Articles
Why Do We Need Online Analytics?
We often hear that question. Even from those, who has already decided to implement the analytics. Primarily, we need the answer to determine for ourselves and the coworkers the main business purpose of analytics and the justified extend of resources invested in its development.
Based on our experience in analytics implementation at tens of e-commerce projects, we determined three key tasks which are solved with analytics.
Revenue increase from visitor
Revenue increase from visitor can be achieved due to the increase of conversion and an average order calue. In order to achieve that, we analyze the part of funnel prior to the transaction. there are user actions prior to the order
In order to increase conversions, we determine thin places within the sales funnel, for example:
- fields, in which users mostly often reject placing the order;
- browser versions and types of pages often prone to JavaScript errors.
In order to increase the average order value, we measure the effectiveness of site blocks, for example:
- the determination of the most profitable place for accessory placement on the virtual shelves, from which a buyer adds merchandise to his online cart;
- the effectiveness of personal recommendations in email newsletters and site pages.
Reducing customer acquisition cost
Cost decrease of customer acquisition and increase of the marketing budget effectiveness can be achieved due to
- comparison of ROI of all the marketing campaigns in Google Analytics. This can be achieved by importing expenses via BI Pipeline Cost Data Import.
- implementing the funnel based attribution model and accurate evaluation of advertising channels’ performance.
Quality improvement of managerial solutions
It is a more complicated in measurement, but nevertheless, important for business, task.
Agreement with coworkers: even when the analytics does not provide new information, it helps to come to a consensus with the coworkers from the other departments, explicate your opinion and focus on achieving common goals. For example, does your IT know how much money you are losing due to JavaScript errors?
Time management: business growth requires more decisions, and hence, there is less time for each separate problem. Analytics helps to obtain data upon your request so that the quality as a whole is not compromised due to the lack of time for each problem solving process. Earlier we needed hours of table data comparison from different sources in Excel, now we can built reports in Google Sheets based on a data from Google BigQuery in a few seconds.
Assignment without control loss: the co workers don’t have your experience and can make mistakes, which will cost you. By giving them the correct metrics and visual graphs, you can use your experience and maintain the control over the process.
Market is changing rather rapidly and old approaches lose their effectiveness. It is essential to determine any changes in a timely manner and establish the new direction for the efforts. Based on the historic data, the value of which is not always immediately obvious, you can observe what is changing in the behavior of your users. How fast did you rate the features of different setups and start using the advantages of mobile marketing?
P.S.: It is essential to remind that the main «disadvantage» of analytics is the fact that it cannot make a decision for you. Analytics is not self-sufficient and is not a magic bullet. Only your readiness to practically use and apply new knowledge determines the value that your business obtains.
So, which decision are you ready to make?
