Value Every Piece of Data to Improve Your Conversions

We’ve all heard the saying, “Garbage in, garbage out.” For marketers, this essentially means if the data we use to make decisions is faulty, the decisions we make (or the output) will have flaws as well. At Gragg Advertising, we work with our clients to ensure the data we’re inputting and using for decisions is as accurate and as detailed as possible, so the outcomes are as accurate and as predictive as possible.

One of the primary tenets we believe at Gragg Advertising is, “the more data we have, the better our results will be.” That data goes beyond just end results like actual sales or starts for our clients. We begin the analyzation process with top-funnel data to enhance and improve our end result performance.

Analyzing the top-funnel data

Top-funnel data refers to the data received from all inbound marketing efforts such as, email, social media, blog posts, SEO, traffic, paid advertising, white papers, free trials etc. Essentially, it is content meant to inform, educate, and create awareness. The top funnel acts to draw in prospects, or leads, into the funnel with the end goal of conversion. Here are some of the metrics we look at to measure top-funnel effectiveness:

• Traffic – how many visits or views your website or ad receives. We measure this and based upon the results we pivot the content being viewed or keep it and create more similar content.
• Engagement – how prospects interact with your website or ad. CTA percent (call-to-action click rates) are a key indicator. If prospects click the CTA, they are considered a lead. Other engagement metrics are comments, shares, links, and bounce rates (the initial impression of content). A good idea then is to run A/B split testing to compare which content prospects are engaging with, ultimately driving traffic.
• Landing Page Submission Rates – this is a measure of how many prospects filled out a landing page’s form and submitted it compared to how many visitors the landing page received.
• Email Click Rates – the number of prospects that opened, viewed, and/or took action from email ads. The CTOR (click-to-open rates) are they key indicator here, showing that the content and subject line of the email enticed the prospect.

While there are many more metrics to analyze throughout the sales funnel, analyzing top-funnel data carefully will save time and energy down the bottom-funnel. Effective lead generation is what top-funnel analytics is all about. The better data you have on the top end, the more easily, and higher quality, you will achieve conversions on the bottom end.

What Gragg says…

On a continual basis throughout our campaigns, we optimize our efforts to those tactics that provide the best front-end data so we can provide the best results on the back-end. We use this detailed information on the front-end so that our clients and their marketing dollars don’t fall into a “Garbage in, garbage out” category.