{"id":4446,"date":"2022-01-19T22:00:05","date_gmt":"2022-01-19T22:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/01\/19\/how-analyzing-search-data-can-improve-your-decision-making\/"},"modified":"2022-01-19T22:00:05","modified_gmt":"2022-01-19T22:00:05","slug":"how-analyzing-search-data-can-improve-your-decision-making","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailinvest.blog\/index.php\/2022\/01\/19\/how-analyzing-search-data-can-improve-your-decision-making\/","title":{"rendered":"How analyzing search data can improve your decision-making"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Much like a physical marketplace, the online search environment has both its successful businesses and those that fail to gain traction. Matt Colebourne, CEO of Searchmetrics, used the analogy of a \u201chigh street\u201d \u2014 the main area of commercial or shopping \u2014 to describe the current state of search marketing in his presentation at SMX Next<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust as you have the winners and the losers in the physical space, you have the same in the digital space; page two of Google or any search engine is fundamentally the \u2018backstreet,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s where a lot less audience is going to end up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marketers have long used search data to optimize their content so it meets user needs. But many fail to apply those same insights to inform decisions that impact the long game.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of companies make the mistake of optimizing for growth way too soon,\u201d Colebourne said. \u201cThey settled for their current product set and their question becomes, \u2018How can we optimize sales of what we have?\u2019 Whereas the questions they should be asking are, \u2018What are the sales that we could have? How much of our target market do we have right now?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Each day Google processes<\/a> over 3.5 billion searches, which provides marketers with a wealth of data. Here are three reasons why analyzing this search data improves marketers\u2019 decision-making processes.<\/p>\n

Search data shows where your growth is coming from<\/h2>\n

\u201cCurrently, about 15% of search terms that appear on Google every month are new,\u201d said Colebourne, \u201cSo, that starts to give you an inkling of the pace of change that we have to deal with. We see trends come and go in months, and some cases even weeks. And as businesses, we have to respond.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many organizations focus too much energy on driving growth while neglecting to determine where that growth is coming from. And in this digital age, there\u2019s a good chance much of it is coming from search. This data offers marketers valuable insights, especially those relating to their industry segment.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to understand how your industry and category is structured and ask the right questions,\u201d he said. \u201cIf, for example, you sell specialty sports shoes, it doesn\u2019t make a lot of sense to compare yourselves with Nike or similar companies who have much much bigger coverage, but may not be leaders in certain segments.\u201d<\/p>\n

It helps address your most significant decision-making challenges<\/h2>\n

Data \u2014 specifically search data<\/a> \u2014 should be part of any company\u2019s core decision-making process. To show how often brands use it, Colebourne highlighted a survey<\/a> from Alpha (now Feedback Loop) that asked 300 managers how they made decisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question they asked was, \u2018How important or not important is it to you to use data to make decisions?\u2019\u201d said Colebourne. \u201cAnd I think nobody is going to be surprised by the results \u2014 91% think data-driven decision-making is important . . . But the corollary to this question was, \u2018How frequently or infrequently do you use that?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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