Data is every marketer’s best friend. It shows us what’s working and what isn’t, and helps us identify problematic areas so we can focus on improving them. But not all data is essential. Knowing which metrics to track is key to creating and executing a successful digital marketing strategy.
Marketing analytics tools are widely available, and some are even available for free. But how do you know which one is right for your business? In this post, we’ll share the top seven marketing analytics tools you can leverage to boost your campaign performance.
Table of Contents
- What Is a Marketing Analytics Tool?
- The Top Marketing Analytics Tools in 2023
- What Are the Different Types of Marketing Analytics?
- Why Do You Need Marketing Analytics Tools?
- How To Choose the Best Marketing Analytics Tools
- Expert Insights on Best Marketing Analytics Tools
- Wrapping Up on Marketing Analytics Tools
What Is a Marketing Analytics Tool?
Marketing analytics is the process of collecting and analyzing campaign data with the goal of improving a website’s performance. Essentially, a marketing analytics tool is a software platforms developed for tracking data to measure the performance of advertising efforts and see what works or not and why. Marketing analytics tools track user behavior and preferences and use these insights to understand what drives certain user behavior.
Marketers can use these insights to optimize their digital marketing strategy, direct their marketing spending towards what works and increase conversions. Data-driven marketing and analytics tools are a win-win for both marketers and users as it ensures that consumers see personalized adds for products they’re interested in, while marketers can increase ROI and create successful marketing campaigns based on the data gathered via these platforms.
The Top Marketing Analytics Tools in 2023
There are an abundance of analytics tools available on the market, so we did the research for you. Here’s our list of the best marketing analytics tools in 2023.
1. SEMrush
SEMrush is a great analytics tool that allows you to perform competitive analysis, keyword analysis, SERP analysis and on-page and off-page SEO. You can track website traffic, backlinks and a range of other useful metrics.
Pros:
- Allows you to performs advanced SEO and web analytics
- Allows you to monitor organic traffic
- Allows you to track social media effectiveness
- The entry-level version is free
- Offers multi-domain support
- Can be integrated with other web analytics tools
- Offers a library of learning materials
- Provides a support team
- Offers free trial
Cons:
- Can be a bit pricey if you want additional features like Pro, Guru, Business and Enterprise plans
Pricing: The Pro plan starts at $119; Guru - $229; Business - $449
2. Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a well-known analytics tool that allows you to track website traffic, session durations, bounce rate and more. It gives you an insight into how well your website is performing and if you require deeper marketing data, you can also integrate AdWords and or Google’s Data Studio.
Pros:
- Track website analytics in real time
- Create custom reports
- Use the basic version for free
- Ideal for basic data analytics
Cons:
- It’s complex to track the vast amount of data it collects
- Can’t analyze user behavior or what encourages certain user actions (e.g. why a certain page has a high exit rate)
Pricing: Free basic plan; the Premium version runs at $150k a year
3. Dreamdata
Dreamdata is a cloud marketing analytics solution for tracking revenue-related data and content analytics. It gives insights into performance across channels and at every point of the customer journey to reveal how much revenue is attributed to which section of your marketing efforts.
Pros:
- Allows you to see which content generates revenue
- Provides a wholesome overview of the customer journey
- Enables tracking both paid and unpaid channels
- Offers customer support
- Offers a free plan
- Requires no training to use and collect data
Cons:
- Data doesn’t backtrack to before you set up your account; the tracking starts when you start using the platform
- The setup time can take a while
Pricing: Free basic plan; Team plan available at $749/month; Custom pricing for Business plan
4. Datorama
Datorama gives you a look at the whole picture. It’s a platform that combines all relevant marketing data into a single dashboard where you can review and analyze it at your convenience.
It offers unified reporting across channels including website, social media, email, events and CRM.
Pros:
- Offers unified data from multiple sources
- Provides deep analytics across channels
Cons:
- Data can’t be exported
- Not so easy to use or set up campaigns
- Customer service is paid
Pricing: Contact Datorama for a quote
5. Oktopost
Oktopost is a social media analytics tool that helps you track the success of each post and campaign. It provides valuable insights you can use to scale your businesses and increase ROI.
