As anyone who has ever run a Google Ads campaign knows, data is everything. And boy does Google give you data. Every step of a visitor’s journey leaves a digital footprint which tells you what people are doing, where people are going, what people are thinking and the choices they make with every click. Analysing that data, with payment analytics, for example, allows you to improve campaigns and make considered business choices.
So it is with business analytics. A different set of digital footprints also provides a wealth of data that, read properly, offer insights which, used wisely, allow you to make important decisions. In short, data is the most important asset a business can own. It allows you to plan for the future, drive change and reach your goals of growth and positive outcomes.
Analysing data sets informs you about the health of your business. Is it growing or contracting? What are the demographics of your customers? What are they buying? Are your staff reaching their KPI’s? Are you reaching your goals? Getting data is easier than ever, and you can measure just about any area within your business given the right software.
Why should you do it? Because it supports decision-making. A hunch might work some of the time, but when a hunch is matched with definitive, scientific data, then you’re more likely to make the right business decision.
One area of business that benefits significantly from using analytical data is payments. Because most companies’ financial processes already run on digital rails, there’s a huge data resource ready to be mined that will improve not only the way you do business now but will help you plan for the future.
Payment analytics gives you a way forward to simplifying the way transactions are handled. There are likely to be several different digital avenues for processing payments, in or out, and each poses its own challenges and shortfalls. Analytics could reveal those pain points and help streamline services through software integration that removes bottlenecks at the point of purchase.
Personalisation has been the focus of digital transformation for some years now. Logically it follows that payments should evolve with a friendly, personalised check-out experience. Payments analytics provides the data to let you do that; to make each customer feel welcomed, feel valued, and remain loyal to your company. The more welcome they are, the happier they feel, the more likely they’ll commit.
Above all, payment analytics is an incredibly valuable way to learn more about your customer’s habits, their interests, their loyalty and their spending capacity. Armed with that knowledge, you can better service their needs, optimise your sales process and increase profitability.
It may seem obvious that data is critical, especially to anyone who has ever run a Google Ad campaign (and that’s most of us, right?). Yet it is surprising how few businesses leverage payments analytics, data they own and already have at their fingertips, to improve their bottom line.
