A complete guide to marketing analysis

Marketing analysis can be performed in many ways and apply to many disciplines. It can be either tactical or strategic, and further still, vary significantly based on the marketing channel and the available methods of data collection.

Strategic analysis involves fully evaluating the effectiveness of marketing activities in either one channel or across a set of channels. It differs from tactical marketing analysis, which can be performed in real-time without impacting on a business’ overall strategy.

For example, a business may decide to target a particular niche because it believes the buyers within it will be the most receptive. This targeting strategy may be applied to a single channel e.g. online advertising or multiple channels, e.g. content marketing, advertising, and promotions. The business will usually then analyse the overall success of these activities either on a weekly, monthly, or perhaps quarterly basis. This involves a thorough analysis of all the available data to establish whether the strategy is working or not.

By comparison, tactical marketing analysis often happens continuously. A digital marketer will constantly assess and evaluate the success of each placement, as will a content marketer. This doesn’t require strategic thinking at a brand level, but instead requires tactical thinking to ensure each placement performs. This is the key difference between tactical and strategic marketing analysis.

The number of data collection methods has risen sharply over recent years, as covered in our blog on the history of marketing analysis. This in turn has rapidly increased the amount of data that marketing departments are required to analyse.

• Polls or surveys

Surveys can be used to ask the public whether they have seen specific adverts and what they thought of them. Alternatively, they may consider intention, by asking someone if they are likely to purchase a product as a result of an interaction with a brand.

Either way, they can happen online or face-to-face. They can then be analysed quantitatively. For example, a marketer may be able to analyse overall brand recognition or sentiment.

• Focus groups

Marketers use focus groups to bring together groups of buyers or potential buyers and ask them questions about a particular brand and its products or service offering. They can provide an excellent source of qualitative information. This can make them very useful for exploring ideas or generating new ones. For example, a business may interview a group about its packaging and generate new ideas for packaging design in the process.

Focus groups are typically run in-person, although with new digital technologies, it is possible to run them virtually. They are very popular with advertising agencies to explore and guide the development of TV campaigns or to evaluate how they’ll be received. They are, however, less valuable in providing deterministic information.

• Behavioural tracking methods

Behavioural tracking measures are used to investigate a broad range of human emotions and behaviours. They can vary significantly as a result.

One of the most popular is the use of website tracking software to evaluate how a user engages with a site. The marketer can analyse a user’s mouse movements in real-time or use heat-maps to see how best to optimise a website’s user experience. Furthermore, eye-tracking software may be used to see how people’s eyes move throughout the web, as well as on particular sites. In this case, a company may bring in paid volunteers and use specialised technology to analyse their eye moments as they browse.

Behavioural tracking methods also have the potential to go much further. A marketer may want to measure the subconscious reaction that a brand creates. They can do this by running experiments where a paid volunteer is exposed to a series of brands or adverts while having their heart rate and perspiration levels measured.

Although website tracking software is widely used, beyond it, behavioural tracking remains in the early stages. This is because the data is very difficult to act upon. It may be easy to sense an increase in someone’s heart rate, but it is difficult to analyse to what extent it will guide their purchasing behaviour and, further still, what it should ideally be.

• Behavioural modelling measures

Behavioural modelling can be used by a business to understand a buyer’s overall requirements and shape its marketing strategy accordingly. This requires an evaluation of the buyer’s needs holistically, before evaluating the attractiveness of the business’ offering. Data can be sought to understand a set of behavioural metrics. Once these are established, the business can then evaluate the growth areas and marketing channels most relevant to the customer and build an appropriate setup.

The benefit of this type of modelling is that it gives a marketer a new framework with which to consider their marketing strategy. Without it, they will naturally gravitate to optimising every channel and expecting that every channel can continue to grow in effectiveness.

• Digital data collection/analytics

Collecting data online is the most well known method of data collection, which is why it is essential to cover the other areas of analysis first. The digital world has presented many opportunities for data collection, as presented in more detail below. Perhaps the most important development in enabling this was the creation of the ‘cookie’, which informs marketers and advertisers about a user’s movements across the web.

Digital innovation continually provides a greater number of marketing channels. This can be a mixed blessing for marketers who are required to continually up-skill and evaluate their relative merits. Further still, it makes it even more difficult for a marketer to analyse all their activities collectively and allocate budgets accordingly. To illustrate this point, we’ve identified at least 32 channels available to marketers.

To make this process easier to conceptualise, marketers can group marketing activities into eight growth areas. Each has a distinct role to play and a value to both the business and the buyer.

Analysing marketing activity by user journey is critical for digital marketers, and particularly marketers working in growth businesses. It involves tracking a user’s movements throughout the web, and particularly before and after they visit a business’ site.

The challenge for the marketer is understanding the user’s motivations for visiting the site, evaluating the value they gain from it, and why they act as they do. In practice, the success of this is dependent on two factors.

• The quality of the data

With more and more data available, marketers aim to understand not only the user’s movements throughout the web, but also the importance of each website. This process of attribution is essential because often a user has travelled through many related websites before they finally decide to purchase.

• An understanding of buying behaviour

It is easy to underestimate the importance of understanding buyer behaviour. The data available can frequently provide false information if the marketer doesn’t take into account the limitations in data collection. Needless to say, the very best marketers always understand how to interpret the data.

There are many ways to analyse the performance of digital marketing activities. We cover them in turn below. Often, they become a little more complex with experience.

• Website performance

  Cookies are informational tags that record the activities of users as they move throughout the web. They can be used for multiple purposes, including to track exposure to advertising, the websites a person’s visited and their activities on those websites. Perhaps the most well-known tools that use these are Google Analytics and the Facebook pixel, which can be installed for free on any website. Anyone familiar with them will know just how much information can be gleaned from cookies. Most websites would look and function very differently without them.

• Advertising performance

  Whatever the type of online advertising chosen, be that search engine, display, or social media, a marketer will subsequently access a platform that records the success of the campaign. This will use the data provided by cookies to show the amount of impressions an advert has received, the type of people that saw it, and their actions towards it e.g. recording the number of clicks.

• Email campaign performance

  Tracking the success of email campaigns is essential. It is now commonplace for email systems to include tracking software, which provides information on the number of emails that bounced, were opened, clicked on and unsubscribed.

• Website behavioural tracking

  Marketers can install software that provides qualitative information to evaluate website user journeys. This can be particularly important when analytics alone may not explain exactly how users are acting. By using heat-mapping, a marketer can see how a user flows across a site in real-time.

• Data science

  Established brands often sell thousands of products, in many product categories, which generates vast amounts of data. They can then employ complex data analysis methods to answer key questions such as: Who are our most profitable customers? What is the link between them? And how do we turn new customers into highly profitable ones?

• Market insight tools

  Marketers can analyse overall market trends using a multitude of free and paid tools. Many are available free, e.g. Google Trends or use freemium models. In addition to evaluating industry trends, a marketer can also evaluate competitor strategies.

• Online surveys

  Market research can be conducted relatively easily and cost-effectively through a number of online research methods. These studies can be exploratory to understand user preferences or deterministic by evaluating their reaction to marketing campaigns. They may ask respondents if they saw a particular advert, and what they thought of it, too.

The digital world has created a plethora of opportunities for marketing analysis, increasing the requirement to select the right marketing approach. This requires a consideration of the business’ size, industry, budget, and aspirations.

Every method of analysis has strengths and weaknesses. Yet, a major concern for businesses is over-emphasising the value of the data available to them. This is because it frequently not substantial enough to be able to anticipate buyer needs.