In today’s digital landscape, everyone with a website, regardless of industry, has a vital role to play. As custodians of these digital platforms, our primary focus should be driving successful conversions and fostering loyalty. But how do we gauge the effectiveness of our online efforts? The answer lies in web analytics.

There are numerous benefits of web analytics that, when leveraged effectively, can provide your business with insights that can be instrumental to the success of your business website and, thus, your company’s overall success.

In addition, using a digital analytics platform like Quantum Metric, which combines your website data with additional metrics from across your organization, ensures you and your team make impactful, data-driven decisions.

Below, we will define web analytics from a business perspective, discuss recommended analytics tools, examples of web data, and, most importantly, detail all the ways using web analytics to the fullest can benefit your business in the long run.

What is web analytics for digital brands?

Web analytics is the process of collecting, reporting, and analyzing website data. Through the use of web analytics, a business can determine if it is achieving its intended marketing, customer, and business goals.

You can accurately measure website performance and marketing campaign results with the right web analytics tools. Then, you’ll be able to adjust website features and strategies in order to improve the customer experience for website visitors.

Performing website data analytics involves measuring several different types of website data that serve as key performance indicators (KPIs) for your business website.

Examples of web analytics data.

Many types of web data serve as effective KPIs, depending on what kind of online business you are running.

However, there are several main pieces of data you should track to determine your site’s web performance and the success of your web presence.

Here are some types of website data to consider:

• New & returning visitors: These are two closely-related metrics that simply show how many visitors have reached your site for the first time and how many returning visitors are interested enough to come back and explore it some more. As no one piece of data tells the whole story, these metrics work with others to give you a bigger picture of your website’s performance and can inform valuable insights that show which of your strategies are working and which aren’t.
• Website traffic sources: The web traffic source is a metric that indicates how visitors reach your website. Some of these sources include direct traffic, referral traffic, organic traffic, paid traffic, and traffic from social media platforms. Several different web analytics tools can show your team how many potential customers are visiting your site according to each source, which can help you differentiate which marketing campaigns are successful and which ones need to be optimized.
• Bounce rate: An important metric in website analytics, the bounce rate is the percentage of your website’s visitors that open a single webpage on your site and leave without taking any other action. Though it can differ by industry, having a high bounce rate can indicate your business website has a weak user experience, unengaging content, or an unfit design for your business.
• Duration & pages per session: Another pair of similar and vital metrics, session duration, measures the average amount of time users spend on your website, while pages per session indicate how many web pages they visit on average. These pieces of data provide even deeper insights into how potential customers interact with your site and can help guide you in creating content and features that can turn them into conversions.
• Pageviews and unique pageviews: Pageviews are the total number of times a user requests to view a page of your website on their browser, while unique pageviews specify how many users visited one specific page. These can help measure your website’s overall performance and show which pages are the most popular and engaging to users.
• Conversion rate: Your website’s conversion rate indicates the percentage of users that performed a desired action on your site — whether it is filling out a form, clicking a button, or making a purchase. Through your web analytics tools, you can set what kinds of user actions are counted as conversions and use your conversion rate as one of several metrics to measure your website and business performance.
• Revenue: Key among web analytics data is your revenue, as it helps you accurately calculate your website’s ROI (return on investment). Consistently keeping track of your website’s revenue, along with your other website data metrics, ensures you know which marketing campaigns need revision and which ones increase sales for your business.

Measuring the above metrics and many others can provide a clear picture of your business’s website performance. There is a wide range of web analytics tools to choose from that provide access to real-time data for all kinds of metrics your business can use.

8 key benefits of web analytics.

There are numerous ways that web analytics enable businesses to evolve their websites and marketing campaigns in order to maximize how many potential customers they reach. Here are eight main benefits of web analytics:

1) Brings together your website data.

What makes web analytics so important is that it brings vital information about your website to you.

With the right tools in place, you’ll be able to see the full picture of your site’s performance and user interaction, as well as obtain data on its more granular details.

Not only is that information closer at hand than ever, but it’s also continually updated, giving you a clear idea of how your business’s web presence is evolving over time.

As you update your website with new designs and features or simply new products or services that you’re now offering, your web analytics team is able to see how potential customers are responding

2) Guides you to your target audience.

Another one of the main benefits of web analytics is that it helps businesses get closer to their target audiences.

User information from your web traffic analytics, such as demographics, geographical location, traffic source, and more, all help convey who’s most interested in your website as well as your business.

That information can then be used to develop more precise customer profiles and personas, ensuring your business targets the right audience in the future.

Then, you’ll be able to tailor your website content and marketing campaigns to their tastes and preferences so that you can obtain quality leads and high conversion rates.

One of the most significant benefits of web analytics for your business is that it assists you in identifying and approaching your ideal target audience.

Use it effectively, and your business will have no shortage of customers who have discovered your business online.

3) Allows your business to track customer behavior.

Web analytics also highlight how potential customers are interacting with your website, which is crucial when performing conversion rate optimization.

If your website has a high bounce rate, it means it might not be approaching the right audience, or its content isn’t engaging with its most relevant pain points.

If your organic traffic is lower than your paid traffic, it means most users aren’t finding your website when they look up your business online.

These are the sorts of insights about your potential customers that you can get through web analytics. With them, you’ll be able to raise your conversion rate even higher by making improvements that offer value to users for their time spent on your website.

4) Provides actionable insights for improving customer experience.

Yet another benefit of web analytics is that it shows whether or not your website is providing a weak user experience and how you can improve it.

