10 Tweetable Takeaways from “Digital Marketing Analytics”

Understanding customers. Monitoring competitors. Improving products and services. Measuring ROI.

Digital marketing is evolving. With it, so are the tools and platforms used to measure and analyze digital marketing data. In fact, according to Krux’s second annual Cross-Industry Study, data collection has grown 400% year-over-year while the number of data collectors has doubled (more than 300 “parties” were observed in the 2012 CIS, compared to 167 the previous year).

In their new book “Digital Marketing Analytics: Making Sense of Consumer Data in a Digital World,” authors Chuck Hemann and Ken Burbary discuss the changing digital marketing landscape, complete with 300+ pages of analytics tips, tricks, tools and insights. Here are a few of my favorites:

1. Knowledge is power in digital marketing. If you know more about the customer than your competitors, you will win. (Click to tweet)
2. Align social goals to business goals in order to enable the development of a relevant measurement strategy. (Click to tweet)
3. Digital data can strengthen traditional data (and vice versa). Develop an integrated program to measure both. (Click to tweet)
4. If you’re not comfortable presenting a metric to your CMO, it’s likely not a metric worth measuring. (Click to tweet)
5. Metrics reports should be as actionable as possible, or the investment in listening will be questioned. (Click to tweet)
6. Online and offline influence are mutually exclusive and should be tested/measured separately. (Click to tweet)
7. Don’t select a listening or measurement tool until you understand clearly what you’re trying to achieve – and how. (Click to tweet)
8. Trying to reach an entire community is difficult – and expensive. Focus on a core set of influencers (50-100). (Click to tweet)
9. Digital data presents a powerful opportunity to learn and optimize customer experience to improve brand loyalty. (Click to tweet)
10. Unless you understand how to build a research plan and deliver insights, digital data has little meaning. (Click to tweet)

The book concludes with this reminder: “Companies are beginning to realize the true power of digital data and its impact on marketing programs. That impact is not going to lessen, and the companies that are leveraging this data effectively will be the ones that win. Wouldn’t you like to be on the winning side?”

I don’t know about you, but I sure do.

Want to learn more about how to turn analytics into action? Chuck will share 10 current trends in digital analytics, plus offer specific examples of how companies are using data to fuel communication strategies, tactics and the ultimate development of content, during a free webinar – presented by Geben Communication client Marketwired – on Thursday. Click here for more details and to register.

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This is a guest post, written by Jeana Harrington (@JeanaHarrington), Geben Communication’s Content & Community Manager. She also happens to be a bibliophile. In other words, the perfect person to review a book about digital marketing analytics! Also, if you share her love of books, or creating amazing content, go follow her on Twitter!