Small businesses operate on tight budgets and need to know the return on investment for every cent. When it comes to marketing, however, those calculations aren’t always easy.
Quantifying the impact of promotional campaigns, product launches, social media, and other marketing initiatives requires sophisticated analytics that track a number of metrics, from engagement to conversion. But you don’t need to invest in a new suite of tech tools or hire external marketing experts. If your company uses Google Cloud, you already have the software you need right at your fingertips.
Using Google Cloud Platform (GCP), businesses can build their own marketing dashboard to track their audience data, spot trends, and gain crucial business intelligence insights - pulling together all the information you need to make data-driven decisions for effective marketing strategies.
Audience analytics
If you don’t know your audience, you won’t know how to reach them. One of the biggest benefits of Google Cloud Marketing Analytics is its ability to draw data from several sources - web analytics platforms, your company’s CRM, social media platforms and others - pulling it into GCP’s data warehouse, BigQuery.
BigQuery’s machine learning and AI capabilities allow it to quickly sort this data and create highly accurate models for targeted audience segmentation. These audiences can be saved for future campaigns, tweaked as needed in real-time, and fed back into your Google Ads platform so you can create adverts for specific campaigns and demographics.
BigQuery also integrates with Google Trends so users can see exactly what people are searching for at any given time. This helps marketers respond more quickly and effectively to market demand and increase engagement.
You know what your audience needs, but do you know how they feel? BigQuery is also a helpful sentiment analysis tool, measuring how your audience is responding to your brand to give you a more complete picture of what’s working and what’s not.
The platform collects and sorts data around how your audience interacts with your organization online, analyzing comments, likes, and other indicators to understand the impact of your content on potential customers. This allows for detailed customization around language and creative elements such as colors or graphics so you can perfect every aspect of your campaign for maximum impact.
Tracking performance
GCP removes the problem of marketing data silos, collecting information together to streamline reporting and improve ROI.
Using BigQuery and Google’s business intelligence platform Looker, companies can view crucial metrics such as ad impressions and website traffic to monitor performance in real-time. Collected in a single interface, this information can then be easily shared with other stakeholders from both within and outside your organization, giving users access to a single source of key marketing insights.
Formerly known as Google Data Studio, Looker doesn’t just collect data from your Google apps; it also integrates with third-party tools such as Semrush and Meta to create comprehensive reports of how your marketing is performing across a number of channels and metrics.
Getting started
Before diving into Google’s full marketing analytics ecosystem, organizations can get a feel for the software via the BigQuery sandbox. This testing environment is a convenient way to try new projects, see the tools in action, or simply find out if it’s a fit for your company’s needs.
To use the Sandbox, sign in with your GCP account and click ‘create project’. You won’t be able to automatically pull your own data in this trial version, but you can use public datasets to get an idea of how the tool operates. BigQuery is available with a Google Cloud Free Tier account, although this version comes with usage limits. Expanded usage and storage are available and are charged as needed.
BigQuery gives organizations the ability to draw data from third-party sources - which can then be imported into your Looker dashboard for detailed performance reports. However, for those who struggle with the more technical aspects of BigQuery, there’s a quicker and easier option available. Using a third-party connector such as SuperMetrics or PorterMetrics streamlines this process so tech-shy users can skip BigQuery altogether.
If you need help integrating any of Google Cloud’s 100+ applications and tools, get in touch. As a Google Cloud Certified Partner, UpCurve Cloud has helped hundreds of businesses leverage the Google ecosystem to transform their operations.
Our consultants, technicians and engineers can help your company select and customize Google applications to build an IT infrastructure that supports all departments, from marketing to HR. We’ll train your team, resolve any roadblocks, and provide comprehensive post-installation support so you’ve expert guidance at every stage. Contact our team today to book a consultation or find out more.
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