Web analytics metrics such as bounce rate, session durations, and page load times effectively indicate your site’s performance and user experience, even down to specific web pages.

With them, you can find out which web pages load slowly or have poor UX design, then improve those elements to make them more attractive to potential customers.

Web analytics also allows you to enhance your website’s customer experience by segmenting your target audience according to their behavior and demographics.

Depending on various factors as they interact with your site, you can develop features and content that are personalized to their needs and preferences.

This can be an effective strategy for influencing conversion rates, all based on the use of insights from your web analytics tools.

5) Helps build effective, customer-driven marketing campaigns.

Another way web analytics will benefit your business is by helping you build more effective marketing campaigns through accurate user data and insights.

Through your web analytics tools, you can gain information about where and how users have reached your site and what pages of your site were most interesting to them.

This then helps your team determine what channels are best to draw organic traffic from, such as search engines or social media platforms.

Web analytics also allows you to perform A/B tests according to your choice of content and desired results.

For example, if your goal is to get better quality leads, you might conduct an A/B test between two contact form pages, each providing spaces for customers to fill in different sets of details.

The contact page produces leads that are closer to your ideal customer profiles and will be the best fit for your website.

With the effective use of online traffic web analytics, you can develop the right marketing campaigns for the right audience, increasing website traffic and customer conversion rates through your website.

6) Ensures positive growth from your marketing efforts.

In addition to ensuring your business creates effective marketing campaigns, web analytics also helps drive positive business growth by allowing your team to measure the results of your marketing efforts accurately.

Using your web analytics tools, you can track site metrics such as conversion rates, click-through rates, page views, and bounce rates for pages related to your recent campaigns.

You can then match the results from these metrics to your business goals to see if your marketing campaigns are reaching the right audience.

Furthermore, web analytics also directly helps achieve business growth by aiding in how efficiently you allocate resources toward your marketing campaigns.

Using web analytics data to find which channels and strategies reach the most customers and help your business gain the most conversions, your business will save time and money while investing in high-performing marketing campaigns that provide a greater return on investment.

Target the right audience in your marketing campaigns with web analytics data, and you’ll see growing results for your website and positive business growth for your company.

7) Provides valuable insights to help reach your business’s goals.

Among the biggest benefits of web analytics is that it ensures your business can continually evolve by providing up-to-date information about its performance online.

This allows you to track if your website is achieving specific business goals, such as leading customers to: make a purchase, sign up for your business newsletter, or fill out a contact form for a demo of your product or service.

In addition, every bit of information you receive through your online traffic web analytics builds into more insights necessary for synthesizing your future marketing campaign strategies and business goals.

Data from website analytics gives you a clear view of not only your website’s performance but also the results your business’s activities produce, allowing you to more closely manage and adjust your strategy in real-time so that you can ensure you reach your business goals in the future.

8) Delivers competitor analysis that keeps your business ahead.

Finally, one of the major benefits of web analytics is that it helps you analyze your competition and strategize ways to outpace them.

Web analytics tools like Ahrefs allow you to see how well your competitors perform and the results their online activities produce.

These results can provide insight into how your website can be improved and provide ideas for how you can increase your business’s online presence.

Use your web analytics tools to identify which areas their website excels in and where they are lacking. Then, by comparing your website to theirs, you can develop search engine optimization strategies so that your website’s content, design, and performance ensure you surpass their rankings on search engines.

You can also use web analytics data to find gaps in your competitor’s strategies, giving your business the opportunity to succeed where they didn’t and further allowing you to exceed their online reach.

Web analytics offer many benefits for businesses, especially when they are used with consideration toward a clear and feasible set of goals.

4 Key strategies when using web analytics.

There are several effective strategies when using web analytics, each involving varying degrees of research, analysis, and data-driven decision-making. Here are a few for you to consider:

Set well-defined kpis and business goals.

In simple terms, identify your website’s goals, then identify the metrics that will serve as your key performance indicators as you work toward reaching them. This will ensure your team knows where you’re going and where you are, giving you a clear idea of how to adjust the direction according to your web analytics.

Perform thorough A/B tests.

Whenever you add new pages or features to your site, such as service pages or call-to-action buttons, perform A/B tests with different iterations, identifying which sees more engagement and conversions. This will ensure your site gradually becomes more optimized and appealing to users, saving you time and resources in the future.

Pick the right tools.

While Google Analytics is cost-effective and offers a comprehensive set of features, there are other analytics tools and platforms that may suit your business’s budget and provide you with more actionable insights for your industry.

Be attentive.

Finally, make sure that your team regularly stays up-to-date on your website’s analytics data so that you can identify trends and opportunities for improvement, as well as potential issues on your site. This will ensure your website continuously improves and that you use reliable data when making decisions about future marketing strategies.

Seize success with Quantum Metric’s analytics platform.

Web analytics can drive a great deal of business success, but you also have more than just website data to use to your advantage.

Imagine if you could aggregate data from across all teams in your business so your analytics are aligned and accessible in one secure, centralized place. Your team would then be able to identify issues as they develop and opportunities right when they appear.

Quantum Metric is a digital analytics platform that streamlines all quantitative and qualitative analytics data into one place, ensuring your product, business, and marketing teams can make clear, data-based decisions.

On top of that, Quantum Metric uses machine-learning technology to help perform customer-centric analysis so you gain deep insights quickly and easily.

If you are interested in seeing how Quantum Metric can help your business succeed through digital and web analytics, book a demo with us today.