The role of analytics in marketing campaigns

 

Every marketing Guru has written about analytics and the role it plays in marketing. I have also spoken and written about analytics several times, but even today there are big campaigns that go into their production phase with strictly just a creative brief and prevaricated information. However, analytics are measurements of the aftermath and not the ones that you would consider before the campaign strategy is developed. 

Since digital is now the new traditional, it is clear that we constantly need to remind you, the reader, the receiver of our digital services, and marketers, of the role that analytics play in our everyday life as marketing professionals. 

I like how Word Stream defines the role of analytics in marketing, they say, "Marketing analytics is the practice of measuring, managing and analyzing marketing performance to maximize its effectiveness and optimize the return of investment (ROI). Understanding marketing analytics allows marketers to be more efficient at their jobs and minimize wasted web marketing dollars." 

Analytics is just one part of a whole ecosystem of the marketing cycle. Analytics has to be measured by the benchmark of the strategy that was developed before the campaign strategy. The strategy is the product of the insights mined from the customers' raw data. All the transactional data, RFM evaluations, and product long-tails are data elements that feed the campaign strategy with the proper fuel and relevance that makes the buying cycle thrilling for the customer. Please see the marketing ecosystem below and you can also download it. 

Analytics is more than likes, impressions, and engagements. The juice of analytics is to measure the total customer experience from the consideration stage to the sales stage. This is when you realize how messaging is engaging and influencing customer behavior. We have studied customer behavior for several years, and there is a trend that dictates customer behavior before, during, and after the purchase. 

The trend is that customers have emotional triggers at the consideration stage and those triggers enhance buying anxiety and the anxiety continues to rise until the purchase is concluded, then the emotional triggers are satisfied when the purchase is concluded.  Proper marketers understand and know how to manipulate their campaigns to properly engage with content and also be able to raise the emotional triggers that create the anxiety that pulls customers to buy at their earliest convenience. 

Therefore analytics are not just likes and impressions, they are behaviors triggered by micro-emotions that are information that marketers can analyze and develop new behavioral trends for the next cycle of the marketing ecosystem. Analytics is the blueprint for the next road-map of the customers' experience and how the value you have created is going to enhance their experience. Analytics are going to guide your next marketing campaign to ensure that your product is still fair value and if their endorsement is still necessary. 

So, what role does analytics play in marketing campaigns? It is obvious that they play an influential role in reporting the stats and performance of the campaign. Marketers leave it there when they should study and analyze analytics for old behaviors, same behaviors, and new behaviors. And new opportunities always lie in new behaviors that customers display. The role of analytics is to enable marketers to intimately synchronize the engagement using astute marketing tactics created by the customers' trend towards their product. Analytics is the arsenal that marketers have at their disposal for controlling the internal value chain and most importantly their customers' attention.