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In case you didn’t know this about me, I LOVE numbers and statistics. I was on the math team as a teen and there’s just something about numbers that I love.
At the beginning of last year, we started working with the Measurement Marketing Team to help us track our business at a whole new level: I’m talking projections, traffic, sales, and conversion.
The more you know, the more you can impact and as my time continues to evaporate as a mom, I want to make sure that wherever I’m spending my time, it’s worth it.
It’s so easy for us to get caught up in day-to-day to-do’s that most of us hardly take the time to determine if what we’re doing is even worth it… and that’s what digging into the numbers can help us with.
In a recent assessment, there were 5 interesting insights that stood out to us in various places in the business, from the browsers that my audience uses and the number-one platform that is bringing in organic, unpaid traffic to my website.
Get ready to nerd out with me!
How To Track Biz Numbers
Before we dive into what we’ve found, you may be wondering HOW we track the numbers in our business – including the tools, apps, and processes that are most effective.
Luckily, I recorded an episode all about this just a couple of months ago, Episode 726: If You Want Bigger Results, You HAVE To Do This!, where I break down what we measure, why, and how you can start measuring your results… like, yesterday.
The Power of Measuring Data
As we dive into the 5 surprising things we’ve learned from tracking our business numbers, I want you to know that everything I’m about to share with you is just looking at stats from the last 60 days and this is from literal data that we track for my team.
Everything I share in this episode is specific to my business, so here’s my encouragement to get this sort of information for your business so you can take the right actions to move the needle!
Shout out to Julie from Measurement Marketing for helping us pull these stats and draw conclusions from them! Check out their website if you’re interested in working with them too!
Tracking data will drive you to make one of two decisions:
- Double down on what’s already working for you and let that be the focus.
- Put your focus on optimizing the areas that aren’t performing well for you.
A lot of times as a business owner you have to choose one or the other, but as you get more data and experience you can start with one focus and then shift to the other!
Insight 1: Mobile vs Desktop Use
We’ve learned from data in the first quarter of 2024 that two thirds of my traffic comes from mobile but two thirds of my revenue comes from desktop.
This means that mobile optimization and design is CRITICAL and should definitely be a priority – but the fact that two thirds of my revenue comes from desktop tells me that people are likely landing on my content on mobile and then seeking it out on their computer to make purchasing decisions.
We’ve also learned that mobile converts 5x more LEADS and the conversion rate for mobile is more than double of desktop!
This tells my team that we should definitely do a run through of all of our top freebies and assess the mobile opt in pages since this is where we’re getting the majority of our leads. It seems like for us mobile is the entry point into the brand where desktop and email is where we make our sales!
Insight 2: Browsers & Operating Systems or OS
This next takeaway wasn’t something I had given much thought to until I started to learn more about it. But it is SO important to ensure your user experience is consistent based on where your audience is consuming your content from!
In my business, nearly 75% of traffic is on some sort of Mac. About 12-13% are on Windows or Android each but the overwhelming majority of our audience is using mac products.
This tells us that when we are creating a new user journey or implementing new tech, we have to make sure we are testing on a mac OS to make sure the experience is still as it should be.
Also, we learned that Google Chrome is used by only one third of users (this is important to note because usually our Measurement Marketing team sees this quite a bit higher, over 50% normally), but Safari is nearly 60% of our traffic. Other browsers make up the last few percentages.
Since I am usually using Google Chrome, this is a great reminder that when we quality check our pages and site, we should make sure we’re using both Chrome and Safari.
Action item for you: make sure you are quality checking your assets on different browsers just to ensure the user experience is as intended so whether from an iPhone to an Android or Google Chrome to Safari, you want to make sure that every user is getting a consistent experience tailored to their device!
Insight 3: Traffic
Traffic is one of the most important metrics for a business owner to track because it’s generally speaking the easiest lever to pull in terms of changing your results. It’s so important you understand where your traffic is coming from and what the quality of that traffic is!
Here’s what we learned from my business data: Pinterest brings in the most unpaid traffic to my blog. Pinterest is a search engine so when people are going on that platform, Pinterest is connecting them with my content as search results.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Pinterest is a game-changer for any business owner! If you want to learn more about my Pinterest program, watch my free masterclass on how to 20x your traffic using Pinterest OR head to my Instagram @jennakutcher and DM me the word TRAFFIC and I’ll send you the link!
