it is easy to create custom views and goals based off of what is important to your business. If your goal is to sell something, you can track your traffic to the point of making a sale. I am also reminded that with any technology, there are going to be disbelievers. Understanding that you own the analytic system on your site, the numbers and data returned are 100% your own. It is a live look in to your consumer and what they did on your site.

The #1 thing that I say to my clients is that you NEED to use your analytics. It is one of your most valuable tools in the online world. You are provided with demographic information, location, interaction, device access, and so much more. When you dive into any marketing campaign you have the ability to hone and enhance your results. For example, if you are doing paid search it is important to track end to end. The front end is the keyword that you are bidding on and receiving the click from. The back end is the conversion measurement in which your analytics are set up. By doing this, it will give you insight to which keywords are most valuable to bid on and which ones you can do without. Un