In the dynamic landscape of business today, marketing with data-driven strategies stands as a pillar of success. Brands, irrespective of their magnitude, are constantly vying to broaden their horizons and ensure their offerings reach potential customers. Digital marketing analytics plays an instrumental role in this pursuit. So, what exactly is this now indispensable component of marketing?

What is Digital Marketing Analytics?

Digital marketing analytics encompasses the gathering, measurement, and interpretation of data to understand user interactions and their engagement with digital marketing materials. Interactions with digital marketing materials might be more frequent than most realize. Customer touchpoints include emails, social media posts, online ads, website content, affiliate marketing content, etc.

The process involved in digital marketing analytics may vary by platform, but a simplified way to explain it is:

• First, the customer touchpoint is set up with relevant marketing materials, and tracking mechanisms are attached to the materials/touchpoints that will be connected to a dashboard.
• Whenever a customer interacts with the material or touchpoint, the tracking mechanism is triggered, and data is collected by the back-end systems and displayed on the dashboard.
• The digital marketer or analyst can now view the data and interpret whether their strategies work or need further improvement. This data can also be used to measure the growth of the business’s customer base or sales.

While this may seem fairly straightforward, digital marketing analytics can get complex as different touchpoints use different tracking and data collection systems, and digital marketers/analysts have to stay on top of all the different dashboards that hold the data.

Sources of Digital Marketing Analytics Data

Some popular digital touchpoints that analytics is carried out on include:

• Social Media: Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn provide a treasure trove of insights about your audience’s engagement and the potency of your content.
• SEM (Search Engine Marketing): Tools such as Google Analytics are quintessential for gauging the efficacy of your display and search advertisements.
• SEO: Ensuring your content dominates search engine rankings necessitates delving into keyword analysis, competitor insights, and user behavior.
• Email Marketing: Metrics like open rates and click-through ratios can spell the difference between email campaigns that soar and those that plummet.
• Affiliate Platforms: Knowing the origins of your online clientele and their motivation can helps magnify desired outcomes.
• Consumer Purchase and Loyalty Data: Today, the spotlight is on cultivating lasting relationships with customers rather than one-off transactions. Using purchase and loyalty data to craft compelling campaigns is often a must.

This is by no means an exhaustive list – there are many other touchpoints that a business may have that a digital marketing analyst may need to measure the data of. Once the data is collected, strategies can be built, maintained, refined, or changed depending on what the information says. From shaping buyer personas to website revamps, digital marketing analytics is the compass directing the trajectory.

Embarking on a Digital Marketing Analytics Career Path

If everything we just told you has only made you excited, you may thrive as a digital marketing analyst. Mastering digital marketing analytics needs the amalgamation of the right attitudes and educational foundation. Let’s start with attitudes or traits. Below are the highly sought traits in digital marketing analysts:

• Detail-orientedness: The devil, as they say, is in the details. Gleaning insights from digital marketing data often hinges on one’s meticulous nature when setting up tracking systems and digging into dashboard data. 
• Analytical acumen: Deciphering what the data articulates and connecting disparate dots is crucial — especially since a lot of the material has creative components, which may be difficult to connect to data unless testing has been done. 
• Data-centricity: While intuition has its merits, a steadfast reliance on data can help to precisely identify low-hanging fruit that can be tackled for better outcomes in campaigns. 
• Patience: Though it may seem counter-intuitive, in the digital realm, outcomes might not always be instantaneous. Perseverance is key.

Next, consider the right educational foundations. Though it may be possible to learn digital marketing analytics on your own (granted you have some type of marketing degree or have experience in non-analytical aspects of digital marketing), a more solid way to learn is to get a master’s degree related to marketing analytics, either online or in person.

Even better, consider delving into an MBA in Digital Marketing or MBA in Marketing to gain a more holistic understanding and to serve as an ideal precursor to specialize further in the nuances of digital marketing analytics. Alternatively, a more niche focus can be attained through an MBA in Business Analytics or an MS in Digital Marketing Analytics.

Job Prospects in Digital Marketing Analytics

The versatility of digital marketing analytics is mirrored in the diversity of career paths it offers. Some examples of potential roles include the likes of SEO Specialist, Marketing Manager, Market Research Analyst, Brand Manager, and Business Analyst.

As businesses amplify their digital endeavors, the domain is only poised to burgeon. Reflective of this trend, the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates an optimistic outlook for professions entrenched in digital marketing analytics — examples include the median annual wage of $68,430 for Marketing Specialists and $141,000 for Marketing Managers (as of May 2022). So, if you are looking to increase your income potential, being a master of this area is certainly worth a try.