Passed on 7 April, 2025
3. Analytics and the customer journey
Analytics can help you measure what’s happening and understand the different stages of the online customer journey. In this lesson, we’ll find out how.
✅ Learning objectivesBy the end of the lesson, you will be able to:Describe the types of data used in the customer journey.Analyse web analytics to evaluate performance at each stage.Apply insights from data to improve marketing strategies.
Learning objectives
By the end of the lesson, you will be able to:
Describe the types of data used in the customer journey.
Analyse web analytics to evaluate performance at each stage.
Apply insights from data to improve marketing strategies.
Know your audience
Years ago, the only way to get to know your audience was to ask them questions face-to-face. Today, we have digital access where information and tools are readily available. Advancements in artificial intelligence are further changing the way we access information and interact with our audience.Let’s find out how this information can help you get to know your audience, and how knowing their preferences can help you refine your marketing strategy and make decisions to achieve your marketing goals.
Let’s find out how this information can help you get to know your audience, and how knowing their preferences can help you refine your marketing strategy and make decisions to achieve your marketing goals.
Let’s find out how this information can help you get to know your audience, and how knowing their preferences can help you refine your marketing strategy and make decisions to achieve your marketing goals.
A quick note
In this lesson, we’ll be referring to the customer journey. Revisit theMapping the customer journeylesson if you need to refresh your memory before you begin.
Types of data
The better you understand your business and your audience, the more targeted and efficient your marketing efforts can be. Collecting and analysing data should be a key part of your digital marketing strategy. A good way to do this is to break down your digital data into two groups: Quantitative and qualitative.
What is quantitative data?
Quantitative data is anything that can be numerically measured, like the number of people visiting a website or the amount of sales a site makes in a month.
Finding quantitative data
Quantitative data can often be pulled from web analytics tools or from the analytics features offered by most social media sites. This can be great for finding out information about demographics, search habits, and the journey a customer has taken across your digital assets.
What is qualitative data?
Qualitative data is any descriptive information that you can't put a number to. This could be people’s opinions about a new product, or the sentiment and language people use on social media when talking about a brand.
Finding qualitative data
Qualitative data is often gathered by connecting directly with people, such as through open-ended questions in a review section on your website or by asking customers to complete an online survey with open-ended responses.
Online vs offline data
Online data can also be used to complement your offline business approach. For example, offline data, like in-store customer surveys, can be combined with online data, such as product reviews, to give you a more detailed picture of customer needs and opinions.
Choosing the best approach
The right approach will vary depending on what information is most relevant to your goal. If you want to know how people feel about your products or services, take a qualitative approach and ask them directly. If you want to know something quantitative, such as the number of people who read a blog post, use an analytics tool to review that specific metric.
Combining data types
Combining different forms of data is a great way to identify what is working and what isn’t, and can give you valuable insights about who interacts with your brand. It can provide a richer picture than using one type of data only.
✅ ActivityThink about the different types of data you already collect for your business. If you don’t currently have a business or aren’t employed, you can use a fictive example to explore the concept.Check the items off as you go.What types of qualitative data do you collect?What types of quantitative data do you collect?How frequently do you collect this data?
Activity
Think about the different types of data you already collect for your business. If you don’t currently have a business or aren’t employed, you can use a fictive example to explore the concept.
What types of qualitative data do you collect?
What types of quantitative data do you collect?
How frequently do you collect this data?
Analysing your customer journey
Web analytics can help you target specific areas for improvement throughout your online customer journey.
What are web analytics?
Web analytics are quantitative data about the performance of a website. The data comes from online analytics tools. By using analytics tools, you can measure the behaviour of website visitors and track the effectiveness of your online marketing campaigns such as optimising online search and display advertising.
Web analytics and the customer journey
Data from online analytics tools can help a business measure what’s going on at every stage of the customer journey.
Awareness
You can find out how people initially become aware of your brand, such as which search engines they find you on, and which website pages they are directed to.
Engagement
You can find out if people actually engage with your business when they get to your website. For example, do they browse and sign up for your email updates? Or do they just click the back button in their browser and move on to the next option?
Conversion
Analytics can also measure whether people are converting on the goals you want to track, such as making reservations or adding promotional items to their basket.
