The performance of marketing activities in various forms is a significant component of a company's marketing strategy. The effectiveness of these proceedings is influenced not only by the right concept, but also by well-set goals, ongoing analysis of activities and measurement of indicators. Due to constantly changing trends in the market, the strategy requires constant improvement. Monitoring marketing performance makes it possible to verify the actions taken and check whether all elements are functioning as intended. When evaluating their effectiveness, it is necessary to use appropriate tools to analyze specific indicators.

Marketing performance vs. Google Analytics

Marketing activities will bring the desired results if they are monitored on an ongoing basis. One of the best tools for overseeing the results is Google Analytics. Due to detailed information about the traffic on the site (the flow of users, their behavior and demographics), it is possible to assess the actions taken and make possible changes. With the help of this tool, it is possible to identify key marketing indicators and measure them accordingly, as well as to prepare statistics about the website and its audience.

With Google Analytics you can find out who your audience is, how many people are on the site at any given time, as well as what characteristics users have (e.g. age, gender, what device they use) and how they got to the site. The tool also allows you to measure the effectiveness of specific areas of the site - the generated reports will allow you to indicate the sub-pages that are most popular among users, as well as those that are less popular, so that with this data you can better position the relevant sites. Google Analytics also presents an analysis of problems occurring on the site, such as long loading times of selected subpages or lack of display of graphic elements.

The Google Analytics dashboard is divided into four sections (Recipients, Acquisition, Behavior and Conversions), containing detailed metrics. Below we present you examples of them, assigned to each of the four elements.

• Audience – this section allows you to find out who the website visitors are, based on demographics or location. Selected audience indicators:
  • Number of visits - defines the number of visits to the site (including unique ones) in a certain period of time,
  • Number of sessions - this indicator defines the number of active interactions of users with the site at a given time,
  • Average time spent on the site - this is used to see how much time a user spends on the site per session,
  • Average number of pages viewed - this is the average number of pages viewed by a user during a single session. The result consists of the total pages viewed divided by the number of visitors,
  • Rejection rate - this is the percentage of people who leave a website without further interaction with the site.

• Acquisition – this section shows how a user got to the website and which channels generate the most traffic to the site. The different indicators available in the acquisition section are:
  • Organic sessions - this is the traffic generated by users who came to the website via free search results and is important for the website positioning,
  • Paid sessions - this indicator determines the traffic generated by users who clicked on a site's ads, thus indicating the effectiveness of advertising campaigns,
  • Search Console - presents an analysis on organic searches and allows you to examine individual queries.

• Behavior – with this section, you can find out what actions on the site users take, for example, what pages they visit and how long they stay on them. Selected indicators on user behavior:
  • Engagement - this is an indicator related to the average time spent on the site by the user. It makes it possible to determine the effectiveness of advertising campaigns - the higher the average time spent on the site and the lower the rejection rate, the better,
  • Most popular keywords - the indicator allows you to view the keywords entered by users in the search bar. This allows you to discover what content they expect to see on the site, as well as which queries are typed in most often,
  • Landing page - this is a particular type of website designed to encourage users to take action. The indicator shows data on the sites generating the most traffic, which makes it possible to analyze user impressions and the effectiveness of advertising campaigns.

• Conversions – the last section allows you to check the effectiveness of users performing the desired actions on the website. Among the indicators we distinguish:
  • Number of contact conversions - determines the number of successful contacts made with users, for example, through services such as live chat or phone calls from the website,
  • Number of sales conversions - an indicator used mainly by e-commerce sites to track purchases made by users,
  • Goal conversion rate - this is the result of the effectiveness of marketing activities carried out, in which specific goals are set for the user (for example, purchase or registration).

The Google Analytics tool also allows integration with data from other platforms to provide even more detailed information about a website's users.

Additional functionalities from Google

The Google Analytics tool is worth combining with other elements provided by Google. We especially recommend Google Ads and Google Tag Manager, which, when used properly, make website development much easier.
Google Ads is an advertising system from Google that is used to plan, launch and display sponsored links in search engine results, but also, for example, on YouTube. The budget amount for the campaign is set according to your needs, and the ad itself can be turned off at any time.

Google Tag Manager is a free tool that allows you to easily manage scripts and tags by adding code snippets to your site, even if you don't have programming expertise - all the most important functionalities are in one place. The tool also allows you to track the actions that a user takes on the site. With Google Tag Manager, you also have the ability to test new tags before publishing them, and in case something doesn't work properly, you can easily restore the previous version.

The most important marketing indicators

We have already mentioned the importance of marketing metrics, but which ones are worth paying attention to and using on your site? Which ones should be considered KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)? Here is a brief overview.

• Website traffic, generated by users who could potentially become customers, is also an important indicator. It is useful to know the characteristics of website visitors to determine who the audience is and what brought them to the website. This will allow you to determine the needs of potential customers and translate them into real business. There are several parameters that make up website traffic - among them we can mention: sessions and average time of a single session, users, page views or rejection rate.

• The proportion of site traffic to acquired customers combines with the indicator mentioned above. With it, you can measure how many users, among the visitors to the site, became customers. This indicator allows you to examine how traffic to the website results in the effectiveness of your marketing and sales efforts.

• The conversion rate is presented as a percentage and represents the number of users who complete a specific goal on the site, compared to all visitors. The higher the conversion rate, the better. However, it is worth remembering that high traffic on the site does not guarantee the acquisition of more customers. Only a combination of the right quality of traffic and a good conversion rate value have a real impact on better results. Below is the formula for calculating this indicator:

• Customer acquisition cost is another of the important indicators of marketing effectiveness. It is the amount spent to acquire a single customer - the most desirable result is to develop a low cost of customer acquisition, while maintaining optimal advertising spending and achieving significant sales increases.

• Revenue per customer from a given source allows you to determine where the customers who bring the highest revenue to the site come from. By examining this indicator, you can determine which market segment is best to invest your marketing budget in.

• CLV (Customer Lifetime Value), is the average lifetime value of a customer, which is the amount of revenue that a given customer generates for the company. This indicator should be compared with the cost of acquiring a consumer and its value, so that you know whether a particular customer is profitable. CLV analysis also allows you to build long-term relationships with customers.

• ROI (Return on Investment), is an indicator to evaluate the effectiveness of a given investment. It is used to verify the effectiveness of marketing activities undertaken by the company and the level of profitability of advertising campaigns. ROI also makes it possible to choose the form of advertising that will bring the most benefits. The indicator allows you to measure the amount of return on a given investment in relation to its cost. Below is a simple formula for calculating ROI:

• CTR (Click-through Rate), is a ratio used to analyze the performance of advertising campaigns. It determines the number of clicks relative to the number of ad impressions.

Also worth noting are social media metrics, among them likes, comments and shares. Viral advertising posts directly translate into better results, especially if the level of clicks on a given ad is high enough.

The effectiveness of marketing activities depends not only on a well-planned strategy, but also on the analysis of relevant indicators. Ongoing changes allow you to strengthen the actions taken and achieve better results - properly optimized and regularly analyzed activities will bring increased revenues. Monitoring the results is an ongoing process that takes a lot of time, but it is worth investing this time to maintain good effectiveness of marketing and sales activities.