Master the basics of big data and analytics

Micky Weis

15 years of experience in online marketing. Former CMO at, among others, Firtal Web A/S. Blogger about marketing and the things I’ve experienced along the way. Follow me on LinkedIn for daily updates.

Kopieret

One of the biggest pitfalls most people fall into is basing all marketing on emotion and not data.

Today you’ll learn exactly how to set up analytics for a wide range of cases—and how to identify with much more precision what your customers are worth and where they come from.

With that knowledge, you’ll gain one final factor: what you’re willing to pay for a customer going forward and which channels you should prioritize.

Are you as excited as I am to get started?

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free data tool offered by Google to all website owners. You install a small snippet of code on your site, and then Google starts collecting information about your users.

This data is accessible through a user-friendly dashboard in Google Analytics.

There are plenty of guides online on how to install Google Analytics. If you use WordPress, like I do on this website, there are many plugins available that make the process easier—no need to mess with the code yourself.

Don’t have a website yet? Or maybe you don’t have enough traffic to perform real analysis?

Google has recently released a demo account of its Analytics dashboard, where real data is flowing in so you can learn how to navigate.

Go to Google Analytics demo account

Let’s get started!

I use Google’s demo account in the following example

Where do customers come from?

Once you have installed Google Analytics, you should see the following on your screen
The same applies to the demo account

As you can see, we have one month of traffic to our demo site. This means we can view actual data. On the left-hand side, you’ll see how Google categorizes this data.

The most important thing to learn is where your visitors come from.

Try clicking “Acquisition > All traffic > Source / Medium”

Suddenly, more information appears in the columns.

Look to the far right—you’ll see number of transactions, conversion rate, and revenue. On the far left, you’ll see “Source / Medium” such as “Google / organic”.

Let’s look closer at these terms:

What does this tell us?

It tells us that Google Organic is currently our top-performing traffic source in terms of volume—and it brings in 301 transactions. That’s just one of our sources.

More interesting, however, is the conversion rate—the percentage of traffic that actually turns into customers. As shown in the third-last column, our Google Organic conversion rate is 0.97%.

The conversion rate can be affected by several factors:

• Page speed
• Pricing
• Mobile optimization
• Relevance to the user

That’s why we use A/B split testing—comparing 2–3 variations and choosing the one that performs best.

As shown, YouTube converts poorly—as do most social media platforms—because users typically browse these platforms to chat with friends or find inspiration.

So, sales rarely happen directly on YouTube. Instead, users often go to Google and search for a product they saw in a video.

Where do people land?

When discussing acquisition of potential customers, it’s also important to examine where users land—especially from Google. This can be done in several ways.

Here’s a quick guide:

1. Go to the account from earlier and click “Google / Organic”

2. This filters for only organic traffic

Then, in the box labeled “Secondary dimension,” select “landing page,” and you will see all the landing pages that people land on via your organic search results from Google.

Boom! In the second column, you’ll now see all the landing pages. You can view:

• Which pages have the best conversion rate
• Which pages drive the most revenue
• Where your traffic ends up

With this knowledge, you can optimize many aspects of your site. You probably know better than I do whether a specific page needs improvements.

#Tip: You can explore your traffic sources freely. If you use external media like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or collaborate with bloggers, you’ll also find this data under sources. There could be gold mines hidden here.

Now that we know how people arrive at your site, how do we figure out who they are?

Who is the customer?

When we talk about the “customer,” we also include potential ones. Google Analytics provides a great picture of who they are.

Let’s go back to the first screenshot. This time, instead of “Acquisition,” choose “Audience”

Click “Audience > Demographics > Overview”

Boom – now we’re swimming in delicious data again. You can now see a wide range of demographics:

• Age
• Gender
• City (if you choose “Geo” in the menu)

Practice exercises in Google Analytics

Here are some exercises you can use to improve your business through data:

• What products do customers like?
• Which city converts best? Do you only deliver to certain cities?
• Does your product appeal to both genders? Could you expand?
• Check “Technology” on the left—is your site mobile-optimized?

Set small weekly tasks for yourself—or write to me in the comments below. I’ll gladly give you more exercises to help you improve.

