The Challenge
You are looking at your Google Analytics dashboard and can see that you have more unique visitors this month than last month. That’s good, right?
Maybe. Online marketing offers far more insight into customer behavior than traditional sales channels. In fact, the amount of data is so overwhelming that most marketers simply ignore it. Free tools, such as the popular Google Analytics, are very helpful for answering the question: “What happened on my site yesterday, last week, last month…” But by itself, this data is of limited value as it offers no context. Are your competitors’ websites attracting more or fewer visitors than yours? How is your company’s website positioned relative to your competitors’ in terms of relevant keywords? Are you really just shooting in the dark, or can you identify actionable best practices by observing the online practices of companies you admire?
If Google Analytics is your marketing dashboard, where is your marketing GPS to offer direction?