However, there are a few important things you should keep in mind to avoid common mistakes when it comes to analyzing your website analytics.

Not Using Analytics 

First of all, make sure you’re at least tracking SOMETHING and have analytics setup for your site.
Start with Google Analytics – setup is straightforward and it will give you a LOT of data that will help you understand what is happening on your website. From there, you can setup additional analytics tools as well, depending on your business needs.

But the first step, of course, is to make sure that you at least have something set up so that you can use this information to your advantage, even if you aren’t yet ready to start looking at it. Get analytics in place to capture historical data over time for that point in the future when you are ready to start paying attention to it.  And once you can, start looking at the wealth of information available to help you make important business decisions.

Not Setting up Appropriate Filters

I’ve had business owners come to me, trying to understand large parts of their analytics, only to realize that their data is skewed from their internal staff who are spending a lot of time on their website. Make sure to setup proper filters to exclude your office IP addresses (and those IP addresses for any visitors that aren’t relevant).

You’ll also want to exclude any spam referral traffic that’s coming to your site and other irrelevant data sources that doesn’t show realistic information and impact your decision-making.  

Not Determining Business Goals

What are the goals for your business with your website? Are you trying to spread brand awareness? Are you making online sales via an ecommerce store? Perhaps you’re looking for qualified leads to submit a form to contact you for a consultation? Make sure you understand the main goals of your website, and then track these goals in your analytics.
For example, in Google Analytics, you can setup Goal tracking to see how many qualified leads you get per month and how much each lead (or a purchase) is worth? Then you can directly understand the Return on Investment for your marketing efforts, and trends over time.

Comparing Apples to Oranges

When looking at your analytics data, make sure to keep in mind trends and relevant data comparisons. If you’re an ecommerce site and are looking at January vs. December sales and notice a large drop, understand that the holiday season is your busiest (if that’s the case), and the beginning of the year is usually slow — don’t panic, but really understand what you’re looking at and what you’re trying to achieve by doing so. Perhaps it would be better to compare December this year vs. last year instead?

Compare data points that make sense to compare and also don’t assume that correlation means causation.

Not Creating Actionable Takeaways from Your Data

It’s great to keep an eye on your stats and produce reports regularly – it’s always good to see how many leads you’re getting per month and how much revenue you’re generating for your online sales, for example. However, if you’re just reporting and not actually taking away any actionable insights from your data, then you won’t be making any improvements.

If you see something is working for you, like AdWords, and other marketing campaigns aren’t, like your social media efforts, then make sure to make adjustments accordingly. Capture enough data to make informed decisions, and then act on it, even if it’s midway through a campaign. The main goals are to achieve ROI and allocate time and budget to those efforts that are bringing you the most bang for your buck. In the end, this is what matters the most to reach your business goals.

To summarize, common mistakes often made in analyzing analytics include:

1. Not Using Analytics (or looking at them)
2. Not Setting up Appropriate Filters
3. Not Determining Business Goals
4. Comparing Apples to Oranges
5. Not Creating Actionable Takeaways from Your Data

Now that you understand more about what to watch out for with your analytics, make sure to check out our recent blog posts covering more useful inbound marketing tips. If you liked this video, subscribe to the Umami Marketing YouTube Channel and the monthly Digital Marketing Postcard.

I’ll be back again in March to answer more of your questions (from someplace tropical and warm — can you guess where?) See you next month!