But wait…

What if I don’t have a webshop?

Most people think Google Analytics is only for e-commerce. That’s wrong. In my view, all websites, especially startups, should use Google Analytics. It’s free and easy to implement.

Real estate agents & Google Analytics

If you’re a real estate agent, you’re probably running ads. I constantly see them in my feeds while daydreaming about a beautiful penthouse. But imagine how many goals they could be setting up?

A goal could be a specific page, like a thank you page users see after submitting a form.

Using goal setup in Google Analytics, you define what counts as a goal. Once defined, you have a real conversion that you can analyze:

• Where did it come from?
• Who completed it?
• What channel performed best?

Create your own goals

THAT’S POWERFULL

Personal trainer example

Let’s say you’re a personal trainer. You run Facebook ads to get more people to buy sessions at your gym. Using goal tracking, you discover that most conversions come from women aged 30–45 living near you.

You can now go back and optimize your ads—avoiding waste on less relevant age groups.

Again: every business can define a goal to track.

Recently, at a digital conference, some said Google Analytics delivers “dead” data you can’t act on. In my opinion, that’s because the person behind the screen doesn’t know how to read the data correctly.

No matter what kind of online shop or service you run (even apps), Google Analytics offers countless opportunities for optimization and audience understanding.

What is a customer worth? (advanced)

This section might be a bit heavy, but it’s one of the most important topics in e-commerce right now.

I’m improving in this area myself, thanks to close collaboration with Jesper Hvejsel and Rasmus Dencker from Firtal, where I serve as CMO. They’re much stronger in database management than I am—but it’s great there’s always more to learn!

Churn

In my view, companies shouldn’t just focus on how many customers they gain—but also how many they lose.

Churn = Customer loss. What percentage of your customers do you lose each month?

It’s easier to retain current customers than constantly acquire new ones. If your churn is high, ask yourself: are you following up well enough?

For more on churn models, check this brilliant article on Kissmetrics.

Tips to retain more customers

• Follow-up emails with similar products
• Re-marketing campaigns via display
• Facebook re-marketing
• On-site personalization (check out ASOS and Zalando)

My ASOS example

I’ve always been a big fan of ASOS—they get so many things right as a customer-focused brand.

Just checked my account: I make 5–10 orders per year, average order value = 500 DKK. I’ve been a customer for 4 years.

That’s ~30 orders = 15,000 DKK CLV

With margins around 10–30%, that’s a significant profit.

In fashion, retention is crucial. CAC is very high.

Tons of competitors with deep pockets drive ad prices way up. If they sell the same brand—I’ll just choose the cheapest, right?

So how much do you think ASOS is willing to pay to keep me?

ROI (Return on investment)

Make data-driven decisions

A/B split test everything

At Firtal, we spend a lot of time running A/B tests. Plenty of tools exist to help.

Currently, we’re testing if the “Trygg e-handel” logo on Made4men.se helps or hurts conversion.

We split traffic 50/50:

• Half see the logo
• Half don’t

We use Visual Website Optimizer, and once enough data is collected, we decide—based on the numbers—if we should keep it.

Smart, right? Think of how many things you should be testing right now.

Does the medium even work for you?

One of the worst parts of being in the online space is how misunderstood it still is (hopefully I’ll get to teach this someday!).

I’ve seen businesses throw money at Facebook Ads without knowing what they actually get in return—sales, branding, or assist value?

#Tip: When testing a new marketing channel, start with a very small budget. Use Google Ads or Facebook. After 2–3 days, you’ll already have some data to optimize campaigns or adjust pricing.

Conclusion

I cannot stress enough how valuable it is to improve your data usage in marketing. I’m not saying you need big dashboards like mine—but small steps can take you far.

Start by giving yourself small tasks:

• Explore Google’s demo account
• Install Google Analytics on your site
• Try out the exercises from this guide
• Run your first CLV / CAC analysis
• Conduct your first VWO test

I can’t wait to hear how it goes!

Already tried some of this? Share your experiences in the comments—or let me know if I missed anything. Data is an amazing thing!