Five Takeaways from February's Marketing Forum

The world of digital analytics is spooky. Not Pennywise spooky, but enough to give any marketer the heebie-jeebies.

After all, what metrics should recruitment marketers be paying attention to? What’s a page view anyway? And isn’t “bounce rate” a thing from Mario Kart?

February’s REC marketing forum tackled the daunting and vexatious world of digital analytics. Here are five big takeaways from the event.

1. All hail Google Analytics!

Google Analytics has been the standard bearer for website analysis since it was rolled out in 2005. This comprehensive hub of digital goodness has everything anyone could ever need. The fact it remains a freemium product with a bountiful bevy of free support material is remarkable. Everything you need to know about setting up a Google Analytics dashboard is at your disposal. All you need is time.

2. Goals, baby! Goals!

“Think of Google Analytics as a friend who sits in the background and gives you advice,” Wave Group’s Amna Hasan told the forum. “It will give you everything you need to know and map every step of your users’ journeys, but you need to tell it what to look for, and that depends entirely on what your business goals are.”

Google Analytics is a powerful beast, but useless unless tailored to suit your business goals. Recruitment marketers need to have a very clear idea about what they want to measure. Once you have your vision down, you can meld your GA to fit.

3. SEO is the e-harmony of websites

“It brings your website and your users together,” Hasan says. She points that if the majority of your web traffic is coming from a geographic area you aren’t interested in, chances are your SEO has gone awry. Taking simple steps to ensure your website mentions basic details about your business – where you’re based, what you specialise in – can make a huge difference. You can measure your SEO outreach through Google Analytics “Acquisitions” tab, which outlines where your traffic has come from.

4. Everyone is on their phone

And we mean everybody. On the train? On your phone. Ad break? Phone. Hanging out with family? Totally on your phone – and they probably are too.

Mobile traffic has grown unabated the last 12 months. Some forum attendees reported that more than half their web traffic is now derived from mobile devices. The need to have a website that renders well on mobile is a no-brainer and a focal point for nearly everyone’s marketing efforts.

5. We all love dirty videos

Lower your eyebrows – this blog post is very safe for work.

One forum attendee reported about the success he had had promoting his business with video. Surprisingly, the most popular videos on Facebook and Instagram weren’t the slick-n-smooth professional productions, but quick ones the day-to-day life of their business.

It’s what marketing dynamo Gary Vaynerchuk means by documenting, not creating.

“I believe that the people who are willing to discuss their journeys instead of trying to front themselves as the “next big thing” are going to win,” he says.

The next marketing forum takes place on 1 May at REC HQ where we’ll look at the way recruitment marketers are preparing for GDPR. Keep an eye out for it here.

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