What is Marketing Analytics?

Marketing analytics is a process companies use to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of advertising campaigns. Business owners and managers will often devise strategies that inform consumers about the company goods or services. Advertising includes messages found in newspaper advertisements, radio spots, television commercial, websites, emails, social media networks, or other outlets. Marketing analytics consists of a framework where companies can view each level of their advertising campaigns to determine what methods or messages work best based on product type or demographics.

Data is an important element of marketing analytics because companies must have background information on which to base their advertising decisions. Demographics is an important data set because this process breaks down society and the economic market into specific groups. Groups can include age, race, sex, household size, income level, location, and similar information. While this information is often easy to gather in today’s technological age, using it to accurately create analytical measurements is another issue. Businesses must ascertain why individuals will buy one good over another, what advertising messages work best based on demographics and what changes consumers would most like to see in products.

Marketing metrics is a subset of marketing analytics that helps companies understand the entire process from the creation of marketing campaigns to their influence on consumers. Metrics can include information on frequency of consumer purchases, customer ratings on product value or quality, loyalty from customers with secondary purchases, shifts in market share, or competitor product offerings and the rate of return on advertising campaigns. These metrics help companies determine how to change their message or if the entire marketing process does little to provide additional value to the company.

Strategies play an important role in marketing analytics, especially for large companies with several different product lines or subsidiary companies. Strategies often fall under the corporate, business, or functional levels. Corporate level strategies focus on promoting a company’s overall mission or vision in the economic market. This helps establish a brand name for easy recognition by consumers. Companies in a new business industry can also attempt to establish their products as leaders in the market.

Business-level strategies will focus more on a single division or product line. For example, an automotive manufacturer may promote their SUVs over compact cars. The analytics for this may come from consumer demand for these products, which is based on price or popularity. Functional strategies focus on a specific process or project in the company. Using the previous example, a company may focus on a specific aspect of the SUV, such as size or functionality. These levels allow business owners and managers to drill down through the marketing analytics for specific information.