From my experience with working and writing content for SaaS founders I've noticed a ton of misconceptions about SaaS Marketing that are keeping a lot of people from succeeding and in this article I will cover one of them, analytics.
You see, if you're like me you're probably very process driven, you like to make decisions based on real data and not on a bunch of assumptions!
But...What if I told you that your Analytics are lying to you and probably steering you in the wrong direction?
In this article, I'll show you how your numbers might be deceiving and exactly how you should keep yourself in check.
(If you're wondering... SaaS Marketing myth #1 was about split tests, here's the article)
To be clear, I'm not saying Analytics are useless... They can be very helpful and I do used them all the time but, you need the right mindset to use them.
Without the right mindset you won't get good results...Hell, you might even make your SaaS funnel worst!
The things keeping you from succeeding are your false beliefs about SaaS Marketing.
These false beliefs (also covered on my free email course) make you have the wrong expectations and make you look for the wrong data/results which in turn, is keeping you from turning a ton of visitors into actual customers.
Here are some of the false beliefs you might have at the moment
Most people are not ready to convert right away and you shouldn't expect them to do so anyway...
They need to understand a lot of things before they are ready to make a decision to even try your product!
Things like understanding what problem it solves, how they can implement it and answering their objections properly can definitely help a lot but only a few people convert right away.
Basically I'm saying you need to focus on long term conversion strategies too!
Strategies like using lead magnets, using demos, webinars and retargeting ads are all things that could drastically improve your conversions rate.
Why? Because you're giving people a chance to consider deciding on whether or not they should convert (by bringing them back to your website or making you stay longer) and it's something that's otherwise costing you around 70% of your conversions.
Related article: The buyers journey and why you're missing out on 70+% of your conversions
Another common misconception is that you'll magically will get all of your answers from analytics.
Somehow you could know exactly why people didn't convert by just looking at a bunch of numbers...
Here are a couple of problems with that thinking:
1- You're assuming that the traffic you have is a perfect fit. You're assuming that it only consists of people that could become a customer and you don't have anyone that just stumbled upon your website and would never become a customer (specially common if you use content marketing, press releases or Product Hunt launches).
2 - You're assuming that people don't come back to your website a bunch of times until they make a decision. Think about that...That alone will ruin all of your stats!
Like I mentioned in the previous point, people will keep going back and forward on your website and click in a bunch of different pages and most likely not going down the path you planned for them.
Funnels are not unidirectional, different people will have different objections and because of that they will navigate your website differently.
And, guess what? That will screw all of your numbers up :(
The only funnels that are close to be unidirectional are paid traffic exclusive funnels (they only get traffic from PPC) where you remove the navigation and where the website only has a single goal, to convert them into a lead or to sell a product.
To sum up the consequences of all of these misconceptions here are the 2 main problems that this SaaS Marketing misconception create.
If you have biased data you'll focus on KPI's that you can try to optimize for but in reality they are not related to actual results (more customers and more revenue).
E.g. Let's say you noticed you're features page is not converting at all and you optimize the crap out of it and make everything super clear...Will that get you better results?
It definitely can but you forgot to check if the pages that link to the features page have matching expectations. If people expect to see "X" and you explain them "Y" it will still never work (regardless of how good a page might be)!
Paralysis by analysis is a real thing...Something even I experience from time to time even-though I am aware of how it happens and how to prevent it.
This analysis can keep you from asking yourself the right questions and make you see the big picture.
They make you focus on superficial stuff like minor tweaks in the copy, links, different buttons and so on...which rarely produce any sizeable results!
Below I'll explain you the only reasons why people convert and you can use them to get massive results (and not marginal improvements).
Related article: Why small tweaks and split testing don't work
There are tons of tools you can use but most of their features are useless so let's block all the FOMO noise and try these instead, there is a free plan for all of the these :)
Hotjar (free up to 2k visits/day) - Let's stop guessing what people are doing with a bunch of metrics and see what people are viewing, clicking and ignoring in a video format, it's a game changer!
Warning: Make sure you filter for 30+ sec sessions as from your recordings as there's usually no use in trying to convert someone who doesn't even read the headline...Someone that invests literally no time at all will never become a serious buyer anyone.
Google analytics - this is a bit of pain to use as the UX is pretty shitty but it is useful to check where you're traffic is coming from, how long they stay for and a million other things that GA can track but that doesn't mean that are useful to you.
You most likely don't have unlimited resources (both time and money) so let's focus on the 20% of metrics that get you 80% of the improvements, not the other way around.
Just setup Hotjar in 5 mins and wait a couple of days to get recordings and heat maps of your visitor's activity, then look for the following points:
I have a free email course that let's learn my step-by-step process to turn a stranger into a customer.
It covers themes like the 80/20 of analytics, finding + answering objections and the formula for a conversion driven SaaS Landing page.
You can get the course here (it's free)
Interested in seeing how your SaaS company can grow with an predictable funnel that turns your visitors into customers?
Let's talk about your company and see exactly how we can achieve that, just schedule a free consultation below.
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Get the first 2 chapters (or the entire thing) of my book. It compiles the entire process I use to convert visitors into customers into an actionable book + exercises.
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