How And Why Companies Use Big Data And Analytics

If used to its full potential, big data analytics can become a real guide in your digital marketing strategy

We examine companies and their relationship with big data, analytics. We can classify two categories of companies:

1. Those that analyze the data by generic sectors and make them available by publishing the studies carried out and that offer analysis tools to obtain the study of the data of their customers;
2. Those who directly use the results of these existing research for their sector turn to specialists in communication and data analysis to obtain specific reports for their company. Some of these organizations have learned to analyze data through analysis software, setting up an internal figure dedicated to this task.

We find the sector pioneers such as Google and its tool Google Analytics, SAS, SAP, IBM, Adobe Analytics, and Nielsen in the first category. The latter studies the markets and consumer habits by providing a clearer world view of the sector analyzed through periodic publications on their portal. Published material can be a good starting point to consult before devising a marketing strategy. Very useful, for example, to consult this data before the launch of a new product or to change strategy on the positioning of a product already present on the market for some time and which is approaching the point of “maturity.” As is well known, when a product becomes mature, and the market becomes saturated, by the laws of marketing, if a relaunch does not take place, the product will inevitably start towards the phase of decline.

Analysis tools: Software and Tools Online

To obtain valuable information from big data, it is essential to use software and online tools created specifically for this purpose. The common goal is always to create personalized statistics and extrapolate useful data to follow your market and target audience’s evolution.

Thus, more and more companies are investing in this sector and make available, free or for a fee, platforms to study the data collected and keep track of them. We find the most popular tools: Analytics Software and Solutions (SAS), Adobe Analytics, Google Analytics, Google Analytics 360, Simple Analytics, Matomo, Woopra, and we could name many others.

A web analytics tool, after being connected to the website to be analyzed, keeps track of the actions on the site through a summary panel that allows you to have the collected data under control, showing the metrics observed, through a general overview and often through easy to consult and interpret graphs.

You can observe the habits and profile of website visitors over time, such as the duration of the session, the origin of the visit, the pages that generate the most traffic, the keywords for which you are searched, the bounce rate. These are just a few examples of the observable factors. Besides the basic statistics, the most interesting part is to analyze the conversion ratio of the site visitors to understand how a conversion is achieved.

Not only that, you can understand the average age of those who visit our pages, the geographic data, that is, from which location our site is reached, the average time of stay, the sources of traffic, to understand where to direct their investments. And understand which devices are the most visited.

A Growing Trend: The use of Big Data Analytics

Big data analytics can become a real guide in your digital marketing strategy if used to its full potential. The purpose of analyzing the data and integrating them into a business strategy or using them to plan online campaigns is always to achieve a goal to conclude a sale, obtain a lead generation, or more view a landing page. In practice, it allows a company to stand out in its sector, make a difference and consequently increase the awareness of the brand or the annual turnover.

Big data analytics also concretely helps companies develop predictive analyses for a given market or reach a new target of potential customers. All this is possible because: first of all, companies choose to resort more and more to this new science, secondly the software and tools that can be purchased or used free of charge offer increasingly complete functionality and last but not least, new professionals to manage this trend, such as those of data scientist, given engineer and data analyst.

Why it is important to analyze them

By analyzing big data, it is possible to obtain information on the profile of users who use a particular service, purchase habits and preferences for a specific product category, and obtain information on the geolocation of users.

Every time we access a website, perform a search through a search engine, or simply use an application on our smartphone or in our home automation, we generate information that, when appropriately intercepted, can be processed and become valuable for companies that offer in selling products or services.

Sometimes, we do not even realize that we are generating useful data during navigation, even if we often give consent to be “tracked” through the acceptance of cookies. The indication of the use of cookies is mandatory on every web portal and informs the user on which information the site and the connected analysis tools will keep track, subject to the explicit consent that occurs by clicking on “Accept cookies,” “ok” or in some sites “accept and continue browsing.” These are just a few examples.

From the analysis of the information retrieved through web browsing cookies, data entered in contact forms or assistance e-mails, or customer cards registered by a company, useful information can be obtained for establishing successful marketing strategies.

As already mentioned, we live in a hyper-connected world where data is generated at every moment of the day. However, these data remain a simple bit of traffic on the network or a storage device if not processed. For this reason, more and more companies to improve their performance and increase their sales are investing in big data analysis.

Also Read: Big Data Marketing: Opportunities, Challenges And Management