How to Use Analytics to Make Your Marketing Strategy Better

How to Use Analytics to Make Your Marketing Strategy Better

Marketing analytics is often adopted after multiple attempts to improve performance have already failed.

Campaigns were launched, budgets increased, tools changed—yet results stayed flat or unpredictable.

Analytics exists to explain why those efforts didn’t work and what needs to change next.

According to Gartner, 65% of marketing decisions are still made without reliable performance data, leading to inefficient spend and unclear ROI.

McKinsey reports that data-driven organizations are 23 times more likely to acquire customers and 6 times more likely to retain them.

As Peter Drucker famously said:

“What gets measured gets managed.”

Without analytics, marketing cannot be managed—only guessed at.

Analytics improves a marketing strategy by:

• Showing which channels and campaigns actually influence revenue;

• Identifying where prospects disengage in the funnel;

• Separating high-intent traffic from vanity metrics;

• Supporting budget decisions with measurable outcomes;

• Creating a foundation for scalable, repeatable growth.

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, emphasized the role of data-driven decision-making when he stated:

“Data beats opinion.”

Modern marketing—especially when combined with AI-driven analytics—relies on evidence, not assumptions.

Analytics provides the visibility needed to correct underperforming strategies, optimize spend, and make decisions with confidence rather than instinct.

This article explores how analytics turns past marketing attempts into actionable insight—and how businesses can use data to build strategies that perform consistently over time.

Access To KPIs

Today, it’s not enough to know how many people saw your Facebook ad.

You need to know the specific number of people it reached, what percentage of those people clicked on the ad, and how many bought a product.

Social media analytics tools, like Sotrender, give you access to key performance indicators (KPIs) that can help you better understand your marketing strategies’ success.

You’ll know what campaigns are working and which ones are not by accessing this data.

This will allow you to spend more money on suitable ads and less cash on ineffective ones.

If you are working with a marketing agency, you will need to know how to share google analytics access to maximize your campaigns,

Additionally, knowing these KPIs will help inform future decisions.

You can use analytics to see if something in your strategy isn’t working or if there is an element of your company that needs improvement.

For example, you’re spending too much money on one campaign and not getting any leads from it – whereas another one is doing well but costing more than expected.

Knowing this information will help you make better decisions about your campaign budget for the future.

Identify Your Audience and the Right Marketing Channels

Before analytics can improve your marketing strategy, it needs a clear focus.

That starts with identifying who you are targeting and where they actually spend their time. Without this clarity, analytics data becomes noise instead of guidance.

According to HubSpot, only 42% of marketers clearly define their target audience, yet campaigns with defined audiences are more than twice as likely to convert.

Analytics helps close this gap by replacing assumptions with real behavioral data.

Step 1: Define Your Audience Using Data, Not Assumptions

Start by using analytics tools (Google Analytics, CRM data, social insights) to identify:

• Age range, gender, and location;

• Devices used (mobile vs. desktop);

• Interests and content preferences;

• Traffic sources that already convert;

• Time spent on pages and content types.

This data reveals who is already responding to your marketing—not who you think should.

“If you’re not paying attention to your data, you’re guessing.”
— Avinash Kaushik, Digital Marketing Evangelist, Google

Step 2: Match Channels to Audience Behavior

Once your audience is defined, analytics shows which channels actually reach them.

For example:

• If your target audience is millennial or Gen Z women, platform data often shows higher engagement on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube

• Facebook usage has declined among younger demographics, with less than 32% of Gen Z using it regularly

• If a segment doesn’t actively use a platform, targeting them there wastes budget—regardless of reach

Use analytics to evaluate:

• Where traffic originates;

• Which channels drive conversions, not just visits;

• Engagement rates by platform;

• Session duration and return visits.

Channel selection should be based on measured behavior, not popularity.

Step 3: Align Content Type With Channel Expectations

Different platforms serve different consumption habits. Analytics helps determine what content formats perform best per channel.

Examples:

• Instagram → short-form visuals, stories, reels

• YouTube → educational or long-form video

• Email → decision-stage content and offers

• Search (SEO) → high-intent problem-solving content

If users don’t consume content on a platform, it won’t become part of their routine—no matter how well-produced it is.

