Gathering Analytics Manually or Automatically

Examining the “Human” Approach to Measurement

Your company has a nice website. You’ve invested substantial time and energy on it, probably a healthy chunk of your marketing budget, and clients are feeling great about your site’s design and functionality.

Congratulations! In today’s digital age, a good site is indispensable.

But long gone is the “spray and pray” method of rebranding and posting. Hopefully your brand has been tracking traffic on your site for the past few years. These numbers should tell you how a campaign is tracking, how a post is performing or how your rebrand is resonating with consumers. Then, that information can inform your next campaign or post.  

Tracking digital performance through analytics.

For example, analytics can tell you:

  1. How many visitors you’ve received
  2. Where they’re from
  3. How they get to your site
  4. What marketing tactics drive engagement
  5. What pages they visit
  6. How long they stayed on your site
  7. Social media traffic

If we list all the possibilities data tells us, we’d take over the rest of this magazine. But, these numbers are essential in informing your brand’s digital communication decisions.

Before jumping headfirst into analytics, it’s important to establish your measurement objectives based on goals you’ve set for your website. Are you hoping to increase brand awareness? Grow sales? Increase the amount of time your target spends on your site? Answering these questions allows your brand to come up with a strategy to hit those goals.

Dedicating Internal Human Manhours

If you’re a large company, you might have the resources to dedicate an individual, or maybe a team, to manage your web analytics software.

But in small businesses, personnel is often stretched thin. It can be difficult, if not impossible, to dedicate someone to reporting and analytics. And, of course, when dealing with humans, there’s always the potential for error.

Robot: An Alternative to Human-Directed Analytics

There are a number of advanced software products that can provide you with the same level of comprehensive data. The evaluation of what that data means and how it can impact your business is what drives future decisions.

These software products rely on the use of robots, or “bots,” to do what humans can do in a fraction of the time. But they do more than collect data – they actually provide an analysis of its value to your business. That’s called “artificial intelligence,” a term you’re likely aware of.

Automated analytics software utilizes bots to generate and organize data. You’ve likely heard a great deal of discussion around their use lately, and for good reason. Bots handle repetitive tasks faster and more accurately than a human could, and result in increased efficiency.

In considering the use of AI analytics, Brent Dykes offers a caution: Don’t commit to AI before mastering analytics basics:

“With artificial intelligence potentially ushering in a new industrial revolution, it’s imperative that each organization learns to crawl and walk with analytics in earnest before seeking to run with AI. The data-driven companies that do so will be able to quickly outpace their rivals that failed to adequately prepare for the coming AI revolution.”

Bots offer a smarter approach to doing much of the repetitive work businesses must do. Not too mention, they’re reliable, and they don’t take coffee breaks. In truth, they allow YOU to take a coffee break.