How Not to Drown in the Sea of Marketing Metrics?

Getting information has never been so easy — all one needs to do is reach out. Marketers enjoy this more than others — there’s almost unlimited access to materials for their work. However, having all sorts of marketing metrics in front of their eyes, literally, smother them in the bottomless sea of data
Marketers are responsible for the company’s profits but also for the losses. Therefore, even the most impressive marketing indicators will not mean anything if the revenue actually doesn’t grow.
More data, more problems

The constantly increasing volume of data (and the inferred opportunities for its analysis) only aggravates the situation. For two years the number of marketing automation software has increased by several times.
Not surprisingly, many marketers feel exhausted due to the amount of information and tools for processing.
The problem is that about 80% of this data doesn’t have any impact on revenues. Most of the tools and graphs on which your marketing department works so hard weren’t created to explain changes in revenue, or to even show new opportunities for obtaining it. You run a solid risk of getting into a vicious circle, where more and more data, less and less really useful information and ever-increasing fatigue.
How to cope with an abundance of data and focus on what matters?
1. Don’t doddle around on data that doesn’t affect revenue
Analyze and visualize only those metrics that are associated with revenue or the most important KPIs:
- number of visitors attracted to the site;
- cost of attracting 1 visitor;
- conversion (in registration, in payment, in re-payment);
- average check (or better — check by segments).
Learn more about key metrics and how to correctly calculate them you can in our prompt for SaaS and eCommerce.
If other data doesn’t make it clear, then it only distracts you from the analysis, which should tell the story of your success and influence the results.
2. Don’t confuse correlation with coincidences
If the selected KPI is revenue, and you want to see how it’s related to, let’s say, activity in social networks, you can not simply start layering financial schedules on graphics of likes and retweets
In November and December, for example, there’s always a peak of references to Santa and an increase
3. Investigate the relationships that really matter
Do not look for common coincidences: “Oh, look! These two indicators grow and fall almost synchronously!” Instead, look for patterns that predict key KPIs.
It may be interesting to know, for example, that your latest marketing campaign has brought a lot of money and made a lot of noise on Twitter. Ask yourself more specific questions such as: did you understand what steps can be repeated, what kind of optimization can be carried out?
Try to understand what caused each effect. The enthusiasm among certain groups of the target audience, the interest in the product or the rush among the fans of the star that you attracted to the advertising.
4. Share information to avoid unnecessary work
Growth is the business of every member of the team.
Marketers, analysts, SMMs and other professionals should work together. Openly share information and organize a workflow around which the team is mainly concerned about.
Every Monday, we in the Dashly, gather at the beginning of the working day for 10 minutes to discuss who did what in the last week. Then we start planning a new week in smaller groups. So we stay informed about the affairs of the whole team and work in tandem.
Working alone, you will waste time and effort in vain, increasing the number of tasks that you could overwise
5. Do Analytics, Not Visualization
Don’t think that your work is only limited to data collection. Today, the human task, unlike a computer, is not just to collect and visualize information, but also to filter out all the unnecessary information. The charts won’t do all work themselves. Match the data, discard the unnecessary and look for dependencies that can find new growth points.
What data can be analyzed in Dashly?
The conversation report will help to determine how many times the email was sent, opened, answered, etc. Think about whether it’s all worth chasing after openings and clicks. Perhaps there are other, more important metrics? This is all detailed in another our article.