How to Choose the Best Analytics Solution for your Business
If you’re considering analytics for your business, it means that you’re serious about growth.
The earlier you can incorporate an Advanced Analytical solution into your growth plan, the sooner you can start understanding marketing performance, user behavior and have an edge over your competition.
In part one of this series, we looked at the two eCommerce growth frameworks and the most important metrics to track and improve for consistent growth in revenue.
For this part, I’ll be showing you how you can choose an analytics solution that can track and automate the entire framework to put you on a path of scaling your eCommerce business.
While multichannel marketing and selling helps businesses reach more customers, it also leaves them with huge volume of data.
Data that is even more valuable if you have the means to take advantage and monetize it in such a way that it can give you a competitive advantage.
The best way to do that is through the use of analytical tools, and frankly, there’s a ton of them out there.
But if you keep focused on what your business really needs, you will be able to find the right solution.
Here is what will be covered:
- Why you need an analytics solution
- Begin with your goal
- Minimum Value offered
- Other factors to consider
- Conclusion
Why you need an analytics solution
Let’s first evaluate why you should consider investing in a solution.
If you want to take your marketing efforts to the next level, an analytics solution would be an invaluable addition to your marketing stack.
Here’s why.
One. Such software gives you a centralized view of all your marketing data.
An analytics platform eliminates the burden of having to review scattered datasets that are ordinarily isolated from each other.
Instead, you gain a complete picture of your campaigns and customer behavior in one place.
This is only possible if the analytics platform can integrate data from all your sources.
Deep integration is a critical function for any analytics platform used by eCommerce businesses as it allows for automatic data collection from all marketing channels.
Find out more about deep integration here.
Two. An analytics platform gives you the ability to gain deep insights into your marketing performance.
Being able to view all the information from various sources together provides a hugely valuable opportunity to learn from past and current campaign performance.
With it, you can deep dive into the data to uncover insights you would have never uncovered with dispersed information.
At Humanlytics, we are able to focus our data analytics to generate insights about a specific marketing goal with the help of artificial intelligence.
If the goal is to increase traffic, we generate insights into what your marketing team can do to increase traffic based on your performance data, same goes for goals like improving conversion rates or growing revenue.
Three. Forecasting upcoming results easier.
A centralized platform for your data makes it so much easier to predict potential outcomes of new marketing initiatives or campaigns.
Even a simple year-on-year analysis of marketing performance, for example, would help marketing managers forecast results for any new idea.
These benefits are just the tip of the iceberg, today’s analytics solutions are an integral part of your marketing strategy and if your solution only offers basic reporting, then it’s definitely a good time to consider alternatives.
So if you are going to choose an analytics solution for your business, where would you start?
Begin with the end in mind
Determine what your business goal is first before becoming overwhelmed with choices on how to get there.
Colorful reports about various metrics are fun, but are they actually delivering the analytics value you need to work towards your business objectives?
Whether that’s growing your customer base, retaining more loyal customers or improving profit margins?
Keep these goals in mind as you move through the evaluation process because if your analytics tool has no clear indication of how it can help you achieve your set goals, then it’s not worth your time.
For this article series, our goal is eCommerce revenue growth.
Don’t get distracted by bells and whistles. It can be easy to get swept away with fun features and visualization capabilities, but at the end of the day, what really matters is what will help you move the needle and grow your business revenue.
There are analytics tools for almost everything that can be tracked, providing you with reports on all the metrics you probably don’t need.
The trick is to know what questions about your business/marketing you need answers for.
Here is how:
If the questions you need to be answered are how many people are visiting your store, where are they from and what is my site or page bounce rate?
Google Analytics will be a sufficient tool for at this stage.
But if the questions you need to be answered are a little more complex like the one we discussed in part one, then read on.
In part one, we looked at the five most important questions to ask for eCommerce companies looking for revenue growth:
a. How do I generate more quality traffic?
b. How do I improve conversion rates?
c. How do I increase the average order value?
d. How do I increase the frequency of purchase for every customer?
With the rising cost of doing business, the cost factor has to be considered so that the business is able to acquire customers at an accptable cost.
