Companies understand the value of real-time analytics.  Analytics changes the decisions made by companies and makes a real difference in growing your business.  Most companies, however, are still not caught up with the new analytics technology available and struggle to find quality analytics specialists to make meaning of the data provided. 

How do you filter out the noise and find meaning?  How will you change your decision-making from intuition to fact-based?  Analytics experts help you make these big decisions by providing you with actionable data, but first you must gather this data.  You might ask how you gather this data; the best way is through free software called Google Analytics.  Below are the 7 reasons businesses need to have Google Analytics and what benefits it will provide you and your business.

1. Measurable Data

Google Analytics provides you with a plethora of measurable data on which you can take immediate action.  With this data, you can figure out who your customers are, where they are located, and what is driving your traffic.  This data is very valuable for your decision-making within your company.  Best yet, all this information can be at your fingertips for free!  Since Google Chrome is the most popular web browser and Google is the most popular search engine, it is wise to get your data straight from the horse’s mouth. 

2. Real-Time Data

Google Analytics provides you with data in real-time.  With this, you can make effective and efficient business decisions that can affect your entire business strategy.  For example: let’s say you see that your traffic has spiked on your website.  Google Analytics can tell you where that traffic is coming from.  Let’s say your traffic has come from a post on Facebook that has gone viral.  You now know to take immediate action on Facebook to make further your post go viral and take as much advantage of your social media accounts as possible, all in real-time.  The benefits of real-time data are staggering and many.

3. Make Data-Driven Decisions

Making decisions without data is pure guesswork, bottom line.  Sometimes your gut is right, but many mistakes have been made from following blind intuition.  Data is real and gives you real results.  Further, without data, you won’t be able to measure if your intuition or fact-based data resulted in benefits for your business.  You never want to make decisions without data to back you up; doing so will often result in loss of revenue and glorified goose chasing.  As I mentioned in point one, Google Analytics provides you with a plethora of measurable data you can take immediate action on. 

4. Monitor Your Benchmarks

As a business, you should create benchmarks to hold you, your employees, and your business accountable for making and managing your desired growth.  With Google Analytics, you can measure and monitor if you are on track to meeting your benchmarks or have already reached them!  You can even set up Alerts on Google Analytics to know exactly when you reach your benchmarks and even have these alerts sent to your phone.  You may want to track many important benchmarks, such as the number of clicks, number of visitors, number of sales, revenue generated, or even increase or decreases in your traffic.  With this information, you can discover if your business is on track and begin to have a laser-like focus on how to grow your business.   

5. Understand and Know Your Customers

With Google Analytics, you can tell a lot about your customers.  Analytics will tell you their: age, sex, location, and interests, as well as how they interact with your website and how they found you online.  With this information, you can create a more customized, user-friendly experience for your clients and use this information in advertising platforms.  You can discover your ideal clients, use that data, and import them into your Facebook ads to target only customers you know will convert.  Further, you can see what keywords your clients use to find you online to help you develop your SEO strategy.  You can use all this information to find ways to target your audience online and offline through advertising.  Knowledge is power, and you will now know who your customers are and who they aren’t. 

6. Know What Brings Customers to Your Website

It’s important to know what draws people to your website and what doesn’t.  If, for example, you hire a social media marketer and you don’t know if that person is performing his or her duties well, Google Analytics provides you with that data with an arsenal of information.  It’s, of course, good to know what about your website draws visitors in, but it’s equally important to know which web pages get users to click that dreaded back button.  With Google Analytics, you can see specifically which of your web pages get users to convert or click away.  Based on this data, you can optimize your website to give customers a better user experience and ultimately make your customers happy. 

7. Make Your Customers Happy

By looking at your real-time data and making smart data-driven decisions, you will be making your customers happy.  That should, in essence, be your ultimate goal because as a company, you should put your client’s needs before yours.  Customers often sense this and want to do business with honest people who care about their wants and needs. Google Analytics will let you know what your customers think about you by letting you know which web pages have the highest bounce rates, how long customer’s stayed on your site, and how many pages your customers go to on your site.  By tracking your customers and their actions, you can create a better customer user experience costumed to your clients.  Getting new clients and keeping your current clients happy will ultimately make your business a success. 

If you want to set up a free consultation, please provide us with some basic info so we can set up a time to meet and discuss your company’s Analytics in depth. If you have any questions or comments, please email us at [email protected].  Growing a business is exciting and fun, and I’d love to help you.

I wish you the best of luck,

Joshua