In this data-led world, the thought of measuring marketing without Google Analytics is likely to leave most small business owners ashen-faced. But this is a rite of passage for most entrepreneurs. Because, in the early stages of running a business, you’ll be driving blind.
Eventually, you’ll have a fully functional website that’s plumbed into Google Analytics, Ahrefs, or another analytical platform of choice. Until then you’ll need some way to quantify the success of your digital campaigns – big and small.
With that in mind here are three tips to help you get started.
Three ways to measure marketing without Google Analytics
#1 Do enquiries reflect your customer persona?
Your website and social feeds might be works in progress. But you know what makes your customers tick. That’s because you’ve spent time understanding them (not standing tiptoe outside their window or rummaging through their garbage though – that could get you into all sorts of trouble).
When enquiries arrive in your inbox, compare them to the persona story you created.
- Are these people time wasters?
- Do they have a sufficient budget?
- Do they understand your product?
Overall do they feel like your kind of customer? Sometimes you don’t need data. Intuition is a good enough way to measure marketing without Google Analytics.
#2 Review the quality of engagement on your social channels
There’s no substitute for scrolling through your social feeds to understand how effectively your messaging is working. After all, the metrics are there in plain sight for you to see.
On the way to work, or when you sit down to check your emails first thing in the morning, log onto your social channels and review…
- Shares – are prospects helping your marketing efforts?
- Likes – is your messaging getting reactions?
- Comments – are people engaging and how?
- Views – are your posts getting seen?
Manually checking your feeds is good practice, even once you’ve mastered how to use the analytic tools built into your social platforms.
#3 Ask customers where they found you
This tried-and-tested technique will help you understand demographic behaviour. Is most traffic coming from Facebook, organic search, directories or elsewhere? Using this information you can focus your efforts where they’ll be most productive.
Adding a ‘Where did you find us?’ field to your contact form will take minutes but will take minutes and is a highly effective way to measure marketing without Google Analytics.
Conclusion
Measuring your marketing without digital tools is not a long-term solution. But in the short term driving blind is inevitable. As your operation becomes more sophisticated you’ll be able to mine rich data that’ll provide deep insights into customer behaviour – building awareness of your brand and improving ROI too.
If all that sounds a bit much why not hand the hard work to us. As a full-service marketing agency, we can do it all, including all that difficult measuring.
Book your free consultation now and let’s talk.
