Marketing analytics is the practice of measuring, managing and analyzing marketing performance to maximize its effectiveness and optimize return on investment (ROI). It allows marketers to be more efficient at their jobs and minimize wasted Web marketing dollars.

1. Marketing Analytics - Success Through
Analysis
Marketing analytics is the practice of measuring, managing and analyzing marketing
performance to maximize its effectiveness and optimize return on investment (ROI). It allows
marketers to be more efficient at their jobs and minimize wasted Web marketing dollars. Beyond
the obvious sales and lead generation applications, marketing analytics can offer profound
insights into customer preferences and trends. Despite these compelling benefits, a majority of
organizations fail to ever realize the promises of marketing analytics. According to a survey of
senior marketing executives published in the Harvard Business Review, "more than 80% of
respondents were dissatisfied with their ability to measure marketing ROI."
Figure 1: A Survey of Sr. Marketing Executives on their Marketing Analytics Effectiveness
However, with the advent of search engines, paid search marketing, search engine optimization,
and powerful new software products from WordStream, marketing analytics is more powerful
and easier to implement than ever.
The importance of marketing analytics
Marketing analytics, Internet (or Web) marketing analytics in particular, allows you to monitor
campaigns and their respective outcomes, enabling you to spend each dollar as effectively as
possible. The importance of marketing analyics is obvious: if something costs more than it
returns, it's not a good long-term business strategy. In a 2008 study, the Lenskold Group found
that "companies making improvements in their measurement and ROI capabilities were more
likely to report outgrowing competitors and a higher level of effectiveness and efficiency in their
marketing." Simply put: Knowledge is power. In search marketing in particular, knowledge
comes in the form of keywords, because they tell you exactly what was on the mind of your
current and potential customers at any point in time. In fact, the most valuable long-term benefit
of engaging in paid and natural search marketing isn't incremental traffic to your website, it's the
keyword data contained within the click which can be utliized to inform and optimize other
business processes.
Product Design: Keywords can reveal exactly what features or solutions your customers
are looking for.

2. Customer Surveys: By examining keyword frequency data you can infer the relative
priorities of competing interests.
Industry Trends: By monitoring the relative change in keyword frequencies you can
identify and predict trends in customer behavior.
Customer Support: Understand where customers are struggling the most and how
support resources should be deployed.
Marketing analytics: how and where to start
The Web is clearly the only game in town. Statistics show that almost 75% of the entire North
American population is online. The quickest and easiest way to reach out to this huge market is
through paid search marketing, for example, advertising on Google AdWords or through other
search engines. Reports and information received from search marketing help in all areas of your
business, including offline revenue and product development. When implementing your search
efforts, be sure to:
Start with Keyword Research: A stagnant keyword list is dangerous as it neglects
trends and information on new products or developments.
Set up some Paid Search Marketing Campaigns: Group keywords in relevant groups
and write appropriate ad text to help improve your Quality Score, which will lower your
bid and improve ad position.
Analyze the Results: Displaying your keywords in ad text prove to the searcher and to
Google that your ad is relevant to their search.
Implement Natural Search: Google estimates that 80% of searchers click on an organic
result over a paid advertisement. Incorporate your best performing keywords into your
website and continue to generate relevant content.
Repeat Ad Nauseum: Negative keywords are great because they prevent unnecessary
clicks and spend, ensuring your advertisement displays only for applicable searches.
Going beyond marketing analytics: connecting analysis and
action
As was published by E-Consultancy Research, it's generally well known that "a paid search
campaign will add prestige and credibility to an organization." Lesser known is the importance
of what can be derived from a paid search campaign in a marketing analytics perspective. Value
of search goes beyond marketing, and extends to product development, customer satisfaction and
brand awareness. How people search for you indicates how the market talks about you and how
your brand and products are referenced. Commonly searched features signify their importance in
the opinion of the market, and that information is helpful when prioritizing product development
and attributes. If a product page has a high bounce rate and people are leaving it quickly, you'll
know something about that page and/or product isn't resonating with people and that it needs to
be renovated. With so much helpful information at your fingertips, the trick then becomes taking
initiative and impletmenting the data.

3. Instead of breaking up your analysis and deeds into two tasks, think of them as related and
dependent upon each other. Both are valuable, but together, the sum becomes greater than its
parts. In other words, analytics + actions = Actalytics. Search campaigns require frequent
maintenance for best results, so find a tool that fuses both and allows management from within
the same platform.
WordStream has it all!
Now that you've started your search campaign, don't forget about the five points above and the
relationship between search marketing, Marketing Analytics, and ROI. First, use WordStream's
Keyword Discovery Tool to keep your keyword list dynamic and to find how people are landing
on your site and how they're talking about your business. Aside from marketing, use this
information as a market survey to aid your product decisions. To create relevant segmentations,
use WordStream's automatic keyword relevance ranking and workflow prioritization tool. To
ensure keywords are included in your ads, they'll be automatically populated in suggested ad
copy for each group. Use keyword popularity and long tail search discovery as references for
organic material on your website. Last, be confident you have a solid list of negative keywords.
Keep an eye on keyword performance and search queries for suggestions.
Unlike most other tools, WordStream marries Web analytics and actions. The software analyzes
your search data and prioritizes your actions so you start with changes that will have the biggest
impact. Even better, your analysis and actions are both done from inside WordStream, saving
you from opening and navigating a separate tool for each.
To learn and profit from Marketing Analytics, you can:
Try WordStream Free Today
Request a Live Demonstration
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