Setting up your tracking and analytics

- The data you collect on your website, your campaigns, and even within your actual product will determine both the success of your growth marketing and also help you identify opportunities to explore. The data is your map. Without it, you're flying blind. You'll be using your data to improve your experience, listen for untapped opportunities, and pull the plug, if you have to, on any failing ideas. The amazing thing with online marketing is we can track just about every action a user takes. Whether you have a software as a service or an eCommerce storefront, there are a number of tools available that help marketers understand both the qualitative and the quantitative.

We can track what's happening now and even model what is likely to happen in the future. The easiest place to start is with a resource like Google Analytics. You can sign up at analytics.google.com and follow the steps to install a tracking code on every page of your website. From there, you'll have a goldmine of data to leverage, segment, and correlate. For example, if you made a change to your website's design and noticed on that day web traffic dropped dramatically, you'll have a sense of where to start looking for the problem.

If you roll out a new landing page, you might see an increase in conversions resulting from that specific page. Or you may see a sudden spike in traffic, and by drilling into it, you can identify the source, say a social media post or a mention on an online blog. As you dive deeper into your growth-hacking efforts, you might be interested in a company called KISSmetrics. You'll be using Google Analytics to indicate what's happening, but KISSmetrics will give you key insights on who's doing it. What's great about KISSmetrics is they bridge the multiscreen issue.

Even when people use multiple devices or browsers, they'll connect all that data to a single person. Because you'll understand every touch point from start to finish, you can better understand your user and build strategies around the findings. Many growth hackers also turn to Crazy Egg, which provides you with a visual heat map of where people are clicking on your site. At a glance, you can see if people are interacting with the areas you intended, and this lets you make changes with confidence. The more data you can collect and interpret, the better your chances are at succeeding in your growth hacks.

There's many other data providers out there. Some might be more specific to your industry than the ones I recommend. Investigate them against your needs and keep a system in place that provides you with the necessary checks and balances.