Step 4: Prioritize Channels Based on Time Spent

Time-on-platform data matters. Nielsen reports that users spend:

• 2x more time on Instagram than Twitter

• Significantly more engagement on visual-first platforms for lifestyle and consumer brands

If your target audience spends most of their time on one platform and rarely uses another, analytics makes the decision clear: invest where attention already exists.

More Effective Keyword Targeting

Effective keyword targeting is a core driver of digital marketing performance, yet it is often where budget is lost first.

Many campaigns fail because keywords are chosen based on volume alone rather than relevance, intent, and measurable return.

Research from Ahrefs shows that over 90% of web pages receive no organic traffic, largely due to poor keyword alignment with what users are actually searching for.

The goal of keyword targeting is not to attract more clicks, but to reach people actively searching for what your business offers.

Analytics and keyword research tools such as Google Ads Keyword Planner help identify which search terms indicate real demand and which ones are unlikely to convert.

These tools provide visibility into how often keywords are searched, how competitive they are, and what related terms users are also typing into search engines.

When selecting keywords, analytics should be used to evaluate:

• Search intent (research, comparison, or purchase-ready;)

• Monthly search volume balanced against competition;

• Cost per click as a signal of commercial value;

• Relevance to your product, service, or solution;

• Historical performance data tied to conversions.

High-volume keywords often attract broad audiences with low intent, while long-tail keywords account for more than 70% of all searches and consistently deliver higher conversion rates because they reflect specific needs.

For example, users searching for detailed, problem-focused phrases are far more likely to engage than those using general terms.

Analytics also plays a critical role after campaigns launch.

Performance data reveals which keywords generate traffic without results, allowing underperforming terms to be paused or refined.

Removing low-intent keywords alone can significantly improve return on ad spend without increasing budget.

Effective keyword targeting turns search data into actionable insight, ensuring ads and content appear only where there is clear intent, measurable demand, and realistic opportunity for conversion.

Identify ROI

Data can tell you how successful your marketing strategy is, so you know what to spend more money on and what needs to change.

You should constantly evaluate each marketing campaign’s return on investment (ROI).

The ROI for marketing campaigns is typically a cost-per-lead or profit-per-click. For example, if a campaign costs $5 per lead but only generates ten leads, that’s a lousy ROI.

But if it costs $2 per lead and generates 1,000 leads, that’s a great ROI!

By measuring ROIs, you’ll see which strategies are giving you the best results and which ones aren’t worth the time and investment.

This will help you make informed decisions about future marketing campaigns.

Eliminate Non-Viable Leads

One of the most important things analytics can do for your marketing strategy helps you eliminate non-viable leads.

This is one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to improve your marketing strategy.

When someone comes to your website, they’re sorted into a specific group.

For example, if someone visits your site from Facebook, they’ll be labeled “Facebook.”

You can also group them by website traffic sources or IP address.

This data can help you determine which channels bring traffic that converts into leads.

So if you realize that Facebook is bringing in people interested and converting into leads, other social media channels aren’t converting well.

It would be worth investing more of your budget on Facebook ads instead of other tracks that aren’t performing well.

The knowledge gained from this data will ensure that you’re spending money where it counts most!

Streamline your Marketing Approach

One of the most important things analytics can do for you is help streamline your marketing approach.

You may have a successful marketing strategy in one specific industry but not in another.

Analytics will show you which elements of your campaign are working and which are not.

For example, if you’re running an online sale on swimwear, analytics would tell you which areas of your campaign are succeeding (i.e., people shopping online) and which areas need improvement (i.e., people visiting brick-and-mortar stores).

This data will allow you to focus your efforts where they need to be and avoid spending too much money on unsuccessful campaigns.

Analytics can also make it easier to measure how successful a single campaign has been by identifying the critical components of success (i.e., conversions, social shares, etc.).

This data can inform future decisions and make improvements to bring more success with the same campaign or with future campaigns.

Conclusion

You don’t have to go it alone in marketing analytics.

The most successful marketers know how and when to use analytics to better their marketing strategy.