For all the data eCommerce businesses generate from their marketing platforms, an A.I powered analytics platform can be used to obtain direct insights and answers to such business questions.
Or even more complex questions.
At Humanlytics, our customers like William Painter have more growth-focused questions, questions descriptive analytics tools can’t answer like:
· What encourages visitors to click “Buy Now”?
· What pushes them cancel at check out?
· Why and how successful customers come back for subsequent orders?
· What does our multichannel customer path look like?
· How do we increase AOV without increasing promotion costs?
With so many data analytics vendors claiming to have the right tool for you, the questions you need answered can be used as the basis of what your analytics solutions should be able to provide.
Let’s look at the minimum value an analytics solution should offer eCommerce businesses today.
Minimum value offered
For eCommerce, analytics solutions are supposed to be able to track, monitor and analyze data generated along the entire customer journey.
Today’s typical user journey involves multiple channels and devices.
When the path to purchase can start or end at any time, in any location, on any device.
It is more necessary for eCommerce businesses to interact with customers using a combination of indirect and direct communication channels like websites, retail stores, email, mobile, Ads, social and apps.
So that customers can take action in response — preferably to buy your products while using channels of their choice.
As you can imagine, this for the business creates a challenge of dealing with data coming from all these channels that need to be pieced together if any useful patterns and insights are to be generated.
This would require deep integration between channels to ensure that all the data generated can be pulled into one platform and analyzed to give you a complete picture of your entire multi-channel customer journey.
The ideal analytics solution should enable you to analyze all your multichannel data to identify strengths and weaknesses in your customer journey.
Where the strengths represent everything you are doing right and the weaknesses represent areas you can improve to generate better results.
Here is an example of how this can be done:
At Humanlytics, we’ve managed to connect one of our client’s entire customer journey from the moment a customer sees an Ad on Facebook and Google, all the way to the CLV beyond first purchase, so they can tell which Ad group or Ad Set provided the best ROI for them in the long term.
Data from Facebook and Google Ads is integrated in our DataSlinger platform and analyzed to generate insights on how we can improve the performance of users generated from these channels while optimizing the entire journey.
Predictive Intelligence
The goal here is to utilize the resources available to make sure the actions taken do have the highest impact on revenue.
Unfortunately, most analytics tools revolve around descriptive analytics where you uncover insights that tell you what happened and why but not much about the expected effect of the actions you are taking.
It’s one thing to be able to analyze and report on your marketing data, but for a tool to really set itself apart, it needs to be able to take the next step — intelligently appraising that data.
Your analytics application must be able to recognize patterns in data and predict future trends, events, and outcomes of your marketing efforts.
A good analytics solution will be able to look at raw data and use it to not only predict the likelihood of future business events but also offer informed suggestions regarding what actions the business should take moving forward.
Other factors to consider
PRICING
Before selecting an analytics tool, you must be fully aware of the costs associated with the tools/solutions you are evaluating.
Different analytics solutions have different cost structures and it is important to understand them before making an investment.
There are three major things to consider in regards to cost: subscriptions, hidden fees, and onboarding fees.
Onboarding fees are normally charged on customized analytics solutions, but in my view, this is not the best approach because clients are not given the opportunity to explore the solution and realize it’s value before payment.
Customized solutions are meant to address your specific challenges faced by your company rather than fitting users within a vendor’s generic solution that may not solve your challenges.
Explore more about customized analytics solutions.
Get the full details on all costs for your solution now, and as your needs change and grow.
Does the vendor require quarterly or yearly subscriptions on top of any upfront costs? This is something that may not be advertised however may come into play later.
As your business grows and expands, so will your analytics needs. Will the vendor allow you to scale your solution with a flexible pricing model?
Are there any additional fees that aren’t listed in the pricing model, but necessary for full implementation or scale-up?
Make sure to find out what you will be spending on your analytics solution upfront to avoid any surprises in the future.
SUPPORT
The next thing you need to consider is the kind of relationship you expect to have with your analytics provider.
Some solutions are set up as a self-run product while other solutions like Humanlytics are based on more of a partnership, where you purchase from a company that checks in often (weekly) and helps you leverage their solution in profitable ways.
