Remember when the primary way companies were able to gauge where new customers were coming from was to ask them? It was a hard piece of data to gather for a number of reasons, including the fact that quite often, employees felt uncomfortable asking the question and frequently inaccurate responses were given.
While there are still situations where it is necessary to ask that question in order to determine the lead source, the Internet and particularly analytics tools have fostered an incredible stream of data to better inform companies on where their marketing resources are working and where they are not, for a high percentage of transactions.
What then are the main challenges if all the answers are sitting right there, within your (properly coded) analytics data? The hurdles are: having the discipline to constantly review the data and the skill set to understand what the data means.
In the old days of marketing, based on what was learned from speaking with customers, decisions were made to re-allocate marketing funds between channels like television, print and the yellow pages.
Today, it’s not just about the lead source itself, but also the keywords, ad copy and landing page that lead to a sale or a missed opportunity. The greater the ability and commitment to tweak program variables, the stronger the ROI will be. Our clients who collaborate with us on data analysis reap the benefits of ongoing improvements to the performance of their campaigns.