Pros:
- Unified social media analytics in one platform (scheduling, analytics, campaign management, inbox)
- User-friendly UI
- Ability to manage multiple social media accounts
- Efficient support
- Integration possibilities with other platforms
Cons:
- Limited publisher access
Pricing: Contact Oktopost for a quote
6. Supermetrics
Supermetrics pulls data from marketing platforms and brings it to go-to reporting. You can pull data on sessions, engagement, conversions, event tracking and ROI and export it into your desired storage platform.
Pros:
- Allows you to pull all your marketing data from various platforms into one data storage platform
- Allows you to automate and schedule data transfer
- Easy to use
Cons:
- Limited integrations
- Data accessed is rather basic with no deep analytics
Pricing: Starts at $74 per month for the Single Connector plan. Essential, Core, Super and Enterprise also available.
7. Adverity
Adverity centralizes vast amounts of data so you don’t have to waste time pulling data from various sources manually. The software provides granular-level insights into campaign performance and consumer behavior analysis.
Pros:
- Automated data integration
- Saves time on data management
- Flexible
Cons:
- Might require some training for those inexperienced in data use
Pricing: Contact Advertify for a quote
What Are the Different Types of Marketing Analytics?
Marketing analytics tools can track different metrics depending on what data you need. They can analyze your entire marketing efforts or specific channels and sections such as social media, email, SEO and more. The type of data analytics tools you will benefit most from depends on your marketing strategy and the goals you want to achieve. Marketing analytics can be divided into several categories:
1. Descriptive Analytics
Descriptive analytics is the data that shows your marketing performance and helps you understand how well you’re doing. One example of this is tracking the success of a blog post and seeing how many page views it attracts, then comparing it to a similar blog post.
2. Predictive Analytics
Predictive analytics uses past data to make predictions for future results. This relies on algorithms to process vast amounts of data and predict what areas of marketing would be most profitable to pursue in your future advertising endeavors. This allows you to tailor your approach according to predictions about user preferences and offer personalized content based on demographics, interests and other key factors.
3. Prescriptive Analytics
Prescriptive analytics aims to predict future outcomes, but it focuses on how you can impact future outcomes rather than what the future outcome may be. It uses past data to help you select the right methods to achieve your marketing goals. While predictive analytics helps you identify the most profitable segments to target, prescriptive analytics goes into more detail and helps you figure out what methods you can apply to meet your targets. These three types of marketing analytics can further be divided into several groups based on the data your company requires:
Web Analytics
Web marketing analytics tools collect and analyze website data. These tools observe the behavior and interaction your website visitors have with your web content and compare it to your goals to determine the success of your efforts. In other words, web analytics helps you discover whether your audience is engaging with your website content and connecting with your message.
Examples of data that web analytics collects include:
- Page visits
- Page load time
- New visitors vs. returning visitors
- Location of your visitors
- Time visitors spent on your website
SEO Analytics
SEO analytics collects and analyzes data to understand how optimized your website is and determine what can be improved to enhance your search engine rankings. This includes evaluating the content on your website and the keywords your site ranks for. SEO analytics tools analyze every page of your website and give you an insight into the performance of each page. This allows you to identify areas of improvement and direct your SEO efforts towards those areas.
Lead Generation Analytics
Lead generation analytics is the number of incoming leads your business gets or the number of potential buyers. This data is invaluable as it shows how many people are interested in your product so you can direct your marketing efforts towards nurturing leads with the ultimate goal of increasing conversion.
Email Marketing Analytics
Email marketing analytics answers questions about your email campaign, such as:
- How many users opened your emails?
- At what time do users open your emails?
- How many people clicked on the links in the emails?
- How many people unsubscribed to your emails?
Why Do You Need Marketing Analytics Tools?
Creating a marketing campaign alone is not enough in itself to bring results. Tracking your campaigns can help you determine what’s working vs. where to focus your efforts to reach your goals. Tracking all this data manually would be an impossible task, especially given the number of channels that need to be monitored. Marketing analytics tools, on the other hand, can process enormous amounts of data quickly and provide valuable campaign insights.
The digital marketing landscape is changing constantly. Marketing analytics software can measure and report real-time data from all marketing channels, giving you access to detailed reports so you can stay on top of digital marketing trends.
