Analyzing Analytics: How to Make the Most of Your Clients’ Numbers

From your client’s perspective, analytic support has one purpose: to verify he’s doing everything right. Sometimes, that isn’t the case, and your client will want to know what he’s doing wrong specifically. That’s why analytics are important: They don’t just show a client what’s working and what isn’t. They show a smart way to move forward, and they can help you find the path that’s most likely to succeed.

The best way to give clients concrete, workable information is to set up an analytics presentation that breaks down a course of action — not just the numbers.

Crunching Numbers

Bounce rate, average time on site, and page views are popular, classic analytics most clients expect to see. But do they matter? Generally, the answer is “no.” For a piece of data to be valuable, it has to lead to a course of action. You have to draw conclusions from it and know a specific way to change it in the future.

Time on site shows a website’s popularity, but it’s also not a number that’s easy to change — especially without any specific information about cause or motive. Instead, to make that number valuable, you need specifics: pages, campaigns, sources, and more. Then, when you’ve determined the reason behind the number, there’s a clear course of action to change it. That’s the moment when that analytic becomes valuable.

Here are some smart ways to draw meaningful information from analytics for your clients:

• Measure different variables in different places. These numbers might not be very useful at an aggregate level, but they could be valuable at a page-by-page level. If you can find the hidden discrepancies between these numbers, that’s usually where a client’s lesser-known problems or successes can be found. 
• Think in terms of campaigns. It’s easier for clients to digest analytics in smaller pieces, so break them down. Organic search traffic is a campaign. Pay-per-click advertising is a campaign. Email marketing can have multiple campaigns.
• Do campaign comparisons. Let’s say you have email campaigns that had the same metrics tracked for two months. Compare them. How did they do? Did one email lead to more conversions than the other? How does the content of the email affect the outcome? Are there other variables at work?
• Check your direct contributors. If you have an email campaign that’s meant to drive subscriptions, you’re already tracking that KPI, right? You should look at other sources, too. There might be another contributor to your conversion rates worth investigating that you could capitalize on in the future.
• Create concrete goals. That way, it’s easier to link your numbers to a real objective. Link activity for certain campaigns and analytics in the report to the objectives that you and your client created. It’s easier to get a sense of accomplishment and perspective.
• Go big picture. Check on the overall health of your Web property. Look at all the available charts and see what kind of default-supporting metrics are available. Check (and double-check) to see if anything looks out of place.

Presentation Is Key

It’s not just about numbers. How you present your information can make the difference between a meaningful presentation and a useless one. The best formats are also the most approachable: Word documents, PDFs, and PowerPoint are all formats your clients will feel comfortable with.

Reports that are simple, spare, and easy to scan are ideal. First, present the information highlights on a single PowerPoint slide so your clients’ executives understand where they are on various campaigns. Then, you can slowly layer on more complex data as you dive deeper into your analytics and objectives. Always include all of the data straight from your analytics tool so you’ve got supporting data if your client ever has questions about your conclusions.

It’s also important to complement your data with simple, eye-catching visuals — even if you’re presenting to an audience of data junkies. Why? You need to turn your data from raw numbers into information. Charts, graphs, and time-lapse video can be useful for presenting your analysis and conclusions in a visually intelligible way.

Connecting Effectively

It’s always best to present analytics in person, but if you can’t find a place on your client’s schedule, a well-organized report will suffice. A virtual walk-through via a Web-powered shared screen is the best substitute for an in-person presentation. Send it to the client in advance, and then present it with questions, discussion, and a concrete plan of action. 

Every campaign should have a report associated with it, but sometimes, a campaign could be three or four months long. Check in with campaign reports on a monthly basis, and then follow up with an overall report after the campaign has ended. 

Good analytics reflect a client’s campaign: its idiosyncrasies, priorities, strengths, and weaknesses. To gather focus and clarity, make sure you’re always drawing a clear link between how a campaign functions, the numbers you analyze in response, and actionable insights from the data. That way, your client can understand and digest this information and use it to build even stronger campaigns with you in the future.

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