A Beginners Guide to Marketing Analytics Software

The world of marketing is a beautiful and dynamic realm.

Things change at an incredibly fast pace and the advancement of technology brings forth new channels and methods of promoting one’s products and/or services. 

But it wasn’t always like this. A few decades ago, marketing was mostly based on salespeople’s intuition (aka, gut feeling) and what they thought people would respond to. While we don’t contest the experience or skills of those people, gut feeling is not the best approach in business. 

Luckily, nowadays we no longer have to depend on marketers’ high-pitched senses and feel of the market. Today’s decisions are based on logic and reasoning using data collected from the field and analyzed by highly intelligent algorithms. 

These algorithms are grouped under the term marketing analytics software (similar to the Google Analytics platform) and their job is to provide an objective view of your marketing efforts based on data. Even more, due to these algorithms, companies nowadays can focus their marketing budgets on the most promising leads, reducing waste due to the trial and error practice. 

While most beginner site owners and marketers know about Google Analytics, the market of analytic software for marketing is wider and deeper. As such, an in-depth approach is quite complex. Still, we will have a quick look at the elements that matter for beginners, the best software tools, and strategies to consider. 

Features You Should Know      

Many beginner entrepreneurs will favor a free-to-use platform because of obvious reasons. However, while the cost is an important factor when choosing marketing analytics software, there are other features that matter as well. 

Ease of Use

The best analytics platform must be first and foremost easy to use and understand. For the first steps as a marketer, you need a platform that allows for easy configuration without too much coding. Also, it should allow flexibility when it comes to creating custom reports and tracking processes. 

While you may need to hire a specialist in order to set up the tracking systems and processing of collected data, it’s important to have access to reports anyone with basic marketing knowledge can understand. 

Access to Target Audience

Due to the plethora of social media platforms, websites, and other online tools, you can find possible customers all over the place. As such, It’s important to diversify your reach by using several marketing apps and platforms, not just one. 

For this, you must first identify the ideal customer persona or profile. Once you understand the way they think and behave online, it’s easy to identify their favorite online watering holes. 

Overall Cost

Most analytics platforms worthy of a business’s attention are not free. Even Google Analytics requires payment after a certain traffic threshold. However, you should also consider the cost of maintenance and specialized advice in order to understand the overall strain this software product will put on your marketing budget. 

The Best Marketing Approach for You

Many beginners will go for a Google Analytics account because it’s one of the most popular marketing analytics software in the market. This is not a bad approach, but it’s also not enough to be successful. 

The GA platform delivers high-quality reports, with a high degree of customization. Still, without the right marketing strategy, it won’t do much for your campaigns. Even more, it must be helped by other tools in order to deliver accurate results. 

Overall, regardless of the platform you choose for marketing analytics, it’s important to understand that its sole purpose is to provide guidance when it comes to campaigns and other marketing efforts. The software is incredibly advanced and continues to improve, but it still needs human intuition and flair to interpret the results and take action.