It’s one of the realities of digital marketing – campaigns are rarely perfect coming out of the gate. In most cases, adjustments must be made to the finely honed content and images. How is this done? Well, marketers have two ways to go. They can tap into their intuition. Or they can capitalize on the power of digital analytics to reveal consumer motivations, preferences, and habits. Fortunately, the latter is the typical option of choice.
Consumer data, of course, doesn’t grow on trees. It’s mined from various sources, the most popular being web pages, social media sites, and email. Time consuming, yes. But well worth the effort. Once in hand, the collected info provides consumer insights that often reveals optimum campaign-saving adjustments.
Digital analytics is divided into three avenues, each focused on a different aspect of consumer behavior. It is imperative to pursue all three.
Descriptive analytics offers a historical view of consumers in action. For example, marketers may want to gauge which channels (social media, web pages, etc.) generate the most traffic. They also may want to make comparisons. Is the traffic trend up, down, unchanged? Descriptive analytics provides the window.
As the name implies, predictive analytics does just that – it forecasts probable trends based on specific behaviors. Ever see movie suggestions on Amazon after watching a certain flick? That’s the result of predictive analytics anticipating other cinema masterpieces you might like – and therefore purchase. Any time you see a product or other suggestion, predicative analytics is responsible. The analysis, by the way, is performed by technology – algorithms and the like.
So is prescriptive analytics. Similar to predictive, prescriptive analytics goes even deeper by evaluating data, offering recommendations after comparing various options, and modifying those recommendations as new data is collected. Clearly, this analysis offers the most flexibility and depth of the three.
But don’t rely on prescriptive alone. It won’t get the job done. Not by itself. To go the distance, pursue all three avenues. It’s the only way to reach your destination.
If you have questions or comments about digital analytics, or about any other brand-related topic, feel free to send them our way. You can connect with the Young Company team at 949-376-8404 or robyn@youngcompany.com. And be sure to follow us for the latest brand marketing news and tips