Do you have the experience in-house to reliably manage a full implementation of a new analytics tool? From creating a comprehensive list of business requirements and transposing that into a clear, consistent tracking plan.
If the answer to this is no, then you are going to need to lean on the vendor for their expertise.
For obvious reasons, both come at different price points. However, I strongly suggest you consider the merits of each option.
If you need help understanding your data or think you may need some customizations, going with the partner approach is best.
If your data needs are simple and in line with exactly what the analytics capabilities the software provides, you can work with a vendor who pushes you to be self-sufficient.
Make sure you think long term! What your data does for you now may not work in three years.
Choose a solution for the long haul.
Customization
The truth is that the value from your analytics solution doesn’t come from the actual data reporting side. It comes from the analytics side.
But for most people customization inquiries will only be limited to data reporting and visualization.
Every eCommerce business is unique in its operations and needs. This translates into unique data collected and insights required for growth.
Based on the channels used in your business, will the analytics solution be able to accommodate all the data generated by those channels and analyze it to provide you with the insights you need?
Is the solution flexible in that it can be extended or altered to meet future needs? Ensure that you select a solution that can accommodate your specific requirements — for today and in the future.
Most analytics tools only provide minimal customization abilities, and some don’t even offer the ability to expand.
While this might work for some companies, most will need a custom set-up –one that can integrate flawlessly into their operations, and grow as they grow.
There is no one size fits all in analytics or business growth. What works for one business might not meet the needs of the other.
Take your unique business needs (from data reporting to insights generation) into consideration and determine whether or not the selected solution can accommodate them.
At Humanlytics, the first meeting with any of our clients is to figure out what their analytics challenges/requirements are and the marketing channels they use.
The reason is to find out if we can successfully work with all their channels to solve their challenges and help them achieve their revenue goals.
Determining Fit both ways is not an option in analytics, that’s why we make sure the customized solution we deliver can actually meet your specific needs before any investment is made.
Book your first meeting with Humanlytics today
Collaboration
Unless a business only has one employee, there’s a good chance that any campaign, sale or any other business-related action is going to involve the collaboration of multiple employees or departments.
For an analytics solution to be truly effective, it should promote efficient collaboration between multiple users by providing a platform that can be easily accessed across multiple devices, and that can be operated by users of all levels of technological training.
An analytics solution that is based in the cloud provides certain advantages over onsite solutions.
Cloud-based analytics can be accessed at any time, from any authorized device or platform, allowing for quicker connectivity and improved collaboration, all without the need for any expensive hardware installation.
Most of these platforms have pay-as-you-go plans giving early-stage businesses a competitive edge and support they need when preparing or experiencing growth.
Other considerations to make are about data security and legal compliance to regulations on data collection and privacy protection of your users, especially when dealing with EU customers.
Conclusion
Don’t compromise on your business goals.
Find a solution that can solve your data challenges so that you can focus on achieving your monthly goals.
Determine your business needs and look for an appropriate analytics solution that can provide what you need.
Don’t overlook startups and new analytics solutions because those lesser-known providers can sometimes offer more in terms of complexity and value than the larger analytics providers in the space.
Much of this hedges on the size of your business as well, the larger the business, the more likely you are to select a data analytics solution that scales to your needs immediately.
For small or mid-sized businesses, pay attention to those with a smaller footprint as they are likely to offer perks that the bigger companies aren’t.
To the untrained eye, most analytics solutions may appear fairly similar, and in many ways, they are.
However, the subtle differences inherent in these solutions can have a significant impact on their effectiveness for specific businesses.
Researching potential solutions, by taking advantage of free trial periods, can help businesses feel secure with their choices before committing.
After all, data is the lifeblood of the successful business, and analyzing the tools that will be used to analyze that data is one way to ensure that a company remains healthy and viable for years to come.
At Humanlytics, we provide marketing analytics services for eCommerce businesses.
We currently support deep integrations with Google Analytics, Facebook Ads, and Google Ads, and e-commerce platforms like Shopify.
With DataSlinger engine, we are able to analyze your data and provide you with actionable insights for your business growth.
If interested, don’t hesitate to reach us at bill@humanlytics.co.