Retention
Analytics can tell us whether people come back and become repeat customers. When properly set up, analytics can even tell us if those loyal customers are becoming our advocates - for example, are they sharing our content with others on social media?
Get specific
Web analytics tools can give you a significant amount of data - and that’s a great opportunity for businesses. To use the data effectively so you can understand your customer journey and improve it accordingly, there are strategies you can put in place.
Identify your goals
Set clear, specific, quantifiable goals at every stage of the customer journey. These could include:Awareness: Clicking a link on social media to your websiteEngagement: Signing up for an online consultation that is free of chargeConversion: Making their first purchaseRetention: Using a voucher code from a newsletterRevisit theDigital Marketing Strategymodule to help you create SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound).
Awareness: Clicking a link on social media to your websiteEngagement: Signing up for an online consultation that is free of chargeConversion: Making their first purchaseRetention: Using a voucher code from a newsletterRevisit theDigital Marketing Strategymodule to help you create SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound).
Awareness: Clicking a link on social media to your website
Engagement: Signing up for an online consultation that is free of charge
Conversion: Making their first purchase
Retention: Using a voucher code from a newsletter
Revisit theDigital Marketing Strategymodule to help you create SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound).
Revisit theDigital Marketing Strategymodule to help you create SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound).
Configure your tools
Use analytics to measure your progress toward those goals. You can configure your goals in your web analytics tool. While the processes for doing that can vary depending on the tool, it’s usually quite easy. It will make reports in your web analytics tool much more helpful.
Find actionable insights
Identify bottlenecks or opportunities that affect your ability to achieve your goals, and fine-tune your reports to highlight data you can turn into actions. For example:Only 2% of your visitors coming from social media sites are signing up for your email newsletter.Your reservation rate jumps from 3% up to 6% on weekends.People are visiting your booking page but leaving without making an appointment.
Only 2% of your visitors coming from social media sites are signing up for your email newsletter.Your reservation rate jumps from 3% up to 6% on weekends.People are visiting your booking page but leaving without making an appointment.
Only 2% of your visitors coming from social media sites are signing up for your email newsletter.
Your reservation rate jumps from 3% up to 6% on weekends.
People are visiting your booking page but leaving without making an appointment.
Make changes
Adjust aspects of your customer journey to make the most of the insights from your data. For example, you could:Improve sign-ups to your newsletter from social media by publishing posts offering a 10% off coupon as a reward.Make the most of higher weekend reservation rates by adjusting your advertising campaign to promote your business more heavily on those days.Simplify your booking system to make appointments easier to schedule.
Improve sign-ups to your newsletter from social media by publishing posts offering a 10% off coupon as a reward.Make the most of higher weekend reservation rates by adjusting your advertising campaign to promote your business more heavily on those days.Simplify your booking system to make appointments easier to schedule.
Improve sign-ups to your newsletter from social media by publishing posts offering a 10% off coupon as a reward.
Make the most of higher weekend reservation rates by adjusting your advertising campaign to promote your business more heavily on those days.
Data analysis in practice
Spend some time completing the activity on this page to explore what you’ve learned about data analysis.
✅ ActivityIt’s time to apply some of the data you currently gather to your own customer journey. This can be qualitative or quantitative, and it can be gathered online or offline.The data can be from your own business or a brand you work for. If you don’t have access to your own data for now, try to search for a sample online.Check the items off as you go.Identify one goal for each stage of the customer journey: Awareness, Engagement, Conversion, and Retention.For example, a goal for Conversion could be that 25% of customers who add something to their basket make a purchase.For Retention, a goal could be to increase the number of 4-star and 5-star reviews received over the next 3 months.Find an insightful piece of data for each of the goals.For example, you might find that, out of customers who add something to their basket, 5% of customers purchase on the day, but 13% return within a week to make their purchase.For Retention, it could be that many 3 star reviewers complain that delivery information on the website wasn’t clear, so their order took longer than expected to arrive.Identify 1-2 bottlenecks which could be preventing you from achieving your goals.For example, you might find that only 3% of people who visit your website sign up for your newsletter.Or, you might find that the dispatch and delivery information on the website is incomplete or incorrect.
Activity
It’s time to apply some of the data you currently gather to your own customer journey. This can be qualitative or quantitative, and it can be gathered online or offline.The data can be from your own business or a brand you work for. If you don’t have access to your own data for now, try to search for a sample online.