With data analytics tools for marketing, you can:
- Track and compare content performance and discover new trends
- Analyze user behavior
- Track conversion marketing
- Track your business performance
- Evaluate your marketing efforts
These tools allow you to conduct an in-depth analysis of your campaign health, define priorities and allocate marketing budget to the most profitable segments.
How To Choose the Best Marketing Analytics Tools
If you’re investing in marketing analytics tools, you should not take the selection process lightly. Different analytics tools collect and report different types of data and depending on the information you need, you could use one or several of them simultaneously. To ensure you pick the right analytics tools for your digital marketing strategy, consider the following questions:
1. What Data Do You Want to Track?
The first step towards selecting a data analytics tool for marketing is identifying the metrics you want to track. Whether you want to track how users respond to your content, stay on top of lead generation or track your SEO efforts only, you need to define the key metrics for your campaign.
2. What Features Should the Tools Have?
Create a list of features you need your analytics tool to have. You can list the non-negotiables first and add some nice-to-have features after. This will help direct your search of marketing analytics tools and find the ones suitable for you faster.
3. Can the Platform Unify Data From Multiple Sources?
InData comes from numerous sources, which requires time and effort to extract, compile and analyze. For most marketers, this is an incredibly time-consuming job and nearly -impossible to handle, especially if you are tracking various metrics.
The software analytics tool you choose should be able to pull the data from various sources and present it on a single platform for you to review. This saves a lot of time and allows you to focus on what’s important — using the insights provided to improve your campaign performance.
4. Can You Test the Platform?
Some data analytics tools for marketing will let you take their platform for a test run and see if it fits your needs. This is a good way to see if you’ve allocated your budget to the correct tool.
Take advantage of the free trials to see if the platform truly provides what you require to improve your campaign performance and benefit from down the road.
Expert Insights on Best Marketing Analytics Tools
- Holly Trio: Google Analytics + Hubspot + Ahrefs
- Google Suit + SEMrush
- Comprehensive Digital Marketing Analytics Suite
We asked digital marketing professionals: "What are the best marketing analytics tools for understanding, measuring, and optimizing marketing efforts?"
Here are their responses:
1. Google Analytics + Hubspot + Ahrefs
Brandon Schroth, Founder of Reporter Outreach
Marketing analytics tools are essential for gaining insights, understanding traffic sources, and optimizing marketing strategies for better visibility and performance.
Google Analytics provides insights into website traffic, user behavior, and ROI tracking. It helps understand the audience's digital journey and measures marketing efforts' performance with features like goal setting, referral traffic tracking, and behavior monitoring.
HubSpot is more than a CRM; it offers marketing analytics for tracking inbound marketing effectiveness. Useful for contact management, email campaigns, and automation, it shows which strategies drive conversions.
Ahrefs is a comprehensive SEO tool with keyword explorer, content explorer, rank tracker, and site audit. Known for extensive backlink analysis, it helps in competitor analysis, keyword research, and tracking site ranking.
2. Google Suit + SEMrush
Devi B, SEO Specialist at Wonkrew
Marketing analytics helps in making data-driven decisions, optimizing marketing efforts, understanding customer needs, and maintaining a competitive edge. It increases profitability and growth by ensuring effective resource use and adapting strategies to market changes.
Recommended marketing analysis tools:
- Google Search Console monitors website performance in Google search, offering insights into search traffic, indexing status, and SEO improvements.
- Google Analytics 4 (GA4) tracks website traffic, providing insights into visitor behavior, traffic sources, conversions, campaign performance, and real-time monitoring.
- Google Keyword Planner assists in keyword research and evaluation, offering insights into keyword popularity, search volumes, and competition.
- SEMrush is a comprehensive toolkit for SEO, content marketing, advertising, competitive analysis, and enhancing online strategies.
Additional tools you might consider include Ahrefs, BigQuery, and Looker Studio.
3. Comprehensive Digital Marketing Analytics Suite
Wendell Jordan - SEO Specialist at Jordan Marketing Consultants
Investing in analytics tools is crucial for digital marketers to enhance decision-making and improve campaign performance, ultimately leading to maximum ROI. Key metrics for evaluating campaign success include website traffic, conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, ROI, and customer lifetime value (CLV).
