Before I began this placement I had come across the concept of digital analytics while completing an earlier volunteering service in Germany. As part of that programme, I kept a blog of my activities and used the Blogspot analytics tool to track how many people were reading the posts, which posts were the most popular and where the readers were based. While this is analytics at its most basic, it provided me with an introduction to the principles behind how it works.
Since beginning my placement with Tourism Ireland (TI), I have been introduced to the far more sophisticated methods of analysis used in the marketing industry. I can now better appreciate the importance of measuring the various elements involved in how a brand presents itself digitally and its effectiveness at encouraging consumers to 'convert', ie. to make a purchase.
Though the Google Analytic course focuses on the technical aspects of setting up digital analytics tools for websites and apps, it also sets out a more general plan of action for a business to employ in developing its digital strategy. The content of the course stresses the need for a business to first pinpoint exactly what it wants to achieve with its website before it proceeds to put a strategy into effect. This is echoed within the literature: Bhandari, Singer and van der Scheer assert that 'a company's overarching strategy should ground its choice of analytical options' (1).
The course thus sets out a five-stage process it recommends businesses go through when developing their digital strategy. Firstly, as discussed, it should define the overall business objectives. Secondly, it must agree strategies for achieving these before, thirdly, setting specific KPI targets to measure success. Only then should a business proceed to the final two stages, segmenting the market and setting clear quantifiable targets for the website.
For TI, measuring the effectiveness of its marketing strategies can be difficult. While the overall success of its marketing activities can be determined by consulting the official tourism statistics published by the CSO in the Republic and the NISRA in Northern Ireland, TI cannot measure macro conversion, ie. a person's final decision to visit the island of Ireland, as visitors do not make their bookings through the website or through Tourism Ireland at all. TI relies therefore, on analysing micro conversions, such as how long a person spends on the website, how many pages they visit, how many people sign up for newsletter and how many people either order brochures from the website or download them directly as PDFs. Link tagging is used extensively across all marketing platforms including social media in order to register the source of traffic to the website and thus to measure the effectiveness of individual campaigns.
I found completing the Google Analytics course more challenging than I had expected. It got quite technical at times and some of the tasks related throughout were difficult. However, I have learnt a lot from it and believe I have acquired a good basic grounding in web analytics, which will be beneficial for me in my role. Below is the result of my assessment.
Sources:
(1) Bahndari, Singer & van der Scheer, 2014. 'Using marketing analytics to drive superior growth', McKinsey Insights and Publications: http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/marketing_sales/using_marketing_analytics_to_drive_superior_growth
Links:
Volunteering in Buchenwald blog: http://volunteeringinbuchenwald.blogspot.ie/
Central Statistics Office (ROI): http://www.cso.ie/en/statistics/tourismandtravel/
Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency: http://www.detini.gov.uk/tourism-statistics
Tourism Ireland consumer website: www.ireland.com
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| Analytics for volunteeringinbuchenwald.blogspot.com |
Though the Google Analytic course focuses on the technical aspects of setting up digital analytics tools for websites and apps, it also sets out a more general plan of action for a business to employ in developing its digital strategy. The content of the course stresses the need for a business to first pinpoint exactly what it wants to achieve with its website before it proceeds to put a strategy into effect. This is echoed within the literature: Bhandari, Singer and van der Scheer assert that 'a company's overarching strategy should ground its choice of analytical options' (1).
The course thus sets out a five-stage process it recommends businesses go through when developing their digital strategy. Firstly, as discussed, it should define the overall business objectives. Secondly, it must agree strategies for achieving these before, thirdly, setting specific KPI targets to measure success. Only then should a business proceed to the final two stages, segmenting the market and setting clear quantifiable targets for the website.
For TI, measuring the effectiveness of its marketing strategies can be difficult. While the overall success of its marketing activities can be determined by consulting the official tourism statistics published by the CSO in the Republic and the NISRA in Northern Ireland, TI cannot measure macro conversion, ie. a person's final decision to visit the island of Ireland, as visitors do not make their bookings through the website or through Tourism Ireland at all. TI relies therefore, on analysing micro conversions, such as how long a person spends on the website, how many pages they visit, how many people sign up for newsletter and how many people either order brochures from the website or download them directly as PDFs. Link tagging is used extensively across all marketing platforms including social media in order to register the source of traffic to the website and thus to measure the effectiveness of individual campaigns.
I found completing the Google Analytics course more challenging than I had expected. It got quite technical at times and some of the tasks related throughout were difficult. However, I have learnt a lot from it and believe I have acquired a good basic grounding in web analytics, which will be beneficial for me in my role. Below is the result of my assessment.
Sources:
(1) Bahndari, Singer & van der Scheer, 2014. 'Using marketing analytics to drive superior growth', McKinsey Insights and Publications: http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/marketing_sales/using_marketing_analytics_to_drive_superior_growth
Links:
Volunteering in Buchenwald blog: http://volunteeringinbuchenwald.blogspot.ie/
Central Statistics Office (ROI): http://www.cso.ie/en/statistics/tourismandtravel/
Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency: http://www.detini.gov.uk/tourism-statistics
Tourism Ireland consumer website: www.ireland.com
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