What are the source of my customers? Who is my main buyer? These are vital questions for marketers that are commonly left neglected.
We can find the answers to these questions from our customers themselves.
You can find out a lot about someone by looking at the ads they engage with. You can even find out their favorite breakfast cereal!
Although the information is readily available, it is difficult to use. Ad platforms do not provide this marketing data in an easily accessible way. It is challenging to identify the most valuable insights when the data is coming from many different sources.
Instagram provides metrics on paid ads, organic ads, and Instagram Reels. That gives us several dozen metrics from a single source, ranging from impressions to cost per view.
However, our customers use multiple sources.
Consumers interact with an average of 3.4 touchpoints before purchasing when browsing from a desktop, according to Google’s survey.
What is cross-channel marketing analytics?
Cross-channel marketing analytics is the comprehensive analysis of marketing metrics from different sources. Marketers use metrics from websites, social media, paid channels, and other platforms to understand how well their marketing is doing.
It’s like being given a Lego set without an image of the final result. You have to figure out how to put the pieces together to create something. These pieces are your metrics.Now imagine that you are given a Lego set along with an image of the final result. This time you have both the pieces and an understanding of how to put them together.
Cross-channel marketing analytics lets you study each element in detail and construct your own marketing strategy, without needing to rely on outside help. You can use your own data to figure out what will work best for your particular situation.
Why should you build a marketing strategy around cross-channel analytics?
Cross-channel marketing analytics can help marketers see which of their marketing activities are working and which ones are not. This information can be very helpful in planning future marketing strategies.
By analyzing data from multiple channels, you can better understand why your customers convert, and then use that information to convert more customers.
This journey involves a series of steps that starts with becoming aware that they have a need or want The problem is, customers don’t usually search for a particular product and instantly buy it. Instead, they go on a buying journey. This journey involves a series of steps that starts with becoming aware that they have a need or want.
The potential customers learn about the brand and what it has to offer. They also look at reviews and compare it to other companies. If it meets their needs, they become customers.
If you want your organization to grow, you need to understand where potential customers are dropping off at different stages of the sales process, and what kind of information they need to make a purchase.
How to create a cross-channel marketing strategy
Are you curious if cross-channel marketing is easy to do? The answer is yes! Here are our ten tips to finding cross-channel marketing success for your business:
1. Map out your customer journey
It is important to have an overview of your sales funnel before you start cross-channel marketing. Knowing your consumers’ behavior at each stage of the buyer’s journey will help you to see which offers align best with each stage.
Consider how past customers have converted and what historical data your business may have on this. Additionally, think about your audience and try to put yourself in their shoes to brainstorm the steps they may take to commit to your business.
This will help you not only tailor your cross-channel marketing to specific scenarios throughout the customer journey, but will also help you narrow down which channels are best.
2. Choose your channels
By following the guidelines we provided, you should have been able to reduce the number of channels you’re considering using. Now it’s a question of selecting the channels that will work best together to give you the best results. WordStream believes that being efficient is better than working harder.
For example, search marketing and social media marketing go together. If someone sees your posts on social media, they may search for you later to learn more.
Think about which channels your ideal buyer persona is using the most frequently, as this will help you understand which ones are best for your business.
To help get you started, here are some possible channels to consider:
- Website
- SEO
- PPC
- Social media marketing
- Social media advertising
- Display advertising
- Remarketing
- Print ads
- Email marketing
- Mailers
- Geofencing
- Live chat
- Messaging apps
- OTT advertising
- Video marketing
- Content marketing
3. Take inventory of your costs
You should be prepared to change your budget depending on how your different channels are performing. Sometimes one channel might do better or worse than expected, so you will need to adjust your budget accordingly.
Check in on reports frequently to troubleshoot spending or to compare your company’s progress to others in your industry.
4. Have a set of overarching goals
You may have different goals for each channel, but having a few general goals can help to keep your efforts unified. It can be easy to get caught up in the specific performance details of each channel, but having overarching goals can help you stay on track for success.
5. Use a CRM
A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool can help to improve your cross-channel marketing campaign by allowing you to track customer behavior, segment your audience, and customize your offers.
CRMs can also make it easy to carry out cross-channel initiatives like retargeting.
6. Use retargeting
Retargeting is a key element of any cross-channel marketing strategy. By targeting ads specifically to individuals who have already shown an interest in what you’re selling, you can more effectively market your products or services. For example, you might run a retargeting Facebook ad for a product that someone added to their cart but did not purchase. Or you might run a specific promotion for your most loyal customers.
7. Button up your tracking
To successfully track your cross-channel marketing campaign, be sure to include tracking parameters in every channel you use. This will not only allow you to see how each channel, offer, and placement is performing, but also give you the ability to set rules in your marketing automation. For example, if a person downloads guide X, you can show them thank you page A with offer B. If they don’t convert, you can send them email A three days later.
