Tuesday, May 2, 2017

How to choose the right business analytics system



The key advantage of digital commerce for modern markets is that people who buy goods, search for services or plan to spend money in any other way on the Internet, leave an electronic "trace". That's why recently, web analytics tools are becoming more widespread and advanced in technology. Based on this information, the company is able to check the effectiveness of marketing channels and campaigns, optimize buyer persona, use attributive data and perform many other useful operations. To gain access to such extensive capabilities, companies need to select the right analytical platform. They need to understand what functions they will need.
In article published by Search Engine Land, Evan Lapointe advises companies to be guided by the following issues:
Which departments will monitor your analytical platform?
What information do stakeholders want to receive from the software?
What stimulates the productivity of employees who will use the tool?
What is the nature of the key decisions affecting the sites that will be tracked?
Answers to these and other similar questions will help to determine the basic factors for choosing an analytical service. After that Meghan Keaney Anderson (HubSpot marketer) offers companies to focus on the following points:
1. Usually your leads are converted after one or more interactions?
If in your case, purchases are made shortly after the first touchpoint, you will probably find a solution that will preserve the anonymity of your customers. On the other hand, if your transactions occur after several interactions, you’d better use a platform that provides data for each individual customer.
2. How many employees in your company have technical / analytical skills?
If your team has an analyst or a group of analysts, or you plan to hire such specialists, you should take a closer look at powerful corporate services. Otherwise, you can safely choose any cloud solution based on ease of use.
3. Find your mix of marketing channels.
Make a list of all the channels that you use to promote your products and /or services. Determine when, where and how often your campaigns span multiple channels. If you regularly encounter such difficulties, you will need a multi-channel analytical tool. If this happens rarely, a basic solution should be enough.
4. How important are long-term relationships with customers?
If you expect to use the analytical platform to build long-term relationships with customers, look for a service that supports integration with CRM systems and other solutions for customer service.
In his article on the website of the marketing news Clickz author of several best-sellers, Bryan Eisenberg also compiled a detailed list of issues affecting the selection criteria for the analytical tool. Below are the most significant of them:
What exactly do you want to measure?
Is it important for your company to receive reports in real time?
What monthly and annual budget are you willing to allocate to the analyst based on current income?
Who will use the system?
What data is needed for each employee?
Will all users of the system quickly access and visualize data?
The important question is - what is the difference between the minimum and maximum competence in analytics among those who will use the system?
How will the answers to the above questions change when the company grows up?
How much money will it take to maintain the system?
Answering all the above questions, the company will get a clear idea of ​​the most important analytical needs of its business.

Also some companies develop their own system. Is it worth buying a ready-made analytics system or developing it yourself? Here are some a few specific recommendations on how to proceed: If you are a small indie studio and you are already thinking about analytics, connect a third-party service that will do everything for you. You at this time will deal with your product.
If you started to grow, and at the same time your requests for data grow, hire an analyst and provide him with third-party system. Let him answer your questions.
If you have departments, hierarchy, disjoint products and functions, then the principle "Specialist + analyst + analyst + ..." will work for you. Any employee can answer routine questions with one of the integrated systems, and for more complex ones, there is an analytical department.
If you are sure that no one will do better than you, go ahead, create it yourself, this decision is worthy of respect. But before you start, consider the costs of launching and support.
In conclusion, there is a simple metaphor from analyst Vincent Granville: imagine that you need a kitchen set. You can do it yourself. It seems that even it will be cheaper and perfectly suited for your non-standard kitchen. But before you start building, go shopping, suddenly you will really like something.





2 comments:

  1. It's appreciated if mentioned the top most business analytical tool not only the objectives.

    ReplyDelete
  2. the choosing the right analytic system is quite difficult, you should know the company's environment

    ReplyDelete