End-to-end analytics: a tool for evaluating the effectiveness of internet marketing

Many people have heard of such a concept as "end-to-end analytics," but only a small percentage of companies use it in their business. There may be several reasons for the absence of this tool in the company's assets, but most often I hear such answers: 

• "I think there is enough counter on the site, so I don't see the need for additional statistics" 
• "I understand that this is necessary, but it is very difficult to configure, and probably all this is very expensive" 
• "What new can I learn with the help of end-to-end analytics?"
  

If we had to explain the skepticism of those corporate representatives who think end-to-end analytics are too costly and complex, we would observe that it is mainly because they don't have a good concept of the prospective costs for implementing this process and the algorithms for doing this task.

The idea of the sufficiency of the web analytics counter installed on the site is associated with the perception of such a tool only as another counter of site visitors, albeit with sufficiently "advanced" capabilities. Which, in fact, is completely wrong.

Thus, the reason for the lack of end-to-end business web analytics is often associated with insufficient knowledge about what the essence of the tool is and what opportunities exist for its configuration. In this article, we will try to explain to all doubters the advantages of end-to-end analytics and talk about simple ways to configure end-to-end analytics for your business.

The difference between a counter and end-to-end analytics

Counters on a website or web analytics systems are tools that allow you to collect and analyze information about site visitors and their actions. Such systems assist in gathering data on the sources of site traffic as well as user behavior, enabling inferences to be made regarding the length of stay on the site of people pulled in by a particular advertising campaign.

Web analytics systems help to identify conversion loss points within the site based on traffic analysis and the percentage of achievement of various goals formed within the web analytics system, data about which is collected in various user reports of the owner or business representative. But the web analytics system does not know anything about the user from the moment he left the site and started communicating with the call center manager or, after leaving a request, began to wait for a call from a sales specialist.

End-to-end analytics with data work

End-to-end analytics, on the other hand, is a system for collecting data from various sources in one location. End-to-end analytics will assist you in analyzing all of your advertising channels and other sources of traffic brought to the site, evaluating the effectiveness of all customer search activities, and identifying points of conversion and budget loss. The ability to qualitatively combine data obtained through web analytics as well as information accumulated within the CRM system used in your business is the key difference between an end-to-end analytics system and a web analytics system.

Advantages of end-to-end analytics

High-quality end-to-end analytics will track and show you the entire path of the buyer, from displaying ads to closing the deal. They will also provide you with an accurate understanding of the revenue generated by traffic attracted through a specific channel and assist you in locating more suitable and effective marketing tools for your company.

The task of clearly understanding the entire path of a potential client from the moment of the first contact with your business to the completion of the initial and even repeated transaction is especially relevant for those businesses that involve a long-term decision-making process about buying or ordering a service. You can find the advertising that creates the best first impressions of a brand or organization using end-to-end data. This task is almost impossible to solve using standard web analytics tools.

Separately, it is worth noting the high importance of using end-to-end analytics systems for large-scale businesses that process a large volume of applications and sales every day. The larger the business, the less likely it is to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing and advertising activities, as well as sales, in manual mode. What can be implemented using manual methods for a company with 2–3 customers per day is completely inaccessible in this form when working with 10+ orders daily. An end-to-end web analytics system that is properly configured is required for a qualitative evaluation of the work of all processes.

Therefore, the primary goal of end-to-end analytics is to consolidate all sales-related statistical data in one location and create a connection between your advertising expenses and completed transactions.

Results from working with end-to-end analytics

End-to-end analytics is useful for your sales department. Thanks to the recording of all calls, you will be able to identify problem areas in sales, improve the work of managers, and improve the quality of incoming call processing:

• End-to-end analytics is indispensable for Internet marketers. It helps to analyze advertising channels to understand how to increase the conversion of visitors at all stages of the funnel, including on the site itself, and thus get more customers.
• End-to-end web analytics enables marketing professionals to evaluate advertising campaigns, choose profitable ads and keywords, pinpoint the best target markets, multiply the number of applications, and cut costs.

Using analytics, business owners may fully supervise the work of a department or agency, monitor every step of the sales funnel to boost profits, and streamline operational procedures.
To summarize, end-to-end analytics will clearly show you where you lose money and where you earn.

Connection and configuration

Setting up end-to-end analytics is much easier than you think. But if your company does not have an employee or service to whom you would entrust the process of setting up end-to-end analytics, you can use the services of freelancers or support services and implement the end-to-end analytics solution providers themselves.

If you decide to connect end-to-end analytics yourself, then in this section we will tell you about the necessary algorithm of actions.

Installing a traffic tracking code on your website is the first step after registering with the system. After that, set up integrations with the necessary advertising cabinets, statistics systems, and CRM. There are many ready-made one-click integrations in end-to-end analytics. To integrate the end-to-end analytics system with popular advertising cabinets and counters, in most cases you need to specify only the login in the desired system or the counter number, and all data will be loaded automatically.

It's important to note that once you've established communication with the advertising systems and counters, all data will be immediately downloaded.