How a little data intelligence can make a big difference

In digital marketing actionable information is as good as money (especially when you don’t have much money).?

Yes, I assure you that a little data intelligence can take you a long distance even if your current marketing budget has been dried up by thirsty brand awareness campaigns. But you need to play it smart.?

First of all, you need Google Analytics (or any other clickstream data analytics tool). Then, you need to configure it: when Google Analytics is just out of the box, it looks like a roughly cut dress (or suit). If you really want to shine while wearing it, you need to customize it.?

Then, if you really want to squeeze intelligence out of your analytics tool, well, you need to teach it the basics of your business.?

Wait, what? How do I teach my business model to a software? In our case, by telling Google Analytics what are the important actions that a user can make on your site and by attributing a monetary value (however arbitrary) to such actions. Is a value necessary? Yes it is! Why? Look at this screenshot: do you see the left column? The value column (in the screenshot below the Page Value column)? at the far right of many tables in Google Analytics is automatically populated with the value attributed to the dimensions you are analyzing every time they appear in a session that led to a conversion. So it is not enough to simply measure the number of conversions, because that information would not populate this lonely and forgotten column: you must add a value to your goal settings.?

Without Goal Value settings:

Do it, and magically some numbers will appear in this column, and most of it: you’ll be able to click on the column header and sort the table you are looking at by the real value that it brings to your business rather than by vanity metrics that are unrelated to your baseline.?

With Goal Value settings:

Still not sure about how to do it? Let’s talk about it, it is easier than you think.