The way you name things for tracking purposes is entirely up to you—what’s most important is that you have a consistent and reliable way to keep track of your performance across channels.
It is important to resolve any issues with conversion tracking for search engine marketing as this can have a significant impact on your campaigns.
8. Keep your reporting all in one place
Try to use only one reporting method for your cross-channel marketing so it is more manageable. Use free tools such as Google Analytics to understand how well your platforms are doing separately. Having only one reporting system will save you time and help you see how well all your channels are working together and alone.
9. Try nurture email campaigns
Even though you have materials that can help customers with their journey across channels, some people may still need some additional encouragement.
If you want to market to a specific group of people, email is a great option. You can segment your lists and offers so that people only receive information that is relevant to them. You can also automate your emails so that they are sent after someone completes a task in your sales funnel.
One easy way to enhance your cross-channel marketing and keep customers engaged is to make it your default strategy.
10. Be patient
The most difficult aspect of cross-channel marketing is having the patience to wait for results. Some channels may provide results more quickly than others, which is why it is important to select a variety of channels.
One channel, PPC advertising, may help you reach your business’s short-term goals while others, like local SEO, will help you to reach your business goals in the long term. Treating your cross-channel marketing like an ongoing project will help you to set realistic expectations and make the most of your results.
3 Best cross-channel marketing analytics tools
We believe that you don’t need to use dozens of cross-channel analytics tools to be successful. You just need the best one from each category.
This section will provide more information about these tools, how they work, and what other options are available.
#1 Improvado
Improvado is an enterprise-grade ETL (Extract,Transform, Load) revenue platform that automates all possible data processes for sales and marketing purposes.
The tool has different modules, each one responsible for its own functions:
- Data extraction. Extraction of marketing data from 300+ sources without SQL queries and manual operations.
- Data transformation. Transformation of raw marketing data into actionable insights in a spreadsheet-like UI with zero engineering.
- MCDM. Improvado’s Marketing Common Data Model handles automated data mapping and unification of marketing metrics across different platforms.
- Data visualization. The platform streamlines analysis-ready insights to any business intelligence tool to create actionable dashboards. It also provides ready-made dashboards.
- Data warehouse. Improvado assigns a data warehouse to store all metrics, shouldering any issues with deployment and maintenance.
- Marketing attribution. Attribution takes data from analytics platforms and blends it with CRM data to automatically credit conversions to the proper channel.
In addition to the many features it offers, Improvado also provides granular data that can be used to make more informed decisions.
Improvado is designed specifically for revenue operations and marketing.
Supermetrics is another software solution you may want to consider
#2 Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a cross-channel marketing analytics tool that is free and widely used. It offers an extensive range of features for both beginners and advanced users.
Here’s why Google Analytics is a top-tier web analytics tool:
- Analysis. Google Analytics provides a wide range of predefined reports, charts, and data tables that allow you to analyze your marketing performance in just minutes without any special training or previous knowledge about web analytics tools.
- Customization. Google Analytics allows you to customize reports and data tables to match your specific business needs, which is essential for in-depth campaign analysis.
- Integration with other Google tools. You can easily integrate Google Analytics with a wide range of Google tools, including Ads, Webmaster Tools, Tag Manager, and others.
- Data exploration features. The Query Explorer tool allows you to explore your existing reports for further insights into your website and marketing performance.
- Customization. You can customize Google Analytics to fit your needs by adding new dimensions, metrics, filters, goals, and segments.
The only downside is that it is not a cross-channel analytics tool. Google Analytics will show you how your website is performing in terms of marketing, but you will need to get data from other sources to get a complete picture of what is going on.
Alternatives: Adobe Analytics, Mixpanel.
#3 SEMRush
SEMRush can help you with your online visibility, cross-channel marketing campaigns, SEO, content marketing, PPC, SMM, and more.
Let’s take a closer look at each of the platform’s toolkits:
- SEO. This module of SEMRush contains tools for keyword research, competitive research, improving your backlink profile, technical audit of the website, rank tracking, etc.
- Content marketing. SEMRush covers the complete content creation workflow. It helps blog writers to create SEO-optimized content, conduct topic research, and track their posts’ performance.
- Paid ads. The advertising toolkit offers tons of insights into your PPC campaigns. SEMRush provides insights on search, display, and even product listing ads.
- Social media. The SMM toolkit allows marketers to see how competitors engage with their audiences to adopt their best practices. The software also provides rich publishing functionalities and displays post stats.
- Competitive analysis. A competitive research toolkit unites powerful features for a 360-degree view of your competitors and the market as a whole.
It has all the features you could possibly want for online marketing, making it perfect for agencies that have to handle everything in-house. The only downside is that people new to the platform might find it a bit overwhelming.
Alternatives: Ahrefs, SpyFu, Moz Pro.
We’re not sure if these tools will work well for your marketing campaigns. The only way to find out is to try them out, explore new features, and see what works best for your business. Hopefully this article has given you some ideas of new solutions that could help with your marketing.
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