Benefits and Limitations

Digital Marketing - Study Notes:

Benefits of analytics

We can track user behavior online. Why is this important? A fundamental benefit of using analytics as part of your digital marketing efforts is that it helps you make informed, data-led decisions, which in turn should help you run effective campaigns and drive better commercial performance.

Other benefits include:

• Ability to get closer to the customer
• Ability to understand your users
• Ability to gain insights from real customer activity
• Ability to forecast using trends and patterns in customer behavior
• Accountability of media spend and resource allocation
• Stronger focus
• Prioritization of resources
• Higher conversion rates and enhanced return on investment

Benefits of Google Analytics

Google Analytics is the most commonly used free analytics tool, and it’s an excellent choice for most marketing needs.

Some benefits of the standard, free version of Google Analytics include:

• It’s free.
• It’s easy to implement and easy to install.
• It has a user-friendly interface.
• It offers customizable reports, dashboards, and data collection.
• Both basic and advanced options are available.
• It offers seamless integration with other Google products.
• It offers post-click integration with non-Google traffic sources, including Facebook, Yahoo, and Bing.
• It provides extensive, valuable insights into web behavior.

Limitations of Google Analytics

Google Analytics has a few limitations:

• It doesn’t provide real-time data in downloadable historical reports.
• The free version is limited to 10 million hits per month.
• It offers limited customization.
• It defaults to last-click attribution.
• It’s not always 100% accurate.
• It’s not as comprehensive at measuring the performance of top-of-funnel campaign activities like display and Facebook, where there is limited user visit and conversion data from these campaigns

However, despite these limitations, Google Analytics is still a highly effective web analytics tool for marketers in most instances.

As we'll want to know as much a possible about how consumers interact on our website and use our apps, Google Analytics can track the user or consumer journey, providing rich data around channels used, locations, and devices. These journeys can then be tracked through to on-site activity, goals achieved, and exit point, as well as returning visitors, which indicates loyalty.

Gaining a return from Google Analytics data is an ongoing process of monitoring, analysis, and enhancement.