Measure Twice, Cut as Much as It Takes: Analytics for Brand Awareness

When it comes to building brand awareness for your home furnishing or home décor business, it can be hard to determine what’s working and what’s not. But, you have a key that unlocks a few insights into how you’re doing.

Google Analytics reports on several different web traffic factors, including new and returning customers, their level of engagement, the order in which they visit pages on your site and so forth. But, unless you really know how to apply these numbers and interpret the trends, it’s just a bunch of blah, blah, blah.

Let’s say you’re paying for advertising on Facebook. You want to make sure that people in your target audience see your ad, recognize your name and apply that comfort-level to future clicks. And you want to know if it’s working from someone different than the staff at Facebook – who sold you the space.

Login to your Google Analytics account and add a layer to your reporting for “new users.” Now, look for your Acquisitions by Channel. This gives you an idea of how people are getting to your site – whether social media, organic search or direct search – and how many of those people are new to you. If you paid for a social ad, you would want to see a higher percentage of social traffic from new users in the pie chart you’re shown.

Next, go into the social tab to see how much of your traffic is coming from your different social media channels. This gives you an idea of how much of an impact your paid campaign has – which means if Facebook is dead last, your ad might not be performing as well as it could.

This is a great time to revisit your ad. Make sure that it’s compelling and requires a click. You don’t give away everything for free in the ad itself. When you force the click, you’ll get visits from people who are genuinely interested in what you have to offer.  

If you linked your ad to your analytics, you’ll be able to see how many people completed forms or signed up for emails. The “new users” column will tell you how many new guests are engaging on their first visit or if they wait for subsequent visits before committing.

Of course, these pieces aren’t enough of the pie to help you determine whether you have a healthy website and engaged audience. In addition to the channels and new users, check out their time on site, page views, and conversions.

Time on site is particularly important in relation to bounce. If you share a blog post about decorating a small living room and one-click visitors are on that page for several minutes, you can be sure that they’re reading and digesting what you wrote and published. To boost your analytics with additional clicks, link to other pages and articles within your blog, or, create a section for recommended additional reading at the end of your piece with related article links.  

Analytics offer an opportunity to see what people are doing, look at the way they move through your showroom and how long they stay. In accordance, you can adjust your messaging, imagery and links to create a more meaningful online experience.

Whatever you do, though, refrain from getting frustrated by the number of visitors to your site. You want quality time, not quantity time. So, if you have fewer views and higher transaction totals, you can be sure that quality guests are in your showroom filling larger shopping carts.

Now, we want to hear from you. Do you study your analytics and adjust your strategy until you get the desired results? Which analytics are most important to you and your business? Which social media channels prove to be the most beneficial for your business? Leave a comment in the section below and let us know.