In order to run successful inbound marketing campaigns, you rely heavily on data and analytics to see if your efforts are paying off. When you learn that some aspects aren’t working as well as you’d hoped, you make changes and perform A/B testing to get better results. Lather, rinse and repeat. Choosing analytics that gives you better insight allows you to develop strategies that are more successful and save you time trying to discover what works best for your audience. For greater insight and maximum inbound marketing success, there are four analytics reports you can’t ignore.
1. Content Engagement
As the driving force behind your inbound marketing efforts, your content has to inspire your visitors to engage. Beyond the numbers showing how many people looked at your content, the content engagement report tells you what type of content and what topics stirred the most reaction from your visitors. Conversely, you’ll also see what efforts are falling flat and not helping you reach your goals.
2. Landing Pages
Your landing pages are where conversions happen, so this report is extremely important. If you’re creating landing pages and making changes when they aren’t performing as well as you’d hoped yet not looking at your report, how will you know which pages are successful and which aren’t carrying their weight? Ignoring this report would be the same as filling a retail store with products and never looking at sales figures to see if they’re making money or just taking up valuable real estate. Study this report, so you know what lead capturing efforts are resulting in conversions and which landing pages need work.
3. Referring Sites
The referring sites report tells you what sites are linking to your content and where your visitors are coming from. Not only are these backlinks important for SEO, understanding what links and sites are supporting your goals best provides you with insight to tailor your content and improve your strategy. You should also make sure the referring sites are reputable and work to remove any that are questionable or can risk your brand’s reputation.
4. Site Search
Your site search report is a gold mine of information that you can’t ignore. This report tells you what people are searching for when they visit your site and what information they need or want. It will also tell you what content is getting the most attention and holding your visitors’ attention the longest. More importantly, it tells you what you are missing in your content offerings and helps you generate ideas for future posts and pages.
The amount of data available to you is virtually endless, but you can’t ignore these four analytics reports if you want to achieve inbound marketing success. Use the insights gained from each to fine-tune your offerings and develop new strategies and you will find that you are spending less time and effort on guessing what will work best and spend more time celebrating goals reached!