The data can be from your own business or a brand you work for. If you don’t have access to your own data for now, try to search for a sample online.
The data can be from your own business or a brand you work for. If you don’t have access to your own data for now, try to search for a sample online.
Identify one goal for each stage of the customer journey: Awareness, Engagement, Conversion, and Retention.For example, a goal for Conversion could be that 25% of customers who add something to their basket make a purchase.For Retention, a goal could be to increase the number of 4-star and 5-star reviews received over the next 3 months.
Find an insightful piece of data for each of the goals.For example, you might find that, out of customers who add something to their basket, 5% of customers purchase on the day, but 13% return within a week to make their purchase.For Retention, it could be that many 3 star reviewers complain that delivery information on the website wasn’t clear, so their order took longer than expected to arrive.
Identify 1-2 bottlenecks which could be preventing you from achieving your goals.For example, you might find that only 3% of people who visit your website sign up for your newsletter.Or, you might find that the dispatch and delivery information on the website is incomplete or incorrect.
Download PDF
Download PDF
Check your knowledge
It’s time to find out what you’ve learned so far.
Question 1 of 2
Samira has recently launched a new coaching business online. Her analytics data shows people unsubscribing from her newsletter after two weeks. These people also aren’t booking coaching appointments. What action should Samira take?
Stop sending newsletters as people aren’t reading them.
Review the content of the newsletters to check if it’s suitable and if there is a clear call to action (CTA).
Check the frequency of the newsletters to make sure they aren’t sent too often.
Send more newsletters reminding customers to book a room.
Submit
Submit
Yes.Before making big changes like sending more newsletters or stopping them altogether, Samira should review the newsletters to find out why people are unsubscribing. How many is she sending a week? Is she sending too many? Is the content of the newsletters suitable with a clear CTA? Samira should focus on improving the quality of the newsletters and monitor whether the number of people unsubscribing drops.
Question 2 of 2
Samira recently revamped her newsletter. She has also been using analytics to gather information about how people interact with her website and has made the site responsive to appeal to more mobile phone and tablet users.Which elements of analytics should Samira focus on to measure the effectiveness of her changes?
Which elements of analytics should Samira focus on to measure the effectiveness of her changes?
Which elements of analytics should Samira focus on to measure the effectiveness of her changes?
Almost.When it comes to analytics, it’s important to focus on the information that has the most impact on Samira’s business.In this case, she should focus less on the number of visits to the site or the amount of time people spend on it. It’s also not hugely important how many pages people look at on average.Instead, she should be monitoring specific goals like the percentage of bookings that come from customers on their smartphones, or the number of people who click on the content in her newsletters. This information is much more valuable as it gives feedback on the new elements she’s recently introduced to her business.
In this case, she should focus less on the number of visits to the site or the amount of time people spend on it. It’s also not hugely important how many pages people look at on average.Instead, she should be monitoring specific goals like the percentage of bookings that come from customers on their smartphones, or the number of people who click on the content in her newsletters. This information is much more valuable as it gives feedback on the new elements she’s recently introduced to her business.
In this case, she should focus less on the number of visits to the site or the amount of time people spend on it. It’s also not hugely important how many pages people look at on average.Instead, she should be monitoring specific goals like the percentage of bookings that come from customers on their smartphones, or the number of people who click on the content in her newsletters. This information is much more valuable as it gives feedback on the new elements she’s recently introduced to her business.
Instead, she should be monitoring specific goals like the percentage of bookings that come from customers on their smartphones, or the number of people who click on the content in her newsletters. This information is much more valuable as it gives feedback on the new elements she’s recently introduced to her business.
Instead, she should be monitoring specific goals like the percentage of bookings that come from customers on their smartphones, or the number of people who click on the content in her newsletters. This information is much more valuable as it gives feedback on the new elements she’s recently introduced to her business.
Lesson complete
Great job!You now know more about data analytics and how to use them to improve your customer journey.Head to the next lesson to learn more about managing and presenting data.
You now know more about data analytics and how to use them to improve your customer journey.Head to the next lesson to learn more about managing and presenting data.
Head to the next lesson to learn more about managing and presenting data.
Head to the next lesson to learn more about managing and presenting data.