How Google Analytics Ruined Marketing_

How Google Analytics Ruined Marketing? The thing is Google Analytics didn’t ruin the marketing, it is ruined by the marketers who can’t differentiate between the terms like strategy and platforms. The truth is always bitter and hard to swallow. So, the right question would be how marketers ruined marketing?

The lack of knowledge these days marketers have for the basic terms like strategies and platforms, makes me pull my hair and scream. The core of the confusion is Facebook marketing, social media marketing, traditional marketing, and digital marketing. Let me say this loud and clear, THESE ARE NOT THE TYPE OF MARKETING, THESE ARE THE STRATEGIES, THE ONLY TYPE OF MARKETING IS ‘THE MARKETING’. Okay, this seems easy to understand, so why blame google analytics for ruining the market? Once again, it is not Google Analytics that ruined the market, it is the marketers with the lack of knowledge.

Marketers who don’t know much about the strategies and how they work and how to track the results absolutely rely on Google Analytics. Google Analytics offers both premium and free versions. And the free version offers many facilities that are why everyone is using it. Though it has some limitations also. Marketers rely on Google analytics for the statistics and the results, though the data that Google Analytics provides is never accurate. Marketers have limited their platforms and their strategies based on the results they can get from Google Analytics.

Google Analytics made the marketers dependent to work only on those platforms, whose statistics, data, and results are trackable on it. I completely agree with the fact that online platforms have re-shaped the way of doing marketing, which is easy, convenient, and cost-effective. But it is also pushing away offline marketing strategies. The start-ups and small businesses, don’t even consider the other ways of marketing other than online. The traditional ways like television, radios, newspapers, door-to-door, etc. According to my, marketing should be done as a whole, by keeping in mind all kinds of platforms that can benefit them.

But Google Analytics is taking away all kinds of other strategies, and leaving the marketers with only those strategies that can be done through only those platforms which can be tracked on Google Analytics. So that’s why most marketers blame Google Analytics for ruining the marketing. Those who are aware of marketing, real marketing, know there is much more to marketing other than just the digital one. The focus, attention, and importance we are giving to online platforms these days are insane. But that is fine to some level, but we are leaving behind so many platforms already. Any by leaving behind the platforms, we are disabling our abilities to think of more strategies.

We have blinded ourselves by the things we can get for free and with much less hustle. Google Analytics gave us the ease that most of the marketers were seeking for very long. Google Analytics (free version) mainly provides the data in categories of: · Website traffic (footfall) · Visitors’ demographics

· Sources from where the traffic came. · Time and place of visitors. · Bounce rate. · On which page visitors spend the most of the time. · Pages which are existed by the visitors. · Conversions. · Keywords. These are a few main data categories that Google Analytics provides. For those who are new to marketing, this data can be overwhelming.

And that is when they start to plan their strategy only around Google Analytics. Google Analytics has disabled our minds to think beyond online platforms. Let me break this to you with a very simple equation: Marketing = Strategy + (content + platform) The equation clearly states that one needs to create a strategy first, a strategy to advertise or promote his business. Then according to the strategy, they work on the content, whether it’s a blog or a vlog, or both. And then they pick the right platform which would be right for the content.

This whole sum of strategy, content, and platforms is equals to marketing. Now we all are very well aware of the importance of the digital world, but what about those strategies and techniques that people used to work when there was no Google Analytics. Here I am talking about before November 2005. Television ads and promotions were very hot at that time. Even radio ads too. Marketers used popular shows to showcase their products, live shows were hosted with the star casts of the shows to promote a brand, actors used their products to endorse a brand, etc.

Yes, these techniques are still used by many brands, but who are we kidding, all those brands that are using those platforms are very well established and have a lot of capital to invest. But, with google analytics marketers already stopped considering those platforms. And here capital or investment is not the issue. Strategies are created only by keeping these kinds of factors in mind. Even if you ask me, I can’t even think of any strategy that would work cheaper for television. The wrong is with us and not Google Analytics. While creating a strategy for a brand one needs to try it all, offline and online platforms.

The wider we can think of, the better will be chances of the performances. PS: With all the dependency and limitations we have bounded us with Google Analytics, it has limitations. Google Analytics does not give accurate data, it just gives us an estimate. And not only that it doesn’t cover the data like recommendations (word of mouth). Here, marketers need to understand the importance of offline platforms also. They need to broaden their mind and think of all the possible ways to promote and advertise the brand while making a strategy.

Don’t be biased towards the online platforms while making a strategy. Here are some questions that can help you to make a better strategy: · What is your goal? · Who is your potential audience? · On which platforms you can find your targeted audience? · Which type of marketing would suit your campaign the best? · Which platforms you can use for your campaigns? · Through which platforms you can reach out to the mass audience?

Conclusion: Yes, I agree that offline platforms are very much expensive as compared to online platforms. This is the reason why we need to broaden our marketing minds. That’s why we make strategies, which include promoting the brand on any platform within our budget. Don’t miss out on the crazy possibilities of the mass exposure you can get through the other platforms by keeping all your strategies around google analytics. Use Google Analytics as an advantage and do not make it a limitation to your capabilities to think of strategies beyond these platforms. The world of marketing is very huge and has an infinite number of platforms, try to explore as much as you can. Widen your knowledge about these platforms and channels.