The average small business today, globally, spends 46% of their budget on digital marketing. Most businesses and marketers prioritise driving traffic to their website to impact sales, bookings or other conversions. According to a study by Forrester, Google Search ads will make up the largest proportion of ad spend by 2019.

Despite this ROI-focused mindset, many SMEs fail to purposefully track their hard-won audience through their website. Your website can collect oodles of data on your customer and this provides you with the kinds of customer insights that may have otherwise taken tens of thousands of pounds in research to discover. It’s vital to harness this data in order to reach your intended audience.

Here are some great metrics to start segmenting your audience:

  • Session time: filter demographics and user behaviour by who’s spending time on your website, these are the people most likely to be looking for your products
  • Traffic sources: take a look at where your traffic is coming from. This can help you gauge how successfully your advertising from different channels is driving traffic to your site. Using this data you can channel your budget and optimisation into ads that will give you the best ROI.
  • Keywords: track what were people searching when they found your website. This can help you choose the kinds of words you use in your ads to appear higher up in search rankings.
  • Goal conversion rate: filter demographics by who’s buying on your website. If they have specific interests, you can use these insights to hone targeting on social media, display and search advertising.
  • In-Market Segment: understand what your users are actively searching while they research your product
  • Affinity categories: discover more general interests your audience may have and target these to increase your chances o reaching them.

Identifying audience groups who spend more time on your site and are more likely to convert – your core audience – is essential for growth. Once you have enough of a sample size for conversions, cross-referencing with demographics, keywords used to land on your site, market segments and affinity categories will provide a detailed audience profile. Once this picture becomes clearer, you can use the insights in your messaging, your targeting and your product development. Good luck!