When we’re looking at our overall traffic, our top traffic is paid social media traffic, like Facebook and Instagram ads, followed by Google Organic and direct traffic – they perform similarly for sales and leads.
We get a ton of organic traffic to my page, meaning people are just hopping into Google and typing in my name or content and being brought to our website organically, or finding me from Pinterest.
The focuses for us here are:
- Continue to leverage Pinterest in a big way since it brings the most unpaid traffic to our blog and allows us the chance to capture that traffic.
- Ensure that our Facebook ads are generating both traffic AND leads.
- Enhance our Search Engine Optimization to make sure that when people are searching for me or the types of content I create, they are finding it right away and landing on the right page.
Insight 4: Launch-Specific Findings
Speaking of Pinterest, let’s talk about our course launch measurement. We recently did our launch for The Pinterest Lab so I wanted to pull in some of the data and insights that we got from that launch!
For our launches we generally have a free webinar and then after that live webinar we send out the replay version. Historically speaking, the replay’s don’t convert as high as the live version for various reasons and that’s kind of industry standard…
So what did we find?
The Replay funnel that we send out for people who sign up for the webinar but don’t attend it live did extremely well when we mentioned a “bonus” or added urgency in the email subject. This makes us think that when our audience was going to the page prior, they were just curious and didn’t have a “reason to buy”. The sales page Click Rate went from 2-3% to 10-14% on those emails JUST from changing the subject line!
We also found that our Average Order Value was around $30 higher for those participants that actually attended a webinar and went through that email sequence, which absolutely will inform how we construct funnels for future launches. $30 may not sound like a lot, but when you multiply that by hundreds of customers, that really adds up!
What this tells me is that while we can just send emails that our course is open, it truly is important to help give people that additional insight and information that we deliver in the webinar. It helps them make more confident purchasing decisions given the fact that they have more information.
In addition, paid traffic did not perform as well on the sales page as other traffic during our Pinterest Lab launch, but honestly, that is to be expected since the email traffic and organic social traffic was hotter.
Based on this stat, this may help us try something different next time or just limit paid traffic to these pages during a launch and utilize the paid traffic in another way. For example, we may use paid traffic to get leads with a freebie if the webinar is over, and then use email to convert them during a launch instead of sending them directly to a sales page.
The BIG surprise that we absolutely did NOT expect was the conversion rate with our affiliate traffic was still over 10% when we were expecting it to be close to 8%. Next year, we’ll see if that is a new pattern we can forecast with!
Insight 5: Trends and Patterns
Our Pinterest Lab launch followed similar patterns as our other launches. This means that when I tell my team that we need a certain amount of registrations for the next launch to hit our goals, the Measurement Marketing Team can figure out how many we’ll need to get day by day in order to follow the same pattern and hit our goal
We can literally break it down with bar graphs to make sure we’re pacing correctly and on par to hit our goals – or in the case of The Pinterest Lab, smash our goals out of the park!
Same goes for sales too; the patterns held and the more data we have surrounding these trends, the more helpful this information is for our next launch!
We started tracking our launches a year ago and so now we have multiple launches to lean on for insight and data which means, the more information we have the closer we are to really being able to predict what the outcome will be based on past results.
Having all of this data and insight gives clarity and confidence in knowing what’s working and what isn’t. That way, when you’re spending time on different pieces of a launch, you know with confidence what will yield results.
How to Start Tracking Numbers
It’s about working smarter, not harder. For us, measurement has been a huge source of confidence building and goal setting because the numbers don’t lie!
If you’re excited to get started tracking the numbers in your business, I highly recommend setting up Google Analytics on your website! This is a completely free and easy way to get started. I outline exactly how to do this in Episode 726: If You Want Bigger Results, You HAVE To Do This!
Remember: tracking your results will help you continue to do work that truly matters and drives your business forward.
I want nothing more than for you to feel the peace of knowing that every email, every post, every podcast, and pin will have direct results on your bottom line!
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