Importance of Integrated Marketing Analytics

As marketers, we know setting goals and business objectives is imperative. Seeing the results of any marketing program helps us make decisions about budgets and adjust based on actual performance, rather than throwing darts at a board and picking a numbers that sound doable.

Grounding our decisions in data gives us support for the direction of our strategy. An added benefit to this approach is that measuring data frequently tells us when something is no longer working before too many resources are utilized.

To ensure success, marketers and communicators need to ensure all aspects of their marketing campaigns are being monitored – which often means implementing and integrating marketing analytics software into your day-to-day. A few key metrics to keep a close watch on include: customer acquisition, time to sale, revenue growth, investment in channels, program and campaign costs, and spend on media.

The tracking software you choose needs to be flexible and work seamlessly with all other systems. If your goal is to meet customers at micro-moments before they’re ready to make a decision, you must collect, use and understand the data about the customer journey for your company. If the marketing tools chosen aren’t working together, it makes the task that much more difficult.

Google recently conducted a survey of 150 marketing, analytics, and information technology executives in partnership with Forrester Research which revealed that integrated marketing is the key to business success, and integrated marketing analytics are the way to see and track progress.

Here are a few of their key findings:

Marketers must be able to tie performance to business results. Among the survey respondents identified as “sophisticated marketers,” 53% stated they adhere to well-established metrics that tie directly to business objectives. These marketers support organizations that are at least 3X more likely to hit their goals than other marketing organizations.

The right tools are critical to success. Only 26% of marketers surveyed believed that their marketing analytics tools are well-integrated and work seamlessly together. Marketers with well-integrated tools were more likely to outperform revenue goals.

Marketers that implement complete marketing analytics platforms see an increase in performance. Sophisticated marketers who deploy a complete marketing analytics stack of five or more tools are 39% more likely to see improvement in the overall performance of their marketing programs.

These signals point to a more organized and structured environment needed for marketers moving forward. Understanding the marketing stack, knowing what tools will integrate well with others, and how marketing can drive your company’s business objectives are all vital. Marketing technology departments will become more commonplace as companies begin to understand that marketing data is essential – and that understanding this data means understanding what will drive success.

When considering tools moving forward, ask yourself how they truly fit your goals. Don’t go for the ones that are just easy to use, but that integrate well into your current systems and enhance the path to your goals.

Want to be part of the 26% on the right track with integration? Check out our eBooks on how to leverage Google Analytics as your measurement foundation and how to apply the Google Customer Journey to your business.