/ Your guide to modern marketing analytics

Your guide to modern marketing analytics

In today’s business world, data is everything. The ability to collect, analyze, and make decisions based on data can mean the difference between success and failure. For marketing teams, this is especially true.

Marketing teams want to leverage their data towards success, but it’s hard when all they have are spreadsheets and static reports. Even worse, they don’t have any way to compare data across tools or channels, so any insight they can get will be very limited in scope.

To meet their goals and win more business, marketing teams need modern, advanced marketing analytics that allow them to easily and efficiently answer their business questions. Modern marketing analytics and BI tools can help teams better understand customer behavior, optimize marketing spend, and make more data-driven decisions.

Additionally, such tools can help promote a more collaborative approach within organizations. But what do you need to know about these tools before you make the switch? And what’s the best way to get started?

 
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The limitations of using spreadsheets for data analysis

The spreadsheet has been a staple of marketing teams for years. But as data sets have become more complex, spreadsheets have begun to show their limitations. The larger the data set, the more challenging it becomes to make sense of the numbers.

Some of the problems that marketing teams face when using spreadsheets for data analysis include:

  • Data that is spread out across multiple spreadsheets (or even worse, multiple computers)
  • Difficulty keeping track of which version of the spreadsheet is the most up-to-date
  • The need for specialized skills to effectively use formulas and functions
  • Slow performance when working with large data sets
  • The inability to easily share data or collaborate with others

These problems can lead to lost productivity, errors in data analysis, and decision-making based on outdated information. In short, using spreadsheets for data analysis can be a frustrating and time-consuming process.

This is especially true when a business has to work with complex data sets or needs to manage big data. Spreadsheets may be useful on a small scale, but for any business larger than just a few people, they’re completely incapable.

 

What you need to become data-driven

So what should a marketing team do when faced with complex data sets? They need to invest in a business intelligence tool to power their marketing analytics.

Business intelligence tools have been around for a while, but recently, they’ve become more sophisticated, more powerful, and more user-friendly. These tools are designed to help organizations make better decisions by providing them with access to accurate, up-to-date data.

By leveraging the power of a BI tool towards marketing analytics, marketing teams gain the ability to track, measure, and analyze marketing data. These tools can help teams optimize their marketing campaigns, understand customer behavior, and make more data-driven decisions.

 

The features you need to supercharge your marketing

When choosing a BI tool for marketing analytics, there are certain features that you should look for:

Data integration

A good BI tool for marketing analytics should be able to connect to all of your company’s data sources, including social media, website analytics, CRM systems, and more. This will give you a complete picture of your marketing efforts.

Advanced reporting and visualization

Your marketing analytics tool should offer advanced reporting and visualization features. This will allow you to create customized reports and dashboards that are tailored to your specific needs. These features are almost always available within a BI system.

Real-time data

To keep a competitive advantage, you need to be able to access data in real time. Good BI tools for marketing analytics will offer real-time data connections so that you can make informed decisions quickly—and avoid missing out on opportunities.

 
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Predictive analytics

Predictive analytics is a powerful feature that can help you make decisions about future marketing campaigns. By using predictive analytics, you can use your historical and current data trends to identify future trends and patterns, and use this information to plan your next steps.

Collaboration tools

A modern marketing analytics and BI tool should allow you to easily share data and collaborate with others. This will help to promote a more collaborative approach within your organization.

One especially popular style of implementation is embedded analytics. With embedded analytics, you can build your marketing analytics from your BI tool into external websites and apps. It makes data access and data collaboration much easier.

Data security

When dealing with sensitive customer data, you need to be sure that it is properly protected. A quality business intelligence tool will offer state-of-the-art security features to keep your data safe. Often, these features will be safer than your current security strategy.

 

When to use marketing analytics

There are many different ways in which businesses can use a modern marketing BI tool. Some of the most common use cases include:

Measuring marketing KPIs

A marketing BI tool can help teams track key metrics such as website traffic, conversion rates, and cost per acquisition. Based on the performance of these metrics, marketing teams can know if their strategies are successful, or if they need to change them up.

Conducting customer analysis

Businesses can gain insights into customer behavior and preferences by analyzing customer data. This information can be used to create more targeted marketing campaigns that are more likely to convert leads into customers.

For example, the data could show which sorts of demographics prefer which products. With this information, marketing teams can tailor their campaigns for those products to target those demographics, leading to more marketing success.

Optimizing marketing spend

A marketing BI tool can help businesses track their marketing budget and ensure that they get the best return on investment possible. By understanding where money is being spent and what is driving results, businesses can adjust their budget to achieve better results.

Marketing campaigns can be judged by their ROI and compared to other campaigns from other channels. From there, marketers can figure out which channels they’re most successful in, and either dedicate more spend to those successful channels or adapt their strategies for their unsuccessful ones.

Identifying new opportunities

A marketing BI tool can help businesses identify new growth opportunities. By analyzing data, businesses can spot trends and patterns that can be used to inform future marketing plans.

Maybe the data shows that your business isn’t doing enough to reach certain demographics. By showing the places where your marketing isn’t happening, you can formulate strategies for those demographics and drive more business.

 
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How you can utilize BI to enhance your marketing

It’s one thing to have a marketing BI tool, but it’s another to utilize it properly. Here are a few tips on how you can use BI to enhance your marketing efforts:

1. Connect all of your data sources

To get the most out of your marketing BI tool, you need to connect all of your company’s data sources. This will give you a complete picture of your marketing efforts and allow you to spot patterns and trends.

Many BI tools offer in-built or pre-built data connectors for most of the common marketing tools. This way, businesses don’t need to go through a third party or build a custom connector to access their data. For marketing teams, which rarely have any technical expertise, this is the best option.

2. Create custom reports and dashboards

Dashboards and visualizations help marketing teams track their metrics and find new opportunities. They translate the implications of your numerical reports into charts and graphs that can easily be understood at a glance.

One major strength of BI tools is that they allow businesses to combine all of their business data. For marketing teams, that means they can track their data from every channel on the same dashboard, which allows for simpler, more frequent comparisons.

3. Collaborate with others

Collaboration is the secret weapon of successful marketing teams. A good marketing BI tool will offer features that make it easy for team members to share data and work together on projects.

Through public dashboards, everyone on the marketing team can see their data, track their KPIs, and drive insight. Some tools offer embedded tools, which allow businesses to build their dashboards into external sites. This allows for even greater data access.

 

Are BI tools risky?

There is always a risk when using any type of software, but the risks associated with marketing BI tools are relatively low. The biggest risk is that you may not use the tool to its full potential. To avoid this, be sure to connect all of your data sources and make full use of the collaboration and reporting features.

Similarly, companies should also be aware of the potential risks of not using a marketing BI tool. By not having a complete picture of your marketing efforts, you may miss out on essential insights that could help your business grow. Additionally, you’ll likely make more decisions based on gut feelings rather than data-driven analysis.

 

See how business intelligence can boost your marketing analytics

When it comes to marketing, data is your best friend. A good marketing BI tool can help you collect and analyze data to make better decisions and achieve better results.

There are many benefits that businesses can enjoy by using a BI tool to power their marketing analytics. BI tools offer a number of features that make it easier for businesses to become more data-driven in their decision-making. They help enterprises to better understand customer behavior and optimize their marketing spend.

A BI tool offers a complete solution for marketing data, with features that make it easy to collect, analyze, and visualize data. Additionally, a good BI tool’s collaboration and reporting features make it easy for marketing teams to work together and make data-driven decisions.

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