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Originally Posted On: https://bettermarketing.pub/how-to-present-web-analytics-reports-in-a-clear-way-ab4fc5467fdc
How to Present Web Analytics Reports in a Clear Way
Data is a vital part of the digital ecosystem, and it’s important that you collect and interpret it in the right way. This is why you’ve probably already questioned yourself — how should you visualize it? Unfortunately, for most analysts and marketers, this is still unfamiliar territory.
One of the most critical factors you should consider when developing a web analytics strategy is data visualization. This is because, without a compelling visual presentation, it’s almost useless. Nobody wants to scroll a 20-sheet google document looking at raw numbers.
We should always judge a visualization’s merits by the degree to which we can easily, efficiently, accurately, and meaningfully perceive the story that the information has to tell. — Treehouse Technology Group
In this post, we’ll talk about some key data visualization aspects for presenting a web analytics report.
What is data visualization?
Data visualization is a process that involves using various visual elements such as charts, graphs, and maps to help simplify and interpret data. It can also help you make sense of it by presenting it in a simple and effective manner.
Humans are capable of understanding colors and shapes faster than we are able to grasp numbers. This is why it’s important that you visualize data in a way that makes it easier to understand. This is especially important when it comes to analyzing complex information.
Having a visual representation of your data is also beneficial for the digital ecosystem as it allows users to access it easily.
Data visualization can help you find hidden correlations between your data and your business. It can also help you measure the effectiveness of your marketing and sales by allowing you to see how links between various elements are performing. Having a visual representation of your data can help you identify areas where you can improve.
Paid ad campaign ROI visualization report made in Finteza
With data visualization, you can easily identify the most impactful factors that your customers are experiencing. It can also help you understand trends and intricate patterns to make more informed decisions.
The basement
Before you start implementing data visualization, it’s important that you first consider the main objective of the project. One of the most important factors you should consider is the audience using your data. This is because it can be hard to make effective decisions without a specific audience in mind. For instance, if you’re planning on creating reports for a design team, it’s important that you consider the experience of your end users.
The cardinal rule when it comes to presenting data is that it should be presented in a context. Simple numbers won’t capture most of a story and include all relevant notes, units, and titles. You can use different charts and graphs to help your audience understand your data, or you can use them to emphasize or minimize certain issues.
You should choose the appropriate metrics to show the most effective data presentation method. For instance, you can use line charts to show the rapid changes in your revenue or a scatter plot to show the correlation between two variables.
Metrics Visualization Examples
Though your final, visualized report should directly respond to the company’s and marketing KPIs set, we can look at some good practices for the most common metrics visualization.
Website audience overview
The audience overview report may cover a wide range of metrics. Consider the most important statistics that will tell about your marketing performance. How many website visitors you got last month? How many users are active? What’s the bounce rate? What’s the device and GEO split? How many returning visitors were on your site in the last period?
If done regularly, your audience reports will be easily comparable month by month, giving your team a clear view of what’s achieved and missing.
Audience overview visualization example made in Finteza
User acquisition show-n-tell
The report can be broken down into various traffic channels such as social, email, direct, and organic. You can easily see the various traffic sources with bar graphs. Other charts can also show overall numbers for a long time. With the help of color coding, you can simply create a visual representation of the different channels so that your teammates can easily understand the data before you start talking.
Marketing contacts & leads visualization example made in Hubspot
Website sales report
A powerful action you can take to improve your team’s performance is implementing a daily, weekly, or monthly sales report. This report will give you a detailed overview of all the sales processes necessary to ensure that your sales are performing at their best. This is vital for e-commerce, as you can illustrate what pages/products perform better and what marketing activities bring the highest ROI.
Sales performance visualization example made in Datapine
Data visualization tools
In fact, there are only two options to visualize the web analytics data and store it in a single place. You can either choose a proper web analytics platform that will collect the data and show it in a clear way, or opt to have a third-party visualization keeper that will be connected to different websites, social media, traffic data, and so on — in order to cross-correlate the numbers for making a colorful dashboard.
For example, if your company uses Salesforce, you might consider using a tool known as Tableau. It can analyze a huge amount of data and work with various platforms such as databases, spreadsheets, and cloud services.
Its various features make it ideal for small and medium-sized businesses. For instance, it allows users to create drag-and-drop presentations without any coding knowledge. It also has a variety of customization options that allow users to create their own dashboards.
Another example is the earlier mentioned Finteza, which is a handy web analytics platform, in essence. The platform analyzes each page and generates a funnel that leads to a conversion rate. It then combines the data to create a comprehensive analysis. With its performance visualization, you can easily see how your traffic is performing and identify areas where you can improve.
In addition, it can provide you with detailed analytics on multiple traffic attraction channels. For instance, you can compare the performance of Google Ads, Facebook, and affiliates with the help of Finteza’s tools.
Bottomline
90% of the information your brain receives is visual, processed thousands of times faster than verbal or text information.
Getting the most out of your data is very important, and having a well-designed and formatted dashboard report is the way to make it easier for the human brain to understand. Since contextualization and visualization are the keys to making data easier to interpret, having a well-designed and formatted report is also the best way to make it easier for the brain to understand.
