I love digging into my marketing data—and you should too. The data tells us what’s working, what’s not and how we can improve as we move ahead. I do this every month, reflecting back on the past month quantitatively and qualitatively. The latter is the process that you’ll see below: distilling the numbers into a qualitative overview of the month.
I’m going to share my data overview with you each month from now on so you can see how I do it and get better at doing it yourself. I recommend starting by taking a look at section #6 of my training recap post to get an idea of what to consider with your own data.
Now, let’s dive into the data.
Marketing Data Overview
In general, August was another month of growth for both website traffic and social channels. You can see below that the high-level data points all saw an increase, with the exception of page views. I don’t think there is one specific reason for this; it’s such a minimal dip, I’m not worried about it. When will I start to get worried? If it becomes a trend, which is why we track the data.
Things That Worked
#1: Reduced LinkedIn Posting
I reduced LinkedIn posting to just Tues, Wed, Thurs and definitely feel that was a great idea.
- I’m seeing engagement on every post now.
- Traffic from this source doubled from 7 to 14 clicks.
As I explained in my recent social media training, if you notice engagement slowly going downward, it’s important to consider every angle, from frequency of posting to the tone you’re using or overall branding. I felt I was posting too much, and thus far, that hunch has been correct.
#2: Instagram consistency and branding.
I both branded my content and started posting consistently every day. I have definitely seen growth on the platform, going from 60 followers to 129. What’s always great about digging into the data is that you’re often surprised by what you find. For example, I thought my Mantra Monday posts would be taken out of rotation this month—as I have been mentally tracking throughout the month, it seemed like there was minimal engagement.
However, quite the contrary, there were three Mantra Monday posts in my top 5 Most Commented and then another one in my top 5 Most Engaged.
Another big winner was my weekly Boss Lady Tip, 2 of which were in my top 5 posts.
#3: HelloBar website pop-ups and lead drivers.
I use HelloBar to promote content and drive visitors to the pages I want them to see, most importantly my packages and social media coaching pages. My packages pop-up (driving people to view my packages page) increased from 3 to 6 conversions (4.3% to 6%), conversions being a click through from the pop-up, not a lead or sale.
However, that did not translate to an increase in traffic. I saw a drop in traffic to that page from 70 to 62 visits. Again, a minor drop like this doesn’t worry me too much until it becomes a pattern.
Things That Didn’t Work
#1: Slow growth for DA.
I’m no longer seeing increase in my DA (Domain Authorty) MOM, like I was a few months ago. However, as someone who checks the DA of websites on a daily basis (for my link building clients, during research and outreach), I know that many large websites are seeing decreases as well.
My hope is that as I add more content and keep driving more traffic, that will change. We’re all just playing the SEO game with Google—if you don’t play along, you lose. I’m playing along.
#2: Traffic to lead-driving pages down.
I noticed that the traffic to my services and packages page was down this month, despite adding links on homepage.
Still working out why this might be. The numbers are so low right now that it’s hard to make an educated guess other than something that is obvious to me right now: I’m didn’t share those pages on social media a lot this month.
#3: Twitter growth is SO SLOW.
I went into this month thinking I may bail on regular posting on Twitter. It’s time-consuming and I don’t feel like I get a lot out of it—plus, I’ve been noticing growth is just SO SLOW. I did a few things mid-month to combat this, including increasing posting from 2 to 3 times each day. While I did see some increase in engagement, follower count continues to be a very slow growth.
With all that being said there’s one important data point that we can’t ignore here: Twitter brings the most traffic back to my site of all social sites; and it’s consistently in my top 3 referrers for traffic. Check it out:
That’s why we can’t rely on our hunches. The data ALWAYS fills in the blanks and reminds us that our assumptions aren’t taking every piece into account.
What I Need in September
As I dig through the data, these are the things I feel I need to be more successful.
- More blog content; help with SEO and to drive traffic.
- Better flow and options for freebie downloads. Thinking of investing in a paid tool as I build this out.
- Set up MailChimp email list. I set up the account this month, but have yet to get my flows going.
- A CRM system to:
- Track leads coming through site + networking – a decent amount
- Build networking and word of mouth leads into data
- Perhaps a sidebar or something similar for promoting freebies and services.
- New ways to promote packages, services and social media training pages.
- Changing the wording on some of the landing pages and in my promotion of lead-driving pages based on recent research.
What is your data telling you? I’d love to help you make sense of it all and get you on track for success moving forward.
Let me help you!
Master your social media (including reporting!) in 5 hours or LESS!