How is your university using analytics in 2015?

 Analytics seems to be one of those buzz-words (it's up there with 'big data')that people seem to love dropping it in here and there without really seeming to understand what it can do for their website’s performance.

We recently came across a really interesting article in collegewebeditor.com where the 12 speakers of the 2015 Higher Ed Analytics Conference were asked to share their suggestions on what colleges and universities should be focusing on this year in terms of analytics.

Each speaker revealed what their analytics focus for the year ahead will be and the information they provided should definitely be of interest to anyone working in marketing in the higher Ed sector

We  listed just a few of the goals that were mentioned that we feel are important to redirect focus to this year:

Set up goals

In Google Analytics especially, set up your goals to successfully ‘measure the influence of various channels on key conversion points along the consumer decision journey.’

Collect, share, repeat

Ensure that you are gathering and sharing analytics data on a monthly basis so that everyone can see the value in what you’re doing.

Make decisions based on data

It might seem obvious but make decisions based on the data you collect. If something works- do more! If something doesn’t work- fix it or drop it!

Start small; make improvements

Analytics isn’t the answer to all your problems and it’s certainly not going to fix everything in one fell swoop but making one small change at a time is sustainable and will work for you in the long run.

Don’t stop at the basics, go further

Most people know how to check overall sessions, bounce rates, etc but there’s more to analytics than just the basics. In order to retain your competitive edge, make sure that you go beyond that; for instance examine multi-channel funnels and assisted conversions. Going beyond the basics demonstrates the true potential of analytics for Higher Ed.

Got any suggestions? Let us know what your analytics resolutions for 2015 are in the comments below.