Do you have adequate visibility over your online traffic?

Visibility into your brand's online traffic can be tricky. Not only should you look to know and understand as much as possible about your customers, but certain types of traffic can be incredibly telling. These details can help executives make informed decisions pertaining to the company and its offerings, helping to propel overall success. However, gleaning the right visibility into your online traffic can be easier said than done. Some companies take a spray-and-pray approach, inundating their website and social media with as much content as possible and hoping that it proves beneficial. Instead of just throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks, there is a more effective way to utilize your brand's resources and marketing dollars, and it revolves around visibility into your online traffic. 

What does it mean to have visibility?

Visibility and oversight of important online traffic and customer activity metrics are imperative in today's retail landscape. The right level of visibility means that your company is informed about the way consumers are interacting with your brand, including the resources and content that attracts new shoppers and keeps loyal clients coming back.

Visibility into online traffic also means that your business is in the best position to utilize its marketing budget to the fullest. As noted, it's much more effective to invest in the strategies that have proven to be successful with your brand's specific customer audience. This means your business gets the most bang for its buck and isn't putting valuable resources into campaigns that don't appeal to consumers.

"Determining which approach is best suited to your marketing needs is one of the most important tasks you will handle during your career," marketing firm Ballantine pointed out. "A poorly marketed company may still succeed depending on its luck and the quality of its products, but a well marketed company will always hold an advantage. Knowledge is power, and if your prospective audience isn't aware and knowledgeable about your product, your company may suffer."

Insights into online traffic: Tips and best practices

In order to support efficiency and your brand's success, there are a few strategic approaches you can use to improve your visibility over your online traffic:

• Track page visits and the customer journey: A cardinal rule of online traffic visibility is to have insight into the number of page visits your website sees as well as the path users take when interacting with your online resources. For instance, where are customers landing first when they come to your website? What pages do they visit from here and how long do they spend on each page? Information like this can help you visualize the experience customers have with your brand, as well as ways to enhance this journey for the best interaction possible.
  
  
• Understand audience demographics: It can also be especially beneficial to know who shops with your company. Online presence organization Mr. SEO found that 2.4 billion people utilize the internet across the globe, and that more than 1.6 billion of these individuals visit online resources on a daily basis. In order to provide the best experience and appeal to your section of this audience, you should have as much detail as possible about where your customers reside, how old they are, as well as their interests. This can help your company craft the most effective marketing campaigns that speak directly to your customers and help attract new shoppers.
  
  
• Look into transaction history and overall conversions: What are your customers buying, and what products perform the best for your brand? Having oversight of conversions and client buying habits is incredibly important, and can help highlight the merchandise or services that are most popular with your customers.
  
  
• Know the success rates of marketing efforts: It's also essential to understand how your company's marketing efforts are being accepted by your customers. For instance, are those paid searches really paying off? Are email campaigns spurring as many visits and conversions as your marketing team had hoped? As Ballantine highlighted, effective use of marketing dollars is essential, and any details pertaining to the tracking of campaigns are incredibly beneficial. 
  
  
• Expand your scope: As digital marketing firm Postcron pointed out, investigating your competitors' efforts is a significantly advantageous strategy

Support your brand with the right technology

Gleaning insight into these kinds of metrics is considerably difficult without the right tools in place. Manually checking into conversions, buying habits and other performance metrics can take up a lot of time, and may not always provide the most up-to-date details without the help of the right technological tools.

PriceSpider's Where To Buy and Channel Reports take the guesswork and heavy lifting out of online traffic visibility.

Where To Buy provides a range of pertinent details, including universal tracking for email campaigns and paid searches, details about customers' transaction records, top-performing products and overall conversions.

Channel Reports is another powerful service that can offer insights into your brand's direct competitors, as well as your own customers reviews. Learn about seller ratings, pricing history and changes all in one easy-to-use dashboard.

Access to these types of insights isn't just beneficial – it can help put your brand in the best position within its respective industry. To find out more, contact PriceSpider today.