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How To Use Google Analytics Data To Inform Business Decisions
by Brett Farmiloe
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May 23, 2022
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woman using tablet with graphs and analytics on it

How can you use Google Analytics to inform business decisions? What's an example?

To help you better utilize Google Analytics, we asked SEO experts and business leaders for their best tactics. From referral traffic to audience insights, there are several tips that may help your business with their google analytics endeavors.

Here are nine ways to utilize Google Analytics to inform business decisions: 

  • Gain Audience Insights
  • Analyze Conversion Rate And Time Spent On Page
  • Pay Attention To Organic Users
  • Check Your Partners’ Referral Traffic To Determine ROI
  • Identify Customer Demographics
  • Understand User Needs
  • Understand Marketing Channels
  • Strategize Your Marketing Based On Referral Traffic
  • Market To Customers Based On Their Stage In The Buyer’s Journey

business owners who contributed to this article

Gain Audience Insights

Data should be a driving force behind all of your business decisions, and Google Analytics (GA) is a great place to start. You can find a variety of metrics in GA, but my favorite is audience insights. By seeing who is coming to our site, how long they stay on the site, what pages they read, their age, and where they’re from, we can customize copy on our pages to better speak to them and support their needs.  We’re on a mission to touch as many lives as possible, and GA is a wonderful tool to help us better connect with our community.
-Carol Bramson, Side by Side

Analyze Conversion Rate And Time Spent On Page

Google Analytics can help business owners better understand which services and service pages need to be improved. Analyzing metrics like conversion rate and time spent on page can show how well on-page content is connecting with potential customers. Taking a look at Google Analytics is almost like analyzing a sales staff report. You have top performers, and you have performers that may need some additional training. By knowing your areas of improvement, you can actually improve.  
-Alex Belladorsi, Appliance Technician

Pay Attention To Organic Users

All good business decisions are backed up by data, and Google Analytics provides exactly that! When our company first started investing in SEO, it was based on the Organic Users we saw coming to our site and the number of those users who ended up booking tours and enrolling their children in our school. We wanted to increase both these metrics and have seen a great ROI on our SEO initiatives since doing so.
-Jeanne Kolpek, Cadence Education

Check Your Partners’ Referral Traffic To Determine ROI

As the Director of Client Services, I am in Google Analytics analyzing my clients’ performance every single day! There is such a wealth of information within this tool as it pertains to digital marketing efforts, and I always look to it to inform my business decisions. Here’s an example of how you can do so. If you have paid partnerships with any other sites, you should routinely check your referral traffic to see just how many users you are getting (and how many are converting). Based on the numbers, you will be able to determine whether you are seeing a positive ROI or if you need to reevaluate the partnership.
-Nikitha Lokareddy, Markitors

Identify Customer Demographics

Google Analytics is an important Webmaster tool to measure whether you are actually achieving your business goals and objectives online. We use it to create different dashboards to track various metrics, such as traffic by source, click-through rate, bounce rate,  sessions and sessions duration, etc. It is also a great way to identify and track the demographics that make up our customer base. This helps us to better direct how and where we invest in marketing and sales resources and strategies.
-Sara Brown, Cruise America

Understand User Needs

Google Analytics is incredibly helpful for our company, as it provides valuable insights into where our audience is based. Being based in the UK, you would think that the majority of our audience is at least in Europe, but actually, the US is our #1 source of traffic! Because of this, we use American English and grammar on our site and post all new blog posts according to their time zone. Doing so helps us better engage our audience and increase conversions!
-Francesca Yardley, Threads

Understand Marketing Channels

Google Analytics allows you to understand what marketing channels are having the most effect on your business. You also learn how you may be able to customize the customer journey based on the analytics. For example, if you notice that a bulk of traffic from your domain yourwebsite.com/page2 comes from Facebook, you might decide to mention in the content and say something similar to "you may be reading from Facebook." It really allows you to make strategic decisions based on the customer journey when you are looking into and making decisions based on the analytics
-Gresham Harkless Jr., Blue 16 Media

Strategize Your Marketing Based On Referral Traffic

Regularly view your referral traffic under your acquisition report. This information will give you concrete data as to where people are coming from to visit your website. You can see if people are coming from LinkedIn, a guest article you wrote, a review site, etc. These data points will then give you the power to make educated business decisions. For instance, if you are getting a heavy flow of traffic from LinkedIn, then it may be wise to build out your content on this social platform.
-Audrey Hutnick, Smallwave Marketing

Market To Customers Based On Their Stage In The Buyer's Journey

Using Google Analytics, you can set the number of sales on your site as a goal. With this, it is possible to check who is buying in your e-commerce, where these people are coming from, among other important data. Thus, you are able to make business decisions that are necessary according to the reality of your website and your audience. Better than that, you can also check who hasn't bought on your site, what stage of the purchase process these people are giving up on, and more. This allows for a constant improvement of your website, your product, and, consequently, your final profit!
-Sylvia Kang, Mira

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About the author
Brett Farmiloe
Brett Farmiloe
Brett Farmiloe is the Founder & CEO of Featured, an expert insights network that connects subject matter experts with publishers to create Q&A content.
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