It is no secret that Data Analysis is an integral part of Digital Marketing. However, unknowingly, a lot of marketers and business owners are inferring incorrect insights from Google Analytics, eventually jeopardizing their digital strategy.
Let’s take a look at the top data analysis mistakes digital marketers or business owners make. These mistakes if avoided can help you achieve business goals with more precision.
1.Underestimating Micro conversions over Macro Conversions:
Micro Conversion: An interaction that most certainly does not result in an immediate transaction is a micro-conversion. Typical examples would be, newsletter sign-ups, video view, time on site, bounce rate reduction, etc.
Macro Conversion: is the primary objective behind generating traffic. A macro conversion typically is an e-commerce transaction or a lead form fill.
Almost 90% of your traffic never converts for these Macro Conversions.
More often than not, digital marketers are behind these Macro Conversions only. The best way to increase macro conversion is by improving your micro conversions.
So a sound digital marketer will try to better these micro conversions with an end goal of improving the “real”(macro) conversions.
2.Not getting deeper into segmented data:
One should read traffic only after segmenting it source wise.
Users coming from different sources behave differently on the website.
Check the below screenshot to see the behaviour difference of users coming from paid vs organic search.
Parameters like Avg. Session Duration, Bounce Rate, etc. for both mediums differ a lot.
Hence one should analyze these mediums individually, keeping in mind the medium and certain behaviour that this medium has. This will ensure that you read data correctly and figure the right course of action.
3.Not accounting for seasonal trends:
An obvious one but deserves a mention.
A lot of clients and marketers panic when they see a sudden drop in the festive season, be it Christmas or Diwali. [Marketers enjoy none #agencylife]
Ideally, year-long projections should be made, and seasonal trends should be accounted for. Furthermore, measures can be taken to avoid slack in business by fine-tuning your digital efforts.
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4.Making conclusions out of a very small sample of data:
Datasets grow smaller when you deep dive into data and apply multiple filters.
As a rule of thumb, do not consider a dataset if your session numbers are in three digits.
Pro tip: You can always increase the date range.
5.Cherry picking data that supports your personal opinion or bias:
Do not; I repeat do not, cherry pick data. Our personal biases overpower our ability to look at the bigger picture, leading to wrong analysis.
The best way to not let this happen is by getting your analysis critiqued by someone else.
6.Avoid Data Dredging:
Data dredging is the failure of acknowledging that a particular scenario happened by fluke and might not happen again.
The best way to avoid this is by finding similar trends in the past.
Avoiding these mistakes will ensure better decisions and positive P&Ls for your business.
We at DigiChefs have been analyzing more than a million sessions each month since the past 4 years. We have helped businesses grow up to 10 folds in revenue.
We have never been happier and would love to make you happy too.
Get in touch with us at [email protected], with the subject line “I need a free Google Analytics audit for my website” and we shall get in touch to tell you the story your data narrates.
