For creatives it can be scary even to contemplate analytics – what do they mean, where do I find them. The truth is that they’re the key to your growth and understanding your analytics will empower you as the CEO of your business.
Let’s take away the word and look at what we’re really talking about. It’s the information about what you’ve been doing in your business. It’s really just a reflection of your efforts.
Let’s look at the places you need analytics and the important metrics to be reviewing.
UNDERSTANDING YOUR ANALYTICS AS AN INTERIOR DESIGNER
1. UNDERSTANDING YOUR WEBSITE ANALYTICS
WHAT ARE WEBSITE ANALYTICS? These are the stats that tell you how many visitors you’ve had and where they’re spending their time.
WHICH ANALYTICS ARE IMPORTANT? It depends on the goals for your website but if you’re just getting started understanding your analytics, start with these:
- Number of Sessions – this tells you how many visitors you’ve had to your website.
- % of New Sessions – how many are new visitors vs returning visitors.
- Bounce Rate – how many visitors only looked at a single page and left.
- Pages – what pages are being viewed.
- Device – percentage of visitors on desktop vs mobile.
- Channels – how did they find you? Was it organic, referral or social?
HERE’S WHAT THEY’RE TELLING YOU:
- Number of Sessions tells you how much traffic is coming to your site. You can change the dates and review it by week, month or quarterly. Even if you have only a handful of visitors it’s important data. Now you want to aim to increase that number month after month.
- % of New Sessions is important because if you’re only attracting your regular clients and nobody new is finding you, it’ll be hard to stay busy. You want there to be a good balance between new and returning visitors.
- Bounce Rate is a tough one to view but so important in understanding your analytics. This lets you know how many people have left after viewing just one page. A high bounce rate can mean either your content isn’t engaging (or relevant) or it could be that people are looking for specific information and find it with just a one page search. This could be contact info, phone numbers, etc.
- Pages – this one is gold because it tells you exactly what pages are being viewed. For example, if your Services page and your About page are getting high views but you’re not getting inquiries you may need to review your content. It might not be engaging your ideal client.
- Devices – this can help you work on better design and functionality. If most of your readers come via desktop then you can work harder to make that a beautiful visual experience and vice versa for mobile.
- Channels – this is my favourite analytic to review. Where are people coming from? I get the majority of my traffic from Instagram and that information means I’ll continue to work hard to produce content for IG. Find out what yours is and either continue the push or understand that you need to create more calls to action on other channels.
2. UNDERSTANDING YOUR NEWSLETTER ANALYTICS
This one is less frightening so you can breath out now. They are just as important though.
WHAT ARE NEWSLETTER ANALYTICS? These are the stats that give you insight on each newsletter you send out.
WHICH ANALYTICS ARE IMPORTANT? There are only a couple of analytics to view but they’re important data.
- Open Rate – what percentage of your list has opened your newsletter.
- Click Rate – which links are people clicking to get more information.
- Open by Device – percentage of readers viewing on desktop vs mobile.
- Deliverability – percentage of emails that made it into subscribers mailboxes.
HERE’S WHAT THEY’RE TELLING YOU:
- Open Rate – factors for good or bad open rates could be time of day, day of week and headline. If your open rate is low try to learn which of these is impacting it.
- Click Rate – A low click through rate means your links are either not obvious or not enticing. A good open rate is as low as 2-5% so usually there’s no concern but keep an eye on this.
- Open by Device – This is very useful for design but always test your email on mobile AND desktop before sending it. Sometimes the size of text or the layout can use a tweak before it’s sent.
- Deliverability – bounce rates can be something as simple as the subscriber’s inbox is full or it could be an email address that is incorrectly submitted. It’s not important unless your deliverability is showing a lot of bounced emails.
BLOG VS NEWSLETTER. WHICH ONE IS BETTER FOR YOUR BUSINESS? READ THIS POST
3. UNDERSTANDING YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYTICS
Most of us would love to have higher numbers of followers but this isn’t actually a useful analytic. I’m using Instagram as the example here but I think most social sites will have similar metrics. The ones that can help inform your business are:
- Reach – how many accounts have seen this post.
- Saves – how many people have saved your post.
- Shares – how many people have shared your post with another account
- Profile visits – how many people viewed your profile after looking at a post
- Website visits – how many people clicked through to your website after viewing your post.
HERE’S WHAT THEY’RE TELLING YOU:
- Reach – You want to see your reach growing each month so track this analytic and review it. You may not see growth if you’re not consistent so compare this to the other metrics and decide if it’s worth spending more time on this platform.
- Saves – This is a good indicator that your post has resonated highly with your followers. A high save rate will give you info about what to create more of.
- Shares – Same as above. Look at the posts that are getting high shares and think of ways to create more content like that. This is resonating with people so do more!
- Profile Visits – You’ve caught someone’s attention and they’ve followed your link to your bio. That’s a sign that you’ve created a moment of engagement with someone. Look for posts with high profile visits because this is creating an interest in your business.
- Website Visits – this is the ultimate goal on social media. We always want to drive traffic to our website so if you have posts that are performing well in this, bravo. And create more like that.
Have you been sufficiently convinced that tracking analytics is a worthwhile endeavour for your business? Understanding analytics means you’re not just stumbling in the dark. You have a plan for your content.
If you’re ready to do this consistently, you can create a simple spreadsheet to track these. At the beginning of each new month, add in the metrics for all categories. Once you have a few months you’ll be able to really dig into your analytics and make changes to what you’re doing to see greater results.