Our curated list of must-have marketing analytics tools includes:
- Google Analytics offers comprehensive website performance insights, tracking traffic sources, user behavior, and conversions.
- Social Media Analytics: Social Pilot for engagement data on social platforms; Hootsuite for tracking and scheduling content.
- Email Marketing Analytics: Mailerlite for email campaign analytics like open rates and subscriber behavior; Mailchimp as a secondary option.
- SEO Analytics: SEMrush for accurate data, including reporting and content strategy; Moz and Ahrefs as alternatives.
- Paid Advertising Analytics: Google Ads for campaign performance and keyword analysis; Facebook Ads Manager for detailed analytics on Facebook and Instagram campaigns.
Expert Insights on Marketing Analytics Tools
We asked agency experts: "Which marketing analytics tools do you recommend and why?"
1. Google Analytics, HubSpot, Ahrefs
Brandon Schroth, Founder of Reporter Outreach:
"In digital marketing, data-driven decisions set you apart. Marketing analytics tools do more than just show you numbers—they tell you a story about what those numbers mean, helping you decide what to do next.
1. Google Analytics
This isn't just a free tool; it's a gateway to understanding your audience's digital journey. Google Analytics offers comprehensive insights into website traffic, user behavior, and much more. It's a free tool that allows you to measure ROI and track the performance of your various marketing efforts. You'll understand where your traffic is coming from and what actions they take on your site.
2. HubSpot
Not just a CRM, HubSpot also offers impressive marketing analytics capabilities. It enables you to track and measure the effectiveness of your inbound marketing efforts. From emails to landing pages, you can see which strategies are driving conversions.
3. Ahrefs
Ahrefs is a comprehensive SEO tool that includes a keyword explorer, content explorer, rank tracker, and site audit feature. It's known for its extensive backlink analysis, which allows you to see which sites are linking to your competitors, giving you insights on where you might want to earn links for your own site."
Garrett Olano, founder of Sugoi:
"Google Analytics stands out as a top recommendation for SEO marketing due to its comprehensive and user-friendly interface. Being a Google-owned platform, it seamlessly integrates with other Google services, enhancing its efficiency for SEO analysis. It's particularly valuable for its no-cost access, allowing businesses of any scale to utilize advanced analytics without financial burden. The platform provides in-depth insights into website traffic, user behavior, and conversion metrics, crucial for tailoring SEO strategies.
Its ability to track and analyze data in real-time enables businesses to make informed, timely decisions. Additionally, its customization options, including setting up goals and segments, offer a tailored analysis to meet specific business needs. The learning curve is manageable, and the wealth of resources available makes it accessible for beginners and professionals alike. Overall, Google Analytics is a powerful tool that can significantly contribute to the online success of a business when used effectively"
2. Reportei
Bryan Philips, Head of Marketing at In Motion Marketing:
"We're big fans of Reportei over here at In Motion Marketing. It's like the Swiss Army knife for marketing analytics - super easy to get the hang of, and it plays nice with all the other tools we use.
The thing is, in our line of work, time is a precious commodity, and Reportei gets that. It doesn't just spit out data; it gives us these neat, easy-to-digest reports that we can whip up quickly. This means we spend less time crunching numbers and more time crafting strategies that hit the mark.
And let me tell you, our clients love the clarity they get from these reports. It's one thing to tell them their campaigns are doing great, but showing them with Reportei's clean visuals? That helps my agency look a lot more professional. It's all about making those wins tangible, and that's why Reportei is our go-to.
Hope that gives you a little peek into our toolbox! If you're ever up for a deeper dive, I've got plenty more to share."
Wrapping Up on Marketing Analytics Tools
While there are many marketing analytics tools available, your marketing strategy and approach should dictate which one you end up with, whether it’s:
- Descriptive
- Predictive
- Prescriptive
To ensure you have the right data to scale and optimize your campaign performance, select a marketing analytics tool that provides answers to your campaign’s burning questions.
Define your exact needs, then reference our list above and start gaining insights to improve your next campaign. Digital marketing agencies are your solid ally when it comes to this.
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