If you are running a website (or 5), as I do - you will know you need access to a lot of analytics.
There are a number of free products - One in particular everyone will know - the universally adopted Google Analytics. GA can take you an extremely long way to a delicious conclusion. Sadly, today it can't take you
quite as far as when I first started with Blogger (back in the days when everything was transparent), but even back then, Google never got you
all the way to the end of the story. Some clever kitchen magic was required.
Using my Nigella voice - it is essential to source the finest ingredients, only then can you can start to bake the perfect digital marketing pie...So, once your website framework is in place -
Start your recipe with a few hearty spoonfuls of
Sessioncam - Two of the most excellent features are the automatic error reporting (which handily includes the exact message - be it a 404 from a referring site or a "You must enter a valid email address" from one of your site forms, things you may never otherwise be aware of), a drizzle of struggle score - this is a fuzzy logic one, but so useful - where are visitors getting lost on the site, scrolling up and down looking for what they need? Next - pour in a generous amount of heat maps, going page by page, not forgetting a sprinkle of scroll reach visibility and visitor focus over time, which objects do visitors just miss? Which objects do they spend time looking at, which objects get the most clicks? What are the most successful user journeys? All of this is essential for raising page performance and improving usability for future visitors.
Stir into the mixture a generous serving of
Leadforensics - probably the best IP database I have ever encountered, light on the page load, 99% accurate (across the globe) - always deliciously reliable. Set up a series of trigger reports (very simple to do) for each of the Sales team members to fire an alert each time one of their clients visits the site, set up a competitor alert to spot them as they are coming in for a cheeky slice, and set up a trigger for keen new companies consuming a lot of pages. Perfect both for nurture and hot new leads. Make sure the mixture is light, fluffy and well blended, picking out those management macbook users looking at pricing and implementation pages just to put the cherry on the warming lead.
Finish the perfect digital marketing pie with a crunchy
Salesfusion topping - Here we tie things together with cookies, either from opted in emails or form fills that, for those keen enough on the recipe to sign up for emails or white paper downloads we can start to get into the area of marketing automation...
I could go into more detail, but it's best if you just take a slice and discover the delicious taste for yourself...