In the digital age, you will likely have heard all the benefits of marketing analytics. That said, it is critical to understand that, although integral to the process, there are limitations to marketing analytics.
Therefore, let’s take a look at some of the blind spots in marketing analytics, and how you might compensate for these weaknesses.
Blind Spot 1: Analytics specific to a singular platform
When monitoring analytics, you might find that you only have a narrow view of activity on a singular platform. Though this can be bolstered with several other platform-specific analytics for other channels, you will not be able to see audience cross-platform behaviour and interaction.
To avoid this blind spot, you might benefit from a social listening tool which monitors all your target audience’s online communities. Instead of giving you a breakdown of just one platform, a social listening tool will give you a 360-degree view across different channels, sources, and markets.
Blind Spot 2: What device customers are using
Did you know that, according to Google, 93% of those who use their phone to research a product will go on to make the purchase? Despite this, many marketing analytics tools will not show you how the conversion rate varies on different devices.
With this statistic in mind, it is important to keep track of what device your audience is using to interact with your brand or product, allowing you to better drive consumers through the sales funnel.
Blind Spot 3: Differentiation between external and internal traffic
When measuring the traffic to your site, analytics will likely not differentiate between consumers visiting your page and internal staff or content writers doing their research. This means that your traffic data could be inflated.
To mitigate this, it can be useful to filter out any traffic coming from employees or outsourced companies using IP addresses.
Blind Spot 4: Offline marketing
Whereas it can be easy to employ analytics for online marketing efforts, it’s a different story for offline marketing. That said, it is important to track how effective offline marketing campaigns are for your business, and measure how consumers between online and offline worlds.
One way you might uncover this blind spot is by including things like QR codes or promo codes on your offline marketing campaigns. When used, they can be tracked and counted, offering meaningful insights.
Blind Spot 5: Consumer expectations
Analytics can provide you with insights into your target audience’s behaviours, wants, and needs. However, what it won’t tell you is what consumers expect from your product, service, or brand itself.
You can easily meet all marketing objectives, only for it to be unsuccessful. Why? Consumers have a preconceived idea of what your brand can provide. Thus, it is important to understand exactly what audiences expect from your brand so that you don’t disappoint.
Blind Spot 6: Post-conversion insights
And, finally, marketing analytics deals with the past and the present, collecting and analysing data to highlight trends and commonalities, and measure the success of an existing campaign that can be leveraged for future improvements.
To follow consumer engagement and behaviour post-conversion, it is important to foster a lasting relationship, encouraging them to fill out feedback forms, surveys, and reviews for longer-term insights.