You've probably heard more than once and twice about digital analytics and you may hear concepts like dashboards, kpi's, metrics, page views, bounce rate,conversion rate, etc. In short, your first thought, when you do well in your head digital analytics is a handful of numbers, percentages and graphs that make you hate the idea of getting started. In a previous article we saw you showing what the Basic KPI's in digital marketing, in this article we will try to give you four strokes of what digital analytics is, what it is for and how it can help you in your company's strategy.

Digital analytics, the importance of numbers

William Edwards Deming, an american statistician said 

We only trust God, everything else must provide data

And the numbers, although at many times they may seem boring, are basic to make good decisions for our business. If the data supports your strategy, it will be much harder to refute and you will have many more options for success.

One way to define digital analytics would be like 

the study of the activity that people have in our digital environments, carried out to understand and improve our business in all its aspects.

That is, analyze how users interact with our website, app or social networks, to make decisions that are beneficial for the company.

From here we can deduce that although there are obviously numbers, we should not wear the suit of mathematicians when it comes to work, but that these are only a means for us to understand behaviors and interpret them, thus helping to define a better strategy.

Define objectives

Before starting to look at numbers and make decisions, it is essential to know what we set ourselves, that is, what we want to achieve. The objectives must follow what is known by the SMART formula, must be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and delimited in a given time. For example, an objective of your business may be to reach a certain number of sales in your online store in a month, or get a certain number of new visits to your website in two weeks. It is important not to set too long timeframes that can be established in the short term control points that allow to pivot or refine the strategy.

Metrics and KPI's

Before starting to look at numbers and make decisions, it is essential to know what Objective we set ourselves, say, what we want to achieve. The Objectives Must follow what is known fear the SMART formula, They must be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and defined in a certain time. For example, an Objective of your business It can be to reach a sales determination number in your online store in a month, or get a determination number of New web visits in two weeks. It is important not to set Timeframes Too long that they can be established in the Short Term control points that allow to pivot or refine the strategy.

What can we measure?

Peter Drucker, father of management said 

What [no] can be measured, [no] can be improved.

and the scientist Galileo Galilei said 

Measure what can be measured; and what not, make it measurable.

Therefore, we could say that we can measure everything, but simplifying basically we can talk about two types of metrics, quantitative and qualitative.

To differentiate them quickly, quantitative data responds to what users do, while qualitative data responds to how and why they do it. The first ones can be obtained by controlling the interactions of users with logs or programming code fragments, while the second metrics can be obtained by observing their behavior or doing surveys or interviews where we ask them why they do things. Both some and other metrics are essential to draw a good strategy.

What process should I follow?

As a summary, digital analytics will help you make more and better decisions, to define a more successful strategy based on your buyer persona, to understand their behavior and know their interactions with the digital environments of the company. To do this, from DigitalMakers we recommend that you follow these steps.

This article has only been a first tasting on digital analytics, we encourage you to enter and ask us everything you need to know, although it may seem like a lazy world if you are not too fond of numbers or statistics, we assure you that when you master some basic concepts, it can become addictive.

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