Google Analytics is a treasure trove of insights that can help you expand your email and SMS marketing strategy.

In this UPDATED 2024 article, we'll share several helpful reports, metrics, and dimensions that you can use to drive your next email/SMS campaign.

GOOGLE ANALYTICS VS. CUSTOM PERFORMANCE DASHBOARDS. WHICH ONE IS BETTER?

In short, they don't work in isolation from each other. A custom performance dashboard is just a more structured way to visualize raw data that you pull from Google Analytics, Shopify, Klaviyo, and a bunch of other data sources.

Here at Magnet Monster, we've built advanced customer dashboards for our client partners to make our lives 10X easier when using data to derive our clients' email/SMS strategies

In this article, I'll share screenshots from our customer performance dashboard, as well as directly from Google Analytics, along with numerous practical examples.

USE CASES FOR DEMOGRAPHIC INSIGHTS

Knowing who makes up your audience in terms of gender, age, and interests helps you figure out what kind of nifty stuff you should create, how you should position your messaging, and which people to target for your email marketing and remarketing campaigns.

Data series: Part 1: Using Google Analytics to enhance your email/SMS strategy | Magnet Monster — *Data source: Google Analytics 4 - Demographics details report*

Here's an example of how you could change your messaging based on your audience demographics.

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How to use the demographic insights from Google Analytics:

Adapt your email and SMS copy based on geographical locations. For example, as a florist in Los Angeles with nationwide delivery, be mindful that orders outside L.A. may experience delivery delays. Adjust your email copy to avoid promising same-day delivery to recipients located far from your store.

Tailor your creative based on gender identities and age ranges. For example, if you sell skincare products for all ages, feature images of both younger and older customers using your products. Impactful visuals resonate with prospects, so aim for relatability to connect with your target audience.

Collect zero-party data to validate the buying needs for each gender identity. For example, if you sell women's jewelry, note that men often buy it as gifts while women buy it for themselves. Consider these buying patterns when planning campaigns for holidays like Mother's Day or Valentine's Day.

Adjust your shipping prices based on the country of your audience. For example, selling kitchen appliances to both the US and UK requires adjusting shipping prices to protect your gross profit margins. It may also affect minimum spend thresholds for free shipping, and you'd want to communicate it effectively within your email copy.

* Critical to take note: Always cross-check your data findings with your Klaviyo or Shopify data so that you can validate the accuracy of your insights. You don't want to make the wrong decisions due to bad or incorrect data.

USE CASES FOR ACQUISITION INSIGHTS

Acquisition reports in Google Analytics help you identify where your website users come from.

In these reports, you can learn what marketing channel brings you the most (profitable) traffic as well as provide you with valuable insights into your audience’s behavior on your website.

Remember to match your paid ad messaging to your email marketing messaging so they both work in tandem.

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How to use acquisition insights from Google Analytics:

Determine how much your email list can grow. The number of people who sign up for your emails through pop-up forms on your website depends on the quality of the visitors you get. If your paid ads bring in 75% of your overall website sales and convert at a rate of 6.5% or higher, that means you have a good chance of consistently growing your email list. On the other hand, if your paid ads drive the most traffic, but people don't engage much with your site, you'll need to adjust your paid ad strategy to bring in better-quality visitors to your online store.

Tailor your messaging. A top-notch email marketing program creates a seamless experience for customers at every stage of their interaction with your brand. For instance, if your paid ads promote free shipping on the first purchase, make sure your website pop-up forms and emails convey the same message. Utilize Google Analytics data to align your acquisition channel messaging with your email marketing campaigns.

Ramp up your SMS list growth. Are you receiving a substantial amount of traffic from organic social media channels? What about affiliate traffic, as visible in the screenshot above? You can effectively leverage it by directing qualified traffic to your Klaviyo SMS signup pages. Even better, share a direct Klaviyo SMS subscribe link on your traffic channels to further exploit your list growth potential.

Forecast list growth numbers. Need to convince your boss or team to activate your signup form? Forecast potential list growth by examining your traffic numbers in various growth scenarios. For instance, if we can convert 4.5% of our total monthly traffic of 17,600 users into email signups, that would result in nearly 800 new subscribers each month. Go even further by projecting the potential impact it could have on your bottom line.

USE CASES FOR TECHNOLOGY USAGE INSIGHTS

The technology usage data in Google Analytics provides valuable insights about your users. It tells you what devices they use to make purchases on your website and which operating systems they prefer. This information can be used to make your emails more accessible and user-friendly.

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How to use technology usage insights from Google Analytics:

Mobile-first email design. For many DTC brands, mobile users can represent up to 85% of their total transactions. This clearly indicates the need for a brand to prioritize mobile-first email designs. You can verify this by exploring your Google Analytics data and sharing the information with your email copywriters and designers.

Create better website signup forms. It's important to make sure that the opt-in forms on your website are displayed and rendered well to provide a positive user experience for visitors to your online store. By using Google Analytics, you can learn about the screen resolution of your visitors and decide if you need to adjust the dimensions of your opt-in forms accordingly.

Source: Litmus’ Getting Started with BIMI Guide

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BIMI for better email deliverability performance. BIMI enables the use of brand-controlled logos in supported email clients. You have probably witnessed it in action in your own inbox (refer to the screenshot above). BIMI necessitates a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC) with an annual fee. To decide whether it's worth the cost, examine insights on your mobile device usage. For certain brands, Apple iPhone users make up 70% of their mobile user base, indicating a strong reason to invest in a VMC and activate BIMI.

USE CASES FOR E-COMMERCE PURCHASE INSIGHTS

The Ecommerce Purchases Report in the Monetization section is extremely useful. Platforms like Shopify send information about your products, sales, and conversions to Google Analytics for further analysis.

This report helps you understand what visitors are buying on your website. It provides details about the products they purchase, the transactions they make, and how much time it takes for them to make a purchase.

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How to use the eCommerce purchase insights from Google Analytics:

Highlight your bestsellers more prominently. There's a reason why people buy your top sellers, and you want to highlight it more prominently. Think website opt-in forms, email banners, cross-sell/upsell emails, campaign promotions and sweepstakes. You can view the most viewed products by items, categories, and SKUs to help you make data-driven email marketing decisions.

Shift your product focus. A view into product analytics could tell you a lot about the interest your buyers have in your product catalogue. You want to ensure that products with a high-profit margin and high stock levels are amongst your most viewed store items. It will also empower you to promote the ideal products within your email flows, campaigns and offers.

Calculate your overall cart abandonment rate. You want to allocate your time and resources to the areas that will generate the highest revenue for your business. Let's say you had 11,612 items purchased last month and 32,212 items added to the cart. This results in a cart abandonment rate of 64% (or 20,000 products that have not been checked out). To delve deeper, you can forecast the potential revenue you could gain by converting a certain percentage of abandoners into buyers.

Identify products or product categories that experience a high rate of cart abandonment. Following the previous point, you can analyze the cart abandonment rate for each product category or SKU. For example, imagine you manage a jewelry brand and discover that necklaces have a significantly high cart abandonment rate. In this scenario, it may be worthwhile to invest in influencer-generated videos that showcase your necklace products and incorporate them into your email marketing campaigns.

Final Thoughts

If you manage email and SMS marketing for your DTC brand, you should use Google Analytics as part of your tool kit. It can help you identify new opportunities to optimize your program and forecast potential growth.

There are endless ways to use data insights and observations more creatively as long as you're open to getting your hands dirty. In fact, this will put you in the top 1% of specialists who don't just talk about being data-driven but are actually data-driven.

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