How website analytics can boost your sales, marketing, and customer service operations

A business’ website is often the first point of contact for customers. Based on the messaging presented and the user experience provided by the site, a potential customer may decide to engage with the business further. This can mean signing up for a newsletter, starting a trial of the product or service, or sending a message through a contact form.
 
For most people who visit a website, the interaction is one-sided—they act based on what they see. However, businesses can use website analytics effectively to encourage visitors to engage with them more frequently. Every website analytics tool has a custom block of code that should be incorporated into a website’s HTML file. Once set up, the analytics tool can track website visitors with details about where they're coming from, what they’re looking for, whether they’re evaluating products or ready to purchase, how seriously they’re considering the business, and so much more.

The analytics tool then uses the information it tracks to create reports outlining visitors’ navigational behaviour, making it easy to measure the website’s efficacy and growth over time.

In this blog post, we discuss how exactly website analytics can help a business with its sales, customer service, and marketing efforts.

How website analytics inform sales conversations

Website analytics help sales reps understand their audience’s wants and needs. The more they know about the type of product or service someone’s looking for, the easier it will be to manage expectations. What’s more, a website analytics tool collects data, such as a visitor's location, device, browser, search interests, and browsing behaviour. This information is useful when customising a pitch to incorporate regional languages, dialects, and cultural habits. It also gives a sales rep more context about a lead’s lifestyle and work patterns so they can be considerate of local holidays and time zones. Combined, all of this data helps a sales rep make a good first impression.
 
A website analytics tool identifies hot and warm leads. By tracking website visitors, sales reps can target leads that are most likely to convert in the short-term. They might’ve lingered on the pricing page or requested an informational brochure. Based on where they are in their purchasing decision, sales reps can offer relevant information and guidance. Analytical data also helps a sales rep know who their warm and cold leads are so they can alter their communication strategy and give the right information to the right person. For instance, they can provide custom pricing to hot leads, technical product information to warm leads, and a product brochure, ebook, or webinar link to a cold lead.
 
Analytics tools can be set up to notify the sales reps when a warm or hot lead is currently browsing the website. That way, a sales rep can always be available to answer questions. When a returning prospect speaks to the same salesperson they spoke to before, they’ll feel more comfortable, and more trusting, in the conversation. Analytics help sales reps get in touch with leads that haven’t visited the website in a while, too. The tools aggregate visitors' contact information from a variety of public sources to collect details like their location, email address, and public social media profiles. With this information, sales reps can structure their efforts to reach those who are likely to be interested in purchasing.
 
Sales reps are well positioned to discuss a prospect’s needs. During that conversation, a sales rep will naturally gather feedback about the content and user experience provided by the website. This will help them identify and fill any communication gaps throughout the sales process. Of course, they can also pass those insights on to the support and marketing teams so they can improve their efforts.

How website analytics help customer service teams

Support teams are the front line, dealing with issues that impact customer satisfaction. Here are a few ways a website analytics tool can help customer service reps:
 
Contextual information about each customer’s purchasing decisions can help customer service reps manage expectations responsibly. When a support representative has access to website analytics, they know which sales rep a customer spoke to, what discounts and prices were quoted, how the relationship between the salesperson and customer has evolved, and how much information the sales rep has shared with the customer. These details can help a support rep communicate more effectively and provide customers with educational materials relevant to their needs.
 
Most website visitors who intend to buy will fill out a contact form at some point, and they’ll often receive a response from the customer service team. With access to key details on the prospect, a support representative can provide more seamless service.
 
If certain questions are frequently asked, either based on region or the service offered, the support rep can set up a chatbot on the website. For ecommerce businesses in particular, it's helpful to automate responses to enquiries about products. The chatbot can respond to standard questions, while questions that need more explanation can be directly routed to the support team so they can nurture the conversation appropriately. They can also use data on frequently asked questions to create educational resources for customers.

How website analytics help with marketing activities

The biggest asset for any marketer is comprehensive knowledge about their target audience. Website analytics play a crucial part in gathering that information. Not only do analytics tools collect data on a lead's geographic location, devices, languages, purchasing behaviours, frequently asked questions, drop-offs, turn-offs, upcoming trends, and cultural differences, but they can also create heat maps and scroll maps that indicate where exactly a visitor is scrolling, looking, and clicking on the website. This is invaluable for a marketing team, as this data can be used to measure the effectiveness of their messaging, content delivery, and website usability.
 
Understanding how people respond to their website can help marketers experiment with website structure and content and identify what works best. They can also adjust messaging based on audience responses and needs, create hyper-targeted campaigns, and even understand which advertising and organic sources bring in the most traffic. All of this can inform marketing budgets and help the team strategise future efforts.

Parting thoughts

Clearly, website analytics involve more than data on click-through's and bounce rates. Every piece of data that you have about your audience can cause a ripple effect throughout a customer’s lifecycle. Even a simple detail, such as a customer’s time zone, can help you follow up at the right time, set response time deadlines, and optimise your email campaigns. With a proper website analytics tool, you can do all that and more, at scale.